371–380 of 548 posts
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Interesting. the solution should be to just to tax Wilt Chamberlain at a rate high enough that the astronomical net worths become merely "stratospheric".
"Interesting. the solution should be to just to tax Wilt Chamberlain at a rate high enough that the astronomical net worths become merely "stratospheric"." The solution to what ? Could you describe the problem in the (above) Wilt Chamberlain example ?
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Well that standard claim is utterly bunk given the reality is that we cannot just choose to switch to a different supplier when: 1. Most of the time there is no alternative 2. Even when there's alternative, it's probably crap 3. If the alternative isn't crap, then the existing market players will engage in anti-competitive tactics until there are only crap market players remaining. Amazon is, by any definition, a com…
First, losing money to edge out competition is not illegal. Loss-leaders are a normal business practice. Second, none of your three points refute the Chamberlain argument. 1. There were limited alternatives to Wilt. When Wilt was named MVP in 1959, there were 8 NBA teams. 2. Technically, there were 39 other players in the starting lineups of NBA teams that year. 3. Among those starters was Bill Russell, whose Boston…
Well for a start, loss leading and intentionally lowering prices unsustainably to cut out competitors are different things. Loss leaders don't exist to be anti-competitive, they exist to attract people to your shop so they will buy the other things you have, which is how you make profit.
Selling some things below cost in order to sell other things to make a profit is fine. Selling some things below cost in order to not make a profit, living off of venture capital while your competitors go out of business? Completely different story.
And, quite frankly, 'normal business practice' means fuck all. Lots of things are normal, illegal and unethical.
>Second, none of your three points refute the Chamberlain argument.
No, the argument resting on a false dichotomy refutes itself.
>And yet, Wilt is still featured in this classic thought experiment to illustrate fair distribution of wealth.
I have no fucking idea what NBA is.
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This is an argument I haven't seen before, and I've been trying to follow the tree of wikipedia links, but I'm not understanding terminology like "patterned principle." Is it a fixed distribution of wealth, or opportunity, or some other thing? Would Wilt spending all his excess income bring things back into balance, or do extra possessions also violate the principle? What if he spent the money on experiences? Or bett…
> I'm not understanding terminology like "patterned principle." See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/34r4vg/endst... This awkward terminology is something that infuriates me about Nozick.
Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...
Sorry, I couldn't disagree more. While Jeff Bezos' upbringing isn't exact destitute, his rise from a modest background[1] to extreme riches is evidence to me that the American system still works to some degree. No offense but I think going all the way to conflating this with feudalism slightly discredits and damages efforts to fix real problems in our society such as increasing wealth gap. [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…
There should always be motivators (like money) for people to work harder, take risks, invent things, and fill a spectrum. I'm not sure if that spectrum needs to be in factors of millions though, instead of say, 100-1000s.
And I'm not saying anything about Bezos in particular. He really is self-made, but for everyone of him there are 100s of (patently less rich) inherited top 0.1%:ers.
But did he work millions of times harder than someone else? Did he risk that much?
I'll gladly work TWICE as much/hard for 5-10 times the reward. A lot of people do, for diminishing returns.
It seems to me that the problem with the totem pole is that each level is logarithmic, but always talked about in absolute terms. If my boss makes 10x and her boss makes 10x of what she makes, aspiring to 100x my wealth looks like a completely impossible goal in my lifetime - but it's really just two promotions.
An argument could be made that some people try to sabotage those attempting to climb the totem pole, but once someone has reached the top and did not illegally interact with anyone they passed on the climb, why all the hate?
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I think that's a little hyperbolic. In feudalism the balance of power is enforced by violence, whereas Jeff Bezos got rich because you gave him money in exchange for products. Like, "Hey, here's this cool electronic device called the Amazon Echo for $50." is a markedly different from "Farm here or I'll decapitate you." The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terr…
> "Farm here or I'll decapitate you." I think you got confused, that's communism. :P And it's not decapitation (too messy) it is a bullet to the back of the head or death in a labor camp. Feudalism is "you can farm here but you owe me and your promise to fight in my wars". > The fact that you harbor a resentment as if the former is anything like the latter is slightly terrifying. Really? Is it terrifying to compare a…
I think you're confused about communism. What you're talking about seems more about soviet russia and other countries that run/ran an authoritarian state-capitalism system (often calling it communism).
However, communism has nothing to do with enforcing people to work under a threat of death, rather the contrary.
Everytime I see these types of articles I wonder if we're still in feudalism. Should we really be celebrating that a single individual is worth more than hundreds of millions of people[1]? I dunno, it seems dystopian , like we're enslaved to the system. [1] https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/...
If you use a metric which is more in line with subjective wealth -- say, assets or sustainable annual consumption -- then the it doesn't seem anywhere near as crazy.
Basically, Oxfam is exploiting a bug in how people misunderstand wealth.
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Well, I'm not necessarily suggesting that wealth be distributed equally throughout all society. But maybe we would be better off if wealth and ownership operated on a more human scale. Even in a massive company like Amazon, no matter how hard A works or how much B goes on Reddit, A will never be one million times more valuable than B. That sort of piece-of-every-pie money is an absurdity. In my fantasy economy, A cou…
If you put an upper limit, you'll have people stop once they hit that limit. Why would you go after that billion dollar idea when you are hard capped at millions? Nobody would ever go after moonshots. If we're talking about fantasy economies, IMO we should move to a system where we don't need money at all. Money is basically a way to partition access to limited resources among people. Except, outside of this planet,…
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If you believe in your idea get a loan from family, friends or banks or get a high paying job save money and then start your business. Starting and running a successful business is not easy which is why the rewards should go to the risk taker.
Someone working in a fulfillment center making ~40-50K each year won't be able to put together 100K capital to risk, even with family and friends. A large portion of HN readers are entrepreneurs, a lot of stories here tell the tale of failure, the burden and how to bear it. Yes it's not easy. And then there are people for the "not easy" is virtually impossible. Because they can't even start a business with any chance…
I am not talking about the people making ~40-50K each year. I am talking about the software engineers in Amazon.
Creating a better managed society is a complete different conversation.
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Property is violence. If I try to take something that "isn't my property", the state will intervene with violence (e.g. forced imprisonment, etc.) on behalf of the person deemed to be the "lawful owner".
Can you propose any alternative system that doesn't involve the concept of property that manages to avoid violence? Broadly speaking, demand is unlimited and supply is limited. With these two as a given, violence is essentially inevitable. Property near as I can tell, is a cultural tool that minimizes violence and maximizes supply. Only when there is abundance outstripping demand of a population, is violence avoidabl…