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The question is not what creates wealth but what keeps it unevenly distributed. There have been experiments (computer simulations) that tried to explain 'Paret
by 1gor 19y ago
The question is not what creates wealth but what keeps it unevenly distributed.
There have been experiments (computer simulations) that tried to explain 'Pareto distribution' -- a power law distribution of wealth leading to 20 percent of population having 80% of the wealth. I refer to 1996 Axtell and Epstein book (google for Sugarcape).
Basically, they created a number of software 'agents' and placed them on a landscape full of resources. Each agent possessed a 'fitness function' that controlled its further survival. Having access to resources improved the fitness function since the agent could replenish its energy and could go on hunting for resources having some surplus for the rainy day.
What transpired from the simulation is that 'the Rich get Richer' axiom is basically true. First generation agent might have stumbled on a resource nearby by accident. It has improved its fitness function and he was able to successfully compete on the next round.
Meanwhile similarly fit agent who had bad luck in the first round (no resource nearby) was left chronically under-fit and his chances of 'making it to the top' diminished with every round.
This piece of empirical knowledge makes two important points about the society and the wealth.
Firstly, even in the free market society people always have unequal opportunities because this is an emergent quality of the system, not the result of some corruption, inability, personal passivity etc. The best and the brightest will stay poor unless they stumble on a resource which is not taken. (A new internet business idea for example).
Secondly, revolutions have their merits. They re-shuffle fitness landscape. Even when people do not directly 'expropriate' somebody's wealth by simply levelling the playing field revolutions create competing chances for the talented and the hard-working who would otherwise be forever destined to be relatively unfit comparing to those who already have access to resources.
Looks like extreme pro-market views are as primitive as extreme 'left' views. Social science really becomes fascinating when aided by computer science, doesn't it?
- wumi 19y ago"The best and the brightest will stay poor unless they stumble on a resource which is not taken. (A new internet business idea for example)." Where does this data include for the fact that resources have been forcefully extracted from certain people groups for centuries? Need not look further than look at Central and South America, and the entire sub-Saharan African continent. (Also of course, several areas in Asia) it is no surprise then, that the wealthiest nations and societies are those who extracted the resources (in this case ranging from gold, diamonds, oil, rubber, ivory, even crops such as fruit, coffee beans, and cocoa beans) by means of blatant corruption, deceit, and thievery. Secondly, many have remarked on this site that ideas in and of themselves don't have much value -- it is the execution on the idea that makes it powerful. That being re-hashed constantly on this site, how then does a new internet idea count as a resource? Without the ability, or the actual resources to execute on the idea then there is absolutely no value of that idea to the person. (say, if a poor person has little or no access to a computer or the internet, it seems a bit ludicrous a new internet business idea is a resource) "First generation agent might have stumbled on a resource nearby by accident. It has improved its fitness function and he was able to successfully compete on the next round." Not by accident, but by intent.
- sethg 19y agoThe Sugarscape models are interesting because they show that you are likely have a "rich get richer" accumulation even when there is no coercion.
- wumi 19y agopoint taken, but surmising about how a society would operate in a fictitious world is a bit pretentious -- what real world value does that create?