How Paul Graham Gets It Wrong in “Economic Inequality”

But why does it seem that the solution is to cap off from those who have more instead of improving the lot of those who have less?

There's the pie fallacy: it would seem that alleviating poverty = alleviating inequality, when for most of history it has been exactly the opposite.

Why would they? If you knew that the potential rewards for a given business risk would be stolen from you via the government, why would you bother taking the risk in the first place?

Yet the rate is a fraction of what it was 30+ years ago. While the wealthy may pay the "majority" of taxes, I thought it was common knowledge that the uber wealthy pay proportionately less of their income in taxes then the lower and middle class -- which is inequality defined.

I mainly just don't believe in vagina lotteries

"Yet the rate is a fraction of what it was 30+ years ago"

...yet the US is now the most prosperous nation on earth and our poor still have cell phones, a basic roof over their heads, and aren't eating rocks in the dirt.

A 90% marginal tax rate (like it was 30+ years ago) won't be all rainbows and kittens. It will be a very, very different US. 'Startup' probably won't even be a word any longer if this happened.

"I thought it was common knowledge that the uber wealthy pay proportionately less of their income in taxes then the lower and middle class"

More misinformation. The lower classes pay almost no income/state/federal taxes. I was unemployed for a year back in 2010, and I actually got money back when I filed my taxes based on my low income...and I never had any taxes deducted from my unemployment.

The 'uber wealthy' pay more in taxes than they will ever use in their lifetime..and probably 10,000 or more people's lifetime.

Not to mention they pay people in the form of income, which is then paid back to the government in the form of taxes. They are indirectly paying a ton more in taxes. The poor and middle class do no such thing.

Instead of focusing on how much more money we can appropriate from the wealthy, we should first be making politicians and governments accountable for the money we are paying into the system now. Without this accountability, we will continue to run out of money.

Detroit local government is a great example of this. Rampant corruption keeps causing a budget crises and the city council act like petulant children when asked for even the slightest bit of accountability.

"I mainly just don't believe in vagina lotteries"

There are many unfair "vagina lotteries". Should we open up NBA teams to people that don't have natural abilities or make them play with a handicap?

I will never be able to play for the NBA because I'm not tall enough. Should the NBA pay their "fair share" by being forced to allow me to play? Do those players really deserve all that money?

If I worked my entire life to build a business, so my kids can have a nice life..I shouldn't be punished.

I will be curious to see how many people in silicon valley can afford their same lifestyle when their inflated wages are cut by 40% and rent and expenses stay the same.

> Bill Gates gave an excellent summary of the argument against unchecked levels of economic inequality[2]: High levels of inequality are a problem — messing up economic incentives, tilting democracies in favor of powerful interests, and undercutting the ideal that all people are created equal.

This is the problem right here. The "ideal that all people are created equal." The truth is, they are not. There are differences in IQ, differences in emotional capacity, differences in physical strength, differences in programming ability, etc. Because every human has a unique set of DNA -- that will only ever occur once and never again be repeated -- they will have unique combinations of various skills and traits.

People are not equal and you cannot make them so. Thus they will have different outcomes economically. It couldn't be any other way.

What you can do is provide equal opportunities to those with objectively worse environments, i.e. those in poverty. Attacking this problem will be the most meaningful solution. But economic inequality is still not the yard stick to use for this.

How these obvious issues get conflated through the use of the trigger term "economic inequality" is beyond me. Perhaps it stems from the self-esteem movement where we started giving trophies to every kid who could kick the ball. Do people complain about "soccer inequality" because they don't play on FC Barcelona? And should one blame Messi for such a thing, or should they find ways to sponsor youth soccer leagues instead.