5 ms·

Absolutely - and that's a good thing. Those who produce more should earn more as well.

TurkishPoptart 7y ago
Oh boy, where do I begin? Edit: Sorry, I should first ask with how you define "production". It seems to be a now dated and almost arbitrary term more suited for agrarian or industrial societies, which seems less telling in an information/service-driven economy. If a police officer patrols for 8 hours, arresting no one, did he "produce" anything? Likewise, if he patrols for 8 hours, and arrests 2 people, did he "produce" more than in the other example? The term "production" as a metric seems woefully outdated in our society.
- wcarron 7y ago
  None of us know, so why don't you pick a place and actually begin? You know, contributing constructive dialogue instead of just posting a useless, condenscending rhetorical question.
  - billions 7y ago
    I think the author was expecting equal upvotes despite not making an effort to forward the discussion
FabHK 7y ago
Right. And now that you have echoed Economics 101, it is time to look at these issues in a bit more detail. See for example John Kwak's Economism, in which he addresses this facile justification in some detail. https://economism.net https://economism.net
mikepurvis 7y ago
Do you believe that that's the system we have? What did Adam Neumann "produce" that merited his $1.7B exit package?
- zacharytelschow 7y ago
  Do you believe imperfections in a system inherently mean the entire thing is flawed? What system would you prefer?
smashthepants 7y ago
How are we defining production? They say Bezos makes $215M per day. Does he personally produce $215M in 'value' per day? Or do his employees contribute to it?
- strikelaserclaw 7y ago
  The workers can generate ideas which would net amazon tremendous amount of wealth from which only a fraction would go back to those who generated the ideas / implemented it. It really is a case of winner take all market. Bill Gates has been retired for a while yet he can't help but keep getting richer. This is not even mentioning those who inherited vast amounts of wealth (like the waltons) and who continue to get super rich even though i doubt they do anything personally that contributes value.
billions 7y ago
It's a fair statement. Can HN provide a logical response instead of downvotes?
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  Because "produce more" and "have more" aren't actually related. Have you produced more if you're born rich? Does Jeff Bezos actually produce billions? It's a statement that doesn't actually represent reality.
  - billions 7y ago
    Jeff Bezos improved global quality of life EXACTLY the amount he's been paid. Otherwise, why would anybody volunteer their money his way?
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      I don't agree with that assessment, but you also didn't address inheritance.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      > Jeff Bezos improved global quality of life EXACTLY the amount he's been paid. Otherwise, why would anybody volunteer their money his way? That's just the repetition a rather circular dogma: the market is assumed to be right (typically demonstrated by some oversimplified textbook example), so right is whatever our market does. If you want to use Bezos's wealth to justify the value he's created, you should at least try to make an independent estimation of that value.
- hervature 7y ago
  I think the downvotes are due to the fact that the article is unrelated to production. The article is about that inequality arises naturally even in simple economies where everything is fair. Unless your socialist, most people agree that more productive people should earn more. I think most discussions today around inequality center around the top 0.001% where earnings and production seem unrelated. I am not of the following opinion, but some people take issue that one can "own" a corporation and your return be greater than any individual producer for that corporation for effectively doing nothing.
westoque 7y ago
I don't think it's necessarily about producing more. It's about risk. The people who risk more, are compensated by the reward. Now, you can definitely alleviate the inequality by giving more money out, so if Bezos is making $215M/day. Wouldn't it make sense for him to distribute the wealth to make some people happier? I believe there comes a point where a person has enough wealth and needs to re-distribute it somewhere else to produce/innovate more.
csb6 7y ago
All else being equal, that is true. However, our economic system quite disproportionately rewards the wealthy; if you are born rich, it is extremely easy to pay a financial manager to invest your money and get huge returns - returns earned passively. Most wealthy Americans are not first-generation entrepreneurs who single-handedly (if that is possible) produced millions or billions in value from a background of poverty. It’s an oversimplification to ignore the complex picture of inequality.
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They lead reliably to flamewars, which we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- beefman 7y ago
  This comment is similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465940
  - Zyst 7y ago
    Snitch
  - dang 7y ago
    I was about to say that, although similar, it doesn't quite ring the same Pavlovian bells. But to judge by the subthread, you're right. I've posted a moderation comment there. That touches on an important principle actually. The value of a comment on HN is the expected value of its subthread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21347871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21347871 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22expected%20value%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
    - beefman 7y ago
      Good principle but it let us down in this case as I've posted the most valuable comment here and it has no replies at all! :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21466377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21466377
      - dang 7y ago
        The EV includes the value of the root comment. If that's large enough and there aren't any bad replies adding negative value, you win :) (Just to be clear, I'm using EV as a pseudo-technical metaphor. But it's a surprisingly good one, and could maybe be turned into a real model.)
cryoshon 7y ago
if you read the article, you'll find that the authors discuss how the amount of production has absolutely nothing to do with "earning more" when it comes to economy-scale concentration of wealth.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Oh boy, where do I begin? Edit: Sorry, I should first ask with how you define "production". It seems to be a now dated and almost arbitrary term more suited for agrarian or industrial societies, which seems less telling in an information/service-driven economy. If a police officer patrols for 8 hours, arresting no one, did he "produce" anything? Likewise, if he patrols for 8 hours, and arrests 2 people, did he "produce" more than in the other example? The term "production" as a metric seems woefully outdated in our society.

