3 ms·

Sure it is. If we have an economy of ten people, it is inherently bad for one person to control 100% of the wealth while 9 people starve to death. That is, in

Sure it is. If we have an economy of ten people, it is inherently bad for one person to control 100% of the wealth while 9 people starve to death. That is, in fact, inherently bad. To put it another way, we know that the marginal utility of wealth decreases as wealth increases. Therefore under the standard principle of greatest good for the greatest number, social good is maximized when wealth is evenly distributed.

sp332 14y ago
The space race was an incredible concentration of wealth and it turned out many technical advances which improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis.
- leot 14y ago
  "Concentration of wealth" has nothing to do with government projects.
  - adventureful 14y ago
    Sure does. It's the concentration of wealth into the hands of a government, which is made up of people. Oh, you're only talking about the concentrating of wealth into private hands? I reject that arbitrary separation. It still matters where wealth is concentrated, even if you choose to disregard such so long as it's controlled by people in government positions. You don't think the $236 billion paid out to federal civilian workers every year is concentrating of wealth? Yeah right. According to the USA Today: "By 2009, there were 383,000 federal civilian workers with salaries of more than $100,000" That's not concentration of wealth? How about: "In 2010, federal worker compensation averaged $126,141, or double the private-sector average of $62,757." Still not concentration of wealth?
    - afterburner 14y ago
      Government is ultimately accountable to the people. Private individuals are not. Talking about the middle class as the concentration of wealth is laughable. It's the super-rich's wealth that is the concentration, because all that power is held by a small group that have interests and priorities different than the vast majority. A large middle class, by definition, is a bulwark against this, because they are a large amount of people with interests more in line with the general populace. They need health care, good roads, various government agencies. The super-rich really, really don't. Also, if you think a $100,000 salary in the US is rich, you're wrong. It's very nice, but it's not "rich".
    - leot 14y ago
      Oh, look how counter-intuitive this reasoning is! It must therefore be deeply insightful. Except it requires throwing out most normal definitions of "concentration" and "wealth", and requires the belief that government is the "other" rather than government (in a democracy) being some reasonable approximation of public will (I'm not suggesting that government can't, or hasn't frequently within history become a horrible other -- but one has to adopt a rather extreme anti-government position to subsequently see the current U.S. government as the enemy, and equate accountable government power with unaccountable private power). Which federal employee can spend 0.5% of their wealth and completely change the outcome of an election to the Senate? Or 0.1% of their wealth and get subtle legislation written at a 10x ROI? Or spend 0.05 % of their wealth and fund three professorships at a university whose primary role is to intellectually buttress their own self-serving ideology?
      - sp332 14y ago
        Trillions of dollars controlled by a few hundred men and women in the lower house of the Congress. And even fewer on the subcommittees that controls each of Pentagon spending, welfare benefits, and salary budgets.
        leot 14y ago
        ... and they can be removed from these positions every two or six years. And they have to glad-hand and defend their positions and votes regularly. And even if you contend that they might be bribed or engage in dubious deals, their compensation for doing so is orders of magnitude less than the kinds of lobbying returns found by industries that generate billions of revenue each year. Seriously, billionaires and those who have ownership and direct control over billion-dollar-enterprises are accountable to no one. History has shown that wealthy interests have repeatedly exploited their advantages politically and financially to the detriment of everyone else (yes, governments fail too, but rarely democratic ones). You are telling me that I should be more concerned about the power society has decided to give to their elected representatives, and relatively less concerned about the influence of an increasingly wealthy elite, who, with every additional dollar at their disposal, render less powerful everyone else?
sanswork 14y ago
In this case however it would be more like 10 people having $1, then one of them building something and all of them agreeing its worth $100. The other 10 haven't lost anything in the one becoming much wealthier.
philwelch 14y ago
The marginal utility of consuming wealth for one's personal use diminishes, but empirically that is not what the wealthiest people do. They give their wealth away in intelligently measured ways. It's quite possible that giving 10 million random middle-class Americans more of Bill Gates' money would do less good than Bill Gates has done with it trying to solve the whole malaria problem.
- afterburner 14y ago
  So all wealthy people are Bill Gates now? Even in the US that's laughable. Start to venture into the rest of the world, and it's a pretty ridiculous notion.

