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Way to brush over the severe problems with inequality. There were plenty of countries poorer than France during the French revolution. It was not poverty which

Way to brush over the severe problems with inequality. There were plenty of countries poorer than France during the French revolution. It was not poverty which caused it but inequality. In all societies high levels of inequality coincides with political instability. All that wealth and prosperity is easily lost if you end up with revolution and civil war. Look at America today. It has not been as unequal and politically polarized in decades. The author champions Adam Smith, but can not possibly have read him. He did in fact speak at length about the dangers of inequality. He specifically said that poverty was not an absolute phenomenon. It is not about how many calories you get per day and the size of your dwelling. He understood hundreds of years ago that poverty is a relative phenomenon. The author also mentioned Picketty but elegantly ignored his reasoning for why inequality is a big problem. One of the things Picketty pointed out is that with rising inequality, inherited wealth starts dominating the economy. This means the ability to get rich fast will most efficiently be accomplished with strategic marriages rather than starting your own businesses. This is what the world of Jane Austin was about. Everything came down to strategic marriage. That was the obsession of the day. A society of high inequality over a long time can not be a society of "the self made man". That ought to be recognized as a problem.

soufron 10y ago
same thing... the whole article seems so naïve...
WalterBright 10y ago
As a counterpoint, there has never been an era where more people have risen to great wealth so quickly as today. Also, 85% of American millionaires are self-made (not inherited). See the book "The Millionaire Next Door".
- jondubois 10y ago
  I'm not worried about the past 20 years at all (those were good times). I'm worried about the next 20 years. Before, when people thought about 'monopolies' they thought about Microsoft (there wasn't that many)... Now practically every company is a monopoly. And taken together, they form a sort of oligopoly. Companies today are more cooperative than they are competitive (and this helps them maintain their positions).
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  That doesn't square with research on social mobility. E.g. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-social-mobility-parents-income/399311/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-... It's easy to cherry pick a fact like "85% of millionaires are self-made" and ignore the background of those millionaires. How many come from secure middle class homes, or grew up in families in areas which happened to benefit from a property boom? It's a meaningless statistic unless you look at the bigger picture - which is where you find a persistent pattern of research proving that the one single most significant factor determining the wealth of an individual is the wealth of his/her parents. Worse, the US does far worse on objective social mobility than most other Western countries. The fact that a few individuals can still work their way up against all the odds doesn't alter the fact it's an unreachable goal for most of the population.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    The parent was refuting this claim: ...inherited wealth starts dominating the economy. This means the ability to get rich fast will most efficiently be accomplished with strategic marriages rather than starting your own businesses. Your comment is discussing something completely unrelated. Facebook and Salesforce were not inherited or constructed via a strategic marriage, they were built. The fact that they were built by high human capital individuals with good parents does not change this fact. The fact that child earnings are correlated with parental earnings suggests that inheritance of wealth is NOT the cause at all and that Piketty's scary story is wrong. Rather, it suggests that US social mobility is low because rich parents pass good work habits, intelligence and similar traits on to their children while poor parents do not. The fact that a few individuals can still work their way up against all the odds doesn't alter the fact it's an unreachable goal for most of the population. It's tautologically true that being in the top 0.1% is unreachable for 99.9% of the population. So what?
    - ap22213 10y ago
      What are you trying to sell exactly and to whom are you trying to sell it? I currently live around a bunch of upper middle income Americans (>$200k annual household income), and I have family and friends in poor rural America (<$10k annual household income). Both groups are struggling much more today than they were 10 years ago. Maybe the higher-income ones are still living well, but their work environments have become so extreme that I rarely see them around anymore. I can see that many are being are pushed to their limits just to maintain what they have. There's a reason why Donald Trump even has a chance at winning the presidency. Many of both of these groups want to see the whole system crash and burn. The media personalities like to think that only the poorer ones are supporting him. But, when I talk around my neighborhood, as much as my neighbors dislike him, they'd also secretly like to see him win. There has been some frightening instability rising in the US, and it had a lot to do with inequality and unfairness. Many people are realizing that working hard doesn't matter as much as they were taught. Anyway, package up what you're selling as a solution to the above crisis, and I'll try it out at least. Otherwise, it just sounds like you're complaining that the billionaires are being treated unfairly.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
It's not been as politically polarized? Let me remind you that in the 1960's (often held up as a golden age of lower inequality and strong unions), we had a multi-million member political terrorist group attacking soft targets on a regular basis. Remember Bombingham? Countering them we had a large armed separatist group. Nowadays all we have are some internet Hitlerites who make Pepe the Frog memes and watch tentacle porn. One of the things Picketty pointed out is that with rising inequality, inherited wealth starts dominating the economy...A society of high inequality over a long time can not be a society of "the self made man". As the contemporary US demonstrates, this is false. We have a higher proportion of self made billionaires than ever before. For example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/03/there-are-more-self-made-billionaires-in-the-forbes-400-than-ever-before/#83a6636e0a57 http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/03/there-a... Picketty even acknowledges that all the official statistics go against this claim, he just postulates that there are secret inherited fortunes that the statistics don't capture. In any case, if you really believe inequality rather than poverty is the problem, I invite you to come to India. Way less inequality than the US. Granted, there's a 50% chance you won't have a flush toilet, but that's not a problem if no one else has one either, right?
- esolyt 10y ago
  > if you really believe inequality rather than poverty is the problem Maybe they're both problems. You're arguing a straw man here. The comment you replied to simply says poverty was not the cause of French Revolution. It does not say poverty is not a problem.

soufron 10y ago

same thing... the whole article seems so naïve...

