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Is Inequality Inevitable?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#261

Post by beefman »

dang wrote: post #169
beefman wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465940

I was about to say that, although similar, it doesn't quite ring the same Pavlovian bells. But to judge by the subthread, you're right. I've posted a moderation comment there. That touches on an important principle actually. The value of a comment on HN is the expected value of its subthread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21347871 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Good principle but it let us down in this case as I've posted the most valuable comment here and it has no replies at all! :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21466377

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#262

Post by TomMckenny »

SiVal wrote: post #193

There is a popular political perspective that rules on campus these days that treats wealth as something that just magically exists and is simply "redistributed" by one means or another like, say, a phase change in physics where no magnetism/charge/energy/etc. is ever created or consumed. I waited for a point in their model where people actually produced wealth and consumed it, made something or ate it, in addition t…

There is no philosopher involved, in this case there is the wealth expended to produce an item. In your idealized example both parties are better off but the one that traded the item and took less effort to make it is comparatively better off. He will have advantages in future trades which will further increase. Not to mention a bigger voice in societal structure. (which is a tldr; of the article)

Anecdotally you met some college kids whom you perceived as not understanding economics. But the knowledge of increasing wealth inequality and the current deficiency of private investment is uncontroversial. Regardless of what the impression those kids gave, there number of techniques to address it and _increase_ GDP through the stimulus.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#264

Post by anm89 »

michelinman wrote: post #251
michelinman wrote: post #44

Animals on both ends of the bell curve. Serial Killer avg. 10 deaths? Last billionaire I met killed 17 and poisoned 30,000. Silicon Valley is essential viewing at the moment on that subject.

Downvotes? At least explain.

This is totally incoherent. What are you trying to say?

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#265

Post by lmilcin »

nostrademons wrote: post #205
gnopgnip wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progressive taxes, a safety net of social services.

You're not answering the "How?" Who is providing the services? How are they trained? How do new people enter the field? What incentive do they have to provide a good job? What do you do if they do a shitty job? Throwing money at problems usually means that the people providing the solutions make more money. It does not necessarily mean that the problems get fixed. In many cases, it means that those people now have mo…

Everybody chips in or the ones that are wealthiest provide support for the weakest. That's how. How is this so difficult to understand?

In many cultures this is standard. For example, families taking care of their less fortunate family members (as long as they don't do something really stupid). Or another example, in many cultures, historically, the status came from being able to support weaker members of society. Especially in tribal societies the status would frequently be tied to how well you can make sure your tribe prospers as a whole.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#266

Post by notahacker »

Empact wrote: post #244
notahacker wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A _lot_ of US public policy changes and economic structural changes which favour the rich have happened since 1971. The problem with trying to pin everything on inflation is that inflation has been more stable and lower in recent years than much of the Bretton Woods era...

According to the chart below, housing, food and beverage and other costs are up > 56% over the last 20 years. Granted, for many things in society, prices have declined thanks to manufacturing advances and trade, etc. The difference is between those who held dollars and had a 56%+ loss of value over 20 years, vs those who held the same in assets which appreciated at the same rate as the general increase, and so did no…

Who pays for their housing, food and beverages out of a stash of dollar bills accumulated 20 years ago though? The same chart shows the wages they buy their food and beverages with actually rising faster on average, and people saving their wages for a house in future or a pension fund for their future food and beverages tend to put it in places which pay interest.

Granted, you're a lot worse off if you need to pay a hospital bill or go to college, but I don't think any serious person argues that the real structural problem there is lack of a Gold Standard...

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#267

Post by autoexec »

kjhkhkj wrote: post #254
autoexec wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you advocating for people to not have enough to satisfy their most basic needs?

I'm advocating for not providing it to them.

And you can't think of any reasons outside of ethical arguments why it might be a good idea to make sure everyone has their basic needs met? Really? Have you spent very long trying to come up with one?

Here's one to get you started: When a very small number of people have everything and a great many people have nothing, not even what they need to survive, those hungry desperate masses will have nothing to lose and every incentive to take what they need by using any and all means.

Next, try to think about what might be potentially lost when large numbers of people are needlessly dying. What contributions great or modest those lives might have made if they'd been able to survive.

I'm not suggesting you should be personally responsible for providing for every person's basic needs, but it doesn't take a great amount of creativity or insight to come up with pragmatic reasons why we might be better off collectively if we work collectively to minimize the number of people around us who are struggling with the basic necessities of life and well-being.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#268

Post by SI_Rob »

dre54673 wrote: post #189
Empact wrote: post #144

It should be self-evident that the accelerating inequality we’re witnessing is not the natural inequality of competition and the power law, easily explained by simple arithmetic. An accelerating and historically high broad societal effect is naturally a product of broad and unique properties of the current regime, rather than fundamentally consistent properties, which would naturally be seen across all time. What is…

I've noticed an increasing trend in people using phrases such as "it is trivial", "it is obvious", "it is self evident" to defend their arguments. I have yet to encounter a case where it made their argument better. This might be off topic but it has become a pet peeve because I've even started to encounter it in real life. It is similar to starting a discussion with "if you disagree with me, you are stupid".

This is the one tic that makes it grating for me to listen to anything spoken by Noam Chomsky (interviews, discussions, monologues etc. - his written material not so much), regardless of how persuasive I may find his arguments.

Add "you can look it up" to the list, a frequent Chomskyism which sounds like a casual declaration of confidence in his sources but in effect functions as a rhetorical control device, in that it passively asserts the listener is uninformed about the data being referred to, and that Chomsky presumes not just the authority of an expert, but arrogates the prerogative to assign homework to his listeners/interlocutors as well.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#269

Post by noonespecial »

lmilcin wrote: post #66

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…

>If people are allowed to compete for property then those that are better at competing will have more property.

We do have to keep in mind that right now nothing enhances one's ability to compete for property more than already having property.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#270

Post by chongli »

SiVal wrote: post #193

There is a popular political perspective that rules on campus these days that treats wealth as something that just magically exists and is simply "redistributed" by one means or another like, say, a phase change in physics where no magnetism/charge/energy/etc. is ever created or consumed. I waited for a point in their model where people actually produced wealth and consumed it, made something or ate it, in addition t…

The Earth has finite resources: finite land, finite minerals, finite water, finite energy. When people accumulate vast amounts of wealth, they place a large portion of these finite resources under their own control.

If we allow people and families to accumulate wealth indefinitely, it’s not hard to imagine a future whereby a very small elite control a vast majority of the resources. In this future, people can still create wealth by mixing their labour with raw resources... as long as they can afford to pay the rent to the rentier class.

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