4 ms·

IMHO we need more growth because the more growth we have the more the establishment can skim off and the more they can then consume. If we all stopped producin

IMHO we need more growth because the more growth we have the more the establishment can skim off and the more they can then consume. If we all stopped producing a surplus how will movie stars and bankers get the energy to run their private jets?

nickff 12y ago
Growth and technology are actually reducing the difference between rich and poor in almost every aspect of life. Between 1920 and 1960 the only people who could travel quickly around the world were the super-rich. With the advent of the turbofan engine, and the widebody jet, quick and comfortable travel became accessible to the general public. Cell phones and the internet are another paradigmatic case of this. It used to be that only people with a great deal of resources could get quick answers to uncommon problems, but now everyone can get those answers from a device they carry in their pocket. You can communicate more easily than the ultra-wealthy were able to only 20 years ago. Most Americans have access to communications technology on par or above that of the president. There are many different examples of this, and the best description of it may be the following quote by Schumpeter: >"Electric lighting is no great boon to anyone who has enough money to buy a sufficient number of candles and to pay servants to attend them. It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort."
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  >>Growth and technology are actually reducing the difference between rich and poor in almost every aspect of life. It seriously annoys me when people say this, because it's so incredibly short-sighted. It's only in terms of physical, tangible standard of living factors. Travel, as you noted, is one of those. And yeah, everyone has refrigerators in their homes nowadays. Yay! But being ultra-rich gives a tremendous amount of intangible perks, such as the ability to greatly influence public policy and the ability to afford top-notch legal representation, which lets them get away with serious crimes that would put normal people like you and I in jail for decades. There's also inter-generational perks. For example, children of ultra-rich parents can afford excellent education and are much more likely to get into the top schools. I can go on. The fact is, the differences between the haves and the have-nots today are vast, and they are getting bigger every day as wealth inequality increases. Yes, it is good that we have the basics covered for most people but beyond those basics things look pretty grim.
  - nickff 12y ago
    I agree that the rich still enjoy many advantages over the poor, but still believe that the difference is being reduced by growth and technology. Up until the 19th and 20th centuries, only the very richest few could afford to learn to read, write, do math, and understand history. The increases in productivity and technology we have enjoyed have helped to reduce the differences in level of education, and any number of other aspects of life. You contend that the ultra-rich "are much more likely to get into the top schools", but you are missing the historical context which demonstrates that the level of education available to the middle and lower classes has been steadily increasing. With regards to public policy and legal representation, we probably agree to some extent with respect to the issue, though we likely differ in paradigm. I would surmise from your comment that you believe the government could 'solve the problem'. The way that I see it, these are the areas where goverment has been most active in disadvantaging the poor and middle classes, and a reduction in the size and scope of government is the only way to systematically help level the playing field.
  - mseebach 12y ago
    I think you're the one being short sighted here. You pull out the very few area where the rich still have an edge, but the fact is that in the vast majority of areas, the rich have lost insane ground. First, these physical, tangible standard of living factors you so arrogantly dismiss. Cheap, ubiquitous travel means freedom to live where you want, even if that's more than a few hundred miles away, without sacrificing your family and friends. That was rare 20 years ago and almost unheard of 50 years ago. Except if you were rich, of course. Today, the rich can buy somewhat more comfortable and convenient flights, at extreme expense, but not faster ones. As for refrigerators in every home? The alternative is shopping for fresh ingredients daily, or doing without them. You can't save leftovers for very long, so you need to cook daily. And speaking of cooling? 100 years ago, the king of England couldn't get an A/C unit at any cost, today they're perfectly ubiquitous. Education? Yeah, there is some real differences here, but the bottom has gone up tremendously: in living memory, kids were pulled from school to help in the fields. Poor kids, obviously, the rich didn't go in the fields. Today, thanks to the mechanisation of agriculture, all kids can stay in school uninterrupted. And even the poorest kids can read by almost free electrical lights. Even 100 years ago, the rich would have to read by candlelight. The rich can buy marginally better cars than you and I, but not by a lot. Fancier, but not really better clothes. Their houses might be bigger and fancier, but not more capable at keeping you and your family warm (or cool) and dry. Certainly, the rich have more luxurious options, but not really a lot better. The richest man on earth can't buy a better smartphone than me or get a better signal than me - that's why those ghastly diamond-encrusted phones exist. But their text messages don't arrive faster than mine and they like the exact same cat videos as me on the exact same Facebook. Still too vulgar and consumerist? How about the environment? Once, the rich enjoyed clean air, clean water and safe disposal of sewage by living in the country. But do you know why they dusted all the time in old books? Indoor coalfires are messy affairs. If you lived in the city (rich or poor), there would be no clean water, smoggy, dirty air and literally shit flowing in the streets. Today, even the worst tenements in the densest cities have clean, running water, flushing toilets and smogless radiators. The air might not be quite as clean as it could be, but it's a far cry from the smog-hell it once was - and a lot cleaner than just a few decades ago, thanks to better cars. The perks you list were always perks of the nobility, they are not recent gains - but you're making the perfect an enemy of the extremely good. The much more interesting point is all the perks they've lost and are losing, and those are extremely numerous.

