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A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

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Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#181

Post by clarkmoody »

djur wrote: post #179
clarkmoody wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which "State" are you referring to? I'm not aware of an organization by that name. The State is the entity within society that holds a monopoly on the use of force. It uses that power to coerce members of society to fund its exploits through legal theft called "taxation." You probably know it by a different name, depending on where you live :-)

There is no single entity that holds a monopoly on the use of force and effects taxation, so I don't see anything worth granting a proper noun. Part of the reason I am not an Austrian is because I prefer my political science and economics to deal with concrete actions and actual people and organizations, not Abstract Capitalized Entities. The assertion that taxation is legalized theft enforced through the threat of f…

Of course the individuals who act in their capacity as government employees affect all the outcomes of state action. You may be more of an Austrian than you think if you refuse to recognize "society" and "the state" as independent actors.

> The assertion that taxation is legalized theft enforced through the threat of force is a popular one in certain circles, but it isn't the self-evident fact you believe it to be, either.

What other collection of individuals claims this privilege but the state? (see what I did there ;-) )

Seriously though: if I get a band of guys together and point a gun at you and force you to hand over 25% of your income to us, wouldn't that be illegal? But if I wear a badge and the band of guys is the enforcement arm of the IRS, that's any different?

A more complete analysis: https://mises.org/library/taxation-robbery

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#182

Post by Umn44 »

maratd wrote: post #174
Umn44 wrote: post #154

"I find it astonishing that people compare modern-day income equality and the position of the poor in our time, in the Western world, to that of historical slavery" I'm sorry to tell you but you're a moron if you believe there isn't mass suffering when you are poor and low status. The amount of psychological abuse you take and feelings of self worth and being treated as subhuman by society and the business community…

> If you don't think that just as painful as slavery you're a grade A idiot. If you have to resort to name-calling to make your point ... you're wrong. It's that simple. When you're a slave, no matter how talented your are, no matter how hard you work ... you're still a slave and you will always be a slave, and your children too, will be slaves. That situation is truly inhuman. Truly. So much so that the bible, the f…

>If you have to resort to name-calling to make your point ... you're wrong. It's that simple.

Except when you're wrong, and you can actually look at research that demonstrates the bullshit people gullibly believe about their society is incorrect.

US distribution of wealth

https://imgur.com/a/FShfb

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#183

Post by sangnoir »

puredemo wrote: post #148
Apocryphon wrote: post #40

Any hacker working in San Francisco can take a look outside and see the rampant inequality our industry is surrounded by.

It turns out people aren't all equally talented or employable. Shocking, huh?

There are people out there working harder than you, but are stuck in poverty. They were born at the wrong time, or in the wrong family, or didn't go to the right schools.

You ought to be self-aware enough to know that blind luck plays a huge part in your employability.

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#184

Post by sangnoir »

tie_ wrote: post #142

I disagree with most of the post, but here is one point that I'm particularly at odds with: > We have no obligation to stop someone from “becoming rich”– but we have a strong obligation to stop someone from becoming poor. I don't see a way to stop people from becoming poor. The most common way of becoming poor is not to produce wealth. How could we fulfill our "strong obligation" and force people to produce wealth?

> The most common way of becoming poor is not to produce wealth. How could we fulfill our "strong obligation" and force people to produce wealt

There is a break in your logic: your conclusion would only make sense if not producing wealth is the only way of becoming poor, which is not the case (think bankrupting medical bills that can make you poor even as you 'produce wealth').

To answer your question directly: you can fulfill the strong obligation to stop people becoming poor by having a strong social security net, and possibly a guaranteed minimum income.

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#185

Post by eli_gottlieb »

mwcampbell wrote: post #99
sarciszewski wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really think we are headed for bloody revolution, because most of the populace are angry, and its a rational anger because their survival needs are barely being met, in many cases. From someone who grew up poor and identifies strongly with outlaws, I concur. But unlike OP I think it needs to happen.

Surely a cool, calculated, orderly effort to solve the problems described by the GP would be better than bloody revolution, which is a mere outpouring of anger that might not even solve the problems and would probably create entirely new ones. Do you think that no other option is possible at this point? Edit: Talk of revolution makes me think of the song "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who, particularly the closing l…

>Surely a cool, calculated, orderly effort to solve the problems described by the GP would be better than bloody revolution

Well yes, but talking about cool, calculated, orderly solutions has a tendency to get you labeled a "dirty socialist" by the Right and a "dirty reformist" by the Left, with the former being overwhelmingly stronger.

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#186

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ryandamm wrote: post #20

I think it's useful to draw a bright line around the 'value creation' that PG is referring to, also. It's not just creating chairs, it's aggregating great wealth by 'disrupting' traditional industries. Those traditional industries have workers and shareholders who lose out. What makes successful startups so profitable is they displace a large and less-efficient system with a small, efficient one. Efficient in terms o…

> Efficient in terms of human capital, oftentimes: look how few people AirBNB employs directly, yet have a market cap larger than Marriott.

