12 ms·

People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

63 points by minapurna 11y ago

applecore 11y ago
History rhymes. Read Thomas Piketty's Capital and Will Durant's Story of Civilization to understand the cause and recurring nature of economic inequality.
- contingencies 11y ago
  Why not Marx's Capital? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital:_Critique_of_Political_Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital:_Critique_of_Political... - "Marx aimed to reveal the economic patterns underpinning the capitalist mode of production"
  - dnautics 11y ago
    And why not Benjamin Tucker's critique of Marx in "State Socialism and Anarchism", wherein he correctly predicts from first principles that state socialism eventually leads to gulags, about 20-30 years before it actually happened. http://praxeology.net/BT-SSA.htm http://praxeology.net/BT-SSA.htm
    - contingencies 11y ago
      OK I'll bite. That logic is ridiculous. "Because X led to Y for one instance of Z, X leads to Y (ultimately and permanently) for all Z?" Spot the fallacy. (And what exactly do you mean by 'first principles' in a field of social science and political economy?) Counter-thoughts from reality: China's doing great, and the US has a higher percentage of its own population incarcerated than any other state in human history.
      - zo1 11y ago
        China appears to have forced labor in their prisons. Is that not what a gulag was? https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chinese-prison-americans-perspective/ https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chin... For that matter, the US has it as well (albeit to a 'cleaner' extent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...
        dnautics 11y ago
        I think that Tucker would argue that the US prison state is a result of socialistic tendencies in this nation. He made statements about 2/3 of the way down that are reminiscent of counter drug wars arguments (of course that is not strictly a prediction since counter drugs laws argument have tuckerian ideas in their DNA.)
      - dnautics 11y ago
        Tucker made the accurate prediction. If you challenge that it won't happen again, the onus is on you to explain what is different and why Tucker's model will fail this time around. Did you even read the essay?
mc32 11y ago
This makes sense. It's not that we should all be uniform but rather we all have access to being uniform if we so choose. Even if we attempted equality, time would introduce inequality due to the risks people take. One invests wisely, the other gambles away. Do we compensate the gambler to reestablish equilibrium? Should a soon to be retiree have the same wealth or earning power as a new graduate of X degree, or even a dropout? Maybe we should compensate workers based on responsibilities (ie dependents, that, in some ways would be fairer, the woman with three dependent children gets paid more than the man with one, but the man with two where one requires extra care gets paid more than either, to compensate for added medical expenses)
- walshemj 11y ago
  Which is explicitly not Fair
  - mc32 11y ago
    Not fair in what context to whom?
    - walshemj 11y ago
      You really need me to tell you this? should we allocate votes on that basis? Hint think how single people will see this.
      - mc32 11y ago
        You see fairness and equality arrive at different conclusions, so my point is fairness can seem unfair, depending how we slice fair. Still, one can argue pay based on need is quite fair, if not fairer than simple equality.
- ionforce 11y ago
  There's no guarantee that the parents would be spending their added income on these dependents.
baconner 11y ago
Seems to me this hits on a very important point. There's a terrible language barrier that is damaging our ability to come together on this issue in the US. Inequality of income growth is a great metric for indicating that there's a problem, but that language is counterproductive for solving the problems. There's a gut reaction that since "inequality" is the problem that the goal is income equality which (I think most agree) it's not. Economic fairness might be a better way to explain the goal.
- tunafishman 11y ago
  This makes a lot of sense. What do you think of the other term often used to describe the same idea: "level playing field" ? Sure you can (inevitably so, maybe) have unequal distributions of wealth but we at least want to rid 'systematic bias' from the list of reasons why.
  - baconner 11y ago
    I think that is a lot better because it implies that each player has to work for it to the best of their abilities, we're just establishing fair rules for the game. There's another term I'm seeing misinterpreted earlier in the thread too that is relevant. We use mathematical distribution of income growth over the population as the metric and people misinterpret it to mean distribution of wealth in the Marxist sense. It's just a measurement of who has what, but it implies a solution (to some) that has a lot of political baggage.
saulrh 11y ago
Even "Fairness" isn't quite as useful a metric - where do you draw the line between things that should be eliminated as being unfair and things that are valuable culture and individuality? Parental intelligence is strongly causally coupled with their children's future intelligence simply through their working vocabulary and talkativeness, which is clearly unfair from the perspective of the newborn child; how do you fix this unfairness without invasive changes to home life starting from the minute the family goes home from the hospital? And, of course, this entire thing is a symptom of fixed-pie mentality. When inequality exists - when some people have bigger slices of pie than others - people seem to be reliably made happier by throwing chunks of the pie on the floor as long as they're someone else's chunks of pie. They're happier about throwing away chunks of pie than they are about getting an entire new pie to split up. It really bugs me when I see "fairness" valued over actual goodness.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  Ah, the hypothetical "entire new pie". Just produce it, bro; then there will be no more arguments about inequality.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    Yeah, there will. People will complain about who got "more than their fair share" of the new pie.
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      Then how is it a solution? Also, the pie is fixed.
      - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        > Then how is it a solution? I didn't claim that it was. Maybe you should ask saulrh that. > Also, the pie is fixed. Economic growth has exceeded population growth rather reliably for the last two hundred years or so. The pie is definitely not fixed.
Alex3917 11y ago
Most Americans don't even know what the word equality means, and wouldn't be able to explain how equal differs from equitable.
crimsonalucard 11y ago
Don't we all want to be super rich? If we aren't rich, fairness is the next best thing.
- AC__ 11y ago
  I would probably enjoy wealth, yes. However, what I truly desire most would be to understand the Universe. Understand reality. What are we? Are we?(see some of Dr. James Gates work on supersymmetry) So many questions and, it would seem, way too much geopolitical bullshit on this planet to ever truly get any answers.
