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I know it's tougher to measure, but I'd rather see some in-depth measurement on how much better of a lifestyle the same wealth provides over time. And with that

• jpao79 9y ago
  Along those lines, while I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, John Haidt has some interesting thoughts on how to improve capitalism to better benefit society. Jonathan Haidt, NYU Stern School of Business: Three Stories About Capitalism. At the 2014 WORLD.MINDS Annual Symposium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOu_8yoqZoQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOu_8yoqZoQ If you want to skip some of the intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOu_8yoqZoQ?t=735 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOu_8yoqZoQ?t=735 TLDR: Capitalism has been on the whole good at getting people out of poverty, but keep Capitalism honest via self-regulation as much as possible (such as via Environment, Social and Governance metrics) because it can be exploitive.
• alehul 9y ago
  Agree entirely with this! Capitalism's benefit in my opinion is far from equality. People view 'inequality' as a problem, but I'd say to be more accurate, poverty is the problem while equality seems like an easy solution.
  • andrepd 9y ago
    But inequality is a problem in and of itself. The fact that some people have obscene amounts of money means some other people have less wealth that they could have. Obviously I'm oversimplifying and perfect equality isn't achievable (or even desirable).
    • alehul 9y ago
      I see your point, but is spreading wealth out the goal? Oftentimes, that obscene concentration of wealth is the result of something that has enhanced everyone's lives in a way we'd struggle to measure quantitatively. An example would be the wealth concentration created from mobile phones, which enable much more effective communication and, possibly more importantly, the ability to call for help (police, ambulance, etc.) from anywhere at any time.
      • andrepd 9y ago
        Why do you assume that without wealth concentration there would be no mobile phones?
      • madmatt1123 9y ago
        Replying to andrepd's comment to your comment: The incredible amount of Work, Capital Outlay, Engineering, etc.etc.etc. that is required to create mobile phones is a huge barrier to any group of people doing so. Therefore, they are incentivized to generate a profit on each phone they eventually produce/sell. If the phones are popular enough, then they may make quite a lot of money. Like jesus dude, nobody forces anyone to buy a phone - everybody is doing it of their own volition and that's why mobile phone developers get rich.
    • closeparen 9y ago
      Wealth is not subject to zero-sum reallocation like that, at least not in the long term. If you prohibit the activities that create wealth in the name of reducing inequality, you don’t get to reallocate it others, it just never gets created. This satisfies the emotional need to know that no one is doing better than you, but doesn’t make you materially better off.
  • madmatt1123 9y ago
    'Inequality' when it exacerbates poverty, when it's egregiously in favour of the few who control the most wealth, when it is overwhelmingly unfair (which I think for the most part it is not in western society) is a major problem where it exists as I've described. Equality lately needs to be better-defined in conversations because it's being redefined perniciously by ideologues who wish to see it mean Equality of Outcome, rather than Equality of the Application of Law/Equality of Opportunity/"Formal" Equality. I wonder if Capitalism's greatest benefit is the pursuit of individual goals, without undue control by the state when the Judiciary, Executive, and Legislative elements are in balance and support Capitalistic economics.
  • maxxxxx 9y ago
    I don't see inequality as a problem and don't want to have total equality. What I see as a problem is that inequality keeps rising and more and more of the benefits of the economy go to a small number of people. That's a very unhealthy trend in my view.
  • sokoloff 9y ago
    I believe that today's standard of living in the US is substantially higher across all income/wealth deciles than it was in 1950. I also think that the engine of capitalism is a substantial reason for those gains, even as it has created a wider spread of income inequality than in past eras. Do you believe that the 25th percentile of income today has a higher standard of living than the 50th percentile person in "the golden age" of 1950? I do. Today's 25th percentile person is likely to have air conditioning, refrigeration, internet, a cell phone, a microwave oven, an HDTV, and a reliable car that needs very little routine maintenance and has air bags and antilock brakes. It's almost unthinkable that they wouldn't have hot and cold indoor running water and bathrooms even in rural areas. Today's 50th percentile is beating 1950s 75th percentile adding easy, affordable, safe, and reliable air transportation and living in a far larger house than their 1950s half-again higher counterpart. Today's 75th percentile is beating the 95th percentile in 1950... All of them have better health care options, and a longer life expectancy.
