Assuming that the Big Red button is indeed pressed, it would mean that the Gini-coefficient (using wealth as an index) across the entire globe would fall to zero resulting in an anomaly or a theoretical impossibility at most.
Massive wealth inequality is one of the more prevalent issues in the world today and in the past. Economist Karl Marx wrote, “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole.”
Concurring with the above statement, the idea of pressing the Big Red Button is consistent with Karl Marx’s idea of a classless society, a society in which wealth will be distributed equally to all the people of the society.
According to research carried out by the Oxfam charity the presence of perfect wealth equality would result in every adult on earth having approximately $56,000 net worth.
It is said that a degree of wealth inequality can exert a positive influence on economic growth in the short term. However, some economists find empirical evidence of a negative correlation of approximately 0.5 – 0.8 percentage points between long term growth rates and sustained economic growth. This can be explained in a sense that high levels of wealth inequality results in higher levels of poverty. Poverty is typically associated with increased social costs such as unemployment and crime rates which have negative implications on sustained economic growth.
It is important