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Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

news.stanford.edu

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Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#21

Post by ant6n »

Neliquat wrote: post #16
tanto wrote: post #8

How about we take away everything down to 10^6$ from the 0.0001% richest and redistribute it to everyone. We repeat this with the 0.0001% of the richest every year from there on. Every time someone is chosen for this honour they get a medal.

Imagine for a moment you are a driven, self-made .00001%er. If you KNEW your profits were taken at the top, would you work hard and innovate? Or would you commit fraud and squirrel away your wealth or not bother. Im sure a few would see it as a 'goal', but stakeholders would doubtlessly disagree. The spirit, I agree with, but not possible to cleanly implement.

Maybe the .00001% don't work hard to innovate, but they with hard to exploit and concentrate wealth.

Lots of innovation for example Congress it of universities, from people who are not millionaires.

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#22

Post by AlexB138 »

whyileft wrote: post #15
golemotron wrote: post #4

In the past few weeks the idea of 'legitimatizing violence' has been circulating heavily. On my Facebook feed most of it has centered on the idea that it is "okay" to punch neo-nazis now. The people saying this are people I'd never expect to. Twitter is similar. I wish I had stats on whether the legitimatization meme is really rising. To me, it looks like the fake news meme. Suddenly it's everywhere.

Not sure if you are old enough to remember that far leftist ideological organizations were often violent up until the last quarter of the 20th century. This period of peacefulness is a recent phenomenon. One of the big pacifiers of democracy is that people accept the result because the majority voted for it. When you have a situation when 46% of the population is pushing an agenda that at least 48% of the population…

>When you have a situation when 46% of the population is pushing an agenda that at least 48% of the population is strongly against. That group often starts to look for alternative ways to flex its majority power.

46% and 48% of voters, not of the population. Neither voting block are a majority of the population.

I would argue this particular part of our current political climate is largely pushed by a minority, and is as much about them believing their own propaganda as it is about the fact that they lost the election. Keep in mind there was quite a bit of violence coming from the left long before the election was over (attacking people at Trump rallies, fire bombing a GOP headquarters). They genuinely believe the sky is falling, so to speak. It's unfortunate, because it makes it difficult for the rest of us to have a discussion about where we've actually gone wrong.

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#23

Post by ant6n »

Ygg2 wrote: post #19
donquichotte wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how communism was supposed to work, and the guys in charge of redistribution took the lion's share for themselves.

There are ways to making this work. Sadly, none applies to dollar. One solution. Make dollars worthless, unless they have been stamped with a stamp, for the current month. Basically force people to pay taxes on money. Say you have to pay 10% of the value. Got 2bil, congrats. You are paying $200 million each month.

A simpler way would be to print more money and cause more inflation. 10% wealth destruction per month matches the hyper inflation of Germany in the 20s.Of course the rich who store their assets in non liquid form weren't as affected as the poor who didn't know how to pay for bread.

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#24

Post by noarchy »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #7
VMG wrote: post #5

> It is almost universally true that violence has been necessary to ensure the redistribution of wealth at any point in time Strictly speaking, you don't need to redistribute wealth to lower inequality. Destroying wealth is sufficient. Violence and war is pretty good at that.

War does not seem to destroy wealth, but redistribute it?

The Parable of the broken window: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#25

Post by dragonwriter »

VMG wrote: post #5

> It is almost universally true that violence has been necessary to ensure the redistribution of wealth at any point in time Strictly speaking, you don't need to redistribute wealth to lower inequality. Destroying wealth is sufficient. Violence and war is pretty good at that.

In practice, violence and war both destroy and redistribute wealth, both within and between parties to the violence (in fact, seizing economic resources from their current holder is one of the main reasons for violent conflict, whether intrastate or interstate.)

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#26

Post by donatj »

golemotron wrote: post #4

In the past few weeks the idea of 'legitimatizing violence' has been circulating heavily. On my Facebook feed most of it has centered on the idea that it is "okay" to punch neo-nazis now. The people saying this are people I'd never expect to. Twitter is similar. I wish I had stats on whether the legitimatization meme is really rising. To me, it looks like the fake news meme. Suddenly it's everywhere.

The remarkably sad part is the violence does nothing but legitimize the attacked parties hate. Hate begets hate.

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#27

Post by JBReefer »

jellicle wrote: post #17
gm-conspiracy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War does not seem to destroy wealth, but redistribute it?

When a bomb destroys a building, to whom is the value of the building redistributed to?

Moloch

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#28

Post by thedataslinger »

Inconel wrote: post #20

That was an interesting read, it definitely makes me want to read the book for a more detailed analysis. I've increasingly been wondering about the links between violence/social unrest and inequality, particularly as we enter a period of time were globalization and automation have the potential to be hugely disruptive to the existing work force, even more so than they already have been. This is only tangentially rela…

I think your questions suggest an answer which may or may not be true: a lack of class consciousness.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_consciousness

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#29

Post by visarga »

ant6n wrote: post #23
Ygg2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to making this work. Sadly, none applies to dollar. One solution. Make dollars worthless, unless they have been stamped with a stamp, for the current month. Basically force people to pay taxes on money. Say you have to pay 10% of the value. Got 2bil, congrats. You are paying $200 million each month.

A simpler way would be to print more money and cause more inflation. 10% wealth destruction per month matches the hyper inflation of Germany in the 20s.Of course the rich who store their assets in non liquid form weren't as affected as the poor who didn't know how to pay for bread.

There is another way, without issuing money. Create a new currency, dedicated for paying UBI to people. Then require that companies pay part of their taxes in this currency, in order to make it valuable. It should cycle itself back and there would be no need to issue new UBI money.

The deeper problem is that companies have a conflict of short term / long term interest. In the short term, they would prefer to sell their products with as little taxes as possible, and hire as few people as possible. But in the long term, their interest is to have a thriving population and a robust market.

If companies don't act responsibly towards society, there is a pressing need to organize self-reliance. We need to create a new economy based on unemployed people. With good management, they could cover a part of their needs without external help, maybe even be self sufficient. In a sense, we could employ the mass of jobless to work for their needs, thus finding employment and solving their problems directly.

Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

#30

Post by VMG »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #7
VMG wrote: post #5

> It is almost universally true that violence has been necessary to ensure the redistribution of wealth at any point in time Strictly speaking, you don't need to redistribute wealth to lower inequality. Destroying wealth is sufficient. Violence and war is pretty good at that.

War does not seem to destroy wealth, but redistribute it?

What's the opportunity cost of the defense budget?
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