Conviviality establishes a social condition where economic opportunity is widely available and economic hardship is not visited on the less privileged. In a lecture delivered at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley in October of 2010, economist Robert Reich, chief of the Department of Labor under Bill Clinton, demonstrated that most of the wealth was in the hands of the very few, leaving the majority either extremely poor or with less purchasing power (adjusted for inflation) than in the 1930's. He said this situation is not only divisive but economically dangerous.
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, observes that the trickle-down theory does not work. The trickle-down theory is based on the premise that, if wealth is invested at the top of the economic latter, prosperity will "trickle down" for the good of all. Our experience is generally that what really happens is the wealthy stuff their coffers and social inequality grows, creating our current society with more and more glaring divisions.
Both Stiglitz and Reich advocate for an economic restructuring to enable shared prosperity, thereby generating economic vitaility. Although, with shared prosperity, the monied elite would have less , at the same time they would have less in an economically vibrant environment (more appealing than having more in a stagnant or dead economy.) Moreover, this would create political good will in a world where there is increasing political animosity.
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