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I'm curious - does anyone else think that the equality that matters is equality in material outcomes? I think that would be such a boring world. The real equali

by chakkop 10y ago

I'm curious - does anyone else think that the equality that matters is equality in material outcomes? I think that would be such a boring world. The real equality that matters is equality in dignity as human beings, equality before the law, equality in our respect to each other. I think the developed world has made monumental strides on these fronts, which are spreading around the world too. (Even though, of course, there is still work to be done). Incidentally, I think even though (as Piketty claims) inequality may be increasing, the average person (certainly in developed nations, but also in developing ones) has also been unimaginably enriched over the past 200 years. By any ethically relevant standard (access to food, shelter, heating, technology, entertainment), we live unbelievably fortunate lives. This when our ancestors a mere 3-4 generations ago were unspeakably poor.

AndrewKemendo 10y ago
What people seem to care about is not net improvement, but relative improvement. It really comes down to if you feel like things aren't better because you are comparing them to other people. It's not right or wrong, it's just an impossibly moving target.
- chakkop 10y ago
  Agreed with you and k-mcgrady. I think maybe we will need to use more and more 'hacks' that make us aware that it's already reasonably good. FWIW, Benjamin Friedman ('The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth') has great research that shows that when people stop feeling like they're advancing and participating in economic growth, moral and ethical ideals like open-mindedness, acceptance, tolerance, and democracy deteriorate, which is concerning.
regularfry 10y ago
The danger is where inequality in rates of improvement in material outcomes leads to inequality in moral outcomes. To borrow some rather loaded language, the more the 1% can buy themselves legal advantage, the more unjust the world becomes. If the rate of legal advantage is affected by the absolute difference between the 1% and the 99% (which I'd argue is demonstrably true - beyond a certain point you've got regulatory capture, but even before then, paid legal representation is the lever that matters here), then it's trivially true that a more materially unequal world is more morally imbalanced in the absence of a somewhat socialist government. Yes, the poorest and the average now are doing better than they were. That doesn't make defensible the disparity in gains between the richest and the rest.
- chakkop 10y ago
  I think the historical record is against this. Specifically: before the liberal revolution--the liberal idea that all humans are equal, which was truly revolutionary--it would have been unimaginable for a member of the peasantry to even claim equality with some lord, let alone build a legal case and have it heard. Again, it's far from perfect today, but better on many fronts. I imagine that differences will continue (they're unavoidable) but the mechanisms to cope with injustice will get better.
  - Simon321 10y ago
    It used to be worse, so let's not try to improve it anymore?
  - regularfry 10y ago
    By what mechanism? I'd say that the historical record is specifically in support of this. Civilisations start out relatively equal, inequality increases over time as wealth concentrates in elites, then they collapse either to revolution or war, reset, and start again. What evidence do we have to support the idea that we should draw a line up and to the right?
    - chakkop 10y ago
      Maybe more correctly: the vast majority of humanity was equal in its wretchedness, poverty, ill-health, and violence; the vast majority of people led miserable, hungry, precarious, uninteresting lives. Again, I'm not saying we've done all we can do. I'm not saying that many of the rich don't behave reprehensibly. I'm not saying we can't do better. But the question is: How? How can we do better most effectively? I don't think the answer is 'tax global wealth and redistribute' a la Piketty--because that's not what enriched us so over the past 200 years. So yes, it has gone up and to the right, especially in most recent history--though, because of human folly, there is no guarantee that it will continue to do so.
  - Ygg2 10y ago
    I'd say it's the opposite. Humans are inherently equalist, unless they learn to not be equal.
k-mcgrady 10y ago
If you look at things over 200 years we are doing much better but I think it's more important to look at it generation by generation. For example, growing up I will have had a comfortable life - going into adulthood supposedly my generation will be the first (no idea when that data goes back to) to do worse than it's parents. So throughout my life I will become less comfortable. It seems like we've now reached a point where the poor ACTUALLY become poorer and the rich become richer,
dghf 10y ago
> The real equality that matters is equality in dignity as human beings, equality before the law, equality in our respect to each other. But in practice these things are to some extent dependent on equality (or at least less disparity) in material outcomes. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France.
notahacker 10y ago
