6 ms·

This is an angle of the uneven distribution of wealth that you seldom hear about. As long as there are rich and poor people, a rich person can hire a poor perso

This is an angle of the uneven distribution of wealth that you seldom hear about. As long as there are rich and poor people, a rich person can hire a poor person to do basically anything. Overriding legality, decency, safety. Because the poor person just needs the money that bad. So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling children. Crazy horrible stuff that no sane person would do. Because they need the money. And the rich guy is untouched. So, to a significant degree, as long as there is rich and poor, there is no law or morality. It reduces society to a dog-pit.

redanddead 4y ago
Yeah and the problem is getting worse. sometimes it seems that even institutions are trying to maximize human pain. I thought of writing an economics book about this phenomenon. I have no idea how we can fix this problem and hope someone else can chime in
- ssss11 4y ago
  Individuals need better morals imo. The corporate entries of this works however do everything for the benefit of the share holder which isn’t always the right moral thing.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    individuals can have all the morals they like. there are always going to be sociopaths and opportunists in this world, and corporations - and, as you point out, their shareholders - benefit from hiring them. the improvement must come from society as a whole. public organisation, whether that's government, or unions, or even charities, must have the balls to stand up to profit-mongering, and properly regulate this mess
- permo-w 4y ago
  the solutions are there, we implemented them in the post-war era, and they worked, massively reducing inequality until about the early to mid-1970s, where due to a number of reasons, lots of Western economies slowed down, especially the UK and the US, and the free-market Milton-Friedman-inspired right got into power and more or less has been since then. their policies creating overall growth, yes, but at the expense of wage growth and (after an initial bump from selling off public property) living standards. as a related aside, if someone ever tells you that taxes are at an all-time high so we must reduce them, take a look at the top marginal tax rates in the UK and US in the mid-60s. or corp tax back then the way to actually solve these problems was told to us by Keynes. the problem is that the political will is just not there. that's where we need a solution. how do you circumvent the capital-holding elite [to use a meaningless word]?
  - grafly 4y ago
epicureanideal 4y ago
I assume this has more to do with absolute poverty than relative poverty. If a person is starving they’ll do almost anything to eat. If they’re merely relatively poor, having an old car instead of a new one, a small house instead of a large house, it’s unlikely they’d go to extremes.
- swayvil 4y ago
  Don't diminish it by choosing an innocuous characterization. You see the range of it as clearly as the rest of us.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  Relative poverty is also involved imo. Many people would go to extremes to ensure their children and their loved ones are guaranteed brighter economic futures. Life insurance companies wouldn't both explicitly exclude suicide and also do investigation to ensure a death wasn't suicide if it people weren't willing to literally die to ensure a brighter economic future for their dependents. Hell, I live very comfortably, am not at risk of homelessness or starvation. But there is a lot I would do for money that guarantees the best start in life for my children, the best end of life (medical care, treatments, etc) for my parents.
  - koolba 4y ago
    > Life insurance companies wouldn't both explicitly exclude suicide and also do investigation to ensure a death wasn't suicide if it people weren't willing to literally die to ensure a brighter economic future for their dependents. Most life insurance does cover suicides. Just not in the first year or two. > But there is a lot I would do for money that guarantees the best start in life for my children, the best end of life (medical care, treatments, etc) for my parents. For children specifically, the most valuable thing that money can buy is time.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    It doesn't seem credible that ordinary people, who happen to see a giant megayacht one day, can suddenly turn into a maniac for hire just because they live in 'relative poverty'. The vast majority of people value safe neighbourhoods, friendships, family get-togethers, etc., far more than they do in procuring mega yachts, or being wealthy enough to do so. Especially when old enough to have children.
seibelj 4y ago
An underappreciated negative aspect of equality is total lack of enthusiasm and incentive. As inequality is a guarantee - no two people are alike in any aspect and neither are their abilities as an employee - mandating (either by gun or union contract) lockstep equality in payments and job security, the highest performers are demoralized and put in the bare minimum or quit (if they can). The result is the ever-increasing shitty quality of the firm and its behavior. For modern examples see the NHS (bleeding doctors and nurses to the private sector) and American public schools in inner cities (highest global costs per student yet abysmal results). There are valid criticisms about inequality but the pros far out way the cons.
- dmix 4y ago
