I find it's good to re-read Rerum Novarum[1] (1891) and Centesimus Annus[2] (1991), now and again:
[1] http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documen...
[2] http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/doc...
Economic Inequality
151–160 of 580 posts
Re: Economic Inequality
#152For me, the issue with economic inequality in the US is that somehow it has lead to INEQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY, which makes our economic system unfair . Sample evidence: * US children of wealthier parents grow up to be wealthier than US children of poorer parents, regardless of whether the child was adopted or not.[1] * US children whose families are in the bottom income quartile are eight times less likely (!) than c…
> Why should wealthier children, who simply got lucky and won the "ovarian lottery," have more and better opportunities than poorer children
Better genes and epigenetic effects would seem to be a valid and natural reason to me. Let's not exaggerate the opportunities though: average lifespan isn't much higher and a life in luxury isn't devoid of problems. It may be weakening and dangerous if exaggerated. We're doing well at fixing extreme effects of poverty (like eliminating hunger), let's not attempt to fix the wrong things (i.e. richness).
Re: Economic Inequality
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I really don't see your point. Piketty shows (with data, by the way) that, below a percentage of economic grow, capital returns are bigger than labour returns. The conclusion is that there is a trend (very important, it is a trend) to bigger inequality inherent to the system. What do he propose? A communist revolution? The abolition of inequality by the proletariat? No, just tax capital so we can redistribute it to a…
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Re: Economic Inequality
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
They did break up. Also, many wealthy Britons moved to Barbados to avoid the taxes.
I never heard the theory that they broke up because of the tax rates. Thought it had something to do with Yoko :-)
Tax avoidance is a significant issue that will require some international coordination - but I do think it is a solvable problem.
See for example the Facebook co-founder who had to pay an exit tax to move his assets offshore.
Re: Economic Inequality
#155Graham is arguing against an enormous straw man. Nobody is suggesting that we “prevent people from getting rich” or “end all economic inequality”. The most extreme proposals I’ve seen in America are ones like, “institute an unconditional basic income as an alternative to means-tested welfare programs,” or “allow every citizen/resident into a single-payer healthcare system,” or “go back to the tax structure of the 195…
"Nobody is suggesting that we “prevent people from getting rich""
Yes they are.
Don't you remember all the articles about Zuckerberg's charity, and how it is bad that rich people have so much control over society, and that the solution shouldn't be charity, it should be to prevent people from becoming so rich in the first place?
That shit was all over the place.
Re: Economic Inequality
#156Graham is arguing against an enormous straw man. Nobody is suggesting that we “prevent people from getting rich” or “end all economic inequality”. The most extreme proposals I’ve seen in America are ones like, “institute an unconditional basic income as an alternative to means-tested welfare programs,” or “allow every citizen/resident into a single-payer healthcare system,” or “go back to the tax structure of the 195…
He is defending what he is doing and what Y-combinator has been doing. One of the most important roles of a leader is to create vision -- build a story that explains and interprets reality based on it. In general, startup world lives on hopes and ideals. More so than other industries. Founders have to have a "burning desire to change the world". It could be building a better future, moving the technology forward, mak…
> He is defending what he is doing and what Y-combinator has been doing. One of the most important roles of a leader is to create vision -- build a story that explains and interprets reality based on it.
Defending against a strawman isn't really defending against anything but rather perpetuating the delusion that the strawman is real.
It isn't helpful or productive.
Re: Economic Inequality
#157> So when I hear people saying that economic inequality is bad and should be eliminated, I feel rather like a wild animal overhearing a conversation between hunters. But the thing that strikes me most about the conversations I overhear is how confused they are. They don't even seem clear whether they want to kill me or not.
Straw man aside, I continue to be deeply concerned about individuals who spend their time believing they are being hunted, literally or figuratively, to the end that they or some aspect of them is to be "killed". This is the kind of paranoid rhetoric that you can often find emanating, frequently unchallenged, from people who are often people of means, with some degree of privilege.
It's a significant concern, I believe, because the claimant, despite being a privileged and often powerful person, is admitting they have formulated their outlook based on a feeling they are a victim, or soon will be.
The reality is that their station in life means they are able to protect themselves from nearly all meaningful victimization. But either they do not understand this fact, or they are deliberately ignoring it. Either way, the positions they formulate based on this fear of nearly impossible victimization are often extremely flawed.
You can turn on a news station covering presidential politics if you'd like to see a consistent example of this being demonstrated.
I'd urge PG to be a little more self-aware, and I'm disappointed at the list of editors and helpers he credits who are unable to help question him into a more thoroughly developed narrative.
Re: Economic Inequality
#158Whenever he says "polynomial", he actually means "exponential", right? Economic growth over the last couple of centuries looks pretty exponential, at least.
Re: Economic Inequality
#159[deleted]
Re: Economic Inequality
#160I LOVE that Paul Graham posted this just a day after posting Mark Twain's "corn-pone opinions" with no sense of irony or self awareness.
""" "You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."...
The black philosopher's idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing and in his business prosperities."""
This billionaire's opinion of wealth inequality, his own part in it, and the straw men he battles are the very essence of corn-pone based thinking that Twain is speaking to.
Graham's (toxic and highly biased) opinion about wealth inequality is a condition of how he gets his corn-pone every day. To him, however, this corn-pone opinion becomes the very essence of rational thinking amongst himself and his peers (like Marc Andreesen and his periodic twitterisms).