71–80 of 628 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because "produce more" and "have more" aren't actually related. Have you produced more if you're born rich? Does Jeff Bezos actually produce billions? It's a statement that doesn't actually represent reality.
Jeff Bezos improved global quality of life EXACTLY the amount he's been paid. Otherwise, why would anybody volunteer their money his way?
Have 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.
Have 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…
I would prefer a measure that describes general level of satisfiability of peoples' basic needs, the measure of peoples' suffering. Are people suffering or not?
Having measure of envy for much wealthier class seems less concerning to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm more reflecting the general consensus. That's communism, which is generally seen as a failed economic system, and difficult to practically enforce. Although maybe that all changes in a post-scarcity economy, like is Star Trek technically communist? Should the goal actually be GINI-0?
Star Trek isn't communist; capitalism and communism are both approaches to the allocation of resources. Neither really applies in a post-scarcity society.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing that always irks me about this is that we keep talking about the individuals even though that's not the real issue. Sure, Jeff Bezos has a lot of wealth, but really what he has is a lot of shares of Amazon. It's Amazon that really has the money. Even if Bezos is the CEO, he has a duty to the other shareholders to act in their interests. He can't just donate all the company's assets to charity even if he wan…
This isn’t accurate. Amazon doesn’t ‘have the money’ that counts as Bezo’s wealth. It is the value of Amazon to others that produces his wealth. Bezos may not be able to donate Amazon’s assets to charity, but he can donate his assets - in this case his shares of Amazon. He can equally well sell his Amazon shares and buy something else with the proceeds, so the wealth that is attributed to him really his his. Of cours…
Think about it this way. Alphabet owns Google. When that happened, did it create an additional company out of whole cloth with the value of Google, on top of the value of Alphabet? No. That's double counting. The value only exists once. Moreover, unless Amazon is dissolved, the corporation controls that value (and is required to act in the interests of all the shareholders), regardless of who owns the shares at any given time.
A lot of it misses the point. Equality is unavoidable as long as people are allowed to compete for stuff. If people are allowed to compete for property then those that are better at competing will have more property. It might be possible to have property equality when people have access to same things but compete for different things, for example status, choice of partners, etc. And the most important point people se…
And it's not just that "those that are better at competing will have more property". Every person is free to make a variety of choices for themselves, including how much they prioritize wealth creation. Since each one of us has only one life to live, and only one way to live it (i.e., the way each one of us choose to), and so many choices to make, there's no way we'll all make the same choices. Some will prioritize love, others family, others art, others business, or some mixture of these and other things. And that's just fine. We can't all pour ourselves into our work the way Elon Musk does, and we can't all only pick great ideas to pursue, and we don't all have the same talent or drive.
> Inequality does not mean we need to have people who can't satisfy their most basic things. It is possible for people to be allowed to compete for wealth and at the same time ensure those that don't want or can't compete have their basic needs like food, shelter and medical care satisfied.
Indeed!
Have 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…
I don't like GINI because it does not show the most important parameter. It is possible for two countries to have same GINI but one have people who can't satisfy their basic needs (food, shelter, medical care) and the other where all people are given access to basics. I would prefer a measure that describes general level of satisfiability of peoples' basic needs, the measure of peoples' suffering. Are people sufferin…
Edit: I think parent edited their post to add a few more clarifying statements, so this post makes less sense now.
Even with the new added bits I still disagree; having one class that owns everything, even if the rest of the country has their basic needs met, could describe a system of principled slaveholders. Wanting a more-or-less equal distribution of money/power doesn't necessarily boil down to envy over wealth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But "investing" is just rent-seeking from other people doing actual work. Literally it's taking a portion of the profits of someone else's labour in exchange for access to your capital.
It's only rent seeking if the capital isn't worth anything or was illicitly obtained. If you drive a truck for ten years to save up enough to buy your own truck, and then drive it eight hours a day while you pay two other people to drive it the other sixteen hours a day, you're making more money than them for the same work. But it's only because you saved instead of spent for ten years, and the only reason they have…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
(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.
I 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…
the expected time to exit "oligarchy" states should be pretty small. the whole discussion is completely meaningless, they intentionally asked a misleading question.