If every person in Norway is worth $100M - who's going to wait the tables and bring them coffee and service their boats and clean their houses while they sail around and be leisurely all day?

Who's going to tend to the ski lifts and the golf courses? Who's going to take care of their polo horses? Who's going to clean the streets and work at the police stations? Who's going to keep the grid running? Who's going to work the ports to import everything? Who's going to drive the delivery trucks and put everything in it's place upon arrival?

It's blatantly obvious that you can't have a society where everyone is "rich", unless you have a second class of citizens to wait on them.

Robots aren't advanced enough yet.

While in some ways Norway is laughably far from this scenario, in other ways, their sovereign wealth fund is less about a decade away from everyone being a millionaire - which, theoretically, should allow everyone to not work and have a decent life - but obviously will not (unless they import second class citizens, that aren't ever allowed access to the wealth fund, and have to do all the work).

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skrebbel 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

You have a very American idea of “rich”. For you, it’s being worth 100M. But for me it’s being able to lead a life without financial worries doing a job relatively few hours a week, regardless of whether I code or wait tables.

By this second definition, a country can definitely be rich across the board without having a “poor” second class. Just make sure people earn a decent living wage, and then some. There will be low crime (no need for gated communities!), high trust (no need for a lawyer on retainer!), and good education and health care (no need for private schools or hospitals!)

You have a very zero-sum view of wealth, the idea that to be wealthy means it’s gotta be to the detriment of others. I’m not saying Norway’s got it all figured out, but they’re definitely gunning for something closer to what I describe than what you do.

	▲	binary132 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think what GP is saying is less like “most people will be comfortable” and more like “most people won’t need to work”, and that that can’t work.

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rwmj 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The real numbers are $340,000 per person, not $100M. It's an income stream of about $10-$13,000 per person at a reasonable SWR.

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xeromal 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, if everyone has a 100 million dollars, no one has a 100 million.