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Either that, or they're history buffs. What precipitates the redistribution of wealth, historically? Some kind of gigantic disaster -- war, famine, plague, soci

Either that, or they're history buffs. What precipitates the redistribution of wealth, historically? Some kind of gigantic disaster -- war, famine, plague, social collapse. There's never been a time when the oligarchs/monarchy/landed-gentry just calmly gave up their temporal power after listening to reasoned socioeconomic arguments. It's always been some sort of calamity. You might find that those idiots are indeed aware of the consequences, but perhaps they look at a longer sequence of consequences. Unrelatedly, have you ever heard about the way pre-colonization Natives handled forest fires? [0] They, thanks to oral tradition, understood the necessity of allowing -- ensuring -- that smaller, controlled forest fires happened regularly. Not only to provide resources for their society, but also to ensure that the inevitability of a fire didn't bring outsize consequences. Our deployment of modern monetary theory, [1] I mean modern forestry management, isn't actually supported by the long view that the Natives took, but does make briefly-considered sense to the layperson. "Fire's bad, right? Everybody knows what a house looks like after it's been on fire, and that's bad, so we should stop all the fires." I don't think those people are idiots, but perhaps they should reconsider their position regarding fire's rejuvenation properties. [0] https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-fire-management-and-traditional-knowledge https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-fire-management-and-tr... [1] Huh, I don't know why I typed that at all. After all, we're talking about forestry

germinalphrase 4y ago
Modern forestry thrives where controlled burns are allowed to repeatedly impact the same forests for the benefit of those never burned. The burned forests never fully recover, and the thriving forests grow taller by comparison. Perhaps, the old ways are better, but the oral tradition that spoke of the unity of man and the imposition of serfdom as sinful has been ignored, forgotten, and derided. Hopefully, no one sets those tall trees alight out of spite.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> Either that, or they're history buffs. What precipitates the redistribution of wealth, historically? Some kind of gigantic disaster -- war, famine, plague, social collapse. You're mistaking redistribution for destruction... Sure, things are technically more equal if everyone becomes homeless. But there wasn't really a redistribution...
- makomk 4y ago
  A lot of people who think along these lines, especially younger people, don't think of wealth as something that can be created or destroyed at all. They just believe that there's some fixed amount out there, and that if ordinary people don't have enough that must be because the super-rich have stolen their fair share and need to be brought down a peg. The very idea of wealth that can be created is seen as a lie spread by the super rich to conceal their theft. (I do wonder if part of this is that a lot of people are too young to have seen their societies become substantially better of as a whole, unlike previous generations.)
  - glogla 4y ago
    I think you can in theory believe that wealth can be created - but also at the same time be convinced that modern heavily financialized[1] economy does very little of that. Add to that how a lot of people have seen their societies become substantially worse of as a whole - yes, iPhones are awesome and modern cars are safer and so on, but instead of having a union job you pee in bottles in Amazon warehouse, and instead of buying a home you are forever renting a studio apartment. The Simpsons titular family of one high school educated guy with house and three kids on single income went from "typical boring dude" to "impossible dream" over the course of one or two generations, after all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization
- revolvingocelot 4y ago
  >You're mistaking redistribution for destruction... No, you are. With respect, you should consider reading some history. Try reading about the conditions of the peasantry after the black plague, or postwar Europe, or even the various falls of the various iterations of Rome. Fire destroys the previous order, yes, but it also sows the seeds for growth. But fire bad! Yes, yes, I know; but this forest isn't the only forest, nor is it the only possible forest. Fire bad, but fire is the only way to fix this situation, because of the way "we" have "managed" our "forests" for as long as I've been alive. Maybe I need to be a Boomer to properly "understand". If there's another solution, I'm all ears, but history suggests that fire is the only solution.
gizmo686 4y ago
Controlled burns are part of modern forestry, for exactly the reasons you describe. As recent years show, the central banks are willing to cause ecenomic downturns to promote long term health. See most central banks increasing rates in response to inflation. It is worth noting that, in (oversimplified) MMT, inflation is the downside of over supporting the economy, and the signal to pull back. This past cycle has been weird because inflation has stayed stubbornly low despite massive ammounts of fiscal stimulus, which was then taken as a sign that it was not yet time for a controlled burn. There us definantly a problem here, but it is a more subtle issue of ouf understanding the economy. Even that flawed understanding knows the importance of the business cycle.
- revolvingocelot 4y ago
  Well, no. Controlled burns were suppressed for decades on end [0]. It's one of the reasons for the absolutely unforgettable fires (cf. "gigafire"[1]) various places on Earth have been experiencing for the past few years straight. "Modern forestry" is getting its act together, slowly, but I don't think it's particularly controversial to suggest that the historical prevent-fires-at-all-costs thing is because of a reflexive, unexamined "fire bad" -- nor to notice that the historical thing was prevent-fires-at-all-costs. Maybe I'm an economic illiterate, but I think saying that "most central banks [have been] increasing rates in response to inflation" is something similar. It seems to me that, if the actual intent was to combat inflation, the rates' rise would have to be a little more aggressive than it's been. If one understands "modern forestry" to have been mostly about a reflexive, individualistic "fire bad", then the seemingly-irrational departure from the thoughtful Native controlled-burn-style management makes sense. If one understands "MMT", or maybe just "neoliberalism", as a fig-leaf to cover whatever economic activity and behaviour and model-making is most profitable to the players of the modern Great Game, then the ways and means of "governmental" "macroeconomic" activity make sense, too. Put another way, from the perspective of an adherent of steady-state economics, the "business cycle" looks like the wobble of a wheel spinning out of true. What is a wheel for? [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Complex_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Complex_fire
hgomersall 4y ago
> [1] Huh, I don't know why I typed that at all. After all, we're talking about forestry No, I don't know why you typed that either, but you seem to have repeated a common trope that somehow MMT is responsible for something (inflation? general badness?). Given that no country is making policy decisions based on what MMT economics prescribes, that trope is of course complete nonsense, since responsibility would at least imply some level of influence. Edit: FWIW, I actually get your point about revolutions generally precipitating improvements (eventually).

