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It's bizarre to me that people prefer to focus on how much somebody owns rather than if he earned it honestly. If a person didn't steal, cheat or coerced anybod

by snitko 12y ago

It's bizarre to me that people prefer to focus on how much somebody owns rather than if he earned it honestly. If a person didn't steal, cheat or coerced anybody in the process of making his money, he is entitled to it. I don't care how rich he is, because he didn't do anything bad to anybody else. Then of course people say "but greed". Yes, as if only rich people are greedy and you are not.

meric 12y ago
You could frame the report in terms of "How in equal are people in terms of the ability to generate wealth honestly?". I don't think the report mentioned anything about stealing, cheating or coercing. A janitor in Australia makes a whole lot more than a janitor in India, and is able to save a lot more after consuming the same amount of goods, for example. Both earned their wealth honestly but why is one wealthier than the other merely because of living in a different country? Statistics like these can provoke some good questions.
afarrell 12y ago
If you buy something in a peaceful and non-coersive transaction from someone who burgled it, have you acquired it honestly?
mc32 12y ago
I think the honesty part is what bothers people. People want to know that wealth wasn't gained via dishonesty, favors, favoritism, advantage, etc. In some ways wealth accumulation, if not managed by government thru taxation or other means can snowball and can create power plays favoring the wealthy. So I think the drumbeat has to do with the 'pendulum' being perceived to be too much in the 'wealthy' phase. People would prefer to see less sharp inequality not so much the disappearance of it as that is also undesirable (being that it too is too artificial) One of the symptoms is the spread of CxO pay to staff pay. Or companies with record profits paying near minimum wage --sure it makes sense in pure competitive capitalism, but is that what is best for society? Should we govern those disparities more, would it make society at large better (result in better educated and more productive people with reduction in crime, etc?) Unrelated to this but nonetheless a question this brings up is how well could the world deal with 7billion people with incomes similar to middle income euro/nam/east Asians?
mherkender 12y ago
I can't speak for everyone, but for me it was more about the growing divide between the rich and poor. I don't think a healthy/happy society with room for upward mobility can exist if things keep moving in this direction. This is literally how wars start. I really can't understand how you think this is about some person's individual success. People don't hate that, they want it for themselves too. The problem is that statistically it's becoming less likely for poorer economic groups, regardless of their honesty.
- snitko 12y ago
  I agree with you that a healthy society is the one where the gap between the poor and the rich is small. However, I believe this must not be achieved by any kind of coercion coming from government. It may work sometimes (as in Scandinavian countries, but those are exceptions and I'm not gonna go into the details of why I think this cannot be duplicated), but ultimately, I think the gap can only be made smaller by free market and free trade, without government violence and coercion. If you look at the wealthiest people in the world, those are the people who are either in power or close to power. Nobody will be able to make money by favoritism or coercion or corruption if there is no entity (e.g. government) that facilitates those things. Look at the world map. Which countries (again, with the exception of Scandinavian countries) are the richest and in which countries the lot of ordinary men is better? The ones where there's more free market, not less. The US, of course, is absolutely not in the top list of those countries, being highly regulated and taxed.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomp 12y ago
    > Which countries (again, with the exception of Scandinavian countries) are the richest and in which countries the lot of ordinary men is better? The ones where there's more free market, not less Which countries, specifically, do you have in mind?
    - snitko 12y ago
rgbrenner 12y ago
I don't think that's the primary issue. I think there's a large number of people who feel like the rules that everyone plays by are harder than the rules the rich play by. For example, the negative opinion many have of the lower tax rate for capital gains vs payroll taxes. It's not that those who pay capital gains tax are dishonest. It's that it's unfair that their earnings are taxed at a lower rate. Other examples might be CEO pay vs average pay; the shrinking middle class; etc.. These create a feeling that while the rich grow richer, things get harder for the middle class... and add to this sense of unfairness. Since it's unfair if a company is improving it's earnings/productivity/etc, but most of those gains go to the CEO (since that increase is the result of everyones input). From that angle, this really has nothing to do with greed. If it were to come to light that some rich person also earned their money dishonestly.. that seems to create anger that's directed toward that person/group.. see the anger people had over the bank bailouts... that didn't grow into an anti-rich campaign.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  >For example, the negative opinion many have of the lower tax rate for capital gains vs payroll taxes. Not to mention the fact that contractors pay almost double employment tax at a time when more and more employees are being pushed out into being contractors.
