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Why do you care how much somebody else has? People often refer to things like the French revolution as a warning of what can happen when wealth inequality gets

Why do you care how much somebody else has? People often refer to things like the French revolution as a warning of what can happen when wealth inequality gets out of control, but that comparison is completely absurd. People were not upset that the aristocracy had great feasts, liquor, and lavish lifestyles. They were upset that they could not afford even bread. In modern times this is not even remotely comparable where ever more people have ever more access to ever more things. But the richest of the rich have even more things. For comparison if we break this down into an anecdotes of toddler the French revolution would have been Joe having 0 toys while Jane had 10. In modern times Joe has 500 toys while Jane has 5000. By most of any metric, except in comparison to Jane, Joe has a ton of toys. And so his complaint seems more petulant than justified. Let's put this another way. Imagine I told you that in 100 years somebody of the lowest social class would have what would be equivalent to 10 million dollars today in terms of spending power. That sounds unbelievably amazing. Would that somehow suddenly change if somebody at the top had a quadrillion dollars of spending power? Taken to extremes wealth at the top can decrease the value of wealth at the bottom (largely due to inflation), but that's not really the case to a significant degree today - people just seem upset that other people have more than them.

untog 8y ago
> Imagine I told you that in 100 years somebody of the lowest social class would have what would be equivalent to 10 million dollars today in terms of spending power. That sounds unbelievably amazing That depends, will surgery for a broken leg cost 20 million dollars in 100 years? You are talking as if poverty doesn't exist any more, which it very clearly does. A startling number of people in the US live paycheck to paycheck and are at risk of extreme poverty if they lose their job or face an unexpected expense like medical care. People in Flint had to drink water that literally poisoned them. Teachers are walking out of schools because their textbooks are falling apart. On the other hand, you have Jeff Bezos who literally said in an interview that he can't think of any worthwhile use for his money other than exploring space. You can't exactly blame people for being angry about that. "But things used to be so much worse!" isn't really a counter-argument. Why can't things continue to get better?
- arcbyte 8y ago
  > That depends, will surgery for a broken leg cost 20 million dollars in 100 years? It will if we don't get government out of healthcare!
  - untog 8y ago
    Weird, I must have missed all those $20m broken leg treatment bills Europeans get from their universal healthcare programs...
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I specifically said spending power, and that is what I meant. Did you know that in the early 20th century feed and flour bags used to come with vibrant floral designs. Know why? Since nobody could really afford to buy clothes, people would regularly fashion their own clothes out of whatever they could get - which included these large bags. Companies saw an opportunity and started creating lovely designs on them. This is a time we can hardly even imagine. Now a days even the poor can easily afford many of the things that only the most elite of society could previously. It wasn't even that long ago that a toaster was an extreme luxury. And of course they also have luxuries that those of times past could only dream of as they literally did not exist. In terms of what we have, people have more than ever today. And people want even more. And I think that's a good thing! The never ending drive for more more more is probably an evolutionary imperative which has paid rich dividends for our development as a species. But let's hit on the Bezos thing. Some of what I said above is conflating technological progress with economic progress. After all one of the reasons many things became cheaper, or available, is not strictly because the poor have more money (though they do!) but because technology enabled things to become much cheaper, and to introduce entirely new things. Bezos is, by far, the richest person in the world. On an individual level his wealth, $135.5 billion, is hard to even imagine. But now let's imagine his level on a social level. What if we, or he, decided to just 