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For those who are dirt poor inequality might look like a problem, but as TFA shows the trend line is -and long has been- that everyone gets wealthy enough to ha

For those who are dirt poor inequality might look like a problem, but as TFA shows the trend line is -and long has been- that everyone gets wealthy enough to have a decent life. If no one is dirt poor, does it really matter if some are much wealthier than others? For example, Elon Musk has many many many times more wealth than I, and I don't care. Ditto Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and so on and on. I don't care about inequality -- I care about poverty and ending it. Formulations like "the problem is no longer poverty but inequality" are a lot like the post-USSR formulations like "now that we have solved the production problem we need to solve the distribution problem". It's Marxism moving the goal posts as economic freedom delivers all the things that Marxists say they want. To argue that one should be given power to solve the problems that are already being solved one has to keep making yet other problems into bigger problems than they really are.

1propionyl 2y ago
> If no one is dirt poor, does it really matter if some are much wealthier than others? Yes, because the wealth distribution has a self-reinforcing inertia, especially over generations. Absent mechanisms for redistribution of personal wealth (e.g. confiscatory inheritance/estate tax over a certain amount) it will only concentrate into a kleptocracy. Too much inequality is bad, even if the lowest 5% lives very well, because it is not a sustainable equilibrium. On the other hand, too little inequality is also not sustainable or desirable.
- cryptonector 2y ago
  I agree that accumulation of power is bad, and since wealth eventually becomes power, accumulation of wealth beyond some point can be bad. However, complaints about inequality invariably seem to go beyond complaints about the lofty 0.001%.
- pglevy 2y ago
  But this hasn't happened. See the book Missing Billionaires by White and Hagani. Subsequent generations are much better at squandering wealth than hoarding it. So that issue sort of takes care of itself.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > the wealth distribution has a self-reinforcing inertia 85% of American millionaires are self-made.
gwbas1c 2y ago
> For example, Elon Musk has many many many times more wealth than I, and I don't care. Ditto Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and so on and on. I don't care about inequality -- I care about poverty and ending it. What I wonder is, how much poverty (in developed countries) results from the ultra-wealthy accumulating more wealth? At what point does extreme wealth come at the expense of the poor?
- cryptonector 2y ago
  Show me how Elon Musk is causing poverty.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Elon Musk created his wealth, he did not confiscate it.
- pdonis 2y ago
  > the ultra-wealthy accumulating more wealth? People like Elon Musk aren't "accumulating" wealth. They're creating it. > At what point does extreme wealth come at the expense of the poor? Wealth that is created doesn't come at the expense of anyone. It is true that many rich people (for example much of the financial industry) don't get rich by creating wealth but by siphoning it from other people's pockets into their own. But the other people in such cases are the middle class, not the poor.
  - gwbas1c 2y ago
    > People like Elon Musk aren't "accumulating" wealth. They're creating it. https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-autopilot-workers-treatment https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-autopilot-workers-treatm... Tesla annotators make $20 / hour. That's hardly a well-paying job. I think we can easily make a case that any Tesla employee or contractor who earns at the poverty level supports an argument that extreme wealth comes at the expense of the poor.
    - pdonis 2y ago
      > Tesla annotators make $20 / hour. That $20/hour is coming from wealth that Tesla is creating. It's not taken from someone else. Indeed, it's helping those people since without Tesla those jobs would not exist and they might have to work at other jobs that paid even less. > at the poverty level $20/hour times 2000 hours is $40K per year. The US Federal poverty level even for a household of 4 people is $31K per year [1], and is significantly lower for smaller households (for a household of 1 person it's $15K per year). So no, Tesla annotators are not earning "at the poverty level". [1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/povert...
sweeter 2y ago
The US has one of the highest child poverty rates of any "first world" nation, minimum wage is lower than it has ever been, we pay more for healthcare than any of these same nations and have worse healthcare outcomes than Cuba, housing is an impossible dream for most... Wealth inequality is just one indicator of a larger problem, not the problem in it's entirety, and poverty is still one of the biggest problems of the modern era. Saying that we are slightly better than the 1800s isn't the win people seem to think it is.
- cryptonector 2y ago
  > Saying that we are slightly better than the 1800s isn't the win people seem to think it is. We're not "slightly" better than in the 1800s. We are way way way better than in the 1800s. World-wide.
  - sweeter 2y ago
    Sure, that's still not the win you think it is when the material conditions of the average person is pretty awful all around. I laid out a small percent of that in my original comment. and that's not even considering the poverty "first world" countries rely upon from the heavy exploitation of the "3rd world" from slavery conditions, to coups and death squads funded by US corporations, to stealing their resources.
    - cryptonector 2y ago
      > that's still not the win you think it is when the material conditions of the average person is pretty awful all around. What? This is nonsense. > and that's not even considering [...] This is changing the subject, which one should probably take as conceding the previous point. Even granting all of this I'm pretty sure that life today almost everywhere on this planet is much less brutish for humans than it was 200 years ago, let alone 400, 2,000, 10,000, or 100,000 years ago.
    - lkbm 2y ago
      The thing is, the US has clearly gotten way better in the past 50+ years, while the past 30 years is maybe debatable. But if we're looking at past 30 years globally, there's no sane way to argue it hasn't gotten way. It's been an absolutely amazing past few decades in terms of reducing global poverty. We've seen something like a billion people lifted out of poverty—child mortality, clean drinking water, education, basic nutrition. We've a long ways to go, but if you're argument rests on ignoring over a billion people having their lives transformed in this way, I'm not sure you're on the side of the poor.
vlunkr 2y ago
The descendants of Mark Zuckerberg will continue to build dynastic wealth through no skill of their own without doing any real work. Other people in the same country are single parents working multiple jobs just to keep their family sheltered and fed. You don't think that's a situation that we can improve?

