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Inequality in Equalland

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Re: Inequality in Equalland

#121

Post by r0s »

rue wrote: post #62
r0s wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly almost any disparity would be acceptable if all citizens had basic needs met, like healthcare and housing.

Absolutely not for me. Arguably, if all citizens had basic needs met (including "luxury" items that enable participating in society as equals – cell phones and internet connections, for example) and had equal opportunity to advance, that would be acceptable. Not what I consider to be a fair society, but acceptable.

Oh I agree, but for that you need everyone to be similarly educated, which I'd argue requires participation on the part of the citizen. Which might be impossible.

I think it's enough to provide all the basic needs so no one needs to spend extra money on survival. Given that, I get philosophical about work: I think people would contribute more to society if they had the choice of how to do so. My theory is people flourish pursuing goals when the pursuit defines their identity.

It's hard to make office work meaningful when you don't care about the business you're in. Most will settle there for needs met. The parallel is the poor farmer who loves her job but doesn't make enough money to survive.

I'd love to study how identity effects job satisfaction.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#122

Post by kiba »

loewenskind wrote: post #108
kiba wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super-rich people interested in space exploration? Ordinary people donating money for space exploration?

Neither of these are examples of capitalism.

I made the wrong presumption that we should use government to funds these kind of projects.

But if life problems, accidents, aren't as urgent due to capitalism solving most of our problem, I am assuming we would be thinking of large aspiration beyond a nice house and 2 1/2 kids.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#123

Post by rmk »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #114
loewenskind wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Consumption isn't useful to society. That seems absurd on it's face. If there is no one to consumer what exactly are the producers selling? >A developer (potentially earning $200k/year) who builds an application can be hundreds or thousands of times more productive than a secretary (potentially earning $20k/year). Exactly. Surely you're not under the impression that programmers are in the top 1%? Maybe one or two of…

That seems absurd on it's face. If there is no one to consumer what exactly are the producers selling? So a loaf of bread is eaten just so that it can be produced? Also, the developer I mentioned is in the top 3%, not the top 1%. Does that substantively change the nature of my assertion? Lastly, when discussing CEOs who fail to turn a company around, you are comparing CEOs to other CEOs. Similarly, while most program…

It looks like the OP doesn't like CEOs. Fair enough, what with CEOs raking in the moolah while the stock underperforms / short-sighted decisions that pander to the 'analysts' are taken etc.

But, the OP also seems to be making the mistake of implying CEOs == the rich. This is patently absurd. There are plenty of rich people who are not CEOs. How about Larry Page, Sergei Brin, Michael Jordan, Barack Obama, Senators of the United States?

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#124

Post by drunkpotato »

Confusion wrote: post #74
gjm11 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original article said: Is there too much inequality in the world? Sure. And cperciva reiterated that opinion above. That's what drunkpotato is disagreeing with. It is clearly an opinion that isn't purely a matter of facts and figures. (One with which, as I happen, I agree.)

I don't think drunkpotato is disagreeing with that at all. He's supporting someone that states that wealth disparity is not a good thing.

I was acknowledging that not everyone agrees that wealth disparity is necessary. I did not state my opinion on the matter, merely that it is difficult to see how it could be avoided should we want to. I was trying to point out that a glib "Nope" doesn't bring anything new to the table.

Moving on to my personal opinion, I think it's more productive to think in terms of how much wealth disparity is part of a reasonably robust and functioning economy. We've all seen the numbers that show a steady trend upwards over the last 3 decades. That does not seem to be a good thing.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#125

Post by gaius »

loewenskind wrote: post #96
wlievens wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of 'if there are no consequences to it' did you glance over?

But what is the point of such a line of discussion? If there are no consequences then of course no one would care. The whole reason such a thing is discussed is because there are indeed very real consequences.

Not really. Here in the UK "the poor" have satellite TV, free healthcare, smoke 40 cigarettes a day, and pay someone else to cook their food.

What does it matter that "the rich" go to the opera and smoke cigars and eat at fancy restaurants instead of the kebab shop? How does any of the latter take anything away from the former?

