4 ms·

The issue is always inequality and not absolute wealth, so your hypothetical of everybody having 100x the resources is not fundamentally different than the curr

by danhak 11y ago

The issue is always inequality and not absolute wealth, so your hypothetical of everybody having 100x the resources is not fundamentally different than the current situation. The issue is that wealthy people do not have a monopoly on talent, good ideas or intelligence. But they have a monopoly on power and influence. Society therefore suffers when the best ideas do not necessarily compete on an equal basis within the marketplace or the political arena, if they make it there at all.

trav4225 11y ago
I think many of us agree that "society therefore suffers when the best ideas do not necessarily compete on an equal footing". Where many of us disagree is regarding the extent to which we have the moral license to do anything about it policy-wise. Just my 2¢ :)
DevX101 11y ago
Multiplying everyone's MONEY by 100x wouldn't make any difference, but multiplying everyone's RESOURCES (what OP said) by 100x would absolutely make a big difference in human society.
Pyxl101 11y ago
Excellent! Thank you for clarifying. It sounds like the concern is that some people hold a monopoly on power, such that good ideas don't compete on their merits. Is that a good way of saying it? I ask because that problem does not seem to me to be directly related to income equality. In communist societies everyone had very similar income, and yet a small group had all the power and functioned as kingmakers in business. Or even outside communism, simple corruption: for example, until the 90s you needed a very hard-to-get license in order to start a business or do business at all in India (known as "license raj"). This stifled their business environment and innovation for decades. This type of problem still affects many countries today, especially corrupt ones. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj It seems to me that good ideas are capable of flourishing in the US without any gatekeepers getting in the way. It's easier than ever before to start a company. Why do you believe that good ideas aren't already competing effectively on merit? (Examples?) Take Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Uber, etc. Did these not win on merit? Is there a legislative barrier to you starting your own competitor to one of these services?
- danhak 11y ago
  > In communist societies everyone had very similar income... Again we're reverting to the straw man of 100% (or nearly) equal society. Our society must be unequal to some extent because capital is a reasonable and effective reward for figuring out how to best allocate resources. But extreme inequality prevents a large % of the population from fully developing, exploring and disseminating their talents, shutting them out of this virtuous cycle altogether. You bring up Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Uber as examples of companies that succeeded on their merits. All four of those companies were started by straight white men with upper middle class upbringings. Do you believe that's a coincidence? Or are there some "lost Zuckerbergs" out there who never had a chance to fully explore computers when they were kids? Is a family's ability to afford the latest technology a material advantage for the next Zuckerberg / Gates / Brin / Page / Kalanick? In your original example, who is going to invent the next great space tech? Probably the kid whose family is buying a space station.
  - Pyxl101 11y ago
    It's not a straw man. I'm not saying that any argument for income equality is tantamount to communism. I'm simply saying that you can have income equality and still lack a healthy business environment where ideas compete on merit. So the problem is whether ideas compete on merit, not income equality. Income equality is neither necessary nor sufficient for those other things. Regarding Brin, I don't think he has as privileged a background as you seem to believe. He had a pretty humble beginning, beginning with his birth in Soviet Russia (where his parents were discriminated against for being Jewish), after which he immigrated to USA at age 6: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin
    - danhak 11y ago
      > I'm simply saying that you can have income equality and still lack a healthy business environment where ideas compete on merit. And I don't dispute that at all. What I am saying is that society's prosperity is optimized somewhere between total equality and extreme inequality, and that we seem to be drifting further away from that point.

by danhak 11y ago

trav4225 11y ago

I think many of us agree that "society therefore suffers when the best ideas do not necessarily compete on an equal footing". Where many of us disagree is regarding the extent to which we have the moral license to do anything about it policy-wise. Just my 2¢ :)

DevX101 11y ago

Multiplying everyone's MONEY by 100x wouldn't make any difference, but multiplying everyone's RESOURCES (what OP said) by 100x would absolutely make a big difference in human society.

Pyxl101 11y ago

Excellent! Thank you for clarifying. It sounds like the concern is that some people hold a monopoly on power, such that good ideas don't compete on their merits. Is that a good way of saying it? I ask because that problem does not seem to me to be directly related to income equality. In communist societies everyone had very similar income, and yet a small group had all the power and functioned as kingmakers in business. Or even outside communism, simple corruption: for example, until the 90s you needed a very hard-to-get license in order to start a business or do business at all in India (known as "license raj"). This stifled their business environment and innovation for decades. This type of problem still affects many countries today, especially corrupt ones. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licence_Raj It seems to me that good ideas are capable of flourishing in the US without any gatekeepers getting in the way. It's easier than ever before to start a company. Why do you believe that good ideas aren't already competing effectively on merit? (Examples?) Take Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Uber, etc. Did these not win on merit? Is there a legislative barrier to you starting your own competitor to one of these services?

danhak 11y ago
> In communist societies everyone had very similar income... Again we're reverting to the straw man of 100% (or nearly) equal society. Our society must be unequal to some extent because capital is a reasonable and effective reward for figuring out how to best allocate resources. But extreme inequality prevents a large % of the population from fully developing, exploring and disseminating their talents, shutting them out of this virtuous cycle altogether. You bring up Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Uber as examples of companies that succeeded on their merits. All four of those companies were started by straight white men with upper middle class upbringings. Do you believe that's a coincidence? Or are there some "lost Zuckerbergs" out there who never had a chance to fully explore computers when they were kids? Is a family's ability to afford the latest technology a material advantage for the next Zuckerberg / Gates / Brin / Page / Kalanick? In your original example, who is going to invent the next great space tech? Probably the kid whose family is buying a space station.
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  It's not a straw man. I'm not saying that any argument for income equality is tantamount to communism. I'm simply saying that you can have income equality and still lack a healthy business environment where ideas compete on merit. So the problem is whether ideas compete on merit, not income equality. Income equality is neither necessary nor sufficient for those other things. Regarding Brin, I don't think he has as privileged a background as you seem to believe. He had a pretty humble beginning, beginning with his birth in Soviet Russia (where his parents were discriminated against for being Jewish), after which he immigrated to USA at age 6: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin
  - danhak 11y ago
    > I'm simply saying that you can have income equality and still lack a healthy business environment where ideas compete on merit. And I don't dispute that at all. What I am saying is that society's prosperity is optimized somewhere between total equality and extreme inequality, and that we seem to be drifting further away from that point.