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I still think the focus on wealth/income inequality rather than on absolute poverty is irrational. I've seen people justify it to me on the grounds that people

I still think the focus on wealth/income inequality rather than on absolute poverty is irrational. I've seen people justify it to me on the grounds that people care about relative poverty, which to me reads "people are jealous". But then the result is: 1) A focus on inequality is irrational. 2) People focus on inequality for irrational reasons. This means that if policy-makers and intellectuals fully give in to the people's wishes, we'll accept decreases in wealth in exchange for more equality indefinitely. If this sounds like a strawman, it's because we have "backstops" to inequality-decreasing wealth-destruction. But why should we tolerate any wealth destruction at all? And if reducing inequality is possible without wealth destruction, why focus on inequality? (This is besides the "Oxfam problem" -- there never is a coherent definition of "wealth" and Oxfam never seems to fully value people's homes and work animals and suchlike in poor countries.)

pron 9y ago
The reason we care so much about inequality has nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with power[1]. As resources are a major source of power (and often vice-versa), and because power is relative, inequality of resources means inequality of power. And as power means influence (and so the ability to reduce another's freedom), inequality reduces overall freedom. As freedom can never be total[2], the question is do we prefer to reduce the freedom of the powerful few (whose freedom is already large) in order to increase that of the many, or vice-versa? So while absolute income is certainly very important, ignoring inequality is simply irrational for someone who values freedom. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) [2]: One person can be totally free; two cannot. X would either be free to infringe on Y's freedom or not -- in either case, freedom is no longer total.
- thanatropism 9y ago
  This is an interesting answer. But I'm not sure if inequality-of-power-driven-by-inequality-of-wealth can be problematized (put into the discussion and on the agenda) and fought in such a way that equalizes power. We're shuffling power around and the dynamics of power inequality aren't clear at all.
  - pron 9y ago
    Great inequality of wealth is virtually always an inequality of power, and so it is "problematized". You're right that all social dynamics are complex (even economics, or "the dynmaics of wealth", isn't known to the way it can be effectively controlled), but at the end of the day, policies are made based on values. A society that values the maximization of freedom would fight against growing wealth inequality beyond a point it deems acceptable. A complicating factor is that, while power is relative, it certainly grows sub-linearly in the absolute baseline. For example, if I have nothing, someone with a few thousands of dollars can have great power over me. But if I have $0.5M, even someone with $1B wouldn't have as much power over me[1]. This is why absolute wealth is also very important, which is why the question of "would we rather have more absolute wealth or less inequality?" doesn't have a simple answer. [1]: Although it is not true that my own "fuck you" money is enough to completely counteract the richer person's power. For example, their wealth is used to indirectly affect many people, say through political campaign ads, who then change the laws and thus influence me.
    - scott_s 9y ago
      I agree with your comments, but I want to add to it. I agree that wealth inequality leads to power inequality. And I agree that curtails freedom. But I think it also tends to societal instability. Closing the loop, we care about wealth inequality because we don't want society to collapse.
      - thanatropism 9y ago
        Are there historical examples of societal collapse due to wealth inequality? (Honest question)
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        fjsolwmv 9y ago
        Great Depression and various Communist Revolutions might fit your bill.
- aje403 9y ago
  This is a distortion. Young men see rich men with beautiful women flying to anywhere they want on the planet. Only a few of them will get that when they're older, and it oftens boils down to intelligence, work ethic, cleverness, other abilities like athletics and looks, and a few lucky breaks that they take advantage of. Exceptions being inherited wealth. Law of averages, those who do make it are hard working and intelligent. Law of averages, those who do not are often less so. However, everyone still wants the hot girl and the jet. So what's the right thing to do? Take "power" from [Hard working and intelligent]U[Scott Disick, Donald JR] to normalize influence across everyone? Should the group, who by and large, has contributed more to the society not have proportionally more say? And then the issue becomes more nuanced when you take into account inheritance and things of that nature.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    What makes you think that often it boils down to intelligence and work ethic and the exceptions are inherited wealth. The law of averages is just as likely to support the idea that those who are born into high class families will stay high class as it is what you're proposing.
    - aje403 9y ago
      I did not write a lengthy thesis to explicate every idea, but I would associate inherited wealth with high class and would certainly not consider that a slight stretch.
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      It's a classic example of the just world fallacy.
  - TremendousJudge 9y ago
