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Why is it so important to reduce inequality if even the worse off are better off than any other time in history? Why not revert back to pre-agricultural hunter

Why is it so important to reduce inequality if even the worse off are better off than any other time in history? Why not revert back to pre-agricultural hunter/gatherer societies with (presumably) maximized equality?

unsui 3y ago
> Why is it so important to reduce inequality Generally said by those who benefit from said inequality.
- foobarian 3y ago
  I'll bet you most who complain about inequality are just salty they are not the ones with the $100M yacht. And would happily claw their way to the top if given the opportunity e.g. a bloody revolution. Me, I like my $200 big screen TV, my comfy trailer, cheap gas and electricity and prefer to enjoy them in peace. Now those who really have a case against inequality probably don't even have a voice and live invisibly in third world countries, providing the above amenities the Western "poor" take advantage of.
  - ddq 3y ago
    Wow, that is incredibly dismissive of perspectives you don't understand. This type of ignorance and close-mindedness is disappointing, yet unsurprising. Sad that there people like this in the world.
  - troyvit 3y ago
    That's an easy bet to make from your comfy trailer with cheap gas, electricity, and big screen TV. As you say the majority of people in the world don't have reliable access to those luxuries and would want nothing more but to claw their way up to just that. The voices you hear probably aren't the ones who want super-yachts. Instead they see those with a real case and are lending their voices to them.
science4sail 3y ago
Wealth inequality reduces social cohesion and increases unrest. You can preach all you want about how envy is a sin, but banning envy would probably be just as successful as banning premarital sex.
slg 3y ago
"You shouldn't be upset with the unfair treatment of someone if anyone in human history has had it worse than them" is not a particularly convincing moral argument. I believe income inequality is bad because many people don't have enough to live comfortably and my parents taught me sharing is important. We can get into all sorts of economic arguments, but at its heart it is really as simple as that.
- foobarian 3y ago
  > I believe income inequality is bad because many people don't have enough to live comfortably and my parents taught me sharing is important. The "living comfortably" metric is useful. It rules out the "hunter gatherer" argument where we're back in stone age, presumably not comfortable but as equal as can be. If everyone had enough to live comfortably but inequality increased, would that be OK?
  - jfengel 3y ago
    Pretty much, yeah, with the priviso that "comfortable" is relative to the times. These days, "comfortable" would include a place to live that is clean and fairly safe, food that is more than just enough calories, ordinary medical care, and access to the Internet. This is a lot more than a century ago, but they're widespread and cheap enough that we can easily afford to provide it for every (Western) citizen. It's costly, but we could provide it, and the super-wealthy could still be incredibly wealthy. Shy of that, there's going to be a lot of tension. I can't predict what that will look like in the future, and I can't say what to do about the non-Western majority of the world who can't afford to do this. But at least for the here-and-near-future-now, it's something that would allow people to live without desperation. We now have so much unnecessary desperation, and that's what I find offensive. We'll still be faced with problems of meaning, but at least we're avoiding the hypocrisy of wealthy people saying, "Go find your meaning by working for me, while I take the vast majority of the profits just because I'm already rich."
  - slg 3y ago
    "Living comfortably" is obviously a subjective metric, but that is the general goal. Most people don't want equality of outcome in which everyone's life is exactly the same. Some range of wealth inequality is permissible in many people's minds, including mine. I think the problem with your hypothetical is that increasing wealth inequality generally comes at the expense of someone. It isn't simply that the billionaires' wealth grows faster than the wealth of the poorest. Often the billionaire is a billionaire because they have taken advantage of an unequal system which has real victims. Wealth inequality also leads to other issues of fairness that go beyond living conditions. For example, impact on the environment is one. That $100m yacht you mention will have a huge carbon cost. There is also a concern of political power in a democracy with free speech. If a billionaire can afford to plaster their political message on every TV network, radio station, and social media site, will that give them an outsized role in a democracy that is meant to grant political equality to all? This unequal distribution of political power can easily create a feedback loop that allows these billionaires to use their wealth to capture more wealth and political power.

