9 ms·

This is an excellent goal, and Paul Graham has articulated the reasoning pretty clearly: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008 https://twitter.com

by geofft 8y ago

This is an excellent goal, and Paul Graham has articulated the reasoning pretty clearly: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008 > Here's how to explain to people the distinction between fighting poverty and fighting economic inequality. If you're fighting poverty, you might say "Let's have universal health care." If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. And Larry, please don't start Google." Otherwise Larry's going to mess up your numbers big time. Since reading that, I've realized that a major part of my political beliefs is that future Larrys should be unable to start future Googles in their current form, and in particular that I don't believe it's a just use of the powers of government to enable the creation of future Googles.

all2 8y ago
But that also means conglomerates like GE, or Raytheon, or Lockheed Martin... There is a place in the world for massive technologically focused organizations.
- geofft 8y ago
  Er, what is the place in the world for them? Defense contractors should be ground to bits.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    Well, the device I'm typing this on was sold by a massive, vertically integrated technology company. So I guess that's one helpful usecase.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    This view misunderstands the nature of modern science and R&D. Interesting R&D is shockingly expensive, and you need mega-corps to do it. The cost of a new fab is $10 billion now, and it's been increasing exponentially. The 747 cost $7.5 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to develop. The 787 cost almost $30 billion. The future of science and technology is not Edison inventing the lightbulb in his private lab. It's mega-corps doing mega-R&D. This used to be less true in CS, but that's changing due to machine learning. Google has a huge leg-up in self-driving-car R&D because of the enormous amount of data it has from Google services. In "hard" R&D, even "startups" are spending the kind of capital that previously used to only be in the province of established conglomerates.
    - geofft 8y ago
      I agree you need significant amounts of resources / capital to do it. I disagree you need megacorps to do it. It's inefficient for the means of production to be held by a private company looking out for its own interests and wealth and not the good of society: even if you want the military to be more capable, the military-industrial complex is a bad way to do it. And the argument that startups need to spend money on their own fabs is an argument these shouldn't be in private, competitive hands.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        At least the U.S. government does an absolutely terrible job with the capital-intensive infrastructure it touches. Having it be in charge of something like a nuclear reactor or a chip fab would end technological progress.
nabla9 8y ago
I think the first remedy should be prevent acquisitions after companies grow past certain size. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple innovated at their own in the beginning, but once the cash from network externalities started to pour in, they stared to buy market share and buy into the markets. Google did not invent Gmail (Postini), Android Inc, YouTube, AdSense (Adscape), Google Analytics (Trendalyzer), Google Maps (Endoxon).
- burroisolator 8y ago
  Don't forget DoubleClick in addition to Trendalyzer for Google Analytics.
pmcollins 8y ago
So if a very capable, a hard working, effective person is able to increase their wealth by 20x, and in so doing increases my wealth by 2x without my doing anything, you'd be in favor of using the power of the state to prevent this from happening because it would increase inequality?
- sooheon 8y ago
  Not OP, but my take on that is this: if that industrious 20x / 2x value creator could exist in a vacuum there's no reason to stop them. Im fine even with a 1000x / 1.1x split, ceteris paribus. My problem with aggregation of wealth and power is not with numerical inequality, but with the "evil" that can follow--rent seeking, externalization of costs, monopolization. If the externalities end up 0.5x-ing everyone else's wealth, this is a problem.
- nabla9 8y ago
  You should think in the terms of opportunity cost. The alternative to what you suggest is not zero growth of wealth. It can be even larger growth of wealth when the markets work better. The type of anti-markets and pro business approach where big corporations are shielded from the markets and monopoly powers are allowed as long as antitrust felony crimes don't happen is perversion of capitalism. The ideological foundation for this tinking was laid out in Robert Bork's book 'The Antitrust Paradox' (1978) that Reagan administration used as their bible.
- geofft 8y ago
