Peter Turchin has done similar work. This book is a great read!
https://www.amazon.com/War-Peace-Rise-Fall-Empires/dp/045228...
Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
191–200 of 262 posts
Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#192Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well technically running separate businesses for each salary tier would still get around it. The CEO's pay would be the combination of all of the individual CEO salaries that they would be doing. Also cleaning and administration services wouldn't be contractors, but services bought from another company. So that wouldn't count either.
Point of interest: sometimes technical people forget that the law doesn't work the way that computers do. If you close all reasonable loopholes and make your intent clear when you write the law, a judge (at least here in the US, I know the UK has a slightly different system) is not going to say "Oh, that's undefined behavior, you get a free pass." He or she is going to say "That's undefined behavior, but you're tryin…
Well I don't actually consider the options I've presented to be that far fetched.
For all the places that I've worked, the cleaners have always been part of another company, one that was contracted to provide cleaning services. There's also firms and contractors that provide bookkeeping services for small businesses. I'm sure a lot of other administrative tasks could be outsourced as well.
Having these services provided by other companies would raise the minimum salary in a company quite a lot.
The other thing companies do is set up plenty of shell/thin corporations around the world, assign the IP rights to those in minimal tax countries, and then charge massive internal fees so that all the rest of the organisation barely makes a profit. This sort of thing seems to be the same level of loop-hole as setting up multiple companies so that the CxO's can get paid more.
Of course that's forgetting that most of the CxO pay is actually in stock and options, and not so much is in cash, so I don't know how much a law capping CEO pay would do. Some notable CEO's have actually taken just $1 of actual cash for payment (because legally they have to be paid something to receive company perks).
Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It legitimizes their position in their minds.
You punch someone, you are certainly not encouraging them to not hate you. You are not making your point that you are something not deserving of hate. If anything you are proving it and cauterizing their hatred for you in the process.
It achieves nothing positive save very brief catharsis.
Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#195The title is a bit misleading. He uncovered a correlation between violence and equality.
Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great wealth is rewarded for placing winning bets, not for hard work. For example, gambling on investments, as with Buffet, or on a new idea, as with Zuckerberg. Sometimes just for gambling on Powerball. The great rewards are balanced by great risks, and many of these gambles are valuable to society. Where would we be without new businesses and new ideas?
>The great rewards are balanced by great risks Zuckerburgs wealth exceeds that of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. Do you honestly believe that the risk he incurred was greater than all of our nations oil rig workers, foresters, soldiers and police combined? Am I missing something? If Facebook goes belly up do his shareholders get to cut off his hands?
[deleted]
Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Point of interest: sometimes technical people forget that the law doesn't work the way that computers do. If you close all reasonable loopholes and make your intent clear when you write the law, a judge (at least here in the US, I know the UK has a slightly different system) is not going to say "Oh, that's undefined behavior, you get a free pass." He or she is going to say "That's undefined behavior, but you're tryin…
Asperger's is useful in programming, not so much in Law.
My friend and I started a habit of prefacing humorously pedantic rebuttals with "Well, actually...", but also calling each other on it when we did so involuntarily.
It's surprising how often we had cause to (although maybe we're both borderline).
Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Often times it is in the interest of certain capitalists to get our government to engage in imperialism, or destabilize certain regions, which helps lead to the awful conditions for some people in the Middle East, and I think this helps pave the way to religious extremism." This is patently false. The US - and 'capitalists' do not want 'destabilization' - over and above all they want 'stability'. Case and point: Sau…
This is a wildly revisionist view of US influence on the Middle East. For starters, you're assuming that the US government and it's intelligence agencies always understand the actual consequences of their actions and are always successful, which is hilariously false. So instability is a frequently unintended result of meddling in foreign affairs, despite our intentions. And the idea that all these nations would be "t…
"For starters, you're assuming that the US government and it's intelligence agencies always understand the actual consequences of their actions and are always successful"
I didn't assume that at all.
In fact, I'd agree with that assessment.
But the purpose of US involvement in the M/E is not to 'destabilize' - it's the opposite.
Even out of pure self-interest - the US gains from a stable M/E not a 'unstable one'.
If you were Exxon - would you rather a stable political regime with which you do business? Or one that is changing all the time - wherein it's so dangerous oil deals are impossible?
Do you know how many deals US Oil companies got in Iraq?
ZERO. Nada.
100% of Iraqi Oil is extracted, and exported by local entities - and European, Russian and Chinese companies.
The US got nothing out of it - granted - some Oil 'services' companies got some decent contracts.
It's contrarian and unjustified to indicate that the US wants to engender instability in the region.
"I'm no ME expert but your understanding of the history of these nations is incredibly shallow. "
Save your ad hominem for Huffpo :)
"The powerless are not the cause of the world's problems."
The US is not the creator of terrorists.
Terrorists (and their ideologies) are the cause of terrorism. Some of them are powerless, some of them are not.
The Middle East is rife with natural resources, it's 100% their own fault, collectively, that the ME is mostly a craphole (despite some pretty nice things) and so many of them want to leave for Europe and North America.
Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well technically running separate businesses for each salary tier would still get around it. The CEO's pay would be the combination of all of the individual CEO salaries that they would be doing. Also cleaning and administration services wouldn't be contractors, but services bought from another company. So that wouldn't count either.
Point of interest: sometimes technical people forget that the law doesn't work the way that computers do. If you close all reasonable loopholes and make your intent clear when you write the law, a judge (at least here in the US, I know the UK has a slightly different system) is not going to say "Oh, that's undefined behavior, you get a free pass." He or she is going to say "That's undefined behavior, but you're tryin…
That's easy to apply to a common-sense law like "Don't cut other people's limbs off without their permission".
It's not so easy to apply to a law written in terms of concepts like "two employees of the same company", because "company" is itself something that only exists as a legal construct and "employee" already has a specific legal meaning that's significantly different from its common-sense one.
Re: Stanford historian uncovers a grim correlation between violence and inequality
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great wealth is rewarded for placing winning bets, not for hard work. For example, gambling on investments, as with Buffet, or on a new idea, as with Zuckerberg. Sometimes just for gambling on Powerball. The great rewards are balanced by great risks, and many of these gambles are valuable to society. Where would we be without new businesses and new ideas?
>The great rewards are balanced by great risks Zuckerburgs wealth exceeds that of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. Do you honestly believe that the risk he incurred was greater than all of our nations oil rig workers, foresters, soldiers and police combined? Am I missing something? If Facebook goes belly up do his shareholders get to cut off his hands?
Imagine investing $1000 in something with a 1 in a million chance of success (just for example). For that to be a rational bet, the payoff would need to be a billion dollars.
Oil rig workers, foresters, soldiers and police have guaranteed pay instead of a very small chance of very great rewards.