    You contradict yourself. You say that "those who do make it are hard working and intelligent", while also acknowledging that there are people who "made it" who aren't "hard working and intelligent" (Scott Disick, Donald JR).
- fvdessen 9y ago
  Why should power and freedom be distributed equally rather than proportional to competence and virtue ?
  - pron 9y ago
    First, it's important to note that when I talk about equality I mean statistical equality within acceptable margins. I.e., not that all people personally have equal power. As to your question, it's a matter of values. As I said in another comment, Western democratic (aspirational) values are such that all lives have equal value. Your personal values may differ. We can't justify our values based on some mathematical formula; that's the meaning of values. They are core beliefs. Nevertheless, we could point out some obvious problems with different value systems from the Western democratic ones. For example, how is it even possible to distribute anything based on virtue and competence? We cannot distribute power based on actual competence and virtue, but only on perceived or measured competence and virtue, and that is very different. Measured competence and virtue are circumstantial, and in our real world (as opposed to some imagined utopia), reality is that power may strongly influence circumstance (and so our perception of competence and virtue). Say, if a powerful country exploits a less powerful one, steals its resources and enslaves its people, it creates a circumstance where those exploited people may have adversarial conditions to display their competence and virtue. So we would say that even if our values were such that we believed that power should be distributed based on competence and virtue, doing so would be impossible, and attempting to do so (based on measured competence and virtue) would actually result in something very different. This is why the term meritocracy is satirical (or, at least, it was coined as a satirical term), because it's obvious that true merit cannot really be measured, and any attempt at meritocracy would be no better than a system based on, say, hereditary value (nobility). Having said that, to some acceptable degree, even in democratic societies we do want to reward virtue and competence. We put criminals in prison (taking most power from them), and reward competent virtuous people with success that imbues power. But we don't want the disparity to grow too large because we're aware that 1. our measurement of virtue and competence is flawed, and 2. too large a disparity causes great harm to freedom.
aje403 9y ago
I agree with you completely. I got downvoted on a thread several weeks ago for finding issue in the US placing below Mexico on a "(relative) child poverty" measure. Regardless of whether their methodology or even results are correct - I think it's guaranteed that many readers will distort that information and propagate that distortion onward. But, pardon my cynicism and condescension, but, try arguing that with a group of social scientists/mathematicians doing null hypothesis papers with p-values at 1 SD, as well as with people, who frankly, are jealous of others and want more. Unfortunately, on the flip side, I think there is still a "how big can my neighbor's house get relative to mine before I consider organizing a mob to break into it and steal all the jewels" element to human nature and society.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  >people, who frankly, are jealous of others and want more. That's always what it boils down to, isn't it? The one argument the hardcore libertarians and FYGM people always fall back to is "well, you're just jealous. If you just worked harder, you could afford it too", which has been shown again and again to be blatantly false and a clear example of a just world fallacy. Luck plays an enormous part in how successful you are in life. There is obviously also a factor of being able to do something with those instances of luck, and again being born into the right family, having gone to the right school or having had the right encouragement is a huge factor. Once again, it boils down to luck, especially being born into the right family, with resources and support and an already-in-place social network to groom you and give you those opportunities. Do you think the son of an alcoholic single mother has the same chances in life as the son of a bank director? Social mobility is possible, but the deck is severely stacked in favor of those who already have the most.
  - aje403 9y ago
    Frankly, I think it is often jealousy. It is not blatantly false that if you work harder, take a second job, take night classes, save and start a business, that you can rise up in the social ladder and provide more opportunity for your children. I have some personal biases here. There are very different shades of privilege here. The bank director may have been the son of an immigrant, had straight A's in school, got perfect math scores and found an interest in finance, gotten into a top school, and generally worked hard his entire life. Their child also has natural ability in school, his father tells him to shut up, don't complain about anything, teaches them to work hard and pursue their talents but pays for their school. The kid works 80 hours a week, perhaps develops a talent and launches a business around it, and becomes successful as well. The alcoholic single mother may not had an ounce of ability in school, partied her way through life and mooched off of her boyfriends until around 30 when she has to get a job and then keeps one to survive. Then she has a daughter, her daughter is very beautiful, fails out of school, is used to getting things for free as well, is jealous of her friends who have more, and does not end up going to college or doing anything of great significance. And then of course you have successful father, child drinks and parties their way through life, abuses others, then inherits everything and preaches to others about how they had to sacrifice everything, and, against all odds, made it. I would not complain if this unfortunately substantial portion of our population got dropped off in Siberia. I think it is very rare, but perhaps the next Von Neumann is working two jobs and failing out of school to pay the rent for his younger sister and alcoholic mother somewhere. That is a human tragedy and I hope it is rectified and I believe we've steadily been changing in that regard for centuries. We certainly have a lot of issues regarding educational opportunity that needs to be rectified. I think the wealthy are highly under taxed in this nation and that needs to be fixed, but anybody who thinks success is purely luck does not deserve success.
