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

An open letter to Paul Graham

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–17 of 17 posts

Re: An open letter to Paul Graham

#11

Post by s73v3r »

kfk wrote: post #2

1. inequality does not mean shitty public services. You can have money all in the hands of the 0.1%, but if the economy is big enough, the % of taxes will guarantee enough resources for a good service 2. growth is not affected by inequality (yep, I said it, it's true too) 3. from 1 and 2 follows that we need to agree on the minimum amount of service (some say it should be higher, fair enough, how much? where? why?),…

1. It's possible, however very unlikely, especially given what we've seen so far.

2. It very much is, as inequality limits what sectors of the population can grow.

4. PG wouldn't be in a position to have that comparison made if it wasn't for the services given by the State. Unless you're trying to say that he would have been just as successful growing up in the middle of Somalia.

Re: An open letter to Paul Graham

#12

Post by ljw1001 »

If Paul could have gone as far being born impoverished in Somolia as he did being born affluent in America, then it's fair for him to keep everything. If he benefitted greatly from this society, and from luck, then he can pay a reasonable share of taxes.

It's pretty sad, tho, that one of the most privileged people on earth feels 'hunted'. That's a lot of rationalization for someone who feels like his position is just.

Re: An open letter to Paul Graham

#13

Post by xlm1717 »

cromwellian wrote: post #6
irotatori wrote: post #3

> What is wrong, Mr. Graham, with REDUCING income inequality by taxing EXCESS wealth, and spending it on public services to maintain or even (gasp) improve social mobility? Not Mr. Graham, but it would be hard, probably impossible to find a definition of "EXCESS wealth" which could be considered as just. This is one of the cases where majority opinion doesn't work as everyone has a significant stake in the outcome (i…

The current structure and distribution of wealth is not meritocratic however. Whenever there is any talk of fixing the system, people want to start from the current level and declare things a meritocracy, without touching the gains anyone got from an non-level playing field before hand. This is like saying "ok, there was a bug in World of Warcraft, that allowed a bunch of sophisticated people to level up unfairly. We…

Speed limit is set by road condition, traffic, weather, etc. In heavy traffic, the speed limit can be 0. In rain, some highways dynamically adjust the speed limit down. Speed limits aren't set as a society, they are set by traffic engineers on a case by case basis.

And of course startup founders benefit from positive externality of others. In the case of employees, they have defined and agreed upon compensation.

In the case of medical research, you will benefit from $1 billion for a set period of time, before you lose exclusive rights to a drug and anyone can benefit from it. Then your drug contributes to the 95% of hard work for someone else's drug.

I think you actually turn around your argument in the last sentence. It seems to me you start arguing against inheritance taxes because then people will stop trying to get rich, unless what you want is for everyone to not be rich ("touching the gains" from your first sentence). If people have nothing to gain and everything to lose, since they can't get rich and they risk being destitute and broken, then for what reason will society continue to function? Society won't function, it will devolve into various groups jealously guarding arable land and water.

Re: An open letter to Paul Graham

#14

Post by ljw1001 »

irotatori wrote: post #3

> What is wrong, Mr. Graham, with REDUCING income inequality by taxing EXCESS wealth, and spending it on public services to maintain or even (gasp) improve social mobility? Not Mr. Graham, but it would be hard, probably impossible to find a definition of "EXCESS wealth" which could be considered as just. This is one of the cases where majority opinion doesn't work as everyone has a significant stake in the outcome (i…

Politics is largely about allocating resources. There's nothing inherently more biased about the allocation decisions that lead to a more equal society.

Re: An open letter to Paul Graham

#15

Post by cromwellian »

xlm1717 wrote: post #13
cromwellian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current structure and distribution of wealth is not meritocratic however. Whenever there is any talk of fixing the system, people want to start from the current level and declare things a meritocracy, without touching the gains anyone got from an non-level playing field before hand. This is like saying "ok, there was a bug in World of Warcraft, that allowed a bunch of sophisticated people to level up unfairly. We…

Speed limit is set by road condition, traffic, weather, etc. In heavy traffic, the speed limit can be 0. In rain, some highways dynamically adjust the speed limit down. Speed limits aren't set as a society, they are set by traffic engineers on a case by case basis. And of course startup founders benefit from positive externality of others. In the case of employees, they have defined and agreed upon compensation. In t…

People won't stop trying to get rich just because they "can't take it with them" or pass on the wealth. And no one has proposed a 100% inheritance tax either, so this is a strawman that doesn't really move the conversation along.

The issue is, will higher taxes (not 100% taxes) on income and wealth stop entrepreneurial activity? I don't think so. Is someone going to quit because they'll pay capital gains of 30% instead of 20%? Doubtful.

The issue is what is the appropriate taxation level, not whether it should be 0 or 100%. Currently, most debates devolve down into extremist scenarios that no one is proposing.

Re: An open letter to Paul Graham

#16

Post by cmurf »

irotatori wrote: post #3

> What is wrong, Mr. Graham, with REDUCING income inequality by taxing EXCESS wealth, and spending it on public services to maintain or even (gasp) improve social mobility? Not Mr. Graham, but it would be hard, probably impossible to find a definition of "EXCESS wealth" which could be considered as just. This is one of the cases where majority opinion doesn't work as everyone has a significant stake in the outcome (i…

Anything above median for your city is excess, anything under it is deficient. The question is at which point the excess should be taken, and the deficient subsidized. I'd roughly say 30% on either side of median.

However, not all that long ago, for ~40 years, the U.S. had a top tax bracket above 70%, for about a decade it was 94%. It was not such an exact system where to draw the line. But a line was drawn, and it was not 94% of all of your income, it was only the portion of your income that was above the previous bracket limit. It's not like you make $1 more and suddenly all your other income got hit with this much higher tax. So the fuck all for these hoarders. Start a new business, expand the current one, and you get a tax deduction. If you hoard, fuck you, we have ideas and ways to spend that money, we're taking it. Don't like it? Give up your citizenship. Go pay 70% in some other western civilized country. Or run for office and have your ideas dissected by the American public. Just quit your fucking bitching, whiners.

And meritocracy alone doesn't work. A lot of effective people are assholes who would let the world around the average person burn to the ground before they'd lift a finger. And even that would be delegated.

Re: An open letter to Paul Graham

#17

Post by ezl »

ljw1001 wrote: post #12

If Paul could have gone as far being born impoverished in Somolia as he did being born affluent in America, then it's fair for him to keep everything. If he benefitted greatly from this society, and from luck, then he can pay a reasonable share of taxes. It's pretty sad, tho, that one of the most privileged people on earth feels 'hunted'. That's a lot of rationalization for someone who feels like his position is just…

From HBO's Silicon Valley -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5zQpN28xa4 -- I'll take the downvotes I deserve for trolling.

Though for the record, I'm fairly certain the hunters and wild animals analogy isn't intended as a complaint that he feels "hunted" or that he thinks people are out to hunt or kill startup founders in any literal or figurative sense [1].

The point of that anecdote in PG's essay is just that the counterparty to the argument doesn't have a clear objective. The Rick Webb open letter obviously uses it out of context to make PG look as if he's whining about being rich.

    [1] fun aside: yay those 2 words mean the same
        thing anyways now apparently anyways.
        http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/according_to_the_dictionary_literally_now_also_means_figuratively_newscred/
Post reply on HN