4 ms·

Wealth concentration beyond a point which would have resulted in widespread revolution 150 years ago, but that is now being tolerated because we've grown accust

by adlpz 4mo ago

Wealth concentration beyond a point which would have resulted in widespread revolution 150 years ago, but that is now being tolerated because we've grown accustomed to a level of comfort we don't want to risk losing.

Schiendelman 4mo ago
If we've got a higher level of comfort, why does it matter?
- happytoexplain 4mo ago
  Comfort isn't a single number, nor is it the only variable.
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    Tell me more. What exactly would you like to redistribute that wealth to? What specific measurement is your concern? Also, please don't use the voting buttons for things you disagree with. I'm trying to have a productive conversation here.
    - fsuts 4mo ago
      Equality in quality of Education As better education/tution leads to over achievement relative to natural ability. So you end up with people in positions of power that are beyond them, and low educated voter too
      - Schiendelman 4mo ago
        Ahh. Are you aware of the argument that education shouldn't be funded with property taxes, to even it out?
        fsuts 4mo ago
        No, and did you mean should be or shouldn’t be?
        Schiendelman 4mo ago
        Shouldn't be! I recommend starting there. A lot of the problems with education funding stem from the wealthy neighborhoods getting a lot more money because their local property taxes generate more revenue. Flattening that across an entire state, in the case of the US, would likely set up incentives to force the upper middle class to push up school funding.
  - fsuts 4mo ago
    Because some of us think of everyone else? Not everyone is fortunate to be born smart and able to make money. And these at the bottom struggle enormously
- vintermann 4mo ago
  If we're wireheading anyone, why not start with Musk, Thiel, etc.?
- chistev 4mo ago
  I don't like how HN users downvote honest questions instead of engaging with it. Left you an upvote because I'm interested in responses to this.
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    I appreciate you! My goal here is to guide people who care about things to take a little step toward working on them. :)
    - chistev 4mo ago
      And I got down voted. Lol.
  - happytoexplain 4mo ago
    Yes, it's presumably a problem, but you also can't know why somebody is downvoting. They might believe a comment is dishonest or distracting or otherwise low-quality or non-curious, or breaks one of the subjective site rules. I try not to make assumptions when I get downvoted. I think: Maybe I was a little sarcastic or aggressive or I implied something weaselly; or maybe the downvoter just disagreed with me. I don't assume either way, and I don't guess about moral high ground or whatever. All my comment's points tell me is what delta of people clicked the down arrow, not what was in their heads individually.
    - Schiendelman 4mo ago
      Oh yeah, I just try to reinforce the HN guidelines when I can!
- Herring 4mo ago
  I spend a lot of time here: https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart Housing/medical/college etc are outpacing incomes. Loneliness has skyrocketed. People are voting for fascism and starting wars. Americans like to pretend with their big houses and fancy iphones, but things are NOT ok. Also note on that chart: younger demographics in the US are reporting significantly lower life evaluations compared to older demographics. So if you think things right now are bad, you haven't seen anything yet.
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    I'm unconvinced that younger people have a harder time than the last couple of generations at the same ages, and would like to see evidence that this is not simply them overwhelming themselves with social media comparisons with others. Yes, housing, medical, and college are outpacing incomes. Which item would you want to work on if you only got to pick ONE thing?
    - swed420 4mo ago
      > Yes, housing, medical, and college are outpacing incomes. Which item would you want to work on if you only got to pick ONE thing? Why would we intentionally narrow the discussion like this? That's something that pretend political parties do to prop up the interests of the uniparty of capital interests while squelching actual progress for the majority.
      - Schiendelman 4mo ago
        Why? Because an individual can only positively influence one thing at a time when it's so far outside of their sphere. My goal is to help people make positive change, and the only way to do that is with focus.
        swed420 4mo ago
        > Because an individual can only positively influence one thing at a time when it's so far outside of their sphere. Not true, but let's pretend it is: then pick the parent item that's affecting all of the child items: aforementioned faux democracy. Then everything else falls into place. But based on your various comments here, you don't seem interested in solving the root issues.
- jjj123 4mo ago
  Because I believe we all deserve to have a relatively equal say in how society should function, and the existence of trillionaires is antithetical to that.
- citadel_melon 4mo ago
