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Is Inequality Inevitable?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#391

Post by akiselev »

BurningFrog wrote: post #332
chongli wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Economic growth is the art of producing more value using the same amount of finite resources.

...by extracting more and more of those resources until they're gone.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#392

Post by WalterBright »

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…

> I, shoeless but with ten loaves of bread, and you, hungry but with ten pairs of shoes

Even if I and you were equally skilled at making both bread and shoes, by economies of scale we can produce more bread and shoes if we specialize. Thereby, the use of trading makes us both better off.

The invention of trade, and inventions that facilitate trade (money, banking, stock markets, contracts, property rights), have greatly benefited humanity.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#393

Post by woander »

stretchwithme wrote: post #371

Income inequality is a sign that an economy is functioning properly. For people vary greatly in their talents, ambition, tolerance for risk, vision. Some can lead, delegate and inspire, while others cannot. Some are great at collaboration, others love confronting difficult challenges. Some are great at squeezing suppliers and others good at pushing people to adopt the next wave of technology. Some know exactly what p…

Income inequality can also be a sign that an economy is functioning improperly.

North Korea, Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, etc all have income inequality. I don't think anyone would say their economies are/were functioning properly.

> Income inequality rewards the development of all of those qualities.

Not necessarily.

Your statement would be true if every generation started a 0, on equal footing and the system/environment was fair. Would you say that income inequality in Confederate South was a result of rewarding "talents, ambition, tolerance for risk, vision"?

Income inequality is a very complex subject. People who try to frame it in a simplistic black and white worldview really do it a disservice.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#394

Post by wang_li »

fzeroracer wrote: post #361
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can describe a person's life experience just because they don't react emotionally in a single online discussion board. That's horribly unfair and a bit out of line, to be honest.

As opposed to painting people in poverty with a broad brush, saying that they either destroy value or don't generate life-sustaining value? Considering I grew up in abject poverty, I'm sorry but I'm not going to let remarks like that fly. That doesn't deserve a pass.

A) It is objectively true that there is a cohort of poor people who produce nothing of economic value and who consume a disproportionate share of government services through vandalism, sanitation problems, assistance, and etc.

B) The inability to produce enough to sustain yourself is the basis for defining poverty.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#395

Post by reilly3000 »

akiselev wrote: post #391
BurningFrog wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic growth is the art of producing more value using the same amount of finite resources.

...by extracting more and more of those resources until they're gone.

more like until they are no longer profitable to exploit, which of course is a function of global state. That is what underlies the fallacy of peak oil, which I was personally susceptible to. Resources don't vanish, they become incrementally more expensive to extract until the marginal benefit of doing so becomes negative.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#396

Post by sdfin »

pietrod wrote: post #388
sdfin wrote: post #334

I don't get why lately the trend it to focus in inequality instead of focusing in poverty. I mean, if the % of poverty decreases, then economy is moving in a good direction, in spite of inequality, right? Suppose you had one million, and somebody else has one thousand millions, there would be a large gap, but I wouldn't consider it as negative. If there are arguments against what I wrote I would gladly read them and…

then let's compare us to monkeys, if we can decide a past point in time, in this case whatever we do it's always good and everybody will be happy! (this could not work XD)

Setting a point in time at any point during the last three decades shows a good trend https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Extreme_poverty_1981...

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#397

Post by vannevar »

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…

It's not part of the model because, if you're studying how wealth gets distributed rather than how it is produced, it doesn't matter.

I'm guessing that your disquiet at this notion comes from the possibility that everyone is creating their own wealth, and to some extent that is no doubt true. But if you start with the simplifying assumption that everyone's wealth creation ability is equal, and you just look at distribution, and you find that your model pretty accurately reproduces the real-world distribution of wealth, it's at least some evidence that wealth-creation ability is not that different from person to person, and what's driving inequality is the distribution mechanism.

Since virtually all human traits follow a Gaussian distribution, it seems like whatever the wealth-building factor is, it would also follow a Gaussian distribution. But wealth follows more of a power law distribution. You never encounter anyone 1000 times taller than average, but there are many people 1000 times wealthier than average. This casts some doubt that wealth accumulation is down to individual human ability.

Couple that with the micro-economic observation that someone with 1 million dollars is astronomically more likely to make another million dollars than someone with 100 dollars, even if the two people are otherwise identical, and it seems pretty unlikely that wealth creation has much to do with the distribution we see.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#398

Post by sachdevap »

Empact wrote: post #370
sachdevap wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "self-evident" is inappropriate because it presumes perspective of the reader I don't think that is the reason for it being inappropriate. In my opinion, such phrases are a result intellectual laziness, of which I am also guilty at times.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident” - intellectually lazy, or a claim whose verification or refutation is left to the reader?

Actually my reading says that the context there is stating the assumptions on the basis of which the rest of the document is based.

And I don't think "accelerating inequality we’re witnessing is not the natural inequality of competition and the power law, easily explained by simple arithmetic" as an axiom compares to "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".

As an aside, I believe the founders of the US did some great work, but let's not put their use of certain phrases on a pedestal. For example, I for one do not believe in a creator at all.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#399

Post by mr_toad »

roenxi wrote: post #301
TomMckenny wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Increasing the GDP is really easy, the government can pass a law adding a zero to all measures of money (so $10 becomes $100). Reducing inequality is also easy, confiscate people's wealth. The real problem is "people are not secure in their lifestyle" which is not addressed by the first solution and is probably exacerbated by the second. People getting antsy about inequality as a final problem instead of a symptom of…

> adding a zero to all measures of money

Do you really think that nobody has ever thought of measuring inflation adjusted GDP?

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#400

Post by solveit »

was8309 wrote: post #382
solveit wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That number happens to be remarkably accurate. More accurate than required by law in fact. It also happens to accurately predict changes in a person's weight if you know everything they're eating.

Isn't the low carb argument that for proteins more is passed and don't need to be burnt off, but for carbs almost all calories must be burnt off? How many calories do I take in and therefore must burn off thru exercise if I swallow a penny?

I think the low carb argument is that processed carbs mess with your blood sugar levels, making you hungrier, but the discourse around nutrition is messed up enough that there are many low carb arguments, some of them mutually contradictory. As for your penny, zero, unless I'm greatly mistaken, which is why pennies don't come with nutritional labels.
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