  - crimsonalucard 11y ago
    That's what you say. Biologically we aren't designed that way. We're designed to seek status and achievement as it aids in reproduction. Understanding the universe doesn't help you achieve this goal in anyway. It probably hinders you. Too many people like to think about themselves as robotic savants desiring only to be logical and more intelligent. This is a fantasy story that is somewhat true but side steps the issue of what we really want. If you were truly intelligent you would know that biologically speaking what we want is sex, money and status. In front of you have two doors. You go through door A you can have knowledge of the true nature of the universe and the promise that you have to live like a hobo for the rest of your life. In the other door (door B) you have billions of dollars, the adoration of the most beautiful women in the world, the respect of everyone and the promise that you will die without ever knowing the true nature of the universe. Which door do you choose? Let's be real. (Door B)
    - AC__ 11y ago
      Don't be absurd, in what reality can you actually believe any being understanding the nature of the Universe could "live like a hobo" whatever the hell that means. If you were truly intelligent you'd understand money is a man made construct that you've been socially engineered to want above all else as a means to control the masses. You honestly just asserted we're hard-wired to want money, sex, of course, but money, preposterous! I view status much the same, some of the world's most powerful individuals operate in complete anonymity, and couldn't care less about the adoration of serfs! While I don't claim to possess world power, I can assure you I do not seek the adoration of the mindless masses.
rayiner 11y ago
> A world in which everyone suffered from horrible poverty would be a perfectly equal one, he says, but few would prefer that to the world in which we now live. Therefore, “equality” can’t be what we really value. Frighteningly fallacious logic. I want a house with a pool. But I don't want one a 2-hour commute from work even if it has a pool. Does that mean I don't value the pool? Stuck through it for shits and giggles, but the article doesn't really get better from there.
- bweitzman 11y ago
  It does mean that the pool isn't the thing you value most though, since you value your commute more than the pool.
  - hoorayimhelping 11y ago
    Not necessarily. In this case, OP values the commute more. What if it's a tossup between a 10 minute commute with no backyard and 25 minute commute with a backyard with two trees to put a hammock on. Maybe in that case, OP would take a longer commute to get a shady backyard. I think that's why the logic is fallacious - it only works for a specific question phrased in a specific way.
    - bweitzman 11y ago
      Well I suppose the issue is muddled because having a pool is a binary thing where as commute time is not. That makes them hard to rank. Suppose instead of just saying that you're choosing between a house with no pool but a short commute over a house with a pool and a long commute you try to rank your priorities: 1. Pool 2. Commute < 1.5 h (choosing an arbitrary cutoff to turn this constraint into a binary one) Now if the pool is really the most important thing to you, then you will have to forfeit the < 1.5 h commute no matter how long it is. If you decided to forgo the pool for a shorter commute, then that is sort of exposing a hidden priority, it would look something more like 1. Commute < 2 h 2. Pool 3. Commute < 1.5 h The point being that if we haven't fulfilled a certain priority, then it cannot be the most important priority. At least in this binary priority model, there are of course other ways you could lay this out. I just don't think it's fair to call the logic "frighteningly fallacious"
nemo44x 11y ago
Karl Marx saw a couple flaws in Capitalism, similar to what we practice today. I think he's right about one and wrong about the other. And the part he's right about is what people find unfair. He's right in that Capitalism is not about marking up a product to generate a profit by taking the cost of the goods and the labor to produce it but rather by paying labor less than what their labor is worth. And this is what bothers people. It isn't fair. And they are helpless to change it. And it is what is happening more and more. And the eventuality of it is Capitalism will eat itself as those without will be large enough in numbers where they assume power. Those which did the exploiting will either have their heads rolled or at the very least made impotent and marginalized. This is revolution and leads to Socialism and eventually Communism. The second part Marx argues is that only the State can sort out the best way to distribute means and goods - that the free market is too chaotic. This I disagree with and I think time has shown this to be false. The state will eventually be corrupt if it isn't already. And whose to say what is best for one person is also the best for the other? So, the free market exists where people can pick and choose. They have freedom. This allows some to have more than others and I think people are in fact OK with that. In fact I think people want that because we believe in getting what you're worth. Its just they don't want their own labor to be discounted to the point of being exploited - which is happening more and more with through wage suppression via policy or globalism which has displaced a lot of people very quickly, even if it might eventually benefit everyone as a whole.
- nickff 11y ago
  >"He's right in that Capitalism is not about marking up a product to generate a profit by taking the cost of the goods and the labor to produce it but rather by paying labor less than what their labor is worth. And this is what bothers people. It isn't fair. And they are helpless to change it." This has been clearly demonstrated to be incorrect many times.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price
  - crimsonalucard 11y ago
    The definition of price doesn't really demonstrate anything.
Mikeb85 11y ago
This is very true, and why conservative economics just won't die. People would rather see those less fortunate have to beg and suffer than to give up what they 'worked' for. Never mind the fact that we all derive benefit from systems that we inherited, and did not work for...
- thatswrong0 11y ago
  Can we drop the "conservatives are evil" mantra at some point? It really adds nothing to the discourse. Having a family full of conservatives (mind you I can't speak for all), I can tell you that for them, it comes down to how big the system is and what benefits should be provided by the government or not. The difference in where the line is drawn and why it's drawn is the difference between conservatives and democrats. They think that outcomes would be better with a smaller federal government, that it is not the responsibility of the government to take care of everybody, and that everyone would be better off for it. They think that the federal government should deal with defense, foreign diplomatic policy, and inter-state issues, not insert itself into every aspect of policy making nationwide. They think that governments closer to the people can respond better to the needs of the people. So yes, that does mean that it shouldn't redistribute wealth, at least on the federal level. But it's not that they want to see people suffer, it's that they think it's not the responsibility of the federal government to ameliorate it. That's not the same thing. Note: I don't agree with them on a lot of things. I just don't like seeing these things misrepresented.
