I strongly suspect that it is much easier for the poor (that would be receiving this help) to store their wealth in the local currency than any of the forms you listed.
Ok, fair enough. As noted, I don’t make any claim on the extent to which the problem consists of cash being mainly in elite hands. That said, if you were willing to start with a blank slate, you might be able to redistribute with a one-time inflation event. Making up numbers: Suppose a 10% elite controls 90% of the wealth in both currency and non-currency forms, and suppose that these two are roughly equal. Do a 100% devaluation of the currency, ie full hyperinflation, redistributing the gains equally. The 10% still control 90% of the non-currency wealth, but now they only have 10% of the currency wealth. Presumably there is then some re-equilibration and you end up with some of the non-currency wealth making its way into 90% hands in exchange for the new currency.
Of course, in practice it is the wealthy who would be able to protect themselves from your scheme by moving their currency holdings into dollars, or whatever; and I’ve no idea how realistic my distribution between currency and non-currency is. If 90% of wealth is in non-currency form then you’re hacking about at the edges. In any case, though, a single hyperinflation event is probably a bit different from the steady-but-low inflation in the original question.
Ok, fair enough. As noted, I don’t make any claim on the extent to which the problem consists of cash being mainly in elite hands. That said, if you were willing to start with a blank slate, you might be able to redistribute with a one-time inflation event. Making up numbers: Suppose a 10% elite controls 90% of the wealth in both currency and non-currency forms, and suppose that these two are roughly equal. Do a 100% devaluation of the currency, ie full hyperinflation, redistributing the gains equally. The 10% still control 90% of the non-currency wealth, but now they only have 10% of the currency wealth. Presumably there is then some re-equilibration and you end up with some of the non-currency wealth making its way into 90% hands in exchange for the new currency.
Of course, in practice it is the wealthy who would be able to protect themselves from your scheme by moving their currency holdings into dollars, or whatever; and I’ve no idea how realistic my distribution between currency and non-currency is. If 90% of wealth is in non-currency form then you’re hacking about at the edges. In any case, though, a single hyperinflation event is probably a bit different from the steady-but-low inflation in the original question.