5 ms·

And a lot of people would be very wrong. There’s a floor to survivability, below which you can’t keep yourself alive, but there is no ceiling. If everyone is

And a lot of people would be very wrong. There’s a floor to survivability, below which you can’t keep yourself alive, but there is no ceiling. If everyone is above the floor, there’s no reason for concern about those looking for the ceiling. In the future we’ll pull people up to the floor, but that doesn’t require attaching a ceiling. The will never be a successful society that substantially punishes achievement above a certain point.

lwhi 3y ago
You're wrong. Fundamentally it requires redistribution and a complete change of mindset.
- WendyTheWillow 3y ago
  A shallow dismissal is less valuable than an excellent critical comment. Please share with me (and others) what's wrong with my thinking. I'm trying to be transparent about my reasoning in child comments, so hopefully, you will have enough to work with.
  - yawpitch 3y ago
    > a shallow dismissal is less valuable than an excellent critical comment An excellent critical comment is wasted on a shallow argument… your thinking assumes that reaching beyond the metaphorical ceiling doesn’t require standing atop those still struggling to reach the metaphorical floor… it absolutely and necessarily does. Worse, you seem to think that reaching for means that vastly outstrip your need is somehow noble. It isn’t… it’s pathetic.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      If Jimmy turns a piece of wood and some graphite into a pencil, he has created value. That didn't require exploiting the lumberjack or the miner. Jimmy did not steal value from either. He created value by inventing a new way for their raw materials to be useful to other people. Jimmy didn't need to "stand atop" anyone to do this. What's "pathetic" are the ad hominems and insults the people in this thread have to resort to when they can't argue like adults. You're not right because you're angry, and you weaken your advocacy by trying to use your frustration as leverage over people giving reasoned arguments.
      - bitcharmer 3y ago
        > That didn't require exploiting the lumberjack or the miner. Jimmy did not steal value from either. He created value by inventing a new way for their raw materials to be useful to other people. Jimmy didn't need to "stand atop" anyone to do this. This is absolutely not where most of billionaires' wealth comes from. You are being naive if you think this is how they make money.
      - benwad 3y ago
        It's true that Jimmy created value, but so did the people who chopped the trees and mined the graphite (or however you get graphite). But it's unlikely that Jimmy got the wood from the person who chopped the tree - they got it from someone who paid the lumberjack a wage and took the created value for themselves. If Jimmy starts employing people to make these pencils, he is now taking the value of their labour for himself, purely because he had the money to buy these raw materials in the first place. That's ignoring the environmental impact of getting these raw materials. Value creation doesn't happen in a vacuum, and most people involved in the creation of that value don't get a share in the profits from creating said value.
      - yawpitch 3y ago
        If Jimmy only ever prototyped the pencil by collecting and working the wood and graphite himself then, sure, he didn’t exploit anyone… as soon as he went into business employing others to manufacture those pencils he started to. The moment he concentrated the means of pencil production in his own hands he started to exploit both his raw suppliers — that graphite miner’s health woes are the fruit of Jimmy’s demand — and his employees. In the end it was the people actually turning the raw materials into pencils that made the value; the invention added nothing until someone’s labour was exploited.
        WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        Jimmy didn't do any of those things. The claim was that Jimmy can't produce value, but he did. And even so, the work the people making the pencils for Jimmy would not exist without Jimmy. Jimmy, in yet another way, provides value. Jimmy figured out to put the wood with the graphite, not them. Who actually does it is irrelevant; or are you suggesting that if Jimmy kept his operation entirely mechanical, that'd be better?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
simbolit 3y ago
>The[re] will never be a successful society.... As I do hold degrees in the field studying this very question, may I kindly ask for your sources? Or, not being greedy here, reasons...?
- WendyTheWillow 3y ago
  I would bet entire dollars you'll hate this source, but here's one: "The Magnificent Progress Achieved By Capitalism: Is the Evidence Incontrovertible?" [0] Here's a less insane one: "Comparative Economic Systems: Capitalism and Socialism in the 21st Century" [1] Another one: "Economic Systems and Economic Growth" [2] It's not really controversial in your field to claim that rewarding effort is a superior model to spreading out value evenly. The question is more of "to what extent" or even "what is achievement." [0] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41560252 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41560252 [1] https://www.bu.edu/eci/files/2021/08/Comparative-Economic-Systems.pdf https://www.bu.edu/eci/files/2021/08/Comparative-Economic-Sy... [2] https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/87244/1/MPRA_paper_87244.pdf https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/87244/1/MPRA_paper_87244.pdf
  - simbolit 3y ago
    What's un-controversial is claims like "There will never be..." are bullshit.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      Quality contribution; thanks for commenting.
      - simbolit 3y ago
        Same vibe here.
matthewmacleod 3y ago
I'm not really sure that "it's okay if the billionares have space palaces so long as the poor aren't literally dying" is the optimal economic philosophy.
klabb3 3y ago
Depends how much the people at the top (money-wise) are playing zero-sum games. If they are, to a large extent, engaging in asset acquisitions and passive growth of eg real estate, or monopolistic protectionism, then there’s plenty of room for others to engage in activities with positive externalities instead. There’s no question a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to pursue their niche passions and drives, based on a bad birth lottery ticket. There’s a lot of wasted potential in countries that reduce aperture of the early success funnels.
- lwhi 3y ago
  The issue is, a lot of the people at the top engage in business practices that actively disenfranchise people at the bottom. Their wealth actually comes from those people who have so little. Stop peddling this absolute fabrication that there's unlimited wealth and the super rich should be left get richer still.
  - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    You're going to need to do a lot of work to demonstrate that wealth is zero-sum, as it doesn't comport with any well-respected economic model I'm aware of. But even granting that, a government that creates a "survival floor" would protect against wealth-seeking in a world where it was zero-sum. The floor only needs to be high enough to allow people not to be held to the floor should they desire to participate in the accumulation of wealth and its ensuing benefits. The whole point is to incentivize value creation. Edit: You really won't like what this paper [0] has to say: > Globally, zero-sum thinking is associated with skepticism about the importance of hard work for success, lower income, less educational attainment, less financial security, and lower life satisfaction. [0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/zero_sum_draft23.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/...
    - lwhi 3y ago
      I'm sorry. I consider you either very sheltered from poverty, delusional or both.
yawpitch 3y ago
> In the future we’ll pull people up to the floor, but that doesn’t require attaching a ceiling. It absolutely does, right up until the exact future moment when EVERYONE is pulled up above (well above) the (bottom) floor. In other words no one should be at liberty to seek the ceiling until EVERYONE is out of the basement. > The will never be a successful society that substantially punishes achievement above a certain point. There has never been a successful society that hasn’t.
- WendyTheWillow 3y ago
  Again, you rely on the utterly false notion of a "zero-sum" economy, when in fact it may only be possible to pull everyone out of poverty if we allow people to be proportionately rewarded for their contributions.
  - yawpitch 3y ago
    That _may_ be true (though the fact that we _have long_ allowed them such rewards and they certainly have not pulled everyone out of poverty seems to auger against that hypothesis) until you prove that conclusively, however, we should continue to proportionally tax them on their earnings.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      "Prove conclusively" is not how any of this works.
- beacon294 3y ago
  > In other words no one should be at liberty to seek the ceiling until EVERYONE is out of the basement. Can you explain your reasoning?
  - mlrtime 3y ago
    The reasoning is based on feelings, so changes with the wind and subjective.
badpun 3y ago
The ceiling is there because without it, a minority of people eventually acquire enough wealth and political power than comes from it, that it dominates entire society, to its detriment. Just look at Mexico or Ukraine as examples of what happens when there's no reasonable ceiling.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- WendyTheWillow 3y ago
  What ceiling are you talking about? AFAICT there is no earnings or wealth ceiling in the Western world, and there certainly isn't one in the United States.

