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It is entirely arbitrary. Society heavily favours capital above labour. That’s why we have very rich inheritors never working and people toiling until they are

It is entirely arbitrary. Society heavily favours capital above labour. That’s why we have very rich inheritors never working and people toiling until they are 70. It’s entirely a choice. This issue has solutions we collectively decide not to put in place.

godelski 1y ago
Funny that we have a ton of people asking what people would do in a post scarce society. Stating that man needs work. Yet, it also seems to be said most by the people who have been free from the need to labor for generations. They still do, they still desire more, yet their lives are certainly post scarce. Hell, the whole goal of retirement is to become post scarce, and have a few years where you can live without the need to labor. Seems like we already have some decent evidence to what such a world would look like.
- CooCooCaCha 1y ago
  People will always yearn and wonder and imagine. Sure some people will spend their time fishing but a lot of people need things to strive for a and they will make things up or seek out others who feel the same way.
  - godelski 1y ago
    I agree. Lots of evidence to suggest that this would allow humans to be the most human they could be. Calling it a new Renaissance is not a stretch. Nor reminding those that much of the scientific advancements in the past were made by those who had the luxury of enough free time to sit around and think. But I think too many confuse this message with suggesting some form of Communism or Socialism. I'm not advocating for that (personally, I'm strong believer in Capitalism, even if not the Laissez-faire kind. You can't control a wild horse, but neither should you let it freely destroy your farm). Those notions are related, but not the same thing. You can clearly, as demonstrated by rich elite and people retiring, have post scarce lives without the need for such direct control.
wyager 1y ago
If you stop "rich inheritors" from existing, this moves you away from the knee of the optimization frontier and you're certainly even worse off as an old person. If you can't conceptualize this as a constrained optimization problem, you're not even worth arguing with; you simply lack the tools to think about this in a useful way.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- StopDisinfo910 1y ago
  While I have little interest in humouring the idea that all of this boil down to an optimisation problem (it doesn’t - fiscal policies and social policies scarily live at the intersection of economy and politics - plus even from a pure economic point of view it is much more complicated than a simple optimisation problem and I do have an economic degree by the way), on top of you being frankly condescending while bringing little to the table which would somehow explain if not justify the attitude, you can certainly get away with far heavier inheritance taxes without actually hurting your economy in any meaningful way. You can also tax the rich a lot more heavily without hurting your economy in any meaningful way. And I don’t ask you to believe me from the goodness of your heart. I think Piketty must have had something like half a dozen best sellers on this topic alone at this point.
  - wyager 1y ago
    > I have little interest in humouring the idea that all of this boil down to an optimisation problem... I do have an economic degree by the way I hope your degree was "economic" in the sense that you didn't pay much for it > I think Piketty must have had something like half a dozen best sellers on this topic alone at this point. Thinking pop-slop authors like Piketty are worth paying attention to is a worse self-indictment than the most condescending thing I could possibly say here. You should downgrade your confidence that it's possible to meddle with natural resource allocation without causing problems.
    - 1y ago
SchemaLoad 1y ago
Isn't that exactly how retirement works though? Old people who produce no labour but just get everything given to them because of the capitol they built up previously.
- Ancalagon 1y ago
  No, the parent is talking about inheritors. Japan mostly solves this with very high inheritance taxes.
  - Aeolun 1y ago
    Those mean the government always gets its cut (and pisses off the inheritors), but functionally whether you inherit 10 or 5M doesn’t really make a difference.
  - throwaway2037 1y ago
    > Japan mostly solves this with very high inheritance taxes. This is a myth. It is lower than most wealthy European nations. Details: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/other-taxes https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/other-taxes Also: https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Inheritance_tax https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Inheritance_tax
ahupp 1y ago
Can you quantify what you think that choice looks like? Say you seized the entirety of Elon Musk’s assets: that could pay for a year and a half of the Dept of Transportation. Say you seized all the wealth (somehow) of the world’s 100 richest people. That’s 2 years of US non-discretionary spending (social security, Medicare and Medicaid). I often see comments that assume all problems could be solved by just taxing the rich more, but I just don’t think that’s true. The Nordic countries pay for their social safety nets by taxing the middle class more heavily than we do in the US. If you want to change that, it’s less about capital vs labor, and more about your dentist vs labor (dentists be the classic example of jobs that earn high incomes without being “capital owners”).

godelski 1y ago

Funny that we have a ton of people asking what people would do in a post scarce society. Stating that man needs work. Yet, it also seems to be said most by the people who have been free from the need to labor for generations. They still do, they still desire more, yet their lives are certainly post scarce. Hell, the whole goal of retirement is to become post scarce, and have a few years where you can live without the need to labor. Seems like we already have some decent evidence to what such a world would look like.

