Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality • Hacker News Board

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#51

Post by AndrewKemendo » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:28 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #21

caseysoftware wrote: post #10

> I think we can have a society that rewards people for productive or otherwise socially valuable contributions while also taking care of the poor and those who can’t work. I find "socially valuable contributions" to be a disturbing phrase. First, that implies there's some sort of authority - legal or otherwise - that determines "socially valuable." Second, quite often society is wrong in what "it" values or finds po…

> that implies there's some sort of authority - legal or otherwise - that determines "socially valuable." Well, we already have a system that rewards “valuable” contributions: Money. Just a lot of people don’t like that system much, as it turns out that system places little value on childcare, elder care and teaching; and huge value on executives who are fired for sexual harassment. Which doesn’t line up very precise…

In fact it's quite efficient, as the feedback time between when the signal is sent from the consumer to when it is received by the producer is very short compared to political systems.

Revealed preferences also show that what people say they want and what they actually want can be quantified very precisely using money as a proxy. And more generally, the vast majority of consumers show they prefer low prices over all other things, including priced in externalities, bad labor and management practices, unsustainable production etc...

More recently however (~100 years) the advertising and marketing industry has shown that preference hijacking is a real thing, so markets are skewed in this way.

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#52

Post by nugget » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #16

roenxi wrote: post #11

It remains very frustrating watching people organise against inequality as the evil of this era. Inequality isn't worth railing against and the focus of all this attention should be on living standards. If everyone doubles their living standards over 10 years, absolute inequality rises (there is always going to be someone with no wealth/income because they want to live that way, so the absolute gap in wealth increase…

I'm going to speak directly to your point, which is the claim that only absolute wealth matters, but relative wealth does not . Relative wealth buys you status, position, and power in society. That status protects you when things go wrong, when the system fails to measure or optimize for the things that you care about, or when the music suddenly stops and you find that you're the one left without a chair. People deep…

As I watch pop culture media I can’t help but think that the desire for relative wealth/status is driven primarily by the desire to attract sexual and romantic partners. I don’t think people in their 20s and 30s are as worried about war and famine as they are about being undesirable, unpopular, rejected, and lonely. At least not in the US. I suppose sex tech and AR/VR tech could advance to the point where some of these fears are obliviated and humans begin to deprogram the desire for status within a social hierarchy. That would be quite a radical evolution.

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#53

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

caseysoftware wrote: post #10

> I think we can have a society that rewards people for productive or otherwise socially valuable contributions while also taking care of the poor and those who can’t work. I find "socially valuable contributions" to be a disturbing phrase. First, that implies there's some sort of authority - legal or otherwise - that determines "socially valuable." Second, quite often society is wrong in what "it" values or finds po…

> First, that implies there's some sort of authority - legal or otherwise - that determines "socially valuable." Not necessarily. I agree that having values dictated by fiat is a recipe for disaster - such arrangements are bound to get corrupted over time. But on the other end of the spectrum, there is some sense of social value - a sense in which e.g. garbage collectors, firemen and doctors do more socially valuable…

[deleted]

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#54

Post by joe_the_user » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:32 PM UTC

underpand wrote: post #23

CJefferson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the past 20 years, the amount of wealth has increased substansally, and almost none of the gain has gone to those at the bottom of society. Inequality is growing every year.

Don't the bottom of society all have access to the advancements in technology now e.g. 4g, high speed internet, smart phones, mobile apps, video games Access to technology is a form of wealth.

Your discussion along with the your GP treat "wealth" as an undifferentiated substance, where a greater total amount inherently involves a better life.

The problem with this is that human beings are limited biological creatures with a variety of wants and needs each of which is not interchangeable with the other. Having a powerful smart phone with access to the Internet no doubt give a person greater variety of stimulous, the potential for entertainment, connection with those in near and distant land and whatever else. It satisfies what we might call the desire for entertainment, creativity or whatever. But it can't be directly substituted for food, clothing, shelter or a temperature controlled environment. So the situation of a homeless person with a smart phone freezing at night is better than a middle class person in the 1950s - even if we count the homeless person as having $1 million dollars in wealth measured by 1950s standard - since hey, that smart phone is lots of "wealth".

