8 ms·

The real problem is: This additional freedom you can buy with money means less freedom for somebody else. This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it ca

by dbecker 13y ago

The real problem is: This additional freedom you can buy with money means less freedom for somebody else. This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide , for the two centuries.

king_jester 13y ago
Wealth is not zero-sum nor need it be, the only thing required for wealth inequality is that the current pool of wealth be heavily consumed and dominated by a small segment of people, leaving very little of the remaining pool for others.
- jedmeyers 13y ago
  This small segment of people actually created this wealth. Why shouldn't they be the one consuming it? And you cannot call the sum of all wealth owned by people "a pool" because it is not concentrated in one place nor should be.
ashray 13y ago
Is the standard of living really growing for everyone? Or are there more people now (%wise) in poverty ? This is an honest question as several people have mentioned the standard of living argument before on HN. I've read however that the rich-poor divide is growing and thus am just wondering about this..
- randallsquared 13y ago
  Both can be true at once. The richest are farther ahead than the richest were, in monetary terms, but the poor have made huge strides in absolute wealth as well: it's possible to live a 1950s upper middle class lifestyle on almost the same dollar amount in 2013. Our idea of what a middle-class lifestyle entails, though, is now far above that.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Well, there are also intangibles that nobody cares to measure, that matter a lot. A 2013 "middle class lifestyle" might be far ahead a 1950 "middle class lifestyle" in pocessions, access to products, etc, but there are important differences too. For example, in all likely the 1950 "middle class" family could get all they needed by only one person working. And that person work an 8 hour day, with benefits and security. He was also quite sure that'd he keep his job if he was half decent at it permanently. He rarely was in debt. Today's middle class starts of with a large debt (college loans), both in the couple have to work their asses of, and are not very far from falling off middle class, should anything bad happen (from a market crash to a medical emergency). As for the increased luxuries and such (compared to 1950), those don't mean nothing to them, as they are the assumed zero-level for all middle class in their time.
    - humanrebar 13y ago
      I believe your assertions about the 1950s need substantiation. I'd like to see some empirical data about things like poverty levels, life expectancy, job security, bankruptcy, and so on. Keep in mind that this is only a couple of decades (at most) from the Great Depression. Even if the 1950s were clearly better, it's a rather cherry-picked data point considering how much worse the 1930s clearly were. That being said, I'm not too excited about the intangibles of the 1950s. The Korean War was in the 1950s and Jim Crow was in full swing. Life expectancy was much lower. Just about any consumer good from today is clearly superior to the 1950s equivalent.
      - Crito 13y ago
        Just for starters, he is almost certainly warping his perception of the 1950s by only considering what movies and television showed the 1950s being like for white men in suburbia America.
        coldtea 13y ago
        Which doesn't matter much, because I can also do the exact same comparison to the same group in today's suburbia America. And no, it's not "movies and television". There are numerous books studying the decline of the middle class since the seventies. Heck, there's even an accepted term "Great Prosperity" (as opposed to the "Great Depression" that describes the era after World War II for the USA and the West in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_econo... Here are some factoids: Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs. According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 declined by 27 percent after you account for inflation. Back in the year 2000, more than 64 percent of all working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.7 percent of all working age Americans have a job. The home ownership rate in the United States is the lowest that it has been in 18 years. In 1989, the debt to income ratio of the average American family was about 58 percent. Today it is up to 154 percent. Consumer debt in the United States has risen by a whopping 1700% since 1971, and 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month. Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  It's growing for most people in the world. The exceptions would probably be those who live in areas that are experiencing war or failed governments. I don't have time to dig up sources but it's not hard to research. Wikipedia is a good place to start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_reduction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_reduction
- trevorstrohman 13y ago
  This Hans Rosling talk from a few years ago shows how most indicators are improving worldwide (e.g. reductions in child mortality, GDP per capita). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w
  - gress 13y ago
    Depression is also rising to epidemic proportions, suggesting that improving economic indicators may simply not have anything to do with quality of life.
    - bmelton 13y ago
      I would probably be inclined to agree with that. From a report I read recently (which I can't find again, sorry) pertaining to my home town of Memphis, TN, apparently the general conclusion was that Memphians were happier than Nashvillians, despite the latter having better access to health care, better access to higher paying jobs, better community features (arts, entertainment, etc.) The report didn't postulate on what the actual cause might have been, or how happiness was measured (or, if it was, I've forgotten), but I found it interesting, and it does support your point here. It seems that, at least since I've been paying attention, America has been trying to optimize for wealth or income, though statistically, it seems that there is validity to the notion that money doesn't buy happiness. If we could better isolate the causes of happiness, we could start optimizing for those factors instead.
      - pigeons 13y ago
        Nashvillians don't want to be happy or else many wouldn't be able to effectively do their jobs of writing and performing country music.
