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There is a popular argument being made that any amount of inequality is evil and must be stamped out. I’ve asked several people to define in logical terms the l

There is a popular argument being made that any amount of inequality is evil and must be stamped out. I’ve asked several people to define in logical terms the line beneath which someone is not evil, and above which they are an evil rich person taking too many resources. There is no logical explanation for such a line, it’s always an emotion against people who have more than them. Everyone always compares themselves to someone richer, whether they make 15k, 150k, or 1.5m. If you keep voting for such policies, you will eventually outlaw anyone for trying to do anything but living on government dole. It’s a sad future some people want. Venezuela collapsed rather quickly.

tasogare 7y ago
> outlaw anyone for trying to do anything Are you saying that people who don’t earn few millions a year are doing nothing? Mind you, the majority of people are in this situation and contribute a lot to the society (teachers, doctors, researchers, any workers really). I’m not a leftist but I recognize the concentration of money in a few hands is probablematic, and a lot of business models to get to this point are harmful to the society at large.
- seibelj 7y ago
  I understand your emotion, it’s coming through clear. At what salary do we need to seize someone’s further income out of fairness?
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    Depends on your ethical framework. A utilitarian could claim that after the point where the marginal value of the dollar to the rich person is so low that seizing it results in higher global utility, even taking into account the angst and disincentives on the rich as a result. Is society better off if you take 100 mil in income from Larry Ellison and Sundar pichai and build a few hundred units of low income housing? Even if it pisses off ellison and Google pays pichai less the next year?
    - seibelj 7y ago
      I see the wealthy person as someone who is clever and disciplined. The government is neither clever nor disciplined. I believe letting the billionaire keep his or her money is more likely to increase world utility. Elon and Bezos send people to space with the wealth they fairly gained. The government prints trillions of dollars every year to fund their deficits and wars. If the government needs another billion dollars, it’s quite easy for them to create it. Why seize money from the rare person who is talented enough to make so much of it?
      - pmoriarty 7y ago
        Let's say some incredibly talented person "fairly" comes to own all the water in the world. All the rest of us would depend on this person to live, and he/she could choose which of us lives or dies simply by not selling us any water. Would you want to live in such a world? Or do you think maybe the rest of us deserve to have some of that water, even if we're not as clever and we didn't "fairly" earn it? Dialing back to the real world, all these billionaires and other elites are having very real outsize impacts on the lives of the less wealthy -- from whether/where/how they work, to how they and their children get educated, to what information we have access to, to who goes to jail and who goes free, who goes to war and against whom, and who lives or dies. Incredible wealth gives people incredible power, and the concentration of this incredible power in the hands of a small minority is distorting the world in ways those not in this minority are having trouble swallowing, no matter whether this concentration of wealth and power was "fairly" arrived at or not.
        bluecalm 7y ago
        If you are concerned about that focus on anti monopoly laws not taxes. If one person owns all the water so you prefer a solution that forces them to give % of income derived from it to others or do you prefer a solution that prevents them from owning all the water?
        pmoriarty 7y ago
        Anti-monopoly laws are not enough (even if we ignore the problems of regulatory capture). If all the water was owned by three people instead of one person, or even by five people, or a thousand, there'd still be the other seven billion of us which would die of thirst if these thousand commanded. But, yes, giving up some of what they own is one way of dealing with it... though one could argue that by the time they have control of all that water or wealth, it's too late, because by then they have so much power that they, not you, get to call the shots. Another way is to change the system so that they don't gain so much control in the first place, and so that water (or wealth) is distributed more equitably among all seven billion of us instead of just a tiny few.
  - hijinx 7y ago