bksenior 12y ago
Wrong. Money becomes family money and when there is an inequity large enough that they can affect large parts of infrastructure you are basically guaranteeing power to scions who were not trained for the responsibility or the value of the fortune.
pgsandstrom 12y ago
If one honest hardworking person is living in poverty and one honest hardworking person is a billionare, then I do have a problem with it. I'm greedy myself, does that make it wrong of me to want to change the system?
xnull2guest 12y ago
What if a person did not earn, but inherited wealth? Nearly 50% of the Forbes 500 have inherited their wealth. The Walton children will soon be inheriting a sum equal to the combined wealth of the bottom 3/4 of all black American families.
- snitko 12y ago
  A society where inheritance is not possible or heavily taxed are doomed to spiral into short-term entertainment consumer economies. That is, people, knowing they can't leave anything to their children, will spend as much as they can on things they don't really need, thus provoking the wrong kind of spending. The question is, if I made my money honestly, do I have the right to spend my money as I please? If yes, then I should be able to leave it to my children, and not to someone else's children. If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair.
  - jnbiche 12y ago
    >If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair If our current system of government weren't rotten to the core, I'd actually agree with you. But so much of the top 1% of net worth has been accumulated through government spending (particularly DoD spending) or corporate welfare (particularly in the finance sector), and that's equally immoral, evil, and unfair.
    - snitko 12y ago
      oh, but I agree. I'm not advocating government spending. I'm only saying that in principle, ANY government is corrupt and the most wealth is accumulated by being close to the power (either by lobbying, favoritism, coercion or plain corruption). Government (both as a concept and as a specific entity in each country) is the source of most of the inequalities, not the cure.
rab_oof 12y ago
Ethics are important, without a doubt, just orthogonal to how much more poor people are struggling. If it's any sign, look at the homeless camps in Silicon Valley. People (outside tech) were never so broke as now, it's almost a 1920's pattern, to a limited degree. Janitors live in their cars in our parking lot because they can't afford housing. I wish they were paid more. :(( Eventually, we may need redistribution of wealth, voluntary or not, because people need at least enough food and shelter, and some path to self-sufficiency, if possible. I don't advocate rash direct wealth transfer but at first voluntary subsidization/underwriting of bare, minimal essentials (food (organic, fair trade fruits/vegetables/etc.[0]), housing, transport, education) adjusted to income. (Santa Clara county General Assistance (GA) for singles is ~$150 USD/month and food stamps (CalFresh) is about the same... Seriously not enough to survive on but also not enough for people to hurt themselves with either.) 0: to avoid workers being sprayed with horrible chemicals and such. (Btw, in California, CRLA are cool folks.)
- rgbrenner 12y ago
  Eventually, we may need redistribution of wealth, voluntary or not, because people need at least enough food and shelter, and some path to self-sufficiency, if possible. And this is why at some level, a person is no longer entitled to additional wealth (even if it's earned honestly and fairly). We know from history that when a small group of people control the vast majority of wealth, it creates an unstable system. So in order to maintain a stable government and economy, there must be some limits on wealth. (and progressive taxes are one of the ways we control wealth, and prevent this instability.)
quadrangle 12y ago
> If a person didn't steal, cheat or coerced anybody in the process of making his money, he is entitled to it. What a completely empty concept of morality. Human societies and philosophers have wrestled for generations with ideas about justice, fairness, compassion, ethics… You will do well to take some time with an open mind to explore the range of ideas people have worked out. Moral judgments about what people deserve in life are far more complex than whether a single person didn't themselves cheat, steal, or coerce.
noelwelsh 12y ago
Update: edited to reflect comments of xnull2guest below. Wealthy people have disproportionate power in society and use that power to distort society to serve their needs. One simple example is how large US companies use government lobbying to transfer money from the public to themselves. Here is a list of the top spenders on lobbying: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s (Incidentally, notice how underrepresented consumer groups are.) Consider Lockheed, Boeing, and Northrup, which each spent about $200M. These companies all produce expensive military goods. Much has been written about the military-industrial complex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_com...), and how it serves the needs of the defence companies. A fairly clear example is the program to transfer excess military equipment (worth $billions) from the military to the US police (e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ferguson-police-military-restraints-violence-weaponry-missouri http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ferguson-police...), which supports over-spending on military equipment. Another is the cost overruns in F35 project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II#Program_cost_increases_and_delays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...). What happens to the money that these companies acquire? Just as inequality is increasing in society, so is inequality in pay within companies (e.