lwhi 3y ago

You're wrong. Fundamentally it requires redistribution and a complete change of mindset.

WendyTheWillow 3y ago
A shallow dismissal is less valuable than an excellent critical comment. Please share with me (and others) what's wrong with my thinking. I'm trying to be transparent about my reasoning in child comments, so hopefully, you will have enough to work with.
- yawpitch 3y ago
  > a shallow dismissal is less valuable than an excellent critical comment An excellent critical comment is wasted on a shallow argument… your thinking assumes that reaching beyond the metaphorical ceiling doesn’t require standing atop those still struggling to reach the metaphorical floor… it absolutely and necessarily does. Worse, you seem to think that reaching for means that vastly outstrip your need is somehow noble. It isn’t… it’s pathetic.
  - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    If Jimmy turns a piece of wood and some graphite into a pencil, he has created value. That didn't require exploiting the lumberjack or the miner. Jimmy did not steal value from either. He created value by inventing a new way for their raw materials to be useful to other people. Jimmy didn't need to "stand atop" anyone to do this. What's "pathetic" are the ad hominems and insults the people in this thread have to resort to when they can't argue like adults. You're not right because you're angry, and you weaken your advocacy by trying to use your frustration as leverage over people giving reasoned arguments.
    - bitcharmer 3y ago
      > That didn't require exploiting the lumberjack or the miner. Jimmy did not steal value from either. He created value by inventing a new way for their raw materials to be useful to other people. Jimmy didn't need to "stand atop" anyone to do this. This is absolutely not where most of billionaires' wealth comes from. You are being naive if you think this is how they make money.
    - benwad 3y ago
      It's true that Jimmy created value, but so did the people who chopped the trees and mined the graphite (or however you get graphite). But it's unlikely that Jimmy got the wood from the person who chopped the tree - they got it from someone who paid the lumberjack a wage and took the created value for themselves. If Jimmy starts employing people to make these pencils, he is now taking the value of their labour for himself, purely because he had the money to buy these raw materials in the first place. That's ignoring the environmental impact of getting these raw materials. Value creation doesn't happen in a vacuum, and most people involved in the creation of that value don't get a share in the profits from creating said value.
    - yawpitch 3y ago
      If Jimmy only ever prototyped the pencil by collecting and working the wood and graphite himself then, sure, he didn’t exploit anyone… as soon as he went into business employing others to manufacture those pencils he started to. The moment he concentrated the means of pencil production in his own hands he started to exploit both his raw suppliers — that graphite miner’s health woes are the fruit of Jimmy’s demand — and his employees. In the end it was the people actually turning the raw materials into pencils that made the value; the invention added nothing until someone’s labour was exploited.
      - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        Jimmy didn't do any of those things. The claim was that Jimmy can't produce value, but he did. And even so, the work the people making the pencils for Jimmy would not exist without Jimmy. Jimmy, in yet another way, provides value. Jimmy figured out to put the wood with the graphite, not them. Who actually does it is irrelevant; or are you suggesting that if Jimmy kept his operation entirely mechanical, that'd be better?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