  - Mikeb85 11y ago
    > I can tell you that for them, it comes down to how big the system is and what benefits should be provided by the government or not. While that's certainly not a bad thought, we have all benefited from larger government. History shows out that the more government spending and distribution of goods and services there is, the better the economic outlook. Even amongst most developed countries today, the government accounts for around half of GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_perce.... 'Small government' is nice as a political philosophy, however it hasn't been shown historically to be a great economic policy. Not to mention, while right-wing politicians and economists argue for private enterprise, lower taxes, smaller government, less spending, etc..., they simultaneously use state institutions to their advantage. In most economies governments fund research, education, they are responsible for building most infrastructure, funding transit, etc... These things benefit us as a society, yet the same people who reap these benefits every single day argue against paying for them (ie. paying taxes). The problem with left-wing economics is that they aren't intuitive. Right-wing economics is - it's simple, and reminds people of budgeting at home. The only problem is that when you study macroeconomics, you realize that it's more about behaviour than about finance. Government spending increases GDP, in most cases by more than the dollar amount spent. Social nets increase entrepreneurial behaviour, and reducing poverty always yields social benefits. > So yes, that does mean that it shouldn't redistribute wealth, at least on the federal level. No one would argue that the government should only build roads in rich cities. Or only build hospitals in rich cities. Yet creating infrastructure is a redistribution of wealth. When the US government creates a new military base, they're redistributing wealth. When they give money to schools, they're distributing wealth. Yet for some reason we have it in our heads that 'taking' taxes and then giving 'cash' to others is wrong, but it's OK when the government uses other means to redistribute wealth. Anyhow, the point is, we see it as 'fair' that we work hard and get paid. That we 'deserve' what we make. That we did it 'alone'. The fact is, wealth cannot be created in a vacuum. Whatever we do, we do because others helped us. We're more than happy to use the institutions created for us, but don't want to share the rewards. We see 'fairness' as more important than prosperity.
mmanfrin 11y ago
I've always felt that when people talk about economic equality, they are talking about equality of access, not equality of 'things'. The Great American Dream is about someone seizing an opportunity; equality means we all have an opportunity to seize an opportunity. Economic Inequality means there is a disproportionate number of opportunities at the top, and very few at the bottom. Not everyone takes those chances, but we want to make sure those who do have the shots to gamble the take, so that there is a churn that allows the cream to rise to the top. That, to me, is the meaning of the message of equality, and I suspect it's what people like Sanders are talking about.
- deleted 11y ago
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- some-guy 11y ago
  When I think of inequality and opportunity in the US, I think about the education system. Sadly, the quality of K-12 education in the United States is too strongly tied to economic output / wealth / income of a region, which seems regressive to me.
  - ars 11y ago
    I've felt the same, and it's because schools are mostly funded by real estate taxes. Changing that model would help - even if it was something as simple as pooling all the taxes for an entire state. The difficulty with doing that is that real estate values, and thus taxes, is a very local thing, it's quite hard to set them universally.
  - Shivetya 11y ago
    it certainly isn't confined to the US. You simply have to read the right sites to see that that is a world wide phenomenon. What isn't talked about is that a lot of what keeps people from success also affects their local schools, as in they don't participate because they don't have the drive to do it. The same lack of drive to push ahead.
  - secstate 11y ago
    Having worked as an education beat reporter in a number of really small, really wealth-divided communities for many years, I can tell you that state education is unlikely to ever be the solution to the wealth gap. Honestly, from my time in the trenches of listening to trite, small, yet passionate people discussing some of the harder parts of educating children (i.e. hard to educate when they're coming to school having eaten 3000+ calories from horribly un-nutritious sources), I've learned that there's no easy solution. You can't bus those kids out of the low-tax neighborhoods into good schools if they're still going home to a shit environment. The best you can do is stand up and try to mentor one or two kids in your neighborhood in small ways, and encourage others to do the same. Distributed cultural-standard building. That's the best I've got.
nicklaf 11y ago
People indeed want fairness. This is a little bit obvious, though. Furthermore, to say that people aren't generally "FOR equality" is a straw man. It is imperative that those who might claim to be against the idea of "equality" for some abstract philosophical reason to separately ask themselves why they can't also be AGAINST egregious and institutionalized inequality. Being against both universal equality and egregious inequality is an entirely consistent position. Setting up the utopia of universal equality as a straw man in order to avoid addressing the latter question is dishonest and immoral.
Randgalt 11y ago
The article never defines what fairness is. Another word for fairness is "justice". The article betrays its bias when it analyzes how income is "distributed". Of course, income isn't distributed - it's earned. If person A earns 100x person B then of course it's just. However, if income were indeed distributed, all things being equal, unequal distribution would not be just. So, do you believe wealth is earned by hard work and diligence or that it is distributed by some kind of greater power?
- rayiner 11y ago
  "Distribution" is a neutral term that refers to how quantities are spread out in a population. E.g. you can talk about age, weight, or height distribution in a population.
  - Randgalt 11y ago