'benevolently' share his wealth with everybody in the world. That $135.5 billion is worth a little less than $18 per person. Even at the bottom of the world, that's hardly life changing money. However, technology does change lives. And while $135.5 billion is nothing in terms of the world, it's an enormous amount in terms of advancing space technology. Can you imagine how much the world will change once we begin to colonize other planets, or when we are able to effectively extract resources from celestial bodies, and so on? Or think of all of the tangential technological developments will inadvertently be discovered in the process of this all. The world has basically been playing on fast forward since the colonization of the new world, and space will open a door like something we can hardly even imagine. I too want things to get better and I think what Bezos is planning to do with his money is vastly more likely to, in the longrun, improve life for all of us far more than, for instance, what Gates is doing with his money.
chimprich 8y ago
Inequalities of wealth mean more than the number of toys someone can afford. Wealth equals power, in a very real sense. Just a few examples: If you own a company, or a TV station, or a news source, or a large number of shares in a company, your ability to influence the world is very much greater than someone who doesn't. Your relative influence over society is a zero-sum game. And your relative influence over society reduces when a small number of people get hugely rich. There are also resources that are drawn from a fixed-size pot. Land ownership for example. If a tiny number of people assume possession of vast amounts of land, the amount left for everyone else is reduced. It's a very good thing that people are being lifted out of poverty in the sense that they can afford food and shelter, basic sanitation and so on. But this is really the minimum we should aim for. Access to more toys can be a good thing in many cases, though I'm not convinced it's a good measure of how well society is doing. But being able to afford more electronic items or whatever does not really eliminate the problems caused by extreme wealth inequality.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  > If you own a company, or a TV station, or a news source, or a large number of shares in a company, your ability to influence the world is very much greater than someone who doesn't. Taken to the extreme, the logical conclusion here is no one can own a company, therefore one cannot own a part of a company lest they be able to buy up the whole company, and therefore one cannot own property lest they collect it and have more than others (inequality). To your last sentence, what problems are caused by inequality that aren't simply because of envy?
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    "Taken to the extreme" That's usually a poor place to leap to.
- aaron_m04 8y ago
  > There are also resources that are drawn from a fixed-size pot. Land ownership for example. If a tiny number of people assume possession of vast amounts of land, the amount left for everyone else is reduced. Excellent point. Similarly, the pool of doctors is fixed in the short term, because it takes time for new doctors to go through medical school so that supply increases to meet demand. This means in the short term, rising inequality can drive up the price of medical costs (at least the part of these costs that goes to doctors' wages).
onion2k 8y ago
Why do you care how much somebody else has? Because they buy houses to rent back to me, they get the opportunities to invest in businesses before me, and they use their money to influence politics to ensure they hold on to their position. They push governments to privatise healthcare making me pay more for it, which they profit from, and that means I'll never have any sort of financial security. I have to live my entire life hoping I never get seriously ill. They buy laws to break the power of unions and collectives. They hoard money in offshore accounts which starves the government of tax revenues so I live in a society with underfunded police, unfixed potholes, and failing education while they* get all those things because capitalism provides those things to those who can pay. Would that somehow suddenly change if somebody at the top had a quadrillion dollars of spending power? If they used that wealth to influence the way society works, it would mean I live in the world they want. I don't want to do that. * Actually I don't, because I live in a country with universal healthcare, but you might have that worry.

