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How is a study of how people perceive wealth distribution anything but a giant strawman? It's akin to showing non-programmers source code listings of merge-sort

How is a study of how people perceive wealth distribution anything but a giant strawman? It's akin to showing non-programmers source code listings of merge-sort, quick-sort and bubble-sort and ask them what they think would be fastest, and then try to draw conclusions from the answer. In the beginning of the 20th century, class warfare was apparently imminent, but the difference between now and then isn't wealth distribution, it's wealth - period. Being poor then meant worrying about whether or not you could shelter and feed your family, today and tomorrow, not to mention over the winter, and the way to do that was more often than not through long hours of backbreaking work that might very well kill you. Being poor today means worrying about an entirely different, and much more comfortable, set of issues. And that's just being poor, not even thinking about life in the second and third quintile. The rich got extremely rich, while the poor got very rich. Life in general became much cheaper, safer and more comfortable. I'm sure you could find plenty of fifth-quintile people in 1915 who'd be happy to switch life with first quintile people anno 2010. And the short version: Marx was wrong about a lot of stuff. Let's quit being surprised when reality doesn't fit Das Kapital.

crux_ 16y ago
I'll just link you to _delirium's response here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1736325 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1736325
scott_s 16y ago
If we programmed computers by asking people to vote on how to implement an algorithm, then that would be a relevant study. People vote and support policy based on how their perceptions. It's important to understand what those perceptions are.
borism 16y ago
> I'm sure you could find plenty of fifth-quintile people in 1915 who'd be happy to switch life with first quintile people anno 2010. first of all, THAT is a giant strawman. and second, so that's your justification for less equality - "be glad you weren't born in 20s!"?
- hnal943 16y ago
  No, the justification for "less equality" is that it is an optimal solution. Everyone is much better off than if everything was "equal." Equality is not an end in itself. If nuclear war were to break out, we would all be equal (and dead). That doesn't make it better than what we have now.
  - borism 16y ago
    you totally miss the point of why having egalitarian society is important and one of the building blocks of America. maybe you heard about "American Dream" and stuff...
    - hnal943 16y ago
      What founding American documents can you point to that espouse an egalitarian belief? I would submit that freedom (America's true consistent ideal) and "equality" are mutually exclusive ends.
      - borism 16y ago
        The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the second sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence which states that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream
        CWuestefeld 16y ago
        It seems to me that you're trying to interpret that into a Harrison Bergeron society [1]. The way I read this passage of the Declaration is twofold: A. In the eyes of the law (that is, the only way that the government can view us), all men enjoy the same rights, privileges, and protections. B. We are clearly diverse; it is obvious that no two of us are exactly alike, or in any way interchangeable. However, it's not possible to assign a value to those differences. The way each of us fit into the grand scheme of society is far too complex to tease apart. [1] About: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Harrison_Berg... ; Text: http://www.nationalreview.com/nroriginals/?q=MDllNmVmNGU1NDVjY2IzODBlMjYzNDljZTMzNzFlZjc= http://www.nationalreview.com/nroriginals/?q=MDllNmVmNGU1NDV...
_delirium 16y ago
> It's akin to showing non-programmers source code listings of merge-sort, quick-sort and bubble-sort and ask them what they think would be fastest, and then try to draw conclusions from the answer. Isn't it more akin to showing programmers those source code listings, and then being appalled that so many got it wrong? We're talking about asking the relevant people who make decisions: programmers should know the facts about algorithms, or else it's likely they will make poor choices when writing software; and voters should know the facts about their society/economy/etc., or else it's likely they will make poor choices when voting.
noonespecial 16y ago
This is true as far as in the old days, the rich were able to live a different kind of life than the poor. One much more free of the fear of imminent death. Nowadays, mostly being rich means you get a bigger chair on the airplane, a bunch of rooms in your house that you pay to heat but never go into, a car that requires more fuel, and if you got your money faster than sense, the idiotic practice of gold plating ordinary objects and gluing diamonds all over them. This can change if the lack of wealth once again has the potential to threaten life. With the way we are cavalierly poking the health care beast, its not that difficult to imagine. If parents are ever told in a way that makes it clear to them that their sick children will be denied treatment that could save their lives because of a lack of money (that a richer person would think nothing of wasting on a weekend in Vegas), class warfare once again becomes a possibility.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- mseebach 16y ago
  Healthcare is an excellent example of how absolute leaps in wealth are much more significant than relative ones. Access to good healthcare is pretty binary, and doesn't put a very significant dent in inequality - but it lifts a huge concern from those too poor to buy for themselves.
rickmb 16y ago
You've just excluded about 6 billion people from your definition of "poor". Given the fact that the US needs a huge part of the resources of the rest of the world (labor, oil, etc.) in order to be "rich" by whatever definition, it's kind of cheating to exclude the rest of the world's population from your argument on the distribution of wealth. Marx may have only been wrong about time and scale...
- notahacker 16y ago
  It's plausible that a realisation that income inequality _within_ the US has less extreme consequences for people at the bottom end of the scale than income disparity between the US and the rest of the world explains why the US population appears to downplay the level of their own inequality. There are legions of people working 80 hours a week to put a bowl of soup on their own table and televisions on the tables of the American poor.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > There are legions of people working 80 hours a week to put a bowl of soup on their own table and televisions on the tables of the American poor. This one is too good. Can I use it?
- mseebach 16y ago
  Nope, he's wrong about this too. On the scale of half a billion people lifted from absolute poverty by making the US "rich". Note, by the way, the rapidly increasing flow of western consumer goods into countries like China and India. They didn't revolt when they were poor, why should they start now? Also, I didn't exclude anyone - the article is very explicitly about wealth distribution in the US.
  - hga 16y ago
    Well, I've read that just after things get better in that sort of way revolutions are a not entirely unknown development. I don't remember the arguments for why this might be so, but the more people who have spare time and energy, "the devil finds work for idle hands" and all that.
lutorm 16y ago
Being poor today means worrying about an entirely different, and much more comfortable, set of issues. I'm not sure you have a full appreciation of the extent of poverty in contemporary U.S... The official US Government definition of poverty is (according to Wikipedia): The "absolute poverty line" is the threshold below which families or individuals are considered to be lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health. Wikipedia claims that in 2008, 40 million people (13%) met that definition.

