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Great point! That sounds like a genuine disagreement. Can you expand a bit on why economic inequality is intrinsically bad, rather than instrumentally bad?

by emmett 11y ago

foldr 11y ago
I could, but that whole discussion was already had on the thread for the original article. You can find a summary of the main arguments by googling e.g. "why economic inequality is bad". I don't mean this in a snarky way, it's just that so much has already been written on the topic that I don't see the point in trying to summarize what economists, philosophers and any number of others have already said.
- emmett 11y ago
  The previous thread had lots of reasons economic inequality is instrumentally bad. I really saw nothing about how it's intrinsically bad, and I was looking. Can you link to a specific comment maybe?
  - foldr 11y ago
    I'm not sure exactly what distinction you're making with instrumentally vs. intrinsically. People pointed out that economic equality as such has certain bad consequences. For example, wealthy people become disproportionately powerful. Here's an ok list turned up by a simple Google query: http://ideas.ted.com/the-4-biggest-reasons-why-inequality-is-bad-for-society/ http://ideas.ted.com/the-4-biggest-reasons-why-inequality-is...
    - emmett 11y ago
      Intrinsic wrongness of inequality is basically argument #4 from your link. It's the idea that the split of wealth is just inherently unfair, not because of any bad consequence, but because of something being wrong with having wealth too unevenly distributed whether or not it actually has any bad effects. Claims 1-3 from your link are claims of instrumental wrongness of inequality claims 1-3 from your link. They point at bad consequences (rich people will control the media, rich people will corrupt the government, rich people will have unfair advantages for their children). As the author of the article you links points out: "In principle, these effects could avoided, without reducing economic inequality, through such means as the public financing of political campaigns and making high-quality public education available to all children". It's not that inequality necessarily must cause these consequences, it's that it will tend to under some (most?) given policy regimes. I think I misunderstood your original comment...when you said that "Inequality is not per se bad" was incorrect, I assumed you were making argument #4, which I did not see debated hardly at all. Most people were making some variant on arguments #1-#3. In which case, I would respond to you: Paul does talk about the bad consequences and bad causes of inequality, and claims that you should address those causes and consequences directly rather than attempt to limit inequality in itself. The argument against this has to come in some form of "well yes, in theory it's possible to limit the bad consequences of inequality, but in practice it's too hard because X and thus we should directly attack inequality". I didn't see anyone really saying that, everyone seemed to believe Paul thinks inequality doesn't have bad consequences or that he thinks we shouldn't address those bad consequences.
      - foldr 11y ago
        I don't think it's possible to effectively address the bad consequences without limiting inequality. It certainly doesn't seem possible right now, in the U.S. (do you expect to see publicly financed political campaigns any time soon?) If pg wants to be taken seriously he needs to make a serious proposal about how we can have tons of economic inequality without the seemingly inevitable bad consequences of it. And I note that some of the proposals you mention (e.g. lots of public funding for education) are merely redistribution in disguise and do in effect take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Truthfully, pg doesn't care about the consequences of inequality because they don't affect him or his buddies, so he likes to pretend that some pie-in-the-sky scheme can magically make everything ok without actually changing the status quo.
scarmig 11y ago
In the strictest sense, inequality per se isn't bad or actionable: if the residents of Kepler-186f start out poor compared to those of Sol-3, it shouldn't influence our actions at all. And if they suddenly become far richer a century later as they stumble upon technological riches untold, it still shouldn't change how we live: all we can say is that in a theoretical utilitarian sense, the universe is a lot better off than otherwise. The issue is that the human rich and the poor don't exist on separate planets (yet?). One plausible theory, though one I don't argue for or against here, is that as economic power ends up concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, so does political power and the will to change the crappy situation of the poorest, despite the hand-wringing of the more civic-minded rich. This would lead to a world that many people would rank lower than a world with less poverty and more equality. The details are everything here: if evidence supports the idea that increased inequality raises the economic floor, then we shouldn't worry too much about it. But the people arguing otherwise aren't jealous of their next door neighbor's new car in itself but are worried that, in the actually existing world, increased economic inequality inherently leads to negative social effects.
- squozzer 11y ago
  The concentration of wealth has some observable effects that we probably don't want - for example, real estate prices. Not that expensive real estate is bad in itself, but people who work in areas where they can't afford to live - for instance, a hypothetical cop in NY / LA / SF - have three obvious choices: 1> commute, sometimes for hours one-way. One could argue that policing outside of one's neighborhood is bad policing, but for the most part, long commutes are just a drag. And probably will last only as long as it takes for a job closer to home to open up. So now it's a turnover problem. 2> rent control or other "low-income" concession. Waiting lists are long, developers resist creating more supply, and always have to consider the risk of arbitrage. 3> extra jobs / graft - competition for outside security work is pretty tight, and I'm sure we can all agree another cop on the take is something the world doesn't need. We could try a variant of option 2 and provide housing subsidies for certain professions, something I think the FBI does for agents in certain areas, but then we run the risk of creating castes. I doubt anyone would entertain subsidizing a barista's rent just so they wouldn't have to commute 3 hours to a Starbucks in Beverly Hills. But it might happen for a cop (probably not.) The degenerate case is all the cops leave and the rich have the opportunity to fend for themselves.