  There are many more economic distortions that happen from having massive wealth inequality — too many to list in one comment — but the biggest one is that democracy isn’t possible with a certain level of wealth inequality. In such models where individuals in a market system can influence public/private institutions for their own interest (news organizations, private think tanks, lobbyists, public/private colleges, corporations, charities, nonprofits etc etc) will be able to reroute those institutional resources to gaming elections — which is unavoidable result over the market’s long run, similar to it being impossible to defend one’s currency against speculators over the long run — thus selection pressures force politicians and political institutions to either cater to these wealthy people’s whims and the institutions they control, or to somehow (and very unlikely) bare the selection pressures that are pushing them out of office. Given the law of large numbers, you’d presume at any point the average legislator would be captured more by these maladaptive selection pressures rather than somehow existing in spite of them. As democracy is eaten away, we will maintain a slow decay to a Russia-like sultan oligarchic system and the comforts the majority currently maintain will slowly go with them.
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    I mean, this is measurable with the gini coefficient, yes. But if you generally handwave "people with lots of money", you don't have a story to tell, and then you don't convince nearly enough people of any one thing to accomplish it. You have to pick a problem. Right now, quality of life basically keeps going up, so it's pretty hard to act on anything you might care about here.
    - citadel_melon 4mo ago
      Conjecturing standards of living is going up is overly reductive. Essential costs — housing, groceries, education, etc — have been going up for most people and hit everyday people the hardest.
- swat535 4mo ago
  Higher level of comfort in what sense? Most people on the planet can't afford a home or start families. They can barely pay their rents to avoid ending on up the street.
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    Do you believe that across the planet, that is worse or better than it was 20 years ago? 40 years ago?
    - chadgpt3 4mo ago
      Do I have to believe it across the planet or just for me right now?
      - Schiendelman 4mo ago
        GP said "most people on the planet"; I'm responding to that.
    - swat535 4mo ago
      Do you believe the housing crisis, living wages and affordability is better than it was 20 years ago? 40 years ago? If so, where ?
      - Schiendelman 4mo ago
        Median wages are way up. Housing affordability is down, and it's pretty easy to trace that to a single root cause.
- JKCalhoun 4mo ago
  Because we could have it so much better… Just one example: high-speed rail in the U.S.
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    If you're interested, I spent over a decade as a mass transit organizer, and I think there's a pretty clear path to high-speed rail in the US. But no one likes it!
- chadgpt3 4mo ago
  We don't. It's not about being warm in winter. That's the least important thing as long as you're not actually freezing to death. We used to look forward to the future, now we dread it, and I don't think that's just me being in an existential crisis right now, other people have said it too.
everfrustrated 4mo ago
Someone else being rich doesn't make you poor.
- fsuts 4mo ago
  Well if everyone was rich then prices would go up due to affordability and demand so the less rich would be poorer
  - chadgpt3 4mo ago
    That's why it's best if everyone is roughly equal. Not exactly equal, mind, I'm sure a 20:1 difference between the richest and the poorest would be much better than the present situation.
- vintermann 4mo ago
  Someone else being powerful, though... What it boils down to is that a lot of the immense freedom Elon Musk has to influence our common future, due to his wealth, comes at the expense of our ability to influence our future. Yeah, not all games are zero sum. But "power over others" is, and it's a pretty important one, and other people are playing it whether you want to or not.
- jerome-jh 4mo ago
  It would be bearable if they would just be rich and shut the **** up.
  - RickJWagner 4mo ago
    I’m sort of with you. I don’t mind people succeeding at gathering wealth. Mostly the very rich stay quiet. What annoys me is loud mouthed celebrities. For some reason, people famous for being born pretty think their opinions are all brilliant.
- werckerwouter 4mo ago
  Garys Economics would like to have a word with you
TonyStr 4mo ago
I'm not so familiar with the revolutions of 1848, but it seems like most revolutions happen when a society is suffering from severe economic crisis as well as food shortage. It seems that the 1840s was referred to as "the Hungry Forties" due to severe food shortages. I don't think many people are willing to upend their lives to change a political system that isn't failing to deliver their personal basic needs. I'm also not sure if the revolutions of 1848 were primarily about wealth concentration - weren't they rather about concentration of power?
- f38zf5vdt 4mo ago
  Many successful and failed revolutions happened without an economic crisis. For example, the American Revolution was led by an oligarchical class upset about taxation. The American Civil War is another example where a portion of states felt economically threatened and initiated conflict. The Glorious Revolution was almost completely ideological in nature, revolving around royalty and religion. It simply requires some powerful fraction of the country to believe they'd be better off under another ruling party, no one needs to starve for it to happen. People who are experiencing unrest and idleness are easy to recruit -- and if you hang out with people ages of 18-30, you'll see there's no shortage of them.

