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Economic inequality is the sole reliable predictor of a high level of violent crime in a society. Thousands of different indicators have been examined, and eco

Economic inequality is the sole reliable predictor of a high level of violent crime in a society. Thousands of different indicators have been examined, and economic inequality is literally the only one that correlates significantly with violent crime rates. And that's before you even get into the principles of the matter. If capitalism is supposed to be based upon people being paid relative to the value they actually create, outsized executive pay clearly betrays that standard utterly. While a small number of people could replace a business analyst who knows the operations of the business inside and out, almost anyone could do the job of a CEO who shows up and is gone within 3 years, off to a new company, serving as nothing more than temporary figurehead and whose primary actual job duty is to cash large checks so investors think the company is healthy.

chrisco255 9y ago
I'd like to see a source, but I'm willing to bet even if you're able to find it, is a comparison of US vs various European countries. I'm willing to bet it's non exhaustive and excludes all sorts of countries in South America, Africa, Middle East, and Asia...
- otakucode 9y ago
  You're precisely wrong, actually. The source I would quote is unfortunately a dead-tree book, specifically the first chapter of the book 'Nine Crazy Ideas In Science'. The first chapter isn't even ABOUT economic inequality, but actually about the 'crazy idea' that tons of guns in a society could lead to less violent crime. The only actually sensible thing to do, of course, is to study EVERY society and not to cherry pick 'oh we'll only look at the developed countries and then claim to have found something about human society in general'. You look at all of them. And when looking at all of them, prevalence of gun ownership in a society had no correlation with violent crime. Not positive, not negative. So they threw in a thousand+ other demographic factors and couldn't find a single one that was a statistically significant predictor... except economic inequality. Poverty itself wasn't predictive, wealth itself wasn't predictive, only a presence of both poverty and wealth together was predictive, with the extremity of the gap predictive of the severity of the violent crime. One thing I am uncertian of is how exactly they defined 'violent crime'. Most people only consider street crime when addressing the issue. But most death from crime is due to white collar crime. White collar crime (at least in the US) kills more people and causes more economic damage than street crime by a large margin (but is socially normalized among the upper class so rarely punished, and then only lightly).
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Correlation, we all know, does not equal causation. On guns and inequality. Doesn't matter if there is a statistical correlation or not. It proves nothing. For certain societies, banning guns might lower crime. For others, it might increase it. There's lots of complex factors in any society that can influence whether certain economic or legal policies are taken. For example, a country with a strong militaristic culture and a law for drafting all of its citizens to the army, might have lower crime despite the prevalence of legal gun owners. All sorts of possible reasons for this. Likewise, an island nation with strong border protection could ban guns altogether and probably see a drop in murders. It's all possible. Societies are complex and woven with history, traditions, sub-cultures, economics, politics, and natural inclinations that can all influence the outcome of any policy for better or worse.
harryh 9y ago
Over the past 25 years in the US inequality has gone up while violent crime has dropped.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > Economic inequality is the sole reliable predictor of a high level of violent crime in a society. It might have dropped but it's still "a high level" - 10,000 gun deaths thus far in 2017 would indicate that. http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
randyrand 9y ago
If reducing violent crime is the goal, there are of course many ways you can accomplish that. We should also weigh it against other goals like freedom from excessive tax rates. But as far as solving violent crime through egalitarianism, focusing on executive pay (which is a tiny fraction of the population) seems misguided. Its too small a number of people to have a noticeable affect on violent crime. This seems to mostly solve jealousy more than anything else.
oh_sigh 9y ago
Then why do big businesses pay out the big bucks to CEOs? If it is basically CEOs and their board conning money out of the company, won't companies that don't engage in that kind of behavior have a competitive advantage and eventually overtake the poorly led companies?
- valuearb 9y ago
  It's basically conning, and yes it hurts the companies but for public companies it doesn't matter because that's the incentives of the board/CEO are out of whack. Shareholders aren't allowed to elect boards in public companies so they become interlocked with insiders. And in reality a good CEO is worth an enormous amount of money so the actual amount that is earned and the excess that is grift is difficult to measure.
ra1n85 9y ago
Do you have a source? This seems wrong. Presence of internal or external conflict seems to be the largest driver of violence. Page 29: http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GPI-2016-Report_2.pdf http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GPI-...
r00fus 9y ago
Completely agree. However, controlling take-home pay seems a bit like shutting the barn door after the horses have bolted. What should really be done is to institute a financial transaction tax that both suppresses pure speculation and taxes actual wealth generation given the largest component of take-home pay for CEOs is stock.

