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> such markets weight present utility experienced by market participants by past wealth accumulation, and thus are progressively distortive in terms of distribu

> such markets weight present utility experienced by market participants by past wealth accumulation, and thus are progressively distortive in terms of distribution of utility Are you against the accumulation of capital or do you feel it should have an upper limit? IMO money is a way to measure value provided to society and money saved is debt that hasn't been called in, whether inherited or earned. If society has seen vast productivity gains in the interim then of course money earned by mowing someones lawn a 100 years ago would go a lot further today. I don't see the accumulation or ownership of capital as fundamental structural inequity

dragonwriter 12y ago
> Are you against the accumulation of capital or do you feel it should have an upper limit? Neither. > IMO money is a way to measure value provided to society Obviously, its a way to measure that. I specifically identified how its a problematic way to measure that -- providing equal utility to someone with greater wealth provides greater reward, which means that those who have accumulated wealth -- often aided by inheritance and circumstance of birth -- are most able to redirect society to serve their utility, including reshaping it to direct future wealth to themselves and their descendants. Left unchecked, this tends to make money, overtime, a worse and worse representation of social value provided by the person holding it, and the market value of exchanges a worse and worse measure of the social value of the exchange. That's not to say that wealth accumulation should not be permitted nor that it should have a fixed upper limit, because those have their own problems. But it does need to be recognized as a distortion and balanced. and that's increasingly more true the more the rewards of the economy, before considering regulatory interventions, go to capital rather than labor.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Are you against the accumulation of capital or do you feel it should have an upper limit? Neither. > IMO money is a way to measure value provided to society Obviously, its a way to measure that. I specifically identified how its a problematic way to measure that -- providing equal utility to someone with greater wealth provides greater reward, which means that those who have accumulated wealth -- often aided by inheritance and circumstance of birth -- are most able to redirect society to serve their utility, including reshaping it to direct future wealth to themselves and their descendants. Left unchecked, this tends to make money, overtime, a worse and worse representation of social value provided by the person holding it, and the market value of exchanges a worse and worse measure of the social value of the exchange. That's not to say that wealth accumulation should not be permitted nor that it should have a fixed upper limit, because those have their own problems. But it does need to be recognized as a distortion and balanced. and that's increasingly more true the more the rewards of the economy, before considering regulatory interventions, go to capital rather than labor.