8 ms·

It is about solving a problem, not a race about who want to do it. Wealth inequality is the problem. Even uneven distribution of loan/debt is a problem.

wernercd 5y ago
and there is no solution to it. Why? because there's uneven skills, uneven effort, uneven luck, uneven work ethic, etc, etc, etc. As long as humans are involved... in all human history, in all societies, in all things there has been inequality and no effort so far has had any affect on it. In fact, most efforts have made it worse across the board. Socialism and communism are failed experiments with a 100 years of history as proof.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- namdnay 5y ago
  > In fact, most efforts have made it worse across the board Have they? Most social democracies seem to be going along fine. There is a sliding scale between Hayek and Marx you know.. it’s not a binary choice
  - wernercd 5y ago
    Inequality still exists and is growing worldwide... so I'd say... Yes. And the harder its pushed for "equality", the more it turns into bad times. "binary" I never said it was... I said increasing efforts generally trend towards increasingly bad consequences - and we are talking about pushes to end "inequality" in this chain of conversation... the harder the pushes, the worse the outcomes. At no point in any society has inequality been removed.
    - namdnay 5y ago
      > Inequality still exists and is growing worldwide... so I'd say... Yes. I think global inequality has drastically reduced these past 30 years. Don’t forget that 30 years ago for anyone in India or China the main prospect was subsistence farming. And why are the consequences of curbing inequality increasingly bad? What is “increasingly bad” about the Nordic countries?
- DFHippie 5y ago
  You can't eliminate inequality but you can reduce it. We can't eliminate disease but there is still medicine. And this is patently false: > no effort so far has had any affect on it FDR and the New Deal reduced inequality in the US and most Americans thought that was a good thing. Stalin and the communists reduced inequality in the Soviet Union. Their methods were less well received. But the question isn't whether there was less inequality but whether it was worth it. There are many societies today that take active measures to reduce inequality -- Finland is an obvious example -- and they are generally considered extremely successful. Why reduce inequality? Because inequality reduces social cohesion, promotes corruption -- it produces people who can buy government policy and action --, reduces democratic control of the government, and the mass of people lifted up by its reduction benefit much more than the few wealthy people suffer who are made poorer.
  - wernercd 5y ago
    "stalin reduced inequality" There was still inequality... the ruling class lived like kings and everyone else lived in squalor. "new deal reduced" and didn't remove. Inequality has grown steadily with a wider range of "all boats rise unequally". "Why reduce" the goals aren't in question... simply the results. You can say you want to reduce inequality... but if the end result is more inequality and more suffering? then your stated goals don't match reality. "inequality reduces social cohesion, promotes corruption, reduces democracy" all things that happen in the march towards "equality" and "equity". "few wealthy" the problem is, again, the results... the harder the push for "equity" the more likely its everyone who suffers - not just the "few rich made poorer".
    - DFHippie 5y ago
      > "new deal reduced" and didn't remove. Inequality has grown steadily with a wider range of "all boats rise unequally". Here is the first line of the comment you are responding to: > You can't eliminate inequality but you can reduce it. We can't eliminate disease but there is still medicine. That was the important part. Making things better is desirable even if you can't make them perfect. Inequality has indeed grown steadily. This is not because of FDR's programs, though, but because of measures taken since and other events: reducing marginal tax rates, reducing inheritance taxes, the weakening of the labor movement, globalization, and so forth. Also, incidentally, by asserting this you are contradicting your own previous assertion that nothing anyone has ever done has had an effect on inequality.
