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IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

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Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#191

Post by prawn »

DiNovi wrote: post #161
jrochkind1 wrote: post #105

// Automation replaces men. This of course is nothing new. What is new is that now, unlike most earlier periods, the displaced men have nowhere to go. The farmers displaced by mechanization of the farms in the 20's could go to the cities and man the assembly lines. As for the work animals like the mule, they could just stop growing them. But automation displaces people, and you don't just stop growing people even whe…

>> The farmers displaced by mechanization of the farms in the 20's could go to the cities and man the assembly lines. Things like this are not necessarily true; some displaced farmers moved into cities, but many did not and have been toiling away since then. We really whitewash history

They said that farmers "could go" not that all did.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#192

Post by jrs95 »

pdonis wrote: post #186
jrs95 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parts of the economy can be controlled centrally, if it makes more sense, or other parts can be decentralized by a variety of different means, including worker co-ops. Even the centralized parts could still operate under a market system if needed, leaving them no worse off information wise than a large corporation. Socialism != Stalinist planned economy. The key part really is the elimination of a capitalist class wh…

> Collective ownership of that capital and "the means of production" There is no such thing. You've just reinvented the same kind of Communism that the Soviet Union ran a 70-year-plus experiment on. It doesn't work. Control of how capital is used always comes down to a small fraction of humans making the decisions.

We already essentially have a tiny bit of that in the form of the capital gains tax. Raise that a bit to fund public sector investment (but maybe not now because interest rates on borrowing are so low) and set a steep inheritance tax and you've gotten much closer. As for distribution of the money afterwards, doing everything at the federal level isn't desirable for a lot of things, so transfer that to state and local governments in those cases. Although a prerequisite to any of this being a good idea is making our democracy a lot more functional.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#193

Post by jrochkind1 »

jrs95 wrote: post #116
jrochkind1 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's hostility to the rich in general on the left. Not all people who work in tech are rich, but many of the, oh, top 10% of income earners, especially those someone else might come into contact with regularly, are in tech. And human nature to express more ire towards those you come into contact with regularly than those you never do.

I think that's partially true, but I also think it's because of negative stereotypes of people in tech being "nerds" who are to be looked down upon. It's more of a mismatch between what they think our social and economic class ought to be and what it actually is.

I dunno, there are a lot of nerdy leftists.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#194

Post by jrochkind1 »

DiNovi wrote: post #161
jrochkind1 wrote: post #105

// Automation replaces men. This of course is nothing new. What is new is that now, unlike most earlier periods, the displaced men have nowhere to go. The farmers displaced by mechanization of the farms in the 20's could go to the cities and man the assembly lines. As for the work animals like the mule, they could just stop growing them. But automation displaces people, and you don't just stop growing people even whe…

>> The farmers displaced by mechanization of the farms in the 20's could go to the cities and man the assembly lines. Things like this are not necessarily true; some displaced farmers moved into cities, but many did not and have been toiling away since then. We really whitewash history

If they were still making a living farming, they were not 'displaced by mechanization', of course. But there's obviously been a huge urbanization wave in many/most parts of the world over the past 100 years.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#195

Post by bluGill »

Shikadi wrote: post #181
bluGill wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inequality is NOT a problem though. Poverty is a problem, but that is a different issue from inequality. Once you have the basics met (food, shelter) everything else is a luxury. A mud hut without enough to eat is not a life I would want to live, but I could live that way. Take away the hut or the food and I won't survive. I like not having to cook over an open fire. I like having lights in the dark, a cell phone, a…

Okay, except that in plenty of places being homeless is illegal, mud huts on property you don't own is illegal, you can expect your lifespan to be cut down by more than half, and the level of income inequality in the US is staggering. 95% of households make under $200k, while 3 million people make millions of dollars and do whatever they can to make sure nobody catches up to them. Even if you take poor people out of…

I understand that a true minimal lifestyle is illegal. However if we ignore that issue (I in fact do not agree with those laws) we can look at what our true minimums are.

A mud hut will not cut your lifespan. A mud hut of course implies that you don't have access to good medical care, don't have good heat, and cooking on a smokey wood fire. All of those will cut your lifespan, but it isn't the mud hut it is the rest of what it implies. In short poverty which I already said is a problem.

We can move up a step: at $5/hour (less than minimum wage in the US, but lets call the rest lost to taxes) you can potentially earn $800/month, put $600 into rent in a cheap apartment and that leaves $200 for food. You will be walking everywhere, getting clothing at goodwill, but it is enough to live to a fairly old age one (once you get old you can no longer afford your medical bills, but most people can live to old age with minimal medical care)

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#196

Post by drewmol »

mmirate wrote: post #167
drewmol wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting response, thanks. To parent's comment: If >it's not OK to force everyone else to provide for them. Along the same lines of thinking: it's not OK to force everyone else to defend your assets/property/lifestyle Or at least it's unlikely you will succeed in that effort

> it's not OK to force everyone else to defend your assets/property/lifestyle No need for such a thing; that is the job we expect of the police in exchange for paying our taxes, is it not?

