Inequality will always be inevitable. Striving to better yourself by learning new skills and improving your abilities is to produce inequality because you're rising above the mediocre masses anytime you make an effort at anything. People should focus on equity, not equality. Equality of outcome is more fair than equality of opportunity.
Is Inequality Inevitable?
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Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a little bit like saying you don't like air temperature as a measure because it doesn't show humidity, which is also important. Sure, overall GDP per capita + GINI might make sense as a measure of overall/median/average/something standard of living, but GINI isn't a standard of living measure, just one component of that. Edit: I think parent edited their post to add a few more clarifying statements, so this po…
This is obviously wrong. You can have uniformly poor country (theoretically) that has very good GINI. Look at the table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq... You have Ukraine which has fantastic GINI of 25%, much better than 41% of US. Other countries that have GINI in neighborhood of US? Senegal, Madagascar, Angola? What kind of measure is that?
People always try to tie income inequality things like standard of living and centralization of power. Why not attempt to measure those things directly? Income inequality may be a useful factor in an attempt to quantify those things (or it may not)- but it certainly isn't a measure in itself.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#113A 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…
> Equality is unavoidable as long as people are allowed to compete for stuff.
The kind of inequality that is perceived as problematic is something different though. It's the rent collection that transfers wealth from the poor to the rich.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#114Of course it is...it's a natural consequence of compound interest. One's ability to accumulate additional wealth scales exponentially with their level of existing wealth.
If course it is...it's a natural consequence of compound interest. One's ability to accumulate additional wealth scales exponentially with their level OF EFFORT. Even a wealthy person can lose their money if they don't make an effort investing it properly. How do people build wealth from the ground up? They work hard each and every day and that effort COMPOUNDS. They get smarter, more opportunities present themselves…
Give your financial advisor $8M and tell him you're happy with a 4% annual return. If you can live on an annual pre-tax income of a mere $200K, the remaining $120K gets compounded.
Zero effort, compound growth, risk bordering on zero.
*Edit : a typo
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
This is excellent point.
If it is too easy to gather wealth so you can gather wealth without actually having to create any value (through corruption, extortion, monopoly, theft, deception, enslavement, etc.) then you will have the bad kind of inequality where most people are not compelled to put hard work to create value for others in order to create wealth for themselves.
Again, GINI does not differentiate between the good and the bad kind of inequality, so two countries with same GDP and same GINI might be very different. One may be on the rise, with a number of enterpreneurs creating huge progress and value and the other might have couple of oligarchs who were able to amass their wealth with corruption.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#116Inequality will always be inevitable. Striving to better yourself by learning new skills and improving your abilities is to produce inequality because you're rising above the mediocre masses anytime you make an effort at anything. People should focus on equity, not equality. Equality of outcome is more fair than equality of opportunity.
>Equality of outcome is more fair
How so? To equalize outcomes for all parties, you must take from those that performed better?
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#117Let's assume for sake of argument that "inequality" is in fact "inevitable." Then what policy conclusions are we supposed to draw?
Policy goals change from "reducing X" to "reducing the harmful results of X."
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#118Let's assume for sake of argument that "inequality" is in fact "inevitable." Then what policy conclusions are we supposed to draw?
It is a conservative position, hence no new policies are needed. Some pushes that inequality is proof of injustice and therefore we must make policies against it, this is just a response to that position.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#119There's one glaring issue with this simulation, and it's that it keeps the amount of wealth static — it models a zero-sum world, which is not our reality.
I would like to see this simulation run where the agents are also creating wealth into the system.
Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?
#120A 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…
>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).
The "growing of the pie" is also a fairy tale though to mask the realities...
For one, the "growing pie" still manages to give some people not just most of the pie, but also to live the majority with smaller (in absolute size) slices than before -- stagnant inflation adjusted wages for decades, higher rents and houses, higher education costs, higher health costs, etc.
Second, even if the "larges slices to the average person compared to before" was true, we shouldn't accept a minority to hoard increasingly more of the growing pie. For one, because money is power, so those elites would have increasingly more power over the rest damaging democracy. Second, because people should be compensated (for increased productivity etc) relatively to the size of the pie, not just larger than before.
If an economy was scaled at 10 and now is scaled at 1000 (units of money), then it's not enough that those making 0.0001 now make 0.0002. Doesn't have to be equally distributed to all, but people in such a society should make closer to (1000/10)x not just 2x.
Wealth in society is relative like that, not mere absolute. I don't think those proposing otherwise would be happy to be paid 2x what a peasant made in 1700 (inflation adjusted of course), just because it's "more". They expect their compensation to raise in accordance with the wealth level of their society and relatively to the size of the pie, not merely as a larger slice than some past in absolute terms.