4 ms·

Randians / Grahamians here always seem quick to echo that 'wealth isn't zero sum'. (I presume this is to help those who are or aspire to be wealthy feel awesome

by benched 13y ago

Randians / Grahamians here always seem quick to echo that 'wealth isn't zero sum'. (I presume this is to help those who are or aspire to be wealthy feel awesome about their noble path.) Wealth may not be zero sum, but wealth buys plenty of important things that are zero sum - things that are in limited supply. A big strategic one is access to education. Poor people do not have the same access to university education that rich people do. A big practical one is housing. Why do the children of well-off parents deserve access to education more than poor kids? Of course, in reality, there is no 'deserve' about it - it's just straightforward game mechanics. But that's what public policy is all about - consciously deciding, do we like this? Do we like this business of limited numbers of people having it relatively easy, while large numbers of people continually face a whole other order of struggle, one that many just don't find their way out of? And heaven help the poor if even that conversation is captured by those who are already sitting pretty - especially those with moral conviction that the 'right sort of people' are already ok, and the only ones who fall through the cracks do so by moral failure.

philwelch 13y ago
I'm not convinced that university education is zero sum. Harvard is zero sum, but there's no important limit to the number of universities in the world nor the quality of each university.
- mcguire 13y ago
  Probably not naturally, no, but in practice they can likely be treated as zero-sum. Network effects and all.
- dictum 13y ago
  The irreplaceable benefit of ivies, and especially Harvard, is getting an easy entry into established old-boy networks. It sucks for individuals who don't get the opportunity to get this ticket to OBNs plus a good education, but for society as a whole, it's good that not everyone gets to go to Harvard. Universities should be part of their communities, not ivory towers. Students should come out of them willing to help their communities, not move to NY or SF and cash out quick. For an individual that's great. For society, it's mixed: sometimes the individual cashes out because they ve found a cure for cancer or a better way to grow food, but sometimes, because they played Soros with a country's currency.
dredmorbius 13y ago
"Grahamians"? Are you referring to pg? I'm not otherwise familiar with the term. As to wealth being zero-sum, there's a pretty convincing case to be made, so far as I can make out, that wealth translates almost directly into per-capita resource consumption, and that the arguments that "decoupling" has occurred are pretty weak, particularly when considered at the global scale. At best, as total energy utilization increases, per-capita efficiency in wealth generation improves, but that's quite consistent with the principles of dissipative systems: that higher levels of internal organization are possible, but only with higher total systemic throughput. See: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic_decoupling_the_recent_relationship/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic...

by benched 13y ago

philwelch 13y ago

I'm not convinced that university education is zero sum. Harvard is zero sum, but there's no important limit to the number of universities in the world nor the quality of each university.

mcguire 13y ago
Probably not naturally, no, but in practice they can likely be treated as zero-sum. Network effects and all.
dictum 13y ago
The irreplaceable benefit of ivies, and especially Harvard, is getting an easy entry into established old-boy networks. It sucks for individuals who don't get the opportunity to get this ticket to OBNs plus a good education, but for society as a whole, it's good that not everyone gets to go to Harvard. Universities should be part of their communities, not ivory towers. Students should come out of them willing to help their communities, not move to NY or SF and cash out quick. For an individual that's great. For society, it's mixed: sometimes the individual cashes out because they ve found a cure for cancer or a better way to grow food, but sometimes, because they played Soros with a country's currency.

dredmorbius 13y ago

"Grahamians"? Are you referring to pg? I'm not otherwise familiar with the term. As to wealth being zero-sum, there's a pretty convincing case to be made, so far as I can make out, that wealth translates almost directly into per-capita resource consumption, and that the arguments that "decoupling" has occurred are pretty weak, particularly when considered at the global scale. At best, as total energy utilization increases, per-capita efficiency in wealth generation improves, but that's quite consistent with the principles of dissipative systems: that higher levels of internal organization are possible, but only with higher total systemic throughput. See: http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic_decoupling_the_recent_relationship/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vlksg/economic...