- amarant 5y ago
  Sweden says hello
  - wernercd 5y ago
    Inequality growing in sweden says hello https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the-nordic-region-2020/sweden-inequality-in-sweden-grows-much-faster-than-in-the-nordics-overall/ https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the... "From having the second-lowest level of inequality in 2000, by 2017, Sweden had the highest level of income inequality in the Nordic Region. The overall income inequality between households in the same municipality was also higher in Sweden than in the other Nordic countries." https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687428.001.0001/acprof-9780199687428-chapter-27 https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/a... "From an all-time low around 1980, income inequality substantially increased, reflecting a strong rise in top incomes and income from capital, more recently also a widening gap between bottom and middle incomes. Behind this are the dual income tax system, established in the early 1990s, the introduction of earned income tax credits, and a diminished coverage of social insurance programmes, which widened the income gap between employed and non-employed during the 2000s. The benefit and tax systems became less redistributive and thereby contributed to increased income inequalities"
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      Coincidentally, that was when European governments started to shift from Social Democratic policies to Neoliberal policies. That's not really a winning argument if you're trying to claim that Neoliberalism is the solution, not the problem.
WalterBright 5y ago
> Wealth inequality is the problem Wealth equality has been tried many times, and turns out to be an intractable problem.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I don't think anyone here is seriously advocating for wealth equality, just less inequality. In a fair world, financial success would be based more or less solely on a person's abilities, and their effort and skill in making use of their abilities. Since those things will have wide variance, there will be inequality, but that kind of inequality is ok (though we should still have a safety net to ensure no one must live in poverty because of their lack of ability). Our world is not fair: luck, ancestry, and unbalanced power dynamics (among other things) have an outsized influence on financial success. And I fear it will only grow more unfair as time goes on.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > inequality should be based as close as possible on variations in people's ability and effort, not on luck, ancestry, and unbalanced power dynamics Indeed, and free markets achieve that better than any other system.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      I absolutely disagree with this. Free markets just drive people to their worst tendencies, to lie, cheat, and exploit others when they have the advantage. Even if that wasn't the case, we don't really have much in the way of free markets in the world, or even within legal jurisdictions. Regulation is everywhere, and markets are always restricted to some extent. I don't believe that's a bad thing overall (for example, I don't think we should go back to allowing unrestricted child labor, or rolling back gains in the minimum wage), though often regulation does create unnecessarily inefficient markets (e.g., many credit airline deregulation as the main driver behind today's comparatively cheap ticket prices, but deregulation has not made flying less safe). If we were to remove all regulation and bring markets as close to full freedom as possible, I would only expect income and wealth inequality to get worse, not better. (Also, for anyone confused, I edited my wording after the parent quoted me, but my meaning is -- hopefully -- the same. Sorry about that!)

