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Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

thesaint.scot

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Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#141

Post by WalterBright »

danShumway wrote: post #115
WalterBright wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's crime, violence, and mental illness that causes inequality.

Haven't we been doing "tough on crime" policy for decades now? We had the entire war on drugs, which we're really only just now collectively pulling back from and realizing was a mistake. We passed prohibition on alcohol. We did stop-and-frisk, all that crud. And our mental illness diagnoses and treatment processes are better today than they've ever been (even if the overall health care system is a mess). We know mor…

1. Crime causes stress in high crime neighborhoods.

2. Crime impoverishes neighborhoods by causing people to spend money to protect themselves, hiring security guards, armoring their businesses, and simply driving businesses away.

3. Crime impoverishes families when members get jailed.

4. Crime impoverishes criminals because a criminal record greatly restricts opportunities for productive employment

5. Crime prevents criminals from getting an education

6. Crime is a zero-sum, adversarial economic system. Cooperation in a free market is far, far more productive to those who participate in it

A person committing crimes will impoverish himself, his family, and his community.

Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#142

Post by js8 »

civilized wrote: post #83
jl6 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no reason for my health to be harmed just because someone has more than me. Being angry all the time can harm your health. Maybe being envious all the time can too.

Then envious people can work on themselves, as we've always understood envy to be a moral problem.

Yeah, don't be envious, man, just always take the little of what is offered, trying to negotiate better conditions for yourself is bad for your health.

Do you know ultimatum game? There might be a good reason why envy exists.

Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#143

Post by kansface »

analog31 wrote: post #74
rich_sasha wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is going to do the redistribution and how? It sounds nice, these people have too much and these have too little, let’s optimise. But redistribution via taxes imho leads to politicians having larger budgets for scoring political goals. And anyway how is it meant to work? If you equalise assets, you’ll find wealth drifting away from it again, as some eat through their assets and some invest/save. It’s a known effec…

I'd simply start a progressive wealth tax at a high enough threshold so that a person could provide themselves with a reasonable nest egg. Pulling numbers out of the air, maybe 1%/year for the first $10 million, up to 10%/year for $100 million. (Note that if you live in a house, you're already paying some wealth tax). This would leave most people with both good and poor standing with enough to live comfortably, and t…

You start a business, and against the odds it’s successful! You hire employees as it grows to scale operations, only now it’s now worth 11 million dollars. Now what? Do you have to pay 100k in taxes to cover a totally illiquid asset? Who is doing the buying here that isn’t subject to the same tax? Do you give away shares to family? Do you sell off ownership and lose control? What’s the point of taking any business past that threshold? Seriously, now what?

Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#144

Post by WalterBright »

WalterBright wrote: post #141
danShumway wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't we been doing "tough on crime" policy for decades now? We had the entire war on drugs, which we're really only just now collectively pulling back from and realizing was a mistake. We passed prohibition on alcohol. We did stop-and-frisk, all that crud. And our mental illness diagnoses and treatment processes are better today than they've ever been (even if the overall health care system is a mess). We know mor…

1. Crime causes stress in high crime neighborhoods. 2. Crime impoverishes neighborhoods by causing people to spend money to protect themselves, hiring security guards, armoring their businesses, and simply driving businesses away. 3. Crime impoverishes families when members get jailed. 4. Crime impoverishes criminals because a criminal record greatly restricts opportunities for productive employment 5. Crime prevents…

P.S. I am in favor of legalizing drugs because it will eliminate the associated crime.

P.P.S. An awful lot of people look at the obvious correlation between poverty and crime, and assume that therefore poverty causes crime. I strongly suspect it's the other way around - crime produces poverty.

P.P.P.S. No, I am not an advocate of being "tough on crime". I think most prison sentences are excessive. But decriminalizing and ignoring crime is the wrong answer. NYC's classifying armed robbery as not a violent crime is the wrong answer. (I've been robbed at gunpoint. Putting a gun in someone's face and threatening to blow their head off is a violent crime. Period.)

Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#145

Post by 1193 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #20

Worth reading Robert Sapolsky on the topic of inequality here[1]. Inequality itself (not poverty, and accounted for the material disadvantages ), causes about half of the difference in health and life expectancy outcomes in developed nations, makes people at a neurological level opportunistic and causes biological stress in populations which results in violence, crime, isolation, mental illness, and so forth. That's…

How does this negate the idea of making everyone wealthier? Inequality might account for why the super rich have a higher life expectancy than the sorta-rich, but that does not mean the sorta-rich would live longer otherwise.

Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#146

Post by WalterBright »

danShumway wrote: post #115
WalterBright wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's crime, violence, and mental illness that causes inequality.

Haven't we been doing "tough on crime" policy for decades now? We had the entire war on drugs, which we're really only just now collectively pulling back from and realizing was a mistake. We passed prohibition on alcohol. We did stop-and-frisk, all that crud. And our mental illness diagnoses and treatment processes are better today than they've ever been (even if the overall health care system is a mess). We know mor…

> it starts to feel more like "tough on crime" is a philosophy rather than a data-driven, falsifiable theory.

Just recently it was reported that after the cops were not allowed to chase car thiefs, car thefts went up 50%.

https://mynorthwest.com/3327635/dramatic-rise-in-car-thefts-...

The recent decriminalization of looting has also resulted in a surge of stealing and crime in cities. Businesses have to spend a lot to armor their stores, hire security guards, and cover the losses. Many just close up shop and flee. This will increase poverty and inequality.

Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#147

Post by civilized »

js8 wrote: post #142
civilized wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then envious people can work on themselves, as we've always understood envy to be a moral problem.

Yeah, don't be envious, man, just always take the little of what is offered, trying to negotiate better conditions for yourself is bad for your health. Do you know ultimatum game? There might be a good reason why envy exists.

Feel free to try and negotiate better whatever for yourself. But if stress about someone else having more is your driver, I think you're suffering needlessly.

Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#149

Post by analog31 »

kansface wrote: post #143
analog31 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd simply start a progressive wealth tax at a high enough threshold so that a person could provide themselves with a reasonable nest egg. Pulling numbers out of the air, maybe 1%/year for the first $10 million, up to 10%/year for $100 million. (Note that if you live in a house, you're already paying some wealth tax). This would leave most people with both good and poor standing with enough to live comfortably, and t…

You start a business, and against the odds it’s successful! You hire employees as it grows to scale operations, only now it’s now worth 11 million dollars. Now what? Do you have to pay 100k in taxes to cover a totally illiquid asset? Who is doing the buying here that isn’t subject to the same tax? Do you give away shares to family? Do you sell off ownership and lose control? What’s the point of taking any business pa…

You take 100k out of the kitty and pay the tax. Your investors knew up front that this could happen. The point of taking a business past that threshold is that it can make enough money to cover the tax while also growing itself. What does a homeowner do when they don't have the cash to pay their property tax?

Re: Reducing inequality can reverse political polarisation: study

#150

Post by js8 »

civilized wrote: post #135
js8 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also the book The Spirit Level, which shows that inequality also negatively affects those who are well-off - they become stressed about their social standing too. This is why naive explanations of inequality that blame the poor or the envious are false.

I don't think it proves envy false as a cause. It just means envy is of a piece with status anxiety more broadly. I doubt that anyone of any historical period would be shocked by this.

The stress of falling from the current social position (for example, in the US, the risk of inability to pay medical bills or student debt) also affects people who are not envious and comfortable with their current salary and social standing. So it's not just envious people causing psychological harm to themselves, it's the unequal system that harms mostly everybody.
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