    Age, height, even weight (for the most part) are qualities of humans that cannot be controlled. Wealth is qualitatively different than these attributes. Edit: no one would ever talk about the distribution of "ability at basketball" for example.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      And yet you still talk about the "distribution" of those quantities. Which undermines your premise that the use of the word "distribution" implies centralized apportionment of some quantity. "Wealth distribution" is a descriptive, not a prescriptive concept, just like "height distribution." Here is a system applied to some population; let's measure how some quantity ends up distributed among that population based on the behavior of the system.
    - Randgalt 11y ago
      In the context of fairness vs equality I've never read/heard a similar comparison to ability.
    - baconner 11y ago
      Ah no actually its totally valid to talk about the distribution of ability at basketball over a population. Distribution is just a mathematical concept - it doesn't care what type of variable you are looking at.
thesteamboat 11y ago
Meh. Saying people prefer fairness over equality doesn't actually tell us much, mostly because neither of those two terms have consistent definitions that allow us to analyze whether a situation is fair or is equal. On the one hand there's the internal division of equality of outcomes vs. equality of opportunities. (See this [in my opinion somewhat confused] article by Dylan Matthews[0]). On the other hand "it's not fair" usually seems to mean "I have been slighted". As someone who has worked in Game Theory, I've seen a variety of notions of what constitutes fairness (in the form of social welfare). There isn't one obvious-even-if-technically-infeasible choice. There's a variety of plausible, mediocre alternatives. I think that what this actually demonstrates is that most people have muddled thinking on most topics. </curmudgeon> [0]: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9334215/equality-of-opportunity https://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9334215/equality-of-opportunit...
dnautics 11y ago
I think the reason why people don't want equality is because it's arbitrary. To take a simple case, let's say there are five people and five apples. An "equal" distribution might distribute five apples to each person, but let's say one of them is allergic to apples. Then suddenly the "equal" distribution doesn't satisfy equally. So how does one formulate an equal distribution, and who gets to choose those rules?
Shivetya 11y ago
Well too bad most don't understand what fairness is. Far too many are quick to discount the work or effort of others because they do not understand the work they do. Its like, I don't know how to do that but it can't be that hard so its obvious they have too much. This is especially true when comparing labor that is more physically involved than that which requires more application of mental ability. One thing most miss out on is they want fairness but don't want to give up their stuff or such because it is so much tied to who has how much stuff, money, and more. Far too many will state unequivocally that those richer than them don't pay their "fair" share when those same people contribute a higher percentage and far more wealth into the system. This is primarily driven by politicians who profit by dividing people. That is what most people miss. They hear about all the disagreement in government as if that is a problem. In the US the government wasn't designed to be fully cooperative, it was designed to make governing difficult so as the federal government would not overrun the states. Where events were not to be treated with such division there are statements to that fact. Yet politicians spend more time pitting people against each other to preserve their own status and this is why people don't understand what fairness let alone equality is.
chad_walters 11y ago
This article is terrible -- it sets up a false dichotomy. The article actually refutes it's own conclusion in the paragraphs about what people view as the ideal income distribution. We don't want total equality but we do want less inequality than is actually present today in every 1st world country. So we should care about the current (and growing!) levels of inequality -- even if we don't want a perfectly equal distribution, we want one that is more equal.
justifier 11y ago
fairness is a horrendous choice of words, but the one this article chose to use there are many unfair side effects of current economics look at taxes.. recently i read a major corporate entity paid 4k pounds in taxes in 2014(o). The top comment says: TIL our small UK startup pays 10-20x more corp tax .. Doing things honestly and by the book is expensive in both money terms and time terms (paying accountants) Big corps .. make me feel like a fool. though these corps are seen as equals in buraecratic lines, the expectations and avenues of utilising those regulations seems unfairly balanced or look at fines.. if i get a parking ticket(i) for 100$, i may be unable to pay it right away with my zero savings and my 12k/yr income, someone making 80k+ a year will just pay the 100$ grievance and be done with it i will have to start budgeting myself to make enough to pay the 100$ fine, but it will take time with bimonthly paychecks and in that time i will be punished with late fees only increasing the financial burden and time needed to accrue the funds even if trying to do the right thing people punished further simply for economic circumstance so though the two violators are seen as equal, the expectations and avenues of how to rectify the violations seems unfairly balanced people making less end up paying more for the same violation due to the bureaucracy maintaining the violations or i could use a payday loan(ii), another damning option these are only two examples of areas where a conversation about fairness stead equality alters the direction of the conversation (o) https://www.reddit.com/comments/3ofo13/ https://www.reddit.com/comments/3ofo13/ (i) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjpmT5noto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjpmT5noto (ii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDylgzybWAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDylgzybWAw
- stvswn 11y ago
  You've hit on a really key point. Life is easier when you have more money. Not trying to be callous, but it's going to come out that way -- maybe the answer is to try to make some more of it. Because trying to redesign society to eliminate this basic fact of the world has so far led to disastrous results. Like, hundreds of millions dead kind of results. With nothing to show for it, because there were still haves and have nots. "But I'm not advocating Stalinism!" you'd say. But remember, Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin came from good intentions, too. So did Mao and Pol Pot and Ho and Kim. Everyone wanted to solve the problem you're describing.
stlHusker 11y ago
The elephant in the room is how do you measure fairness? We devolve into measuring the end results in terms of equality which ultimately provide a negative feedback loop and move the conversation and solutions into trying to make things equal instead of fair. Governmental policy devolves into this to the detriment of everyone involved. Entire political campaigns are centered around not making things "fair" but "equal". Watch and see who communities vote for and why they vote for them; it is closely related to the child who prefers to have one and everyone else zero as opposed to everyone getting two.

