6 ms·

"Assuming that rich people is richer because society decides that their time is more valuable, they can create more value in the same amount of times of some ot

"Assuming that rich people is richer because society decides that their time is more valuable, they can create more value in the same amount of times of some other poorer people." are you fucking kidding me? why would you assume that?

NhanH 12y ago
I believe that's a reasonable assumption for this discussion (that's not my personal opinion, btw). But trying to justify that statement will start a flame war and distract from the topic, so let me try to say that sentence in another way: Parking spot is a commodity. And just like other commodity in life, everyone values it differently. What's wrong in letting people paying for what they think it's worth for? The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix, and the solution isn't telling people to stop producing commodity. In this specific case of parking lot, it's bad either way because a private company is skimming profit from public space.
- metaphorm 12y ago
  "The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix" its not at all an entirely separate problem to fix. society should not be structured so that rich people are always, fundamentally advantaged in every dimension. we should not commoditize everything.
  - gjm11 12y ago
    Indeed we should not commoditize everything, but parking spots and restaurant reservations don't seem to me like great examples of things so important or fundamental that we should try hard to decouple them from money.
    - metaphorm 12y ago
      public parking spaces on city-owned land are part of the commons and are supplied as a public benefit by the city to the whole community. that is very much an example of things that should not be commoditized, or else we end up with yet another tragedy of the commons. restaurant reservations are not a public benefit, and I think its fine to commoditize them IF AND ONLY IF it can be done in a way that is fair to the restaurants and the customers. we shouldn't tolerate a service that is based on lying to restaurants.
marcus_holmes 12y ago
Economic theory. A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). Money is a representation of value (by definition). In Economics, value earned is at least proportional (if not equal) to value created. So a rich person creates more value in the same amount of time than a poor person. Their time is literally more valuable. In theory there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
- 001sky 12y ago
  Naive theory is the worst kind. The behavioural assumptions of NC econ are naive in this dimension. Infinite rationality is easily affordable in theory. In reality, both the approximation of it is expensive, and the hack/exploitation of its failure to materialize are profound.
- kourt 12y ago
  A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). No, that's a person with "high hourly earned income". Making wealth is not the only way to get rich. For most of human history it has not even been the most common. Until a few centuries ago, the main sources of wealth were mines, slaves and serfs, land, and cattle, and the only ways to acquire these rapidly were by inheritance, marriage, conquest, or confiscation. Naturally wealth had a bad reputation. - Paul Graham
  - smsm42 12y ago
    We're not living "a few centuries ago", however. And there is also an important qualifying word "rapidly". One doesn't have to become rich overnight to be rich now. As for the "bad reputation", given that most things that were written and otherwise arrived to us were composed by people of some means at least (excluding monks, etc. which are harder to classify by modern standards) - really poor folks had high illiteracy rates, little spare time to create records that we could read, and not many people that cared for their opinions enough to create permanent record of them. So, given that, how exactly Paul Graham knows what reputation the wealth had amongst folks who weren't wealthy?

NhanH 12y ago

I believe that's a reasonable assumption for this discussion (that's not my personal opinion, btw). But trying to justify that statement will start a flame war and distract from the topic, so let me try to say that sentence in another way: Parking spot is a commodity. And just like other commodity in life, everyone values it differently. What's wrong in letting people paying for what they think it's worth for? The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix, and the solution isn't telling people to stop producing commodity. In this specific case of parking lot, it's bad either way because a private company is skimming profit from public space.

metaphorm 12y ago
"The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix" its not at all an entirely separate problem to fix. society should not be structured so that rich people are always, fundamentally advantaged in every dimension. we should not commoditize everything.
- gjm11 12y ago
  Indeed we should not commoditize everything, but parking spots and restaurant reservations don't seem to me like great examples of things so important or fundamental that we should try hard to decouple them from money.
  - metaphorm 12y ago
    public parking spaces on city-owned land are part of the commons and are supplied as a public benefit by the city to the whole community. that is very much an example of things that should not be commoditized, or else we end up with yet another tragedy of the commons. restaurant reservations are not a public benefit, and I think its fine to commoditize them IF AND ONLY IF it can be done in a way that is fair to the restaurants and the customers. we shouldn't tolerate a service that is based on lying to restaurants.

marcus_holmes 12y ago

Economic theory. A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). Money is a representation of value (by definition). In Economics, value earned is at least proportional (if not equal) to value created. So a rich person creates more value in the same amount of time than a poor person. Their time is literally more valuable. In theory there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

001sky 12y ago
Naive theory is the worst kind. The behavioural assumptions of NC econ are naive in this dimension. Infinite rationality is easily affordable in theory. In reality, both the approximation of it is expensive, and the hack/exploitation of its failure to materialize are profound.
kourt 12y ago
A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). No, that's a person with "high hourly earned income". Making wealth is not the only way to get rich. For most of human history it has not even been the most common. Until a few centuries ago, the main sources of wealth were mines, slaves and serfs, land, and cattle, and the only ways to acquire these rapidly were by inheritance, marriage, conquest, or confiscation. Naturally wealth had a bad reputation. - Paul Graham
- smsm42 12y ago
  We're not living "a few centuries ago", however. And there is also an important qualifying word "rapidly". One doesn't have to become rich overnight to be rich now. As for the "bad reputation", given that most things that were written and otherwise arrived to us were composed by people of some means at least (excluding monks, etc. which are harder to classify by modern standards) - really poor folks had high illiteracy rates, little spare time to create records that we could read, and not many people that cared for their opinions enough to create permanent record of them. So, given that, how exactly Paul Graham knows what reputation the wealth had amongst folks who weren't wealthy?