Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me a fact.
ZenoArrow just asked me to tell him or her a fact.
That's one possible truth. Another possible truth is that someone else asked you that question using ZenoArrow's account.
My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
171–180 of 211 posts
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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)
Of course it's not fair. Someone works hard and earns a million dollars. At that point they've paid just about every tax imaginable on the money other than sales tax.
What is the "fair" argument to taxing it again just because they die? If you honestly believe that governments should tax every dollar every time any event happens to it, that's a valid opinion, but let's not pretend it has anything to do with "fairness."
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
ZenoArrow just asked me to tell him or her a fact.
That's one possible truth. Another possible truth is that someone else asked you that question using ZenoArrow's account.
Ok, now you're just being silly. I will not waste more time on this thread.
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
The numbers are equatable, even if they don't measure what you would prefer they measure. But if you'd like to supply alternate unemployment data, I'm sure many readers would appreciate it. As it is, your post is hypothetical. And anyway, unemployment has been measured the same way for decades. If the question is whether we stand on a societal precipice right now, then criticizing how unemployment is measured is not…
> The numbers are equatable, even if they don't measure what you would prefer they measure. I never claimed otherwise. I claimed that the number as measured excludes many things that are relevant to the discussion. And, therefore, using that number as the basis of an argument is flawed. > But if you'd like to supply alternate unemployment data, I'm sure many readers would appreciate it. As it is, your post is hypothe…
> Specifically, I did not claim that we are on a precipice. I did claim that using the official unemployment calculation is not necessarily sufficient for claiming that we are not on a precipice.
This is a good point: you're right that those are not the same claims. Sometimes I am imprecise about who said exactly what in HN threads.
We still haven't resolved whether or not we're on a precipice, though. :-)
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#175None of you are thinking about class.
To you, this is a technical problem with a technical solution. Just a math problem. “How do we align incentives?” “How do we set the tax rate to maximize productivity and growth?” etc. As though simply increasing the number of startups and corporate wealth in the world will eventually eliminate scarcity and poverty. No big changes necessary, just keep up the good work and the great Polynomial Curve of Technology will propel us to the end of history.
Some of you are more proactive. We should “attack poverty.” Like it’s a disease, and we can “science the shit out of it” and find a cure. But poverty, and disequal distribution generally are not diseases - unpleasant but inexorable byproducts of our evolution - they are inextricable from our political economy. Why? Because we have a society that is stratified by class! Our capitalist economy does solve the problem of distributing resources to everybody (though not equally or fairly, and not without wrecking the planet), and of creating new resources, new products, driving progress, but it also serves the crucial purpose of maintaining class power.
Given the massive forward surge in productivity over the last 50 years, why do most of us now work more and earn less? Surely this isn’t the only way it could be. Even Keynes, the liberal economist thought we’d be working 15 hour weeks by now. So why don’t we?
It’s because we’re in the working class, and the working class serves the ruling class. It’s not in their interest for us to work 15 hour weeks, and they’re in charge, so we don’t. That’s really all. Until working people have some democratic control over the economy, we’ll always work more and earn less, and wealth will accumulate at the top, because that’s what this system is designed to do. And it works.
Our world is not billions of people on equal footing, freely exchanging goods and labor. It’s not woodworking artisans crafting chairs and selling them to each other. It’s owners and workers. Sure you can start a startup. Make a great app that coordinates precarious workers to take out SF yuppies’ garbage for them (yep, that’s a real one!), and transition from worker to owner. Great. You made it. That’s certainly not the norm though, and it certainly won’t eradicate poverty or scarcity. An on a human scale, it’s hardly progress. We used to have a space program, remember? We can do better than capitalism. Anyway we better, or we’re screwed.
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's one possible truth. Another possible truth is that someone else asked you that question using ZenoArrow's account.
Ok, now you're just being silly. I will not waste more time on this thread.
Another option: I could be a bot.
Truth involves an element of interpretation. Truth depends on your frame of reference. You believe I'm wasting your time, but I may not be, it's up to you to choose.
