A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality • Hacker News Board

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#11

Post by danharaj » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #9

WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

What's the best solution to this - if wealthy and high-income individuals get more power via political lobbying, they can then gain more wealth and higher incomes, gaining even more lobbying power. They can also flood the media with advertising money and propagandist messaging to convince voters to care more about less impactful issues. It feels like an endless cycle to me. Other than war or complete societal upheava…

I'm still amazed at how effectively we have collectively shunned thought along these lines by turning the founding father of the relevant branch of economical philosophy into a real life he-who-shall-not-be-named. Anyone who wants to talk about these problems either has to either re-invent the wheel or mention the unmentionable name and doom themselves to immediate dismissal as a kook.

A spectre is haunting Hacker News...

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#12

Post by brandonmenc » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

What's the best solution to this - if wealthy and high-income individuals get more power via political lobbying, they can then gain more wealth and higher incomes, gaining even more lobbying power. They can also flood the media with advertising money and propagandist messaging to convince voters to care more about less impactful issues. It feels like an endless cycle to me. Other than war or complete societal upheava…

> Other than war or complete societal upheaval, what can actually be done to solve the problem?

A wealth (not income) tax.

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#13

Post by frgtpsswrdlame » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #4

fake-name wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best option is probably hackernews's boogeyman - government regulation. The issue is it has to be in place before money command structures have a chance to develop, so it's not something you can really implement now . Realistically, it may not be fixable without fixing capitalism, which no one has figured out how to do.

[deleted]

Of course you still want the government to do some regulating. For instance government will be necessary to solve collective action and public good problems. So once we've entered that realm, the solution isn't to just back off and let collective action and public good problems run rampant, it's to restrict lobbying and corruption while continuing to regulate.

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#14

Post by csallen » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:38 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #9

WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

What's the best solution to this - if wealthy and high-income individuals get more power via political lobbying, they can then gain more wealth and higher incomes, gaining even more lobbying power. They can also flood the media with advertising money and propagandist messaging to convince voters to care more about less impactful issues. It feels like an endless cycle to me. Other than war or complete societal upheava…

I'm still amazed at how effectively we have collectively shunned thought along these lines by turning the founding father of the relevant branch of economical philosophy into a real life he-who-shall-not-be-named. Anyone who wants to talk about these problems either has to either re-invent the wheel or mention the unmentionable name and doom themselves to immediate dismissal as a kook.

Who are you talking about?

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#15

Post by java_script » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

csallen wrote: post #14

jjoonathan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still amazed at how effectively we have collectively shunned thought along these lines by turning the founding father of the relevant branch of economical philosophy into a real life he-who-shall-not-be-named. Anyone who wants to talk about these problems either has to either re-invent the wheel or mention the unmentionable name and doom themselves to immediate dismissal as a kook.

Who are you talking about?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_Brothers

e: Oh shit I just realized who I'm replying to. Serious answer time. Socialism will be a disruptive new paradigm for start-ups and other businesses where (following the idea of a meritocracy) workers, and not stuffy old capitalists, each own an equal number of shares at their place of work. And even more innovative in structure than Zappos and Valve, it allows for capital investment decisions to be voted on by individual contributors, throwing away traditional management structures you see at crufty old firms. Pretty cool stuff! According to some dusty old theories it's the "Exit Strategy" for our largest firms.

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#16

Post by maxxxxx » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

digitalmaster wrote: post #8

So looks like the 80s is when things start going south (increased income inequality) so I looked up who was president during that time, then looked at their wiki page to see their economic policy and found this gem of a quote: "Soon after taking office, Reagan began implementing sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reduction to sp…

From what I have read a lot of those trends were already on the way in the 70s and before. Reagan certainly helped but the banks were looking for more money already before that.

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#17

Post by bluGill » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

What's the best solution to this - if wealthy and high-income individuals get more power via political lobbying, they can then gain more wealth and higher incomes, gaining even more lobbying power. They can also flood the media with advertising money and propagandist messaging to convince voters to care more about less impactful issues. It feels like an endless cycle to me. Other than war or complete societal upheava…

Many things can be done. Be careful though as ALL have unintended side effects. What we have is an unintended side effect of our system of government, in different systems of governments people find other ways to make themselves more powerful.

I think on balance I'll take our current system. It isn't perfect, but all systems have downsides (if you think otherwise you don't know much about your preferred system): so far nobody has suggested something better.

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#18

Post by TaylorAlexander » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

What's the best solution to this - if wealthy and high-income individuals get more power via political lobbying, they can then gain more wealth and higher incomes, gaining even more lobbying power. They can also flood the media with advertising money and propagandist messaging to convince voters to care more about less impactful issues. It feels like an endless cycle to me. Other than war or complete societal upheava…

Well, I bet most commenters on here are, like myself, part of a pretty privileged class.

What we can do is spread our own ideas about what privileged people can do to actively counteract the work of selfish privileged people who want more for themselves.

Personally I really dislike that my day job only serves to grow the income divide, and I’m working hard on finding a new job where my work will be open source. In that way, my work will not just be for a select few, but for anyone with the means to take advantage of it.

That is still a select group, but I also advocate for selfless giving of our labor to others. I want to do more than just commit my work to open source, but also to seek out those with less privilege, learn more about what they need, and direct my efforts towards work that is more clearly beneficial to these broader groups.

In short, those of us with privilege can practice selflessness, and use our privilege to help the disadvantaged even if that does not pay as much. I believe I will be happier in the future if I am helping others than if I had a big bank account but only worked to grow the divide.

Oh and a big part is education - I work in robotics and am passionate about mitigating inequality and so I see that building high quality cheap and free robotics educational resources can help avoid a privileged class taking advantage of those who would otherwise not be able to participate in growth due to automation.

What do you think of this?

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#19

Post by bilbo0s » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #2

What's the best solution to this - if wealthy and high-income individuals get more power via political lobbying, they can then gain more wealth and higher incomes, gaining even more lobbying power. They can also flood the media with advertising money and propagandist messaging to convince voters to care more about less impactful issues. It feels like an endless cycle to me. Other than war or complete societal upheava…

War and societal upheaval never solve the problem of the common man's inequality with the élites.

"Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece etc etc etc"

Or something like that anyway. That was Goering, or Goebels. Don't really remember which, but the point is war and societal upheaval are not tools to solve problems that the common man has with élites. War and societal upheaval are tools to solve the problems that one group of élites has with some other group of élites. The only thing a common guy would get out of it is to "come back to his farm in one piece", so to speak. (And a lot of us might not even get that.)

I mean, frankly, we can live on our farms in one piece without going to war at all. Sure, there are some rare exceptions, usually involving being a minority, where you truly are fighting for your life. In those instances the enemy's stated purpose is not to allow you to live on your farm. But even then, you don't gain equality with the élites if you win, you just get to stay alive.

Re: A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

#20

Post by JustSomeNobody » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

digitalmaster wrote: post #8

So looks like the 80s is when things start going south (increased income inequality) so I looked up who was president during that time, then looked at their wiki page to see their economic policy and found this gem of a quote: "Soon after taking office, Reagan began implementing sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reduction to sp…

It was sold to the middle class as "Trickle down economics". Basically, if you make the rich richer, your pie gets bigger too. Sadly, people bought that line.