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Inequality Without Class

dissentmagazine.org

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Re: Inequality Without Class

#11

Post by m463 »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #9
roenxi wrote: post #2

The focus on inequality is a massive mistake. The focus needs to be on absolute living standards. I would rather live in a world with a 10x Musk and no homeless people than a more equal world like the current one but with no billionaires. In point fact, I don't see how that second world is better for anyone. Literally nobody is better off in that scenario even if inequality has dropped. There is no reason to believe…

You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself. All you have to do is look at the propaganda surrounding "PPP loans" versus the money given out to stretch people's paychecks during the pandemic. Most businesses weren't affected in any substantial way, but governments still gave away trillions, and the companies got to keep the money. Meanwhi…

> reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people

I think you're right, but not in that way.

Tesla charged wealthy people a lot for the original tesla roadster. Then they took what they learned and charged wealthy people a lot for a better car, the original model S. Then the X.

He continued reaching into the pockets of wealthy people for further updates to the model S/X, updating the motor, then motors.

Now the model 3 and Y are available for less wealthy people. I'm sure the next generation of tesla cars will be more affordable, maybe even Jimbob.

Re: Inequality Without Class

#12

Post by refurb »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #9
roenxi wrote: post #2

The focus on inequality is a massive mistake. The focus needs to be on absolute living standards. I would rather live in a world with a 10x Musk and no homeless people than a more equal world like the current one but with no billionaires. In point fact, I don't see how that second world is better for anyone. Literally nobody is better off in that scenario even if inequality has dropped. There is no reason to believe…

You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself. All you have to do is look at the propaganda surrounding "PPP loans" versus the money given out to stretch people's paychecks during the pandemic. Most businesses weren't affected in any substantial way, but governments still gave away trillions, and the companies got to keep the money. Meanwhi…

> You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself.

There was no "reaching into others pocket". It's a luxury car, not a fire extinguisher being sold to a guy on fire.

People reached into their own pocket and handed him cash. Voluntarily. For something they wanted.

Then Elon sold off pieces of his company to people who reached into their pockets and handed him cash for it. Voluntarily. Because they wanted it.

It's one of the least coercise set of transactions I can possibly think of.

Re: Inequality Without Class

#13

Post by schmidtleonard »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #9
roenxi wrote: post #2

The focus on inequality is a massive mistake. The focus needs to be on absolute living standards. I would rather live in a world with a 10x Musk and no homeless people than a more equal world like the current one but with no billionaires. In point fact, I don't see how that second world is better for anyone. Literally nobody is better off in that scenario even if inequality has dropped. There is no reason to believe…

You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself. All you have to do is look at the propaganda surrounding "PPP loans" versus the money given out to stretch people's paychecks during the pandemic. Most businesses weren't affected in any substantial way, but governments still gave away trillions, and the companies got to keep the money. Meanwhi…

Yep. $2T printed into the real estate market, $1T to Wall St, $800b to stimulus checks... and the latter catches 100% of the blame, though it always seems to be people benefiting from #1 or #2 doing the talking.

In every mixed economy, there's a capital side and a labor side. Rich people getting paid for owning things, poor people getting paid for working. There's a healthy tension there, but for the last 50 years capital has been kicking the shit out of labor and it's really starting to show.

Re: Inequality Without Class

#14

Post by eli_gottlieb »

roenxi wrote: post #2

The focus on inequality is a massive mistake. The focus needs to be on absolute living standards. I would rather live in a world with a 10x Musk and no homeless people than a more equal world like the current one but with no billionaires. In point fact, I don't see how that second world is better for anyone. Literally nobody is better off in that scenario even if inequality has dropped. There is no reason to believe…

Please just read the article. Would you like to cut to a much more direct measure? What is the price of labor? By this is your society's wealth or poverty measured.

>Or as Adam Smith would later put it, in what Milanovic stresses was a Copernican shift in perspective: “The high price of labor is to be considered not merely as the proof of the general opulence of society which can afford to pay well all those whom it employs; it is to be regarded as what constitutes the very essence of public opulence, or as the very thing in which public opulence properly consists.”

Re: Inequality Without Class

#15

Post by Jensson »

m463 wrote: post #11
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself. All you have to do is look at the propaganda surrounding "PPP loans" versus the money given out to stretch people's paychecks during the pandemic. Most businesses weren't affected in any substantial way, but governments still gave away trillions, and the companies got to keep the money. Meanwhi…

> reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people I think you're right, but not in that way. Tesla charged wealthy people a lot for the original tesla roadster. Then they took what they learned and charged wealthy people a lot for a better car, the original model S. Then the X. He continued reaching into the pockets of wealthy people for further updates to the model S/X, updating the motor, then motors. Now…

And most important: Wealthy people invested into Tesla stock hype, that is where most of Musks money comes from.

Re: Inequality Without Class

#17

Post by Gimpei »

I have to say I prefer the type of book review that you see in the New York Review of Books. This is basically 95% pure summary with a tiny and vacuous conclusion. I find the discussion at the beginning of Auten and Splinter puzzling and it makes me wonder if the author understands AS or PSG beyond a few tweet storms on Econ twitter.

Re: Inequality Without Class

#18

Post by Manuel_D »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #9
roenxi wrote: post #2

The focus on inequality is a massive mistake. The focus needs to be on absolute living standards. I would rather live in a world with a 10x Musk and no homeless people than a more equal world like the current one but with no billionaires. In point fact, I don't see how that second world is better for anyone. Literally nobody is better off in that scenario even if inequality has dropped. There is no reason to believe…

You don't get to be Musk level without reaching your hands deep into the pockets of other people and taking it for yourself. All you have to do is look at the propaganda surrounding "PPP loans" versus the money given out to stretch people's paychecks during the pandemic. Most businesses weren't affected in any substantial way, but governments still gave away trillions, and the companies got to keep the money. Meanwhi…

This kind of zero-sum thinking - then notion that accumulation of wealth necessarily means it must have been taken from others - is extremely detrimental to society.

Re: Inequality Without Class

#19

Post by dventimi »

roenxi wrote: post #2

The focus on inequality is a massive mistake. The focus needs to be on absolute living standards. I would rather live in a world with a 10x Musk and no homeless people than a more equal world like the current one but with no billionaires. In point fact, I don't see how that second world is better for anyone. Literally nobody is better off in that scenario even if inequality has dropped. There is no reason to believe…

I couldn't agree less. Wealth depends on poverty because poverty creates wealth. You'll never get 10x Musk's without creating homeless people. We compete with each other for resources using wealth and power, which at the highest levels are the same.

Re: Inequality Without Class

#20

Post by cool_dude85 »

roenxi wrote: post #2

The focus on inequality is a massive mistake. The focus needs to be on absolute living standards. I would rather live in a world with a 10x Musk and no homeless people than a more equal world like the current one but with no billionaires. In point fact, I don't see how that second world is better for anyone. Literally nobody is better off in that scenario even if inequality has dropped. There is no reason to believe…

>I would rather live in a world with a 10x Musk and no homeless people than a more equal world like the current one but with no billionaires.

Fair. And I think in fact most people probably would agree with you as a hypothetical. Where I think we would disagree is whether we think an economic system that produces 10x the Musks is an economic system that could also eliminate homelessness. Would the political leaders in such a system want to spend money eliminating homelessness, or spend money on the Musks who e.g. finance their elections, or provide them with well paying jobs?

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