Life Game In Other World
Chapter 238: What Does the World Rely on to ’Distribute’ Wealth? (Please collect, subscribe, and vote for the monthly ticket)

Chapter 238: Chapter 238: What Does the World Rely on to ’Distribute’ Wealth? (Please collect, subscribe, and vote for the monthly ticket)

Lina groggily awoke from the soft, large bed. She pushed off the blanket, struggled to sit up on the bed, and then tidied up her clothes before heading to the door.

A maid, who had been waiting at the door for a long time, took her to the dressing room to tidy up and handed her a book,

"Mr. Vian said to give you this book."

Lina scooped a handful of clean water onto her face to rouse her consciousness, then took the book from the maid’s hand.

After delivering the book, the maid turned and left, while Lina gazed at the book in her hands.

The book was a hardcover; its cover was thick. Judging by the worn condition of the book, it seemed to be flipped through many times.

Lina herself didn’t actually have a habit of reading, she preferred to look up the information she wanted on the internet, and at most, she would shield her eyes with an e-reader.

But she also knew that there were many pieces of knowledge that were only recorded in books.

Her gaze lingered on the title of the book’s cover,

"What Does This World Rely On to ’Distribute’ Wealth?"

The book’s author was Joseph Saul, and it was published ten years ago.

She opened the book and started to read quietly.

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The book wasn’t thick, and its content wasn’t complex. The entire book with various simple and easy-to-understand examples talked about the same issue.

That is, what does this world rely on to distribute wealth?

The author first put forward a viewpoint that many people believe that effort is rewarded, the more one toils, the more one gains, and that the world distributes wealth based on the amount of work done.

But then, the author posed a new question, if work brings compensation and the longer one works, the more one is rewarded, why do workers who work twelve hours a day in factories often live in poverty?

Then the author began to explain his views step by step.

On a smaller scale, within a workshop, a factory, a business, people distribute wealth based on the amount of work done, with those who work longer hours, do more tasks, endure more hardship, and produce more results receiving higher wages than others.

But on a larger scale, involving the entire Federation, all social strata, and all demographics, the world’s primary distribution rule is ’wealth’ based.

That is, those with more wealth are allocated even more wealth, while those with less wealth are further plundered by those with more.

People with more wealth don’t have to do anything and can effortlessly receive the wealth ’contributed’ by those with less.

This leads to the rich growing richer and the poor becoming poorer.

The author summarized the wealth taken from the poor with one word—’interest’.

Before discussing his theory, the author first talked about his research findings from ancient data before the great calamity.

In a world without exotic beasts, when the overall environment was still undeveloped, people depended on the land for their livelihood, and land was the most important resource for humans at the time.

With the development of society and land consolidation, society began to see some people with lots of land and some who lost their land for various reasons.

Those without land would borrow the land from those who had it to farm, giving a portion of their harvest to the landowner as a fee for using the land—the ’land rent’.

Here, the author provided a new definition for ’land rent,’ calling it ’interest on land’—those with land, without doing any work, simply because they owned the land and rented it out, could collect ’interest.’

In this context, the author assumed the most extreme case where only two people were involved, the landlord who owned the land and the tenant who rented the land.

The tenant performed all the labor and harvested the grain, yet the landlord, who did nothing, took a portion of what belonged to the tenant.

Here, labor is not the only basis for distribution; there is another basis, which is the land.

The land here actually represents ’resources.’

Those who control more resources naturally rely on the method of renting out resources to ’take away’ part of the labor results of those without resources.

At first, this ’land interest’ was contained; landlords would not demand excessively high ’interest’ from their tenants without restraint.

Because if the rent charged by a landlord increased, then the tenants could simply move to another landlord who offered cheaper rent, creating a dynamic balance in the overall market.

Of course, landlords are a community of shared interests, and they would gradually and spontaneously form alliances with each other.

As time went by, more and more land began to fall into the hands of a single landlord or a faction of landlords, and in such cases, the tenants had less and less choice, leaving the pricing power of ’land interest,’ that is, rent, completely in the hands of landlords.

And these landlords would continuously increase the rent to ’take away’ more labor results from their tenants’ hands, accumulating more resources for themselves and purchasing more land.

Until the tenants’ remaining labor results were not enough to sustain themselves and they were forced onto a path with no return, or due to some natural disasters, they were prematurely forced onto this path, ultimately leading to the collapse and rebuilding of the entire system.

The author of this book also emphasizes here that this knowledge was found in fragmented information and is not complete; in fact, there are a variety of factors influencing the situation.

Then the author compares this knowledge from before the great catastrophe with the current situation in the Federation.

He believes that the current Federation is no different from the ancient stages of the world before the great catastrophe, except that the key resources determining the distribution of labor results have shifted from ’land’ to a more extensive ’wealth.’

Those who own houses can obtain a sum of ’house interest’ from tenants without any labor.

Financial companies, without any labor or by exerting very little effort, can acquire a sum of ’capital interest’ far exceeding the labor value from those who borrow money from them.

The boss of a factory, whose labor is actually far less than that of the factory workers, can take away a portion of the labor results produced by all the workers in the factory because he owns the factory and its various production machinery, which is ’factory interest.’

Therefore, the richer a person is, owning more real estate, factories, investments, loans, they can rely on various ’interest’ to ’take away’ the labor results of more people, and their wealth will keep on increasing.

And the poor laborers, having their labor surplus ’taken away,’ spend most of their remaining labor results on survival needs, unable to accumulate effective wealth to collect ’interest’ from others, become progressively poorer.

Ultimately, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

The descendants of the rich, based on their ancestors’ foundation, find it easier to become wealthy by obtaining ’interest’ from others, while the poor, because they lack any accumulation, end up in the same predicament as their ancestors, their labor results being taken away, unable to gather sufficient wealth.

This is the fundamental rule of ’wealth’ distribution in this world.

Priority is given to wealth distribution, with the wealthy taking away the ’interest’ of their wealth, and the rest, to a certain extent, get distributed according to labor.

At the end of the book, the author also points out that there are still many inaccuracies in his research findings, that many places discussed in the book use ideal models, and that a complete social operation involves all sorts of other intervening factors, so the content of this book does not fully represent the way this world operates.

He is still collecting more information to enrich his research.

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Lina closed the Paper Book and, before she knew it, had arrived at the living room downstairs.

Her mind felt blank, for she had never come into contact with such knowledge in her past life.

She had never seen these arguments and books on any websites or forums.

She felt as though a door to a new world was opening before her.

"Finished reading?"

A voice sounded in her ear.