WalterBright 10y ago

As a counterpoint, there has never been an era where more people have risen to great wealth so quickly as today. Also, 85% of American millionaires are self-made (not inherited). See the book "The Millionaire Next Door".

jondubois 10y ago
I'm not worried about the past 20 years at all (those were good times). I'm worried about the next 20 years. Before, when people thought about 'monopolies' they thought about Microsoft (there wasn't that many)... Now practically every company is a monopoly. And taken together, they form a sort of oligopoly. Companies today are more cooperative than they are competitive (and this helps them maintain their positions).
TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
That doesn't square with research on social mobility. E.g. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-social-mobility-parents-income/399311/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-... It's easy to cherry pick a fact like "85% of millionaires are self-made" and ignore the background of those millionaires. How many come from secure middle class homes, or grew up in families in areas which happened to benefit from a property boom? It's a meaningless statistic unless you look at the bigger picture - which is where you find a persistent pattern of research proving that the one single most significant factor determining the wealth of an individual is the wealth of his/her parents. Worse, the US does far worse on objective social mobility than most other Western countries. The fact that a few individuals can still work their way up against all the odds doesn't alter the fact it's an unreachable goal for most of the population.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  The parent was refuting this claim: ...inherited wealth starts dominating the economy. This means the ability to get rich fast will most efficiently be accomplished with strategic marriages rather than starting your own businesses. Your comment is discussing something completely unrelated. Facebook and Salesforce were not inherited or constructed via a strategic marriage, they were built. The fact that they were built by high human capital individuals with good parents does not change this fact. The fact that child earnings are correlated with parental earnings suggests that inheritance of wealth is NOT the cause at all and that Piketty's scary story is wrong. Rather, it suggests that US social mobility is low because rich parents pass good work habits, intelligence and similar traits on to their children while poor parents do not. The fact that a few individuals can still work their way up against all the odds doesn't alter the fact it's an unreachable goal for most of the population. It's tautologically true that being in the top 0.1% is unreachable for 99.9% of the population. So what?
  - ap22213 10y ago
    What are you trying to sell exactly and to whom are you trying to sell it? I currently live around a bunch of upper middle income Americans (>$200k annual household income), and I have family and friends in poor rural America (<$10k annual household income). Both groups are struggling much more today than they were 10 years ago. Maybe the higher-income ones are still living well, but their work environments have become so extreme that I rarely see them around anymore. I can see that many are being are pushed to their limits just to maintain what they have. There's a reason why Donald Trump even has a chance at winning the presidency. Many of both of these groups want to see the whole system crash and burn. The media personalities like to think that only the poorer ones are supporting him. But, when I talk around my neighborhood, as much as my neighbors dislike him, they'd also secretly like to see him win. There has been some frightening instability rising in the US, and it had a lot to do with inequality and unfairness. Many people are realizing that working hard doesn't matter as much as they were taught. Anyway, package up what you're selling as a solution to the above crisis, and I'll try it out at least. Otherwise, it just sounds like you're complaining that the billionaires are being treated unfairly.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

It's not been as politically polarized? Let me remind you that in the 1960's (often held up as a golden age of lower inequality and strong unions), we had a multi-million member political terrorist group attacking soft targets on a regular basis. Remember Bombingham? Countering them we had a large armed separatist group. Nowadays all we have are some internet Hitlerites who make Pepe the Frog memes and watch tentacle porn. One of the things Picketty pointed out is that with rising inequality, inherited wealth starts dominating the economy...A society of high inequality over a long time can not be a society of "the self made man". As the contemporary US demonstrates, this is false. We have a higher proportion of self made billionaires than ever before. For example: http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/03/there-are-more-self-made-billionaires-in-the-forbes-400-than-ever-before/#83a6636e0a57 http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/10/03/there-a... Picketty even acknowledges that all the official statistics go against this claim, he just postulates that there are secret inherited fortunes that the statistics don't capture. In any case, if you really believe inequality rather than poverty is the problem, I invite you to come to India. Way less inequality than the US. Granted, there's a 50% chance you won't have a flush toilet, but that's not a problem if no one else has one either, right?

esolyt 10y ago
> if you really believe inequality rather than poverty is the problem Maybe they're both problems. You're arguing a straw man here. The comment you replied to simply says poverty was not the cause of French Revolution. It does not say poverty is not a problem.