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/the-pay-gap-between-ceos-and-workers-is-much-worse-than-you-realize/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/t...). Choosing Boeing at random, it's CEO has received over $20M for several years running (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/14/compensation-for-boeing-ceo-soars/6425487/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/14/comp...) All up, this is a complex system to transfer money from the public into the pockets of the high level executives at a few firms. There are other examples of systematic changes to benefit the wealthy, such as declining tax rate for top earners in the US and other countries. See http://milescorak.com/2013/05/29/do-falling-tax-rates-explain-the-rising-incomes-of-the-top-1/ http://milescorak.com/2013/05/29/do-falling-tax-rates-explai... I don't want to give the impression that all these shenanigans involve government corruption. The wage fixing case against Apple, Google, etc. (http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-rejection-in-wage-fixing-case/ http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-r...) is a good example of private companies acting to screw over workers without involving government.
RobertKerans 12y ago
One issue might be that, going by history, there is likely a tipping point where those not in the 1% use force to redistribute. That's got nothing to do with whether the wealth was accrued lawfully.
- mc32 12y ago
  Revolutions aren't typically driven by the starving populace who worry about their next meal --it's more people already in power or higher classes who use the masses to effect their change. Change usually has champions at the top. In other words it's a power struggle at the top manifested at the bottom.
  - xnull2guest 12y ago
    I would love to hear more about this analysis of the ontology of revolutions. I can think of instances in history where this seems to be the case (1850s America) but also instances were it does not seem to be the case (The Peasant's Revolt). Do you know of a more nuanced (empirical) approach to predicting or recognizing which instances are driven by the masses, rather than political narrative?
    - mc32 12y ago
      Unfortunately not. This is just what I've heard from students of history not actual experts. It seems like a subject that could do with more analysis --although this would require lots of inference with regard to older revolutions I think
  - RobertKerans 12y ago
    I'd kinda agree with that, there generally needs to be a driving force, and that driver is often primarily a group of persons who already have a measure of power. But it's not as much a starving populance that would be worrisome, rather an ignored one that a. feels it has no power and b. feels it cannot ever bridge that gap between haves- and have-nots. If that group includes the majority of the population, it would seem ripe for people with specific [often extremist?] agendas to manipulate, or maybe ground-up revolution driven by [demagogues?].
coldtea 12y ago
>It's bizarre to me that people prefer to focus on how much somebody owns rather than if he earned it honestly. From a state where everybody is born naked and without any god given possesions, it's only through injustice, and accumulated violence, exclusion, etc that you get to a state were somebody has billions and others nothing. Even the mere act of inheritance (in which you did nothing at all, neither bad nor good to get those money from) makes an old injustice persistent.
- refurb 12y ago
  So you're saying that if i die i can't give my money (which i already paid taxes on) to whomever i want?
  - xnull2guest 12y ago
    It's called an estate tax. Gifts of property and money to people while you are alive, when they exceed certain totals per year and when they exceed certain totals on individual terms, these exchanges are taxed. There is no reason why it should not also be so when you pass on.
  - yoavm 12y ago
    In a world where money == power, giving millions to your children isn't a lot different from a king passing on the crown to his.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    Yeah, I'm saying that. Believe it or not "It's my money, I do whatever I want with them" is not seen by everybody as some divine-being-given right. Nor it was always available in all societies. And it's quite hypocritical to be called from a society that supposedly believes in the advantages of capitalism and the free market as motivating forces for progress and hard work, etc. Inherited money are against all that. In fact they take us to feudal times, taken in extreme.
    - refurb 12y ago
      Inherited money are against progress and hard work? They would take us to feudal times? Where are you getting this from?
mapt 12y ago