    • dv_dt 9y ago
      In general many things are better, but there's no rationale, for example, for US life expectancy lagging other modern nations (as well as dropping for the last couple of years). https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/us-life-expectancy-study/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/21/health/us-life-expectancy-stu... In general the US expectancy is leaving the cluster of traditional first world nations and approaching the next cluster of more recent additions to the modern world. https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2013-Press-Release-USA.pdf https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2013-Pr... So to say the US standard of living is rising - I would say that unless we correct some fundamental issues that rise cannot just be blindly counted upon.
      • sokoloff 9y ago
        > there's no rationale, for example, for US life expectancy lagging other modern nations I wouldn't be surprised if more than half the lag is obesity (or diet and [lack of] exercise, depending on the level of "why?" you want to look at). Walk around a shopping area in an European city. Then walk around a shopping mall or Walmart in the US. The difference is not subtle. (I'm also part of the problem as I'm on the American side of scale, so to speak.)
• montrose 9y ago
  There's fairly good data about life expectancy, which is surely the high bit of lifestyle.
  • braindongle 9y ago
    To wit: "The gap in life expectancy between the richest 1% and poorest 1% of individuals was 14.6 years (95% CI, 14.4 to 14.8 years) for men and 10.1 years (95% CI, 9.9 to 10.3 years) for women" https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2513561 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2513561
• nabla9 9y ago
  The problem with inequality is twofold. 1. Too much inequality reduces economic growth. See my other comment in this discussion for a sources. 2. Large amounts of money and power are interchangeable. Large inequality leads to political instability. Even if people have enough bread and circuses, they may not want to be just observers and see to what direction the wealthy move the society. Relative poverty is also a form of poverty.
  • hansjorg 9y ago
    > Relative poverty is also a form of poverty I think this is a point that many miss since we tend to think materialistically about wealth. But wealth is power and power inequality is a problem, no matter if your basic needs are met. Trying to reduce inequality to a matter of exceeding a threshold of basic need is very disingenuous. Outcomes in the legal system is one obvious example of how corrosive inequality can be to society.
  • msluyter 9y ago
    re: Relative poverty is also a form of poverty. There was a recent thread[1] on twitter by Noah Smith on this topic, related to a study[2] that suggests that a) relative life satisfaction tends to correlate with their relative ranked income and that b) upward comparisons matter more than downward comparisons. From those premises, Noah Smith appears to be arguing that high inequality has a negative impact on overall happiness. [1] https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/969676076912750592 https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/969676076912750592 [2] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797610362671 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797610362671
  • moduspol 9y ago
    > Too much inequality reduces economic growth. Too much of anything is bad, though. That's kind of my concern. Opponents would be making the same arguments if income inequality were half of what it is. Or a quarter. People will always be able to find a justification for why someone else shouldn't have what they do. The key question is how much is "too much," and more importantly, if the proposed fixes for that are worse than the "problem." > Large amounts of money and power are interchangeable. Large inequality leads to political instability. Even if people have enough bread and circuses, they may not want to be just observers and see to what direction the wealthy move the society. I don't think the situation is as clear-cut as this, at least in the US. No matter how wealthy you are, you still have only one vote, and both sides have no shortage or rich benefactors. > Relative poverty is also a form of poverty. I don't think it is, though. If someone has 1000x my assets but cannot use them to make his lifestyle notably better than mine, that in no way makes me "relatively impoverished." His additional zeroes in his bank account can only make me feel bad if I choose to feel bad about them (and many do).
• marcosdumay 9y ago
  > Someone having more zeroes in their bank account than me is irrelevant There are two problems with this simplistic (but yes, mostly good) view. One is that those extra zeroes may have come from exploiting you, and reducing your potential wealth. This is way too common, so that many people assume it by default. It is getting less common, in a slow process lasting for centuries, but is still way too common to ignore. Those extra zeroes also lead to more opportunities to exploit you, in a vicious cycle. The other one is that some goods are limited, and you will be in direct competition with those people on many markets. Ever wondered why Silicon Valley is trying to solve entertainment for rich people instead of basic survival for the homeless living there? That said, yes, I would agree that people being rich is mostly irrelevant for not-rich people. But there is some dependency on the details, and at some levels it completely stops being irrelevant.
