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Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality

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

#71

Post by achamayou »

germinalphrase wrote: post #50
jasim wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another reason for unions to become defunct over time, as explained by Steve Bruce in his book Sociology: A Very Short Introduction. "Any kind of group activity requires organization. But as soon as one starts to organize one creates a division within the movement between the organized and the organizers, between ordinary members and officials. The latter quickly acquire knowledge and expertise that set them a…

Of course, many small - and still influential - unions are actively made up of their members. For instance, teachers unions (outside of large metropolitan areas) commonly vote their presidents and other officials directly from the teaching ranks. These leaders often receive little/no compensation for their additional duties.

But zeal in preserving an organisation isn't necessarily motivated by money (see various organised religions).

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

#72

Post by tptacek »

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.

Whatever else this comment might be, it is certainly wildly off topic for the thread. Please don't catalyze sprawling off-topic subthreads on stories.

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

#73

Post by jerf »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #41
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.

>The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eu…

Yeah, but despite the provenance of the quote, it's very hard to square with how the real world has evolved since Orwell wrote that can make a stronger case for the idea that a government pretty much has to keep its population a certain degree of comfortable or it's going to get overthrown than I can for them deliberately keeping them in poverty.

The other problem with it is that the elite of a given culture draw their eliteness from the wealth of the culture itself. The elite of the US and the EU draw their outsized influence from the fact that they are the elite of a wealthy, powerful culture. If they set about making their cultures deliberately poorer, they are cutting their own influence off by destroying the things they're being the elite of. The elite of China aren't just trying to make their own countrymen relatively wealthier for its own sake (though that probably has an impact), it is also because it raises their own power in the rest of the world.

I don't think he was correct about this. I think he just had a couple points from very early in the modern era, and drew the wrong extrapolation through them because they weren't representative. He was very intelligent, but having bad data is hard to overcome.

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

#74

Post by BEEdwards »

SixSigma wrote: post #55
PaulRobinson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is really interesting, especially as how it has played out in recent years - right up to the last few months - in the UK. I used to know a guy who worked for a trade union who was bemoaning its demise. In 1997 when Labour came to power in the UK for the first time in nearly 20 years, they strengthened employment laws so well, the need for trade union was perceived as lesser by much of the membership. Thi…

Asserting that Brexit voting is based on immigration dismisses a whole swathe of arguments in favour of an exit from the EU. I certainly didn't consider immigration policy as a reason for my exit vote.

Honest question, what did you consider then? Because beside the immigration thing the Brexit camp seemed to be a cluster fuck of contradictory claims.

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

#75

Post by legodt »

germinalphrase wrote: post #65
legodt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously sympathizing with a man who called for an American ethnic cleansing?

No. I'm recognizing that dangerous thoughts are not illegal in the United States of America and perpetuating violence is dangerous and ineffective. My wife and I both chose careers of service that are directly antithetical to the words and thoughts of this man. I sympathize with the desire to punch him - he is eminently punchable - but I believe that directing violence on him will serve to draw support to his cause,…

So what is the line? Neo-nazis don't respond to debate or rationality. What line do they have to cross for violence to become acceptable for you?

Because, clearly, actively calling for and organizing a group centered around my death and the death of my community isn't enough

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

#76

Post by subsys »

achamayou wrote: post #71
germinalphrase wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, many small - and still influential - unions are actively made up of their members. For instance, teachers unions (outside of large metropolitan areas) commonly vote their presidents and other officials directly from the teaching ranks. These leaders often receive little/no compensation for their additional duties.

But zeal in preserving an organisation isn't necessarily motivated by money (see various organised religions).

>organized religions

>not motivated by money

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

#77

Post by BEEdwards »

donatj wrote: post #26
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.

Violence totally legitimized the fascists and Nazis...

OH wait, no it's the opposite, the only way to defeat them is on their own terms.

You keep on appeasing them hoping it will work this time though.

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

#78

Post by neap24 »

snappyTertle wrote: post #46

Inequality is not inherently a bad thing. People should be compensated for the value they produce. Profits are a signal of how much people value what is produced. For example, people love iPhones, it no surprise that Apple is the most valuable company in the world. What causes resentment between classes is lack of mobility. This, IMO, is caused by government regulations and a banking system that hurts the middle clas…

The mobility discussion is distressingly absent from the inequality debates.

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

#79

Post by sshumaker »

snappyTertle wrote: post #46

Inequality is not inherently a bad thing. People should be compensated for the value they produce. Profits are a signal of how much people value what is produced. For example, people love iPhones, it no surprise that Apple is the most valuable company in the world. What causes resentment between classes is lack of mobility. This, IMO, is caused by government regulations and a banking system that hurts the middle clas…

While it's certainly true that there are some interaction effects between government regulation and the market that cause inequality, its naive to draw the conclusion that this is true for all or even a majority of regulation.

If you read the OP, a primary counterexample is mass mobilization (e.g. government efforts to support WW2) which are a great leveler.

Any engineer who has built systems should understand how complexity increases non-linearly with scale and that interaction effects are complicated to reason about. Debugging the performance of a large system is often really unintuitive. So it is surprising when these same people think there is a simple black and white diagnosis that explains away our socioeconomic challenges, which is a more complicated system than anything we've engineered.

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

#80

Post by sigmaprimus »

I love reading the comments on stories like this and consider these comments to be a bellwether as to the current state of inequality in our society. Unfortunately I tend to consider myself one who exists on the lower part of the wealth distribution logarithm within the western world, globally it's a different story. Just as anyone tweeting on their smart phone or tablet claiming to be part of the 99% might want to rethink that in a global context, most of us in the west are global 1% ers. Could it be that the rise in terror incedents recently may in fact be caused by this inequality and not just radical religious zealots? Even if this is not the case we may want to make sure that our empathy does not diminish to the point where we suggest that the starving people of the world eat cake if there is no bread.
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