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Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

nytimes.com

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Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#21

Post by candiddevmike »

pasquinelli wrote: post #10
colechristensen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reduce rent seeking, promote local agriculture university outreach programs, gently trim back on waste, promote competition in stagnated fields. There’s not a radical solution where something bold needs to be done. There’s a lot of mundane progress that needs to be done, but before it’s done it needs to be identified and prioritized.

a real attempt to reduce rent seeking would probably lead to civil war.

The feudal lords will call on their bannermen to take up arms via Twitter.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#22

Post by colechristensen »

pasquinelli wrote: post #10
colechristensen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reduce rent seeking, promote local agriculture university outreach programs, gently trim back on waste, promote competition in stagnated fields. There’s not a radical solution where something bold needs to be done. There’s a lot of mundane progress that needs to be done, but before it’s done it needs to be identified and prioritized.

a real attempt to reduce rent seeking would probably lead to civil war.

Reduce, not eliminate.

Put pressure though taxes, regulations, etc that benefit people owning things to do stuff with them and penalize people owning things to make money from somebody else doing things with them.

Investment will always be an important mechanism, it just needs to be a bit more disadvantaged than it is at the moment.

One of the mechanisms is as simple as taxing vacancy. If you own commercial or residential property that isn’t occupied, your taxes go way up to encourage you to drop prices until it gets used or you decide to sell.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#23

Post by hamandcheese »

exabrial wrote: post #9
xhkkffbf wrote: post #3

[flagged]

^ Precisely. To add to your point: In order for something to be unequal, it had to be obtained via unethical means. This is because the sum of morality of small transactions is transitive. Breaking it down in simple terms: If you voluntarily give your free-earned money to Jeff Bezos, it's an ethical transaction. If millions of people do it, they're all ethical transactions. If Jeff Bezos becomes a go-zillionaire, it'…

What if, after decades of undercutting the competition, you live in a place where your choices are ordering from Amazon or shopping at Walmart? How do I feed myself without giving money to billionaires?

Moreover, just because one side of a transaction is voluntary doesn’t mean that the entire business is ethical. Plenty of people voluntarily gave their money for cotton harvested by slaves. Does that mean slavery is ethical?

> This is because the sum of morality of small transactions is transitive.

You take this as fact, but I’m not sure I agree. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#24

Post by tomohawk »

cee_el123 wrote: post #2

( submitting this as a reference to Piketty's whole school of thought not just the latest book ) ( Discussion prompt: what are some radical ideas for slashing poverty/inequality globally in 2 decades or less - assuming the public support/political will can eventually be obtained through effort/luck )

Radical solutions elicit radical response, and are rarely warranted.

See for example the French Revolution. Millions of unnecessary deaths due to political repression and wars. And then, 80 years after it all started, finally achieving democracy. All because those in charge at any given moment cared more about their ideas than people.

If you think we can achieve utopia if only everyone signs on to your wonderful idea, it's a sign that you are not only wrong, but should seriously seek counseling.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#25

Post by s-lambert »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #3

[flagged]

There's a level of inequality that is beneficial but then there's a level of inequality that isn't. Just a blanket "inequality is good no matter what" doesn't seem to hold water. Some inequality seems necessary for progress but inequality also seems fairly undemocractic, if we're not all equals why do we have a political system that acts as if we should be (or works better the less unequal we are).

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#26

Post by claudiawerner »

exabrial wrote: post #9
xhkkffbf wrote: post #3

[flagged]

^ Precisely. To add to your point: In order for something to be unequal, it had to be obtained via unethical means. This is because the sum of morality of small transactions is transitive. Breaking it down in simple terms: If you voluntarily give your free-earned money to Jeff Bezos, it's an ethical transaction. If millions of people do it, they're all ethical transactions. If Jeff Bezos becomes a go-zillionaire, it'…

>If you voluntarily give your free-earned money to Jeff Bezos, it's an ethical transaction.

There has been some work done in economics and distributive justice which casts doubts on whether any and all voluntary transactions count as 'ethical', and philosophers get a look-in here too; see economist Roberto Veneziani or Sen's work.

>If you don't want billionaires in this world, you're free to stop giving them your money at any time.

Economists have also spent a lot of time trying to calculate the rationality of voting vis-a-vis the expected return, and the results don't look good. The inconvenience caused by voting (and I think we could apply this to not buying from Amazon or other corporations owned by billionaires) outweighs the miniscule or 'negligible' (as the economists say in the case of voting) benefit of the owner making less money.

There's a lot of research on the effectiveness and power of boycotts. It's as much an empricical argument as it is a logical one.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#28

Post by ForHackernews »

cee_el123 wrote: post #2

( submitting this as a reference to Piketty's whole school of thought not just the latest book ) ( Discussion prompt: what are some radical ideas for slashing poverty/inequality globally in 2 decades or less - assuming the public support/political will can eventually be obtained through effort/luck )

100% inheritance tax on any estate value over $N (inflation indexed), use that money to fund "baby bonds" to give every newborn an investable trust fund.

Nobody should get to be rich because of who their daddy was.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#29

Post by CraigJPerry »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #3

[flagged]

>> people don't contribute to society equally

That's a catastrophically flawed line of thinking. How can you quantify a person's contributions to society? You certainly can't do it by their ability to generate wealth as you seem to imply.

Re: Thomas Piketty’s Radical Plan to Redistribute Wealth

#30

Post by readthenotes1 »

sixo wrote: post #14
xhkkffbf wrote: post #3

[flagged]

This equating of what-you-put-in to what-you-get-out is a moral choice you can make, but it's easy not to make it. It's widely recognized as hateful. - people's particular successes depend onthw rest of society, they didn't create everything themselves. This should factor into the deservingness calculation. - we have an instinctual desire to take care of the needy (children and elderly in particular); not to honor th…

That last paragraph does indeed sound hateful.
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