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> Wealth is good. People acquire wealth by adding value. Those are axioms presented without evidence. It’s trivial to find counter examples. I’m no radical re

> Wealth is good. People acquire wealth by adding value. Those are axioms presented without evidence. It’s trivial to find counter examples. I’m no radical redistributionist but the idea that wealth in and of itself shows added value is clearly wrong.

prottog 4y ago
I suppose it depends on how you define wealth, but I can't think of many people who became really fabulously wealthy without creating value for other people, except when government was involved in a monopolistic or rent-seeking way. It's trivial to steal somebody's lunch money. It's much harder to become a multi-billionaire without making something that a lot of other people wanted to spend money on. (If those other people were forced to spend money on it by the power of the government, it's a different matter.)
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Regulatory capture is just the beginning. Just because two people agreed to trade doesn't mean value was created. First there's externalities. Global warming caused by oil companies. Stochastic terrorism and fragmentation of our polity caused by social media and news companies. Healthcare crisis caused by fast food companies. Second the notion of voluntary trade is a fairy tail that's ignorant of the underlying neuro and psychological processes that go into decision making. The dopamine system is stupidly easy to game. It's like if we got a bunch of moths to kill themselves by flying into a bright light somewhere and we call that voluntary, as if we weren't merely hacking ancient circuitry. That's what's happening now with opioids, fast food, social media and more.
  - Levitz 4y ago
    >Just because two people agreed to trade doesn't mean value was created. Reminds me of that adage: "Economics is the idea that if I pay you a dollar to step on shit and you in turn pay me the same dollar to step on shit, that makes for a better world"

prottog 4y ago

I suppose it depends on how you define wealth, but I can't think of many people who became really fabulously wealthy without creating value for other people, except when government was involved in a monopolistic or rent-seeking way. It's trivial to steal somebody's lunch money. It's much harder to become a multi-billionaire without making something that a lot of other people wanted to spend money on. (If those other people were forced to spend money on it by the power of the government, it's a different matter.)

hackerlight 4y ago
Regulatory capture is just the beginning. Just because two people agreed to trade doesn't mean value was created. First there's externalities. Global warming caused by oil companies. Stochastic terrorism and fragmentation of our polity caused by social media and news companies. Healthcare crisis caused by fast food companies. Second the notion of voluntary trade is a fairy tail that's ignorant of the underlying neuro and psychological processes that go into decision making. The dopamine system is stupidly easy to game. It's like if we got a bunch of moths to kill themselves by flying into a bright light somewhere and we call that voluntary, as if we weren't merely hacking ancient circuitry. That's what's happening now with opioids, fast food, social media and more.
- Levitz 4y ago
  >Just because two people agreed to trade doesn't mean value was created. Reminds me of that adage: "Economics is the idea that if I pay you a dollar to step on shit and you in turn pay me the same dollar to step on shit, that makes for a better world"