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I honestly think PG and the WaPo writer are in agreement: encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship is good and shouldn't be targeted by new regulations, rent

I honestly think PG and the WaPo writer are in agreement: encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship is good and shouldn't be targeted by new regulations, rent-seeking behaviour is bad and should be targeted by regulators. For PG, the former (startups) is clearly a huge source of wealth, whereas the latter is just a proposition. In the quote you cited, he literally qualified the idea of corporations engaging in anti-competitive behaviour with "if", as if this is some unproven supposition. It's clear he thinks startups are the larger effect. For the WaPo writer, rent-seeking is most of the inequality growth and startups are a small piece. But this writer has some data to backup his assertions, while PG doesn't. I understand where PG went wrong - he's a startup investor. He's surrounded himself with startups for the last decade. Intuitively, he overestimated their impact relative to, say, banker bonuses, something he doesn't encounter regularly. That's natural.

beat 11y ago
It doesn't help that the WP article basically attacked pg's article with the usual inflammatory crap. It's easy to argue that pg kind of missed the point by caring too much about his source of inequality (productive creativity), and not enough about the primary source of inequality (rent-seeking). The article was unnecessarily and unfairly inflammatory about it.
ghufran_syed 11y ago
I read his use of "if" as being in the mathematical sense, where "if A, then B" is identical in meaning to "A implies B"
michaelkeenan 11y ago
> he literally qualified the idea of corporations engaging in anti-competitive behaviour with "if", as if this is some unproven supposition. I don't think that's the right interpretation of that phrase. PG has been complaining about rent-seeking corruption for over a decade: "[Buildings are ugly because of] the notoriously corrupt relationship between the government and construction companies." - http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html, 2004 "[Corruption includes] construction firms that fund politicians' campaigns in return for government contracts, or rich parents who get their children into good colleges by sending them to expensive schools designed for that purpose." - http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html, 2005 "There are a lot of people who get rich through rent-seeking of various forms, and a lot who get rich by playing games that though not crooked are zero-sum...[There are] corrupt practices in finance, healthcare, and so on. Once again, that is exactly my point. The problem is not economic inequality, but those specific abuses." - http://paulgraham.com/ineqold.html http://paulgraham.com/ineqold.html, 2016 I think ghufran_syed's interpretation, using 'if' in the logical sense, is correct. (I think it was a poor way of expressing it.) > It's clear he thinks startups are the larger effect. I think he had plenty of opportunities to say that startups were the larger effect, and he didn't say that. This sentence would have looked different if he'd meant that: "But while there are a lot of people who get rich through rent-seeking of various forms, and a lot who get rich by playing games that though not crooked are zero-sum, there are also a significant number who get rich by creating wealth." If startups were the larger effect, the natural way to end that sentence would have been "most get rich by creating wealth." His version was longer and wordier. For what it's worth, I didn't get the impression that he thought startups were the larger effect, which is why the WaPo article sent me searching for something I might have missed.

beat 11y ago

It doesn't help that the WP article basically attacked pg's article with the usual inflammatory crap. It's easy to argue that pg kind of missed the point by caring too much about his source of inequality (productive creativity), and not enough about the primary source of inequality (rent-seeking). The article was unnecessarily and unfairly inflammatory about it.

ghufran_syed 11y ago

I read his use of "if" as being in the mathematical sense, where "if A, then B" is identical in meaning to "A implies B"

michaelkeenan 11y ago

> he literally qualified the idea of corporations engaging in anti-competitive behaviour with "if", as if this is some unproven supposition. I don't think that's the right interpretation of that phrase. PG has been complaining about rent-seeking corruption for over a decade: "[Buildings are ugly because of] the notoriously corrupt relationship between the government and construction companies." - http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html http://www.paulgraham.com/usa.html, 2004 "[Corruption includes] construction firms that fund politicians' campaigns in return for government contracts, or rich parents who get their children into good colleges by sending them to expensive schools designed for that purpose." - http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html, 2005 "There are a lot of people who get rich through rent-seeking of various forms, and a lot who get rich by playing games that though not crooked are zero-sum...[There are] corrupt practices in finance, healthcare, and so on. Once again, that is exactly my point. The problem is not economic inequality, but those specific abuses." - http://paulgraham.com/ineqold.html http://paulgraham.com/ineqold.html, 2016 I think ghufran_syed's interpretation, using 'if' in the logical sense, is correct. (I think it was a poor way of expressing it.) > It's clear he thinks startups are the larger effect. I think he had plenty of opportunities to say that startups were the larger effect, and he didn't say that. This sentence would have looked different if he'd meant that: "But while there are a lot of people who get rich through rent-seeking of various forms, and a lot who get rich by playing games that though not crooked are zero-sum, there are also a significant number who get rich by creating wealth." If startups were the larger effect, the natural way to end that sentence would have been "most get rich by creating wealth." His version was longer and wordier. For what it's worth, I didn't get the impression that he thought startups were the larger effect, which is why the WaPo article sent me searching for something I might have missed.