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honest question for those whose main concern in life is income inequality: Which of the following 2 example worlds would you prefer: 1. everyone makes exactly
by ffggvv 6y ago
honest question for those whose main concern in life is income inequality:
Which of the following 2 example worlds would you prefer:
1. everyone makes exactly 50k (0 inequality)
2. median income is 55k but there is vast inequality.
- zdw 6y agoNot enough information. It greatly depends on what money is required to live a reasonable life. In one of these scenarios, is child poverty eliminated? People going bankrupt because of medical bills? Are there predatory lending practices and pervasive rent seeking monopolies? In general people concerned with inequality are worried about people at the low end of the income spectrum not being able to survive and thrive, not abstract dollar amounts which don't equate into purchasing power for someone's next meal or monthly dose of prescriptions. Figure out how to expand the social safety net on the low end, and people will care far less about people on the high end making fairly obscene amounts of money, as long as they don't abuse that into extending their power and privilege.
- ffggvv 6y agothen why is virtually all of the rhetoric focused on the 1% and jeff bezos and taxing the rich? i don’t hear any concern for the poor, only hatred of the rich
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- defterGoose 6y agoWhich would you prefer to be true? 1. Out understanding of the differences between capitalism and socialism are freeze-framed in the 1950s, or 2. Our heuristics are updatable as history unfolds.
- matthewmacleod 6y agoThis isn’t a useful question because it contains absolutely no contextual information whatsoever.
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- ffggvv 6y agowhat do you need context for? just assume everything else is the same in the two worlds including purchasing power etc
- chillacy 6y agoI myself prefer option two, but if you were to change the supposition to: assume you have a chance to be born into a society at random but you don’t know who you will be, which would you pick? Then option 1 looks a little appealing as a way to reduce risk (though I get that option 2 has a better expected value). More important than the median is the floor imo.