  I find that most people arguing for top-down redistribution don't seem to care about if it makes everyone poorer as long as "equality for everyone" is the modus operandi. They see it as a moral imperative, the measurable outcomes and realities of the economic systems always get second rate treatment. It's always much, much easier to argue for 'fairness' and to rail against the rich... than it is to be realistic and accept that there will be very visible downsides but that alternatives are much worse in practice. Ditto with free speech, censorship is almost always a greater evil, with small exceptions, but when you try to defend it they try to pretend you only care about nazis/far-right. Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy and yes - it requires plenty of effort to weed out the assholes and wrong-doers (which the courts are doing now by punishing the law firms), but it's worth it in the end. And you don't have to tolerate the bad guys just because you didn't compromise societies freedoms and wealth to prevent them from existing in the first place. There's more ways to stop it than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- another_story 4y ago
  This is mostly a strawman, since I don't see almost anyone arguing for complete equality of pay, status or position, merely that a handful of people shouldn't be able to accumulate the wealth of small nations on the back of others. In countries in Europe, and places in Asia, there are plenty of examples where there is less inequality and the students perform better.
permo-w 4y ago
this is a very salient way of explaining the need for wealth redistribution in society. this doesn't necessarily mean communism or socialism, but it should mean more Keynesian economics. high taxes on the rich - including rich corporations - and strong public spending in the right areas: education, small businesses, healthcare, and safety nets so people feel like they can take risks without having the fear of becoming homeless
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  Yeah, one of my big shifts politically as an adult was debunking more naive libertarian views I held when younger. I think an honest reading of post ww2 history shows you need both a healthy private and public sector. There's arguments about exactly where to draw the line, but evidence is countries prosper with 1/4 to 1/2 of their economy being redistributed through the public sector. Where to draw the line within that window is more a matter of what society you want than a pure economic question. A key detail is that you need functional institutions, and those take generations to build.
  - P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
    When people say this, do they ever consider that they're still wrong and will be "debunking" themselves in 10 years?
tpmx 4y ago
> ... Or murdering people. ... Oh come on. Is HN suddenly r/antiwork? I'm pretty sure conspiracy to commit murder is illegal in whatever your locale is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(criminal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(criminal)
- saagarjha 4y ago
  So is selling children. Doesn’t mean you can’t buy these services.
- swayvil 4y ago
  The money is a big enticement for many prospective soldiers. Joining the military is often sold as a way to escape poverty.
- manholio 4y ago
  It doesn't matter it's illegal, it can happen and people get away with it, and the fact that it can happen has deep reaching chilling effects even when it does not. Look at the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist killed by two idiots who got paid 150.000€. The killer brothers are in jail and the rich asshole who ordered the killing is free. The fact that such a thing can happen in an EU country means that every shady business man can threaten and silence a journalist, not by killing them, just by hinting it could happen, and you will never learn anything about such cases.
Aunche 4y ago
>So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling children. Yet, despite all of this, these people are living longer, healthier, more educated, and less violent lives. A more redistrutive society would have the exact same number of greedy assholes as we do today, and they wouldn't be any more altruistic. The difference in our society is that a greedy asshole who wants to outsource a jobs to a developing country will accidentally give the residents of this country the means to buy antibiotics.
- anemoiac 4y ago
  > A more redistrutive society would have the exact same number of greedy assholes as we do today Are you sure? Doesn't culture impact human behavior? Won't a society that encourages getting ahead at all costs produce a different social environment (with its own distinct behavioral incentives) than one with alternative priorities?
  - Aunche 4y ago
    >Won't a society that encourages getting ahead at all costs First of all, this is a anticapitalist meme that has no basis in reality. In American Factory, you can argue that the Chinese workers are encouraged to "get ahead at all costs". They likely share the same work ethic as Americans 100 years ago when they were similarly blase about safety, but this certainly isn't the case today. Today, we use marathon as a verb describing passively consuming media, and we glorify inactivity (FIRE, rest and vest, Office Space, etc) and these attitudes are unique to recent decades. We still celebrate hard work to a certain extent, but that's nothing new. As far as cultural impact goes, your best case scenario is that people are more altruistic towards their in-group. Norway is renowned for it's redistribution of wealth, yet they're only .07% of the world's population and their sovereign wealth fund alone holds 1.4% of the the world's stocks. This is great for their citizens, but they aren't so keen on redistributing that wealth with Muslim immigrants and their children. When you look at countries that are actively hostile to private wealth creation, you'll notice that they're all incredibly corrupt. This tells me that at least amongst the elite, they're just as greedy their counterparts in capitalist nations. The difference is that their economic model incentivizes them to chase zero-sum political power, rather than produce something of value.

