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Then, it would seem, the focus should not be on lessening inequality but rather destroying this "extreme political power". Ironically those who beat the drum of

by ancap 11y ago

Then, it would seem, the focus should not be on lessening inequality but rather destroying this "extreme political power". Ironically those who beat the drum of inequality most often call upon the use and expansion of those political powers to battle the symptom.

tankenmate 11y ago
The problem with this in countries like the US is that money talks, unlimited contributions to PACs and various ways to mask those contributions means that at the very least election media is largely controlled by money. This obviously tilts political favour to those with money to spend.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  Yep, it's a chicken and egg thing, small groups with money -> small groups with political power -> small groups with more money -> small groups with more political power -> etc. Though other political factors do have a role to play, a dysfunctional two-party political process where many feel disenfranchised may well be the link that explains the graphs for english speaking nations differing from the European nations for example.
amelius 11y ago
The solution, I think, is to make sure that the political process happens completely transparently and with approval of the people. Properly designed IT systems could thus help solve the problem. See: [1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-democracy [2] http://liquidfeedback.org/ http://liquidfeedback.org/
notahacker 11y ago
Centralisation and expansion of political power /= concentration of it in the hands of the few. Political power is far less concentrated in a big government elected on a wide franchise which legislates and redistributes in a way not seen as conflicting with the perceived interests of a diverse majority than if wielded through a set of local private or quasi-private enforcement services effectively owned by those with the means to purchase their decisions.
asgard1024 11y ago
Why not, but how? No matter how you want to dance about it, money are strongly related to power. (To most girls this is probably obvious. :-)) It's not just literally true - you can exchange money for raw materials and energy (power), but every time you give money to someone else to do your bidding, you are exercising power over them. The only time this power is not really being exercised (as in "power over other people") is when you're spending for your own pleasure, buying things like a new car or a spa visit. Investing money is almost always exercising power, depending how much and with what intent you will affect future of others. For example, you can buy a newspaper company to make good PR about you. So to be able to "destroy the power", in capitalist society, you would have to very tightly control how people spend money. This is not only fiendishly difficult, but also undesirable from a free market perspective. Reducing inequality is a much simpler way to remove power from too powerful people, because it simply gives more power to other people. And there is in fact not much need to be wealthy in the first place, unless you can have associated power - there is only so much cars one person needs.
- ancap 11y ago
  > every time you give money to someone else to do your bidding, you are exercising power over them I disagree. As long as you're referring to a non-coerced transaction, each side agrees to the transaction because they receive more benefit from engaging in the transaction then not engaging in it. I don't think you're addressing the point I raised. Allow me to rephrase in case there's some ambiguity. The quote I originally replied to indicated that income inequality was an affect of a high concentration of political power. Assuming it is true that income inequality derives from a high concentration of political power, then using political means to solve income inequality is not only futile but demonstrates either a misunderstanding of the cause of income inequality or a kind of Stockholm syndrome from those who advocate to do so.
  - thegp 11y ago
    Doesn't the qoute state that income inequality is supposed to enact accumulation and growth("give something to aspire to") but instead leads to concentration of political power among the wealthy, who then use that power to further secure their higher income, creating a feedback loop? That directly implies that removing income inequality and adding feedback loops that avoids excessive capital concentration is the way to go. And to your point about non-coerced transactions, where does coercion start? Monopolies? Excessive costs? Does Comcast coerce their customers, if they have only no internet as the alternative? Does uber coerce people with surge pricing? And that pharma guy, raising the price of the drug, did he coerce people ? I would tend to say yes in the case of the Comcast monopoly, no in the other cases. But it's hard to define exactly where coercion starts. A more fundamental examples, from my libertarian socialist perspective: advertising in public view. Is that coercion of a third party(the advertised to?) Microsoft windows/ apple and other walled gardens with no data export, but payed for upgrade path and end of support? And even more fundamentally, sometimes any and all transactions you make can be under duress and make you inherently dependent on the partner: Getting a shitty job that barely feeds you, because your skills are obsolete and your country doesn't provide basic income? Startint that shitty job early, due to not having the same resources, stability and growing opportunities because your father is working a shitty job just to make ends meet?