sp332 14y ago

The space race was an incredible concentration of wealth and it turned out many technical advances which improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis.

leot 14y ago
"Concentration of wealth" has nothing to do with government projects.
- adventureful 14y ago
  Sure does. It's the concentration of wealth into the hands of a government, which is made up of people. Oh, you're only talking about the concentrating of wealth into private hands? I reject that arbitrary separation. It still matters where wealth is concentrated, even if you choose to disregard such so long as it's controlled by people in government positions. You don't think the $236 billion paid out to federal civilian workers every year is concentrating of wealth? Yeah right. According to the USA Today: "By 2009, there were 383,000 federal civilian workers with salaries of more than $100,000" That's not concentration of wealth? How about: "In 2010, federal worker compensation averaged $126,141, or double the private-sector average of $62,757." Still not concentration of wealth?
  - afterburner 14y ago
    Government is ultimately accountable to the people. Private individuals are not. Talking about the middle class as the concentration of wealth is laughable. It's the super-rich's wealth that is the concentration, because all that power is held by a small group that have interests and priorities different than the vast majority. A large middle class, by definition, is a bulwark against this, because they are a large amount of people with interests more in line with the general populace. They need health care, good roads, various government agencies. The super-rich really, really don't. Also, if you think a $100,000 salary in the US is rich, you're wrong. It's very nice, but it's not "rich".
  - leot 14y ago
    Oh, look how counter-intuitive this reasoning is! It must therefore be deeply insightful. Except it requires throwing out most normal definitions of "concentration" and "wealth", and requires the belief that government is the "other" rather than government (in a democracy) being some reasonable approximation of public will (I'm not suggesting that government can't, or hasn't frequently within history become a horrible other -- but one has to adopt a rather extreme anti-government position to subsequently see the current U.S. government as the enemy, and equate accountable government power with unaccountable private power). Which federal employee can spend 0.5% of their wealth and completely change the outcome of an election to the Senate? Or 0.1% of their wealth and get subtle legislation written at a 10x ROI? Or spend 0.05 % of their wealth and fund three professorships at a university whose primary role is to intellectually buttress their own self-serving ideology?
    - sp332 14y ago
      Trillions of dollars controlled by a few hundred men and women in the lower house of the Congress. And even fewer on the subcommittees that controls each of Pentagon spending, welfare benefits, and salary budgets.
      - leot 14y ago
        ... and they can be removed from these positions every two or six years. And they have to glad-hand and defend their positions and votes regularly. And even if you contend that they might be bribed or engage in dubious deals, their compensation for doing so is orders of magnitude less than the kinds of lobbying returns found by industries that generate billions of revenue each year. Seriously, billionaires and those who have ownership and direct control over billion-dollar-enterprises are accountable to no one. History has shown that wealthy interests have repeatedly exploited their advantages politically and financially to the detriment of everyone else (yes, governments fail too, but rarely democratic ones). You are telling me that I should be more concerned about the power society has decided to give to their elected representatives, and relatively less concerned about the influence of an increasingly wealthy elite, who, with every additional dollar at their disposal, render less powerful everyone else?

sanswork 14y ago

In this case however it would be more like 10 people having $1, then one of them building something and all of them agreeing its worth $100. The other 10 haven't lost anything in the one becoming much wealthier.

philwelch 14y ago

The marginal utility of consuming wealth for one's personal use diminishes, but empirically that is not what the wealthiest people do. They give their wealth away in intelligently measured ways. It's quite possible that giving 10 million random middle-class Americans more of Bill Gates' money would do less good than Bill Gates has done with it trying to solve the whole malaria problem.

afterburner 14y ago
So all wealthy people are Bill Gates now? Even in the US that's laughable. Start to venture into the rest of the world, and it's a pretty ridiculous notion.