    Emotion has nothing to do with it. A strong, functional middle class is critical for the economic health of the nation, as will as it's ability to survive as a Democracy. With very, very few exceptions - wealth disparity is inversely related to the health, stability, and happiness of a populace. Nations with greater wealth disparity generally have less freedom, choice and social mobility. This was recognized multiple times in the nation's history, and upon action, economic growth was spurred. These are not emotions, these are facts that I won't even cite because a simple google search results in many scientific studies backing them. On a slightly more emotional side: With individual productivity increasing annually, it's a shame that individuals are not seeing proportional wage increases in return. And none of that even touches upon the reality that those making the billions are rarely those with exceptional talent or skill. It's those who had the connections and financial wherewithall to build networks that are unreachable for those born into lower socioeconomic circumstances. No, I don't have data for that, but a simple unscientific survey of Execs making hundreds or thousands of times more than their employees are rarely from anything less than middle-upper class backgrounds, and most often have family money that allowed them opportunities never imaginable to lower rungs of society. I do not like the idea of paying higher taxes, but I also recognize that individuals and companies are sitting on trillions upon trillions of dollars because they are making so much money that they can't spend it all. Just ask Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, both who agree with this and argue for higher taxes. But emotions aside, it's simple economics. When social mobility is poor and inequality high, there simply aren't enough consumers to support the level needed for a country to remain 'first world'.
    - seibelj 7y ago
      The rate of wage increase for the lowest earners in America is higher than for the highest earners. Unemployment is lower than ever. I won’t even cite because you can prove this with a simple google search. The fact remains that you think it’s morally correct to take money from people simply because they have it. To me, that’s theft. What is the salary at which we should seize money? You still haven’t answered this original question.
      - tasogare 7y ago
- rayiner 7y ago
  But is it problematic? A teacher or doctor in America is better off than almost anywhere else in the world, including western european countries: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/gov_glance-2017-35-en.pdf?expires=1579336744&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=761AD31A2337638C89354010BF873506 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/gov_glance-2017-35-e... (See 3.27) The countries with higher teacher salaries, like Canada, or in our general vicinity all have low corporate taxes. There are things we need to fix in the US, like people who don’t have healthcare, and the housing market. (All the losses in the share of GDP of labor since the 1980s went to landlords, not capital owners.) But it’s not clear to me that income inequality is in and of itself something worth fixing, at the risk of novel measures that could give other countries a competitor advantage over us.
m_ke 7y ago
Income inequality becomes an issue for the rich in cities like SF and NYC when costs of living rise faster than wages for the lower class and you end up with a rising homeless population.
ummonk 7y ago
I mean if you take the income inequality argument and apply it to the world it is clear that pretty much every person in a developed country is an evil rich person taking too many resources.
- seibelj 7y ago
  A valid point. Every American should feel bad about the fact they were born in America, if you follow that logic.
- AngryData 7y ago
  You gotta factor in cost of living though too. Someone in a crappy part of the world might live on $2 a day, but regardless of where or how you live in the US that would never keep you alive or a roof over your head where there it might, even if it is crappy.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    Why not? Is it impossible to survive in a forest in the US through hunting and gathering? Because that's exactly how our ancestors lived long ago. The people living on $2 a day in the poorest parts of the world are essentially living on that level of wealth. They don't buy most of their goods, they make them. Go check out primitive technology on YouTube and see the stuff he does in a forest. That kind of stuff is available almost anywhere with a temperate forest. The cost of living is higher in the US because people expect better stuff and they've put a limit on how low the quality can go. Eg building permits and other housing regulations. All of that significantly increases the cost of housing, but it also makes your minimum housing much better than in poor parts of the world.
  - ummonk 7y ago
    Yeah, but the same could be said for domestic income inequality. Hard to live in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, on an average American income...
TulliusCicero 7y ago
You could make a similar argument about pollution. A certain amount of it is necessary, it’s not possible to have a society, especially a developed one, that doesn’t pollute at all. So where do you draw the line? It’s arbitrary, and yet saying that means we should just let people pollute endlessly doesn’t make sense either.