dominotw 9y ago
Same reason we hate google/amazon or any other (almost) monopolies. Money buys speech, power, influence, mind control. There is a reason rich contribute so much to political campaign donations.
noelwelsh 9y ago
Unfortunately, human society is made up of humans, irrational though they may be. A high degree of inequality usually indicates one of two things: a dictatorship, or a society that is liable to vote in populist leaders (and hence potentially turn into a dictatorship). An highly unequal society is not a healthy society.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  "An highly unequal society is not a healthy society." That's the most important point. If people stop feeling that they have a part of growth in the economy they stop engaging and a country loses cohesion.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Inequality is intensely tied to social mobility. Check out the Great Gatsby Curve or this talk on snowball inequality. The common sense way to think of it is that as the rich entrench themselves further and further apart from the rest of us, it becomes harder and harder to jump the gap, the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and we move from meritocracy to aristocracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve https://voicerepublic.com/talks/snowball-inequality-meritocracy-and-the-crisis-of-capitalism https://voicerepublic.com/talks/snowball-inequality-meritocr...
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  I would say we have already reestablished a de facto aristocracy. The richest live like kings. Actually they enjoy a level of luxury that even the richest kings of old couldn't possibly have imagined. They basically live like gods, with virtually unchecked power, influence and wealth. For one of the more extreme examples, consider this private dwelling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_(building) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_(building) It is possibly the most lavish private home in the world, and it overlooks the absolutely crushing poverty of Mumbai's worst slums. The sheer level of cognitive dissonance is mindboggling.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    I basically agree, Gregory Clark is an economic historian and he's published some stuff which suggests that advantages last for something like 10-15 generations which is absolutely mind-blowing. Check out that voicerepublic link, it has a take on inequality/meritocracy which is different from the usual attacks on meritocracy but I think a lot stronger, it at least gave me a lot to think about.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  The word meritocracy was invented as a sarcr term to describe aristocracy wearing false dressing of equal opportunity. That's why people clamoring for "meritocracy" today are looked down upon for their self-unawareness. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy
gameswithgo 9y ago
> we'll accept decreases in wealth in exchange for more equality indefinitely. That doesn't necessarily follow, I imagine that there is a level of inequality where total wealth, or at least total utility, even for the rich, starts to go down. For instance once you start having to go to private school, and live in a walled off community to keep the unwashed proletariat out so they don't steal from you / kill you. You have to accept that people are irrational and deal with it, or modify them genetically.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  We already tried genetically cleansing away the lower classes. No thank you.
drieddust 9y ago
How that is possible when inflation adjusted wages have stayed flat lined or decreased? I thought wealth follows power law which means eventually it concentrates so much that poor becomes poorer in absolute sense.
stewbrew 9y ago
The focus on inequality is irrational only for rich people or machines. Humans are social beings right from the start. You always compare yourself to others. Given that wealth mostly depends on your birth and not on your efforts given your resources, the focus on inequality is very rational.
psyc 9y ago
Poor people in the US often lead nightmarishly stressful daily lives to make ends meet, having to work long hours doing self-destructive jobs, and being ever exposed to ruin by chance events. Their likelihood of achieving peace and happiness is quite orthogonal to whether they have plumbing, refrigeration, TVs and smartphones. It need not have anything to do with jealousy.
pdubbs90 9y ago
"People are jealous" seems to me like the uncharitable formulation. I'd phrase it more along the lines of: "we evolved in small tribes and are more acutely aware of relative status than absolute welfare." Most people's assessment of how well off they are comes from comparison with their neighbors rather than absolute knowledge of weather they have enough. I agree though that eliminating severe poverty is a more worthy humanitarian goal than trying to produce equity.