  Yes, that's what being anticapitalist means. I'm good at what I do and I work for a hedge fund because they'll compensate me well for it. I increase the productivity of other people at my company, without them doing anything, by giving them better platforms for their work. Chasing salary is the obvious locally rational action for me, but it's inefficient for the world. I could be making life better for the world if I could be funded to work on, say, Debian instead of our in-house build system. And I probably could be funded at about 1/20 of my current salary to do it, and provide 2x productivity benefits for you personally, but the incentives of a capitalist society mean that isn't the right decision for me. However - you say "using the power of the state to prevent." I am not in favor of that. I am in favor of ceasing using the power of the state to enable. The government could stop recognizing the right of corporations to property and to the labor of individuals at any time.
CPLX 8y ago
> If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. And Larry, please don't start Google." Otherwise Larry's going to mess up your numbers big time. That's fucking idiocy. Or more accurately, propaganda from a billionaire with extreme vested interest in this topic. It's pretty straightforward to say "Go ahead and start Google, and if it succeeds we're going to have some basic rules about worker's rights and compensation you'll have to follow, and we're going to tax a much larger percentage of your personal gains, but you'll still be very, very rich". At which point you're also fighting economic inequality.
- thr_w 8y ago
  Agreed. This avoids the common argument against socialism removing incentives to success, while still providing social safety nets. Allow people to succeed, but when they do, tax them and regulate them to benefit the less fortunate members of society. The rich got rich in part because of the protections and services afforded them by our modern society. In having reaped a greater share of benefit, why should they not contribute a greater share of taxes? There is a stark difference between socialism rooted in the above idea and socialism rooted in jealousy and vindictiveness toward the wealthy just because they're wealthy. We're not trying to punish the wealthy and we can still allow them to be very wealthy. But as the US currently stands, the wealthy could contribute much more while still having far greater quality of life than almost everyone else.
  - CPLX 8y ago
    The argument that there won't be incentives for success is and has always been ludicrous. It's not based in any kind of empirical reality, just on an emotional theory that people won't work if you tax them more, and an Ayn Rand novel or two. The reality is that people compete for status, success, money, and power, within the framework they are given. I mean we've actually tried this. If you take a group of incredibly skilled business people and tax them heavily you don't get some dystopia, you get Switzerland.
    - davidgay 8y ago
sooheon 8y ago
That reads like Graham is poking fun at Google/Larry opposers, am I missing something? He's saying fighting poverty by bringing up the bottom is noble, but fighting inequality by capping the top end is foolish. BTW I agree with him in the sense that indices like Gini coefficients etc. are not comprehensive enough, and optimizing for simple numbers leads to distorted outcomes. I also agree with you in the sense that top heavy players in the economy are harmful to the extent that they seek rent and prevent competition.
- geofft 8y ago
  Yes, he's being sarcastic, but I think his words have a point if taken straight, so I'm being counter-sarcastic. PG says "You believe this thing I think is nonsense, right?" so I say "I absolutely believe this thing which you were serious about, right?"
isoskeles 8y ago
> People who say economic inequality is bad and should be decreased don't realize they're saying this, but they are. Which is my point. Sounds like Paul Graham was saying that stopping founders is some unstated but believed goal, and is a poor one.
- geofft 8y ago
  Depends what you mean by "founders." You can certainly enable people who have interesting ideas for worthwhile projects without enabling them turning into owners of megacorps, and I think he's playing on the confusion. Google the search engine started as a Stanford research project, and we should, as a society (I'm intentionally not saying as government) provide additional support for grad students who want to develop cool projects and make them real who aren't interested in turning into business owners. Saying "Don't start Alphabet Inc." and "Don't start Google the search engine" are very different things.
eanzenberg 8y ago
Awesome, upvoted for more visibility. Who needs advancements in medicine, tech, science? Not us! Everyone’s the same, everyone’s equal, everyone’s the lowest common denominator!!
BurningFrog 8y ago
But Google (the search engine) is one of the greatest gifts to humanity that ever existed! That some people made a few $100B on it is nothing compared to the value it's given humanity.
- geofft 8y ago
  Was it necessary to make $100B on it? Remember that Google started as a grad school project. Could it have continued and still been the same gift to the world? (Could it have been better?)

