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Focusing solely on wealth inequality leads to strange conclusions: The richest people should destroy productive resources But destroying productive resource

Focusing solely on wealth inequality leads to strange conclusions: The richest people should destroy productive resources But destroying productive resources (efficient water purifiers, better solar panels, computers that do more computations using less energy) would have been wrong in almost all of history - so why would we adopt beliefs now which make it right? I think it makes more sense to focus on getting everyone to a basic level of freedom & choice; i.e. good health, good education, and freedom of information. A successful world is one where everyone has at least these basics. In that world, we don't have to worry if the richest person's swiss bank account balance doubles, or they build a few more mansions. The problem of wealth is the people who don't have enough!

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
> The richest people should destroy productive resources No. Focusing on inequality would lead to the conclusion that the richest should hand over some of their capital resources to the middle classes and the poor, ie: to the working class.
- monkeypizza 12y ago
  Say there's someone who wants to reduce inequality, and we ask them whether they approve of various scenarios: Situation: "People living on a certain well-off island discover a way to farm more efficiently, which means they produce 10% more food, but that technology only works on their island. Is this good or bad?" Inequality reducer: "This is bad, because that island's average income will go up while the rest of the world stays the same" Situation: "We discover a free, simple cure for Alzheimer's" Inequality reducer: "That's horrible, because Alzheimer's does the most damage to highly educated countries - those countries will now have way more mentally together, experienced 70-year-olds making them even richer, which will increase economic inequality with poorer countries where fewer people suffer from alzheimer's" You have got to see this is a bit weird, right? It's a focus on minimizing local distortions sometimes can have a bad effect. In fact, imagine we really did have "equality" - the anti-inequality advocate would object to any change in that world, since it would lead to a temporary bit of inequality as information about the change propagated through it. Even simple things like the first invention of mechanized agriculture, or machines to make clothing, introduced tons of inequality at first, since there was only one copy of them at first! But we're better off now that our civilization doesn't have to devote 50% of everyone's life to growing food & making clothes by hand! The other way to think about it is that that we just have to make sure everyone has at least a basic level of food, health, education, and freedom. That lets us focus on the main problems (people who don't have enough), and never could lead us into condemning gains in human quality of life.
  - matthewmacleod 12y ago
    That's an absolute straw man - someone wanting to reduce inequality doesn't want to do it at the expense of all other considerations, which is the assumption you've made. Complaining about an increasing wealth gap does not mean that the only other option is perfect equality of wealth. Have you seen the breakdown of wealth in America? The gap between, say, the top 1% and the rest of society is staggering. The top 0.1% have more wealth than the bottom 90%! It's a broken system that results in some people having wealth so wildly out of proportion with the rest of society, and its hard to argue its proportional to the value of their contributions.
    - JanezStupar 12y ago
      What if it is not broken, but inevitable?
      - matthewmacleod 12y ago
        Then you need to speak to a philosopher…
      - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
        There's nothing economically inevitable about spending public subsidy on the rich instead of the poor.
        JanezStupar 12y ago
        How did you get public subsidy into discussion anyway? I have posted a simple question. What if large asset control inequality is inevitable? Is bringing down the wealthy, so that a new class of wealthy takes over and possibly destroying large means of the assets in process benefit society? Thus far that is the biggest outcome generated by previous attempts at decreasing inequality.
        unclebucknasty 12y ago
        >How did you get public subsidy into discussion See sd8f9iu's comment below. For instance: "If congress passes a tax cut for the top 1%, that increases inequality, not because some group has suddenly "found a way to farm more efficiently" That is, public subsidy is naturally a part of the discussion. >What if large asset control inequality is inevitable? There is nothing "inevitable" about asset control because there is nothing "inevitable" about our economic system. It is all a function of the choices that we make, so you are begging the question to some degree. Some of the choices are related to, say, tax-policy, as noted. But, the system itself is one that we have constructed from the ground up to allocate resources (from property rights to market function to fiat currency). We've created ALL of the rules from whole cloth, so how can we turn around and say, "well, that's inevitable", as if nature has decided? >Is bringing down the wealthy, so that a new class of wealthy takes over... This is a strawman similar to monkeypiza's comment above. "Bringing down the wealthy", creating a new class of wealthy that "takes over", etc. are not the stated desire or inevitable result of making the system more equitable. It's not a binary proposition. When we have, say, tax code that favors capital over labor, while we simultaneously assault unionization, the outcome is clearly skewed in one direction. Surely, you see that these factors are out of balance in disfavor of one group. And, if so (and your interest is in fairness), then you would have to flip your original argument in the other direction.
- mtew 12y ago
  What if that capital disappeared as soon as you went to grab it?
- jdimov 12y ago
  What kind of communist propaganda is this? What world do you live in?
johnchristopher 12y ago
>Focusing solely on wealth inequality leads to strange conclusions: > > The richest people should destroy productive resources Where does that come from ? I can't find that quote in the linked articles.
- monkeypizza 12y ago
  If you judge countries externally by their Gini coefficient, countries which blow up the richest people's resources (or just stifle innovation (The USSR, 60s China)) will have a "better" number. So it's a really bad number to use, since there are evil ways to maximize it. I'm suggesting we should use numbers like the absolute # of people in poverty, or national health, or access to education - those numbers aren't gameable and allow better solutions to rise to the top naturally (and we don't care how they go up, as long as they go up)

