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The Real Class War

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: The Real Class War

#241

Post by anigbrowl »

chii wrote: post #85
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advancing humanity should be a requirement for access to that kind of money. It's a hugely privileged position to be in, and the idea that it comes with exactly zero responsibility to Rest of World is nonsensical.

> It's a hugely privileged position to be in, and the idea that it comes with exactly zero responsibility to Rest of World is nonsensical. and tell me if you also spend a portion of your income on donations to under-developed countries. Because that's what you're asking the billionaires to do - altruistic giving. I m of the position that if they legitimately made their money (i.e., nothing illegal), they are entitled…

Legally speaking sure. Pragmatically, extreme wealth is as much a product of luck and timing as innate superiority or diligence, and often that wealth is expanded through political lobbying; eventually the resulting asymmetries will become unsustainable and the wealth will be redistributed one way or the other. The less prospect people have of economic security through normal effort, the less incentive they have to uphold the property rights of those with structural influence.

Re: The Real Class War

#242

Post by Miner49er »

tristor wrote: post #184

This article is interesting, partly due to the blatant political biases which are present but unrevealed, and partly due to the attempt to address those biases in closing segments. This line in particular was telling "the state—the only way to address the most important issues of the present". The author of this piece is a left-wing statist, and they interpret all of the data they reference through this lens. That do…

> The author of this piece is a left-wing statist

How familiar are you with the author's work? I'm not familiar with it, but Wikipedia says they are a conservative and former Trump supporter.

Most people seem to consider American Affairs a conservative journal, and the author is its editor.

Re: The Real Class War

#243

Post by jstanley »

fladrif wrote: post #45
kortilla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> political system to organise itself to reward work done How do you decide which work is valuable and which work isn’t?

Not OP, but my personal belief is that all work is valuable, otherwise it wouldn't be desired. I don't think it's a good exercise to decide how much it is worth, except to say that work that requires X unit of time should provide at a minimum an amount of compensation that allows a person to obtain a standard of living above the poverty line.

> my personal belief is that all work is valuable, otherwise it wouldn't be desired.

This rather begs the question. In the absence of a market mechanism for determining what work is desired, how do you determine what work is valuable?

Re: The Real Class War

#244

Post by tclancy »

singularity2001 wrote: post #69

What is often forgotten is the hyperdeflation of technology. All your gadges would be worth many millions in pre 2000 dollars. Your car is probably better in many ways than a million dollar car from 1980.

Life expectancy for the poor in the US has gone down. That should not happen regardless of technological advance.

Re: The Real Class War

#245

Post by sodafountan »

jacobush wrote: post #191
sodafountan wrote: post #172

Virtually every problem listed in this article is solved if bitcoin continues its historic rise - and yet you mention bitcoin on hacker news and you're down-voted to oblivion, it really is unbelievable. The "Elites" are getting richer because capital is being used to accumulate more capital through dividends on stocks and revenue producing assets. The only reason money is being funneled into these assets is because t…

Do you really think the elite would accept any threat to the status quo without a fight? Besides, even if you were to somehow succeed, the scarcity of bitcoin would just be the new elite. Bitcoin ownership is already incredibly concentrated. Meet your new boss, same as old boss.

You're always going to have people in life who have more than other people, life is inherently unfair, there's always going to be a 1%. You can put measures in place to ensure that the gap doesn't widen too greatly, but that's a different discussion.

It's true that bitcoin creates a disparity in ownership, but you can't actually realize any gain unless you sell what you have. If I'm accumulating and holding bitcoin, that's good for me and everyone else who's accumulating and holding bitcoin because it keeps the price up. If I sell bitcoin at a profit, that's good for me but bad for most other people, but I also lose my position and the price goes down to allow others to enter into the market.

There's no incentive to sell with dividend producing stocks and real-estate because they produce money, if you're strictly speaking about money begetting more money then that's the problem.

The middle class can gain a strong foothold in bitcoin in its nascencey, the elites aren't willing to give up their income producing assets but if bitcoin continues to multiply by 5-10X every four years like many expect it to then that gives the middle class incredible leverage to move up the economic hierarchy like we've never seen before.