wcarron 7y ago
None of us know, so why don't you pick a place and actually begin? You know, contributing constructive dialogue instead of just posting a useless, condenscending rhetorical question.
- billions 7y ago
  I think the author was expecting equal upvotes despite not making an effort to forward the discussion

FabHK 7y ago

Right. And now that you have echoed Economics 101, it is time to look at these issues in a bit more detail. See for example John Kwak's Economism, in which he addresses this facile justification in some detail. https://economism.net https://economism.net

mikepurvis 7y ago

Do you believe that that's the system we have? What did Adam Neumann "produce" that merited his $1.7B exit package?

zacharytelschow 7y ago
Do you believe imperfections in a system inherently mean the entire thing is flawed? What system would you prefer?

smashthepants 7y ago

How are we defining production? They say Bezos makes $215M per day. Does he personally produce $215M in 'value' per day? Or do his employees contribute to it?

strikelaserclaw 7y ago
The workers can generate ideas which would net amazon tremendous amount of wealth from which only a fraction would go back to those who generated the ideas / implemented it. It really is a case of winner take all market. Bill Gates has been retired for a while yet he can't help but keep getting richer. This is not even mentioning those who inherited vast amounts of wealth (like the waltons) and who continue to get super rich even though i doubt they do anything personally that contributes value.

billions 7y ago

It's a fair statement. Can HN provide a logical response instead of downvotes?

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
Because "produce more" and "have more" aren't actually related. Have you produced more if you're born rich? Does Jeff Bezos actually produce billions? It's a statement that doesn't actually represent reality.
- billions 7y ago
  Jeff Bezos improved global quality of life EXACTLY the amount he's been paid. Otherwise, why would anybody volunteer their money his way?
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    I don't agree with that assessment, but you also didn't address inheritance.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > Jeff Bezos improved global quality of life EXACTLY the amount he's been paid. Otherwise, why would anybody volunteer their money his way? That's just the repetition a rather circular dogma: the market is assumed to be right (typically demonstrated by some oversimplified textbook example), so right is whatever our market does. If you want to use Bezos's wealth to justify the value he's created, you should at least try to make an independent estimation of that value.
hervature 7y ago
I think the downvotes are due to the fact that the article is unrelated to production. The article is about that inequality arises naturally even in simple economies where everything is fair. Unless your socialist, most people agree that more productive people should earn more. I think most discussions today around inequality center around the top 0.001% where earnings and production seem unrelated. I am not of the following opinion, but some people take issue that one can "own" a corporation and your return be greater than any individual producer for that corporation for effectively doing nothing.

westoque 7y ago

I don't think it's necessarily about producing more. It's about risk. The people who risk more, are compensated by the reward. Now, you can definitely alleviate the inequality by giving more money out, so if Bezos is making $215M/day. Wouldn't it make sense for him to distribute the wealth to make some people happier? I believe there comes a point where a person has enough wealth and needs to re-distribute it somewhere else to produce/innovate more.

csb6 7y ago

All else being equal, that is true. However, our economic system quite disproportionately rewards the wealthy; if you are born rich, it is extremely easy to pay a financial manager to invest your money and get huge returns - returns earned passively. Most wealthy Americans are not first-generation entrepreneurs who single-handedly (if that is possible) produced millions or billions in value from a background of poverty. It’s an oversimplification to ignore the complex picture of inequality.

dang 7y ago

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They lead reliably to flamewars, which we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

beefman 7y ago
This comment is similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465940 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465940
- Zyst 7y ago
  Snitch
- dang 7y ago
  I was about to say that, although similar, it doesn't quite ring the same Pavlovian bells. But to judge by the subthread, you're right. I've posted a moderation comment there. That touches on an important principle actually. The value of a comment on HN is the expected value of its subthread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21347871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21347871 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22expected%20value%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  - beefman 7y ago
    Good principle but it let us down in this case as I've posted the most valuable comment here and it has no replies at all! :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21466377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21466377
    - dang 7y ago
      The EV includes the value of the root comment. If that's large enough and there aren't any bad replies adding negative value, you win :) (Just to be clear, I'm using EV as a pseudo-technical metaphor. But it's a surprisingly good one, and could maybe be turned into a real model.)

cryoshon 7y ago

if you read the article, you'll find that the authors discuss how the amount of production has absolutely nothing to do with "earning more" when it comes to economy-scale concentration of wealth.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]