I understand where you are coming from 100%, but ultimately, money & wealth is the manner in which this socioeconomic system describes power imbalances between people - power imbalances which are not natural and which are not indefinitely feasible. With $1B, I can hire 20,000 people for $50,000 a year. I possess the things they think are necessary for their livelihood (the much-vaunted 'means of production'), laundered through this thing we call an 'economy', and my ownership of those things is protected with force of law and custom. My $1B is heritable, and according to the doctrines of personal property, essentially inviolable. Is there a distinction between a billionaire and a dynastic prince of a small nation who can command up to 20,000 people for up to a year before they get angry enough at him that they stop listening? Large amounts of wealth inequality implicitly distort liberal democracy - the thing that recognizes "rights" as a philosophical system of morality & ethics - and destabilize it. There is no "correct" level of wealth inequality, but a system in which wealth inequality is growing in an out of control fashion, is an unstable system whose existence is threatened. That this system is liberal democratic market capitalism matters little - this is not some kind of natural arrangement, it's something we built, and it's something which can fail. Because people, as a whole, only respect what's written on little bits of paper - only respect the customs and law of property rights and the existing power structure - so long as the system provides them with the things they think are necessary for their livelihood. Well, that's our system. Nearly all growth of the economy is ending up technically "owned" by a narrower and narrower minority. For one reason or other, the economic equation has developed an unbalanced variable, and wealth is completely failing to trickle down... and our system can't sustain this perpetual exponential growth in power imbalance forever. Some of the greatest attacks on inequality were performed in part due to a very real fear that the whole system would collapse in a socialist revolution; The fact that the Communists are fallen has made this less credible, and perhaps, for all their evils, that's not a great thing for us. Apparently, in the early history of currency, after we had gotten property rights laid down tightly and developed a fungible system of value, various civilizations developed a problem. Unlike the vague bonds of social obligation that they had previously represented, debts that are denominated in coinage attract contract arrangements with penalties such as slavery. This was accepted until surprisingly recently as an unfortunate necessity of life. The elite discovered that the accumulation of slaves was a practical problem, because their customary service as cook or manservant or sexual partner took them out of the fields, and first currency crises were born: It was recognized that if the fields were left fallow, this was a worse outcome for all than the property of the elites not being sacrosanct. The arrangement that was periodically arrived at was that the king would issue a jubilee, freeing all the slaves to go back to their fields and their families, with no compensation to the elites. When this was missing for a protracted period, slave revolts tended to pop up, with summary execution of the masters as a prize. The system of norms ("rights") is subordinate, at some level, to the proper functioning of a society. It doesn't particularly matter whether we call people with an indispensable debt that they need to perform service to partially mitigate, "slaves" or "working class" or "debt peons". You can only push them so far and still earn positive economic returns, and beyond that, in the full view of history, you can only push them so far and still keep your head. Whether one is "entitled" to property is a view from so close to the ground one can't see past the blades of grass.
rdtsc 12y ago
> If a person didn't steal, cheat or coerced anybody in the process of making his money, he is entitled to it. Depending on the interpretation of "cheat","steal", "coerced" and "anyone" means. Take the banks that made money from the real estate bubble. Did they cheat, steal or coerced anyone? Maybe if you comb through the legal details they haven't. Yet many will say they did. > Then of course people say "but greed". Yes, as if only rich people are greedy and you are not. The problem is if the rich are greedy they have the potential to inflict a lot more damage than say if someone poor is greedy.
gdne 12y ago
Whether or not the rich earned their wealth honestly has nothing to do with the issue of excessive wealth inequality. Excessive wealth inequality creates a massive imbalance in society. The concentration of wealth in the hands of so few leads to corruption, oppression, and wars. We already see all of this and it will only get worse unless we address the issue.
CmonDev 12y ago
Rich people owned most of Russia once... Quite "honestly" according to the laws of those times. What could possibly go wrong?
- chrisbennet 12y ago
  And now they do again...
_benedict 12y ago
You're ignoring heritable wealth. Personally I support a 100% estate tax above some small multiple of the median salary, so that the meritocratic element of society can flourish. This doesn't prevent the parents spending lavishly on their children whilst still alive, and might need some provisions to permit such spendings (for educational and other pursuits while still developing) to be secured in trust form in case of premature death. Right now inheriting valuable property and other assets is an "honest" mechanism, but is not at all clearly fair.
- iamds 12y ago
  I think this comes with lots of difficulties. For example should you be evicted from your family farm that you've worked on your whole life when your 80 year old mother dies just because you haven't saved up enough money to buy it on the event of her death. What if you are a subsistence farmer in Cambodia in the same situation - should you lose your family land to the state on the event of the death of your parents?
VikingCoder 12y ago
We rejected inherited political power as a system of government. Some of us feel that inherited wealth is just as detrimental. We'd love to see more evidence of upward mobility, and we question the legal and tax systems that stop upward mobility from happening, even for those who are skilled and willing to work very hard.