simbolit 3y ago

>The[re] will never be a successful society.... As I do hold degrees in the field studying this very question, may I kindly ask for your sources? Or, not being greedy here, reasons...?

WendyTheWillow 3y ago
I would bet entire dollars you'll hate this source, but here's one: "The Magnificent Progress Achieved By Capitalism: Is the Evidence Incontrovertible?" [0] Here's a less insane one: "Comparative Economic Systems: Capitalism and Socialism in the 21st Century" [1] Another one: "Economic Systems and Economic Growth" [2] It's not really controversial in your field to claim that rewarding effort is a superior model to spreading out value evenly. The question is more of "to what extent" or even "what is achievement." [0] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41560252 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41560252 [1] https://www.bu.edu/eci/files/2021/08/Comparative-Economic-Systems.pdf https://www.bu.edu/eci/files/2021/08/Comparative-Economic-Sy... [2] https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/87244/1/MPRA_paper_87244.pdf https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/87244/1/MPRA_paper_87244.pdf
- simbolit 3y ago
  What's un-controversial is claims like "There will never be..." are bullshit.
  - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    Quality contribution; thanks for commenting.
    - simbolit 3y ago
      Same vibe here.

matthewmacleod 3y ago

I'm not really sure that "it's okay if the billionares have space palaces so long as the poor aren't literally dying" is the optimal economic philosophy.

klabb3 3y ago

Depends how much the people at the top (money-wise) are playing zero-sum games. If they are, to a large extent, engaging in asset acquisitions and passive growth of eg real estate, or monopolistic protectionism, then there’s plenty of room for others to engage in activities with positive externalities instead. There’s no question a lot of people don’t get the opportunity to pursue their niche passions and drives, based on a bad birth lottery ticket. There’s a lot of wasted potential in countries that reduce aperture of the early success funnels.

lwhi 3y ago
The issue is, a lot of the people at the top engage in business practices that actively disenfranchise people at the bottom. Their wealth actually comes from those people who have so little. Stop peddling this absolute fabrication that there's unlimited wealth and the super rich should be left get richer still.
- WendyTheWillow 3y ago
  You're going to need to do a lot of work to demonstrate that wealth is zero-sum, as it doesn't comport with any well-respected economic model I'm aware of. But even granting that, a government that creates a "survival floor" would protect against wealth-seeking in a world where it was zero-sum. The floor only needs to be high enough to allow people not to be held to the floor should they desire to participate in the accumulation of wealth and its ensuing benefits. The whole point is to incentivize value creation. Edit: You really won't like what this paper [0] has to say: > Globally, zero-sum thinking is associated with skepticism about the importance of hard work for success, lower income, less educational attainment, less financial security, and lower life satisfaction. [0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/zero_sum_draft23.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/...
  - lwhi 3y ago
    I'm sorry. I consider you either very sheltered from poverty, delusional or both.

yawpitch 3y ago

> In the future we’ll pull people up to the floor, but that doesn’t require attaching a ceiling. It absolutely does, right up until the exact future moment when EVERYONE is pulled up above (well above) the (bottom) floor. In other words no one should be at liberty to seek the ceiling until EVERYONE is out of the basement. > The will never be a successful society that substantially punishes achievement above a certain point. There has never been a successful society that hasn’t.

WendyTheWillow 3y ago
Again, you rely on the utterly false notion of a "zero-sum" economy, when in fact it may only be possible to pull everyone out of poverty if we allow people to be proportionately rewarded for their contributions.
- yawpitch 3y ago
  That _may_ be true (though the fact that we _have long_ allowed them such rewards and they certainly have not pulled everyone out of poverty seems to auger against that hypothesis) until you prove that conclusively, however, we should continue to proportionally tax them on their earnings.
  - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    "Prove conclusively" is not how any of this works.
beacon294 3y ago
> In other words no one should be at liberty to seek the ceiling until EVERYONE is out of the basement. Can you explain your reasoning?
- mlrtime 3y ago
  The reasoning is based on feelings, so changes with the wind and subjective.

badpun 3y ago

The ceiling is there because without it, a minority of people eventually acquire enough wealth and political power than comes from it, that it dominates entire society, to its detriment. Just look at Mexico or Ukraine as examples of what happens when there's no reasonable ceiling.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
WendyTheWillow 3y ago
What ceiling are you talking about? AFAICT there is no earnings or wealth ceiling in the Western world, and there certainly isn't one in the United States.