Absolutely - and that's a good thing. Those who produce more should earn more as well.
Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They lead reliably to flamewars, which we don't want here.
Is Inequality Inevitable?
51–60 of 628 posts
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#52Absolutely - and that's a good thing. Those who produce more should earn more as well.
if you read the article, you'll find that the authors discuss how the amount of production has absolutely nothing to do with "earning more" when it comes to economy-scale concentration of wealth.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you get the computer you're writing on, if not by the method described above?
(not op but) parents supported me through a high quality education, in the safe wealthy western country they brought me into, helped me to develop social skills, and provided a stable upbringing which—all combined—gave me the confidence, comfort and skills to navigate the labour market, secure a well-paying job, and eventually use my wages to purchase this computer.
Sound like you got there exactly by the method described above.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#54Wrong question. Better question: why is the scale of inequality acceptable?
Because capitalism and free enterprise are predicated on fair competition and equal access. In theory, the best and most innovative ideas thrive and lead to economic growth. Extreme inequality undermines this by allowing those who already have significant wealth to put their finger on the scales (lobbying, anticompetitive practices, etc.)
> Because capitalism and free enterprise are predicated on fair competition and equal access.
This is so important and seldom mentioned in internet discussions.
> Extreme inequality undermines this by allowing those who already have significant wealth to put their finger on the scales (lobbying, anticompetitive practices, etc.)
There is a number os scholars who will point that as we currently stand, those things, including the extreme inequality, are consequence of the current system.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#55Inequality is inevitable. It is baked into everything in nature, from the stars to ocean depths. When was the last time you looked up at the night sky and saw a uniformly spaced and evenly lit field of stars?
Evolution itself would not exist without inequality. Yes, some animals were better than others at certain tasks and evolutionary pressure did it's thing over time.
I suck as a dancer. I suck as a painter. I suck at a lot of things. And yet, I am a better than others at certain things and I am massively better than others in other areas. My life and that of everyone around me has inequality as a positive element rather than a negative. This is why I hire a plumber and an electrician and don't do everything myself.
EQUALITY OF OUTCOME IS A FANTASY.
Equality of opportunity is important and should be promoted far and wide. Trying to force equal outcomes is just silly, sorry.
Hence the Pareto distribution. It's real and it is a fact of nature everywhere you look. There is no such thing as equally distributed outcomes in but the most esoteric corner cases (having trouble thinking of one example).
As for the scale of inequality. That's another red herring.
The way I live today is beyond the equivalent of a rich person a hundred years ago. It is WAY beyond the super-rich before that. Kings did not live this way centuries ago. And yet I don't have Bill Gates level money. Not even close.
The average person today lives far better than the wealthy lived not too long ago. They certainly have greater access to amazing medical advances as well as technology. There are over FOUR AND A HALF BILLION people world-wide using the internet. When you consider that, in rough terms, about two and a half billion out of the 7.7 billion on the planet cannot use the internet (too young or too old) that means that approximately 87% of those able to use the internet use it. You start slicing that further and you might just discover the percentage is much higher than that. For example, my father certainly falls under the category of not too old to be counted as a potential internet user. However, he has less than zero interest and doesn't use it. My mother, on the other hand, is on the 'net every day.
Anyhow, the point is that this business of vilifying the "1%" is just silly. It has no bearing whatsoever on how people live. In other words, they are not taking oxygen out of the room, quite to the contrary.
We do need to raise even more people out of poverty, with some areas of the world notable for a desperate need for improvement. Nobody is saying we can't and should not do better, we always can. What isn't sensible is the constant finger-pointing to this mythical "1%" as the problem. Every year we raise millions of people out of poverty. Life, in general, has been getting better and better over time. Even in places where people have difficult lives you'll find they wear clothes and have things that are markedly better than what was available to them just a decade or two ago.
If we want to make things better for more people we just need to continue to focus on growing economies through free market capitalism. It's the only force in known history that has elevated so many people out of the dark ages. Everything else is a formula for disaster and misery, also a historical fact.
OK, I'll duck now. Let me have it.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#56Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#57Yes, we are all different.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#58I have to question the meaning of their result.
it's a known and inituitive result that a random walk on a lattice eventually reaches every point. This has no practical meaning whatsoever. it's not an interesting result because, just like the random walk on a lattice, after one person becomes an oligarchy, eventually a different person will also become an oligarch.
why did you choose to stop when the first became an oligarch? to make a click baity title?
people need to understand probabilities to read through bullshit like this article.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#59Have there been any efforts to quantify what level of inequality is reasonable? For instance, the GINI coefficient ranges between 0 and 1, where 0 means everyone has the same amount, and 1 means one person at the top has everything. Depending on how it's measured, the US is somewhere between 0.4 and 0.5. You don't want to be at either extreme, so some level of inequality is desirable. Is there an appropriate amount o…
Why shouldn't the coefficient be zero? I'm curious what your reasoning is.
That would require a whole lot of violence.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do we know what the number was in the 1950s? Back then housing was more affordable relative to income and CEO salaries were lower compared to the average.
I think it was high 30's back then, and now it's mid-40s. Different sources measure it differently, but generally it's gone up. Mid-30's is like Denmarkish.
Seems mid 30s is a good number then. High achievers still get plenty of reward but whatever tide lifts them will also lift the rest of the country.