63 points by minapurna 11y ago

History rhymes. Read Thomas Piketty's Capital and Will Durant's Story of Civilization to understand the cause and recurring nature of economic inequality.

contingencies 11y ago
Why not Marx's Capital? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital:_Critique_of_Political_Economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital:_Critique_of_Political... - "Marx aimed to reveal the economic patterns underpinning the capitalist mode of production"
- dnautics 11y ago
  And why not Benjamin Tucker's critique of Marx in "State Socialism and Anarchism", wherein he correctly predicts from first principles that state socialism eventually leads to gulags, about 20-30 years before it actually happened. http://praxeology.net/BT-SSA.htm http://praxeology.net/BT-SSA.htm
  - contingencies 11y ago
    OK I'll bite. That logic is ridiculous. "Because X led to Y for one instance of Z, X leads to Y (ultimately and permanently) for all Z?" Spot the fallacy. (And what exactly do you mean by 'first principles' in a field of social science and political economy?) Counter-thoughts from reality: China's doing great, and the US has a higher percentage of its own population incarcerated than any other state in human history.
    - zo1 11y ago
      China appears to have forced labor in their prisons. Is that not what a gulag was? https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chinese-prison-americans-perspective/ https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/jun/22/inside-chin... For that matter, the US has it as well (albeit to a 'cleaner' extent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...
      - dnautics 11y ago
        I think that Tucker would argue that the US prison state is a result of socialistic tendencies in this nation. He made statements about 2/3 of the way down that are reminiscent of counter drug wars arguments (of course that is not strictly a prediction since counter drugs laws argument have tuckerian ideas in their DNA.)
    - dnautics 11y ago
      Tucker made the accurate prediction. If you challenge that it won't happen again, the onus is on you to explain what is different and why Tucker's model will fail this time around. Did you even read the essay?

mc32 11y ago

This makes sense. It's not that we should all be uniform but rather we all have access to being uniform if we so choose. Even if we attempted equality, time would introduce inequality due to the risks people take. One invests wisely, the other gambles away. Do we compensate the gambler to reestablish equilibrium? Should a soon to be retiree have the same wealth or earning power as a new graduate of X degree, or even a dropout? Maybe we should compensate workers based on responsibilities (ie dependents, that, in some ways would be fairer, the woman with three dependent children gets paid more than the man with one, but the man with two where one requires extra care gets paid more than either, to compensate for added medical expenses)

walshemj 11y ago
Which is explicitly not Fair
- mc32 11y ago
  Not fair in what context to whom?
  - walshemj 11y ago
    You really need me to tell you this? should we allocate votes on that basis? Hint think how single people will see this.
    - mc32 11y ago
      You see fairness and equality arrive at different conclusions, so my point is fairness can seem unfair, depending how we slice fair. Still, one can argue pay based on need is quite fair, if not fairer than simple equality.
ionforce 11y ago
There's no guarantee that the parents would be spending their added income on these dependents.

baconner 11y ago

Seems to me this hits on a very important point. There's a terrible language barrier that is damaging our ability to come together on this issue in the US. Inequality of income growth is a great metric for indicating that there's a problem, but that language is counterproductive for solving the problems. There's a gut reaction that since "inequality" is the problem that the goal is income equality which (I think most agree) it's not. Economic fairness might be a better way to explain the goal.

tunafishman 11y ago
This makes a lot of sense. What do you think of the other term often used to describe the same idea: "level playing field" ? Sure you can (inevitably so, maybe) have unequal distributions of wealth but we at least want to rid 'systematic bias' from the list of reasons why.
- baconner 11y ago
  I think that is a lot better because it implies that each player has to work for it to the best of their abilities, we're just establishing fair rules for the game. There's another term I'm seeing misinterpreted earlier in the thread too that is relevant. We use mathematical distribution of income growth over the population as the metric and people misinterpret it to mean distribution of wealth in the Marxist sense. It's just a measurement of who has what, but it implies a solution (to some) that has a lot of political baggage.

saulrh 11y ago

Even "Fairness" isn't quite as useful a metric - where do you draw the line between things that should be eliminated as being unfair and things that are valuable culture and individuality? Parental intelligence is strongly causally coupled with their children's future intelligence simply through their working vocabulary and talkativeness, which is clearly unfair from the perspective of the newborn child; how do you fix this unfairness without invasive changes to home life starting from the minute the family goes home from the hospital? And, of course, this entire thing is a symptom of fixed-pie mentality. When inequality exists - when some people have bigger slices of pie than others - people seem to be reliably made happier by throwing chunks of the pie on the floor as long as they're someone else's chunks of pie. They're happier about throwing away chunks of pie than they are about getting an entire new pie to split up. It really bugs me when I see "fairness" valued over actual goodness.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
Ah, the hypothetical "entire new pie". Just produce it, bro; then there will be no more arguments about inequality.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Yeah, there will. People will complain about who got "more than their fair share" of the new pie.
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Then how is it a solution? Also, the pie is fixed.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      > Then how is it a solution? I didn't claim that it was. Maybe you should ask saulrh that. > Also, the pie is fixed. Economic growth has exceeded population growth rather reliably for the last two hundred years or so. The pie is definitely not fixed.

Alex3917 11y ago

Most Americans don't even know what the word equality means, and wouldn't be able to explain how equal differs from equitable.

crimsonalucard 11y ago

Don't we all want to be super rich? If we aren't rich, fairness is the next best thing.

