Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

sticerd.lse.ac.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 310 posts

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#21

Post by collyw »

carlob wrote: post #12
emsign wrote: post #5

[flagged]

I don't want to defend capitalism, but I'd say that capitalism needing the exploitation of the weak is not even entirely true. There is strong evidence that overall economic growth peaked at times (or places) where income taxes were higher and the distribution of wealth and income was more equitable. Of course there is the whole matter of causation/correlation, but this at least shows that a capitalist society can an…

What's the evidence you are referring to?

I was listening to Thomas Sowell recently and he made some comments that sounded quite the opposite of what you say - that lowering taxes resulted in increased revenue. It's clearly different times and places that you / he are referring to, I am interested in learning a bit more.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#22

Post by jokethrowaway »

carlob wrote: post #12
emsign wrote: post #5

[flagged]

I don't want to defend capitalism, but I'd say that capitalism needing the exploitation of the weak is not even entirely true. There is strong evidence that overall economic growth peaked at times (or places) where income taxes were higher and the distribution of wealth and income was more equitable. Of course there is the whole matter of causation/correlation, but this at least shows that a capitalist society can an…

This is not factually correct. What happened during those years was that rich people managed to get custom laws to pay little taxes (probably corruption). The number of ad-hoc tax exemptions was ridiculous. Not too dissimilar to how nowadays middle class people pay taxes for both poor people and the super rich (who escape taxes via legal offshore companies).

High taxation is also not capitalism given they imply threat of violence (eg. incarceration); a purely capitalist society wouldn't have taxes, it would just be a stateless free market based society with only voluntary transactions.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#23

Post by oblio »

La1n wrote: post #19
oblio wrote: post #11

I'll probably read the whole thing at some point, but I'd say that it's due to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle , basically "don't assume you're special". Or "don't assume any one sample of a thing is special", from the start. And since the natural state of humanity is poverty (after all we all started as hunter-gatherers), breaking out of it on your own is extraordinary. I wouldn't be surprised…

>And since the natural state of humanity is poverty (after all we all started as hunter-gatherers), breaking out of it on your own is extraordinary. The natural state was sharing resources and taking care of a small group of people. Not working for a boss.

What does that have to do with anything I'm saying?

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#24

Post by claudiawerner »

chrisco255 wrote: post #9
emsign wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Poverty is the base case. It's the default state. How does prosperity increase at all?

There are a number of interesting responses to the idea that poverty is the base case or default in some way here: https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/comments/f12rl0/poverty_i...

What do we mean by default? Would we say that the default state of a child is surviving without their mother? Is a lack of breast milk or shelter the default? I can easily imagine a situation (I.e. a functioning society) in which poverty is not the default.

If poverty is defined to mean having below a certain daily wage[0], then how is that "default"? Do we mean absolute or relative poverty? Just like default settings in your favourite program presuppose the program itself, it seems poverty presupposes a system where some people make above $ a day and some do not.

To say that poverty is the 'default' without also specifying to whom and in which society it is the default is either useless information, or an apparently irrelevant claim that only concerns some cases in the early stages of human pre-civilization.

[0] Beware that if you disagree with this supposition, you lose the ability to claim that statistics which use increase in daily wage indicate moving out of poverty. The case for saying that capitalism does away with poverty depends on this definition of poverty.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#25

Post by truckerbill »

oblio wrote: post #15
truckerbill wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That specific principle you linked to seems to be saying something different to your hypothesis - it’s arguing the idea that a sample of one doesn’t let you assume something is unique.

If you extrapolate it a bit, it does say what I'm saying. I am a sample of one, too. You too, are a sample of one :-) Why would I be special? Why would you be special? We all tend to think we're amazing (and our families/clans/tribes/cities/countries), in many cases with very flimsy reasoning. I'll rephrase my comment.

Ah, makes more sense when you put it that way!

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#26

Post by adventured »

jcun4128 wrote: post #10

Without making the jump from washing plates/factory work to software I don't know how I would have escaped(still haven't) considering my pay increased 4 times. Just brutal when you trade hours for money directly at a low rate, I was doing 70hrs washing plates before and it was nothing ha. Edit: there is the thought of living within your means, personally with a roommate I could live on $10-$20K a year which you can m…

What language/s did you teach yourself during that several year learning time? What did you choose to focus on?

(I noticed this: ReactJS/Node-Express/MySQL/Python in your profile, but I'm not sure if that's what you started with)

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#28

Post by asdff »

jcun4128 wrote: post #10

Without making the jump from washing plates/factory work to software I don't know how I would have escaped(still haven't) considering my pay increased 4 times. Just brutal when you trade hours for money directly at a low rate, I was doing 70hrs washing plates before and it was nothing ha. Edit: there is the thought of living within your means, personally with a roommate I could live on $10-$20K a year which you can m…

This sort of perspective is very important, especially here on HN where I see plenty of ignorance on this topic. When you work these jobs, often the local cost of living is pinned to these minimum wages, where you stagnate and are unable to save. How can you possible afford to move when your rent increases? You have no savings to rent a vehicle to move your things, nothing to put down up front for a new apartment, and at no guarantee of finding a job at the end because a manager for working class work is only going to bother hiring local candidates. Throw in an unforeseen cost, and you can see how easy it is for people to end up missing payments and living in their car or a tent while still working that minimum wage job.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#29

Post by atq2119 »

carlob wrote: post #12
emsign wrote: post #5

[flagged]

I don't want to defend capitalism, but I'd say that capitalism needing the exploitation of the weak is not even entirely true. There is strong evidence that overall economic growth peaked at times (or places) where income taxes were higher and the distribution of wealth and income was more equitable. Of course there is the whole matter of causation/correlation, but this at least shows that a capitalist society can an…

I agree with your general assessment, but I'd disagree with your conclusion about capitalism.

The defining characteristic of capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. As long as that ownership isn't equally distributed, that's exploitative by definition, because profits go to owners "for free" -- the owners don't have to work for those profits. This isn't really the case if ownership is equally distributed, but then how exactly would that be distinct from socialism, i.e. the collective ownership of the means of production?

So it's plausible to suspect that those peak times of growth you talk about were successful precisely because capitalism was reined in by other policies, like those higher tax brackets leading to a more equitable (and "less capitalist") distribution of wealth and income.

Re: Why Do People Stay Poor? [pdf]

#30

Post by jokethrowaway »

oblio wrote: post #18
emsign wrote: post #5

[flagged]

Well, when you make a controversial statement, you need to back it up. What's your solution? What can you point to that worked better? I would say that on the spectrum of pure capitalism - mixed economies - complete socialism, mixed economies work best, as proven by real life.

Not OP, but we already have examples showing where communism lead. No amount of brainwashing will convince everyone to give up their property and their labor for the common good; you'll always need a totalitarian regime to enforce socialism / communism (for some, if not all).

You can even see it in our modern mixed society, everything is a voluntary transaction - minus paying taxes to the government for the "common good". A few people willing to signal their virtue will say they're happy to pay for taxes. But why not just use voluntary donations to charity? They have the added benefit of being auditable by third parties (unlike the government, which polices itself) and they have arguably less bureaucracy than a government, increasing the amount available to help whoever you're helping.

From my side, I'd love to try a society based on the Machinery of Freedom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o One can dream

Post reply on HN