by ancap 11y ago

tankenmate 11y ago

The problem with this in countries like the US is that money talks, unlimited contributions to PACs and various ways to mask those contributions means that at the very least election media is largely controlled by money. This obviously tilts political favour to those with money to spend.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
Yep, it's a chicken and egg thing, small groups with money -> small groups with political power -> small groups with more money -> small groups with more political power -> etc. Though other political factors do have a role to play, a dysfunctional two-party political process where many feel disenfranchised may well be the link that explains the graphs for english speaking nations differing from the European nations for example.

amelius 11y ago

The solution, I think, is to make sure that the political process happens completely transparently and with approval of the people. Properly designed IT systems could thus help solve the problem. See: [1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-democracy [2] http://liquidfeedback.org/ http://liquidfeedback.org/

notahacker 11y ago

Centralisation and expansion of political power /= concentration of it in the hands of the few. Political power is far less concentrated in a big government elected on a wide franchise which legislates and redistributes in a way not seen as conflicting with the perceived interests of a diverse majority than if wielded through a set of local private or quasi-private enforcement services effectively owned by those with the means to purchase their decisions.

asgard1024 11y ago

Why not, but how? No matter how you want to dance about it, money are strongly related to power. (To most girls this is probably obvious. :-)) It's not just literally true - you can exchange money for raw materials and energy (power), but every time you give money to someone else to do your bidding, you are exercising power over them. The only time this power is not really being exercised (as in "power over other people") is when you're spending for your own pleasure, buying things like a new car or a spa visit. Investing money is almost always exercising power, depending how much and with what intent you will affect future of others. For example, you can buy a newspaper company to make good PR about you. So to be able to "destroy the power", in capitalist society, you would have to very tightly control how people spend money. This is not only fiendishly difficult, but also undesirable from a free market perspective. Reducing inequality is a much simpler way to remove power from too powerful people, because it simply gives more power to other people. And there is in fact not much need to be wealthy in the first place, unless you can have associated power - there is only so much cars one person needs.

ancap 11y ago
> every time you give money to someone else to do your bidding, you are exercising power over them I disagree. As long as you're referring to a non-coerced transaction, each side agrees to the transaction because they receive more benefit from engaging in the transaction then not engaging in it. I don't think you're addressing the point I raised. Allow me to rephrase in case there's some ambiguity. The quote I originally replied to indicated that income inequality was an affect of a high concentration of political power. Assuming it is true that income inequality derives from a high concentration of political power, then using political means to solve income inequality is not only futile but demonstrates either a misunderstanding of the cause of income inequality or a kind of Stockholm syndrome from those who advocate to do so.
- thegp 11y ago
  Doesn't the qoute state that income inequality is supposed to enact accumulation and growth("give something to aspire to") but instead leads to concentration of political power among the wealthy, who then use that power to further secure their higher income, creating a feedback loop? That directly implies that removing income inequality and adding feedback loops that avoids excessive capital concentration is the way to go. And to your point about non-coerced transactions, where does coercion start? Monopolies? Excessive costs? Does Comcast coerce their customers, if they have only no internet as the alternative? Does uber coerce people with surge pricing? And that pharma guy, raising the price of the drug, did he coerce people ? I would tend to say yes in the case of the Comcast monopoly, no in the other cases. But it's hard to define exactly where coercion starts. A more fundamental examples, from my libertarian socialist perspective: advertising in public view. Is that coercion of a third party(the advertised to?) Microsoft windows/ apple and other walled gardens with no data export, but payed for upgrade path and end of support? And even more fundamentally, sometimes any and all transactions you make can be under duress and make you inherently dependent on the partner: Getting a shitty job that barely feeds you, because your skills are obsolete and your country doesn't provide basic income? Startint that shitty job early, due to not having the same resources, stability and growing opportunities because your father is working a shitty job just to make ends meet?