I think it would be great for someone or some think tank to devise a very well thought out publicized plan of how an ultra-rich person could efficiently redistribute their wealth to do a lot of good. Seems like most of what people recommend now is just "give it to charity!" but that's not exactly well-vetted advice. Or like the snarky advice downthread to just write a check to the Treasury, that's not what I'm talking about. Something constructive and efficient.
Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
271–280 of 660 posts
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pay your employees more, or be taxed near 100% on the excess gains?
But why? If someone is creating millions of dollars worth of goods or services what moral justification is there for it to be confiscated, particularly at your arbitrary level?
> If someone is creating millions of dollars worth of goods or services what moral justification is there for it to be confiscated, particularly at your arbitrary level?
I think there are good "system stability" arguments to set limits. Roughly, states are dynamic multivariate systems whose objective function should ideally track citizen well being and state security, and taxes are one of the feedback loops that prevent individual actors from dominating or otherwise destabilizing the system.
The mistake is thinking that the fictions we created to establish this system are fundamental moral imperatives in and of themselves.
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
But the government is (in principle) elected democratically.
That doesn't mean it always makes the best decisions. It seems valuable to have those who are so inclined with enough resources to try things that the government can't or won't try. We've gotten so many good things through this process. I'm not saying the government shouldn't do stuff, it very much should.
"it doesn't always make the best decisions" isn't the standard here.
No human organization always makes the best decision.
The question is: how best to make decisions about resource allocation? Do we favor this being the domain of (primarily) already rich and powerful people? Can we even imagine an alternative?
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
Empirical observation is only a way to determine what is, and not what could be. Since we know that human behavior ("nature") is substantively malleable, we need to know what could be, not merely what is.
That's the problem. It's not ethical to perform experiments on human subjects without their explicit consent. That's why the Institutional Review Board was created: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board You can't just perform experiments on large groups of people to see what will happen.
So in short, neither you nor I know what human nature is, and thus setting up criteria for social organization on whether it aligns with "human nature" is impossible, and a foolish goal.
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#275Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Because that's the point at which you have enough wealth to live a comfortably middle class lifestyle for the rest of your life, still pass down a substantial chunk to your children, and never have to earn another cent. I've argued we should combine this with a move towards a worker o…
>> I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million
Do you think your standard of living under such a system would be lower, the same, or higher than it is now?
I think it would be much lower. I think most people will stop working when they stop getting paid. Some I guess would spend money as fast as they make it on experiences and services and other things that don't increase wealth. But I think many people who would in the current system have gone on to create billions in wealth would stop at $10 million and say, "OK I hit the number, moving on to the next challenge".
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those things were created by working people, most of whom are not wealthy.
Look at each valuable item that you use often, now look up the salary of the leader of the company that made it. Edit: You wouldn't have that item without that compensation. This should be more traumatic than people make it out to be. You wouldn't have your iphones, twitters, facebooks, vr goggles, steams, ikea tables, etc.
What are you talking about? Let's have every worker stop doing their jobs. I'm sure those company leaders will continue to produce great products on their own.
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who said anything about fewer?
I was taking this last comment > perhaps not beneficial overall to even have extremely rich individuals at all To mean there would be fewer. I suppose it depends on where the "extremely rich" line is drawn, but I feel like you must be extremely rich to start a project that normally only a government could start.
Why do only the resource allocations of rich people count as the decisions about resource allocation? What about the decisions made by non-rich people?
As the bumper sticker says, it seems easier for most people today to imagine the end of the world than to imagine an alternative to corporate capitalism.
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#278I think it would be great for someone or some think tank to devise a very well thought out publicized plan of how an ultra-rich person could efficiently redistribute their wealth to do a lot of good. Seems like most of what people recommend now is just "give it to charity!" but that's not exactly well-vetted advice. Or like the snarky advice downthread to just write a check to the Treasury, that's not what I'm talkin…
Isn't the thorough, extensive and open-source research that GiveWell does exactly what you're asking for? The amount of evidence you'd have to give to argue against "give everything following GiveWell's recommendation" as the objective and data-driven best option is extremely high.
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#279I admit I did not read the book but I must say the concept seems wrong from the root.
A person with a lot of wealth must invest his wealth in some way that it will generate jobs or invest the money in other business.
That is also a benefit for the rest. So that thing about "we cannot see" I do not think it is such.
I mean, it is easier to see poverty on poorer people BUT the wealth invested is also what makes people have incomes. And you need people investing and managing wealth because someone needs to pay bills and multi-year investments or risk capital.
It does not need to be a single person, but a group of wealthier people are usually more inclined to risk wealth than average.
I think this role is also necessary in societies.
Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet you'll find their track record is a lot better than that of non-wealthy people. Most non-wealthy people I know do a lousy job of managing their finances. Frontline ran an episode a few years ago about 401k plans. They found that the wealthier the employee was, the better returns they had on the company 401k plan, despite the fact that the plan was identical for all the employees.
OK, so people who are good at managing their money are ... drum roll, please ... better at managing their money. This is a tautology. The question is not whether rich people are better at running their own finances, it is whether they are the best people to be making resource allocation decisions. In US capitalism, the argument for coupling the two normally consists of "well, they want to make money, so they will do…
> This is just so absurd that it's really not worth deconstructing.
Do you believe Bezos got rich by not giving people what they wanted?