AC__ 11y ago
I would probably enjoy wealth, yes. However, what I truly desire most would be to understand the Universe. Understand reality. What are we? Are we?(see some of Dr. James Gates work on supersymmetry) So many questions and, it would seem, way too much geopolitical bullshit on this planet to ever truly get any answers.
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  That's what you say. Biologically we aren't designed that way. We're designed to seek status and achievement as it aids in reproduction. Understanding the universe doesn't help you achieve this goal in anyway. It probably hinders you. Too many people like to think about themselves as robotic savants desiring only to be logical and more intelligent. This is a fantasy story that is somewhat true but side steps the issue of what we really want. If you were truly intelligent you would know that biologically speaking what we want is sex, money and status. In front of you have two doors. You go through door A you can have knowledge of the true nature of the universe and the promise that you have to live like a hobo for the rest of your life. In the other door (door B) you have billions of dollars, the adoration of the most beautiful women in the world, the respect of everyone and the promise that you will die without ever knowing the true nature of the universe. Which door do you choose? Let's be real. (Door B)
  - AC__ 11y ago
    Don't be absurd, in what reality can you actually believe any being understanding the nature of the Universe could "live like a hobo" whatever the hell that means. If you were truly intelligent you'd understand money is a man made construct that you've been socially engineered to want above all else as a means to control the masses. You honestly just asserted we're hard-wired to want money, sex, of course, but money, preposterous! I view status much the same, some of the world's most powerful individuals operate in complete anonymity, and couldn't care less about the adoration of serfs! While I don't claim to possess world power, I can assure you I do not seek the adoration of the mindless masses.

rayiner 11y ago

> A world in which everyone suffered from horrible poverty would be a perfectly equal one, he says, but few would prefer that to the world in which we now live. Therefore, “equality” can’t be what we really value. Frighteningly fallacious logic. I want a house with a pool. But I don't want one a 2-hour commute from work even if it has a pool. Does that mean I don't value the pool? Stuck through it for shits and giggles, but the article doesn't really get better from there.

bweitzman 11y ago
It does mean that the pool isn't the thing you value most though, since you value your commute more than the pool.
- hoorayimhelping 11y ago
  Not necessarily. In this case, OP values the commute more. What if it's a tossup between a 10 minute commute with no backyard and 25 minute commute with a backyard with two trees to put a hammock on. Maybe in that case, OP would take a longer commute to get a shady backyard. I think that's why the logic is fallacious - it only works for a specific question phrased in a specific way.
  - bweitzman 11y ago
    Well I suppose the issue is muddled because having a pool is a binary thing where as commute time is not. That makes them hard to rank. Suppose instead of just saying that you're choosing between a house with no pool but a short commute over a house with a pool and a long commute you try to rank your priorities: 1. Pool 2. Commute < 1.5 h (choosing an arbitrary cutoff to turn this constraint into a binary one) Now if the pool is really the most important thing to you, then you will have to forfeit the < 1.5 h commute no matter how long it is. If you decided to forgo the pool for a shorter commute, then that is sort of exposing a hidden priority, it would look something more like 1. Commute < 2 h 2. Pool 3. Commute < 1.5 h The point being that if we haven't fulfilled a certain priority, then it cannot be the most important priority. At least in this binary priority model, there are of course other ways you could lay this out. I just don't think it's fair to call the logic "frighteningly fallacious"

nemo44x 11y ago

Karl Marx saw a couple flaws in Capitalism, similar to what we practice today. I think he's right about one and wrong about the other. And the part he's right about is what people find unfair. He's right in that Capitalism is not about marking up a product to generate a profit by taking the cost of the goods and the labor to produce it but rather by paying labor less than what their labor is worth. And this is what bothers people. It isn't fair. And they are helpless to change it. And it is what is happening more and more. And the eventuality of it is Capitalism will eat itself as those without will be large enough in numbers where they assume power. Those which did the exploiting will either have their heads rolled or at the very least made impotent and marginalized. This is revolution and leads to Socialism and eventually Communism. The second part Marx argues is that only the State can sort out the best way to distribute means and goods - that the free market is too chaotic. This I disagree with and I think time has shown this to be false. The state will eventually be corrupt if it isn't already. And whose to say what is best for one person is also the best for the other? So, the free market exists where people can pick and choose. They have freedom. This allows some to have more than others and I think people are in fact OK with that. In fact I think people want that because we believe in getting what you're worth. Its just they don't want their own labor to be discounted to the point of being exploited - which is happening more and more with through wage suppression via policy or globalism which has displaced a lot of people very quickly, even if it might eventually benefit everyone as a whole.

nickff 11y ago
>"He's right in that Capitalism is not about marking up a product to generate a profit by taking the cost of the goods and the labor to produce it but rather by paying labor less than what their labor is worth. And this is what bothers people. It isn't fair. And they are helpless to change it." This has been clearly demonstrated to be incorrect many times.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  The definition of price doesn't really demonstrate anything.