        bmelton 13y ago
        Eh. That argument cuts both ways. Memphis blues aren't quite as big a deal as Nashville country, but it exists, and, on paper at least, should make musicians wont to sadness.
- joshuahedlund 13y ago
  Not only have both absolute and percentage numbers of people living in poverty dropped in the last two decades[0], but global inequality (unlike some intra-country inequality) is falling as well[1]. [0]http://www.economist.com/node/21548963 http://www.economist.com/node/21548963 [1]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/american-inequality-is-on-the-rise-but-global-inequality-is-falling/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/a...
gnaritas 13y ago
> This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. And you assume that because it's not always zero-sum, that it never is, a position just as fallacious.
- bermanoid 13y ago
  To swat down an argument one need only show that it's flawed, not that its converse is proven.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    True, but you can do so without fallacious reasoning that make you both wrong. Wealth is sometimes a zero-sum game and sometimes not a zero-sum game; not everyone who makes money is creating value for the world, but they usually are.
    - run4_too 13y ago
      Value for the world != things I happen to think are worth a lot. Your view is hampered by your ignorance of the definition of the word value. If people are making money (i.e. selling a product or service for a profit) they are by definition creating value by default. The fact that you may not find what they are doing valuable is as irrelevant to the equation as the fact that I don't like broccoli.
      - gnaritas 13y ago
        > Your view is hampered by your ignorance of the definition of the word value. Given your reply, I'd say it's your ignorance on display here. > If people are making money (i.e. selling a product or service for a profit) they are by definition creating value by default. False. This naive notion assumes everyone is honest and consumers are informed, both of which aren't true. Plenty of people make money by duping customers into thinking they're providing value when they aren't and relying on customers laziness to take the loss when they figure out it was a scam. That someone voluntarily gave you money does not mean you provided them value. There is no value in Homeopathy, there is no value in fake magic aura balancing bracelets; these are simply people scamming stupid people for money by pretending to add value.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
When I am healthy, or plant a fruit tree (on previously unused land), or come up with a better or healthier way of doing something, nobody else looses anything. (That has been going on since the dawn of time if you will, and certainly not just since the last 200 years.) But on the other hand, a million dollars is in no small part worth a lot because most people don't have it; if everybody did, that wouldn't make everybody rich, it would just mean a loaf of bread now costs a million dollars. You can't just ignore that "because rising standards of living". Wealth is first and foremost a word, not an actual thing, and the associated concepts can be complex... but wealth purely in the sense of market shares, of bank accounts, even of being an expert in comparison to non-experts.. there is so much of what we tend to consider as wealth that is obviously a zero-sum game.
coldtea 13y ago
>This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. And it very much is. >It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide, for the two centuries. Those are not personal wealth. Increased standards of living are a kind of background element, as they are more or less shared by the population. Statistically they even out, and only differences from them matter. A guy living in a trailer park today, with a tv, microwave, electricity, some medical access etc, would be considered living like a king, compared to a 1600's peasant working in some feudal farm. That doesn't mean he feels (or is viewed) as such in our society.
- benched 13y ago
  This trope is so tired. Yes, I live better than a medieval peasant, and I have access to more computing power than ever. Yet, the standard of living across my entire family and most people I know is blatantly lower, in terms of human basics like housing and togetherness, than in my grandparents time, despite the fact that my grandparents were factory workers without even high school educations, and I am an experienced software engineer.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    I think we are in agreement! I only gave the example to say that what's basic is relative (compared to current standards), so saying that a trailer-park person has more access to more things than a peasant doesn't mean anything.
    - kbolino 13y ago
      If living better than a medieval peasant doesn't mean anything, then why do so few people want to live like medieval peasants?
      - coldtea 13y ago
        For one, because most people can not even point Canada on the map, much less know anything about the living conditions in the medieval age. In fact, most things people associate with the middle ages are either BS or happened at other times. Witch-huns and the Inquisition for example, are phenomena of the Renaissance, not of the middle ages. Even the Plague happened on the tail end of the middle ages entering into the Renaissance. Heck, even fewer know that the ratio of holidays (what we'd call bank holidays today) to work was extremely higher in the middle ages compared to today. Most homeless/coupon-living/trailer individuals would be much better off in the middle ages compared to today.
dredmorbius 13y ago
It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide , for the two centuries. Much of that standard-of-living increase has been dug or pumped out of the ground in the form of coal, oil, or gas: http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-between-energy-supply-population-and-the-economy/ http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-betwe...
collyw 13y ago
>It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide , for the two centuries. Inequality has been growing a lot the last three decades http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/17/living-standards-survey-institute-fiscal-studies http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/17/living-standa...

