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'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

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Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#41

Post by nailer »

Jabanga wrote: post #27
nailer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We force people to pay for roads, firefighters, police, healthcare and ensure all children have the same opportunity. Healthy adults can stand for themselves, children and the ill need protection.

But that's not a justification. That's just telling me we do this a lot.

You're right, it's not a justification. The reason I think we do all those things is because it's good for society: there might be talented kids that have poor parents, so giving them a good start in life creates more successful adults. More successful adults is good for the economy and for the harmoniousness of society.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#42

Post by eric_b »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #33
eric_b wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with you. I've thought about this as well. Most of the folks I know in bad situations had some early stumbles and they sort of just gave up, as you say. The thing is - and where I struggle - is that the early stumbles weren't insurmountable. It's like they had no fire, no tenacity, no will power.

Fire, tenacity, and willpower for... what, exactly? Towards what end? Why should everyone have to play ubermensch just to survive?

Because that's how nature works? Because it's naive to think we've evolved so far that we are no longer subject to natural forces and evolutionary history?

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#43

Post by djrogers »

radicalbyte wrote: post #28
heartsucker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the children have no control over who their parents are, and we shouldn't punish with a lifetime of diminished opportunities because their parents aren't as "good" as others.

..and any child with "bad" parents has to work ten times as hard because they've spent their entire life swimming against the current. There's a reason why certain communities have radically different outcomes. The more motivated kind set their offspring up so that the default outcome is, on average, success. They have to try hard to not succeed.

> They have to try hard to not succeed.

That is utter crap. They do have to make some bad decisions, but it's not like success is guaranteed for everyone who grows up in a white middle class neighborhood.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#44

Post by eastWestMath »

Jabanga wrote: post #7
ikeyany wrote: post #5

Obama used a few phrases that not only sounded pleasing, but accurately addressed what's happening to Americans: "Everyone, including the rich, need to pay their share." "Americans from all backgrounds should have a fair shot at a quality education, not just those who happen to grow up in nice neighborhoods." He tapped into equality of opportunity, while acknowledging that some will be more successful than others. Th…

I personally disagree that this should be the rallying cry. Why should someone who invests nothing in their own children get to see their children have equal opportunities to the children of another person who invests everything into their children? Why should a person who has 10 children get to see each one have the same amount of opportunity as each one of the children of someone who has 2 children, assuming equal…

Jesus fucking christ dude, it's not about giving parents the opportunity to see their children be successful. It's about giving children the chance to be successful.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#45

Post by boona »

ikeyany wrote: post #5

Obama used a few phrases that not only sounded pleasing, but accurately addressed what's happening to Americans: "Everyone, including the rich, need to pay their share." "Americans from all backgrounds should have a fair shot at a quality education, not just those who happen to grow up in nice neighborhoods." He tapped into equality of opportunity, while acknowledging that some will be more successful than others. Th…

> "Americans from all backgrounds should have a fair shot at a quality education, not just those who happen to grow up in nice neighborhoods."

While the rich pay more than their fair share and then some (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KENaWXPmBr0), I would think that quality education is something we could all get behind. It's unfortunate though that the left in large part seem to be opposed to school choice. That means that if you live in a more impoverished neighborhood, you're stuck with whatever school you're assigned to instead of being able to shop around, and for a lot of impoverished neighborhoods, that means schools with bad teachers and administrators, and there is no way out of it. This is a huge problem in black communities, and one area where the right legislation could make a significant impact.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#46

Post by dahart »

I can agree with a lot of this opinion piece; fairness is more important than equality, and it's hard to rally around anything that's abstract. Yes. People rally around things that affect them directly and have an obvious course of action. Despite the inequality in the US, the majority of Americans have a comfortable standard of living. And I've frequently heard the idea that poor people vote republican because they expect to be rich some day.

But anyway the closer seems really weird to me.

