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Income disparity is natural I agree. Every time someone in history has tried to remove the gap it's ended in horror. But I don't believe those at the bottom sho

Income disparity is natural I agree. Every time someone in history has tried to remove the gap it's ended in horror. But I don't believe those at the bottom shouldn't be able to get a better standard of living than they have now. Throughout history, raising the standard for those at the bottom usually makes the richest richer, but I'd argue that's a worthwhile tradeoff.

malandrew 7y ago
More specifically, throughout history, opportunities that allow those at the bottom to raise their standard of living usually makes the richest richer. People can only get richer if there is productivity. Simply transferring wealth is not a panacea if it doesn't measurably result in productivity.
- briandear 7y ago
  And penalizing productivity through confiscatory taxation kills productivity and wealth creation. Why bother working 40 hours if the government steals 20 hours of your labor to give to someone else producing less? Might as well just work 10 hours and have less of your your labor stolen. What’s the incentive for working harder if harder work just means you get to pay more for someone else? Why risk capital starting a business if you are going to end up in the same place as the guy that risks nothing? Redistribution kills economies and it kills innovation.
aylmao 7y ago
> Every time someone in history has tried to remove the gap it's ended in horror. Has it? It's easy to recall the times it has because they make it to the history books, but there's been peaceful periods of reduction in income inequality too. Simply in the US, in the period right after WW2 income inequality fell in what is known as "The Great Compression"[1]. This was also an era of incredible progress and development of the US— everything from big developments around social issues (civil rights movement), huge cultural evolution (counterculture), big development in science and technology (moon landings, nuclear power, etc). When people don't have to worry about wether they can afford rent the next month, they can worry less about losing their job to immigrants, they can afford to quit a bad job to find a better one, open their own business, etc. In general not things you measure as economic standard of living, as the money you make and things you own, but that translate as less time spent stressed and more time spent being productive both economically and just culturally. The thought that to make things better for the poor we need to make them better for the rich too is awful close to trickle-down economics, which have proven again and again to be very much an unsound theory. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States#The_Great_Compression,_1937%E2%80%931967 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...

malandrew 7y ago

More specifically, throughout history, opportunities that allow those at the bottom to raise their standard of living usually makes the richest richer. People can only get richer if there is productivity. Simply transferring wealth is not a panacea if it doesn't measurably result in productivity.

briandear 7y ago
And penalizing productivity through confiscatory taxation kills productivity and wealth creation. Why bother working 40 hours if the government steals 20 hours of your labor to give to someone else producing less? Might as well just work 10 hours and have less of your your labor stolen. What’s the incentive for working harder if harder work just means you get to pay more for someone else? Why risk capital starting a business if you are going to end up in the same place as the guy that risks nothing? Redistribution kills economies and it kills innovation.

aylmao 7y ago

> Every time someone in history has tried to remove the gap it's ended in horror. Has it? It's easy to recall the times it has because they make it to the history books, but there's been peaceful periods of reduction in income inequality too. Simply in the US, in the period right after WW2 income inequality fell in what is known as "The Great Compression"[1]. This was also an era of incredible progress and development of the US— everything from big developments around social issues (civil rights movement), huge cultural evolution (counterculture), big development in science and technology (moon landings, nuclear power, etc). When people don't have to worry about wether they can afford rent the next month, they can worry less about losing their job to immigrants, they can afford to quit a bad job to find a better one, open their own business, etc. In general not things you measure as economic standard of living, as the money you make and things you own, but that translate as less time spent stressed and more time spent being productive both economically and just culturally. The thought that to make things better for the poor we need to make them better for the rich too is awful close to trickle-down economics, which have proven again and again to be very much an unsound theory. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States#The_Great_Compression,_1937%E2%80%931967 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...