Piketty isn't really talking about "inequality in material incomes" so much as a theory that a small proportion of dynasties tends to accuulate such a large proportion of national resources that the economy ceases to operate like a competitive market and becomes a means for those holding the majority of the wealth to extract rent from those holding the diminishing remainder. That can be a problem even if you find some inequality unproblematic or even regard some level of inequality as morally necessary to reward endeavour and ingenuity and encourage economic growth, and is a problem for progress in the future even if the baseline standard of living in developed countries is very acceptable by historical standards. There are of course limitations to how accurate his theory is, not least because much of public policy has been designed to avoid it happening.
- chakkop 10y ago
  Nearly every assumption in this argument of Piketty's is flawed. Is it only the rich that have capital? What about human capital? What about creative destruction--the entry of new market players? Don't the rich (and their children) often squander their capital? More to the point: look at the evidence of the many rich people around us. Did they build this wealth by banking on r > g, or by putting idea upon idea and creating something new?
  - notahacker 10y ago
    The book attempts to address these in rather more detail than can be managed here, but human capital isn't likely to get you to the ranks of fabulously wealthy without the backing of VCs and their already fabulously wealthy LPs, and wealthy dynasties are generally much better at structuring their portfolios to avoid being wiped out by "creative destruction" than smaller business owners. Piketty argues that our concept of "the rich" is heavily shaped by lists which are biased towards those who create companies because their wealth is much easier to estimate than the diversified portfolios of family dynasties, and that distinguishing between the two isn't easy either (Warren Buffet, for example, is entirely self-made but has done so entirely through disproportionately successful bets on r > g rather than creating something new, and many of the entrepreneurs that have succeeded by creating and marketing something new take the eminently sensible decision to diversify those riches and become rentiers to let their fortunes continue to grow later in life). Whether he's right or wrong about the composition of the rich in general, it's pretty obvious the HN concept of the rich is skewed towards the Zuckerbergs we can aspire to emulate rather than the Koch brothers we can't.
oneloop 10y ago
When I talked about these things, I make the distinction between "equality" and "equality of opportunities".
dredmorbius 10y ago
"Money, as Mr Hobbes says, is power." Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_5 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_... A significant nature, and cause, of wealth is power. Smith wrote at length on both elements. One might surmise this is a strong reason it matters.
legulere 10y ago
Extreme material inequality can't be explained by some people performing better, so it's pretty obvious that it is unjust. How can unjust distribution of the material wealth be moral? How can you morally justify that some people have to work more than 40 hours per week to be able to barely scrape by, while others can just enjoy their lives luxuriously without working at all. Oh and in fact, poor people in western societies today have it worse than 20, 30 years ago.
- jamesblonde 10y ago
  How extreme can material inequality get before it's a problem? Well the Walton family have the same amount of money (wealth) as the bottom 160 million Americans. How much more extreme does it have to get before it doesn't become the issue? http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/dec/08/one-wisconsin-now/just-how-wealthy-wal-mart-walton-family/ http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/dec/08/o...
  - posterboy 10y ago
    Today, money is immaterial. Your argument, as poignant as it may be, doesn't follow.
    - jamesblonde 10y ago
      Money is immaterial?!? As Homer Simpson once said (to his brain): "money can be exchanged for goods and services" - like healthcare, education, important stuff....
      - posterboy 10y ago
        > immaterial > 1. Having no matter or substance. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/immaterial https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/immaterial
        jamesblonde 10y ago
js8 10y ago
> I'm curious - does anyone else think that the equality that matters is equality in material outcomes? You should not forget that inequality is not only about material outcomes. It is also about power to decide economic matters, such as how capital is invested. Shouldn't these matters be decided more equally by all members in society?
toddchambery 10y ago
Tyler Cowen addressed this in an interview, saying that the inequality that "really matters" is the difference in your living standard versus your sister's husband[1]. [1]: http://www.hudson.org/events/1356-are-plutocrats-drowning-our-republic-72016 http://www.hudson.org/events/1356-are-plutocrats-drowning-ou...
dragonwriter 10y ago
> I'm curious - does anyone else think that the equality that matters is equality in material outcomes? Maybe not directly, but... > The real equality that matters is equality in dignity as human beings, equality before the law, equality in our respect to each other. Material outcomes demonstrably affect all of those things, and cannot avoid doing so, generally, because "material outcomes" are power, and power is fungible, and those are all important areas to which power is applied.