pron 9y ago

The reason we care so much about inequality has nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with power[1]. As resources are a major source of power (and often vice-versa), and because power is relative, inequality of resources means inequality of power. And as power means influence (and so the ability to reduce another's freedom), inequality reduces overall freedom. As freedom can never be total[2], the question is do we prefer to reduce the freedom of the powerful few (whose freedom is already large) in order to increase that of the many, or vice-versa? So while absolute income is certainly very important, ignoring inequality is simply irrational for someone who values freedom. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) [2]: One person can be totally free; two cannot. X would either be free to infringe on Y's freedom or not -- in either case, freedom is no longer total.

thanatropism 9y ago
This is an interesting answer. But I'm not sure if inequality-of-power-driven-by-inequality-of-wealth can be problematized (put into the discussion and on the agenda) and fought in such a way that equalizes power. We're shuffling power around and the dynamics of power inequality aren't clear at all.
- pron 9y ago
  Great inequality of wealth is virtually always an inequality of power, and so it is "problematized". You're right that all social dynamics are complex (even economics, or "the dynmaics of wealth", isn't known to the way it can be effectively controlled), but at the end of the day, policies are made based on values. A society that values the maximization of freedom would fight against growing wealth inequality beyond a point it deems acceptable. A complicating factor is that, while power is relative, it certainly grows sub-linearly in the absolute baseline. For example, if I have nothing, someone with a few thousands of dollars can have great power over me. But if I have $0.5M, even someone with $1B wouldn't have as much power over me[1]. This is why absolute wealth is also very important, which is why the question of "would we rather have more absolute wealth or less inequality?" doesn't have a simple answer. [1]: Although it is not true that my own "fuck you" money is enough to completely counteract the richer person's power. For example, their wealth is used to indirectly affect many people, say through political campaign ads, who then change the laws and thus influence me.
  - scott_s 9y ago
    I agree with your comments, but I want to add to it. I agree that wealth inequality leads to power inequality. And I agree that curtails freedom. But I think it also tends to societal instability. Closing the loop, we care about wealth inequality because we don't want society to collapse.
    - thanatropism 9y ago
      Are there historical examples of societal collapse due to wealth inequality? (Honest question)
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - fjsolwmv 9y ago
        Great Depression and various Communist Revolutions might fit your bill.
aje403 9y ago
This is a distortion. Young men see rich men with beautiful women flying to anywhere they want on the planet. Only a few of them will get that when they're older, and it oftens boils down to intelligence, work ethic, cleverness, other abilities like athletics and looks, and a few lucky breaks that they take advantage of. Exceptions being inherited wealth. Law of averages, those who do make it are hard working and intelligent. Law of averages, those who do not are often less so. However, everyone still wants the hot girl and the jet. So what's the right thing to do? Take "power" from [Hard working and intelligent]U[Scott Disick, Donald JR] to normalize influence across everyone? Should the group, who by and large, has contributed more to the society not have proportionally more say? And then the issue becomes more nuanced when you take into account inheritance and things of that nature.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  What makes you think that often it boils down to intelligence and work ethic and the exceptions are inherited wealth. The law of averages is just as likely to support the idea that those who are born into high class families will stay high class as it is what you're proposing.
  - aje403 9y ago
    I did not write a lengthy thesis to explicate every idea, but I would associate inherited wealth with high class and would certainly not consider that a slight stretch.
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    It's a classic example of the just world fallacy.
- TremendousJudge 9y ago
  You contradict yourself. You say that "those who do make it are hard working and intelligent", while also acknowledging that there are people who "made it" who aren't "hard working and intelligent" (Scott Disick, Donald JR).
fvdessen 9y ago
Why should power and freedom be distributed equally rather than proportional to competence and virtue ?
- pron 9y ago
  First, it's important to note that when I talk about equality I mean statistical equality within acceptable margins. I.e., not that all people personally have equal power. As to your question, it's a matter of values. As I said in another comment, Western democratic (aspirational) values are such that all lives have equal value. Your personal values may differ. We can't justify our values based on some mathematical formula; that's the meaning of values. They are core beliefs. Nevertheless, we could point out some obvious problems with different value systems from the Western democratic ones. For example, how is it even possible to distribute anything based on virtue and competence? We cannot distribute power based on actual competence and virtue, but only on perceived or measured competence and virtue, and that is very different. Measured competence and virtue are circumstantial, and in our real world (as opposed to some imagined utopia), reality is that power may strongly influence circumstance (and so our perception of competence and virtue). Say, if a powerful country exploits a less powerful one, steals its resources and enslaves its people, it creates a circumstance where those exploited people may have adversarial conditions to display their competence and virtue. So we would say that even if our values were such that we believed that power should be distributed based on competence and virtue, doing so would be impossible, and attempting to do so (based on measured competence and virtue) would actually result in something very different. This is why the term meritocracy is satirical (or, at least, it was coined as a satirical term), because it's obvious that true merit cannot really be measured, and any attempt at meritocracy would be no better than a system based on, say, hereditary value (nobility). Having said that, to some acceptable degree, even in democratic societies we do want to reward virtue and competence. We put criminals in prison (taking most power from them), and reward competent virtuous people with success that imbues power. But we don't want the disparity to grow too large because we're aware that 1. our measurement of virtue and competence is flawed, and 2. too large a disparity causes great harm to freedom.

