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That's a hugely flawed north star. We've had inequality as long as we have had surplus. The more surplus, the more inequality. But I'd rather live today than i
by Msw242 5y ago
That's a hugely flawed north star. We've had inequality as long as we have had surplus. The more surplus, the more inequality.
But I'd rather live today than in hunter gatherer times, even though they were materially more equal.
"Why not modern life with less inequality?" Well because growing the pie and splitting the pie are competing drivers. If Elon musk weren't already obscenely wealthy, he wouldn't have been able to execute against space x. I'd rather live in a world where Musk is worth a quarter of a trillion dollars than in one where we didn't have Space X.
- srcreigh 5y agoJesus said we'll always have poor people. So you're not wrong. It doesn't have to be a solvable problem to be the best way to measure success. Your working definitions of "best" and "worst" still seem to be about net worth. If money isn't the measure of success, the delta probably wouldn't be net worth delta.
- sobellian 5y agoI hardly prefer a world replete with identical spiritual or moral misery, even though it totally zeroes out this delta.
- leifg 5y agoCall me a socialist but we had scientific and engineering breakthroughs without hyper capitalism. If NASA had the budget of the 1960s today we would be way ahead of what Space X is doing now. And yeah, even without that I’d trade Space X for more global equality in a second.
- hooande 5y agoSpace X is a bad, fan boy example. my life is greatly improved by the internet, by ubiquitous electricity, satellite communications, etc. the current form of many of these things was driven by a type of capitalism that is inseparable from inequality
- leifg 5y agoThe internet, the electric grid and satellite communications are all great examples for state sponsored endeavors…
- nielsole 5y agoNASA probably was perceived to show the superiority of the capitalist system over socialism in the 60ies though.
- jacquesm 5y agoThat's exactly why it got its budget in the first place: to show up the Russians (who had shown up the Americans by launching first 'Sputnik' and then Gagarin), not necessarily to do something useful in space. But no matter how they got their budget, I'm happy they did.
- jacquesm 5y agoAt a guess: you're not at the bottom of the pile. Also, there are multiple solutions to the equation I posted and you chose to pick the worst.