by snitko 12y ago

meric 12y ago

You could frame the report in terms of "How in equal are people in terms of the ability to generate wealth honestly?". I don't think the report mentioned anything about stealing, cheating or coercing. A janitor in Australia makes a whole lot more than a janitor in India, and is able to save a lot more after consuming the same amount of goods, for example. Both earned their wealth honestly but why is one wealthier than the other merely because of living in a different country? Statistics like these can provoke some good questions.

afarrell 12y ago

If you buy something in a peaceful and non-coersive transaction from someone who burgled it, have you acquired it honestly?

mc32 12y ago

I think the honesty part is what bothers people. People want to know that wealth wasn't gained via dishonesty, favors, favoritism, advantage, etc. In some ways wealth accumulation, if not managed by government thru taxation or other means can snowball and can create power plays favoring the wealthy. So I think the drumbeat has to do with the 'pendulum' being perceived to be too much in the 'wealthy' phase. People would prefer to see less sharp inequality not so much the disappearance of it as that is also undesirable (being that it too is too artificial) One of the symptoms is the spread of CxO pay to staff pay. Or companies with record profits paying near minimum wage --sure it makes sense in pure competitive capitalism, but is that what is best for society? Should we govern those disparities more, would it make society at large better (result in better educated and more productive people with reduction in crime, etc?) Unrelated to this but nonetheless a question this brings up is how well could the world deal with 7billion people with incomes similar to middle income euro/nam/east Asians?

mherkender 12y ago

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it was more about the growing divide between the rich and poor. I don't think a healthy/happy society with room for upward mobility can exist if things keep moving in this direction. This is literally how wars start. I really can't understand how you think this is about some person's individual success. People don't hate that, they want it for themselves too. The problem is that statistically it's becoming less likely for poorer economic groups, regardless of their honesty.

snitko 12y ago
I agree with you that a healthy society is the one where the gap between the poor and the rich is small. However, I believe this must not be achieved by any kind of coercion coming from government. It may work sometimes (as in Scandinavian countries, but those are exceptions and I'm not gonna go into the details of why I think this cannot be duplicated), but ultimately, I think the gap can only be made smaller by free market and free trade, without government violence and coercion. If you look at the wealthiest people in the world, those are the people who are either in power or close to power. Nobody will be able to make money by favoritism or coercion or corruption if there is no entity (e.g. government) that facilitates those things. Look at the world map. Which countries (again, with the exception of Scandinavian countries) are the richest and in which countries the lot of ordinary men is better? The ones where there's more free market, not less. The US, of course, is absolutely not in the top list of those countries, being highly regulated and taxed.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- tomp 12y ago
  > Which countries (again, with the exception of Scandinavian countries) are the richest and in which countries the lot of ordinary men is better? The ones where there's more free market, not less Which countries, specifically, do you have in mind?
  - snitko 12y ago

rgbrenner 12y ago

I don't think that's the primary issue. I think there's a large number of people who feel like the rules that everyone plays by are harder than the rules the rich play by. For example, the negative opinion many have of the lower tax rate for capital gains vs payroll taxes. It's not that those who pay capital gains tax are dishonest. It's that it's unfair that their earnings are taxed at a lower rate. Other examples might be CEO pay vs average pay; the shrinking middle class; etc.. These create a feeling that while the rich grow richer, things get harder for the middle class... and add to this sense of unfairness. Since it's unfair if a company is improving it's earnings/productivity/etc, but most of those gains go to the CEO (since that increase is the result of everyones input). From that angle, this really has nothing to do with greed. If it were to come to light that some rich person also earned their money dishonestly.. that seems to create anger that's directed toward that person/group.. see the anger people had over the bank bailouts... that didn't grow into an anti-rich campaign.

jnbiche 12y ago
>For example, the negative opinion many have of the lower tax rate for capital gains vs payroll taxes. Not to mention the fact that contractors pay almost double employment tax at a time when more and more employees are being pushed out into being contractors.

bksenior 12y ago

Wrong. Money becomes family money and when there is an inequity large enough that they can affect large parts of infrastructure you are basically guaranteeing power to scions who were not trained for the responsibility or the value of the fortune.