by dbecker 13y ago

king_jester 13y ago

Wealth is not zero-sum nor need it be, the only thing required for wealth inequality is that the current pool of wealth be heavily consumed and dominated by a small segment of people, leaving very little of the remaining pool for others.

jedmeyers 13y ago
This small segment of people actually created this wealth. Why shouldn't they be the one consuming it? And you cannot call the sum of all wealth owned by people "a pool" because it is not concentrated in one place nor should be.

ashray 13y ago

Is the standard of living really growing for everyone? Or are there more people now (%wise) in poverty ? This is an honest question as several people have mentioned the standard of living argument before on HN. I've read however that the rich-poor divide is growing and thus am just wondering about this..

randallsquared 13y ago
Both can be true at once. The richest are farther ahead than the richest were, in monetary terms, but the poor have made huge strides in absolute wealth as well: it's possible to live a 1950s upper middle class lifestyle on almost the same dollar amount in 2013. Our idea of what a middle-class lifestyle entails, though, is now far above that.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Well, there are also intangibles that nobody cares to measure, that matter a lot. A 2013 "middle class lifestyle" might be far ahead a 1950 "middle class lifestyle" in pocessions, access to products, etc, but there are important differences too. For example, in all likely the 1950 "middle class" family could get all they needed by only one person working. And that person work an 8 hour day, with benefits and security. He was also quite sure that'd he keep his job if he was half decent at it permanently. He rarely was in debt. Today's middle class starts of with a large debt (college loans), both in the couple have to work their asses of, and are not very far from falling off middle class, should anything bad happen (from a market crash to a medical emergency). As for the increased luxuries and such (compared to 1950), those don't mean nothing to them, as they are the assumed zero-level for all middle class in their time.
  - humanrebar 13y ago
    I believe your assertions about the 1950s need substantiation. I'd like to see some empirical data about things like poverty levels, life expectancy, job security, bankruptcy, and so on. Keep in mind that this is only a couple of decades (at most) from the Great Depression. Even if the 1950s were clearly better, it's a rather cherry-picked data point considering how much worse the 1930s clearly were. That being said, I'm not too excited about the intangibles of the 1950s. The Korean War was in the 1950s and Jim Crow was in full swing. Life expectancy was much lower. Just about any consumer good from today is clearly superior to the 1950s equivalent.
    - Crito 13y ago
      Just for starters, he is almost certainly warping his perception of the 1950s by only considering what movies and television showed the 1950s being like for white men in suburbia America.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Which doesn't matter much, because I can also do the exact same comparison to the same group in today's suburbia America. And no, it's not "movies and television". There are numerous books studying the decline of the middle class since the seventies. Heck, there's even an accepted term "Great Prosperity" (as opposed to the "Great Depression" that describes the era after World War II for the USA and the West in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_econo... Here are some factoids: Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs. According to one study, between 1969 and 2009 the median wages earned by American men between the ages of 30 and 50 declined by 27 percent after you account for inflation. Back in the year 2000, more than 64 percent of all working age Americans had a job. Today, only 58.7 percent of all working age Americans have a job. The home ownership rate in the United States is the lowest that it has been in 18 years. In 1989, the debt to income ratio of the average American family was about 58 percent. Today it is up to 154 percent. Consumer debt in the United States has risen by a whopping 1700% since 1971, and 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month. Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps. Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.
snowwrestler 13y ago
It's growing for most people in the world. The exceptions would probably be those who live in areas that are experiencing war or failed governments. I don't have time to dig up sources but it's not hard to research. Wikipedia is a good place to start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_reduction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_reduction
trevorstrohman 13y ago
This Hans Rosling talk from a few years ago shows how most indicators are improving worldwide (e.g. reductions in child mortality, GDP per capita). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w
- gress 13y ago
  Depression is also rising to epidemic proportions, suggesting that improving economic indicators may simply not have anything to do with quality of life.
  - bmelton 13y ago
    I would probably be inclined to agree with that. From a report I read recently (which I can't find again, sorry) pertaining to my home town of Memphis, TN, apparently the general conclusion was that Memphians were happier than Nashvillians, despite the latter having better access to health care, better access to higher paying jobs, better community features (arts, entertainment, etc.) The report didn't postulate on what the actual cause might have been, or how happiness was measured (or, if it was, I've forgotten), but I found it interesting, and it does support your point here. It seems that, at least since I've been paying attention, America has been trying to optimize for wealth or income, though statistically, it seems that there is validity to the notion that money doesn't buy happiness. If we could better isolate the causes of happiness, we could start optimizing for those factors instead.
    - pigeons 13y ago
      Nashvillians don't want to be happy or else many wouldn't be able to effectively do their jobs of writing and performing country music.
      - bmelton 13y ago
        Eh. That argument cuts both ways. Memphis blues aren't quite as big a deal as Nashville country, but it exists, and, on paper at least, should make musicians wont to sadness.
joshuahedlund 13y ago
Not only have both absolute and percentage numbers of people living in poverty dropped in the last two decades[0], but global inequality (unlike some intra-country inequality) is falling as well[1]. [0]http://www.economist.com/node/21548963 http://www.economist.com/node/21548963 [1]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/american-inequality-is-on-the-rise-but-global-inequality-is-falling/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/13/a...