untog 8y ago

> Imagine I told you that in 100 years somebody of the lowest social class would have what would be equivalent to 10 million dollars today in terms of spending power. That sounds unbelievably amazing That depends, will surgery for a broken leg cost 20 million dollars in 100 years? You are talking as if poverty doesn't exist any more, which it very clearly does. A startling number of people in the US live paycheck to paycheck and are at risk of extreme poverty if they lose their job or face an unexpected expense like medical care. People in Flint had to drink water that literally poisoned them. Teachers are walking out of schools because their textbooks are falling apart. On the other hand, you have Jeff Bezos who literally said in an interview that he can't think of any worthwhile use for his money other than exploring space. You can't exactly blame people for being angry about that. "But things used to be so much worse!" isn't really a counter-argument. Why can't things continue to get better?

arcbyte 8y ago
> That depends, will surgery for a broken leg cost 20 million dollars in 100 years? It will if we don't get government out of healthcare!
- untog 8y ago
  Weird, I must have missed all those $20m broken leg treatment bills Europeans get from their universal healthcare programs...
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I specifically said spending power, and that is what I meant. Did you know that in the early 20th century feed and flour bags used to come with vibrant floral designs. Know why? Since nobody could really afford to buy clothes, people would regularly fashion their own clothes out of whatever they could get - which included these large bags. Companies saw an opportunity and started creating lovely designs on them. This is a time we can hardly even imagine. Now a days even the poor can easily afford many of the things that only the most elite of society could previously. It wasn't even that long ago that a toaster was an extreme luxury. And of course they also have luxuries that those of times past could only dream of as they literally did not exist. In terms of what we have, people have more than ever today. And people want even more. And I think that's a good thing! The never ending drive for more more more is probably an evolutionary imperative which has paid rich dividends for our development as a species. But let's hit on the Bezos thing. Some of what I said above is conflating technological progress with economic progress. After all one of the reasons many things became cheaper, or available, is not strictly because the poor have more money (though they do!) but because technology enabled things to become much cheaper, and to introduce entirely new things. Bezos is, by far, the richest person in the world. On an individual level his wealth, $135.5 billion, is hard to even imagine. But now let's imagine his level on a social level. What if we, or he, decided to just 'benevolently' share his wealth with everybody in the world. That $135.5 billion is worth a little less than $18 per person. Even at the bottom of the world, that's hardly life changing money. However, technology does change lives. And while $135.5 billion is nothing in terms of the world, it's an enormous amount in terms of advancing space technology. Can you imagine how much the world will change once we begin to colonize other planets, or when we are able to effectively extract resources from celestial bodies, and so on? Or think of all of the tangential technological developments will inadvertently be discovered in the process of this all. The world has basically been playing on fast forward since the colonization of the new world, and space will open a door like something we can hardly even imagine. I too want things to get better and I think what Bezos is planning to do with his money is vastly more likely to, in the longrun, improve life for all of us far more than, for instance, what Gates is doing with his money.

chimprich 8y ago

Inequalities of wealth mean more than the number of toys someone can afford. Wealth equals power, in a very real sense. Just a few examples: If you own a company, or a TV station, or a news source, or a large number of shares in a company, your ability to influence the world is very much greater than someone who doesn't. Your relative influence over society is a zero-sum game. And your relative influence over society reduces when a small number of people get hugely rich. There are also resources that are drawn from a fixed-size pot. Land ownership for example. If a tiny number of people assume possession of vast amounts of land, the amount left for everyone else is reduced. It's a very good thing that people are being lifted out of poverty in the sense that they can afford food and shelter, basic sanitation and so on. But this is really the minimum we should aim for. Access to more toys can be a good thing in many cases, though I'm not convinced it's a good measure of how well society is doing. But being able to afford more electronic items or whatever does not really eliminate the problems caused by extreme wealth inequality.

castlecrasher2 8y ago
> If you own a company, or a TV station, or a news source, or a large number of shares in a company, your ability to influence the world is very much greater than someone who doesn't. Taken to the extreme, the logical conclusion here is no one can own a company, therefore one cannot own a part of a company lest they be able to buy up the whole company, and therefore one cannot own property lest they collect it and have more than others (inequality). To your last sentence, what problems are caused by inequality that aren't simply because of envy?
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "Taken to the extreme" That's usually a poor place to leap to.
aaron_m04 8y ago
> There are also resources that are drawn from a fixed-size pot. Land ownership for example. If a tiny number of people assume possession of vast amounts of land, the amount left for everyone else is reduced. Excellent point. Similarly, the pool of doctors is fixed in the short term, because it takes time for new doctors to go through medical school so that supply increases to meet demand. This means in the short term, rising inequality can drive up the price of medical costs (at least the part of these costs that goes to doctors' wages).

onion2k 8y ago

Why do you care how much somebody else has? Because they buy houses to rent back to me, they get the opportunities to invest in businesses before me, and they use their money to influence politics to ensure they hold on to their position. They push governments to privatise healthcare making me pay more for it, which they profit from, and that means I'll never have any sort of financial security. I have to live my entire life hoping I never get seriously ill. They buy laws to break the power of unions and collectives. They hoard money in offshore accounts which starves the government of tax revenues so I live in a society with underfunded police, unfixed potholes, and failing education while they* get all those things because capitalism provides those things to those who can pay. Would that somehow suddenly change if somebody at the top had a quadrillion dollars of spending power? If they used that wealth to influence the way society works, it would mean I live in the world they want. I don't want to do that. * Actually I don't, because I live in a country with universal healthcare, but you might have that worry.