pgsandstrom 12y ago

If one honest hardworking person is living in poverty and one honest hardworking person is a billionare, then I do have a problem with it. I'm greedy myself, does that make it wrong of me to want to change the system?

xnull2guest 12y ago

What if a person did not earn, but inherited wealth? Nearly 50% of the Forbes 500 have inherited their wealth. The Walton children will soon be inheriting a sum equal to the combined wealth of the bottom 3/4 of all black American families.

snitko 12y ago
A society where inheritance is not possible or heavily taxed are doomed to spiral into short-term entertainment consumer economies. That is, people, knowing they can't leave anything to their children, will spend as much as they can on things they don't really need, thus provoking the wrong kind of spending. The question is, if I made my money honestly, do I have the right to spend my money as I please? If yes, then I should be able to leave it to my children, and not to someone else's children. If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair.
- jnbiche 12y ago
  >If you think I shouldn't do that or that inheritance should be heavily taxed, you're essentially saying "even though you actually earned that money, it doesn't belong to you", which is practically communism - I think it's immoral, evil and unfair If our current system of government weren't rotten to the core, I'd actually agree with you. But so much of the top 1% of net worth has been accumulated through government spending (particularly DoD spending) or corporate welfare (particularly in the finance sector), and that's equally immoral, evil, and unfair.
  - snitko 12y ago
    oh, but I agree. I'm not advocating government spending. I'm only saying that in principle, ANY government is corrupt and the most wealth is accumulated by being close to the power (either by lobbying, favoritism, coercion or plain corruption). Government (both as a concept and as a specific entity in each country) is the source of most of the inequalities, not the cure.

rab_oof 12y ago

Ethics are important, without a doubt, just orthogonal to how much more poor people are struggling. If it's any sign, look at the homeless camps in Silicon Valley. People (outside tech) were never so broke as now, it's almost a 1920's pattern, to a limited degree. Janitors live in their cars in our parking lot because they can't afford housing. I wish they were paid more. :(( Eventually, we may need redistribution of wealth, voluntary or not, because people need at least enough food and shelter, and some path to self-sufficiency, if possible. I don't advocate rash direct wealth transfer but at first voluntary subsidization/underwriting of bare, minimal essentials (food (organic, fair trade fruits/vegetables/etc.[0]), housing, transport, education) adjusted to income. (Santa Clara county General Assistance (GA) for singles is ~$150 USD/month and food stamps (CalFresh) is about the same... Seriously not enough to survive on but also not enough for people to hurt themselves with either.) 0: to avoid workers being sprayed with horrible chemicals and such. (Btw, in California, CRLA are cool folks.)

rgbrenner 12y ago
Eventually, we may need redistribution of wealth, voluntary or not, because people need at least enough food and shelter, and some path to self-sufficiency, if possible. And this is why at some level, a person is no longer entitled to additional wealth (even if it's earned honestly and fairly). We know from history that when a small group of people control the vast majority of wealth, it creates an unstable system. So in order to maintain a stable government and economy, there must be some limits on wealth. (and progressive taxes are one of the ways we control wealth, and prevent this instability.)

quadrangle 12y ago

> If a person didn't steal, cheat or coerced anybody in the process of making his money, he is entitled to it. What a completely empty concept of morality. Human societies and philosophers have wrestled for generations with ideas about justice, fairness, compassion, ethics… You will do well to take some time with an open mind to explore the range of ideas people have worked out. Moral judgments about what people deserve in life are far more complex than whether a single person didn't themselves cheat, steal, or coerce.