germinalphrase 4y ago

Modern forestry thrives where controlled burns are allowed to repeatedly impact the same forests for the benefit of those never burned. The burned forests never fully recover, and the thriving forests grow taller by comparison. Perhaps, the old ways are better, but the oral tradition that spoke of the unity of man and the imposition of serfdom as sinful has been ignored, forgotten, and derided. Hopefully, no one sets those tall trees alight out of spite.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

> Either that, or they're history buffs. What precipitates the redistribution of wealth, historically? Some kind of gigantic disaster -- war, famine, plague, social collapse. You're mistaking redistribution for destruction... Sure, things are technically more equal if everyone becomes homeless. But there wasn't really a redistribution...

makomk 4y ago
A lot of people who think along these lines, especially younger people, don't think of wealth as something that can be created or destroyed at all. They just believe that there's some fixed amount out there, and that if ordinary people don't have enough that must be because the super-rich have stolen their fair share and need to be brought down a peg. The very idea of wealth that can be created is seen as a lie spread by the super rich to conceal their theft. (I do wonder if part of this is that a lot of people are too young to have seen their societies become substantially better of as a whole, unlike previous generations.)
- glogla 4y ago
  I think you can in theory believe that wealth can be created - but also at the same time be convinced that modern heavily financialized[1] economy does very little of that. Add to that how a lot of people have seen their societies become substantially worse of as a whole - yes, iPhones are awesome and modern cars are safer and so on, but instead of having a union job you pee in bottles in Amazon warehouse, and instead of buying a home you are forever renting a studio apartment. The Simpsons titular family of one high school educated guy with house and three kids on single income went from "typical boring dude" to "impossible dream" over the course of one or two generations, after all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization
revolvingocelot 4y ago
>You're mistaking redistribution for destruction... No, you are. With respect, you should consider reading some history. Try reading about the conditions of the peasantry after the black plague, or postwar Europe, or even the various falls of the various iterations of Rome. Fire destroys the previous order, yes, but it also sows the seeds for growth. But fire bad! Yes, yes, I know; but this forest isn't the only forest, nor is it the only possible forest. Fire bad, but fire is the only way to fix this situation, because of the way "we" have "managed" our "forests" for as long as I've been alive. Maybe I need to be a Boomer to properly "understand". If there's another solution, I'm all ears, but history suggests that fire is the only solution.

gizmo686 4y ago

Controlled burns are part of modern forestry, for exactly the reasons you describe. As recent years show, the central banks are willing to cause ecenomic downturns to promote long term health. See most central banks increasing rates in response to inflation. It is worth noting that, in (oversimplified) MMT, inflation is the downside of over supporting the economy, and the signal to pull back. This past cycle has been weird because inflation has stayed stubbornly low despite massive ammounts of fiscal stimulus, which was then taken as a sign that it was not yet time for a controlled burn. There us definantly a problem here, but it is a more subtle issue of ouf understanding the economy. Even that flawed understanding knows the importance of the business cycle.

revolvingocelot 4y ago
Well, no. Controlled burns were suppressed for decades on end [0]. It's one of the reasons for the absolutely unforgettable fires (cf. "gigafire"[1]) various places on Earth have been experiencing for the past few years straight. "Modern forestry" is getting its act together, slowly, but I don't think it's particularly controversial to suggest that the historical prevent-fires-at-all-costs thing is because of a reflexive, unexamined "fire bad" -- nor to notice that the historical thing was prevent-fires-at-all-costs. Maybe I'm an economic illiterate, but I think saying that "most central banks [have been] increasing rates in response to inflation" is something similar. It seems to me that, if the actual intent was to combat inflation, the rates' rise would have to be a little more aggressive than it's been. If one understands "modern forestry" to have been mostly about a reflexive, individualistic "fire bad", then the seemingly-irrational departure from the thoughtful Native controlled-burn-style management makes sense. If one understands "MMT", or maybe just "neoliberalism", as a fig-leaf to cover whatever economic activity and behaviour and model-making is most profitable to the players of the modern Great Game, then the ways and means of "governmental" "macroeconomic" activity make sense, too. Put another way, from the perspective of an adherent of steady-state economics, the "business cycle" looks like the wobble of a wheel spinning out of true. What is a wheel for? [0] https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Complex_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Complex_fire

hgomersall 4y ago

> [1] Huh, I don't know why I typed that at all. After all, we're talking about forestry No, I don't know why you typed that either, but you seem to have repeated a common trope that somehow MMT is responsible for something (inflation? general badness?). Given that no country is making policy decisions based on what MMT economics prescribes, that trope is of course complete nonsense, since responsibility would at least imply some level of influence. Edit: FWIW, I actually get your point about revolutions generally precipitating improvements (eventually).