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#126

Post by ugh »

lsd5you wrote: post #38
cperciva wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not as though all that money in mommy’s and daddy’s bank account makes their kids magically more intelligent. (But it can pay for private schools or for private lessons and so on.) FWIW, numerous studies have found that the vast majority of correlation between parental income and the academic success of children can be explained by a third factor: Parental education. Educated parents both earn more and provide f…

I feel that you are omitting genetics as a possible (probable) significant cause of academic success, which because of the corelation with the parents own academic success will be hard to disambiguate as a variable. According to horizon (a main stream medium-high brow documentary series in the UK), separated twin studies show that as much as 50% of 'measured intelligence' can be attributed to genetics - which was fai…

I’m not really surprised that genetics influence intelligence. I always thought that to be a pretty standard view and the 50 percent figure you are citing doesn’t exactly startle me.

I’m not so sure how important those 50 percent are in this context, though. One question that I think is not answered by twin studies is how ‘hereditary’ intelligence is. (I’m certain that there exists a wealth of literature about just that topic, I’m too lazy to look for it right now.) Do two parents of average intelligence only have children with similarly average intelligence or is the range of intelligence of their children much wider? Then there is obviously the question how well wealth corresponds to intelligence in the first place.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#127

Post by ericd »

jshen wrote: post #116
ericd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus really can't be used as an example of what normal behavior would be. Noone's saying it's the only significant benefit, but for a lot of people, it is the overwhelming majority of the benefit of what they do. Programmers live in a privileged bubble compared to most.

I disagree. most people I know have some passion that they do for the love of it. Whether it's playing guitar, doing wood work, cooking, etc. Many of us here happen to have a passion for programming. But in all cases, money is not the motivator. If money were such a strong motivator video games would be a lot less popular.

Weren't we talking about livelihoods? Of course people have hobbies... For a very large percentage of people, their livelihood and their passion are not the same thing, and it's mistaken to use programmers like Linus as representative of most people or what would happen in something like Communism.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#128

Post by cdavid »

btilly wrote: post #90
cdavid wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reductio ad absurdum, and most likely not what the OP meant. The idea that a fair society is one where inequalities are rather low is not exclusive to extreme left ideologies. How you articulate inequality and justice is one of the most pertinent way to describe right vs left ideologies, and economics do not preclude either view (up to a certain degree). If you read serious works about how fairness and inequalit…

Low inequalities and no inequalities are very different. Suppose that we start with equal wealth. And then I buy and consume a chocolate bar. Odds are that I'm now happier and poorer than you. Who would seriously argue that this wealth inequality is a bad thing? I'm right there with people who complain about the amount of inequality that we have today. I don't think that it is healthy or productive. But if you believ…

Well, sure, it is impossible to have 0 inequality if you consider pure equality, but that's a trivial remark. The notion of equality almost always makes sense only in a statistical sense (are two values statistically different), unless you have a discrete observation.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#129

Post by loewenskind »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #120
loewenskind wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that high school dropout is wasting his life away because he sees no means of being successful. I think you'll find that most people who prefer to stay at home and mooch off the system do so because to make their life just slightly better would require them to seriously bust their asses. That means their effective compensation would be very low (maybe zero or even negative in some cases). We have and have had s…

We have and have had societies in the past where everyone got equal compensation. Do you think those societies allowed loafers to goof off all day and contribute nothing? That's not better. If someone wants to be lazy, put in the minimum effort, and spend the rest of their time playing games that's their choice and they shouldn't be punished for it by forcing them to contribute to society to "earn" what they've been…

I'm just saying loafers isn't a deal breaker. Past societies dealt with it by not allowing it. If we ever realize a future utopia we could probably live with a small percentage of the population spending their whole life doing nothing but gaming. But it is my strong (completely unprovable without actually trying it) suspicion that many people who game their lives away actually would rather be doing something else (e.g. working in a space station), they just don't feel they have the option.

Re: Inequality in Equalland

#130

Post by loewenskind »

kiba wrote: post #122
loewenskind wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of these are examples of capitalism.

I made the wrong presumption that we should use government to funds these kind of projects. But if life problems, accidents, aren't as urgent due to capitalism solving most of our problem, I am assuming we would be thinking of large aspiration beyond a nice house and 2 1/2 kids.

Except we've had capitalism for thousands of years now and the majority of people who seem to have those large aspirations are psychopaths who want to rule the world (or at least the ones who manage to achieve really large scale success of their goals).

I also think "due to capitalism solving most of our problem" is a bit of a stretch. It's solving most of the problems of the rich people of the west but I bet the world's hungry don't find it so grand. Especially since there is plenty of food to feed them. There's just no money in doing so.

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