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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#221

Post by rockemsockem »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #107
hackererror404 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things cost way more than 10 or 15 million in terms of investment. Why shouldn't a billionaire be capable of starting a genetics lab to fund cancer research and pay for it in cash, if they are so inclined? Also almost all of super wealthy people's "wealth" is tied up in assets that are funding entire economies. This money is creating jobs, allowing for affordable loans, the money is working for many other people…

> Why shouldn't a billionaire be capable of starting a genetics lab to fund cancer research and pay for it in cash, if they are so inclined? The answer might be "they should be able to" But are you open to the possibility of the answer being "Despite the apparent potential benefits, it isn't beneficial overall to society or humanity to have extremely rich individuals starting research projects, and perhaps not benefi…

Why would it be better to have fewer entities allocating large chunks of capital?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#222

Post by devbent »

WalterBright wrote: post #181
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Productive wealth is a good thing You have a lot of faith, it seems, in the ability of the already rich to somehow make better decisions (by some metric) than an arbitrary political process. I don't mind if Jeff Bezos the person exists, but I have no reason whatsoever to want him to have control over the scale of resources and decision-making that he does.

> You have a lot of faith, it seems, in the ability of the already rich to somehow make better decisions (by some metric) than an arbitrary political process. I have faith that an Olympic athlete is a lot better about making diet and exercise decisions than I am. I have faith that Mick Jagger is far better at crafting a new song than I am. I have faith that Tom Hanks could make a far better movie than I can.

> I have faith that an Olympic athlete is a lot better about making diet and exercise decisions than I am.

Smart athletes let technocrats (e.g. scientists and doctors) make those decisions for them!

In the case or billionaires, we know Zuckerberg is really good at making social media apps. That doesn't mean he's good at anything else!

Plenty of talented rich people have demonstrated that given the chance they'll lose lots of money on foolish ventures outside their area of expertise.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#223

Post by littlestymaar »

eej71 wrote: post #36
tehjoker wrote: post #7

What about having a rationally planned democratic society instead of people chasing dollars at the expense of everything? No rich people, just democratic processes accessible to all incl. in production.

I think you'd have to be very clear about how this is different than the previous attempts at such "rationally planned democratic societies".

Well, the examples you have mind are likely not “democratic societies” (even though they often put a “Democratic“ in their name for good measure).

But then, if you look at the US from the new deal to Reagan or most of Western Europe from WWII to the 80s, you have an idea of what a planned[1] democratic society looks like. And then the scarecrow is less powerful as an argument, isn't it?

Also, Communism hasn't been defeated by the power of the Free Market. It has been defeated by the appeal of democratic societies living under a welfare state system.

When all a democracy has to offer is a free market but no shared well-being, dictatorship is around the corner. (You can already see it with the rise of populists leaders all around the western world).

[1] there used to be so much more planning compared to what goes now that from today's perspective I feel it's fair to call that “planned societies”.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#224

Post by jimbokun »

gwbas1c wrote: post #209

I've always believed that ever higher degrees of wealth come with an obligation to manage people in better and better ways. Otherwise, wealth should be taxed so that "idle rich" end up having to live like the upper-middle-class. IE: If you get very wealthy because you start a company, and manage your company in a way to improve other peoples' lives, that's a great thing. (Now, does Elon Musk deserve 50+ billion dolla…

> I'll just handwave and say that I think he could still live the same kind of life, and make a better contribution to society, with a fraction of that money.

Elon's an interesting case because he very passionately and sincerely spends his money on what he believes are the most pressing problems facing humanity. Almost all of his wealth is invested towards those goals.

He's an asshole and treats people terribly. But he is very consistent about investing in what he believes to be most important.

(source: Isaacson's biography)

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#225

Post by rockemsockem »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #54
FredPret wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, people don't know this. The degree of economic and historical naiveté has really skyrocketed in recent decades. "Let's just try a planned society one more time , THIS time will be different, look how nice and kind we are!" is a perfectly reasonable statement to many educated people today. It's really an indictment of the education system.

The reality is, we are planning our current society. It's just wrapped up in "markets are the natural order" rhetoric to obfuscate the fact that our current outcomes are intended.

Which outcomes in particular are you referring to? Wealth inequality? Because I don't think that's what the parent comment meant.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#226

Post by jimbokun »

yedava wrote: post #103

Extreme wealth is a symptom of an underlying problem - inhumane exploitation. People can get that rich because the economic system says that it is perfectly acceptable for a class of people to pee in bottles/diapers in order to maximize profits. The solution for this doesn't have to target the rich explicitly. We can strengthen labor laws; update anti-monopoly laws. Make human dignity the central argument. This will…

Many of the people working for Bezos, Musk, Jobs, Zuckerberg, Larry and Sergey, etc. have made a lot of money and live very comfortable life styles.

So I don't accept it as a given that becoming wealthy requires inhumane exploitation.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#228

Post by satellite2 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #112
cosmojg wrote: post #75

Productive wealth is a good thing. It's what made our current society possible. Unproductive wealth is the real devil, the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil. I strongly prefer a society which permits the existence of Jeff Bezos over one which does not. Of course, more strongly than that, I prefer a society which taxes inelastic goods and negative externalities and returns that wealth to the public…

> Productive wealth is a good thing You have a lot of faith, it seems, in the ability of the already rich to somehow make better decisions (by some metric) than an arbitrary political process. I don't mind if Jeff Bezos the person exists, but I have no reason whatsoever to want him to have control over the scale of resources and decision-making that he does.

The issue here is the genericity if money. I think hardly anyone would argue that he shouldn't make decisions for Amazon. He is probably the best individual for this. The issue is that controlling Amazon also comes with the possibility of getting out of it and somehow be allowed to control vast amount of resources completely independent of it and possibly built decades or even centuries before Amazon even existed.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#229

Post by helpcatscary »

There’s a lot of comments in here straw manning a book that I would guess very few have actually read. I don’t know if it’s a good argument or not but I’m sure the author is intelligent enough to have considered incentives and the case of central planning in the USSR and it’s not dunking on the author to just blindly bring these cases up as if they disqualify their whole argument. If this three paragraph summary of a 300 page book is so enraging then there’s maybe some deep seated biases to confront first.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#230

Post by JackFr »

dools wrote: post #123
boppo1 wrote: post #35

How about we just don’t empower a central planning body to make monetary decisions that devalue wages & salaries while inflating asset prices? QE & LIRP have literally been “rich get richer, poor get poorer: the policy”. People educated enough in finance to follow the effect tend to be in the asset-holding camp so there is less complaint. I’m not advocating high rates as good for the poor; I’m championing shaping the…

The best interest rate policy is zero, which is the natural rate of interested in a floating exchange rate economy. Fiscal policy is the only tool through which equity can be managed. Monetary policy is pointless.

Zero is the natural interest rate? That’s ludicrous.

A dollar today is always going to be worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

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