1propionyl 2y ago

> If no one is dirt poor, does it really matter if some are much wealthier than others? Yes, because the wealth distribution has a self-reinforcing inertia, especially over generations. Absent mechanisms for redistribution of personal wealth (e.g. confiscatory inheritance/estate tax over a certain amount) it will only concentrate into a kleptocracy. Too much inequality is bad, even if the lowest 5% lives very well, because it is not a sustainable equilibrium. On the other hand, too little inequality is also not sustainable or desirable.

cryptonector 2y ago
I agree that accumulation of power is bad, and since wealth eventually becomes power, accumulation of wealth beyond some point can be bad. However, complaints about inequality invariably seem to go beyond complaints about the lofty 0.001%.
pglevy 2y ago
But this hasn't happened. See the book Missing Billionaires by White and Hagani. Subsequent generations are much better at squandering wealth than hoarding it. So that issue sort of takes care of itself.
WalterBright 2y ago
> the wealth distribution has a self-reinforcing inertia 85% of American millionaires are self-made.

gwbas1c 2y ago

> For example, Elon Musk has many many many times more wealth than I, and I don't care. Ditto Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and so on and on. I don't care about inequality -- I care about poverty and ending it. What I wonder is, how much poverty (in developed countries) results from the ultra-wealthy accumulating more wealth? At what point does extreme wealth come at the expense of the poor?

cryptonector 2y ago
Show me how Elon Musk is causing poverty.
WalterBright 2y ago
Elon Musk created his wealth, he did not confiscate it.
pdonis 2y ago
> the ultra-wealthy accumulating more wealth? People like Elon Musk aren't "accumulating" wealth. They're creating it. > At what point does extreme wealth come at the expense of the poor? Wealth that is created doesn't come at the expense of anyone. It is true that many rich people (for example much of the financial industry) don't get rich by creating wealth but by siphoning it from other people's pockets into their own. But the other people in such cases are the middle class, not the poor.
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  > People like Elon Musk aren't "accumulating" wealth. They're creating it. https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-autopilot-workers-treatment https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-autopilot-workers-treatm... Tesla annotators make $20 / hour. That's hardly a well-paying job. I think we can easily make a case that any Tesla employee or contractor who earns at the poverty level supports an argument that extreme wealth comes at the expense of the poor.
  - pdonis 2y ago
    > Tesla annotators make $20 / hour. That $20/hour is coming from wealth that Tesla is creating. It's not taken from someone else. Indeed, it's helping those people since without Tesla those jobs would not exist and they might have to work at other jobs that paid even less. > at the poverty level $20/hour times 2000 hours is $40K per year. The US Federal poverty level even for a household of 4 people is $31K per year [1], and is significantly lower for smaller households (for a household of 1 person it's $15K per year). So no, Tesla annotators are not earning "at the poverty level". [1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/povert...

sweeter 2y ago

The US has one of the highest child poverty rates of any "first world" nation, minimum wage is lower than it has ever been, we pay more for healthcare than any of these same nations and have worse healthcare outcomes than Cuba, housing is an impossible dream for most... Wealth inequality is just one indicator of a larger problem, not the problem in it's entirety, and poverty is still one of the biggest problems of the modern era. Saying that we are slightly better than the 1800s isn't the win people seem to think it is.

cryptonector 2y ago
> Saying that we are slightly better than the 1800s isn't the win people seem to think it is. We're not "slightly" better than in the 1800s. We are way way way better than in the 1800s. World-wide.
- sweeter 2y ago
  Sure, that's still not the win you think it is when the material conditions of the average person is pretty awful all around. I laid out a small percent of that in my original comment. and that's not even considering the poverty "first world" countries rely upon from the heavy exploitation of the "3rd world" from slavery conditions, to coups and death squads funded by US corporations, to stealing their resources.
  - cryptonector 2y ago
    > that's still not the win you think it is when the material conditions of the average person is pretty awful all around. What? This is nonsense. > and that's not even considering [...] This is changing the subject, which one should probably take as conceding the previous point. Even granting all of this I'm pretty sure that life today almost everywhere on this planet is much less brutish for humans than it was 200 years ago, let alone 400, 2,000, 10,000, or 100,000 years ago.
  - lkbm 2y ago
    The thing is, the US has clearly gotten way better in the past 50+ years, while the past 30 years is maybe debatable. But if we're looking at past 30 years globally, there's no sane way to argue it hasn't gotten way. It's been an absolutely amazing past few decades in terms of reducing global poverty. We've seen something like a billion people lifted out of poverty—child mortality, clean drinking water, education, basic nutrition. We've a long ways to go, but if you're argument rests on ignoring over a billion people having their lives transformed in this way, I'm not sure you're on the side of the poor.

vlunkr 2y ago

The descendants of Mark Zuckerberg will continue to build dynastic wealth through no skill of their own without doing any real work. Other people in the same country are single parents working multiple jobs just to keep their family sheltered and fed. You don't think that's a situation that we can improve?