aje403 9y ago

I agree with you completely. I got downvoted on a thread several weeks ago for finding issue in the US placing below Mexico on a "(relative) child poverty" measure. Regardless of whether their methodology or even results are correct - I think it's guaranteed that many readers will distort that information and propagate that distortion onward. But, pardon my cynicism and condescension, but, try arguing that with a group of social scientists/mathematicians doing null hypothesis papers with p-values at 1 SD, as well as with people, who frankly, are jealous of others and want more. Unfortunately, on the flip side, I think there is still a "how big can my neighbor's house get relative to mine before I consider organizing a mob to break into it and steal all the jewels" element to human nature and society.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
>people, who frankly, are jealous of others and want more. That's always what it boils down to, isn't it? The one argument the hardcore libertarians and FYGM people always fall back to is "well, you're just jealous. If you just worked harder, you could afford it too", which has been shown again and again to be blatantly false and a clear example of a just world fallacy. Luck plays an enormous part in how successful you are in life. There is obviously also a factor of being able to do something with those instances of luck, and again being born into the right family, having gone to the right school or having had the right encouragement is a huge factor. Once again, it boils down to luck, especially being born into the right family, with resources and support and an already-in-place social network to groom you and give you those opportunities. Do you think the son of an alcoholic single mother has the same chances in life as the son of a bank director? Social mobility is possible, but the deck is severely stacked in favor of those who already have the most.
- aje403 9y ago
  Frankly, I think it is often jealousy. It is not blatantly false that if you work harder, take a second job, take night classes, save and start a business, that you can rise up in the social ladder and provide more opportunity for your children. I have some personal biases here. There are very different shades of privilege here. The bank director may have been the son of an immigrant, had straight A's in school, got perfect math scores and found an interest in finance, gotten into a top school, and generally worked hard his entire life. Their child also has natural ability in school, his father tells him to shut up, don't complain about anything, teaches them to work hard and pursue their talents but pays for their school. The kid works 80 hours a week, perhaps develops a talent and launches a business around it, and becomes successful as well. The alcoholic single mother may not had an ounce of ability in school, partied her way through life and mooched off of her boyfriends until around 30 when she has to get a job and then keeps one to survive. Then she has a daughter, her daughter is very beautiful, fails out of school, is used to getting things for free as well, is jealous of her friends who have more, and does not end up going to college or doing anything of great significance. And then of course you have successful father, child drinks and parties their way through life, abuses others, then inherits everything and preaches to others about how they had to sacrifice everything, and, against all odds, made it. I would not complain if this unfortunately substantial portion of our population got dropped off in Siberia. I think it is very rare, but perhaps the next Von Neumann is working two jobs and failing out of school to pay the rent for his younger sister and alcoholic mother somewhere. That is a human tragedy and I hope it is rectified and I believe we've steadily been changing in that regard for centuries. We certainly have a lot of issues regarding educational opportunity that needs to be rectified. I think the wealthy are highly under taxed in this nation and that needs to be fixed, but anybody who thinks success is purely luck does not deserve success.