I actually think this is how the next decade will play out, bitcoin will continue its historic rise and we'll see economic changes like we've never seen before. Bitcoin is going to restructure the way the economy works over the next decade or two.

Millennials will be able to pay off their loans, they'll be able to buy houses and many will become the new "Elite" until something else comes along.

Re: The Real Class War

#246

Post by Aunche »

sodafountan wrote: post #172

Virtually every problem listed in this article is solved if bitcoin continues its historic rise - and yet you mention bitcoin on hacker news and you're down-voted to oblivion, it really is unbelievable. The "Elites" are getting richer because capital is being used to accumulate more capital through dividends on stocks and revenue producing assets. The only reason money is being funneled into these assets is because t…

> Bitcoin doesn't have a dividend, if you're part of the 0.1 percent you can buy a ton of it, but in order to realize any gains you have to sell it and if you can't replenish it you'll have to go back to work to earn more.

You're describing all forms of currency. You can still buy stocks with Bitcoin and receive dividends in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is worse in this regard because you don't even need to invest it for it to grow in value. You can literally get rich from hoarding it.

Re: The Real Class War

#247

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jschwartzi wrote: post #202
dantheman wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that those three industries are the most heavily regulated and manipulated by the government.

Can you please make your point directly instead of snarking about regulation instead? It contributes little to the conversation if your don’t put forth any arguments or discussion.

I am not a fan of making people guess what the point is, but I thought that dantheman's point was actually pretty clear. It becomes reasonable to suppose that government intervention and regulation play at least a role in the unaffordability crises in education, housing, and healthcare.

Re: The Real Class War

#248

Post by helen___keller »

hikarudo wrote: post #106
paulus_magnus2 wrote: post #103

The resentment of big capital is not entirely without a reason. Most money right now is "passively" deployed into pre-existing securities. This means it's used to extract existing value by market cornering / scarcity generation / rent seeking / monopolies / oliglopolies. On the other side there is new value / securities creation. This is what people like Elon Musk are doing. He took circa $50mln of his own money, add…

How exactly does money "passively" deployed into pre-existing securities become "extractive"? If I invest some money in a passive index fund, what does that have to do with market cornering / scarcity generation / etc? What are "non-extractive" ways of investing money, aside from starting new companies?

Passive investments like index funds allow you to buy some ownership of a productive investment vehicle (public companies usually, or rental properties through REITs), an in exchange you collect rent on that vehicle in proportion to earnings and your share of ownership, for all eternity.

It's extractive in that you are literally bidding up ownership of a rent-seeking vehicle, rather than creating any new value at all.

In theory you might say bidding up asset values creates something like "potential energy" for productive investment: if an entrepreneur (or venture capitalist to-be) wants to liquidate stock to use as capital for starting a new company, inflated asset values would then contribute to a larger pool of capital for that entrepreneur.

Still, I argue that's a stretch. The existence of extractive investment vehicles are the main motivation for capital to invest in new value, yet their continued existence for all eternity leads to an entrenchment of wealth that may threaten the entire system. This is what Marx is all about (although he seems to presuppose a revolution is the end result, rather than say a wealth tax like Bernie / Liz would promote).

Re: The Real Class War

#249

Post by AnimalMuppet »

triceratops wrote: post #224
AlexandrB wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope they don't. Western IP laws have become suffocating to innovation (life of author +70 years copyright, software patents), and need to be weakened. Perhaps if China is successful with weaker IP laws it will get some politicians off their ass on the issue.

How is theft of trade secrets going to undermine draconian copyright laws? Two wrongs don't make a right.

Two almost completely unrelated wrongs don't make anything.

Re: The Real Class War

#250

Post by sodafountan »

throwaheyy wrote: post #239
sodafountan wrote: post #172

Virtually every problem listed in this article is solved if bitcoin continues its historic rise - and yet you mention bitcoin on hacker news and you're down-voted to oblivion, it really is unbelievable. The "Elites" are getting richer because capital is being used to accumulate more capital through dividends on stocks and revenue producing assets. The only reason money is being funneled into these assets is because t…

The world doesn’t need fucking Bitcoin. This is merely switching one “elite” for a different, equally arbitrary, but likely less qualified “elite”.

The world desperately needs bitcoin
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