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

> The richest people should destroy productive resources No. Focusing on inequality would lead to the conclusion that the richest should hand over some of their capital resources to the middle classes and the poor, ie: to the working class.

monkeypizza 12y ago
Say there's someone who wants to reduce inequality, and we ask them whether they approve of various scenarios: Situation: "People living on a certain well-off island discover a way to farm more efficiently, which means they produce 10% more food, but that technology only works on their island. Is this good or bad?" Inequality reducer: "This is bad, because that island's average income will go up while the rest of the world stays the same" Situation: "We discover a free, simple cure for Alzheimer's" Inequality reducer: "That's horrible, because Alzheimer's does the most damage to highly educated countries - those countries will now have way more mentally together, experienced 70-year-olds making them even richer, which will increase economic inequality with poorer countries where fewer people suffer from alzheimer's" You have got to see this is a bit weird, right? It's a focus on minimizing local distortions sometimes can have a bad effect. In fact, imagine we really did have "equality" - the anti-inequality advocate would object to any change in that world, since it would lead to a temporary bit of inequality as information about the change propagated through it. Even simple things like the first invention of mechanized agriculture, or machines to make clothing, introduced tons of inequality at first, since there was only one copy of them at first! But we're better off now that our civilization doesn't have to devote 50% of everyone's life to growing food & making clothes by hand! The other way to think about it is that that we just have to make sure everyone has at least a basic level of food, health, education, and freedom. That lets us focus on the main problems (people who don't have enough), and never could lead us into condemning gains in human quality of life.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  That's an absolute straw man - someone wanting to reduce inequality doesn't want to do it at the expense of all other considerations, which is the assumption you've made. Complaining about an increasing wealth gap does not mean that the only other option is perfect equality of wealth. Have you seen the breakdown of wealth in America? The gap between, say, the top 1% and the rest of society is staggering. The top 0.1% have more wealth than the bottom 90%! It's a broken system that results in some people having wealth so wildly out of proportion with the rest of society, and its hard to argue its proportional to the value of their contributions.
  - JanezStupar 12y ago
    What if it is not broken, but inevitable?
    - matthewmacleod 12y ago
      Then you need to speak to a philosopher…
    - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
      There's nothing economically inevitable about spending public subsidy on the rich instead of the poor.
      - JanezStupar 12y ago
        How did you get public subsidy into discussion anyway? I have posted a simple question. What if large asset control inequality is inevitable? Is bringing down the wealthy, so that a new class of wealthy takes over and possibly destroying large means of the assets in process benefit society? Thus far that is the biggest outcome generated by previous attempts at decreasing inequality.
        unclebucknasty 12y ago
        >How did you get public subsidy into discussion See sd8f9iu's comment below. For instance: "If congress passes a tax cut for the top 1%, that increases inequality, not because some group has suddenly "found a way to farm more efficiently" That is, public subsidy is naturally a part of the discussion. >What if large asset control inequality is inevitable? There is nothing "inevitable" about asset control because there is nothing "inevitable" about our economic system. It is all a function of the choices that we make, so you are begging the question to some degree. Some of the choices are related to, say, tax-policy, as noted. But, the system itself is one that we have constructed from the ground up to allocate resources (from property rights to market function to fiat currency). We've created ALL of the rules from whole cloth, so how can we turn around and say, "well, that's inevitable", as if nature has decided? >Is bringing down the wealthy, so that a new class of wealthy takes over... This is a strawman similar to monkeypiza's comment above. "Bringing down the wealthy", creating a new class of wealthy that "takes over", etc. are not the stated desire or inevitable result of making the system more equitable. It's not a binary proposition. When we have, say, tax code that favors capital over labor, while we simultaneously assault unionization, the outcome is clearly skewed in one direction. Surely, you see that these factors are out of balance in disfavor of one group. And, if so (and your interest is in fairness), then you would have to flip your original argument in the other direction.
mtew 12y ago
What if that capital disappeared as soon as you went to grab it?
jdimov 12y ago
What kind of communist propaganda is this? What world do you live in?

johnchristopher 12y ago

>Focusing solely on wealth inequality leads to strange conclusions: > > The richest people should destroy productive resources Where does that come from ? I can't find that quote in the linked articles.

monkeypizza 12y ago
If you judge countries externally by their Gini coefficient, countries which blow up the richest people's resources (or just stifle innovation (The USSR, 60s China)) will have a "better" number. So it's a really bad number to use, since there are evil ways to maximize it. I'm suggesting we should use numbers like the absolute # of people in poverty, or national health, or access to education - those numbers aren't gameable and allow better solutions to rise to the top naturally (and we don't care how they go up, as long as they go up)