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Meh. Two things would be problematic: 1) The composition of the 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, etc. never changes -- not in generations. I.e. there's an entrenched aristocra

Meh. Two things would be problematic: 1) The composition of the 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, etc. never changes -- not in generations. I.e. there's an entrenched aristocracy. 2) Topocracy: people are making money for their social connections rather than for their personal merits. Nature had an article on this. http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140121/srep03784/full/srep03784.html http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140121/srep03784/full/srep03... If not [(1) and (2)], then all is well. (It isn't, of course)

chime 13y ago
> 1) The composition of the 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, etc. never changes -- not in generations. I.e. there's an entrenched aristocracy. Leave 1% out of this. Any couple making 150k each fits in that. That means anyone with a college degree, 15-20 years of experience, and senior managerial position. Also included in this are doctors, lawyers, and engineers. There is a lot to be said about mobility and meritocracy but I don't think you get to be a senior engineer or doctor solely because your parents were.
- gbhn 13y ago
  > I don't think you get to be a senior engineer or doctor solely because your parents were. True enough. But yet... I'm a senior engineer. My parents were in the medical profession. I had a lot of help going to school (not all paid for, but I graduated without significant debt). I was encouraged in my study and shielded from a lot of disruptive factors by a stable home life, which in turn is related to the stable financial situation my parents had. I'm not disavowing responsibility -- I worked hard! But I'm also conscious that that happened in an environment that was specifically and consciously tuned (thanks, Mom and Dad!) to enable me to do it.
- deleted 13y ago
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the_watcher 13y ago
As long as gains in total wealth (and thus absolute wealth gains for all parts of society) occur as they always have (ie a 10% wealth increase at all levels of wealth), income inequality will always have a strong tendency to rise. The important question is whether it is better to focus on absolute rise in wealth (Is the bottom 20% of the world today in better shape than 100 years ago, if only because that bottom 20% would likely not have survived then?) or on income inequality (is the absolute wealth gain of the bottom 20% irrelevant if there is now a greater distance between them and the top 20%?). I lean towards the former, but have never been absolutely convinced to the point of becoming dogmatic. I really haven't seen anything substantially convincing about the latter, though.

chime 13y ago

> 1) The composition of the 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, etc. never changes -- not in generations. I.e. there's an entrenched aristocracy. Leave 1% out of this. Any couple making 150k each fits in that. That means anyone with a college degree, 15-20 years of experience, and senior managerial position. Also included in this are doctors, lawyers, and engineers. There is a lot to be said about mobility and meritocracy but I don't think you get to be a senior engineer or doctor solely because your parents were.

gbhn 13y ago
> I don't think you get to be a senior engineer or doctor solely because your parents were. True enough. But yet... I'm a senior engineer. My parents were in the medical profession. I had a lot of help going to school (not all paid for, but I graduated without significant debt). I was encouraged in my study and shielded from a lot of disruptive factors by a stable home life, which in turn is related to the stable financial situation my parents had. I'm not disavowing responsibility -- I worked hard! But I'm also conscious that that happened in an environment that was specifically and consciously tuned (thanks, Mom and Dad!) to enable me to do it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

the_watcher 13y ago

As long as gains in total wealth (and thus absolute wealth gains for all parts of society) occur as they always have (ie a 10% wealth increase at all levels of wealth), income inequality will always have a strong tendency to rise. The important question is whether it is better to focus on absolute rise in wealth (Is the bottom 20% of the world today in better shape than 100 years ago, if only because that bottom 20% would likely not have survived then?) or on income inequality (is the absolute wealth gain of the bottom 20% irrelevant if there is now a greater distance between them and the top 20%?). I lean towards the former, but have never been absolutely convinced to the point of becoming dogmatic. I really haven't seen anything substantially convincing about the latter, though.