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People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

theatlantic.com

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Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#111

Post by zo1 »

s73v3r wrote: post #60
jessedhillon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's right in that Capitalism is not about marking up a product to generate a profit by taking the cost of the goods and the labor to produce it but rather by paying labor less than what their labor is worth. And this is what bothers people. It isn't fair. And they are helpless to change it. Given your other statements, this is not a sensible position. A widget is priced according to the value it delivers a buyer -…

Your statement only makes sense in a context where both the buyer and seller have roughly equal power. As it is, that has almost never been true when talking about labor. An employer who doesn't have enough employees is still going to be able to compete and make money, just not as much. However, an employee who doesn't get enough work is going to be homeless or starve.

"However, an employee who doesn't get enough work is going to be homeless or starve."

Don't mean to be sarcastic here, but isn't that the whole point of government right now? Foodstamps, welfare payments, child-assistance money, social security, free medical care, etc.

At what point can we stop using this supposed "power-differential" between employer and employee as some sort of silent force in the labour market?

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#112

Post by saulrh »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #59
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then how is it a solution? I didn't claim that it was. Maybe you should ask saulrh that. > Also, the pie is fixed. Economic growth has exceeded population growth rather reliably for the last two hundred years or so. The pie is definitely not fixed.

Unless you believe something like the Banach-Tarski paradox [0] is possible in our world, there is a relatively constant amount of matter within our reach. (In fact, there is a finite amount of matter that we will ever be able to reach.) This puts a hard cap on how much "stuff" can exist. Therefore, the pie is fixed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox

If you define "pie" as a physical chunk of matter under an implied laundry list of restrictions, maaaaaaybe.

If you define "pie" as real wealth, then it becomes effectively unbounded; see fractional-reserve banking for a real-world example.

If you define "pie" as value of your personal rational utility function, you get a much nicer - which is to say, much less bounded - result. I don't exactly think that Banach-Tarski Banach-Tarski is directly possible, but it's almost certain that our minds are in a region of the state space of all possible minds that is also mapped to by simulated brains with vastly greater measure than all brains existing in universes ex nihilo (for more exploration on this topic please consult Permutation City by Greg Egan and then chapters 2+ of The Finale of the Ultimate Meta Mega Crossover by Eliezer Yudkowsky). Which extends to Tegmark's Mathematical Universe hypothesis, which defines (and I do mean defines, in a constructive sense) uncountably infinite universes implying uncountably infinite versions of indistinguishable-from-me (as far as I know, see previous) that are simulated in universes which have unbounded quantities of utilitronium.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#113

Post by kamaal »

vinhboy wrote: post #100
stvswn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'd add -- the Waltons would be a weird example to key on if you were concerned mainly with punishing Wall St. speculators but keeping dynamism and entrepreneurship alive. Regardless of how you feel about WalMart, the Waltons are rich because they built a big, successful business. Not sure why they're first among the villains for ol' Bernie.

> the Waltons are rich because they built a big, successful business. This is where we disagree. Yes, they have every right to be rich because of their business success. But their unequal wealth is a result of a broken system that allows for "income inequality". Some would go as far as saying their business success is a direct result of their ability to exploit "income inequality".

You can't have merit and equality at the same time. You have to pick one.

As long as you strive for merit, and the more you strive. The more inequality this leads to.

Define the principles of the society you wish to build. If you wish to trade merit for equality, then you should also live by its consequences. Which is people going else where their hard work is better recognized.

Free market economy is a direct result of learning to live by the consequences of your actions.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#114

Post by dragonwriter »

dnautics wrote: post #51
dragonwriter wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always felt that when people talk about economic equality, they are talking about equality of access, not equality of 'things'. The features which provide access to economic opportunities are, themselves, economic goods, and wealth is largely (though not entirely) fungible, so the two things are not entirely separable. You can't provide an equality of access that meets some common standards of fairness without…

I would argue the opposite. You can't provide an equality of access that meets any given standard of fairness without creating inequality, because now you are favoring those who happen to conform to/ or be better suited to/ or have a better temperament for the new standard over the old.

You may say that's the opposite, but to me, its two sides of the same coin -- and its a fairly significant problem in achieving anything satisfying the common desire for fairness. If equality of access is fair, it produces inequality of outcome, but inequality of outcome itself destroys equality of access.

There's no stable equilibrium that is fair, achieving fairness, to the degree that is possible, requires constant monitoring and active balancing.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#115

Post by thatswrong0 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #27

This is very true, and why conservative economics just won't die. People would rather see those less fortunate have to beg and suffer than to give up what they 'worked' for. Never mind the fact that we all derive benefit from systems that we inherited, and did not work for...

Can we drop the "conservatives are evil" mantra at some point? It really adds nothing to the discourse.

Having a family full of conservatives (mind you I can't speak for all), I can tell you that for them, it comes down to how big the system is and what benefits should be provided by the government or not. The difference in where the line is drawn and why it's drawn is the difference between conservatives and democrats.