noelwelsh 12y ago

Update: edited to reflect comments of xnull2guest below. Wealthy people have disproportionate power in society and use that power to distort society to serve their needs. One simple example is how large US companies use government lobbying to transfer money from the public to themselves. Here is a list of the top spenders on lobbying: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s (Incidentally, notice how underrepresented consumer groups are.) Consider Lockheed, Boeing, and Northrup, which each spent about $200M. These companies all produce expensive military goods. Much has been written about the military-industrial complex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_com...), and how it serves the needs of the defence companies. A fairly clear example is the program to transfer excess military equipment (worth $billions) from the military to the US police (e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ferguson-police-military-restraints-violence-weaponry-missouri http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/ferguson-police...), which supports over-spending on military equipment. Another is the cost overruns in F35 project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II#Program_cost_increases_and_delays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...). What happens to the money that these companies acquire? Just as inequality is increasing in society, so is inequality in pay within companies (e.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/the-pay-gap-between-ceos-and-workers-is-much-worse-than-you-realize/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/t...). Choosing Boeing at random, it's CEO has received over $20M for several years running (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/14/compensation-for-boeing-ceo-soars/6425487/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/14/comp...) All up, this is a complex system to transfer money from the public into the pockets of the high level executives at a few firms. There are other examples of systematic changes to benefit the wealthy, such as declining tax rate for top earners in the US and other countries. See http://milescorak.com/2013/05/29/do-falling-tax-rates-explain-the-rising-incomes-of-the-top-1/ http://milescorak.com/2013/05/29/do-falling-tax-rates-explai... I don't want to give the impression that all these shenanigans involve government corruption. The wage fixing case against Apple, Google, etc. (http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-rejection-in-wage-fixing-case/ http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/apple-google-appeal-settlement-r...) is a good example of private companies acting to screw over workers without involving government.

RobertKerans 12y ago

One issue might be that, going by history, there is likely a tipping point where those not in the 1% use force to redistribute. That's got nothing to do with whether the wealth was accrued lawfully.

mc32 12y ago
Revolutions aren't typically driven by the starving populace who worry about their next meal --it's more people already in power or higher classes who use the masses to effect their change. Change usually has champions at the top. In other words it's a power struggle at the top manifested at the bottom.
- xnull2guest 12y ago
  I would love to hear more about this analysis of the ontology of revolutions. I can think of instances in history where this seems to be the case (1850s America) but also instances were it does not seem to be the case (The Peasant's Revolt). Do you know of a more nuanced (empirical) approach to predicting or recognizing which instances are driven by the masses, rather than political narrative?
  - mc32 12y ago
    Unfortunately not. This is just what I've heard from students of history not actual experts. It seems like a subject that could do with more analysis --although this would require lots of inference with regard to older revolutions I think
- RobertKerans 12y ago
  I'd kinda agree with that, there generally needs to be a driving force, and that driver is often primarily a group of persons who already have a measure of power. But it's not as much a starving populance that would be worrisome, rather an ignored one that a. feels it has no power and b. feels it cannot ever bridge that gap between haves- and have-nots. If that group includes the majority of the population, it would seem ripe for people with specific [often extremist?] agendas to manipulate, or maybe ground-up revolution driven by [demagogues?].

coldtea 12y ago

>It's bizarre to me that people prefer to focus on how much somebody owns rather than if he earned it honestly. From a state where everybody is born naked and without any god given possesions, it's only through injustice, and accumulated violence, exclusion, etc that you get to a state were somebody has billions and others nothing. Even the mere act of inheritance (in which you did nothing at all, neither bad nor good to get those money from) makes an old injustice persistent.

refurb 12y ago
So you're saying that if i die i can't give my money (which i already paid taxes on) to whomever i want?
- xnull2guest 12y ago
  It's called an estate tax. Gifts of property and money to people while you are alive, when they exceed certain totals per year and when they exceed certain totals on individual terms, these exchanges are taxed. There is no reason why it should not also be so when you pass on.
- yoavm 12y ago
  In a world where money == power, giving millions to your children isn't a lot different from a king passing on the crown to his.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Yeah, I'm saying that. Believe it or not "It's my money, I do whatever I want with them" is not seen by everybody as some divine-being-given right. Nor it was always available in all societies. And it's quite hypocritical to be called from a society that supposedly believes in the advantages of capitalism and the free market as motivating forces for progress and hard work, etc. Inherited money are against all that. In fact they take us to feudal times, taken in extreme.
  - refurb 12y ago
    Inherited money are against progress and hard work? They would take us to feudal times? Where are you getting this from?