It is, this was a poorly thought out comment on my part, and after re reading it, it's a bad/illogical argument.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#197

Post by logicchains »

coldtea wrote: post #132
logicchains wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the end, some people might not like it, but more people will see it as a default/norm/baseline than in an opt-in society. This is a supposition. I could suppose that (and I've certainly read this somewhere) actively giving to charity encourage people to give more; giving is like a skill, generosity is like a muscle, growing with practice. If giving is abstracted out to the state, if people think "I don't have to…

> The difference here is, if you have a society/governance structure that rejects the notion of using violence to enforce certain beliefs on others, there'd be no mechanism for keeping people in slavery. Slavery is based on using force to have others do your work, serve your interests -- not in enforcing certain beliefs in others. So it's not enough to have a "a society/governance structure that rejects the notion of…

>Slavery is based on using force to have others do your work, serve your interests -- not in enforcing certain beliefs in others. So it's not enough to have a "a society/governance structure that rejects the notion of using violence to enforce certain beliefs on others", but also to have a society that it or individuals also don't use force to serve their private interests.

>While looks unlikely. How would such a society would enforce no slavery if people still profited from having slaves? It should punish those that do to prevent that (and thus it couldn't fully embrace the non-violence thing).

I probably didn't make the best choice of words, but by "a society/governance structure that rejects the notion of using violence to enforce certain beliefs on others", I meant a society where violence is rejected in general; slavery is the slaver enforcing their beliefs on how the slave should behave on the slave, and they have to use violence for this, or else the slave would escape.

You're right though that maybe this would only work if every member in the society agreed not to use violence. There could be alternatives though, e.g. ostracising the violent person - if nobody else in society interacted with them, they'd starve. Or building a literal wall around the community and not letting the violent person in. Allowing people some degree of violence in direct self defence, e.g. restraining the violent person and pushing them out of the community.

>Well, if the "man watching the drowning man" was punished for his non-involvement, then future drowning men would be better off. So it might seem like it's a totally passive harm, but it actually affects the future of what's acceptable.

This only works if there's somebody who sees the person letting the drowning man drown (and if there's somebody else there, why didn't they save the drowning man themselves?). Even then there's no guarantee: maybe if such a law existed against not helping downing people, people who didn't like helping others would just stay away from rivers more, to reduce their chance of ever being in that situation in the first place.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#198

Post by biggerbistro »

pdkl95 wrote: post #72
jstanley wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's your parent, partner, or kids, (or even if it's not -- it could be anyone) you're welcome to provide for them yourself. You're also welcome to donate to (or even work for!) charities that provide for them. But it's not OK to force everyone else to provide for them.

Mark Blyth (prof. of political economy at Brown) has advice for anyone with this attitude: "The Hamptons is not a defensible position"[1]. What are you going to do when a large fraction of the population starts getting hungry and they decide taking what they need from you (and everyone else with wealth/resources)? Do you really think that the police will simply arrest them? What about when someone starts shooting and…

Do you think these people don't have extensive private security? The elite could easily take on a whole city of rioters with the resources at their disposal. When the gloves come off and it starts being about survival it won't be bodyguards pushing people out of the way, it will be mercenaries with helicopters and full-auto weapons. The middle class that can't afford such protection will of course be the losers, as usual, and will be scapegoated after all the Richie Rich types have escaped to their private islands/bunkers.

Re: IT is the cause of rising income and wealth inequality since the 1970s [pdf]

#199

Post by Shikadi »

bluGill wrote: post #195
Shikadi wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, except that in plenty of places being homeless is illegal, mud huts on property you don't own is illegal, you can expect your lifespan to be cut down by more than half, and the level of income inequality in the US is staggering. 95% of households make under $200k, while 3 million people make millions of dollars and do whatever they can to make sure nobody catches up to them. Even if you take poor people out of…

I understand that a true minimal lifestyle is illegal. However if we ignore that issue (I in fact do not agree with those laws) we can look at what our true minimums are. A mud hut will not cut your lifespan. A mud hut of course implies that you don't have access to good medical care, don't have good heat, and cooking on a smokey wood fire. All of those will cut your lifespan, but it isn't the mud hut it is the rest…

$200 is left for food and medical and clothing, and won't buy you a very healthy diet, at least where I am, which is considered a cheaper place to live. Also that's ignoring, the systematic barriers in the way of doing that. In a place where you don't need a car to get from cheap apartments to work, "cheap apartments" cost more than $600. In a place where apartents are actually cheap enough, and someone walks say a mile every day to work, they're competing with everyone else to find work in a small radius. That's a tiny tip of the iceberg, but in a perfect world minimum wage would be enough to live on for everyone everywhere. We don't live anywhere near there
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