It would be interesting to document where equality is easy, where it is hard, and where it is impossible. Let's try first to achieve equality where it is easy. I doubt very much we've handled easy yet.
Is Inequality Inevitable?
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Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why shouldn't the coefficient be zero? I'm curious what your reasoning is.
The biggest thing is that's not a very natural distribution for a parameter like wealth. You'd have a VERY hard time trying to maintain that given innate differences between individuals in terms of expense of effort and the like. There will always be ways to try to gain additional "wealth" that doesn't meet whatever definition you try to use to equate everything.
People grumble that luck has a lot to do with success. And that might seem unfair, but there's no removing it. Good luck trying to get people to avoid arranging themselves into a bell curve.
Combined with what you'd outlined, differences in individuals / differences in efforts / and luck seem impossible to ever fully equalize.
How can anyone hope to normalize these differences?
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#93I 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…
If you want to judge a random walk in a meaningful way, you never ask "what's the probability of reaching X started?" you ask "how long do you stay in states like X". the expected time to exit "oligarchy" states should be pretty small. the whole discussion is completely meaningless, they intentionally asked a misleading question.
They are pointing out the existence of a fixed point in the oligarch state.
Yes, you can estimate the time to leave this fixed state by invoking an analogy to a classical mechanics problem, where the time to leave is proportional to the exponential of the action.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#94I 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…
they actually address your concern in the article.
once an agent achieves "oligarch" status in their model, the flow of wealth towards them accelerates rather than decelerates such that the remaining agents have no ability to exchange wealth with anyone other than the oligarch. so intermediates between the lowest level with nothing and the oligarch are temporary at best.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#95A 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…
You make it sound as though the economic pie is fixed and economics zero-sum. But that's clearly not the case, otherwise we'd still be living with stone age per-capita GDP (i.e., ~0). 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…
I never said inequality is bad (by itself). Inequality is driving progress.
Historically, people made little progress in circumstances where they could not amass and defend wealth. Property rights and working public institutions is what allows people to stop spending their entire time defending what little they have and instead figure out how to improve what they amassed (in other words progress).
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#96Have 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…
Does anybody do a sort of power law fit for wealth distribution?
i.e. (yearly income | total assets | net worth | passive income) vs. population percentile?
I can't seem to quickly find raw data to make an example.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#97A 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…
In fact, inequality will happen just through luck alone.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#98Have 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…
The least unequal countries from the time they started measuring GINI have had a value between 0.250 and 0.300, including the likes of the Soviet Union which was on the upper end of that range, and many former eastern block countries alongside Scandinavian countries who are currently at the lower end of that range. Note that these values are after taxes and transfers.
I think the goal, especially within an economy modeled loosely around capitalist principals, should be to have a low GINI prior to taxes and transfers, something South Korea can claim to have one of the lowest in the world at around 0.350 and they've had some of the fastest economic growth on earth over the last couple decades, in addition to having one of the most highly educated populations on earth, especially among young people. They also invest the highest percentage of their GDP on R&D.
Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark also still have one of the lowest levels of inequality before taxes and transfers at around 0.400. As such you have created a much more stable society, where you do not divide society into groups who either are deeply concerned about inequality or feel as if they are being taxed too much.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#99Wrong question. Better question: why is the scale of inequality acceptable?
Who would care about the scale of inequality in a world where the poor were fed and comfortable? I don't think that inequality is a base problem, although I have heard arguments that (due to things like money in politics for example) it can lead to things that actually are problems. But that doesn't mean inequality is itself a problem, as the side-effects could go away if the right efforts were made to control them.…
Because for the foreseeable future there will be resources that are important to people and are limited. If inequality gets so severe that some people are unable to get the resources that are important to them then they tend to get upset.
One of the most obvious examples in America right now is a house in a desirable part of the country. Buying a house has always been a major investment; however, housing prices are now so high relative to income that many people will never be able to purchase a house in one of America's modern cities.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#100A 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…
You make it sound as though the economic pie is fixed and economics zero-sum. But that's clearly not the case, otherwise we'd still be living with stone age per-capita GDP (i.e., ~0). 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…
Isn't it also important to note that wealth acquisition activities and wealth creation activities are not the same thing?