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#55

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #26

TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, that implies there's some sort of authority - legal or otherwise - that determines "socially valuable." Not necessarily. I agree that having values dictated by fiat is a recipe for disaster - such arrangements are bound to get corrupted over time. But on the other end of the spectrum, there is some sense of social value - a sense in which e.g. garbage collectors, firemen and doctors do more socially valuable…

What you are writing is another version of water/diamonds story. Basically WTF happened that diamonds, which nobody needs, are worth a lot, but water, which everyone needs, costs basically nothing? The answer was something called marginalism. Well worth reading about, and I can't do justice to it in a few sentences. Of course marginalism itself requires you to think about value in a certain way, often a very technica…

Thanks, I didn't know the term "marginalism", I'll look it up.

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#56

Post by lacaua » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #29

There's a new book out by an econ prof with an Italian sounding name that is very relevant to this. It revisits economic ideas about value and reminds us that the path we're down, completely subjective utility value, is possibly not how we ought to think about it. Of course neither is eg labour theory of value, but it sounds like there's some in-depth discussion of the historical idea of value in there. Totally forgo…

The Value of Everything - Mariana Mazzucato

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#57

Post by chc » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:42 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #22

CJefferson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the past 20 years, the amount of wealth has increased substansally, and almost none of the gain has gone to those at the bottom of society. Inequality is growing every year.

That’s clearly not true, at least in the US. Total compensation has outpaced inflation significantly.

This seems like a non sequitur. Total compensation vs. inflation is not a measure of inequality.

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#58

Post by itiri83njd » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

fnovd wrote: post #27

itiri83njd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inequality in living standards is exactly what they’re talking about when they talk about inequality. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the nuanced discourse of groups tackling these problems directly at the political level, instead of taking textbook definitions of words and none of the context of the broader social movements behind the effort. “Wealth” is a measure of relative living standards. You’re ta…

>"Wealth" is a measure of relative living standards. No, it is not. This is like saying wealth is a measure of how fancy your car is. Correlated, sure, but calling it a measure is inaccurate at best and at worst an attempt to eschew nuance in favor of ideological conformity.

You emotionally qualify it isn’t and that’s it.

If you have something quantifiable to peddle here that never brushes up against human ideology, go for it.

Otherwise your reply is no different than mine.

See politically I can label it with as much nuance as I want. So can anyone. There is no “one way” to view things. There’s very meticulous and nuanced ways, but I don’t have to adopt them as part of my political tool belt.

Any ideas and nuance we hold onto in our head outside of what physics and chemistry say the structure of matter looks like at various speeds relative to light, is subjective human ideology.

Whichever ideology holds official power “wins.” Largely by saying some other ideology is deficient we’re picking this one instead.

So... quantify it with something other than a human ideology then?

Pure math economics models are invalid. Human biology doesn’t need to conform to the behaviors within. It’s academic economists trying to find a causative conclusion from physics to wealth accumulation to defend political ideology.

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#59

Post by lordnacho » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

stevenwoo wrote: post #50

lordnacho wrote: post #29

There's a new book out by an econ prof with an Italian sounding name that is very relevant to this. It revisits economic ideas about value and reminds us that the path we're down, completely subjective utility value, is possibly not how we ought to think about it. Of course neither is eg labour theory of value, but it sounds like there's some in-depth discussion of the historical idea of value in there. Totally forgo…

Thomas Piketty? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce...

That came out in 2013, and he's a man.

Mariana Mazzucato

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29502362-the-value-of-ev...

Re: Valuing Productivity, Not Profession, Could Reduce U.S. Inequality

#60

Post by ip26 » Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:45 PM UTC

iguy wrote: post #37

smallnamespace wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to speak directly to your point, which is the claim that only absolute wealth matters, but relative wealth does not . Relative wealth buys you status, position, and power in society. That status protects you when things go wrong, when the system fails to measure or optimize for the things that you care about, or when the music suddenly stops and you find that you're the one left without a chair. People deep…

> Relative wealth buys you status, position > pecking order Some of this can't really be fixed: the top 10% of status only has room for 10% of the people, by definition. The pecking order, by definition, orders people. > and power in society. This seems like a better focus. How much extra power you gain by being on top varies a great deal between different societies (including earlier and later versions of any one co…

As we've moved towards greater wealth inequality, it is also argued that we've moved towards wealth having greater access to power. (Citizens United, one dollar one vote, decline of unions, etc) You can go after wealth inequality, or you can go after the power-wealth connection. I'm not sure which is easier.