by chakkop 10y ago

AndrewKemendo 10y ago

What people seem to care about is not net improvement, but relative improvement. It really comes down to if you feel like things aren't better because you are comparing them to other people. It's not right or wrong, it's just an impossibly moving target.

chakkop 10y ago
Agreed with you and k-mcgrady. I think maybe we will need to use more and more 'hacks' that make us aware that it's already reasonably good. FWIW, Benjamin Friedman ('The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth') has great research that shows that when people stop feeling like they're advancing and participating in economic growth, moral and ethical ideals like open-mindedness, acceptance, tolerance, and democracy deteriorate, which is concerning.

regularfry 10y ago

The danger is where inequality in rates of improvement in material outcomes leads to inequality in moral outcomes. To borrow some rather loaded language, the more the 1% can buy themselves legal advantage, the more unjust the world becomes. If the rate of legal advantage is affected by the absolute difference between the 1% and the 99% (which I'd argue is demonstrably true - beyond a certain point you've got regulatory capture, but even before then, paid legal representation is the lever that matters here), then it's trivially true that a more materially unequal world is more morally imbalanced in the absence of a somewhat socialist government. Yes, the poorest and the average now are doing better than they were. That doesn't make defensible the disparity in gains between the richest and the rest.

chakkop 10y ago
I think the historical record is against this. Specifically: before the liberal revolution--the liberal idea that all humans are equal, which was truly revolutionary--it would have been unimaginable for a member of the peasantry to even claim equality with some lord, let alone build a legal case and have it heard. Again, it's far from perfect today, but better on many fronts. I imagine that differences will continue (they're unavoidable) but the mechanisms to cope with injustice will get better.
- Simon321 10y ago
  It used to be worse, so let's not try to improve it anymore?
- regularfry 10y ago
  By what mechanism? I'd say that the historical record is specifically in support of this. Civilisations start out relatively equal, inequality increases over time as wealth concentrates in elites, then they collapse either to revolution or war, reset, and start again. What evidence do we have to support the idea that we should draw a line up and to the right?
  - chakkop 10y ago
    Maybe more correctly: the vast majority of humanity was equal in its wretchedness, poverty, ill-health, and violence; the vast majority of people led miserable, hungry, precarious, uninteresting lives. Again, I'm not saying we've done all we can do. I'm not saying that many of the rich don't behave reprehensibly. I'm not saying we can't do better. But the question is: How? How can we do better most effectively? I don't think the answer is 'tax global wealth and redistribute' a la Piketty--because that's not what enriched us so over the past 200 years. So yes, it has gone up and to the right, especially in most recent history--though, because of human folly, there is no guarantee that it will continue to do so.
- Ygg2 10y ago
  I'd say it's the opposite. Humans are inherently equalist, unless they learn to not be equal.

k-mcgrady 10y ago

If you look at things over 200 years we are doing much better but I think it's more important to look at it generation by generation. For example, growing up I will have had a comfortable life - going into adulthood supposedly my generation will be the first (no idea when that data goes back to) to do worse than it's parents. So throughout my life I will become less comfortable. It seems like we've now reached a point where the poor ACTUALLY become poorer and the rich become richer,

dghf 10y ago

> The real equality that matters is equality in dignity as human beings, equality before the law, equality in our respect to each other. But in practice these things are to some extent dependent on equality (or at least less disparity) in material outcomes. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France.

notahacker 10y ago

Piketty isn't really talking about "inequality in material incomes" so much as a theory that a small proportion of dynasties tends to accuulate such a large proportion of national resources that the economy ceases to operate like a competitive market and becomes a means for those holding the majority of the wealth to extract rent from those holding the diminishing remainder. That can be a problem even if you find some inequality unproblematic or even regard some level of inequality as morally necessary to reward endeavour and ingenuity and encourage economic growth, and is a problem for progress in the future even if the baseline standard of living in developed countries is very acceptable by historical standards. There are of course limitations to how accurate his theory is, not least because much of public policy has been designed to avoid it happening.