unsui 3y ago

> Why is it so important to reduce inequality Generally said by those who benefit from said inequality.

foobarian 3y ago
I'll bet you most who complain about inequality are just salty they are not the ones with the $100M yacht. And would happily claw their way to the top if given the opportunity e.g. a bloody revolution. Me, I like my $200 big screen TV, my comfy trailer, cheap gas and electricity and prefer to enjoy them in peace. Now those who really have a case against inequality probably don't even have a voice and live invisibly in third world countries, providing the above amenities the Western "poor" take advantage of.
- ddq 3y ago
  Wow, that is incredibly dismissive of perspectives you don't understand. This type of ignorance and close-mindedness is disappointing, yet unsurprising. Sad that there people like this in the world.
- troyvit 3y ago
  That's an easy bet to make from your comfy trailer with cheap gas, electricity, and big screen TV. As you say the majority of people in the world don't have reliable access to those luxuries and would want nothing more but to claw their way up to just that. The voices you hear probably aren't the ones who want super-yachts. Instead they see those with a real case and are lending their voices to them.

science4sail 3y ago

Wealth inequality reduces social cohesion and increases unrest. You can preach all you want about how envy is a sin, but banning envy would probably be just as successful as banning premarital sex.

slg 3y ago

"You shouldn't be upset with the unfair treatment of someone if anyone in human history has had it worse than them" is not a particularly convincing moral argument. I believe income inequality is bad because many people don't have enough to live comfortably and my parents taught me sharing is important. We can get into all sorts of economic arguments, but at its heart it is really as simple as that.

foobarian 3y ago
> I believe income inequality is bad because many people don't have enough to live comfortably and my parents taught me sharing is important. The "living comfortably" metric is useful. It rules out the "hunter gatherer" argument where we're back in stone age, presumably not comfortable but as equal as can be. If everyone had enough to live comfortably but inequality increased, would that be OK?
- jfengel 3y ago
  Pretty much, yeah, with the priviso that "comfortable" is relative to the times. These days, "comfortable" would include a place to live that is clean and fairly safe, food that is more than just enough calories, ordinary medical care, and access to the Internet. This is a lot more than a century ago, but they're widespread and cheap enough that we can easily afford to provide it for every (Western) citizen. It's costly, but we could provide it, and the super-wealthy could still be incredibly wealthy. Shy of that, there's going to be a lot of tension. I can't predict what that will look like in the future, and I can't say what to do about the non-Western majority of the world who can't afford to do this. But at least for the here-and-near-future-now, it's something that would allow people to live without desperation. We now have so much unnecessary desperation, and that's what I find offensive. We'll still be faced with problems of meaning, but at least we're avoiding the hypocrisy of wealthy people saying, "Go find your meaning by working for me, while I take the vast majority of the profits just because I'm already rich."
- slg 3y ago
  "Living comfortably" is obviously a subjective metric, but that is the general goal. Most people don't want equality of outcome in which everyone's life is exactly the same. Some range of wealth inequality is permissible in many people's minds, including mine. I think the problem with your hypothetical is that increasing wealth inequality generally comes at the expense of someone. It isn't simply that the billionaires' wealth grows faster than the wealth of the poorest. Often the billionaire is a billionaire because they have taken advantage of an unequal system which has real victims. Wealth inequality also leads to other issues of fairness that go beyond living conditions. For example, impact on the environment is one. That $100m yacht you mention will have a huge carbon cost. There is also a concern of political power in a democracy with free speech. If a billionaire can afford to plaster their political message on every TV network, radio station, and social media site, will that give them an outsized role in a democracy that is meant to grant political equality to all? This unequal distribution of political power can easily create a feedback loop that allows these billionaires to use their wealth to capture more wealth and political power.