dominotw 9y ago

Same reason we hate google/amazon or any other (almost) monopolies. Money buys speech, power, influence, mind control. There is a reason rich contribute so much to political campaign donations.

noelwelsh 9y ago

Unfortunately, human society is made up of humans, irrational though they may be. A high degree of inequality usually indicates one of two things: a dictatorship, or a society that is liable to vote in populist leaders (and hence potentially turn into a dictatorship). An highly unequal society is not a healthy society.

maxxxxx 9y ago
"An highly unequal society is not a healthy society." That's the most important point. If people stop feeling that they have a part of growth in the economy they stop engaging and a country loses cohesion.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Inequality is intensely tied to social mobility. Check out the Great Gatsby Curve or this talk on snowball inequality. The common sense way to think of it is that as the rich entrench themselves further and further apart from the rest of us, it becomes harder and harder to jump the gap, the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and we move from meritocracy to aristocracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve https://voicerepublic.com/talks/snowball-inequality-meritocracy-and-the-crisis-of-capitalism https://voicerepublic.com/talks/snowball-inequality-meritocr...

KozmoNau7 9y ago
I would say we have already reestablished a de facto aristocracy. The richest live like kings. Actually they enjoy a level of luxury that even the richest kings of old couldn't possibly have imagined. They basically live like gods, with virtually unchecked power, influence and wealth. For one of the more extreme examples, consider this private dwelling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_(building) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_(building) It is possibly the most lavish private home in the world, and it overlooks the absolutely crushing poverty of Mumbai's worst slums. The sheer level of cognitive dissonance is mindboggling.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  I basically agree, Gregory Clark is an economic historian and he's published some stuff which suggests that advantages last for something like 10-15 generations which is absolutely mind-blowing. Check out that voicerepublic link, it has a take on inequality/meritocracy which is different from the usual attacks on meritocracy but I think a lot stronger, it at least gave me a lot to think about.
fjsolwmv 9y ago
The word meritocracy was invented as a sarcr term to describe aristocracy wearing false dressing of equal opportunity. That's why people clamoring for "meritocracy" today are looked down upon for their self-unawareness. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy

gameswithgo 9y ago

> we'll accept decreases in wealth in exchange for more equality indefinitely. That doesn't necessarily follow, I imagine that there is a level of inequality where total wealth, or at least total utility, even for the rich, starts to go down. For instance once you start having to go to private school, and live in a walled off community to keep the unwashed proletariat out so they don't steal from you / kill you. You have to accept that people are irrational and deal with it, or modify them genetically.

fjsolwmv 9y ago
We already tried genetically cleansing away the lower classes. No thank you.

drieddust 9y ago

How that is possible when inflation adjusted wages have stayed flat lined or decreased? I thought wealth follows power law which means eventually it concentrates so much that poor becomes poorer in absolute sense.

stewbrew 9y ago

The focus on inequality is irrational only for rich people or machines. Humans are social beings right from the start. You always compare yourself to others. Given that wealth mostly depends on your birth and not on your efforts given your resources, the focus on inequality is very rational.

psyc 9y ago

Poor people in the US often lead nightmarishly stressful daily lives to make ends meet, having to work long hours doing self-destructive jobs, and being ever exposed to ruin by chance events. Their likelihood of achieving peace and happiness is quite orthogonal to whether they have plumbing, refrigeration, TVs and smartphones. It need not have anything to do with jealousy.

pdubbs90 9y ago

"People are jealous" seems to me like the uncharitable formulation. I'd phrase it more along the lines of: "we evolved in small tribes and are more acutely aware of relative status than absolute welfare." Most people's assessment of how well off they are comes from comparison with their neighbors rather than absolute knowledge of weather they have enough. I agree though that eliminating severe poverty is a more worthy humanitarian goal than trying to produce equity.