mapt 12y ago

I understand where you are coming from 100%, but ultimately, money & wealth is the manner in which this socioeconomic system describes power imbalances between people - power imbalances which are not natural and which are not indefinitely feasible. With $1B, I can hire 20,000 people for $50,000 a year. I possess the things they think are necessary for their livelihood (the much-vaunted 'means of production'), laundered through this thing we call an 'economy', and my ownership of those things is protected with force of law and custom. My $1B is heritable, and according to the doctrines of personal property, essentially inviolable. Is there a distinction between a billionaire and a dynastic prince of a small nation who can command up to 20,000 people for up to a year before they get angry enough at him that they stop listening? Large amounts of wealth inequality implicitly distort liberal democracy - the thing that recognizes "rights" as a philosophical system of morality & ethics - and destabilize it. There is no "correct" level of wealth inequality, but a system in which wealth inequality is growing in an out of control fashion, is an unstable system whose existence is threatened. That this system is liberal democratic market capitalism matters little - this is not some kind of natural arrangement, it's something we built, and it's something which can fail. Because people, as a whole, only respect what's written on little bits of paper - only respect the customs and law of property rights and the existing power structure - so long as the system provides them with the things they think are necessary for their livelihood. Well, that's our system. Nearly all growth of the economy is ending up technically "owned" by a narrower and narrower minority. For one reason or other, the economic equation has developed an unbalanced variable, and wealth is completely failing to trickle down... and our system can't sustain this perpetual exponential growth in power imbalance forever. Some of the greatest attacks on inequality were performed in part due to a very real fear that the whole system would collapse in a socialist revolution; The fact that the Communists are fallen has made this less credible, and perhaps, for all their evils, that's not a great thing for us. Apparently, in the early history of currency, after we had gotten property rights laid down tightly and developed a fungible system of value, various civilizations developed a problem. Unlike the vague bonds of social obligation that they had previously represented, debts that are denominated in coinage attract contract arrangements with penalties such as slavery. This was accepted until surprisingly recently as an unfortunate necessity of life. The elite discovered that the accumulation of slaves was a practical problem, because their customary service as cook or manservant or sexual partner took them out of the fields, and first currency crises were born: It was recognized that if the fields were left fallow, this was a worse outcome for all than the property of the elites not being sacrosanct. The arrangement that was periodically arrived at was that the king would issue a jubilee, freeing all the slaves to go back to their fields and their families, with no compensation to the elites. When this was missing for a protracted period, slave revolts tended to pop up, with summary execution of the masters as a prize. The system of norms ("rights") is subordinate, at some level, to the proper functioning of a society. It doesn't particularly matter whether we call people with an indispensable debt that they need to perform service to partially mitigate, "slaves" or "working class" or "debt peons". You can only push them so far and still earn positive economic returns, and beyond that, in the full view of history, you can only push them so far and still keep your head. Whether one is "entitled" to property is a view from so close to the ground one can't see past the blades of grass.

rdtsc 12y ago

> If a person didn't steal, cheat or coerced anybody in the process of making his money, he is entitled to it. Depending on the interpretation of "cheat","steal", "coerced" and "anyone" means. Take the banks that made money from the real estate bubble. Did they cheat, steal or coerced anyone? Maybe if you comb through the legal details they haven't. Yet many will say they did. > Then of course people say "but greed". Yes, as if only rich people are greedy and you are not. The problem is if the rich are greedy they have the potential to inflict a lot more damage than say if someone poor is greedy.

gdne 12y ago

Whether or not the rich earned their wealth honestly has nothing to do with the issue of excessive wealth inequality. Excessive wealth inequality creates a massive imbalance in society. The concentration of wealth in the hands of so few leads to corruption, oppression, and wars. We already see all of this and it will only get worse unless we address the issue.

CmonDev 12y ago

Rich people owned most of Russia once... Quite "honestly" according to the laws of those times. What could possibly go wrong?

chrisbennet 12y ago
And now they do again...

_benedict 12y ago

You're ignoring heritable wealth. Personally I support a 100% estate tax above some small multiple of the median salary, so that the meritocratic element of society can flourish. This doesn't prevent the parents spending lavishly on their children whilst still alive, and might need some provisions to permit such spendings (for educational and other pursuits while still developing) to be secured in trust form in case of premature death. Right now inheriting valuable property and other assets is an "honest" mechanism, but is not at all clearly fair.

iamds 12y ago
I think this comes with lots of difficulties. For example should you be evicted from your family farm that you've worked on your whole life when your 80 year old mother dies just because you haven't saved up enough money to buy it on the event of her death. What if you are a subsistence farmer in Cambodia in the same situation - should you lose your family land to the state on the event of the death of your parents?

VikingCoder 12y ago

We rejected inherited political power as a system of government. Some of us feel that inherited wealth is just as detrimental. We'd love to see more evidence of upward mobility, and we question the legal and tax systems that stop upward mobility from happening, even for those who are skilled and willing to work very hard.