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Is Inequality Inevitable?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#491

Post by autoexec »

ahje wrote: post #462
kjhkhkj wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always comes down to violence and that argument makes me less sympathetic not more. I'm not interested in paying off what amounts to a rabid unproductive population for some hope of safety. Also, I'm not particularly scared of people that can't manage to find some success in the modern US either. So if you argument is that we should increase taxes so another Mao doesn't exist, I'd rather just kill Mao.

I get what you mean and I do sympathize somewhat. The fact is, however, that modern society doesn't fit everyone. Since we won't allow people to withdraw from society that means we're actively forcing people to live a specific way of life that some simply cannot handle. Simply putting more pressure on those groups will result in the forming of parallel societies and in the long run that means that those parallel soci…

> Since we won't allow people to withdraw from society that means we're actively forcing people to live a specific way of life that some simply cannot handle.

Sometimes (although far less often than some people would like to assume) the person who withdraws is perfectly capable of handling the demands we force on people in our society, but they simply prefer to not participate. These people usually aren't sitting around all day collecting welfare checks, often they are the career homeless or living in isolated shacks in mountains. I can't really fault them if that kind of lifestyle is actually preferable to them.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#492

Post by WalterBright »

gpvos wrote: post #476
WalterBright wrote: post #358

Without inequality we would not have airplanes, transatlantic cables, jet engines, electric cars, SpaceX, cloud computing, radar, internet phones, steel, automobiles, the textile industry, fuel, plentiful food, fresh fruit year round, etc.

I think we would develop these in due time, just slower. One could also argue that some of these (textile industry, cloud computing) are bad. Actually, I am not against some inequality, as long as there is some kind of limit to it.

> One could also argue that some of these (textile industry, cloud computing) are bad.

You could, but the textile industry freed women from endlessly spinning thread and making cloth. Pretty much nobody does that anymore. I don't want to spend my life making cloth the pre-industrial way. Do you?

In colonial America, archaeological bone evidence shows the colonists worked like dogs and died young. Not very romantic.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#493

Post by duxut_staglatz »

nomel wrote: post #407
vannevar wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 distri…

> if you're studying how wealth gets distributed rather than how it is produced, it doesn't matter. I know nothing of this, but how can distribution be understood without the forces that drive it?

It's called curve fitting (or machine learning if the techniques used are fancy enough).

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#494

Post by WalterBright »

duxut_staglatz wrote: post #490
WalterBright wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone is always going to be stronger, faster, taller, younger, better looking, have more things, etc., than you do. If you use the envy to improve your life, then it's good. If you use the envy to tear down others to your level, that's not so good.

I am not sure how your point implies that the current level of inequality is either optimal or too low

I didn't imply it was optimal or not. My point was that's the wrong question.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#495

Post by La1n »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #429
cryptonector wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to acquire wealth without creating it. The most obvious way is inheritance / gifts, or else crime (fraud, theft). Most wealth is created though, not inherited. E.g., most notable American billionaires (Gates, Buffet, Bezos, ...) of today created most of their wealth. Down the ranks from billionaires we might find more inheritance / less wealth creation, but I suspect that in general you'll find that in…

I think that's terribly, terribly naïve. Most wealth was skimmed from other's work through manipulation of stock, bonuses, grants and other executive-suite routines. There's no longer any amount of skimming that's considered egregious. Its ramping up and up without limit.

>Most wealth was skimmed from other's work

Or you know, just by taking the surplus value of someones labor.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#496

Post by classified »

This question isn't decided by market theories but by human nature. And human nature, sadly, makes inequality inevitable. Or, to put it another way, avoiding inequality will always be an ongoing struggle.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#497

Post by duxut_staglatz »

kjhkhkj wrote: post #159
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…

> when people have access to same things but compete for different things, for example status, choice of partners, etc. People are already complaining about inequality of status and partners. Why is inequality of wealth less just than those other things? > Inequality does not mean we need to have people who can't satisfy their most basic things I honestly don't understand why and moral arguments are not convincing.

What is the non-moral argument for "wealth creators" to keep their wealth?

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#498

Post by username90 »

dcow wrote: post #365
deehouie wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Albert Einstein did much of his greatest work in isolation, and he was quite proud, too.

And, yet, in 200 years he may well be regarded as an idiot.

Why? Newton is still regarded as one of the greatest scientists ever.

Note that he too did most of his work in isolation, and he too was extremely proud.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#499

Post by duxut_staglatz »

sytelus wrote: post #482

It's a simple side effect of money creates money . If you have X dollars, it almost automatically can create Y dollars in time T. Integrate over time and you have exponential growth. People starting with low initial number will have exponentially growing differential.

So why has inequality not grown exponentially? There are many periods where it is about constant and/or declining.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#500

Post by ahje »

autoexec wrote: post #491
ahje wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you mean and I do sympathize somewhat. The fact is, however, that modern society doesn't fit everyone. Since we won't allow people to withdraw from society that means we're actively forcing people to live a specific way of life that some simply cannot handle. Simply putting more pressure on those groups will result in the forming of parallel societies and in the long run that means that those parallel soci…

> Since we won't allow people to withdraw from society that means we're actively forcing people to live a specific way of life that some simply cannot handle. Sometimes (although far less often than some people would like to assume) the person who withdraws is perfectly capable of handling the demands we force on people in our society, but they simply prefer to not participate. These people usually aren't sitting aro…

You're right, there are definitely people who choose a specific lifestyle willingly and by all means let them do so.

We shouldn't assume it applies to anyone just because it applies to some indivuduals though.

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