CooCooCaCha 1y ago
People will always yearn and wonder and imagine. Sure some people will spend their time fishing but a lot of people need things to strive for a and they will make things up or seek out others who feel the same way.
- godelski 1y ago
  I agree. Lots of evidence to suggest that this would allow humans to be the most human they could be. Calling it a new Renaissance is not a stretch. Nor reminding those that much of the scientific advancements in the past were made by those who had the luxury of enough free time to sit around and think. But I think too many confuse this message with suggesting some form of Communism or Socialism. I'm not advocating for that (personally, I'm strong believer in Capitalism, even if not the Laissez-faire kind. You can't control a wild horse, but neither should you let it freely destroy your farm). Those notions are related, but not the same thing. You can clearly, as demonstrated by rich elite and people retiring, have post scarce lives without the need for such direct control.

wyager 1y ago

If you stop "rich inheritors" from existing, this moves you away from the knee of the optimization frontier and you're certainly even worse off as an old person. If you can't conceptualize this as a constrained optimization problem, you're not even worth arguing with; you simply lack the tools to think about this in a useful way.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
StopDisinfo910 1y ago
While I have little interest in humouring the idea that all of this boil down to an optimisation problem (it doesn’t - fiscal policies and social policies scarily live at the intersection of economy and politics - plus even from a pure economic point of view it is much more complicated than a simple optimisation problem and I do have an economic degree by the way), on top of you being frankly condescending while bringing little to the table which would somehow explain if not justify the attitude, you can certainly get away with far heavier inheritance taxes without actually hurting your economy in any meaningful way. You can also tax the rich a lot more heavily without hurting your economy in any meaningful way. And I don’t ask you to believe me from the goodness of your heart. I think Piketty must have had something like half a dozen best sellers on this topic alone at this point.
- wyager 1y ago
  > I have little interest in humouring the idea that all of this boil down to an optimisation problem... I do have an economic degree by the way I hope your degree was "economic" in the sense that you didn't pay much for it > I think Piketty must have had something like half a dozen best sellers on this topic alone at this point. Thinking pop-slop authors like Piketty are worth paying attention to is a worse self-indictment than the most condescending thing I could possibly say here. You should downgrade your confidence that it's possible to meddle with natural resource allocation without causing problems.
  - 1y ago

SchemaLoad 1y ago

Isn't that exactly how retirement works though? Old people who produce no labour but just get everything given to them because of the capitol they built up previously.

Ancalagon 1y ago
No, the parent is talking about inheritors. Japan mostly solves this with very high inheritance taxes.
- Aeolun 1y ago
  Those mean the government always gets its cut (and pisses off the inheritors), but functionally whether you inherit 10 or 5M doesn’t really make a difference.
- throwaway2037 1y ago
  > Japan mostly solves this with very high inheritance taxes. This is a myth. It is lower than most wealthy European nations. Details: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/other-taxes https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/other-taxes Also: https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Inheritance_tax https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Inheritance_tax

ahupp 1y ago

Can you quantify what you think that choice looks like? Say you seized the entirety of Elon Musk’s assets: that could pay for a year and a half of the Dept of Transportation. Say you seized all the wealth (somehow) of the world’s 100 richest people. That’s 2 years of US non-discretionary spending (social security, Medicare and Medicaid). I often see comments that assume all problems could be solved by just taxing the rich more, but I just don’t think that’s true. The Nordic countries pay for their social safety nets by taxing the middle class more heavily than we do in the US. If you want to change that, it’s less about capital vs labor, and more about your dentist vs labor (dentists be the classic example of jobs that earn high incomes without being “capital owners”).