by geofft 8y ago

all2 8y ago

But that also means conglomerates like GE, or Raytheon, or Lockheed Martin... There is a place in the world for massive technologically focused organizations.

geofft 8y ago
Er, what is the place in the world for them? Defense contractors should be ground to bits.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Well, the device I'm typing this on was sold by a massive, vertically integrated technology company. So I guess that's one helpful usecase.
- rayiner 8y ago
  This view misunderstands the nature of modern science and R&D. Interesting R&D is shockingly expensive, and you need mega-corps to do it. The cost of a new fab is $10 billion now, and it's been increasing exponentially. The 747 cost $7.5 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars to develop. The 787 cost almost $30 billion. The future of science and technology is not Edison inventing the lightbulb in his private lab. It's mega-corps doing mega-R&D. This used to be less true in CS, but that's changing due to machine learning. Google has a huge leg-up in self-driving-car R&D because of the enormous amount of data it has from Google services. In "hard" R&D, even "startups" are spending the kind of capital that previously used to only be in the province of established conglomerates.
  - geofft 8y ago
    I agree you need significant amounts of resources / capital to do it. I disagree you need megacorps to do it. It's inefficient for the means of production to be held by a private company looking out for its own interests and wealth and not the good of society: even if you want the military to be more capable, the military-industrial complex is a bad way to do it. And the argument that startups need to spend money on their own fabs is an argument these shouldn't be in private, competitive hands.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      At least the U.S. government does an absolutely terrible job with the capital-intensive infrastructure it touches. Having it be in charge of something like a nuclear reactor or a chip fab would end technological progress.

nabla9 8y ago

I think the first remedy should be prevent acquisitions after companies grow past certain size. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple innovated at their own in the beginning, but once the cash from network externalities started to pour in, they stared to buy market share and buy into the markets. Google did not invent Gmail (Postini), Android Inc, YouTube, AdSense (Adscape), Google Analytics (Trendalyzer), Google Maps (Endoxon).

burroisolator 8y ago
Don't forget DoubleClick in addition to Trendalyzer for Google Analytics.

pmcollins 8y ago

So if a very capable, a hard working, effective person is able to increase their wealth by 20x, and in so doing increases my wealth by 2x without my doing anything, you'd be in favor of using the power of the state to prevent this from happening because it would increase inequality?

sooheon 8y ago
Not OP, but my take on that is this: if that industrious 20x / 2x value creator could exist in a vacuum there's no reason to stop them. Im fine even with a 1000x / 1.1x split, ceteris paribus. My problem with aggregation of wealth and power is not with numerical inequality, but with the "evil" that can follow--rent seeking, externalization of costs, monopolization. If the externalities end up 0.5x-ing everyone else's wealth, this is a problem.
nabla9 8y ago
You should think in the terms of opportunity cost. The alternative to what you suggest is not zero growth of wealth. It can be even larger growth of wealth when the markets work better. The type of anti-markets and pro business approach where big corporations are shielded from the markets and monopoly powers are allowed as long as antitrust felony crimes don't happen is perversion of capitalism. The ideological foundation for this tinking was laid out in Robert Bork's book 'The Antitrust Paradox' (1978) that Reagan administration used as their bible.
geofft 8y ago
Yes, that's what being anticapitalist means. I'm good at what I do and I work for a hedge fund because they'll compensate me well for it. I increase the productivity of other people at my company, without them doing anything, by giving them better platforms for their work. Chasing salary is the obvious locally rational action for me, but it's inefficient for the world. I could be making life better for the world if I could be funded to work on, say, Debian instead of our in-house build system. And I probably could be funded at about 1/20 of my current salary to do it, and provide 2x productivity benefits for you personally, but the incentives of a capitalist society mean that isn't the right decision for me. However - you say "using the power of the state to prevent." I am not in favor of that. I am in favor of ceasing using the power of the state to enable. The government could stop recognizing the right of corporations to property and to the labor of individuals at any time.