tasogare 7y ago

> outlaw anyone for trying to do anything Are you saying that people who don’t earn few millions a year are doing nothing? Mind you, the majority of people are in this situation and contribute a lot to the society (teachers, doctors, researchers, any workers really). I’m not a leftist but I recognize the concentration of money in a few hands is probablematic, and a lot of business models to get to this point are harmful to the society at large.

seibelj 7y ago
I understand your emotion, it’s coming through clear. At what salary do we need to seize someone’s further income out of fairness?
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  Depends on your ethical framework. A utilitarian could claim that after the point where the marginal value of the dollar to the rich person is so low that seizing it results in higher global utility, even taking into account the angst and disincentives on the rich as a result. Is society better off if you take 100 mil in income from Larry Ellison and Sundar pichai and build a few hundred units of low income housing? Even if it pisses off ellison and Google pays pichai less the next year?
  - seibelj 7y ago
    I see the wealthy person as someone who is clever and disciplined. The government is neither clever nor disciplined. I believe letting the billionaire keep his or her money is more likely to increase world utility. Elon and Bezos send people to space with the wealth they fairly gained. The government prints trillions of dollars every year to fund their deficits and wars. If the government needs another billion dollars, it’s quite easy for them to create it. Why seize money from the rare person who is talented enough to make so much of it?
    - pmoriarty 7y ago
      Let's say some incredibly talented person "fairly" comes to own all the water in the world. All the rest of us would depend on this person to live, and he/she could choose which of us lives or dies simply by not selling us any water. Would you want to live in such a world? Or do you think maybe the rest of us deserve to have some of that water, even if we're not as clever and we didn't "fairly" earn it? Dialing back to the real world, all these billionaires and other elites are having very real outsize impacts on the lives of the less wealthy -- from whether/where/how they work, to how they and their children get educated, to what information we have access to, to who goes to jail and who goes free, who goes to war and against whom, and who lives or dies. Incredible wealth gives people incredible power, and the concentration of this incredible power in the hands of a small minority is distorting the world in ways those not in this minority are having trouble swallowing, no matter whether this concentration of wealth and power was "fairly" arrived at or not.
      - bluecalm 7y ago
        If you are concerned about that focus on anti monopoly laws not taxes. If one person owns all the water so you prefer a solution that forces them to give % of income derived from it to others or do you prefer a solution that prevents them from owning all the water?
        pmoriarty 7y ago
        Anti-monopoly laws are not enough (even if we ignore the problems of regulatory capture). If all the water was owned by three people instead of one person, or even by five people, or a thousand, there'd still be the other seven billion of us which would die of thirst if these thousand commanded. But, yes, giving up some of what they own is one way of dealing with it... though one could argue that by the time they have control of all that water or wealth, it's too late, because by then they have so much power that they, not you, get to call the shots. Another way is to change the system so that they don't gain so much control in the first place, and so that water (or wealth) is distributed more equitably among all seven billion of us instead of just a tiny few.
- hijinx 7y ago
  Emotion has nothing to do with it. A strong, functional middle class is critical for the economic health of the nation, as will as it's ability to survive as a Democracy. With very, very few exceptions - wealth disparity is inversely related to the health, stability, and happiness of a populace. Nations with greater wealth disparity generally have less freedom, choice and social mobility. This was recognized multiple times in the nation's history, and upon action, economic growth was spurred. These are not emotions, these are facts that I won't even cite because a simple google search results in many scientific studies backing them. On a slightly more emotional side: With individual productivity increasing annually, it's a shame that individuals are not seeing proportional wage increases in return. And none of that even touches upon the reality that those making the billions are rarely those with exceptional talent or skill. It's those who had the connections and financial wherewithall to build networks that are unreachable for those born into lower socioeconomic circumstances. No, I don't have data for that, but a simple unscientific survey of Execs making hundreds or thousands of times more than their employees are rarely from anything less than middle-upper class backgrounds, and most often have family money that allowed them opportunities never imaginable to lower rungs of society. I do not like the idea of paying higher taxes, but I also recognize that individuals and companies are sitting on trillions upon trillions of dollars because they are making so much money that they can't spend it all. Just ask Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, both who agree with this and argue for higher taxes. But emotions aside, it's simple economics. When social mobility is poor and inequality high, there simply aren't enough consumers to support the level needed for a country to remain 'first world'.
  - seibelj 7y ago
    The rate of wage increase for the lowest earners in America is higher than for the highest earners. Unemployment is lower than ever. I won’t even cite because you can prove this with a simple google search. The fact remains that you think it’s morally correct to take money from people simply because they have it. To me, that’s theft. What is the salary at which we should seize money? You still haven’t answered this original question.
    - tasogare 7y ago
rayiner 7y ago
But is it problematic? A teacher or doctor in America is better off than almost anywhere else in the world, including western european countries: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/gov_glance-2017-35-en.pdf?expires=1579336744&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=761AD31A2337638C89354010BF873506 https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/gov_glance-2017-35-e... (See 3.27) The countries with higher teacher salaries, like Canada, or in our general vicinity all have low corporate taxes. There are things we need to fix in the US, like people who don’t have healthcare, and the housing market. (All the losses in the share of GDP of labor since the 1980s went to landlords, not capital owners.) But it’s not clear to me that income inequality is in and of itself something worth fixing, at the risk of novel measures that could give other countries a competitor advantage over us.

m_ke 7y ago

Income inequality becomes an issue for the rich in cities like SF and NYC when costs of living rise faster than wages for the lower class and you end up with a rising homeless population.

ummonk 7y ago

I mean if you take the income inequality argument and apply it to the world it is clear that pretty much every person in a developed country is an evil rich person taking too many resources.

seibelj 7y ago
A valid point. Every American should feel bad about the fact they were born in America, if you follow that logic.
AngryData 7y ago
You gotta factor in cost of living though too. Someone in a crappy part of the world might live on $2 a day, but regardless of where or how you live in the US that would never keep you alive or a roof over your head where there it might, even if it is crappy.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Why not? Is it impossible to survive in a forest in the US through hunting and gathering? Because that's exactly how our ancestors lived long ago. The people living on $2 a day in the poorest parts of the world are essentially living on that level of wealth. They don't buy most of their goods, they make them. Go check out primitive technology on YouTube and see the stuff he does in a forest. That kind of stuff is available almost anywhere with a temperate forest. The cost of living is higher in the US because people expect better stuff and they've put a limit on how low the quality can go. Eg building permits and other housing regulations. All of that significantly increases the cost of housing, but it also makes your minimum housing much better than in poor parts of the world.
- ummonk 7y ago
  Yeah, but the same could be said for domestic income inequality. Hard to live in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, on an average American income...

TulliusCicero 7y ago

You could make a similar argument about pollution. A certain amount of it is necessary, it’s not possible to have a society, especially a developed one, that doesn’t pollute at all. So where do you draw the line? It’s arbitrary, and yet saying that means we should just let people pollute endlessly doesn’t make sense either.