Mikeb85 11y ago

This is very true, and why conservative economics just won't die. People would rather see those less fortunate have to beg and suffer than to give up what they 'worked' for. Never mind the fact that we all derive benefit from systems that we inherited, and did not work for...

thatswrong0 11y ago
Can we drop the "conservatives are evil" mantra at some point? It really adds nothing to the discourse. Having a family full of conservatives (mind you I can't speak for all), I can tell you that for them, it comes down to how big the system is and what benefits should be provided by the government or not. The difference in where the line is drawn and why it's drawn is the difference between conservatives and democrats. They think that outcomes would be better with a smaller federal government, that it is not the responsibility of the government to take care of everybody, and that everyone would be better off for it. They think that the federal government should deal with defense, foreign diplomatic policy, and inter-state issues, not insert itself into every aspect of policy making nationwide. They think that governments closer to the people can respond better to the needs of the people. So yes, that does mean that it shouldn't redistribute wealth, at least on the federal level. But it's not that they want to see people suffer, it's that they think it's not the responsibility of the federal government to ameliorate it. That's not the same thing. Note: I don't agree with them on a lot of things. I just don't like seeing these things misrepresented.
- Mikeb85 11y ago
  > I can tell you that for them, it comes down to how big the system is and what benefits should be provided by the government or not. While that's certainly not a bad thought, we have all benefited from larger government. History shows out that the more government spending and distribution of goods and services there is, the better the economic outlook. Even amongst most developed countries today, the government accounts for around half of GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending#As_a_perce.... 'Small government' is nice as a political philosophy, however it hasn't been shown historically to be a great economic policy. Not to mention, while right-wing politicians and economists argue for private enterprise, lower taxes, smaller government, less spending, etc..., they simultaneously use state institutions to their advantage. In most economies governments fund research, education, they are responsible for building most infrastructure, funding transit, etc... These things benefit us as a society, yet the same people who reap these benefits every single day argue against paying for them (ie. paying taxes). The problem with left-wing economics is that they aren't intuitive. Right-wing economics is - it's simple, and reminds people of budgeting at home. The only problem is that when you study macroeconomics, you realize that it's more about behaviour than about finance. Government spending increases GDP, in most cases by more than the dollar amount spent. Social nets increase entrepreneurial behaviour, and reducing poverty always yields social benefits. > So yes, that does mean that it shouldn't redistribute wealth, at least on the federal level. No one would argue that the government should only build roads in rich cities. Or only build hospitals in rich cities. Yet creating infrastructure is a redistribution of wealth. When the US government creates a new military base, they're redistributing wealth. When they give money to schools, they're distributing wealth. Yet for some reason we have it in our heads that 'taking' taxes and then giving 'cash' to others is wrong, but it's OK when the government uses other means to redistribute wealth. Anyhow, the point is, we see it as 'fair' that we work hard and get paid. That we 'deserve' what we make. That we did it 'alone'. The fact is, wealth cannot be created in a vacuum. Whatever we do, we do because others helped us. We're more than happy to use the institutions created for us, but don't want to share the rewards. We see 'fairness' as more important than prosperity.

mmanfrin 11y ago

I've always felt that when people talk about economic equality, they are talking about equality of access, not equality of 'things'. The Great American Dream is about someone seizing an opportunity; equality means we all have an opportunity to seize an opportunity. Economic Inequality means there is a disproportionate number of opportunities at the top, and very few at the bottom. Not everyone takes those chances, but we want to make sure those who do have the shots to gamble the take, so that there is a churn that allows the cream to rise to the top. That, to me, is the meaning of the message of equality, and I suspect it's what people like Sanders are talking about.

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some-guy 11y ago
When I think of inequality and opportunity in the US, I think about the education system. Sadly, the quality of K-12 education in the United States is too strongly tied to economic output / wealth / income of a region, which seems regressive to me.
- ars 11y ago
  I've felt the same, and it's because schools are mostly funded by real estate taxes. Changing that model would help - even if it was something as simple as pooling all the taxes for an entire state. The difficulty with doing that is that real estate values, and thus taxes, is a very local thing, it's quite hard to set them universally.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  it certainly isn't confined to the US. You simply have to read the right sites to see that that is a world wide phenomenon. What isn't talked about is that a lot of what keeps people from success also affects their local schools, as in they don't participate because they don't have the drive to do it. The same lack of drive to push ahead.
- secstate 11y ago
  Having worked as an education beat reporter in a number of really small, really wealth-divided communities for many years, I can tell you that state education is unlikely to ever be the solution to the wealth gap. Honestly, from my time in the trenches of listening to trite, small, yet passionate people discussing some of the harder parts of educating children (i.e. hard to educate when they're coming to school having eaten 3000+ calories from horribly un-nutritious sources), I've learned that there's no easy solution. You can't bus those kids out of the low-tax neighborhoods into good schools if they're still going home to a shit environment. The best you can do is stand up and try to mentor one or two kids in your neighborhood in small ways, and encourage others to do the same. Distributed cultural-standard building. That's the best I've got.

nicklaf 11y ago

People indeed want fairness. This is a little bit obvious, though. Furthermore, to say that people aren't generally "FOR equality" is a straw man. It is imperative that those who might claim to be against the idea of "equality" for some abstract philosophical reason to separately ask themselves why they can't also be AGAINST egregious and institutionalized inequality. Being against both universal equality and egregious inequality is an entirely consistent position. Setting up the utopia of universal equality as a straw man in order to avoid addressing the latter question is dishonest and immoral.