by adlpz 4mo ago

Schiendelman 4mo ago

If we've got a higher level of comfort, why does it matter?

happytoexplain 4mo ago
Comfort isn't a single number, nor is it the only variable.
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  Tell me more. What exactly would you like to redistribute that wealth to? What specific measurement is your concern? Also, please don't use the voting buttons for things you disagree with. I'm trying to have a productive conversation here.
  - fsuts 4mo ago
    Equality in quality of Education As better education/tution leads to over achievement relative to natural ability. So you end up with people in positions of power that are beyond them, and low educated voter too
    - Schiendelman 4mo ago
      Ahh. Are you aware of the argument that education shouldn't be funded with property taxes, to even it out?
      - fsuts 4mo ago
        No, and did you mean should be or shouldn’t be?
        Schiendelman 4mo ago
        Shouldn't be! I recommend starting there. A lot of the problems with education funding stem from the wealthy neighborhoods getting a lot more money because their local property taxes generate more revenue. Flattening that across an entire state, in the case of the US, would likely set up incentives to force the upper middle class to push up school funding.
- fsuts 4mo ago
  Because some of us think of everyone else? Not everyone is fortunate to be born smart and able to make money. And these at the bottom struggle enormously
vintermann 4mo ago
If we're wireheading anyone, why not start with Musk, Thiel, etc.?
chistev 4mo ago
I don't like how HN users downvote honest questions instead of engaging with it. Left you an upvote because I'm interested in responses to this.
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  I appreciate you! My goal here is to guide people who care about things to take a little step toward working on them. :)
  - chistev 4mo ago
    And I got down voted. Lol.
- happytoexplain 4mo ago
  Yes, it's presumably a problem, but you also can't know why somebody is downvoting. They might believe a comment is dishonest or distracting or otherwise low-quality or non-curious, or breaks one of the subjective site rules. I try not to make assumptions when I get downvoted. I think: Maybe I was a little sarcastic or aggressive or I implied something weaselly; or maybe the downvoter just disagreed with me. I don't assume either way, and I don't guess about moral high ground or whatever. All my comment's points tell me is what delta of people clicked the down arrow, not what was in their heads individually.
  - Schiendelman 4mo ago
    Oh yeah, I just try to reinforce the HN guidelines when I can!
Herring 4mo ago
I spend a lot of time here: https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart Housing/medical/college etc are outpacing incomes. Loneliness has skyrocketed. People are voting for fascism and starting wars. Americans like to pretend with their big houses and fancy iphones, but things are NOT ok. Also note on that chart: younger demographics in the US are reporting significantly lower life evaluations compared to older demographics. So if you think things right now are bad, you haven't seen anything yet.
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  I'm unconvinced that younger people have a harder time than the last couple of generations at the same ages, and would like to see evidence that this is not simply them overwhelming themselves with social media comparisons with others. Yes, housing, medical, and college are outpacing incomes. Which item would you want to work on if you only got to pick ONE thing?
  - swed420 4mo ago
    > Yes, housing, medical, and college are outpacing incomes. Which item would you want to work on if you only got to pick ONE thing? Why would we intentionally narrow the discussion like this? That's something that pretend political parties do to prop up the interests of the uniparty of capital interests while squelching actual progress for the majority.
    - Schiendelman 4mo ago
      Why? Because an individual can only positively influence one thing at a time when it's so far outside of their sphere. My goal is to help people make positive change, and the only way to do that is with focus.
      - swed420 4mo ago
        > Because an individual can only positively influence one thing at a time when it's so far outside of their sphere. Not true, but let's pretend it is: then pick the parent item that's affecting all of the child items: aforementioned faux democracy. Then everything else falls into place. But based on your various comments here, you don't seem interested in solving the root issues.
jjj123 4mo ago
Because I believe we all deserve to have a relatively equal say in how society should function, and the existence of trillionaires is antithetical to that.
citadel_melon 4mo ago
There are many more economic distortions that happen from having massive wealth inequality — too many to list in one comment — but the biggest one is that democracy isn’t possible with a certain level of wealth inequality. In such models where individuals in a market system can influence public/private institutions for their own interest (news organizations, private think tanks, lobbyists, public/private colleges, corporations, charities, nonprofits etc etc) will be able to reroute those institutional resources to gaming elections — which is unavoidable result over the market’s long run, similar to it being impossible to defend one’s currency against speculators over the long run — thus selection pressures force politicians and political institutions to either cater to these wealthy people’s whims and the institutions they control, or to somehow (and very unlikely) bare the selection pressures that are pushing them out of office. Given the law of large numbers, you’d presume at any point the average legislator would be captured more by these maladaptive selection pressures rather than somehow existing in spite of them. As democracy is eaten away, we will maintain a slow decay to a Russia-like sultan oligarchic system and the comforts the majority currently maintain will slowly go with them.
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  I mean, this is measurable with the gini coefficient, yes. But if you generally handwave "people with lots of money", you don't have a story to tell, and then you don't convince nearly enough people of any one thing to accomplish it. You have to pick a problem. Right now, quality of life basically keeps going up, so it's pretty hard to act on anything you might care about here.
  - citadel_melon 4mo ago
    Conjecturing standards of living is going up is overly reductive. Essential costs — housing, groceries, education, etc — have been going up for most people and hit everyday people the hardest.
swat535 4mo ago
Higher level of comfort in what sense? Most people on the planet can't afford a home or start families. They can barely pay their rents to avoid ending on up the street.
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  Do you believe that across the planet, that is worse or better than it was 20 years ago? 40 years ago?
  - chadgpt3 4mo ago
    Do I have to believe it across the planet or just for me right now?
    - Schiendelman 4mo ago
      GP said "most people on the planet"; I'm responding to that.
  - swat535 4mo ago
    Do you believe the housing crisis, living wages and affordability is better than it was 20 years ago? 40 years ago? If so, where ?
    - Schiendelman 4mo ago
      Median wages are way up. Housing affordability is down, and it's pretty easy to trace that to a single root cause.
JKCalhoun 4mo ago
Because we could have it so much better… Just one example: high-speed rail in the U.S.
- Schiendelman 4mo ago
  If you're interested, I spent over a decade as a mass transit organizer, and I think there's a pretty clear path to high-speed rail in the US. But no one likes it!
chadgpt3 4mo ago
We don't. It's not about being warm in winter. That's the least important thing as long as you're not actually freezing to death. We used to look forward to the future, now we dread it, and I don't think that's just me being in an existential crisis right now, other people have said it too.

