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Maslow, op cit. pg 203

Siphoning vs Funneling of Wealth.
With regard to the economic institutions, [Ruth] Benedict found that the
overt, superficial, face-value kind of things - whether the society was
rich or poor, etc. - did not matter. What did matter was that the secure,
high-synergy societies had what she called a siphoning system of wealth
distribution, whereas the insecure, low synergy cultures had what she
called funnelling mechanisms of wealth distribution. I can summarize the
funnel mechanisms very briefly, metaphorically; they are any social
arrangement that guarantees that wealth attracts wealth, that to him
that hath is given and from him that hath not is taken away, that poverty
makes more poverty and wealth makes more wealth. In the secure,
high-synergy societies, on the contrary, wealth tends to get spread around,
it gets siphoned off from the high places down to the low places. It tends,
one way or another, to go from rich to poor, rather than from poor to rich.
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