wernercd 5y ago

and there is no solution to it. Why? because there's uneven skills, uneven effort, uneven luck, uneven work ethic, etc, etc, etc. As long as humans are involved... in all human history, in all societies, in all things there has been inequality and no effort so far has had any affect on it. In fact, most efforts have made it worse across the board. Socialism and communism are failed experiments with a 100 years of history as proof.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
namdnay 5y ago
> In fact, most efforts have made it worse across the board Have they? Most social democracies seem to be going along fine. There is a sliding scale between Hayek and Marx you know.. it’s not a binary choice
- wernercd 5y ago
  Inequality still exists and is growing worldwide... so I'd say... Yes. And the harder its pushed for "equality", the more it turns into bad times. "binary" I never said it was... I said increasing efforts generally trend towards increasingly bad consequences - and we are talking about pushes to end "inequality" in this chain of conversation... the harder the pushes, the worse the outcomes. At no point in any society has inequality been removed.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    > Inequality still exists and is growing worldwide... so I'd say... Yes. I think global inequality has drastically reduced these past 30 years. Don’t forget that 30 years ago for anyone in India or China the main prospect was subsistence farming. And why are the consequences of curbing inequality increasingly bad? What is “increasingly bad” about the Nordic countries?
DFHippie 5y ago
You can't eliminate inequality but you can reduce it. We can't eliminate disease but there is still medicine. And this is patently false: > no effort so far has had any affect on it FDR and the New Deal reduced inequality in the US and most Americans thought that was a good thing. Stalin and the communists reduced inequality in the Soviet Union. Their methods were less well received. But the question isn't whether there was less inequality but whether it was worth it. There are many societies today that take active measures to reduce inequality -- Finland is an obvious example -- and they are generally considered extremely successful. Why reduce inequality? Because inequality reduces social cohesion, promotes corruption -- it produces people who can buy government policy and action --, reduces democratic control of the government, and the mass of people lifted up by its reduction benefit much more than the few wealthy people suffer who are made poorer.
- wernercd 5y ago
  "stalin reduced inequality" There was still inequality... the ruling class lived like kings and everyone else lived in squalor. "new deal reduced" and didn't remove. Inequality has grown steadily with a wider range of "all boats rise unequally". "Why reduce" the goals aren't in question... simply the results. You can say you want to reduce inequality... but if the end result is more inequality and more suffering? then your stated goals don't match reality. "inequality reduces social cohesion, promotes corruption, reduces democracy" all things that happen in the march towards "equality" and "equity". "few wealthy" the problem is, again, the results... the harder the push for "equity" the more likely its everyone who suffers - not just the "few rich made poorer".
  - DFHippie 5y ago
    > "new deal reduced" and didn't remove. Inequality has grown steadily with a wider range of "all boats rise unequally". Here is the first line of the comment you are responding to: > You can't eliminate inequality but you can reduce it. We can't eliminate disease but there is still medicine. That was the important part. Making things better is desirable even if you can't make them perfect. Inequality has indeed grown steadily. This is not because of FDR's programs, though, but because of measures taken since and other events: reducing marginal tax rates, reducing inheritance taxes, the weakening of the labor movement, globalization, and so forth. Also, incidentally, by asserting this you are contradicting your own previous assertion that nothing anyone has ever done has had an effect on inequality.
amarant 5y ago
Sweden says hello
- wernercd 5y ago
  Inequality growing in sweden says hello https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the-nordic-region-2020/sweden-inequality-in-sweden-grows-much-faster-than-in-the-nordics-overall/ https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the... "From having the second-lowest level of inequality in 2000, by 2017, Sweden had the highest level of income inequality in the Nordic Region. The overall income inequality between households in the same municipality was also higher in Sweden than in the other Nordic countries." https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199687428.001.0001/acprof-9780199687428-chapter-27 https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/a... "From an all-time low around 1980, income inequality substantially increased, reflecting a strong rise in top incomes and income from capital, more recently also a widening gap between bottom and middle incomes. Behind this are the dual income tax system, established in the early 1990s, the introduction of earned income tax credits, and a diminished coverage of social insurance programmes, which widened the income gap between employed and non-employed during the 2000s. The benefit and tax systems became less redistributive and thereby contributed to increased income inequalities"
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    Coincidentally, that was when European governments started to shift from Social Democratic policies to Neoliberal policies. That's not really a winning argument if you're trying to claim that Neoliberalism is the solution, not the problem.

WalterBright 5y ago

> Wealth inequality is the problem Wealth equality has been tried many times, and turns out to be an intractable problem.

kelnos 5y ago
I don't think anyone here is seriously advocating for wealth equality, just less inequality. In a fair world, financial success would be based more or less solely on a person's abilities, and their effort and skill in making use of their abilities. Since those things will have wide variance, there will be inequality, but that kind of inequality is ok (though we should still have a safety net to ensure no one must live in poverty because of their lack of ability). Our world is not fair: luck, ancestry, and unbalanced power dynamics (among other things) have an outsized influence on financial success. And I fear it will only grow more unfair as time goes on.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > inequality should be based as close as possible on variations in people's ability and effort, not on luck, ancestry, and unbalanced power dynamics Indeed, and free markets achieve that better than any other system.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I absolutely disagree with this. Free markets just drive people to their worst tendencies, to lie, cheat, and exploit others when they have the advantage. Even if that wasn't the case, we don't really have much in the way of free markets in the world, or even within legal jurisdictions. Regulation is everywhere, and markets are always restricted to some extent. I don't believe that's a bad thing overall (for example, I don't think we should go back to allowing unrestricted child labor, or rolling back gains in the minimum wage), though often regulation does create unnecessarily inefficient markets (e.g., many credit airline deregulation as the main driver behind today's comparatively cheap ticket prices, but deregulation has not made flying less safe). If we were to remove all regulation and bring markets as close to full freedom as possible, I would only expect income and wealth inequality to get worse, not better. (Also, for anyone confused, I edited my wording after the parent quoted me, but my meaning is -- hopefully -- the same. Sorry about that!)