Randgalt 11y ago

The article never defines what fairness is. Another word for fairness is "justice". The article betrays its bias when it analyzes how income is "distributed". Of course, income isn't distributed - it's earned. If person A earns 100x person B then of course it's just. However, if income were indeed distributed, all things being equal, unequal distribution would not be just. So, do you believe wealth is earned by hard work and diligence or that it is distributed by some kind of greater power?

rayiner 11y ago
"Distribution" is a neutral term that refers to how quantities are spread out in a population. E.g. you can talk about age, weight, or height distribution in a population.
- Randgalt 11y ago
  Age, height, even weight (for the most part) are qualities of humans that cannot be controlled. Wealth is qualitatively different than these attributes. Edit: no one would ever talk about the distribution of "ability at basketball" for example.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    And yet you still talk about the "distribution" of those quantities. Which undermines your premise that the use of the word "distribution" implies centralized apportionment of some quantity. "Wealth distribution" is a descriptive, not a prescriptive concept, just like "height distribution." Here is a system applied to some population; let's measure how some quantity ends up distributed among that population based on the behavior of the system.
  - Randgalt 11y ago
    In the context of fairness vs equality I've never read/heard a similar comparison to ability.
  - baconner 11y ago
    Ah no actually its totally valid to talk about the distribution of ability at basketball over a population. Distribution is just a mathematical concept - it doesn't care what type of variable you are looking at.

thesteamboat 11y ago

Meh. Saying people prefer fairness over equality doesn't actually tell us much, mostly because neither of those two terms have consistent definitions that allow us to analyze whether a situation is fair or is equal. On the one hand there's the internal division of equality of outcomes vs. equality of opportunities. (See this [in my opinion somewhat confused] article by Dylan Matthews[0]). On the other hand "it's not fair" usually seems to mean "I have been slighted". As someone who has worked in Game Theory, I've seen a variety of notions of what constitutes fairness (in the form of social welfare). There isn't one obvious-even-if-technically-infeasible choice. There's a variety of plausible, mediocre alternatives. I think that what this actually demonstrates is that most people have muddled thinking on most topics. </curmudgeon> [0]: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9334215/equality-of-opportunity https://www.vox.com/2015/9/21/9334215/equality-of-opportunit...

dnautics 11y ago

I think the reason why people don't want equality is because it's arbitrary. To take a simple case, let's say there are five people and five apples. An "equal" distribution might distribute five apples to each person, but let's say one of them is allergic to apples. Then suddenly the "equal" distribution doesn't satisfy equally. So how does one formulate an equal distribution, and who gets to choose those rules?

Shivetya 11y ago

Well too bad most don't understand what fairness is. Far too many are quick to discount the work or effort of others because they do not understand the work they do. Its like, I don't know how to do that but it can't be that hard so its obvious they have too much. This is especially true when comparing labor that is more physically involved than that which requires more application of mental ability. One thing most miss out on is they want fairness but don't want to give up their stuff or such because it is so much tied to who has how much stuff, money, and more. Far too many will state unequivocally that those richer than them don't pay their "fair" share when those same people contribute a higher percentage and far more wealth into the system. This is primarily driven by politicians who profit by dividing people. That is what most people miss. They hear about all the disagreement in government as if that is a problem. In the US the government wasn't designed to be fully cooperative, it was designed to make governing difficult so as the federal government would not overrun the states. Where events were not to be treated with such division there are statements to that fact. Yet politicians spend more time pitting people against each other to preserve their own status and this is why people don't understand what fairness let alone equality is.

chad_walters 11y ago

This article is terrible -- it sets up a false dichotomy. The article actually refutes it's own conclusion in the paragraphs about what people view as the ideal income distribution. We don't want total equality but we do want less inequality than is actually present today in every 1st world country. So we should care about the current (and growing!) levels of inequality -- even if we don't want a perfectly equal distribution, we want one that is more equal.

justifier 11y ago

fairness is a horrendous choice of words, but the one this article chose to use there are many unfair side effects of current economics look at taxes.. recently i read a major corporate entity paid 4k pounds in taxes in 2014(o). The top comment says: TIL our small UK startup pays 10-20x more corp tax .. Doing things honestly and by the book is expensive in both money terms and time terms (paying accountants) Big corps .. make me feel like a fool. though these corps are seen as equals in buraecratic lines, the expectations and avenues of utilising those regulations seems unfairly balanced or look at fines.. if i get a parking ticket(i) for 100$, i may be unable to pay it right away with my zero savings and my 12k/yr income, someone making 80k+ a year will just pay the 100$ grievance and be done with it i will have to start budgeting myself to make enough to pay the 100$ fine, but it will take time with bimonthly paychecks and in that time i will be punished with late fees only increasing the financial burden and time needed to accrue the funds even if trying to do the right thing people punished further simply for economic circumstance so though the two violators are seen as equal, the expectations and avenues of how to rectify the violations seems unfairly balanced people making less end up paying more for the same violation due to the bureaucracy maintaining the violations or i could use a payday loan(ii), another damning option these are only two examples of areas where a conversation about fairness stead equality alters the direction of the conversation (o) https://www.reddit.com/comments/3ofo13/ https://www.reddit.com/comments/3ofo13/ (i) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjpmT5noto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjpmT5noto (ii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDylgzybWAw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDylgzybWAw

stvswn 11y ago
You've hit on a really key point. Life is easier when you have more money. Not trying to be callous, but it's going to come out that way -- maybe the answer is to try to make some more of it. Because trying to redesign society to eliminate this basic fact of the world has so far led to disastrous results. Like, hundreds of millions dead kind of results. With nothing to show for it, because there were still haves and have nots. "But I'm not advocating Stalinism!" you'd say. But remember, Lenin and Trotsky and Stalin came from good intentions, too. So did Mao and Pol Pot and Ho and Kim. Everyone wanted to solve the problem you're describing.

stlHusker 11y ago

The elephant in the room is how do you measure fairness? We devolve into measuring the end results in terms of equality which ultimately provide a negative feedback loop and move the conversation and solutions into trying to make things equal instead of fair. Governmental policy devolves into this to the detriment of everyone involved. Entire political campaigns are centered around not making things "fair" but "equal". Watch and see who communities vote for and why they vote for them; it is closely related to the child who prefers to have one and everyone else zero as opposed to everyone getting two.