> I also find it striking how frequently anti-inequality messages come from academia, which in reality has a remarkably inegalitarian system of allocating rewards. For instance, consider the differences in pay, security and working conditions for tenured professors versus adjuncts; citation inequality is very high too.

This seems to be suggesting that we should discount academics because they're hypocrites because their house has inequality too. Very specious.

Why is it surprising that the only people asking whether we have equality and taking the time to find out are the ones reporting that we don't?

There are many things wrong in academia and with tenure, but why exactly is it unfair for adjuncts to have less pay & security? Tenure is harder to get, and adjuncts are non tenure track.

Citation inequality? What does this have to do with global economic inequality? I'm sure there is citation inequality but the paper cited doesn't really demonstrate it. It catalogues where citations are concentrated, which doesn't prove inequality. To show inequality you'd have to compare submissions and rejection rates, not acceptance rates alone.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#47

Post by cryoshon »

yeah, "fight inequality" is ineffective at rallying the benefactors of inequality-- boomers and the rich. big surprise.

bernie sanders is the most popular politician in america. is it because his fundamental message of needing to reduce inequality is falling flat? no.

garbage article, ignores objective realities in favor of babbling in circles...

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#48

Post by Jabanga »

openasocket wrote: post #32
Jabanga wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we're not punishing them. We're simply not taking, by force, money from one person, to spend it raising the children of another. If we force people to subsidize other people's poor children, we create perverse incentives to have a maximum number of children with minimum personal investment in each. It cannot end well for society.

You're talking like we don't do these things already. We've have public schools for over a century, we have various forms of welfare, all kinds of special grant programs to help the poor pay for college, etc. And society hasn't collapsed, the poor aren't popping out a dozen kids because they know they get free primary education. All people are proposing is that we improve these programs. It's not an ideological argum…

How redistributive were public schools 100 years ago, when they were almost exclusively paid for by local taxes within communities where people had very similar levels of income, and when education spending as a share of GDP was miniscule compared to today?

I would argue that the harm of redistribution has historically been more than counterbalanced by the accelerating rate of technological innovation, but that the last 40 years suggests that the growth of the harmful effects of welfarism are starting to outpace the accelerating natural-rate of innovation. That's what GDP and income growth figures would suggest to me. Also the explosion in single parenthood.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#49

Post by Frondo »

greggman wrote: post #11
crystalmeph wrote: post #4

If you want people to fight inequality with you, you have to first prove to them it's actually a problem. It's a bit of a leap to convince somebody that just because Bill Gates is much richer than the typical person, somebody more deserving must have gone without for him to get so rich.

Random semi-related anecdote Japanese video game companies pay like 1/3rd or less what USA video game companies pay in salary. AFAIK similar things are true for other industries. Maybe not as bad as 1/3rd but that's not relevant to the point below. In Japanese school (17 years ago) my teacher brought up the topic that CEOs don't get paid as much in Japan so it's more equal. My response at the time was "why do I care…

What I don't get is how people can hear "the CEO makes 100x what I make" and not then think "there's a lot of money in this company, I should be paid a heck of a lot more". Cause you know it's not just the CEO that's taking a big chunk of change. Why be content with what you're given, even if it's a lot, when you could be demanding more, cause you know it's there?

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#50

Post by eli_gottlieb »

eric_b wrote: post #42
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fire, tenacity, and willpower for... what, exactly? Towards what end? Why should everyone have to play ubermensch just to survive?

Because that's how nature works? Because it's naive to think we've evolved so far that we are no longer subject to natural forces and evolutionary history?

So farmers have spent thousands of years of civilization valiantly striving to out-ubermensch each-other, and the rest of us just never heard about it? Shepherds? Priests? Scientists? Artists and writers?

Shit, how have I missed the evolutionary war of all against all going on all around me? There are so many gene-rivals I could have stabbed in back-alleys!

Or does evolution maybe allow for successful strategies towards survival and reproduction that don't neatly map to metaphors about war?

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