everfrustrated 4mo ago

Someone else being rich doesn't make you poor.

fsuts 4mo ago
Well if everyone was rich then prices would go up due to affordability and demand so the less rich would be poorer
- chadgpt3 4mo ago
  That's why it's best if everyone is roughly equal. Not exactly equal, mind, I'm sure a 20:1 difference between the richest and the poorest would be much better than the present situation.
vintermann 4mo ago
Someone else being powerful, though... What it boils down to is that a lot of the immense freedom Elon Musk has to influence our common future, due to his wealth, comes at the expense of our ability to influence our future. Yeah, not all games are zero sum. But "power over others" is, and it's a pretty important one, and other people are playing it whether you want to or not.
jerome-jh 4mo ago
It would be bearable if they would just be rich and shut the **** up.
- RickJWagner 4mo ago
  I’m sort of with you. I don’t mind people succeeding at gathering wealth. Mostly the very rich stay quiet. What annoys me is loud mouthed celebrities. For some reason, people famous for being born pretty think their opinions are all brilliant.
werckerwouter 4mo ago
Garys Economics would like to have a word with you

TonyStr 4mo ago

I'm not so familiar with the revolutions of 1848, but it seems like most revolutions happen when a society is suffering from severe economic crisis as well as food shortage. It seems that the 1840s was referred to as "the Hungry Forties" due to severe food shortages. I don't think many people are willing to upend their lives to change a political system that isn't failing to deliver their personal basic needs. I'm also not sure if the revolutions of 1848 were primarily about wealth concentration - weren't they rather about concentration of power?

f38zf5vdt 4mo ago
Many successful and failed revolutions happened without an economic crisis. For example, the American Revolution was led by an oligarchical class upset about taxation. The American Civil War is another example where a portion of states felt economically threatened and initiated conflict. The Glorious Revolution was almost completely ideological in nature, revolving around royalty and religion. It simply requires some powerful fraction of the country to believe they'd be better off under another ruling party, no one needs to starve for it to happen. People who are experiencing unrest and idleness are easy to recruit -- and if you hang out with people ages of 18-30, you'll see there's no shortage of them.