chakkop 10y ago
Nearly every assumption in this argument of Piketty's is flawed. Is it only the rich that have capital? What about human capital? What about creative destruction--the entry of new market players? Don't the rich (and their children) often squander their capital? More to the point: look at the evidence of the many rich people around us. Did they build this wealth by banking on r > g, or by putting idea upon idea and creating something new?
- notahacker 10y ago
  The book attempts to address these in rather more detail than can be managed here, but human capital isn't likely to get you to the ranks of fabulously wealthy without the backing of VCs and their already fabulously wealthy LPs, and wealthy dynasties are generally much better at structuring their portfolios to avoid being wiped out by "creative destruction" than smaller business owners. Piketty argues that our concept of "the rich" is heavily shaped by lists which are biased towards those who create companies because their wealth is much easier to estimate than the diversified portfolios of family dynasties, and that distinguishing between the two isn't easy either (Warren Buffet, for example, is entirely self-made but has done so entirely through disproportionately successful bets on r > g rather than creating something new, and many of the entrepreneurs that have succeeded by creating and marketing something new take the eminently sensible decision to diversify those riches and become rentiers to let their fortunes continue to grow later in life). Whether he's right or wrong about the composition of the rich in general, it's pretty obvious the HN concept of the rich is skewed towards the Zuckerbergs we can aspire to emulate rather than the Koch brothers we can't.

oneloop 10y ago

When I talked about these things, I make the distinction between "equality" and "equality of opportunities".

dredmorbius 10y ago

"Money, as Mr Hobbes says, is power." Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_5 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_... A significant nature, and cause, of wealth is power. Smith wrote at length on both elements. One might surmise this is a strong reason it matters.

legulere 10y ago

Extreme material inequality can't be explained by some people performing better, so it's pretty obvious that it is unjust. How can unjust distribution of the material wealth be moral? How can you morally justify that some people have to work more than 40 hours per week to be able to barely scrape by, while others can just enjoy their lives luxuriously without working at all. Oh and in fact, poor people in western societies today have it worse than 20, 30 years ago.

jamesblonde 10y ago
How extreme can material inequality get before it's a problem? Well the Walton family have the same amount of money (wealth) as the bottom 160 million Americans. How much more extreme does it have to get before it doesn't become the issue? http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/dec/08/one-wisconsin-now/just-how-wealthy-wal-mart-walton-family/ http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/dec/08/o...
- posterboy 10y ago
  Today, money is immaterial. Your argument, as poignant as it may be, doesn't follow.
  - jamesblonde 10y ago
    Money is immaterial?!? As Homer Simpson once said (to his brain): "money can be exchanged for goods and services" - like healthcare, education, important stuff....
    - posterboy 10y ago
      > immaterial > 1. Having no matter or substance. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/immaterial https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/immaterial
      - jamesblonde 10y ago

js8 10y ago

> I'm curious - does anyone else think that the equality that matters is equality in material outcomes? You should not forget that inequality is not only about material outcomes. It is also about power to decide economic matters, such as how capital is invested. Shouldn't these matters be decided more equally by all members in society?

toddchambery 10y ago

Tyler Cowen addressed this in an interview, saying that the inequality that "really matters" is the difference in your living standard versus your sister's husband[1]. [1]: http://www.hudson.org/events/1356-are-plutocrats-drowning-our-republic-72016 http://www.hudson.org/events/1356-are-plutocrats-drowning-ou...

dragonwriter 10y ago

> I'm curious - does anyone else think that the equality that matters is equality in material outcomes? Maybe not directly, but... > The real equality that matters is equality in dignity as human beings, equality before the law, equality in our respect to each other. Material outcomes demonstrably affect all of those things, and cannot avoid doing so, generally, because "material outcomes" are power, and power is fungible, and those are all important areas to which power is applied.