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Great comment. Also, those of us who fight against inequality are not fighting for equality at all. What we say is simple - if you have a million dollars and 1

Great comment. Also, those of us who fight against inequality are not fighting for equality at all. What we say is simple - if you have a million dollars and 100 people to share it - rather than 1 person have 990,000 and the remaining 10,000 divided among 99 we want the 1st person to have 800,000 and the remaining 200,000 to be divided among the 99. That way, the first guy can have his $5,000 wine without paying any extra tax while we have our $50 wine. In the first scenario, the first guy still gets his $5,000 wine but the remaining can barely afford two meals a day.

astazangasta 12y ago
Don't speak for everyone. Personally I think the idea that we need wealth concentration at all is bogus. Investment is already performed by teams of skilled experts on behalf of the wealthy. We don't need individuals who simply perform the function of owning things and reaping the benefits for literally doing nothing. There are better ways we could be allocating capital. We also don't need wealth concentration to encourage people to work. The vast majority of productive people act in the economy for modest rewards and the hope of a middle class life. The wealthy are obsolete and dangerous; we need to move on as a society from the forms that enable them.
- jchrisa 12y ago
  To my mind the fundamental problem is that we insist on placing everyone on the same number line. In real life some folks may be more envious of Bill Gates while others are more envious of Joe Armstrong. In reality total ordering, or even partial ordering does not correspond to our intuitions. Real networks present a different partial ordering to each node in the network, why not build a crypto currency that exhibits this property?
- icebraining 12y ago
  The vast majority of productive people act in the economy for modest rewards and the hope of a middle class life. Devil's advocate: the vast majority of productive people do the important everyday work, but don't perform major improvements in the state of the art. What about the inventors of life-changing technology? Would the vast majority of them invest years of their life in it if it only paid the same as getting a normal job?
  - tomp 12y ago
    > Would the vast majority of them invest years of their life in it if it only paid the same as getting a normal job? Empirically, given that academia pays much less than working in the industry, yes. > the vast majority of productive people do the important everyday work I beg to differ. Most productive people do completely irrelevant everyday work: optimize or sell ads, or play wall-street poker with other people's money. Very few people do the actually important work (e.g. garbage collectors, farmers, scientists, teachers).
  - cortesoft 12y ago
    I don't think the answer is a simple "No, they wouldn't invest those years of their life" It seems in my experience that most people who invent life changing technology don't do it for the money; they do it because they like to create. Humans have an innate drive to create new things. While I think it makes sense to reward people who contribute to society, those rewards don't have to be unlimited.
- rjdagost 12y ago
  You write as if no one has ever tried different ways of allocating capital. The 20th century is replete with examples of such "better" ways of allocating capital that failed spectacularly (often with considerable bloodshed).
  - vidarh 12y ago
    No, it is full of examples of groups that established themselves as the new elites and continued maintaining the same type of semi-feudal systems they replaced. Many of them used rhetoric about redistribution to placate the masses, yes. But there was little different but names in the methods for allocating capital in Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union: The decisions were in both cases taken by a privileged elite insulated from the effects of their decisions.
    - slowmovintarget 12y ago
      Yet it is either astonishingly arrogant or astonishingly naïve to think that "if only we got a crack at it we'd do it right." Any mechanism of government can and will be abused. Some such mechanisms like those of centrally planned economies are not only more likely to be abused, but more easy to abuse. Worse, they are so very often employed by the same people who think on the matter and decide we're just going to have to kill the people who don't agree with us. The only thing that makes us better is if we take those lessons from history as a warning and prioritize liberty first. These mechanisms prioritize equal outcome, which is a fools errand. Doubly so in a leaky economy.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    The 20th century is also full of examples of better and worse ways of allocating capital that didn't go on in the Soviet bloc. Troll harder: there are more than two alternatives.
- vixen99 12y ago
  Yes, stop Musk et al., doing what they're doing because we 'don't need it' 'cos it's bogus. How your ideas could operate in other than a totalitarian state is not clear to me because you'd certainly never be able to implement them otherwise - thank goodness.
seanflyon 12y ago
> we want the 1st person to have 800,000 and the remaining 200,000 to be divided among the 99 I know you are just throwing out hypothetical numbers but what kind of wealth distribution would you actually want? Wealth is already much more evenly distributed than the numbers you said you want. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