gnaritas 13y ago

> This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. And you assume that because it's not always zero-sum, that it never is, a position just as fallacious.

bermanoid 13y ago
To swat down an argument one need only show that it's flawed, not that its converse is proven.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  True, but you can do so without fallacious reasoning that make you both wrong. Wealth is sometimes a zero-sum game and sometimes not a zero-sum game; not everyone who makes money is creating value for the world, but they usually are.
  - run4_too 13y ago
    Value for the world != things I happen to think are worth a lot. Your view is hampered by your ignorance of the definition of the word value. If people are making money (i.e. selling a product or service for a profit) they are by definition creating value by default. The fact that you may not find what they are doing valuable is as irrelevant to the equation as the fact that I don't like broccoli.
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      > Your view is hampered by your ignorance of the definition of the word value. Given your reply, I'd say it's your ignorance on display here. > If people are making money (i.e. selling a product or service for a profit) they are by definition creating value by default. False. This naive notion assumes everyone is honest and consumers are informed, both of which aren't true. Plenty of people make money by duping customers into thinking they're providing value when they aren't and relying on customers laziness to take the loss when they figure out it was a scam. That someone voluntarily gave you money does not mean you provided them value. There is no value in Homeopathy, there is no value in fake magic aura balancing bracelets; these are simply people scamming stupid people for money by pretending to add value.

PavlovsCat 13y ago

When I am healthy, or plant a fruit tree (on previously unused land), or come up with a better or healthier way of doing something, nobody else looses anything. (That has been going on since the dawn of time if you will, and certainly not just since the last 200 years.) But on the other hand, a million dollars is in no small part worth a lot because most people don't have it; if everybody did, that wouldn't make everybody rich, it would just mean a loaf of bread now costs a million dollars. You can't just ignore that "because rising standards of living". Wealth is first and foremost a word, not an actual thing, and the associated concepts can be complex... but wealth purely in the sense of market shares, of bank accounts, even of being an expert in comparison to non-experts.. there is so much of what we tend to consider as wealth that is obviously a zero-sum game.

coldtea 13y ago

>This assumes that wealth is a zero-sum game, so it can be traded around but not created. And it very much is. >It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide, for the two centuries. Those are not personal wealth. Increased standards of living are a kind of background element, as they are more or less shared by the population. Statistically they even out, and only differences from them matter. A guy living in a trailer park today, with a tv, microwave, electricity, some medical access etc, would be considered living like a king, compared to a 1600's peasant working in some feudal farm. That doesn't mean he feels (or is viewed) as such in our society.

benched 13y ago
This trope is so tired. Yes, I live better than a medieval peasant, and I have access to more computing power than ever. Yet, the standard of living across my entire family and most people I know is blatantly lower, in terms of human basics like housing and togetherness, than in my grandparents time, despite the fact that my grandparents were factory workers without even high school educations, and I am an experienced software engineer.
- coldtea 13y ago
  I think we are in agreement! I only gave the example to say that what's basic is relative (compared to current standards), so saying that a trailer-park person has more access to more things than a peasant doesn't mean anything.
  - kbolino 13y ago
    If living better than a medieval peasant doesn't mean anything, then why do so few people want to live like medieval peasants?
    - coldtea 13y ago
      For one, because most people can not even point Canada on the map, much less know anything about the living conditions in the medieval age. In fact, most things people associate with the middle ages are either BS or happened at other times. Witch-huns and the Inquisition for example, are phenomena of the Renaissance, not of the middle ages. Even the Plague happened on the tail end of the middle ages entering into the Renaissance. Heck, even fewer know that the ratio of holidays (what we'd call bank holidays today) to work was extremely higher in the middle ages compared to today. Most homeless/coupon-living/trailer individuals would be much better off in the middle ages compared to today.

dredmorbius 13y ago

It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide , for the two centuries. Much of that standard-of-living increase has been dug or pumped out of the ground in the form of coal, oil, or gas: http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-between-energy-supply-population-and-the-economy/ http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-betwe...

collyw 13y ago

>It's hard to reconcile that view with the fact that standards-of-living have been growing, more or less worldwide , for the two centuries. Inequality has been growing a lot the last three decades http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/17/living-standards-survey-institute-fiscal-studies http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/17/living-standa...