Great point! That sounds like a genuine disagreement. Can you expand a bit on why economic inequality is intrinsically bad, rather than instrumentally bad?

by emmett 11y ago

Great point! That sounds like a genuine disagreement. Can you expand a bit on why economic inequality is intrinsically bad, rather than instrumentally bad?

foldr 11y ago

I could, but that whole discussion was already had on the thread for the original article. You can find a summary of the main arguments by googling e.g. "why economic inequality is bad". I don't mean this in a snarky way, it's just that so much has already been written on the topic that I don't see the point in trying to summarize what economists, philosophers and any number of others have already said.

emmett 11y ago
The previous thread had lots of reasons economic inequality is instrumentally bad. I really saw nothing about how it's intrinsically bad, and I was looking. Can you link to a specific comment maybe?
- foldr 11y ago
  I'm not sure exactly what distinction you're making with instrumentally vs. intrinsically. People pointed out that economic equality as such has certain bad consequences. For example, wealthy people become disproportionately powerful. Here's an ok list turned up by a simple Google query: http://ideas.ted.com/the-4-biggest-reasons-why-inequality-is-bad-for-society/ http://ideas.ted.com/the-4-biggest-reasons-why-inequality-is...
  - emmett 11y ago
    Intrinsic wrongness of inequality is basically argument #4 from your link. It's the idea that the split of wealth is just inherently unfair, not because of any bad consequence, but because of something being wrong with having wealth too unevenly distributed whether or not it actually has any bad effects. Claims 1-3 from your link are claims of instrumental wrongness of inequality claims 1-3 from your link. They point at bad consequences (rich people will control the media, rich people will corrupt the government, rich people will have unfair advantages for their children). As the author of the article you links points out: "In principle, these effects could avoided, without reducing economic inequality, through such means as the public financing of political campaigns and making high-quality public education available to all children". It's not that inequality necessarily must cause these consequences, it's that it will tend to under some (most?) given policy regimes. I think I misunderstood your original comment...when you said that "Inequality is not per se bad" was incorrect, I assumed you were making argument #4, which I did not see debated hardly at all. Most people were making some variant on arguments #1-#3. In which case, I would respond to you: Paul does talk about the bad consequences and bad causes of inequality, and claims that you should address those causes and consequences directly rather than attempt to limit inequality in itself. The argument against this has to come in some form of "well yes, in theory it's possible to limit the bad consequences of inequality, but in practice it's too hard because X and thus we should directly attack inequality". I didn't see anyone really saying that, everyone seemed to believe Paul thinks inequality doesn't have bad consequences or that he thinks we shouldn't address those bad consequences.
    - foldr 11y ago
      I don't think it's possible to effectively address the bad consequences without limiting inequality. It certainly doesn't seem possible right now, in the U.S. (do you expect to see publicly financed political campaigns any time soon?) If pg wants to be taken seriously he needs to make a serious proposal about how we can have tons of economic inequality without the seemingly inevitable bad consequences of it. And I note that some of the proposals you mention (e.g. lots of public funding for education) are merely redistribution in disguise and do in effect take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Truthfully, pg doesn't care about the consequences of inequality because they don't affect him or his buddies, so he likes to pretend that some pie-in-the-sky scheme can magically make everything ok without actually changing the status quo.

scarmig 11y ago

In the strictest sense, inequality per se isn't bad or actionable: if the residents of Kepler-186f start out poor compared to those of Sol-3, it shouldn't influence our actions at all. And if they suddenly become far richer a century later as they stumble upon technological riches untold, it still shouldn't change how we live: all we can say is that in a theoretical utilitarian sense, the universe is a lot better off than otherwise. The issue is that the human rich and the poor don't exist on separate planets (yet?). One plausible theory, though one I don't argue for or against here, is that as economic power ends up concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, so does political power and the will to change the crappy situation of the poorest, despite the hand-wringing of the more civic-minded rich. This would lead to a world that many people would rank lower than a world with less poverty and more equality. The details are everything here: if evidence supports the idea that increased inequality raises the economic floor, then we shouldn't worry too much about it. But the people arguing otherwise aren't jealous of their next door neighbor's new car in itself but are worried that, in the actually existing world, increased economic inequality inherently leads to negative social effects.

squozzer 11y ago
The concentration of wealth has some observable effects that we probably don't want - for example, real estate prices. Not that expensive real estate is bad in itself, but people who work in areas where they can't afford to live - for instance, a hypothetical cop in NY / LA / SF - have three obvious choices: 1> commute, sometimes for hours one-way. One could argue that policing outside of one's neighborhood is bad policing, but for the most part, long commutes are just a drag. And probably will last only as long as it takes for a job closer to home to open up. So now it's a turnover problem. 2> rent control or other "low-income" concession. Waiting lists are long, developers resist creating more supply, and always have to consider the risk of arbitrage. 3> extra jobs / graft - competition for outside security work is pretty tight, and I'm sure we can all agree another cop on the take is something the world doesn't need. We could try a variant of option 2 and provide housing subsidies for certain professions, something I think the FBI does for agents in certain areas, but then we run the risk of creating castes. I doubt anyone would entertain subsidizing a barista's rent just so they wouldn't have to commute 3 hours to a Starbucks in Beverly Hills. But it might happen for a cop (probably not.) The degenerate case is all the cops leave and the rich have the opportunity to fend for themselves.