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Real life stubbornly resists all attempts to make it more fair. An 8% difference in either direction is acceptable to me. It's good enough to tolerate until i

Real life stubbornly resists all attempts to make it more fair. An 8% difference in either direction is acceptable to me. It's good enough to tolerate until it's worth revisiting for further improvements. So now that we have the gender pay gap (almost) sorted out, perhaps we should tackle a problem more likely to cause societal problems: the increasing measures of wealth inequality.

peterhadlaw 9y ago
Would you be able to explain why wealth inequality is a societal problem and not actually a feature? I've long heard this but never was convinced
- maneesh 9y ago
  Because at our heart we are monkeys and we're trained to feel 'that's not fair!!' when someone else is doing better than us. But I agree with you that, for the most part, the rising tide of wealth has raised all ships. Inequality is a natural outgrowth of the massive influx of wealth.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  Wealth inequality is not a problem. The change in the amount of wealth inequality is a problem, in that it seems to be moving further away from the optimal amount of wealth inequality, which is not zero. In other words, the proportion of rich to poor is skewing further away from optimal, which could be measured by a curve showing the wealth one has as a proportion of the next-wealthiest person, or by a graph showing the percentage of global wealth owned by a given equal-sized fraction of all people (i.e. the top 1% owns X%, the next 1% owns Y%). A perfectly flat graph indicates perfect communism. A sharply inflected curve indicates oligarchic plutocracy. An unspecified (and likely undiscovered) shape would be optimal economic conditions for civilization as a whole. My concern is that we are moving further away from that presumed optimum in the direction of oligarchic plutocracy, which historically has resulted in violent rebellion, every time it has been observed.
sudoke 9y ago
Why is wealth inequality a problem? People should be free to pursue maximum compensation for their skills and abilities, not be limited because they are better at somethings than other people.
- boffinism 9y ago
  When people talk about wealth inequality as a bad thing they're normally talking about self-perpetuating wealth inequality, or wealth inequality that is caused by things that are seen as inherently unfair, like the family you are born into. A lot of people who have comparative wealth and have worked hard for it feel they have earned their wealth, disregarding the fact that a lot of other people work equally hard and do not have the same amount of wealth. This sort of thing muddies the issue. Also muddying the issue is the fact that some people think that if X amount of money could lift Y poor people out of poverty, vs making rich person Z marginally richer, it is self-evidently the case that it is better and therefore right for X to be spent on the Y rather than person Z. I.e. as long as some people are below a minimum acceptable level of wealth, all wealth inequality is, in this view, bad.
  - sudoke 9y ago
    People who think wealth inequality is a problem are being short sighted. >wealth inequality that is caused by things that are seen as inherently unfair, like the family you are born into. I, like my father before me, am making sacrifices to benefit my future generations. It's not unfair, it's called being responsible and thinking about the future. edit: changed delusional to short sighted.
    - SaintGhurka 9y ago
      So rather than downmods, I'd be really interested to hear why people disagree with this - apart from the argumentative "delusional" comment. Is it wrong to work hard to improve your children's future prospects?
      - Can_Not 9y ago

peterhadlaw 9y ago

Would you be able to explain why wealth inequality is a societal problem and not actually a feature? I've long heard this but never was convinced

maneesh 9y ago
Because at our heart we are monkeys and we're trained to feel 'that's not fair!!' when someone else is doing better than us. But I agree with you that, for the most part, the rising tide of wealth has raised all ships. Inequality is a natural outgrowth of the massive influx of wealth.
logfromblammo 9y ago
Wealth inequality is not a problem. The change in the amount of wealth inequality is a problem, in that it seems to be moving further away from the optimal amount of wealth inequality, which is not zero. In other words, the proportion of rich to poor is skewing further away from optimal, which could be measured by a curve showing the wealth one has as a proportion of the next-wealthiest person, or by a graph showing the percentage of global wealth owned by a given equal-sized fraction of all people (i.e. the top 1% owns X%, the next 1% owns Y%). A perfectly flat graph indicates perfect communism. A sharply inflected curve indicates oligarchic plutocracy. An unspecified (and likely undiscovered) shape would be optimal economic conditions for civilization as a whole. My concern is that we are moving further away from that presumed optimum in the direction of oligarchic plutocracy, which historically has resulted in violent rebellion, every time it has been observed.

sudoke 9y ago

Why is wealth inequality a problem? People should be free to pursue maximum compensation for their skills and abilities, not be limited because they are better at somethings than other people.

boffinism 9y ago
When people talk about wealth inequality as a bad thing they're normally talking about self-perpetuating wealth inequality, or wealth inequality that is caused by things that are seen as inherently unfair, like the family you are born into. A lot of people who have comparative wealth and have worked hard for it feel they have earned their wealth, disregarding the fact that a lot of other people work equally hard and do not have the same amount of wealth. This sort of thing muddies the issue. Also muddying the issue is the fact that some people think that if X amount of money could lift Y poor people out of poverty, vs making rich person Z marginally richer, it is self-evidently the case that it is better and therefore right for X to be spent on the Y rather than person Z. I.e. as long as some people are below a minimum acceptable level of wealth, all wealth inequality is, in this view, bad.
- sudoke 9y ago
  People who think wealth inequality is a problem are being short sighted. >wealth inequality that is caused by things that are seen as inherently unfair, like the family you are born into. I, like my father before me, am making sacrifices to benefit my future generations. It's not unfair, it's called being responsible and thinking about the future. edit: changed delusional to short sighted.
  - SaintGhurka 9y ago
    So rather than downmods, I'd be really interested to hear why people disagree with this - apart from the argumentative "delusional" comment. Is it wrong to work hard to improve your children's future prospects?
    - Can_Not 9y ago