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This reminds me of one problem I have with people and politicians when discussing hot-button "income inequality" topics: Many people act as if the world is sti
by gedy 11y ago
This reminds me of one problem I have with people and politicians when discussing hot-button "income inequality" topics: Many people act as if the world is still on the gold-standard, and if this person has more, they took it from those who have less, etc in a zero-sum game.
The real problem is not that simple though, and money being created and diluted in a way that makes simplistic solutions like "capping CEO pay" and setting living wages do not target the people and systems outside this who are the real problem.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoInstead of capping CEO pay, how would you feel about indexing work week hours to productivity? For example, we should be around 15-20 hours/week with the productivity gains seen over the last 40 years, yet everyone still works 40+ hours a week (with excess being absorbed by corporations and shareholders). If productivity goes up, ratchet hours per week worked down.
- dnautics 11y agoI think what gedy means is "not using monetary policy to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich"
- toomuchtodo 11y agoThanks for clarifying that!
- RobertoG 11y agoor if that is impractical, the possibility to retire sooner, or more holiday days. I mean, if productivity goes up, waves keep the same, and people have to work more, where goes the difference?
- toomuchtodo 11y ago> where goes the difference? Corporations and shareholders. That's what needs to be fixed.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- davidw 11y ago"The economy is not a zero-sum game" is something a lot of people don't seem to get.
- protonfish 11y agoBut the game the top .0001% play of "who is the richest" IS a zero sum game. When governments don't reign in their avarice and allow them to take as much as they want from the powerless, the economy becomes a zero-sum game, even though it does not inherently need to be.
- davidw 11y agoRankings are by their very nature zero-sum: only one person can occupy the top spot, whether it's wealth or the winner of the Ronde van Vlaanderen or a sportsball tournament. But the economy provides ample opportunities to create wealth. Isn't that part of why people read this site?
- jsprogrammer 11y agoFor any given period of time, the game is zero-sum. For example, if there is one apple, either you can have it, or I can have it. Where is the non-zero-sum game?
- davidw 11y agoYou could plant an apple tree. That's definitely not zero-sum. After that you could could invent better ways to ship apples so that more people can enjoy them. Or cross breed them to provide different types of apples for different uses and tastes. You could make cider from the leftover apples instead of throwing them away, so that less is wasted. In other words, there are tons of ways to make better use of what we have, or create new things. The economy is not zero-sum. PG has a nice essay that explains this: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html - in particular "the pie fallacy". You might be referring to the 'rivalry' of goods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics) - but that's for one good at one time, not for the economy as a whole.
- anon4 11y agoBecause from most people's perspectives, economy is a zero-sum game. You are given money from your employer and then spend them on stuff. At no point is there an opportunity to get money from nothing, unless you're a bank and have a license to create money from nothing. And so the economy is not a zero-sum game only for the richest few who control the banks.