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People whine about "wealth distribution" day and night, but at the end of the day what alternative is there to combat the (continually increasing) concentration

People whine about "wealth distribution" day and night, but at the end of the day what alternative is there to combat the (continually increasing) concentration of wealth at the top? At some point there will have to be redistribution, in some form, and the sooner society comes around to that the better off we'll all be.

theGnuMe 3y ago
Death and taxes.
satellite2 3y ago
Apparently he improved the conclusion in his second book. In the first one it was bittersweet as he only stuck to historical evidences and what he found was that the only periods of decreasing economic inequalities were wars.
Buttons840 3y ago
Wealth redistribution and making it easier for new businesses to enter markets and compete. These often go hand-in-hand; safety nets allow people to take risks, and new competition prevents markets from colluding and ceasing competition.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  Also letting legacy businesses die. It is more often than not that family firms in particular collapse after one or two generations, if not propped up.
pydry 3y ago
I prefer to call it wealth re-re-distribution. The Walton family wealth, for example, is a capitalised stream of rents predicated on underpaying store staff and abusing market power with suppliers. That's a wealth transfer. That's redistribution. The Duke of Westminster is worth $11 billion because his ancestor was besties with William the Conqueror (not william the earner). These are wealth transfers and redistributions that, ideally, ought to be undone.
- uoaei 3y ago
  Distribution implies few to many, concentration implies many to few. We could call it semantics or we could call it using words correctly.
  - pydry 3y ago
    It might imply few to many to you, but to other people it implies not earned. Implication is often a highly personal thing.
    - uoaei 3y ago
      https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/distribute https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/distribute Roughly, literally, "to give apart", i.e., to break up a resource from fewer to more owners. I'm a big fan of poststructuralism but social spaces generally require that people understand each other. We can't just go redefining words on personal whims unless the people you're communicating with have consented to be a part of that metatextual process. This isn't that kind of space.
      - abeppu 3y ago
        Literally nothing in the definitions you're linking to mentions anything about owners. And the definitions given at points just re-enforce the ambiguity. Definition 5 is "To apportion (more or less evenly)." I think one could reasonably read "more or less evenly" to mean "either more evenly or less evenly" or "relatively evenly". The definitions for "distribution" rather than "distribute" only weaken your narrow view further. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/distribution https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/distribution Definitions include "An apportionment by law (of funds, property)" and critically "The apportionment of income or wealth in a population" with the example usage "The wealth distribution became extremely skewed in the kleptocracy." I.e. becoming extremely skewed didn't mean it was no longer a "distribution" in virtue of being concentrated. And especially in a space where lots of people have a technical background, we're very likely to be thinking of the wealth distribution explicitly as a probability distribution (also listed as a separate definition), _especially_ we've already used the concept of quantiles on that distribution. Englishing flexibly, I think it's totally reasonable for "distribution" to refer to either the function assigning probability mass, _or_ to the act or process of making such a function true. People in this thread are mostly using this word in a reasonable way. You're the one seeking to redefine words by insisting that only an entropy-increasing change is a "distribution".
kelseyfrog 3y ago
The alternative of last resort is always violent revolution[1]. Wealth redistribution is the olive branch. There seems to be an open question among the wealthy and political class of how far inequality can go given the modern police state and effectiveness of technology in accomplishing the goal of maintaining or exacerbating the current political economy. 1. See historical populist grivences against aristocracy that result in social restructuring.
- sidewndr46 3y ago
  Overwhelmingly, violent revolution doesn't actually bring about the goals of the revolution. It just installs a new power structure with variations on all the old problems. Sometimes much worse. So it isn't really a "last resort". It's more of a "well you didn't compromise, so now our choice is to burn the whole system down"
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    Wholeheartedly agree. For the peasants, revolutionary goals are rarely fulfilled. For the previous elite though, they rarely find continuity of power post revolution. The sans-culottes didn't quite accomplish their goals(at least immediately), but Louis XVI among other elites didn't survive. Toussaint Louverture et al didn't accomplish their goals, but the French no longer controlled Haiti. Even Lenin and Trosky didn't accomplish their goals, but the Romanov didn't leave the Ipatiev House alive. Like many conflicts, one side doesn't have to win for one to lose.
    - EarthAmbassador 3y ago
      All true, which brings up the question how much better will the world be with a new elite. Also, maybe today’s generation of revolutionaries will do something different.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    > Overwhelmingly, violent revolution doesn't actually bring about the goals of the revolution. It just installs a new power structure with variations on all the old problems. Sometimes much worse. There are examples either way, and sadly you seem right. I recently read but now can’t find a discussion around this that argued that extreme times promote extreme individuals. A violent revolution is clearly an extreme time and any leader that emerges is likely to have fought hard for their position.
_factor 3y ago
How about we start with the largest wealth holding: property. One individual can own an entire town and charge people to live there indefinitely. This gets passed via inheritance and no longer equates to the initial building value. On a micro scale, the timeframe for owning investment properties should be limited. They provide a service, but over a long period of time the owner is simply a leech.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
For people against the wealth redistribution as a concept (whether it's UBI, better welfare programs, increased minimum wage, etc), what do you think the end-game looks like for continued growth in wealth inequality? The only answer I can see is that your customer base shrinks as fewer people are able to buy. Or you get violent revolution as the poor are sick and tired of being priced out of even being able to afford housing and they decide they have nothing left to lose.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

theGnuMe 3y ago

Death and taxes.

satellite2 3y ago

Apparently he improved the conclusion in his second book. In the first one it was bittersweet as he only stuck to historical evidences and what he found was that the only periods of decreasing economic inequalities were wars.

