5 ms·

I agree. Paul Graham's essays on income inequality expressed my views on income inequality more clearly than even I was thinking them. I appreciate this, but no

by delish 11y ago

I agree. Paul Graham's essays on income inequality expressed my views on income inequality more clearly than even I was thinking them. I appreciate this, but now I need to hear a critique by someone who understands the issue how I understand it and disagrees with me. I've been looking, but I've found ad hominem attacks.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
UK-AL 11y ago
The problem is that for every economist who disagree's, you'll probably find another one who agrees.
sparky_z 11y ago
Does O'Reilly's critique not qualify?
spangry 11y ago
Although I basically agree with PG's essay, the one plausible critique I can think of is this: 1) We don't care about wealth distribution per se. What we actually care about is utility maximisation (in other words, maximising the sum of 'human happiness'). 2) Once we get pass some basic wealth level, to meet some set of basic needs like food and shelter, a person's utility is a function of relative wealth rather than an increasing function of absolute wealth. 3) If you accept points 1 and 2, we therefore should care about wealth inequality in and of itself. There's also probably another argument to be made along the lines of 'decreasing marginal utility with respect to wealth'. Which is a fancy way of saying: a poor person derives greater utility from an additional $1 in wealth than a rich person does. This would mean that the sum of human utility is increased by taking $1 from the richest person and giving it to the poorest person.
shadowsun7 11y ago
@delish: have you seen this? http://praxtime.com/2016/01/12/paul-graham-inequality-cowens-laws/ http://praxtime.com/2016/01/12/paul-graham-inequality-cowens...
- delish 11y ago
  That was worth my time. Thank you. I wrote down Cowen's laws for future reference.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

5 ms·

I agree. Paul Graham's essays on income inequality expressed my views on income inequality more clearly than even I was thinking them. I appreciate this, but no

by delish 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
UK-AL 11y ago
The problem is that for every economist who disagree's, you'll probably find another one who agrees.
sparky_z 11y ago
Does O'Reilly's critique not qualify?
spangry 11y ago
Although I basically agree with PG's essay, the one plausible critique I can think of is this: 1) We don't care about wealth distribution per se. What we actually care about is utility maximisation (in other words, maximising the sum of 'human happiness'). 2) Once we get pass some basic wealth level, to meet some set of basic needs like food and shelter, a person's utility is a function of relative wealth rather than an increasing function of absolute wealth. 3) If you accept points 1 and 2, we therefore should care about wealth inequality in and of itself. There's also probably another argument to be made along the lines of 'decreasing marginal utility with respect to wealth'. Which is a fancy way of saying: a poor person derives greater utility from an additional $1 in wealth than a rich person does. This would mean that the sum of human utility is increased by taking $1 from the richest person and giving it to the poorest person.
shadowsun7 11y ago
@delish: have you seen this? http://praxtime.com/2016/01/12/paul-graham-inequality-cowens-laws/ http://praxtime.com/2016/01/12/paul-graham-inequality-cowens...
- delish 11y ago
  That was worth my time. Thank you. I wrote down Cowen's laws for future reference.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]