They think that outcomes would be better with a smaller federal government, that it is not the responsibility of the government to take care of everybody, and that everyone would be better off for it. They think that the federal government should deal with defense, foreign diplomatic policy, and inter-state issues, not insert itself into every aspect of policy making nationwide. They think that governments closer to the people can respond better to the needs of the people.

So yes, that does mean that it shouldn't redistribute wealth, at least on the federal level. But it's not that they want to see people suffer, it's that they think it's not the responsibility of the federal government to ameliorate it. That's not the same thing.

Note: I don't agree with them on a lot of things. I just don't like seeing these things misrepresented.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#116

Post by dnautics »

contingencies wrote: post #77
dnautics wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why not Benjamin Tucker's critique of Marx in "State Socialism and Anarchism", wherein he correctly predicts from first principles that state socialism eventually leads to gulags, about 20-30 years before it actually happened. http://praxeology.net/BT-SSA.htm

OK I'll bite. That logic is ridiculous. "Because X led to Y for one instance of Z, X leads to Y (ultimately and permanently) for all Z?" Spot the fallacy. (And what exactly do you mean by 'first principles' in a field of social science and political economy?) Counter-thoughts from reality: China's doing great, and the US has a higher percentage of its own population incarcerated than any other state in human history.

Tucker made the accurate prediction. If you challenge that it won't happen again, the onus is on you to explain what is different and why Tucker's model will fail this time around. Did you even read the essay?

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#117

Post by dnautics »

zo1 wrote: post #107
contingencies wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK I'll bite. That logic is ridiculous. "Because X led to Y for one instance of Z, X leads to Y (ultimately and permanently) for all Z?" Spot the fallacy. (And what exactly do you mean by 'first principles' in a field of social science and political economy?) Counter-thoughts from reality: China's doing great, and the US has a higher percentage of its own population incarcerated than any other state in human history.

China appears to have forced labor in their prisons. Is that not what a gulag was? https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chin... For that matter, the US has it as well (albeit to a 'cleaner' extent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...

I think that Tucker would argue that the US prison state is a result of socialistic tendencies in this nation. He made statements about 2/3 of the way down that are reminiscent of counter drug wars arguments (of course that is not strictly a prediction since counter drugs laws argument have tuckerian ideas in their DNA.)

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#118

Post by mc32 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #18
mc32 wrote: post #3

This makes sense. It's not that we should all be uniform but rather we all have access to being uniform if we so choose. Even if we attempted equality, time would introduce inequality due to the risks people take. One invests wisely, the other gambles away. Do we compensate the gambler to reestablish equilibrium? Should a soon to be retiree have the same wealth or earning power as a new graduate of X degree, or even…

> Even if we attempted equality, time would introduce inequality due to the risks people take. One invests wisely, the other gambles away. Do we compensate the gambler to reestablish equilibrium? You just assumed the gambler ended up worse off. What if he won? Do we compensate the investor for his sub-risky-gambling return?

Either way, what do we do with people who take a chance on their own volition and lose perennially? Do we compensate for losses to keep things equal?

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#119

Post by mc32 »

secstate wrote: post #71
some-guy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I think of inequality and opportunity in the US, I think about the education system. Sadly, the quality of K-12 education in the United States is too strongly tied to economic output / wealth / income of a region, which seems regressive to me.

Having worked as an education beat reporter in a number of really small, really wealth-divided communities for many years, I can tell you that state education is unlikely to ever be the solution to the wealth gap. Honestly, from my time in the trenches of listening to trite, small, yet passionate people discussing some of the harder parts of educating children (i.e. hard to educate when they're coming to school havin…

But that has a strong cultural component. So we're implicitly talking about changing 'poor people in the us culture'. I say "in the US" because I have been to other countries where even poor people put all their extra (over sustenance) resources into educating their children. Yes, it happens a tiny bit in the US, but not as much as in other places.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#120

Post by jsprogrammer »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #84
jsprogrammer wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you believe something like the Banach-Tarski paradox [0] is possible in our world, there is a relatively constant amount of matter within our reach. (In fact, there is a finite amount of matter that we will ever be able to reach.) This puts a hard cap on how much "stuff" can exist. Therefore, the pie is fixed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2%80%93Tarski_paradox

I think most of us don't define "pie" that way. In particular, I (and, I presume, saulrh) were talking about the economy, not about the total amount of matter within reach of the human race. Even using your definition, though, the pie is not fixed. We can't mine the moon today. Perhaps someday we can. If so, the amount of matter available to us is not fixed. Or perhaps we can mine the earth's core. More mundanely, th…

>I (and, I presume, saulrh) were talking about the economy

So am I. What is "the economy"? I submit that it is the tracking of material in space.

There is a fixed amount of space on the planet as well. At some point, there will be no more space or material to place another Hearst Castle.

I guess someone should provide an example of an "entire new pie". (Interestingly, this is what I demanded in my first post.)

My theory even explains your observation that 'People will complain about who got "more than their fair share" of the new pie'. The reason they complain is because the pie is fixed and the new pie is a lie.

If we could just create "entire new pies", then there would be no reason to complain about the newest pie, because we can just create yet another entire new pie.

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