Buttons840 3y ago

Wealth redistribution and making it easier for new businesses to enter markets and compete. These often go hand-in-hand; safety nets allow people to take risks, and new competition prevents markets from colluding and ceasing competition.

bobthepanda 3y ago
Also letting legacy businesses die. It is more often than not that family firms in particular collapse after one or two generations, if not propped up.

pydry 3y ago

I prefer to call it wealth re-re-distribution. The Walton family wealth, for example, is a capitalised stream of rents predicated on underpaying store staff and abusing market power with suppliers. That's a wealth transfer. That's redistribution. The Duke of Westminster is worth $11 billion because his ancestor was besties with William the Conqueror (not william the earner). These are wealth transfers and redistributions that, ideally, ought to be undone.

uoaei 3y ago
Distribution implies few to many, concentration implies many to few. We could call it semantics or we could call it using words correctly.
- pydry 3y ago
  It might imply few to many to you, but to other people it implies not earned. Implication is often a highly personal thing.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/distribute https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/distribute Roughly, literally, "to give apart", i.e., to break up a resource from fewer to more owners. I'm a big fan of poststructuralism but social spaces generally require that people understand each other. We can't just go redefining words on personal whims unless the people you're communicating with have consented to be a part of that metatextual process. This isn't that kind of space.
    - abeppu 3y ago
      Literally nothing in the definitions you're linking to mentions anything about owners. And the definitions given at points just re-enforce the ambiguity. Definition 5 is "To apportion (more or less evenly)." I think one could reasonably read "more or less evenly" to mean "either more evenly or less evenly" or "relatively evenly". The definitions for "distribution" rather than "distribute" only weaken your narrow view further. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/distribution https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/distribution Definitions include "An apportionment by law (of funds, property)" and critically "The apportionment of income or wealth in a population" with the example usage "The wealth distribution became extremely skewed in the kleptocracy." I.e. becoming extremely skewed didn't mean it was no longer a "distribution" in virtue of being concentrated. And especially in a space where lots of people have a technical background, we're very likely to be thinking of the wealth distribution explicitly as a probability distribution (also listed as a separate definition), _especially_ we've already used the concept of quantiles on that distribution. Englishing flexibly, I think it's totally reasonable for "distribution" to refer to either the function assigning probability mass, _or_ to the act or process of making such a function true. People in this thread are mostly using this word in a reasonable way. You're the one seeking to redefine words by insisting that only an entropy-increasing change is a "distribution".

kelseyfrog 3y ago

The alternative of last resort is always violent revolution[1]. Wealth redistribution is the olive branch. There seems to be an open question among the wealthy and political class of how far inequality can go given the modern police state and effectiveness of technology in accomplishing the goal of maintaining or exacerbating the current political economy. 1. See historical populist grivences against aristocracy that result in social restructuring.

sidewndr46 3y ago
Overwhelmingly, violent revolution doesn't actually bring about the goals of the revolution. It just installs a new power structure with variations on all the old problems. Sometimes much worse. So it isn't really a "last resort". It's more of a "well you didn't compromise, so now our choice is to burn the whole system down"
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Wholeheartedly agree. For the peasants, revolutionary goals are rarely fulfilled. For the previous elite though, they rarely find continuity of power post revolution. The sans-culottes didn't quite accomplish their goals(at least immediately), but Louis XVI among other elites didn't survive. Toussaint Louverture et al didn't accomplish their goals, but the French no longer controlled Haiti. Even Lenin and Trosky didn't accomplish their goals, but the Romanov didn't leave the Ipatiev House alive. Like many conflicts, one side doesn't have to win for one to lose.
  - EarthAmbassador 3y ago
    All true, which brings up the question how much better will the world be with a new elite. Also, maybe today’s generation of revolutionaries will do something different.
- lostlogin 3y ago
  > Overwhelmingly, violent revolution doesn't actually bring about the goals of the revolution. It just installs a new power structure with variations on all the old problems. Sometimes much worse. There are examples either way, and sadly you seem right. I recently read but now can’t find a discussion around this that argued that extreme times promote extreme individuals. A violent revolution is clearly an extreme time and any leader that emerges is likely to have fought hard for their position.

_factor 3y ago

How about we start with the largest wealth holding: property. One individual can own an entire town and charge people to live there indefinitely. This gets passed via inheritance and no longer equates to the initial building value. On a micro scale, the timeframe for owning investment properties should be limited. They provide a service, but over a long period of time the owner is simply a leech.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago

For people against the wealth redistribution as a concept (whether it's UBI, better welfare programs, increased minimum wage, etc), what do you think the end-game looks like for continued growth in wealth inequality? The only answer I can see is that your customer base shrinks as fewer people are able to buy. Or you get violent revolution as the poor are sick and tired of being priced out of even being able to afford housing and they decide they have nothing left to lose.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]