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Paul Graham is absolutely right, and those who argue against him are doing so from a position of close-mindedness. First of all: it's irrelevant to the princip

by aminok 11y ago

Paul Graham is absolutely right, and those who argue against him are doing so from a position of close-mindedness. First of all: it's irrelevant to the principle whether the goal is to "eliminate" income inequality, or "reduce" it. This being HN, I won't elaborate on why. This place should be above pedantry and people coming from all viewpoints should be able to see why it's the case that if one is bad, so is the other. Second, Graham is not arguing that the pie is getting larger. He is saying that the type of capitalistic market-based activity that increase income inequality also increase the size of the pie. Sure a new regulation that increases legal fees for the average person but increases the wages of highly educated legal professionals will be a zero sum reallocation of the shares of each slice, but that is not what PG is talking about when he says he's in the business of creating income inequality.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
> First of all: it's irrelevant to the principle whether the goal is to "eliminate" income inequality, or "reduce" it. This being HN, I won't elaborate on why. This place should be above pedantry and people coming from all viewpoints should be able to see why it's the case that if one is bad, so is the other. I'm afraid you're going to have to elaborate a bit for me to see it. (And no, I'm not just trying to be a pedant.) (Unless you're saying that PG's argument is that reducing inequality is bad, not just that eliminating it is bad. Then I'd have to agree with you.) One could both believe that inequality should not be eliminated because it actually benefits society (PG's point in the essay) and believe that too much inequality harms society. One could even believe that we are on the "too much inequality" side of the optimum.
- aminok 11y ago
  Fair enough. Yes, PG is arguing that reducing income inequality is bad. He did not address the hypothetical notion that there is a goldilocks zone of 'just enough' inequality, either side of which is suboptimal (due to the 'systemic destabilization' or some other deleterious effect of inequality having a dampening effect on productivity that exceeds inequality's positive effects on productivity after some level), and none of the critiques brought up such an argument either, so I didn't feel the need to address that.
jrock08 11y ago
It's not clear that reducing income inequality is bad, please explain. The arguments against eliminating income inequality rest on the idea that people won't do a hard or bad job if it didn't pay more than other easier or nicer jobs. While there are very likely jobs that people wouldn't do for a small multiplier on some ideal base pay for some ideal good job. Increasing marginal tax rates, which is the actual way that actual people suggest we handle income inequality, doesn't actually put a cap on pay.
- aminok 11y ago
  I'm not going to rehash PG's entire article. Feel free to address all of the arguments in it so we can avoid an endless, unconstructive merry-go-round.
  - jrock08 11y ago
    And I'm not going to point-by-point refute arguments that aren't particularly convincing, but here's some thoughts. > Closely related to poverty is lack of social mobility. It's not just closely related, when considering income inequality the two converge. It's simple arithmetic really. When poverty wages are a lesser multiplier (i.e. income inequality were less) of wealth wages (let's say 2), then it's obvious how to lift oneself out of poverty, split a home with another person earning an income. > you don't have to grow up rich or even upper middle class to get rich as a startup founder, but few successful founders grew up desperately poor Sure, but a rich founder has a clear advantage, in the same way that a founder at Harvard has a clear advantage. It's a lot easier to ask a friend/colleague/parent for money than a stranger. > For example, let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. Yes. The way we attack poverty is to spend money to improve schools, spend money to improve transit, spend money to provide food for low cost. Where does that money come from, taxes. If we just talk about fixing poverty, we run the risk of not actually spending money and fixing the problem. Ignoring the greater context of politics, and the almost 100% sign on of republicans to the Grover no new taxes pledge, in order to actually get a mandate to fix anything, the alternative has to be upfront and direct about taxes. If you'd like me to address arguments directly feel free to respond with something less dickish than telling me to read an article that I've already read.
metaphorm 11y ago
> This being HN, I won't elaborate on why. This place should be above pedantry and people coming from all viewpoints should be able to see why it's the case that if one is bad, so is the other. no, actually you do need to elaborate on why. this is not pedantry. you should accept that reasonable people might disagree with you for good reasons and that your position is not "obviously correct" to the point of needing no explanation or support from its proponents.
serge2k 11y ago
> it's irrelevant to the principle whether the goal is to "eliminate" income inequality, or "reduce" it. This being HN, I won't elaborate on why. So your style of argument is if I act hard enough like's it's blatantly obvious then people will accept it as true?
jnbiche 11y ago
> This place should be above pedantry and people coming from all viewpoints should be able to see why it's the case that if one is bad, so is the other. That's some pretty weak logic. By this way of thinking, what's the difference between US-level inequality and African-dictatorship-level inequality? They both have the same impact, right?
- aminok 11y ago
  No.. that is not the same logic at all. I did not say they're "the same". I said that if one is bad, the other is bad as well. It's just by a matter of degrees that it differs. It's frustrating to debate a policy position when people don't even bother to understand what the relevant arguments they're disputing are.