astazangasta 12y ago

Don't speak for everyone. Personally I think the idea that we need wealth concentration at all is bogus. Investment is already performed by teams of skilled experts on behalf of the wealthy. We don't need individuals who simply perform the function of owning things and reaping the benefits for literally doing nothing. There are better ways we could be allocating capital. We also don't need wealth concentration to encourage people to work. The vast majority of productive people act in the economy for modest rewards and the hope of a middle class life. The wealthy are obsolete and dangerous; we need to move on as a society from the forms that enable them.

jchrisa 12y ago
To my mind the fundamental problem is that we insist on placing everyone on the same number line. In real life some folks may be more envious of Bill Gates while others are more envious of Joe Armstrong. In reality total ordering, or even partial ordering does not correspond to our intuitions. Real networks present a different partial ordering to each node in the network, why not build a crypto currency that exhibits this property?
icebraining 12y ago
The vast majority of productive people act in the economy for modest rewards and the hope of a middle class life. Devil's advocate: the vast majority of productive people do the important everyday work, but don't perform major improvements in the state of the art. What about the inventors of life-changing technology? Would the vast majority of them invest years of their life in it if it only paid the same as getting a normal job?
- tomp 12y ago
  > Would the vast majority of them invest years of their life in it if it only paid the same as getting a normal job? Empirically, given that academia pays much less than working in the industry, yes. > the vast majority of productive people do the important everyday work I beg to differ. Most productive people do completely irrelevant everyday work: optimize or sell ads, or play wall-street poker with other people's money. Very few people do the actually important work (e.g. garbage collectors, farmers, scientists, teachers).
- cortesoft 12y ago
  I don't think the answer is a simple "No, they wouldn't invest those years of their life" It seems in my experience that most people who invent life changing technology don't do it for the money; they do it because they like to create. Humans have an innate drive to create new things. While I think it makes sense to reward people who contribute to society, those rewards don't have to be unlimited.
rjdagost 12y ago
You write as if no one has ever tried different ways of allocating capital. The 20th century is replete with examples of such "better" ways of allocating capital that failed spectacularly (often with considerable bloodshed).
- vidarh 12y ago
  No, it is full of examples of groups that established themselves as the new elites and continued maintaining the same type of semi-feudal systems they replaced. Many of them used rhetoric about redistribution to placate the masses, yes. But there was little different but names in the methods for allocating capital in Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union: The decisions were in both cases taken by a privileged elite insulated from the effects of their decisions.
  - slowmovintarget 12y ago
    Yet it is either astonishingly arrogant or astonishingly naïve to think that "if only we got a crack at it we'd do it right." Any mechanism of government can and will be abused. Some such mechanisms like those of centrally planned economies are not only more likely to be abused, but more easy to abuse. Worse, they are so very often employed by the same people who think on the matter and decide we're just going to have to kill the people who don't agree with us. The only thing that makes us better is if we take those lessons from history as a warning and prioritize liberty first. These mechanisms prioritize equal outcome, which is a fools errand. Doubly so in a leaky economy.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  The 20th century is also full of examples of better and worse ways of allocating capital that didn't go on in the Soviet bloc. Troll harder: there are more than two alternatives.
vixen99 12y ago
Yes, stop Musk et al., doing what they're doing because we 'don't need it' 'cos it's bogus. How your ideas could operate in other than a totalitarian state is not clear to me because you'd certainly never be able to implement them otherwise - thank goodness.

seanflyon 12y ago

> we want the 1st person to have 800,000 and the remaining 200,000 to be divided among the 99 I know you are just throwing out hypothetical numbers but what kind of wealth distribution would you actually want? Wealth is already much more evenly distributed than the numbers you said you want. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth