15 ms·

The other thing is that the bottom folks aren't as "needy" as folks were in, say, the great depression. - I.e. "no one starves in america" and most people know

by redwood 16y ago

The other thing is that the bottom folks aren't as "needy" as folks were in, say, the great depression. - I.e. "no one starves in america" and most people know this: so while the distribution in wealth is extreme, the distribution in QUALITY OF LIFE is less extreme. - This biases people's view and makes them feel that generally, for most americans, things are okay. This is all true of course: except that the worry about an ultra-wealthy minority is not that their quality of life is too high compared to your's (it's not) but rather that their POWER is too extreme, since money is power and speech, and that since power corrupts, they MIGHT ultimately work to reduce further the strength of the lower classes to the point that poverty really does become extreme. - Since as Marx shows this is not really in the interest of the upper classes (that is: tyranny and extreme poverty are precisely what leads to a violent reaction by the down-trodden) it may be that, through the miracle of technology's abundance, we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, but only a smaller and smaller pool of people "own" the production engines. How a world where a few own all the profits, but the masses have what they need to survive looks, we will soon see: but it certainly feels very Brave New World and is, perhaps, inevitable.

jacoblyles 16y ago
The fears of a plutocracy are overblown. You write that "money is power and speech". But people like Meg Whitman and Mitt Romney have tried to buy elections with their personal fortunes and it didn't work (and self-funded candidates do worse, on average, than other candidates). Political inertia, the passions of the mob, and the maladaptive incentives facing legislators and bureaucrats are much more potent forces shaping our society than concentrated wealth.
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  How can you say that? I'm pulling stuff out of my ass and I'd be willing to put money on the fact that over 95% of our elected officials fall in the top 20%, probably even the top 10%.
- redwood 16y ago
  Agreed today: but it could be that the wealthy will LEARN to be more controlling. Meg Whitman was a failure: but what if she's backed someone who was a great politician instead. And perhaps this is precisely how much of our politics already works. I don't fear this as much as some because I know that elites have always held undue influence, and that has been generally a good thing, with some bad apples throughout. Small numbers of people have always had extraordinary sway in societies. It's just that today, with media and technology, the ratios are larger than ever before. An interesting article on the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26excerpt.html?_r=1&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26excerpt.html?_r...
  - jacoblyles 16y ago
    >" Meg Whitman was a failure: but what if she's backed someone who was a great politician instead." It would be illegal, unfortunately. The amount of money you can spend on your own campaign is unlimited, the amount you can spend on others is capped. >"It's just that today, with media and technology, the ratios are larger than ever before." If you mean that more people can exert political influence, then I agree with you. Something like the Tea Party would have been impossible a few decades ago. The internet allows citizens to organize and exert pressure on politicians like never before. That said, 99.9% of the bureaucracy is unelected. Changing the thin film of politicians layered on top doesn't have as large of an effect on actual policy as we think.
    - rdl 16y ago
      Clearly the solution is for a politician to marry into wealth...
- jonhendry 16y ago
  "But people like Meg Whitman and Mitt Romney have tried to buy elections with their personal fortunes and it didn't work (and self-funded candidates do worse, on average, than other candidates)." Seeking office is probably the least effective way for wealth to exercise its power. They do a lot better from behind the scenes, giving smaller sums to many politicians (or threatening to withhold it) to buy influence. Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan is more powerful than either Romney or Whitman, and he hasn't quit his day job or squandered a bunch of his personal fortune.
  - lnguyen 16y ago
    They're after the public recognition and acknowledgement of their status. Satisfying their ego is what's important, not how much money they've spent or whether it could've been used in better ways.
    - jonhendry 16y ago
      True. That's why they aren't good examples for a limited influence and power of concentrated wealth.
  - jacoblyles 16y ago
    It sounds like we both agree that the fear of the power of rich individuals with regards to campaign finance is overblown. People want to believe that there is some conspiracy of rich people screwing things up and if there weren't then everyone would have roses and unicorns. But I don't think that's quite right. Sure, entities that have a lobbying budget have a bigger say in policy than people without. But they get to influence a couple paragraphs in a 2,000 page bill. You add it all together and you get a bad bill that squanders public resources on private interests. The bill making process is broken, but that doesn't mean there is a cadre of rich people acting as puppet master. The United States government is more like a boat where the captain is drunk and passed out than one highjacked by some nefarious pirate.
- gensym 16y ago
  Political inertia and the passions of the mob can be purchased, as the Koch brothers know.
javert 16y ago
it may be that, through the miracle of technology's abundance, we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, but only a smaller and smaller pool of people "own" the production engines. I think the first part of what you said is right: we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, absent a paradigm shift in which the economy crashes like in Weimar Germany. The second part of what you said -- about ownership of the "engines of production" -- is straight out of Marxism, which is, by the way, broken. More and more we live in an information economy; it's not about what you own, but what you know and what you can make. That minor nit aside--who cares who owns what, as long as it isn't stolen from others and as long as quality of life continues to rise for everybody who puts in their share of effort? What I mean to say is that the most important thing is that the system be fair, and let's be honest, fair does not mean an "equal distribution of wealth." In fact, it seems pretty clear (especially when "nobody's starving") that what is fair is letting people earn based on their productive capability and effort, whether they're Steve Jobs, an average software developer, or someone with only a high school diploma.
- parenthesis 16y ago
  Steve Jobs has "only a high school diploma".
  - javert 16y ago
    I know, that's my point. Just kidding, I'd forgotten that fact. Wish I could say I'd worded things as I did on purpose, remembering that.
- redwood 16y ago
  <i>The second part of what you said -- about ownership of the "engines of production" -- is straight out of Marxism, which is, by the way, broken. More and more we live in an information economy; it's not about what you own, but what you know and what you can make.</i> I don't agree: while it's important to know a lot to be valuable today, the people who are in this extreme high echelon of wealth are accumulating wealth through corporate ownership and they seem to be owning a larger and larger percent of those corporations. Perhaps what you mean is that corporations, while dominant when it comes to dollars, are not necessarily continuing to be dominant wrt. the human experience. And this I agree with: the internet has opened the wealth of human knowledge to all of us. This freedom and the fact that so many of us spend our days doing what are effectively leisure of artistic pursuits means, even if we're not making money, we're contributing to man kind. And this is true: and not reflected in the wealth distribution, I agree.
jshen 16y ago
"the distribution in QUALITY OF LIFE is less extreme" You're kidding right? Ever have someone in your family get an unexpected major medical problem while their young and either have no insurance or have the insurance refuse to cover care? That is a quality of life killer! Or the simple fact that wages for the average person are stagnant or slightly down in the past few decades while healthcare costs are rising as well as the cost of an education. People are realizing that their children are likely to be worse off than they were and that is a quality of life killer! Have you had a house foreclosed on? Again, quality of life killer! I can go on, but you get the idea. What exactly do you mean by "quality of life"?
- ipince 16y ago
  Well... on his/her defense, the quality of life might still suck for some people, as you aptly pointed out, but that doesn't contradict the original statement..
  - jshen 16y ago
    and there was no evidence given to support the original statement. How is quality of life for the middle class better now even though the disparity between them and the rich is far larger than before. I think I gave concrete examples of how it's worse, which is more than the OP.
    - zacharypinter 16y ago
      An economist (I forget which one) posed an interesting thought experiment: Would you rather be a millionaire 100 years ago, or middle-class today. Sure, some people would choose 100 years ago, but a large majority of people, when asked, would rather live a middle-class life today than as millionaires 100 years ago. Clean water, sewer systems, restaurants, the Internet, television, microwaves, dishwashers, transportation, etc all make a middle-class lifestyle today far better than it was 100 years ago.
      - jshen 16y ago
mindcrime 16y ago
Since as Marx shows this is not really in the interest of the upper classes (that is: tyranny and extreme poverty are precisely what leads to a violent reaction by the down-trodden) it may be that It's not just about violent reactions; simply because extreme poverty does not benefit the very rich in economic terms... in fact, it harms them. And some (maybe a few, maybe most, who knows?) of the very rich understand this; look at what Larry Page and Sergey Brin did in establishing Google's charitable foundation. They understood that - in the end - their ability to grow their business requires a population of healthy, productive, engaged people to do Google searches. it may be that, through the miracle of technology's abundance, we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, but only a smaller and smaller pool of people "own" the production engines. If anything, technology seems to be making it easier and easier for people with less capital to produce things. In "our world" (that is, computers, software, web-based consumer sites, etc.) it's already possible to build a software startup with a negligible amount of money. Open Source Software and cheap hosting from Linode, Slicehost, etc. have made this stuff way accessible. And even in the world of physical goods, every time we turn around we're hearing more about cheap 3d printers that make it possible to spit out real world physical items without a big, expensive factory. Print-on-demand books make it possible to become an author / publisher for almost no cost. And the "print on demand" concept has been applied to other areas... have artistic talent? You can quickly be in the business of selling your art via the Internet, as clothes, prints, etc. Now granted, doing something like making jet engines or automobiles still takes a lot of up-front capital, but still... I think the trend is towards more and more forms of production becoming more and more accessible to everyone.
guelo 16y ago
No one is starving in America? It's people with your callous ignorance that are allowing things to get so awful, I take it you have no idea what is going with the food pantries in your city.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  The USDA seems to share his ignorance. Less than 2% of the country even reported losing weight as a result of food security. The word "starve" doesn't even occur in the report. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR66/ERR66.pdf http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR66/ERR66.pdf More intuitively, go live in a poor neighborhood. For the most part, the only skinny people you see are the addicts. Everyone else is fat.
  - borism 16y ago
    and why do you equal weight loss/gains to being starving or not? I bet most of the people adding weight are actually doing that because they feel starving (majority of American food being too fat and sugary and not nutritional enough).

by redwood 16y ago

jacoblyles 16y ago

The fears of a plutocracy are overblown. You write that "money is power and speech". But people like Meg Whitman and Mitt Romney have tried to buy elections with their personal fortunes and it didn't work (and self-funded candidates do worse, on average, than other candidates). Political inertia, the passions of the mob, and the maladaptive incentives facing legislators and bureaucrats are much more potent forces shaping our society than concentrated wealth.

drivebyacct2 16y ago
How can you say that? I'm pulling stuff out of my ass and I'd be willing to put money on the fact that over 95% of our elected officials fall in the top 20%, probably even the top 10%.
redwood 16y ago
Agreed today: but it could be that the wealthy will LEARN to be more controlling. Meg Whitman was a failure: but what if she's backed someone who was a great politician instead. And perhaps this is precisely how much of our politics already works. I don't fear this as much as some because I know that elites have always held undue influence, and that has been generally a good thing, with some bad apples throughout. Small numbers of people have always had extraordinary sway in societies. It's just that today, with media and technology, the ratios are larger than ever before. An interesting article on the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26excerpt.html?_r=1&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26excerpt.html?_r...
- jacoblyles 16y ago
  >" Meg Whitman was a failure: but what if she's backed someone who was a great politician instead." It would be illegal, unfortunately. The amount of money you can spend on your own campaign is unlimited, the amount you can spend on others is capped. >"It's just that today, with media and technology, the ratios are larger than ever before." If you mean that more people can exert political influence, then I agree with you. Something like the Tea Party would have been impossible a few decades ago. The internet allows citizens to organize and exert pressure on politicians like never before. That said, 99.9% of the bureaucracy is unelected. Changing the thin film of politicians layered on top doesn't have as large of an effect on actual policy as we think.
  - rdl 16y ago
    Clearly the solution is for a politician to marry into wealth...
jonhendry 16y ago
"But people like Meg Whitman and Mitt Romney have tried to buy elections with their personal fortunes and it didn't work (and self-funded candidates do worse, on average, than other candidates)." Seeking office is probably the least effective way for wealth to exercise its power. They do a lot better from behind the scenes, giving smaller sums to many politicians (or threatening to withhold it) to buy influence. Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan is more powerful than either Romney or Whitman, and he hasn't quit his day job or squandered a bunch of his personal fortune.
- lnguyen 16y ago
  They're after the public recognition and acknowledgement of their status. Satisfying their ego is what's important, not how much money they've spent or whether it could've been used in better ways.
  - jonhendry 16y ago
    True. That's why they aren't good examples for a limited influence and power of concentrated wealth.
- jacoblyles 16y ago
  It sounds like we both agree that the fear of the power of rich individuals with regards to campaign finance is overblown. People want to believe that there is some conspiracy of rich people screwing things up and if there weren't then everyone would have roses and unicorns. But I don't think that's quite right. Sure, entities that have a lobbying budget have a bigger say in policy than people without. But they get to influence a couple paragraphs in a 2,000 page bill. You add it all together and you get a bad bill that squanders public resources on private interests. The bill making process is broken, but that doesn't mean there is a cadre of rich people acting as puppet master. The United States government is more like a boat where the captain is drunk and passed out than one highjacked by some nefarious pirate.
gensym 16y ago
Political inertia and the passions of the mob can be purchased, as the Koch brothers know.

javert 16y ago

it may be that, through the miracle of technology's abundance, we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, but only a smaller and smaller pool of people "own" the production engines. I think the first part of what you said is right: we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, absent a paradigm shift in which the economy crashes like in Weimar Germany. The second part of what you said -- about ownership of the "engines of production" -- is straight out of Marxism, which is, by the way, broken. More and more we live in an information economy; it's not about what you own, but what you know and what you can make. That minor nit aside--who cares who owns what, as long as it isn't stolen from others and as long as quality of life continues to rise for everybody who puts in their share of effort? What I mean to say is that the most important thing is that the system be fair, and let's be honest, fair does not mean an "equal distribution of wealth." In fact, it seems pretty clear (especially when "nobody's starving") that what is fair is letting people earn based on their productive capability and effort, whether they're Steve Jobs, an average software developer, or someone with only a high school diploma.

