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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 li

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?
  - ancap 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's not how I am reading the quote. It states there is a correlation between a high concentration of political power and income inequality. Thus it seems absurd, even if you don't think the former causes the latter, to believe you can solve the latter through political means. > 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. I think you're having difficulty with those scenarios only because you have not first defined "coercion". Google gives me this definition: > the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats. To clarify my use of the word, and hopefully not completely distort the use of the word I would like to amend the definition as follows: > the practice of persuading someone to do something by using violence or threats of violence. When clearly defined it is clear in all of the scenarios you raised, none of them involve coercion.
- asgard1024 11y ago
  > I disagree. As long as you're referring to a non-coerced transaction If both parties receive the benefit, obviously you can still model that as power exchange where both parties apply their power to the other party. Just like physical forces on an object can be nonzero and yet it stays still. It actually seems like smoother model of social interaction than all the kerfuffle around coercion, but I haven't thought about it in depth. In reality though, there exist many coerced transactions. For example, I need to eat, and that's why I go to work. I am being coerced by nature. But maybe someone thinks it's better to die in freedom from hunger than to live under coercion with full stomach. Regarding "political power". What is that? I don't see significant boundary between "political" and "economic" power, but rather smooth transition. Therefore, to me power is power regardless of the social domain where it manifests.
randomsearch 11y ago
> No matter how you want to dance about it, money are strongly related to power. (To most girls this is probably obvious. :-)) Sorry, could you explain what you mean by that last comment?
- asgard1024 11y ago
  > could you explain No. I am not in a mood to receive a false accusation of sexism.
  - randomsearch 11y ago
    I was not going to accuse you of sexism. Rather, I wanted to understand your world view, because I guessed it might disagree with mine, but listening to other people's POV is a good way to learn and question your own beliefs.
    - asgard1024 11y ago
      OK, I'll bite. Most girls/women have a very sensitive detector of social status or it's various proxies, because that's what they sexually select for. (It's kind of similar to how boys/men are attuned to detect physically attractive women.) And many of them are quite self-aware and honest about this capability, and they will confirm that having money is related power and status. Some will even openly admit that they're attracted to wealthy and powerful people. So I was merely suggesting, if the GP doesn't personally believe there is a strong connection, he should find a honest girl and ask her, she will probably confirm that, it shouldn't be too hard. (Actually, Piketty makes a similar point indirectly by quoting various Jane Austen's works, where people are just obsessed with the question how to marry to wealth). To clarify, it doesn't mean that men don't want to gain social status; men can do the detection too of course, but it's less of a concern for them, so they're probably less skilled at it (they are interested only indirectly). Of course, this is not even remotely sexist, because I am not talking about anyone's preferences to begin with. But I was worried that explaining my point could cause derail of the discussion (not necessarily by you).

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?
- ancap 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's not how I am reading the quote. It states there is a correlation between a high concentration of political power and income inequality. Thus it seems absurd, even if you don't think the former causes the latter, to believe you can solve the latter through political means. > 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. I think you're having difficulty with those scenarios only because you have not first defined "coercion". Google gives me this definition: > the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats. To clarify my use of the word, and hopefully not completely distort the use of the word I would like to amend the definition as follows: > the practice of persuading someone to do something by using violence or threats of violence. When clearly defined it is clear in all of the scenarios you raised, none of them involve coercion.
asgard1024 11y ago
> I disagree. As long as you're referring to a non-coerced transaction If both parties receive the benefit, obviously you can still model that as power exchange where both parties apply their power to the other party. Just like physical forces on an object can be nonzero and yet it stays still. It actually seems like smoother model of social interaction than all the kerfuffle around coercion, but I haven't thought about it in depth. In reality though, there exist many coerced transactions. For example, I need to eat, and that's why I go to work. I am being coerced by nature. But maybe someone thinks it's better to die in freedom from hunger than to live under coercion with full stomach. Regarding "political power". What is that? I don't see significant boundary between "political" and "economic" power, but rather smooth transition. Therefore, to me power is power regardless of the social domain where it manifests.

randomsearch 11y ago

> No matter how you want to dance about it, money are strongly related to power. (To most girls this is probably obvious. :-)) Sorry, could you explain what you mean by that last comment?

asgard1024 11y ago
> could you explain No. I am not in a mood to receive a false accusation of sexism.
- randomsearch 11y ago
  I was not going to accuse you of sexism. Rather, I wanted to understand your world view, because I guessed it might disagree with mine, but listening to other people's POV is a good way to learn and question your own beliefs.
  - asgard1024 11y ago
    OK, I'll bite. Most girls/women have a very sensitive detector of social status or it's various proxies, because that's what they sexually select for. (It's kind of similar to how boys/men are attuned to detect physically attractive women.) And many of them are quite self-aware and honest about this capability, and they will confirm that having money is related power and status. Some will even openly admit that they're attracted to wealthy and powerful people. So I was merely suggesting, if the GP doesn't personally believe there is a strong connection, he should find a honest girl and ask her, she will probably confirm that, it shouldn't be too hard. (Actually, Piketty makes a similar point indirectly by quoting various Jane Austen's works, where people are just obsessed with the question how to marry to wealth). To clarify, it doesn't mean that men don't want to gain social status; men can do the detection too of course, but it's less of a concern for them, so they're probably less skilled at it (they are interested only indirectly). Of course, this is not even remotely sexist, because I am not talking about anyone's preferences to begin with. But I was worried that explaining my point could cause derail of the discussion (not necessarily by you).