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#177Great reply, although I disagree with the typical simplified assertions that the Soviet System didn't work. Without doubt the system had major flaws. But it is perhaps much more shocking that the system worked as well as it did given so many obvious problems with it. Taking a primitive peasant society and turning it into a space traveling civilisation was quite astonishing. One has to also keep in mind that for decad…
>Still both the Soviet Union and China have turned into far more humane societies during socialism than they were at any earlier times What do you mean be this? Surely modern != humane
I am comparing to Imperial China and Czar Russia which were rather inhumane societies. Russia had serfdom and peasants were treated terribly e.g. 1980s Russia was a lot more humane society.
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#178> Today, the top 1% control fully half of the planet's wealth This is a meaningless statistic given negative wealth is possible (indeed common). By this simple measure a recent MBA graduate of Harvard with 200k debt and no assets is poorer than a Mumbai slum dweller with 2 rupees in his pocket. I would argue that's not a fair reflection of the actual comparative wealth of the two individuals. A potentially better mea…
> By this simple measure a recent MBA graduate of Harvard with 200k debt and no assets is poorer than a Mumbai slum dweller with 2 rupees in his pocket.
This is only because this example exaggerates a few obviously valuable assets that are difficult to measure in terms of market value.
(a) The Harvard MBA itself, both the "piece of paper" and the experience itself, has no conveniently measurable market value and thus doesn't count as an asset. Yet, it obviously is worth something.
(b) The raw human potential. A Harvard MBA graduate is going to be literate and is likely to have many cognitive advantages vs a "mumbai slum dweller". The potential has unmeasured value, degree or not.
(c) Social Capital. This not only includes the support networks of family and friends that tend to support new graduates as they bootstrap their careers, but also the general trust of others in society. For example, a Harvard MBA is not likely to have an unreasonably difficult time finding decent roommates in the Boston area, even if they don't have any immediate friends or family available.
College degrees are the big investment where the value of asset is essentially not measurable (at best you can look in hindsight). And everyone has raw human potential and social capital, but then everyone has differing amounts. For the other extreme: take away the degree. Replace the cognitive advantages with a mental disorder (say, an addiction or a psychiatric disorder). Remove the social capital. Take all that away, and you'll be more likely to find a homeless person or someone heavily dependent on the government to survive.
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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)
Of course it's not fair. Someone works hard and earns a million dollars. At that point they've paid just about every tax imaginable on the money other than sales tax. What is the "fair" argument to taxing it again just because they die? If you honestly believe that governments should tax every dollar every time any event happens to it, that's a valid opinion, but let's not pretend it has anything to do with "fairness…
My concept of fair is strongly related to my concept of justice, and I use Rawls' veil of ignorance as my standard thought experiment for judging just (and fair, WRT laws that are applied universally) scenarios.
If the return to capital is much higher than the return to labour, then people who inherit a lot of wealth may gain more than people who expend the sweat of their brow. If society is very unequal, then this process may be highly exaggerated and the gains limited to a select few. From a veil of ignorance, not knowing where in the income distribution I would end up, would I like that world? Or would I prefer one that reduces the disparity (but not so much that it steeply dissuades people from trying to achive things)?
The probability that I'd turn out in the very top end of an inequal distribution is slim; so naturally, what I, from a position if ignorance as to my actual position in the world, think is fair is a certain amount of tax, and yes, that includes - especially includes - inheritance tax.
Re: My simplified response to Paul Graham's simplified essay
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
The global decrease in inequality is barely there, and some argue is an illusion due to the wealthiest individuals being adept at hiding their wealth. What is there is only due to India and China starting to have something resembling a middle class (but even so their standard of living would be unacceptable from someone who grew up in the US.) In the rest of the developed world (US, Europe, Japan, etc.) average wages…
> What is there is only due to India and China starting to have something resembling a middle class (but even so their standard of living would be unacceptable from someone who grew up in the US.) I don't understand what you mean when you say it's "only" due to India and China starting to have a middle class. That is literally the definition of decreasing inequality globally: people who were previously below middle c…
Because that's only two countries out of the whole world AND income inequality in those countries is still terrible despite the situation improving substantially.