parenthesis 16y ago
Steve Jobs has "only a high school diploma".
- javert 16y ago
  I know, that's my point. Just kidding, I'd forgotten that fact. Wish I could say I'd worded things as I did on purpose, remembering that.
redwood 16y ago
<i>The second part of what you said -- about ownership of the "engines of production" -- is straight out of Marxism, which is, by the way, broken. More and more we live in an information economy; it's not about what you own, but what you know and what you can make.</i> I don't agree: while it's important to know a lot to be valuable today, the people who are in this extreme high echelon of wealth are accumulating wealth through corporate ownership and they seem to be owning a larger and larger percent of those corporations. Perhaps what you mean is that corporations, while dominant when it comes to dollars, are not necessarily continuing to be dominant wrt. the human experience. And this I agree with: the internet has opened the wealth of human knowledge to all of us. This freedom and the fact that so many of us spend our days doing what are effectively leisure of artistic pursuits means, even if we're not making money, we're contributing to man kind. And this is true: and not reflected in the wealth distribution, I agree.

jshen 16y ago

"the distribution in QUALITY OF LIFE is less extreme" You're kidding right? Ever have someone in your family get an unexpected major medical problem while their young and either have no insurance or have the insurance refuse to cover care? That is a quality of life killer! Or the simple fact that wages for the average person are stagnant or slightly down in the past few decades while healthcare costs are rising as well as the cost of an education. People are realizing that their children are likely to be worse off than they were and that is a quality of life killer! Have you had a house foreclosed on? Again, quality of life killer! I can go on, but you get the idea. What exactly do you mean by "quality of life"?

ipince 16y ago
Well... on his/her defense, the quality of life might still suck for some people, as you aptly pointed out, but that doesn't contradict the original statement..
- jshen 16y ago
  and there was no evidence given to support the original statement. How is quality of life for the middle class better now even though the disparity between them and the rich is far larger than before. I think I gave concrete examples of how it's worse, which is more than the OP.
  - zacharypinter 16y ago
    An economist (I forget which one) posed an interesting thought experiment: Would you rather be a millionaire 100 years ago, or middle-class today. Sure, some people would choose 100 years ago, but a large majority of people, when asked, would rather live a middle-class life today than as millionaires 100 years ago. Clean water, sewer systems, restaurants, the Internet, television, microwaves, dishwashers, transportation, etc all make a middle-class lifestyle today far better than it was 100 years ago.
    - jshen 16y ago

mindcrime 16y ago

Since as Marx shows this is not really in the interest of the upper classes (that is: tyranny and extreme poverty are precisely what leads to a violent reaction by the down-trodden) it may be that It's not just about violent reactions; simply because extreme poverty does not benefit the very rich in economic terms... in fact, it harms them. And some (maybe a few, maybe most, who knows?) of the very rich understand this; look at what Larry Page and Sergey Brin did in establishing Google's charitable foundation. They understood that - in the end - their ability to grow their business requires a population of healthy, productive, engaged people to do Google searches. it may be that, through the miracle of technology's abundance, we will continue on a track where we all have a high quality of life, but only a smaller and smaller pool of people "own" the production engines. If anything, technology seems to be making it easier and easier for people with less capital to produce things. In "our world" (that is, computers, software, web-based consumer sites, etc.) it's already possible to build a software startup with a negligible amount of money. Open Source Software and cheap hosting from Linode, Slicehost, etc. have made this stuff way accessible. And even in the world of physical goods, every time we turn around we're hearing more about cheap 3d printers that make it possible to spit out real world physical items without a big, expensive factory. Print-on-demand books make it possible to become an author / publisher for almost no cost. And the "print on demand" concept has been applied to other areas... have artistic talent? You can quickly be in the business of selling your art via the Internet, as clothes, prints, etc. Now granted, doing something like making jet engines or automobiles still takes a lot of up-front capital, but still... I think the trend is towards more and more forms of production becoming more and more accessible to everyone.

guelo 16y ago

No one is starving in America? It's people with your callous ignorance that are allowing things to get so awful, I take it you have no idea what is going with the food pantries in your city.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
The USDA seems to share his ignorance. Less than 2% of the country even reported losing weight as a result of food security. The word "starve" doesn't even occur in the report. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR66/ERR66.pdf http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR66/ERR66.pdf More intuitively, go live in a poor neighborhood. For the most part, the only skinny people you see are the addicts. Everyone else is fat.
- borism 16y ago
  and why do you equal weight loss/gains to being starving or not? I bet most of the people adding weight are actually doing that because they feel starving (majority of American food being too fat and sugary and not nutritional enough).