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> military protection and a stable currency are some of the most complex exports And how come that always seems seem to come wrapped in ways that inexorably se

> military protection and a stable currency are some of the most complex exports And how come that always seems seem to come wrapped in ways that inexorably seems to concentrate wealth, so that the benefits of those exports seem to be less evenly distributed?

lazide 2y ago
People like to get rich, so any system they create tends to get the people best at creating systems richer. That has been true for every economic system ever - some are just more transparent and fair about it. Would you rather it be people taking bribes, a king, a hereditary merchant class, oligarchs, or people setting up companies? It has been as true about the USSR and Cuba as it has been about Venice, Canada, the USA, etc.
mindslight 2y ago
Because they're centralized sources of power, and power corrupts. In my younger days I used to argue for a non-inflationary currency, and how that would have gone a long way towards not concentrating the wealth from offshorting and technological progress (instead enough money was printed to make price inflation keep occurring in spite of the fundamentals, and most of that new money was just given to banks to pump up the asset bubbles) These days I've kind of just accepted the monetary inflation (cf Gresham's law), like other centralizing but perhaps inevitable dynamics like the economies of scale for electronics manufacturing.
runako 2y ago
This was not true in the immediate postwar period. The turning point was roughly the 1980s. Wealth concentration has been a deliberate US domestic policy for decades. This is, to a large degree, separate from the stability of our currency or military protection. It's the stated intent and logical result of relaxing taxes on the rich while enacting policies designed to hurt the working classes (e.g. reducing union power, not indexing minimum wage to inflation, refusal to address healthcare & housing costs, increasing fees at public universities, cutting existing safety net programs, etc.). Concentration of wealth is a choice. America is a very rich country and has not always chosen to distribute our wealth this way. Other countries make different choices. We are also allowed to make different choices.
- deleted 2y ago
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- WalterBright 2y ago
  > Wealth concentration has been a deliberate US domestic policy for decades. Wealth is not concentrated in a market society. It is created. Some people creating more wealth than others is not "concentrating" wealth in their hands. Another way to put it is it is not a fixed pie, where if one gets more another necessarily gets less. If I buy some art supplies for $20, and paint a masterpiece I sell for $100,000, wealth was not "concentrated" in me.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    Two societies. In each one, someone buys $20 of art supplies, paints a masterpiece and it sells for $100,000. In one society, a marginal tax rate system taxes the artist with an upper rate of 92%, and they end up retaining about $50,000 of the income, with the rest flowing back into the control of the society (via its government). In the other society, a margin tax rate system taxes the artist with an upper rate of 28%, and they end up retaining about $70,000 of the income. In this society, the artist retains control over twice as much of the income as flows back into the control of society. "Wealth concentration" is not a policy related to markets, production, and trade. It's a policy related to taxation.
    - nickpp 2y ago
      In the first society, the probability of the artist completing and selling that masterpiece is correspondingly lower, since money is a strong motivator and even artists have bills to pay. Thus the first society tends to create less value overall, since value creators are demotivated by punishing taxation. Because of that, prospective buyers for that piece of art will be overall poorer so they will bid less for it, pushing the artist's reward even lower. The first society ends up poorer than the second, from its own policy. And that’s how you get inequality between nations, which you can’t “redistribute” away. Which inequality sooner or later leads to wars, as we can clearly see these days.

lazide 2y ago

People like to get rich, so any system they create tends to get the people best at creating systems richer. That has been true for every economic system ever - some are just more transparent and fair about it. Would you rather it be people taking bribes, a king, a hereditary merchant class, oligarchs, or people setting up companies? It has been as true about the USSR and Cuba as it has been about Venice, Canada, the USA, etc.

mindslight 2y ago

Because they're centralized sources of power, and power corrupts. In my younger days I used to argue for a non-inflationary currency, and how that would have gone a long way towards not concentrating the wealth from offshorting and technological progress (instead enough money was printed to make price inflation keep occurring in spite of the fundamentals, and most of that new money was just given to banks to pump up the asset bubbles) These days I've kind of just accepted the monetary inflation (cf Gresham's law), like other centralizing but perhaps inevitable dynamics like the economies of scale for electronics manufacturing.

runako 2y ago

This was not true in the immediate postwar period. The turning point was roughly the 1980s. Wealth concentration has been a deliberate US domestic policy for decades. This is, to a large degree, separate from the stability of our currency or military protection. It's the stated intent and logical result of relaxing taxes on the rich while enacting policies designed to hurt the working classes (e.g. reducing union power, not indexing minimum wage to inflation, refusal to address healthcare & housing costs, increasing fees at public universities, cutting existing safety net programs, etc.). Concentration of wealth is a choice. America is a very rich country and has not always chosen to distribute our wealth this way. Other countries make different choices. We are also allowed to make different choices.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 2y ago
> Wealth concentration has been a deliberate US domestic policy for decades. Wealth is not concentrated in a market society. It is created. Some people creating more wealth than others is not "concentrating" wealth in their hands. Another way to put it is it is not a fixed pie, where if one gets more another necessarily gets less. If I buy some art supplies for $20, and paint a masterpiece I sell for $100,000, wealth was not "concentrated" in me.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  Two societies. In each one, someone buys $20 of art supplies, paints a masterpiece and it sells for $100,000. In one society, a marginal tax rate system taxes the artist with an upper rate of 92%, and they end up retaining about $50,000 of the income, with the rest flowing back into the control of the society (via its government). In the other society, a margin tax rate system taxes the artist with an upper rate of 28%, and they end up retaining about $70,000 of the income. In this society, the artist retains control over twice as much of the income as flows back into the control of society. "Wealth concentration" is not a policy related to markets, production, and trade. It's a policy related to taxation.
  - nickpp 2y ago
    In the first society, the probability of the artist completing and selling that masterpiece is correspondingly lower, since money is a strong motivator and even artists have bills to pay. Thus the first society tends to create less value overall, since value creators are demotivated by punishing taxation. Because of that, prospective buyers for that piece of art will be overall poorer so they will bid less for it, pushing the artist's reward even lower. The first society ends up poorer than the second, from its own policy. And that’s how you get inequality between nations, which you can’t “redistribute” away. Which inequality sooner or later leads to wars, as we can clearly see these days.