chrisco255 9y ago

I'd like to see a source, but I'm willing to bet even if you're able to find it, is a comparison of US vs various European countries. I'm willing to bet it's non exhaustive and excludes all sorts of countries in South America, Africa, Middle East, and Asia...

otakucode 9y ago
You're precisely wrong, actually. The source I would quote is unfortunately a dead-tree book, specifically the first chapter of the book 'Nine Crazy Ideas In Science'. The first chapter isn't even ABOUT economic inequality, but actually about the 'crazy idea' that tons of guns in a society could lead to less violent crime. The only actually sensible thing to do, of course, is to study EVERY society and not to cherry pick 'oh we'll only look at the developed countries and then claim to have found something about human society in general'. You look at all of them. And when looking at all of them, prevalence of gun ownership in a society had no correlation with violent crime. Not positive, not negative. So they threw in a thousand+ other demographic factors and couldn't find a single one that was a statistically significant predictor... except economic inequality. Poverty itself wasn't predictive, wealth itself wasn't predictive, only a presence of both poverty and wealth together was predictive, with the extremity of the gap predictive of the severity of the violent crime. One thing I am uncertian of is how exactly they defined 'violent crime'. Most people only consider street crime when addressing the issue. But most death from crime is due to white collar crime. White collar crime (at least in the US) kills more people and causes more economic damage than street crime by a large margin (but is socially normalized among the upper class so rarely punished, and then only lightly).
- chrisco255 9y ago
  Correlation, we all know, does not equal causation. On guns and inequality. Doesn't matter if there is a statistical correlation or not. It proves nothing. For certain societies, banning guns might lower crime. For others, it might increase it. There's lots of complex factors in any society that can influence whether certain economic or legal policies are taken. For example, a country with a strong militaristic culture and a law for drafting all of its citizens to the army, might have lower crime despite the prevalence of legal gun owners. All sorts of possible reasons for this. Likewise, an island nation with strong border protection could ban guns altogether and probably see a drop in murders. It's all possible. Societies are complex and woven with history, traditions, sub-cultures, economics, politics, and natural inclinations that can all influence the outcome of any policy for better or worse.

harryh 9y ago

Over the past 25 years in the US inequality has gone up while violent crime has dropped.

zimpenfish 9y ago
> Economic inequality is the sole reliable predictor of a high level of violent crime in a society. It might have dropped but it's still "a high level" - 10,000 gun deaths thus far in 2017 would indicate that. http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

randyrand 9y ago

If reducing violent crime is the goal, there are of course many ways you can accomplish that. We should also weigh it against other goals like freedom from excessive tax rates. But as far as solving violent crime through egalitarianism, focusing on executive pay (which is a tiny fraction of the population) seems misguided. Its too small a number of people to have a noticeable affect on violent crime. This seems to mostly solve jealousy more than anything else.

oh_sigh 9y ago

Then why do big businesses pay out the big bucks to CEOs? If it is basically CEOs and their board conning money out of the company, won't companies that don't engage in that kind of behavior have a competitive advantage and eventually overtake the poorly led companies?

valuearb 9y ago
It's basically conning, and yes it hurts the companies but for public companies it doesn't matter because that's the incentives of the board/CEO are out of whack. Shareholders aren't allowed to elect boards in public companies so they become interlocked with insiders. And in reality a good CEO is worth an enormous amount of money so the actual amount that is earned and the excess that is grift is difficult to measure.

ra1n85 9y ago

Do you have a source? This seems wrong. Presence of internal or external conflict seems to be the largest driver of violence. Page 29: http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GPI-2016-Report_2.pdf http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/GPI-...

r00fus 9y ago

Completely agree. However, controlling take-home pay seems a bit like shutting the barn door after the horses have bolted. What should really be done is to institute a financial transaction tax that both suppresses pure speculation and taxes actual wealth generation given the largest component of take-home pay for CEOs is stock.