Is Inequality Inevitable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#551

Post by malandrew » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

QuesnayJr wrote: post #149

tunesmith wrote: post #10

Have 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…

Rawls argued that whenever inequality would allow the worst off to be better off in absolute terms, then it was okay. He gave a thought experiment argument for this that he called the original position: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position

Furthermore, inequality is only a problem if your culture doesn't condemn envy. There's a reason that the ten commandments includes commandments about not coveting what your neighbor has. It's a quick recipe for toxic relations and creates a circumstance where Rawls' Original Position is politically undesirable.

Basically, if everyone controls their envy, the good kind of inequality that improve the worst off in absolute terms only really happens if you are tolerant of inequality by condemning acts of envy.

One could argue that at least two Judeo-Christian values have lead to the stability and prosperousness of the Western World. Not envying your neighbor is one. The second is forgiveness, which prevents society from getting trapped into feuds with one another indefinitely and wasting resources on perpetuating conflict.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#552

Post by ameister14 » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:33 PM UTC

Supermancho wrote: post #384

ameister14 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. You're completely correct here. Unfortunately, neither the current levels of income inequality nor the acceleration of said inequality is unique or historically high. It's not even uniqu…

> neither the current levels of income inequality nor the acceleration of said inequality is unique or historically high I'm not sure what you're saying, as these statements are unqualified: "current levels of income inequality"? "acceleration of said inequality"? "historically high"?

I'm saying that by most measurements income inequality is roughly the same as it was in the early twentieth century and the rate at which the inequality increased and the acceleration of that rate is less than it was in the early part of the 20th century.

Are you saying that I need to break down what measurements I'm talking about? I can agree with that but we're on a forum and I was responding to a person who I assume, based on how they wrote, shares a general knowledge base upon which we can have a conversation.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#553

Post by pietrovismara » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

zygimantasdev wrote: post #509

pietrovismara wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because both inequality and poverty matter. Solving poverty is a matter of decency for all humanity and it would greatly improve our society. Solving inequality is as important, why? Because in a society where greed and profit motive trump any other ethic, we can't have individuals as powerful as states, thanks to the wealth they accumulated, partly, stealing from states. Earning billions and finding ways to not pay…

If you are taxed involuntary - isn't that stealing? Well technically by law it is legal and enforced for everyone, but it still is stealing. For example: if everybody is under the immoral law and some people are better than others at avoiding the immoral law - is it morally okay for those people to avoid that law? Edit: by involuntary I mean if person can't choose. Not talking about businesses

No it is not, for a very obvious reason: you get all the advantages of living in a society. Even just for infrastructure alone. Roads, sewages, electricity, internet. Last but not least, safety and order. Any income you might have developed is built upon this foundations. It is the very minimum that you pay back for it, especially if you have more than most others. The only thing I don't like is that we don't have a choice about it. We are born in nations and we're subjected to their laws, like it or not. But you can still give up everything and not pay taxes...

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#554

Post by anm89 » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

michelinman wrote: post #546

anm89 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. I think people are people and good and evil are probably normally distributed between the poor and the wealthy more or less. There are certainly bad people at both ends. I'm familiar with what commodities brokers are and don't see anything wrong with it. I'm quite happy for the existence of modern financial markets.

These are the public versions, I promise it's much worse; A little light reading for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glencore , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura . Claude died.

Ok, so someone was indicted for fraud.He's in jail as he should be. Many janitors have committed felonies. No one tries to shut down janitoring.

You seem to have a very simplistic worldview.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#555

Post by specialist » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

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…

In the USA, inflation went down as inequity increased.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Historical_Inflation.s...

I don't doubt that inflation is a factor. Duh. It's just a tax by another name.

But it takes extreme incredulity to ignore the biggest policy change (pink elephant): shifting the tax burden from capital (assets) to labor (income).

PS- Your cites note Bretton Woods. What's your position on the gold standard?

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#556

Post by vannevar » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #453

vannevar wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a percentage, sure, but in real terms the poorer person doesn't have 'much' to lose (to be regained) over someone extremely rich risking the same percentage. This is questionable. The assumption that a poor person can more easily regain their stake is shaky---a poor person who loses their money may become homeless, which could in turn make it harder for them to be employed, or if they are a trades person maybe the…

Rich people do not have access to credit lines if they don’t have assets to back the loans. And their rich friends certainly aren’t going to invest in someone who just lost a ton of money.

That's better than a poor person, who does not have access to reasonably priced credit even in the unlikely event they have the collateral. And in reality, the rich often do have access to unsecured credit. They have that credit because they've made money in the past, and even if their current fortunes have turned, creditors and investors will often continue to invest in them.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#557

Post by viridian » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #507

jimktrains2 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That phrase is usually used to remind people that eating less is as if not more important than exercising to lose weight. It takes a lot of effort to burn a Calorie and next to no effort to consume one.

Aka “you can’t outrun the fork.”

A common joke on weightlifting and bodybuilding forums when someone asks how to get shredded abs to to tell them to add 'fork-putdowns x F' to their routine. x F is the format used to mean "repeat until failure", and it's funny because it really is the best way to get all of the fat off your midsection so your abs are visible.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#558

Post by gcbw3 » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

killjoywashere wrote: post #348

wuliwong wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I received a Ph.D. in physics in 2010, throughout my training, my anecdotal experience was that of an echo chamber. I didn't fully realize it until I left academia. Although, it was slowly becoming apparent as the years passed. My experience was of a relatively small and closed group of physicists who reaffirmed each other's assumption that they were at the absolute peak of intellectual thought. Most of the professor…

My first exposure to really opportunity to contemplate economics, in even a qualitative sense, came with Dierdre McClosky's essay in the early days of "post-autistic" economics (1-3). Her observations about the flimsiness of economic modeling, verging on simply serving as a veil naked capitalism, struck me as the sort of informed cynicism I could hold onto. 17 years later, it's her disdain for economic models in comp…

I only skimmed the first two links, which have no citations, and read like a diatribe from someone who miss basic premisses in economy, sociology, anthropology (that are taught at a 101 class on those subjects) while making a grandiose case that people are not taught Statistics 101 before writing works based on statistic!

It is full of opinion (e.g. the author has the opinion that free market solved gender equality and made the poor richer [1] p.18).

Looks more like satire and internal jokes (trolling?) than an academic work.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#559

Post by vannevar » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

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?

We're using distribution here in two different senses. One is statistical distribution, like power law or gaussian distribution. The other is distribution in the sense of a distribution network. You can test your understanding of the distribution network without understanding how the wealth being distributed was created in the first place.

Re: Is Inequality Inevitable?

#560

Post by fzeroracer » Thu, Nov 07, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

kjhkhkj wrote: post #298

autoexec wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ev…

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.

Let's look at this from another view then.

Those rabid unproductive people are rabid and unproductive because society can't provide basic necessities such as 'housing' or 'food' or 'water'. They are being made rabid by people that would deny them the basics needed to survive.

Your argument is essentially 'Let them eat cake' and if you're at all familiar with history, I need not mention the possible origin of that phrase. When you create a desperate class of people willing to do anything to survive, you shouldn't be surprised when they show up at your doorstep seeking to drag you out into the streets.