4 ms·

> The process of acquiring a massive fortune does make some poorer (definitely in the relative sense) This is my issue with the whole "wealth inequality" conce

by mises 7y ago

> The process of acquiring a massive fortune does make some poorer (definitely in the relative sense) This is my issue with the whole "wealth inequality" concept. It's just that: you have more money than I do. So what? Sure, I'd like more money, but I don't think it's the government's job to take your money and give it to me. I have never seen the issue with CEOs making tens of millions of dollars; they do a very singular job (in a well-run company). > Technology picks up some of the slack by raising the floor standard of living, but only if doing so is also profitable for the financier or seller of the technology, and never anything beyond that. You think the Gates Foundation operates on a for-profit basis? I think you are correct with respect to businesses, but would prefer non-profits pick up the slack for the very bottom of society, rather than the government. > While that process may be necessary to incentivize innovation, it has societal costs, and it's not unreasonable to consider offsetting those costs by confronting the wealth gap directly. I agree it has societal costs. How do you propose to directly address it? I don't think giving the government the power to take and distribute how it deems best is a good solution. > the concentration of extreme wealth in few hands actually hinders innovation, and therefore makes society poorer overall, because a great number of people who might otherwise contribute creatively to major societal problems instead must focus their efforts on daily survival. Though it does have problems, I think it also makes it easier in some ways. Angel investors can make it much easier to start a business, and certainly easier than if you had to pitch the middle class for two thousand dollars a piece. I guess my overall issue is that I don't know of a better way. The best solution I can come up with to help is to stop the crony capitalist element, subsidies, etc.; where government picks winners and hands out contracts. I don't trust the government (particularly not the federal) to do most anything right, and I think if they are given more money (via, say, increased taxes), they will just waste it, likely signing more large, crony-ist government contracts in the process. If there's a better solution, what might it be? I think if one is proposed, maybe it's best to test it on a state or local level first. I tend to start from a moral perspective: how can we morally justify taking money from others at gunpoint to make things "fairer"?

EliRivers 7y ago
how can we morally justify taking money from others at gunpoint to make things "fairer"? Perhaps it depends how they got it. If they got it by "unfairly" taking it from their neighbour at gunpoint, can we morally justify taking it from them at gunpoint - perhaps in order to return it to that neighbour? If that seems like a fair action, if we can justify that, then the principle is established that sometimes it is morally justified, and we then need "only" identify those qualifying situations.
- mises 7y ago
  > If the got it by "unfairly" taking it from their neighbor at gunpoint, can we morally justify taking it from them at gunpoint - perhaps in order to return it to that neighbor? We call those people robbers and do just that. Any one who takes money at gunpoint is such. I'm not sure if you were trying to make a different point, but we're pretty good at arresting violent criminals and punishing them.
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    The point I made is that sometimes it is morally correct to take things from a person at gunpoint, in the name of fairness. You suggested that it was morally unjustifiable to ever do so ("how can we morally justify taking money from others at gunpoint to make things "fairer"?") I suggest, and you appear to agree, that sometimes it IS morally justifed to do so. The principle established, with both of us agreeing that sometimes it is morally justified to forcefully redistribute wealth, now it only falls to us to decide when we should do this forceful redistribution of wealth.
danans 7y ago
> how can we morally justify taking money from others at gunpoint to make things "fairer"? How do we justify it for paying for our common defense (the military), theoretically blind justice (the court system), public roads and infrastructure, critical public health programs? The answer is that if we don't, there would be dire consequences. It's not so different for the consequences of high inequality, or as someone recently put it cheekily: the Hamptons are not defensible ground. However, you appear to be conflating taxation as a method of raising government revenue with the question of whether a society should have have resource redistribution of any kind. Can you propose an alternate mechanism for raising government revenue, other than by threat of seizing it? Or perhaps you simply oppose governments raising revenue at all, and by consequence, the existence of government itself? We have many contemporary examples of societies that lack the ability to centrally tax and raise revenue. What happens in these places is revenue still gets raised, but in a decentralized way, and usually with the threat of real violence.

by mises 7y ago

EliRivers 7y ago

how can we morally justify taking money from others at gunpoint to make things "fairer"? Perhaps it depends how they got it. If they got it by "unfairly" taking it from their neighbour at gunpoint, can we morally justify taking it from them at gunpoint - perhaps in order to return it to that neighbour? If that seems like a fair action, if we can justify that, then the principle is established that sometimes it is morally justified, and we then need "only" identify those qualifying situations.

mises 7y ago
> If the got it by "unfairly" taking it from their neighbor at gunpoint, can we morally justify taking it from them at gunpoint - perhaps in order to return it to that neighbor? We call those people robbers and do just that. Any one who takes money at gunpoint is such. I'm not sure if you were trying to make a different point, but we're pretty good at arresting violent criminals and punishing them.
- EliRivers 7y ago
  The point I made is that sometimes it is morally correct to take things from a person at gunpoint, in the name of fairness. You suggested that it was morally unjustifiable to ever do so ("how can we morally justify taking money from others at gunpoint to make things "fairer"?") I suggest, and you appear to agree, that sometimes it IS morally justifed to do so. The principle established, with both of us agreeing that sometimes it is morally justified to forcefully redistribute wealth, now it only falls to us to decide when we should do this forceful redistribution of wealth.

danans 7y ago

> how can we morally justify taking money from others at gunpoint to make things "fairer"? How do we justify it for paying for our common defense (the military), theoretically blind justice (the court system), public roads and infrastructure, critical public health programs? The answer is that if we don't, there would be dire consequences. It's not so different for the consequences of high inequality, or as someone recently put it cheekily: the Hamptons are not defensible ground. However, you appear to be conflating taxation as a method of raising government revenue with the question of whether a society should have have resource redistribution of any kind. Can you propose an alternate mechanism for raising government revenue, other than by threat of seizing it? Or perhaps you simply oppose governments raising revenue at all, and by consequence, the existence of government itself? We have many contemporary examples of societies that lack the ability to centrally tax and raise revenue. What happens in these places is revenue still gets raised, but in a decentralized way, and usually with the threat of real violence.