redanddead 4y ago

Yeah and the problem is getting worse. sometimes it seems that even institutions are trying to maximize human pain. I thought of writing an economics book about this phenomenon. I have no idea how we can fix this problem and hope someone else can chime in

ssss11 4y ago
Individuals need better morals imo. The corporate entries of this works however do everything for the benefit of the share holder which isn’t always the right moral thing.
- permo-w 4y ago
  individuals can have all the morals they like. there are always going to be sociopaths and opportunists in this world, and corporations - and, as you point out, their shareholders - benefit from hiring them. the improvement must come from society as a whole. public organisation, whether that's government, or unions, or even charities, must have the balls to stand up to profit-mongering, and properly regulate this mess
permo-w 4y ago
the solutions are there, we implemented them in the post-war era, and they worked, massively reducing inequality until about the early to mid-1970s, where due to a number of reasons, lots of Western economies slowed down, especially the UK and the US, and the free-market Milton-Friedman-inspired right got into power and more or less has been since then. their policies creating overall growth, yes, but at the expense of wage growth and (after an initial bump from selling off public property) living standards. as a related aside, if someone ever tells you that taxes are at an all-time high so we must reduce them, take a look at the top marginal tax rates in the UK and US in the mid-60s. or corp tax back then the way to actually solve these problems was told to us by Keynes. the problem is that the political will is just not there. that's where we need a solution. how do you circumvent the capital-holding elite [to use a meaningless word]?
- grafly 4y ago

epicureanideal 4y ago

I assume this has more to do with absolute poverty than relative poverty. If a person is starving they’ll do almost anything to eat. If they’re merely relatively poor, having an old car instead of a new one, a small house instead of a large house, it’s unlikely they’d go to extremes.

swayvil 4y ago
Don't diminish it by choosing an innocuous characterization. You see the range of it as clearly as the rest of us.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Relative poverty is also involved imo. Many people would go to extremes to ensure their children and their loved ones are guaranteed brighter economic futures. Life insurance companies wouldn't both explicitly exclude suicide and also do investigation to ensure a death wasn't suicide if it people weren't willing to literally die to ensure a brighter economic future for their dependents. Hell, I live very comfortably, am not at risk of homelessness or starvation. But there is a lot I would do for money that guarantees the best start in life for my children, the best end of life (medical care, treatments, etc) for my parents.
- koolba 4y ago
  > Life insurance companies wouldn't both explicitly exclude suicide and also do investigation to ensure a death wasn't suicide if it people weren't willing to literally die to ensure a brighter economic future for their dependents. Most life insurance does cover suicides. Just not in the first year or two. > But there is a lot I would do for money that guarantees the best start in life for my children, the best end of life (medical care, treatments, etc) for my parents. For children specifically, the most valuable thing that money can buy is time.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  It doesn't seem credible that ordinary people, who happen to see a giant megayacht one day, can suddenly turn into a maniac for hire just because they live in 'relative poverty'. The vast majority of people value safe neighbourhoods, friendships, family get-togethers, etc., far more than they do in procuring mega yachts, or being wealthy enough to do so. Especially when old enough to have children.

seibelj 4y ago

An underappreciated negative aspect of equality is total lack of enthusiasm and incentive. As inequality is a guarantee - no two people are alike in any aspect and neither are their abilities as an employee - mandating (either by gun or union contract) lockstep equality in payments and job security, the highest performers are demoralized and put in the bare minimum or quit (if they can). The result is the ever-increasing shitty quality of the firm and its behavior. For modern examples see the NHS (bleeding doctors and nurses to the private sector) and American public schools in inner cities (highest global costs per student yet abysmal results). There are valid criticisms about inequality but the pros far out way the cons.