by aminok 11y ago

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

> First of all: it's irrelevant to the principle whether the goal is to "eliminate" income inequality, or "reduce" it. This being HN, I won't elaborate on why. This place should be above pedantry and people coming from all viewpoints should be able to see why it's the case that if one is bad, so is the other. I'm afraid you're going to have to elaborate a bit for me to see it. (And no, I'm not just trying to be a pedant.) (Unless you're saying that PG's argument is that reducing inequality is bad, not just that eliminating it is bad. Then I'd have to agree with you.) One could both believe that inequality should not be eliminated because it actually benefits society (PG's point in the essay) and believe that too much inequality harms society. One could even believe that we are on the "too much inequality" side of the optimum.

aminok 11y ago
Fair enough. Yes, PG is arguing that reducing income inequality is bad. He did not address the hypothetical notion that there is a goldilocks zone of 'just enough' inequality, either side of which is suboptimal (due to the 'systemic destabilization' or some other deleterious effect of inequality having a dampening effect on productivity that exceeds inequality's positive effects on productivity after some level), and none of the critiques brought up such an argument either, so I didn't feel the need to address that.

jrock08 11y ago

It's not clear that reducing income inequality is bad, please explain. The arguments against eliminating income inequality rest on the idea that people won't do a hard or bad job if it didn't pay more than other easier or nicer jobs. While there are very likely jobs that people wouldn't do for a small multiplier on some ideal base pay for some ideal good job. Increasing marginal tax rates, which is the actual way that actual people suggest we handle income inequality, doesn't actually put a cap on pay.

aminok 11y ago
I'm not going to rehash PG's entire article. Feel free to address all of the arguments in it so we can avoid an endless, unconstructive merry-go-round.
- jrock08 11y ago
  And I'm not going to point-by-point refute arguments that aren't particularly convincing, but here's some thoughts. > Closely related to poverty is lack of social mobility. It's not just closely related, when considering income inequality the two converge. It's simple arithmetic really. When poverty wages are a lesser multiplier (i.e. income inequality were less) of wealth wages (let's say 2), then it's obvious how to lift oneself out of poverty, split a home with another person earning an income. > you don't have to grow up rich or even upper middle class to get rich as a startup founder, but few successful founders grew up desperately poor Sure, but a rich founder has a clear advantage, in the same way that a founder at Harvard has a clear advantage. It's a lot easier to ask a friend/colleague/parent for money than a stranger. > For example, let's attack poverty, and if necessary damage wealth in the process. Yes. The way we attack poverty is to spend money to improve schools, spend money to improve transit, spend money to provide food for low cost. Where does that money come from, taxes. If we just talk about fixing poverty, we run the risk of not actually spending money and fixing the problem. Ignoring the greater context of politics, and the almost 100% sign on of republicans to the Grover no new taxes pledge, in order to actually get a mandate to fix anything, the alternative has to be upfront and direct about taxes. If you'd like me to address arguments directly feel free to respond with something less dickish than telling me to read an article that I've already read.

metaphorm 11y ago

> This being HN, I won't elaborate on why. This place should be above pedantry and people coming from all viewpoints should be able to see why it's the case that if one is bad, so is the other. no, actually you do need to elaborate on why. this is not pedantry. you should accept that reasonable people might disagree with you for good reasons and that your position is not "obviously correct" to the point of needing no explanation or support from its proponents.

serge2k 11y ago

> it's irrelevant to the principle whether the goal is to "eliminate" income inequality, or "reduce" it. This being HN, I won't elaborate on why. So your style of argument is if I act hard enough like's it's blatantly obvious then people will accept it as true?

jnbiche 11y ago

> This place should be above pedantry and people coming from all viewpoints should be able to see why it's the case that if one is bad, so is the other. That's some pretty weak logic. By this way of thinking, what's the difference between US-level inequality and African-dictatorship-level inequality? They both have the same impact, right?

aminok 11y ago
No.. that is not the same logic at all. I did not say they're "the same". I said that if one is bad, the other is bad as well. It's just by a matter of degrees that it differs. It's frustrating to debate a policy position when people don't even bother to understand what the relevant arguments they're disputing are.