I've always thought a good question to ask on this subject is "If you could do something to make the wealthiest 50% wealthier, with 100% certainty that it would not negatively affect the bottom 50%, would you do it?"
Economic Inequality
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Re: Economic Inequality
#12Usually pg's essays are spot-on. But this one, I feel, is based on a false premise: People aren't upset about startup founders getting rich -- in fact, society loudly applauds it. What people are upset about is legacy capital growing and growing and growing while the poor and middle class stagnate or even contract. On this subject, I always think about farms. Back in the day, it took ~100 people to work a large farm.…
"The wealth generated by this astounding leap of productivity went entirely to the shareholders of the John Deere corporation." No, it did not. Mechanization makes food much cheaper, which benefits everybody.
If that were all that happened it would be great. But automation leaves a lot of people off the payrolls without jobs and if those jobs are paying less then less expensive food is not less expensive. And incomes have dropped more than inflation in most cases for the poor which means it is not cheaper for those less able to afford it.
Complicated problems are not whisked away with making things less expensive = benefit everyone.
Re: Economic Inequality
#13Central thesis (hidden a bit): "ending economic inequality would mean ending startups". So, who is the straw man who advocates completely ending economic inequality? Even left wingers in Europe (far to the left of anyone mainstream in the US) talk mainly of reducing it. So, if economic inequality were substantially reduced, would there still be startups? I believe another piece of common advice in this field is that…
Exactly. There would still be sufficient economic motivations for startups and startup founders in a world where startup founders were taxed at a 75% rate.
Re: Economic Inequality
#14The problem with income inequality is not related to a startup founder getting rich, its about the deck being stacked against people before they are even born, and then the super rich continually stacking the deck against anyone coming up and challenging their supremacy.
Re: Economic Inequality
#15Usually pg's essays are spot-on. But this one, I feel, is based on a false premise: People aren't upset about startup founders getting rich -- in fact, society loudly applauds it. What people are upset about is legacy capital growing and growing and growing while the poor and middle class stagnate or even contract. On this subject, I always think about farms. Back in the day, it took ~100 people to work a large farm.…
Yes. This is a very strange article. When you think about what goes into the startup ethos, of independent hacking and really a passion for work, there's nothing antithetical about that and being turned off by massive income inequality in America. I, for one, would prefer to be an entrepreneur in a society that strove to make it harder for dynastic companies like Wal-Mart to accrue power. The "polynomial curve" histo…
"I am also weirded out by the "hunter" metaphor. The people fighting income inequality are not predators out to get pg's billions, they are working class people who can't afford healthcare or to send their kids to college."
+1 on that alone. I was concerned that this was completely misunderstanding those that understand the income inequality issue.
Re: Economic Inequality
#16Great essay. I was struck by this though:
> A woodworker creates wealth.
There's an odd can of worms in that simple statement, which is roughly reduced to: How do you measure wealth?
Part of the controversy is that wealth is often a summation of net worth in [dollars | yen | euro | yap stones]. However, if you look at the simple act of the woodworker selling a chair, the total dollars in circulation before and after the woodworker sells his chair is constant. Therefore, the woodworker is now in possession of a greater percentage of the total dollars, and consequently "inequality" has now increased, due to the (mostly) zero-sum definition of the money supply.
Re: Economic Inequality
#17Central thesis (hidden a bit): "ending economic inequality would mean ending startups". So, who is the straw man who advocates completely ending economic inequality? Even left wingers in Europe (far to the left of anyone mainstream in the US) talk mainly of reducing it. So, if economic inequality were substantially reduced, would there still be startups? I believe another piece of common advice in this field is that…
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Re: Economic Inequality
#18Central thesis (hidden a bit): "ending economic inequality would mean ending startups". So, who is the straw man who advocates completely ending economic inequality? Even left wingers in Europe (far to the left of anyone mainstream in the US) talk mainly of reducing it. So, if economic inequality were substantially reduced, would there still be startups? I believe another piece of common advice in this field is that…
Exactly. There would still be sufficient economic motivations for startups and startup founders in a world where startup founders were taxed at a 75% rate.
When the Beatles found themselves taxed at 95%, they wrote a song about it ("Here's one for you, nineteen for me..."), but they didn't hang up their guitars.
Re: Economic Inequality
#19[deleted]
Re: Economic Inequality
#20The problem with income inequality is not related to a startup founder getting rich, its about the deck being stacked against people before they are even born, and then the super rich continually stacking the deck against anyone coming up and challenging their supremacy.
I like the term social mobility. A person's station in life should not be tied to their parents' income level.