dmix 4y ago
I find that most people arguing for top-down redistribution don't seem to care about if it makes everyone poorer as long as "equality for everyone" is the modus operandi. They see it as a moral imperative, the measurable outcomes and realities of the economic systems always get second rate treatment. It's always much, much easier to argue for 'fairness' and to rail against the rich... than it is to be realistic and accept that there will be very visible downsides but that alternatives are much worse in practice. Ditto with free speech, censorship is almost always a greater evil, with small exceptions, but when you try to defend it they try to pretend you only care about nazis/far-right. Sometimes doing the right thing is not easy and yes - it requires plenty of effort to weed out the assholes and wrong-doers (which the courts are doing now by punishing the law firms), but it's worth it in the end. And you don't have to tolerate the bad guys just because you didn't compromise societies freedoms and wealth to prevent them from existing in the first place. There's more ways to stop it than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
another_story 4y ago
This is mostly a strawman, since I don't see almost anyone arguing for complete equality of pay, status or position, merely that a handful of people shouldn't be able to accumulate the wealth of small nations on the back of others. In countries in Europe, and places in Asia, there are plenty of examples where there is less inequality and the students perform better.

permo-w 4y ago

this is a very salient way of explaining the need for wealth redistribution in society. this doesn't necessarily mean communism or socialism, but it should mean more Keynesian economics. high taxes on the rich - including rich corporations - and strong public spending in the right areas: education, small businesses, healthcare, and safety nets so people feel like they can take risks without having the fear of becoming homeless

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
Yeah, one of my big shifts politically as an adult was debunking more naive libertarian views I held when younger. I think an honest reading of post ww2 history shows you need both a healthy private and public sector. There's arguments about exactly where to draw the line, but evidence is countries prosper with 1/4 to 1/2 of their economy being redistributed through the public sector. Where to draw the line within that window is more a matter of what society you want than a pure economic question. A key detail is that you need functional institutions, and those take generations to build.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  When people say this, do they ever consider that they're still wrong and will be "debunking" themselves in 10 years?

tpmx 4y ago

> ... Or murdering people. ... Oh come on. Is HN suddenly r/antiwork? I'm pretty sure conspiracy to commit murder is illegal in whatever your locale is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(criminal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(criminal)

saagarjha 4y ago
So is selling children. Doesn’t mean you can’t buy these services.
swayvil 4y ago
The money is a big enticement for many prospective soldiers. Joining the military is often sold as a way to escape poverty.
manholio 4y ago
It doesn't matter it's illegal, it can happen and people get away with it, and the fact that it can happen has deep reaching chilling effects even when it does not. Look at the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist killed by two idiots who got paid 150.000€. The killer brothers are in jail and the rich asshole who ordered the killing is free. The fact that such a thing can happen in an EU country means that every shady business man can threaten and silence a journalist, not by killing them, just by hinting it could happen, and you will never learn anything about such cases.

Aunche 4y ago

>So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling children. Yet, despite all of this, these people are living longer, healthier, more educated, and less violent lives. A more redistrutive society would have the exact same number of greedy assholes as we do today, and they wouldn't be any more altruistic. The difference in our society is that a greedy asshole who wants to outsource a jobs to a developing country will accidentally give the residents of this country the means to buy antibiotics.

anemoiac 4y ago
> A more redistrutive society would have the exact same number of greedy assholes as we do today Are you sure? Doesn't culture impact human behavior? Won't a society that encourages getting ahead at all costs produce a different social environment (with its own distinct behavioral incentives) than one with alternative priorities?
- Aunche 4y ago
  >Won't a society that encourages getting ahead at all costs First of all, this is a anticapitalist meme that has no basis in reality. In American Factory, you can argue that the Chinese workers are encouraged to "get ahead at all costs". They likely share the same work ethic as Americans 100 years ago when they were similarly blase about safety, but this certainly isn't the case today. Today, we use marathon as a verb describing passively consuming media, and we glorify inactivity (FIRE, rest and vest, Office Space, etc) and these attitudes are unique to recent decades. We still celebrate hard work to a certain extent, but that's nothing new. As far as cultural impact goes, your best case scenario is that people are more altruistic towards their in-group. Norway is renowned for it's redistribution of wealth, yet they're only .07% of the world's population and their sovereign wealth fund alone holds 1.4% of the the world's stocks. This is great for their citizens, but they aren't so keen on redistributing that wealth with Muslim immigrants and their children. When you look at countries that are actively hostile to private wealth creation, you'll notice that they're all incredibly corrupt. This tells me that at least amongst the elite, they're just as greedy their counterparts in capitalist nations. The difference is that their economic model incentivizes them to chase zero-sum political power, rather than produce something of value.