4 ms·

Well you actually do end up with 0.5x instead of 1.2x because in World 2 you have eliminated the profit motive that drives progress forward. Basically you foreg

Well you actually do end up with 0.5x instead of 1.2x because in World 2 you have eliminated the profit motive that drives progress forward. Basically you forego all progress that would have happened with the opportunity to profit by creating and inventing things and then making those things faster, cheaper and better.

maxxxxx 8y ago
The question is how much profit should go to a few. I don't think many people would object to a world where most people get 1.5x and some get 10x. The 10x people should have enough profit motive in that world. I don't think today's CEOs are better than the ones in the 50s when they made it 20 times morw than their workers compared to them making several hundred times more today.
munk-a 8y ago
Sorry, so part of your scenario to divine why wealth inequality isn't so bad is an assumption (without grounding or explanation) that a lack of wealth inequality necessarily leads to high levels of economic inefficiency? I feel like your initial question is just coming from a very disingenuous place, the discussion of the relative economic efficiency of unequal vs. perfectly equally distributed wealth is a bit aside from the question of how extreme wealth inequality is. So I suppose, I agree that wealth inequality does provide value, but it does so in very small doses which we have greatly exceeded at this point.
- malandrew 8y ago
  The view that "wealth = money" is myopic. Wealth is access to goods and services. At any point in time, money is just the means to get more goods and services, but over long periods of time, goods and services becoming cheaper and more accessible is a form of wealth. https://fee.org/articles/you-are-richer-than-john-d-rockefeller/ https://fee.org/articles/you-are-richer-than-john-d-rockefel... The problem with people who focus on inequality is that they completely ignore ∂t. If you're trying to improve the lives of 7.6 billion people, time is of utmost importance.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    I agree entirely with you in theory. I agree that increased compensation drives innovation and that innovation is the primary driven of our standard of living. In ~1700 france if the extreme wealth of the monarchy and clergy had been redistributed to the common folk their standard of living would almost certainly be below that of people living in slums in the modern day. I think that over the last three hundred years we've all gotten to a place where we're much better off, but the relative standard of living people experience has slid downward in the first world in recent decades and I think that is an issue that's worth solving, or at least finding the source of so we can mitigate it in the future.
chii 8y ago
Is it really proven that profits are what drives progress? Would Einstein have stilled discovered relativity regardless if he had been paid large amounts of monney for doing research or not? Sure, there are examples like Ford - where without profit motive, they would not have gotten the advances that happened. But those examples tend to have less impact than the non-profit driven motives.
- malandrew 8y ago
  I'm sure it's not the only contributor, but it's a major one if not the most important one. There are other things that drive progress such as war.

maxxxxx 8y ago

The question is how much profit should go to a few. I don't think many people would object to a world where most people get 1.5x and some get 10x. The 10x people should have enough profit motive in that world. I don't think today's CEOs are better than the ones in the 50s when they made it 20 times morw than their workers compared to them making several hundred times more today.

munk-a 8y ago

Sorry, so part of your scenario to divine why wealth inequality isn't so bad is an assumption (without grounding or explanation) that a lack of wealth inequality necessarily leads to high levels of economic inefficiency? I feel like your initial question is just coming from a very disingenuous place, the discussion of the relative economic efficiency of unequal vs. perfectly equally distributed wealth is a bit aside from the question of how extreme wealth inequality is. So I suppose, I agree that wealth inequality does provide value, but it does so in very small doses which we have greatly exceeded at this point.

malandrew 8y ago
The view that "wealth = money" is myopic. Wealth is access to goods and services. At any point in time, money is just the means to get more goods and services, but over long periods of time, goods and services becoming cheaper and more accessible is a form of wealth. https://fee.org/articles/you-are-richer-than-john-d-rockefeller/ https://fee.org/articles/you-are-richer-than-john-d-rockefel... The problem with people who focus on inequality is that they completely ignore ∂t. If you're trying to improve the lives of 7.6 billion people, time is of utmost importance.
- munk-a 8y ago
  I agree entirely with you in theory. I agree that increased compensation drives innovation and that innovation is the primary driven of our standard of living. In ~1700 france if the extreme wealth of the monarchy and clergy had been redistributed to the common folk their standard of living would almost certainly be below that of people living in slums in the modern day. I think that over the last three hundred years we've all gotten to a place where we're much better off, but the relative standard of living people experience has slid downward in the first world in recent decades and I think that is an issue that's worth solving, or at least finding the source of so we can mitigate it in the future.

chii 8y ago

Is it really proven that profits are what drives progress? Would Einstein have stilled discovered relativity regardless if he had been paid large amounts of monney for doing research or not? Sure, there are examples like Ford - where without profit motive, they would not have gotten the advances that happened. But those examples tend to have less impact than the non-profit driven motives.

malandrew 8y ago
I'm sure it's not the only contributor, but it's a major one if not the most important one. There are other things that drive progress such as war.