crux_ 16y ago

I'll just link you to _delirium's response here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1736325 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1736325

scott_s 16y ago

If we programmed computers by asking people to vote on how to implement an algorithm, then that would be a relevant study. People vote and support policy based on how their perceptions. It's important to understand what those perceptions are.

borism 16y ago

> I'm sure you could find plenty of fifth-quintile people in 1915 who'd be happy to switch life with first quintile people anno 2010. first of all, THAT is a giant strawman. and second, so that's your justification for less equality - "be glad you weren't born in 20s!"?

hnal943 16y ago
No, the justification for "less equality" is that it is an optimal solution. Everyone is much better off than if everything was "equal." Equality is not an end in itself. If nuclear war were to break out, we would all be equal (and dead). That doesn't make it better than what we have now.
- borism 16y ago
  you totally miss the point of why having egalitarian society is important and one of the building blocks of America. maybe you heard about "American Dream" and stuff...
  - hnal943 16y ago
    What founding American documents can you point to that espouse an egalitarian belief? I would submit that freedom (America's true consistent ideal) and "equality" are mutually exclusive ends.
    - borism 16y ago
      The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the second sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence which states that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" including "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream
      - CWuestefeld 16y ago
        It seems to me that you're trying to interpret that into a Harrison Bergeron society [1]. The way I read this passage of the Declaration is twofold: A. In the eyes of the law (that is, the only way that the government can view us), all men enjoy the same rights, privileges, and protections. B. We are clearly diverse; it is obvious that no two of us are exactly alike, or in any way interchangeable. However, it's not possible to assign a value to those differences. The way each of us fit into the grand scheme of society is far too complex to tease apart. [1] About: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Harrison_Berg... ; Text: http://www.nationalreview.com/nroriginals/?q=MDllNmVmNGU1NDVjY2IzODBlMjYzNDljZTMzNzFlZjc= http://www.nationalreview.com/nroriginals/?q=MDllNmVmNGU1NDV...

_delirium 16y ago

> It's akin to showing non-programmers source code listings of merge-sort, quick-sort and bubble-sort and ask them what they think would be fastest, and then try to draw conclusions from the answer. Isn't it more akin to showing programmers those source code listings, and then being appalled that so many got it wrong? We're talking about asking the relevant people who make decisions: programmers should know the facts about algorithms, or else it's likely they will make poor choices when writing software; and voters should know the facts about their society/economy/etc., or else it's likely they will make poor choices when voting.

noonespecial 16y ago

This is true as far as in the old days, the rich were able to live a different kind of life than the poor. One much more free of the fear of imminent death. Nowadays, mostly being rich means you get a bigger chair on the airplane, a bunch of rooms in your house that you pay to heat but never go into, a car that requires more fuel, and if you got your money faster than sense, the idiotic practice of gold plating ordinary objects and gluing diamonds all over them. This can change if the lack of wealth once again has the potential to threaten life. With the way we are cavalierly poking the health care beast, its not that difficult to imagine. If parents are ever told in a way that makes it clear to them that their sick children will be denied treatment that could save their lives because of a lack of money (that a richer person would think nothing of wasting on a weekend in Vegas), class warfare once again becomes a possibility.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
mseebach 16y ago
Healthcare is an excellent example of how absolute leaps in wealth are much more significant than relative ones. Access to good healthcare is pretty binary, and doesn't put a very significant dent in inequality - but it lifts a huge concern from those too poor to buy for themselves.

rickmb 16y ago

You've just excluded about 6 billion people from your definition of "poor". Given the fact that the US needs a huge part of the resources of the rest of the world (labor, oil, etc.) in order to be "rich" by whatever definition, it's kind of cheating to exclude the rest of the world's population from your argument on the distribution of wealth. Marx may have only been wrong about time and scale...

notahacker 16y ago
It's plausible that a realisation that income inequality _within_ the US has less extreme consequences for people at the bottom end of the scale than income disparity between the US and the rest of the world explains why the US population appears to downplay the level of their own inequality. There are legions of people working 80 hours a week to put a bowl of soup on their own table and televisions on the tables of the American poor.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > There are legions of people working 80 hours a week to put a bowl of soup on their own table and televisions on the tables of the American poor. This one is too good. Can I use it?
mseebach 16y ago
Nope, he's wrong about this too. On the scale of half a billion people lifted from absolute poverty by making the US "rich". Note, by the way, the rapidly increasing flow of western consumer goods into countries like China and India. They didn't revolt when they were poor, why should they start now? Also, I didn't exclude anyone - the article is very explicitly about wealth distribution in the US.
- hga 16y ago
  Well, I've read that just after things get better in that sort of way revolutions are a not entirely unknown development. I don't remember the arguments for why this might be so, but the more people who have spare time and energy, "the devil finds work for idle hands" and all that.

lutorm 16y ago

Being poor today means worrying about an entirely different, and much more comfortable, set of issues. I'm not sure you have a full appreciation of the extent of poverty in contemporary U.S... The official US Government definition of poverty is (according to Wikipedia): The "absolute poverty line" is the threshold below which families or individuals are considered to be lacking the resources to meet the basic needs for healthy living; having insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health. Wikipedia claims that in 2008, 40 million people (13%) met that definition.