My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay • Hacker News Board

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#31

Post by astazangasta » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #17

astazangasta wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wealth is based on social cohesion, which can fall apart in a generation or two. Genghis conquered half of Asia and built an empire of great wealth and high culture, but lack of cohesion tore it apart not long after.

>Genghis conquered half of Asia Are we really comparing this to a country that's nearly 240 years old and is a global superpower that has weathered everything from civil war, a major depression, defeating communism, a moon landing, inventing the internet and all the technologies you're using right now, the largest economy by GDP, the most powerful military in history, etc? This is like saying the The Who or The Stone…

What's a better comparison? Tsarist Russia? The Ottoman Empire? Rome? What goes up must come down. Sometimes it is fast, sometimes slow.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#32

Post by jseliger » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #10

PG's simplified essay seems like attack on a strawman; he's mainly arguing that inequality is good, but then mostly everybody agrees with that. The issue people see (and PG conveniently ignores) is increasing inequality - not locally increasing (i.e. an enterpreneur becoming rich because of a successful business idea), but globally increasing inequality, which happens because of rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying po…

Your statement here: "he's mainly arguing that inequality is good"

is contradicted by the second paragraph of even his simplified version:

But economic inequality per se is not bad. It has multiple causes. Many are bad, but some are good.

His main point isn't that economic inequality is good, and he says as much.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#33

Post by dangerlibrary » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #18

tomp wrote: post #10

PG's simplified essay seems like attack on a strawman; he's mainly arguing that inequality is good, but then mostly everybody agrees with that. The issue people see (and PG conveniently ignores) is increasing inequality - not locally increasing (i.e. an enterpreneur becoming rich because of a successful business idea), but globally increasing inequality, which happens because of rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying po…

Inheritance taxes on their own will do nothing to change the situation because then you'll simply concentrate all the wealth in corporate structures that transcend the death of their owners. Even if you make it impossible to 'pass down' these structures as property, you will have de-facto inheritance through nepotism and clan structures.

I agree (and I suspect tomp would as well - it's generally best to give others the benefit of the doubt when they've been silent on an issue) that estate taxes are insufficient. I disagree with the implication that they are not a critical component of a solution.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#34

Post by CrowFly » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

When I read Graham's original essay I laughed. In my mind, he's a force for greater wealth _equality_. After all, he takes money from rich investors and puts it into startup companies, the majority of which do not produce great wealth.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#35

Post by cushychicken » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #5

Ron's First Law: All extreme positions are wrong. :-) Re: His last line about extreme positions -- Any position with "all" in it is extreme. Extreme positions aren't wrong. It's just that they're most often appropriate only in extreme positions.

>Re: His last line about extreme positions -- Any position with "all" in it is extreme.

Therein lies the joke.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#36

Post by jdmichal » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #6

zepto wrote: post #3

The only thing I'd disagree with is the statement 'we're nowhere near there' with regard to oligarchy and societal collapse. I think we're quite close. We have an entire generation where a tiny proportion have great prospects and the rest have steadily diminishing prospects and increasing stress, and we have educated people who grew up in the west going to join an expressly suicidal terrorist organization. We have a…

>I think we're quite close. USA: 5% unemployment, GDP per capita of $55,000, 78.74 years life expectancy, Human Development Index: 8, etc. EU: 9% unemployment, GDP per capita $38,000, 78.82 years life expectancy, Human Development Index: 6 average, etc. Yeah, we're not "close." Meanwhile countries like the BRIC nations, especially authoritarian autocracies like China or Russia, with terrible inequality and 100x the p…

Except that's the "official" unemployment number. Here's how it's calculated, cribbed directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [0]:

* People with jobs are employed.

* People who are jobless, looking for a job, and available for work are unemployed.

* The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed.

* People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force.

Think about those points very carefully. They mean that:

* People who would like a job but have given up actively looking for one are not counted.

* People who have a job but would take more work if available -- the underemployed -- are not counted.

[0]: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#concepts

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#37

Post by scylla » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:49 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #9

[deleted]

> For example, I would rather make $500k per year and have $10k net worth, than make $100k per year and have a $1 million net worth.

Why? Are you assuming that you'll quickly build up your wealth in the first scenario. Personally, I'd be way more comfortable with the second - no worries around how long your income stream will last.

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#38

Post by EGreg » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:49 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #13

rcavezza wrote: post #4

Karl Marx would argue that his ideas might have worked if someone else implemented them.

I think his ideas will fail so long as those trying to implement them are Homo sapiens .

Something tells me the same about anarcho capitalists

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#39

Post by amelius » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #10

PG's simplified essay seems like attack on a strawman; he's mainly arguing that inequality is good, but then mostly everybody agrees with that. The issue people see (and PG conveniently ignores) is increasing inequality - not locally increasing (i.e. an enterpreneur becoming rich because of a successful business idea), but globally increasing inequality, which happens because of rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying po…

> I'm mostly concerned about the last one - inheritance

What about rent-seeking? Like the article notes, this is a way for the rich to become richer, without creating anything new.

At least with "inheritance", there are "resourceful genes" passing from one generation to the next :)

Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay

#40

Post by ThomPete » Tue, Jan 05, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #18

tomp wrote: post #10

PG's simplified essay seems like attack on a strawman; he's mainly arguing that inequality is good, but then mostly everybody agrees with that. The issue people see (and PG conveniently ignores) is increasing inequality - not locally increasing (i.e. an enterpreneur becoming rich because of a successful business idea), but globally increasing inequality, which happens because of rent-seeking, tax avoidance, buying po…

Inheritance taxes on their own will do nothing to change the situation because then you'll simply concentrate all the wealth in corporate structures that transcend the death of their owners. Even if you make it impossible to 'pass down' these structures as property, you will have de-facto inheritance through nepotism and clan structures.

Maybe not but it's a fair tax especially for those who apply to the "just work hard and reap the benefits"

Also you can actually guard against that even in corporate structures. Denmark is doing it. However it's not IMO a good thing (and not fair as it taxes the company and removes capital from that company)