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Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

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Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#581

Post by smsm42 »

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…

> the hoarding of inelastic goods like land, gold, and oil.

What do you mean by "hoarding"? I don't think any living person owns enough land, gold or oil to represent even tiny percentage of the overall market. The whole Russia, for comparison, owns 12% of oil market. So if you personally owned all the oil in Russia (by any measure an achievement far beyond the wildest dreams even of the richest Russian oligarchs, who still have to share among many others) you'd still be just one of the players. So I don't think those mystical "hoarders" really are as scary as you seem to think they are.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#582

Post by jonathankoren »

WalterBright wrote: post #511
jonathankoren wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course one could argue that that this wasn’t the fault of socialism, but rather a government that prioritized the desires of industry above all else. Lest we forget when that paragon of free market capitalism, the United States, prior to the creation of the EPA and its glorious burning Cuyahoga River. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught...

> a government that prioritized the desires of industry above all else. Communist governments simply have to, as starving people tend to revolt. Free market economies generated enough surplus that they can afford to be clean. Communist economies cannot even feed themselves.

So you agree. A robust government regulatory agencies with effective enforcement is required to ensure the protection of the environment and workers' safety and dignity.

I'm glad we see that the inevitable outcome of free market deregulation is destruction.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#583

Post by u32480932048 »

guhidalg wrote: post #286
WalterBright wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have always peed in bottles when they're on a long drive, piloting an airplane long distance, on a sailboat, and so on. Some peoples' bladders have a short fuse, and carry a bottle. Do you think Lindberg brought a port-a-potty along with his Spirit of St Louis? I remember the opening sequence in a Jeff Bridges movie where he pulls over in his car and dumps his pee bottle. P.S. My dad was a B-17 navigator in WW…

Just read the story https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/05/24/de... I'd rather live in a world where Amazon employees have time to pee on the job and Jeff Bezos has $10M less. Iterate until Jeff Bezos only makes ~10^2 what the median Amazon employee makes instead of ~10^6.

At that scale, Amazon would just be warehouses of people pissing in bottles. They'd have to piss all day and all night until the heat death of the universe, just to cost him even one billion. So few people realize the scale of a billion :(

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#584

Post by smsm42 »

Voultapher wrote: post #492
WalterBright wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent did: "you'd be hard pressed to find a system more effective at destroying our world"

Today's definition of wealth is rooted in resource extraction and energy use. Name me a system that has proven itself more effective at growing this sort of wealth than democracy plus capitalism. Ecosphere destruction is tied to that sort of wealth https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/death-by-hockey-sticks/ . You grow one, you grow the other.

> Today's definition of wealth is rooted in resource extraction and energy use.

That's not true, unless in very basic technical sense - like, we need energy to exist, turn on our computers, etc. But resource extraction and energy production is not the dominating source of wealth for many years now. Look at the current market's magnificent seven: Alphabet (GOOGL; GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), NVIDIA (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA). Not a single of them does resource extraction or sells energy.

It's not true socially either. If someone wants to get rich, they go into finance, high tech, entertainment maybe. Not in oil prospecting or gold digging (not that there aren't money in it - there are, but it's not what the society considers to be a lucrative business anymore). It's not 1849 now.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#585

Post by MacsHeadroom »

yellowapple wrote: post #319
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment has never been lower, with jobs growing every month of the past year. January 2024 saw the most growth followed closely by December 2023. https://www.axios.com/2024/02/02/us-jobs-report-january-2024

> Unemployment has never been lower That doesn't measure underemployment, nor does it measure people who've given up on finding work. That's why it needs to be considered alongside things like the labor force participation rate - which has been on a downward trend since 2000 - and alongside wage growth, which has lagged below inflation since the 70's. > January 2024 saw the most growth followed closely by December 20…

Labor force participation rate has been rising since COVID. The long term trend is down but not so bad. A decade ago the rate among adult men was 72% while last month it was 70.2% and continuing to rise. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...

Wage growth beat inflation by almost double most months last year, rising around 5-6% YoY each month vs ~3-4% inflation. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-i...

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#586

Post by vonjuice »

kuratkull wrote: post #495
vonjuice wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a sort of sleight of hand being performed here. Communism is being blamed for the consequences it has on its own country. Capitalism on the other hand, you can look at and say "look how well it works for this country", because meanwhile it is doing terrible things to other countries.

What horrible things, to what countries?

Vietnam? Invading Iraq for oil? The multiple coups in Latin America to establish an authoritarian government? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#587

Post by vonjuice »

gottorf wrote: post #458
vonjuice wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be the opposite? In a hypothetical country, if there's 1B dollars and no limit, one person could own the 1B and everyone else in the country be dirt poor. If there is a 1M limit, then one person could own 1M tops, and the rest of the money is still there. Therefore there would be more entities capable of allocating large sources of money.

This hypothesis presupposes the "manna from heaven" concept of wealth, which isn't how it works. Wealth is what people want[0]. There isn't a real limit to what people want, so there's no real limit to what wealth can be created, either. Even on a deserted with five people, there isn't a fixed amount of wealth that can be divided over those five people. A fixed amount of land? Sure. Maybe a fixed amount of rocks and…

> And some people are more industrious and clever than others and therefore are better at meeting people's needs and being compensated for it.

You could replace the words industrious and clever with manipulative and abusive, and where does that lead you?

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#588

Post by vonjuice »

gottorf wrote: post #443
vonjuice wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think your standard of living under such a system would be lower, the same, or higher than it is now? that would probably depend on whether you're being exploited by the current system Imagine looking at a group of slave owners and slaves and asking a similar question with regards to ending slavery, and being all like "well let's hear both sides".

I fail to see the relation between people participating in an economy based on a voluntary exchange of goods and services and slavery.

There's people participating in that economy benefiting from people in other countries being exploited in order for those participants to get cheap products.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#589

Post by vonjuice »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #469
vonjuice wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an abstract context that all seems dandy. However when the power is held by people who would potentially face significant financial loss from either theoretical or empirical evidence, it shouldn't be a surprise that such evidence is lacking, no?

> it shouldn't be a surprise that such evidence is lacking, no? So there's no way for you to be wrong? But there is indeed all the ways for everyone else to be wrong?

I'm not the one with the power to stop that evidence from being gathered.

Re: Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

#590

Post by rockemsockem »

DrNosferatu wrote: post #517
rockemsockem wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but this feels like a non sequitur. I completely agree with both of your statements. But I don't see it being related to what I said? Unless you're saying that having any rich people contaminates the system?

The point is that progressive very high taxes are indeed a good idea (or some form of “Limitarianism”). Alternatively, but in the same direction, the taxpayer should get a dividend on their investment. Is not by chance that big tech prospered in comfortable societies, and not in, say, some place full of roaming gangs flashing fixed big machine guns on the back of their pickup trucks.

Yeah I agree with that. I don't agree with the notion that "there should be no individuals who are rich enough to fund great projects"
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