  • madmatt1123 9y ago
    I just don't see how someone who is richer than me (even by a ridiculously huge margin) is more capable of exploiting me... I don't think I've ever been "exploited" in my life and if I was, I'd expect due court process if it was criminal or civil in nature, or I'd no longer do business with or work for that person. HOW are rich people exploiting less-rich people? (me)
    • criddell 9y ago
      By being able to influence legislators.
    • dv_dt 9y ago
      Just one example is public beach access. All over the us, many wealthy people buy up large beachfront mansion properties (but not the public beach nearby). But somehow there ends up being lawsuits because construction (and sometimes private guards) will close off what was previously publically accessible beach areas. It's a symbolic version of what is happening for the wealthy in many other areas - in particular the political process where dollars speak in decisions stronger than voters.
    • state_less 9y ago
• shaki-dora 9y ago
  Measuring absolute outcomes ("lifestyle") instead of relative ones like inequality may seem more objective. But you'll find that the ultimate outcome, life satisfaction, is tied more to the latter than the former. Case in point: Your lifestyle almost certainly has a higher value than any of the British monarchs except Queen Elisabeth II. If you look at Maslow's Pyramid of Needs, it has "self-actualization" at the very top. Achieving that level requires more than just a comfortable life. You need a degree of power over your own life that many even in the middle class don't have. One small example that may resonate in this community may be the freedom to try your hand at a startup, and how such plans can be stymied just by the problem of giving up employer-sponsored health insurance.
  • closeparen 9y ago
    Tall poppy syndrome may well be a real and common element of human psychology; that doesn’t mean we should design policy around it. Preventing others from having things because you can’t have them is (outside a political context) rightfully considered petty and childish. Single payer health insurance would be based on a philosophy of lifting up the deprived. The tally poppy syndrome approach is to ban employer-sponsored health insurance with no replacement.
    • shaki-dora 9y ago
      Considering that single-payer health care is among the most well-known proposals, and banning employer-sponsored health insurance isn't really even part of debate: perhaps "Tall poppy syndrome" is just a made-up smear to tar anyone who thinks it's blasphemous that the world's second-richest country has 20% of children living in poverty?
      • closeparen 9y ago
        Single payer is a solution to the problem of people lacking healthcare. The “inequality” people are telling me it’s wrong and disingenuous to care about absolute poverty (like the lack of healthcare) and that I should be focused on the real problem of some having healthcare where others don’t. I don’t think it’s blasphemous that 20% of people are in the bottom 20% of a distribution. When you define poverty in relative terms, the fact that x% of people are in poverty is a tautology. I do think it’s blasphemous that anyone lacks health care.
• baursak 9y ago
  It's not just about zeroes in the bank account. Ultimately it's about power and power relations.
• woolvalley 9y ago
  How much do inequal societies suffer from disconnecting rent, healthcare & housing costs although. Other things get cheaper, yet things that used to be affordable become incredibly expensive because of political reasons.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
  I think you have a very good point. For example, if I want the very best smart phone, no matter how much money I have, I really can't do much better than an $1200 iPhone X, even if I spent a 1000x that much money. If I want a safe, reliable car, I can't do much better than a Toyota Camry/Honda Accord for ~$25,000. If I want to go somewhere by airplane, commercial airline travel is actually safer than private jets. Business class and even first class with lie-flat seats and even suites is definitely in the upper middle class range. Most middle class people in a developed country have access hot water, clean drinking water, a wide variety of food,flavors, and spices that would have made even the wealthiest person of 50 years ago green with envy. In addition, there is more life saving/life prolonging medical technology.
  • moduspol 9y ago
    Exactly. And compare this to 1980. Or 1960. Or 1920. Or 1860. The trend is clear. Despite wealth inequality, the quality of life enjoyed by the average American has become dramatically better even including relative to the wealthy. Focusing on dollar amounts as the only relevant measure disregards how much progress has actually been made to focus on counterproductive tribalism.