Of course, the "directly" there is quite a nasty word, as AirBNB arguably makes quite a lot of money off shadow-work[0].

[0] -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_work

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#187

Post by marshray »

chimeracoder wrote: post #180
amag wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Late 19th century, early 20th, Sweden was one of the poorest countries in Europe. The wealth of Sweden was accumulated post-WWII when the rest of Europe stood in ruins and needed to be rebuilt, not by being a colonial force to be reckoned with (it never was).

> Late 19th century, early 20th, Sweden was one of the poorest countries in Europe. not by being a colonial force to be reckoned with (it never was) I mean, yes, if you compare Sweden only to the really lucrative colonizers, it'll look "poor" by comparison. But all you're really saying is that Sweden was less effective as a colonial power than its neighbors who were even "better" at it (England, France, etc.). That d…

I think you're just really really attached to the idea that colonialism explains the modern world.

Over the course of the 20th century, the Ottomon and British empires crumbled. World War II happened. The US and Soviet Union became superpowers, there was a Cold War, and the Soviet Union split apart. The US pursued aggressively open trade. Western Europe unified to a common economic zone. World power structures have been reorganized several times over since colonial times.

For example, how does your theory explain Singapore going from a British colony, occupied by Japan during WWII, to US$56,319 GDP per capita in 2014?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Singapore

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#188

Post by owyn »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #165
owyn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as if wealthy people take their money and put it under their mattress. No, they invest it. That investment money flows to other corporations who then spend it on goods and services, or spend it on their employees. No they don't. From what I've read (Piketty etc) they do not re-circulate it into the general economy. They use investment vehicles which are increasingly divorced from "real world" economics and m…

Picketty explicitly claims the opposite of this. According to Picketty, the rich invest in the economy and achieve a growth rate r. As a result the level of capital stock grows more rapidly than incomes (which grow only at the rate g, for r > g). In contrast, money spent on consumption does not grow at the rate r. Picketty even speculates (providing no real evidence however) that only the rich can achieve growth rate…

I shouldn't have name dropped that particular book since I haven't read it, only summaries/reviews of it.

But the question still remains of how "rich people invest in the economy". Do they really? Or is it entirely indirect? Not one of them is giving small farmers money to buy tractors. Maybe they're building hotels which eventually employ housekeepers, sure. That's what I think of as the general economy. There's probably a more specific technical term for this. But I think using a billion dollars to give small farmers loans would be the worst possible use for it. You'd probably speculate in oil futures or whatever. While it's technically all the economy, sure, I'd argue that the super-wealthy generally don't add much to the economy, they extract value from the economy using their existing wealth as leverage.

What I'm getting at is that money spent on stuff/food/buildings/etc is different than money used as a tool/leverage/instrument just to make more money. I get the sense that it's an entirely different game (again, mostly an intuition from reading a lot of commentary about economic issues).

Sure, we all earn money and pay rent in dollars. Those dollars and that activity are only tangentially related to what a hedge fund uses dollars for.

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#189

Post by lolc »

PaulHoule wrote: post #23
jgord wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes - in order to say something that is true, I need to say something that is false. You'd be right to call me on it, and I'd have it no other way.

Back in the days of slavery you were expected to provide some care when they got old. If you're an employee you can be cast away to go die in the street.

"Fifty dollars reward, for the negro Jim Blake--has a piece cut out of each ear, and the middle finger of the left hand cut off to the second joint."

Re: A Response to Paul Graham’s Article on Income Inequality

#190

Post by chimeracoder »

marshray wrote: post #187
chimeracoder wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Late 19th century, early 20th, Sweden was one of the poorest countries in Europe. not by being a colonial force to be reckoned with (it never was) I mean, yes, if you compare Sweden only to the really lucrative colonizers, it'll look "poor" by comparison. But all you're really saying is that Sweden was less effective as a colonial power than its neighbors who were even "better" at it (England, France, etc.). That d…

I think you're just really really attached to the idea that colonialism explains the modern world. Over the course of the 20th century, the Ottomon and British empires crumbled. World War II happened. The US and Soviet Union became superpowers, there was a Cold War, and the Soviet Union split apart. The US pursued aggressively open trade. Western Europe unified to a common economic zone. World power structures have b…

> you're just really really attached to the idea that colonialism explains the modern world.

You're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything of the sort.

I said that one can't understand Western European socialism (the kind which OP appears to advocate) without understanding this aspect of those countries' history. The implication is that calling such socialism "nice" is ignoring and whitewashing the negative side, both historical and contemporary.

In any case, I know better than to seriously engage in a discussion about this on HN; it's really not the forum for these sorts of conversations.

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