CPLX 8y ago

> If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. And Larry, please don't start Google." Otherwise Larry's going to mess up your numbers big time. That's fucking idiocy. Or more accurately, propaganda from a billionaire with extreme vested interest in this topic. It's pretty straightforward to say "Go ahead and start Google, and if it succeeds we're going to have some basic rules about worker's rights and compensation you'll have to follow, and we're going to tax a much larger percentage of your personal gains, but you'll still be very, very rich". At which point you're also fighting economic inequality.

thr_w 8y ago
Agreed. This avoids the common argument against socialism removing incentives to success, while still providing social safety nets. Allow people to succeed, but when they do, tax them and regulate them to benefit the less fortunate members of society. The rich got rich in part because of the protections and services afforded them by our modern society. In having reaped a greater share of benefit, why should they not contribute a greater share of taxes? There is a stark difference between socialism rooted in the above idea and socialism rooted in jealousy and vindictiveness toward the wealthy just because they're wealthy. We're not trying to punish the wealthy and we can still allow them to be very wealthy. But as the US currently stands, the wealthy could contribute much more while still having far greater quality of life than almost everyone else.
- CPLX 8y ago
  The argument that there won't be incentives for success is and has always been ludicrous. It's not based in any kind of empirical reality, just on an emotional theory that people won't work if you tax them more, and an Ayn Rand novel or two. The reality is that people compete for status, success, money, and power, within the framework they are given. I mean we've actually tried this. If you take a group of incredibly skilled business people and tax them heavily you don't get some dystopia, you get Switzerland.
  - davidgay 8y ago

sooheon 8y ago

That reads like Graham is poking fun at Google/Larry opposers, am I missing something? He's saying fighting poverty by bringing up the bottom is noble, but fighting inequality by capping the top end is foolish. BTW I agree with him in the sense that indices like Gini coefficients etc. are not comprehensive enough, and optimizing for simple numbers leads to distorted outcomes. I also agree with you in the sense that top heavy players in the economy are harmful to the extent that they seek rent and prevent competition.

geofft 8y ago
Yes, he's being sarcastic, but I think his words have a point if taken straight, so I'm being counter-sarcastic. PG says "You believe this thing I think is nonsense, right?" so I say "I absolutely believe this thing which you were serious about, right?"

isoskeles 8y ago

> People who say economic inequality is bad and should be decreased don't realize they're saying this, but they are. Which is my point. Sounds like Paul Graham was saying that stopping founders is some unstated but believed goal, and is a poor one.

geofft 8y ago
Depends what you mean by "founders." You can certainly enable people who have interesting ideas for worthwhile projects without enabling them turning into owners of megacorps, and I think he's playing on the confusion. Google the search engine started as a Stanford research project, and we should, as a society (I'm intentionally not saying as government) provide additional support for grad students who want to develop cool projects and make them real who aren't interested in turning into business owners. Saying "Don't start Alphabet Inc." and "Don't start Google the search engine" are very different things.

eanzenberg 8y ago

Awesome, upvoted for more visibility. Who needs advancements in medicine, tech, science? Not us! Everyone’s the same, everyone’s equal, everyone’s the lowest common denominator!!

BurningFrog 8y ago

But Google (the search engine) is one of the greatest gifts to humanity that ever existed! That some people made a few $100B on it is nothing compared to the value it's given humanity.

geofft 8y ago
Was it necessary to make $100B on it? Remember that Google started as a grad school project. Could it have continued and still been the same gift to the world? (Could it have been better?)