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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

#141

Post by SpaceDingus9000 »

crdoconnor wrote: post #112
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…

Employers looking to divide and conquer will try everything in their power to pit employees against unions, including lying about the integrity of the paid trade union officials. Media owners will similarly run false stories, exaggerate and blow out of proportion any instances of union corruption whilst simultaneously downplaying and ignoring vastly worse instances of corruption by the owners and managers.

I don't know why this was downvoted. This shouldn't be that controversial. It's in the employer's interests, and the media's interests are often in sync with the same corporations.

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

#142

Post by SixSigma »

BEEdwards wrote: post #74
SixSigma wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Daniel Hannan explains it better than I could

This has a partial transcript of his presentation at Oxford Uni

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-17/daniel-hannan-right...

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

#143

Post by SixSigma »

baq wrote: post #86
SixSigma wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

+1 on explaing why would you consider it favorable to be outside of the EU, assuming you don't want to keep free access to the EU common market ala norway.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-17/daniel-hannan-right...

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

#144

Post by otalp »

sigmaprimus wrote: post #97
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not - globally, the 1% own just over half of everything. The 99% includes almost everybody everywhere. Even working-class Americans.

Fair enough maybe not 1% but the metric you are using does not exclude us from the 1%, keep in mind that 2.7 billion people are trying to survive on less than 2 dollars a day. Eg, there are 1000 people in a group, one of which has 1 million dollars, 9 others have 100 dollars each and the rest only have 1 dollar each there are still 10 people in the top 1%.

>2.7 billion people are trying to survive on less than 2 dollars a day

2 dollars a day isn't all that little in places like say, India. Sure, they're not going to be living a life of luxury, but it's very different from $2 a day in the US, and you shouldn't have trouble feeding yourself and having shelter with $2 a day in India, which amounts to about Rs.50,000 a year. In fact even though inequality is increasing, a number of studies have confirmed that poverty and extreme poverty have drastically reduced over the past few decades. It still exists of course, but much better than what it used to be.

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

#145

Post by soundwave106 »

germinalphrase wrote: post #34
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.

Culturally, Americans have chosen "Nazis" and zombies as default groups on which we can assert violence without questioning our moral values or their expression. While Richard Spencer is even saying in that clip that he isn't a Neo Nazi (before getting punched) - a great deal of the American population don't draw the lines as finely as he might. He's certainly said some things that put him in that world of thought. I…

There's a very long-standing association of "neo-Nazis" with disaffected whites that are over-prone to violent behavior towards anyone that aren't neo-Nazis. (As far as I'm aware Richard Spencer has never been violent himself, but the association of neo-Nazi types with overly-violent people has extended back for decades.) So it's a bit more than just the "Nazis are the face of evil" type symbolism seen in the movies.

Evoking the sort of deep tribal behavior Mr. Spencer is engaging in, instinctively often leads to tribal responses (including violence). Which is unfortunate. I don't think Richard Spencer "deserves" to be punched, and I don't see punching as a noble act. Violence is only justifiable as a defense against violence, in my opinion. I actually think aggressor violence plays right into the hands of the "help we're being oppressed!" narrative, that seems to be a lot of the "drive" behind white supremacism.

I cannot see Mr. Spencer's philosophy to be anything but illogical and immoral to the rational mind. I therefore don't have any real good way to combat his (and other) tribalism, other than continuing to emphasize rational thought. Such is a much more difficult job in this current climate, when the current leader of the US got there half by exploiting tribal politics. But what else will work? I can't see the fisticuffs approach leading to anything other than deepening division.

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

#146

Post by njharman »

RobertoG wrote: post #118
jellicle wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so the rebuilding is done for free, funded by the value of the original building? No. The rebuilding requires additional work/money inputs to create the new building. The value of the original building is lost forever.

"The value of the original building is lost forever." Of course, but if you are a building company, why would you care about that?. There is this idea, that, in a society with very little scarcity, would be almost impossible to make a profit. Your only chance would be to burn everything and start again. I really hope that theory is false.

Why? What is so great about profit? I would be very glad to give up profit for no scarcity.

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

#147

Post by jpttsn »

skadamou wrote: post #96
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…

>“People should be compensated for the value they produce. Profits are a signal of how much people value what is produced." I’m hoping you might expand on this a little. I’ve never quite understood this line of reasoning mostly because it seems like there is a lot of money to be made in finance and yet I’m not sure how hedge funds “produce” anything. I really do mean this earnestly, I don’t know a whole lot about eco…

From an economist's perspective, bankers can create value. If you want to lend money and I want to borrow, but we don't know/trust each other, a banker can "produce" a big help to match us together and price the risk. Those are two examples; there are tons of other services bankers provide their customers.

I believe bankers add value this way. To my eyes "bankers don't produce" is just as unfair as "coaches don't score any goals."

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

#148

Post by badsock »

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…

If this were true then social mobility would be very low in countries like Germany where the government is more involved, compared to the USA. Yet the opposite is true.

The government improving the lives of children through subsidies and high-quality universal education is the most direct means of breaking the link between your own fortunes and those of the family you were (through no fault or efforts of your own) born into.

Also, I would argue that inequality (beyond a certain point, which the US is far past) /is/ inherently bad. The super-wealthy can have their mega yachts, it's their unfair political influence, which is in proportion to their wealth, that's the issue.

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

#149

Post by whyileft »

sigmaprimus wrote: post #133
hueving wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>at least 48% of the population is strongly against Where did you get that number from? Hillary Clinton got 65.8 Million votes. That represents 20.6% of the United states population. >That group often starts to look for alternative ways to flex its majority power. See above. They were the majority of voters but they defintely don't represent the majority of the US.

Since this thread is going a bit off topic I figured I would share a link from your friendly neighbors to the north it relates to your two party system and is from a great canadian leader we had a long time ago, who brought us our version of obama care.. It's the story of mouseland. https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://...

What you are showing is a common tactic for a group that knows they are doing the wrong thing to validate themselves by claiming everyone is a bad guy. Or that the other side is worse etc etc.

You would seriously have to be blind to not realize the the current path of policies is simply incorrect policies that will lead to harm. For example instead of paying for a wall, Mexico will just pay for better ports as Donald Trump and the fools that voted for him seem to forget they have coastal shipping access to both Europe and Asia. Not to mention all of South and Central America.

That's the problem. Replacing social security with private retirement funds is a debate about which is better. With pluses and minuses on both sides. And guess what? The combination of 401k's IRAs and Social Security kind of does that. See how that works? Its actually saner than people want to believe. Same with things like how health care is run. Its not like we have some kind of socialist utopian system. Its a compromise. Or taxation with our 15% cap gains. Both sides have different opinions but both are at least based in some kind of functional reality where they might actually work. And the reality is that they are both a little bit right so in the end we typically wind up someone in the middle despite how it looks.

Stupid crap like building a wall is just plain incorrect policy. I mean if you even asked experts in border security, they would not suggest just building a giant wall. Its like what a 7 year old would suggest. What you would actually have is very similar to what we currently have. Its pretty easy to see a group of people running across the open desert and intercept them with the technology we currently have.

That is the big difference between what is happening now and what is typical in US politics.

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

#150

Post by jpttsn »

nabla9 wrote: post #120
netman21 wrote: post #2

So the last decade's decline in violence in the US indicates a decline in inequality?

What if we count all violence, including exported violence? Saudi Arabia has extreme inequality, but it has remained stable while exporting violence to the rest of the world. Maybe war against terror provides release for this violence in US too.

There are always so many wonderful things we can start counting, when the original data doesn't seem sound.
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