nickff 12y ago

Growth and technology are actually reducing the difference between rich and poor in almost every aspect of life. Between 1920 and 1960 the only people who could travel quickly around the world were the super-rich. With the advent of the turbofan engine, and the widebody jet, quick and comfortable travel became accessible to the general public. Cell phones and the internet are another paradigmatic case of this. It used to be that only people with a great deal of resources could get quick answers to uncommon problems, but now everyone can get those answers from a device they carry in their pocket. You can communicate more easily than the ultra-wealthy were able to only 20 years ago. Most Americans have access to communications technology on par or above that of the president. There are many different examples of this, and the best description of it may be the following quote by Schumpeter: >"Electric lighting is no great boon to anyone who has enough money to buy a sufficient number of candles and to pay servants to attend them. It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort."

enraged_camel 12y ago
>>Growth and technology are actually reducing the difference between rich and poor in almost every aspect of life. It seriously annoys me when people say this, because it's so incredibly short-sighted. It's only in terms of physical, tangible standard of living factors. Travel, as you noted, is one of those. And yeah, everyone has refrigerators in their homes nowadays. Yay! But being ultra-rich gives a tremendous amount of intangible perks, such as the ability to greatly influence public policy and the ability to afford top-notch legal representation, which lets them get away with serious crimes that would put normal people like you and I in jail for decades. There's also inter-generational perks. For example, children of ultra-rich parents can afford excellent education and are much more likely to get into the top schools. I can go on. The fact is, the differences between the haves and the have-nots today are vast, and they are getting bigger every day as wealth inequality increases. Yes, it is good that we have the basics covered for most people but beyond those basics things look pretty grim.
- nickff 12y ago
  I agree that the rich still enjoy many advantages over the poor, but still believe that the difference is being reduced by growth and technology. Up until the 19th and 20th centuries, only the very richest few could afford to learn to read, write, do math, and understand history. The increases in productivity and technology we have enjoyed have helped to reduce the differences in level of education, and any number of other aspects of life. You contend that the ultra-rich "are much more likely to get into the top schools", but you are missing the historical context which demonstrates that the level of education available to the middle and lower classes has been steadily increasing. With regards to public policy and legal representation, we probably agree to some extent with respect to the issue, though we likely differ in paradigm. I would surmise from your comment that you believe the government could 'solve the problem'. The way that I see it, these are the areas where goverment has been most active in disadvantaging the poor and middle classes, and a reduction in the size and scope of government is the only way to systematically help level the playing field.
- mseebach 12y ago
  I think you're the one being short sighted here. You pull out the very few area where the rich still have an edge, but the fact is that in the vast majority of areas, the rich have lost insane ground. First, these physical, tangible standard of living factors you so arrogantly dismiss. Cheap, ubiquitous travel means freedom to live where you want, even if that's more than a few hundred miles away, without sacrificing your family and friends. That was rare 20 years ago and almost unheard of 50 years ago. Except if you were rich, of course. Today, the rich can buy somewhat more comfortable and convenient flights, at extreme expense, but not faster ones. As for refrigerators in every home? The alternative is shopping for fresh ingredients daily, or doing without them. You can't save leftovers for very long, so you need to cook daily. And speaking of cooling? 100 years ago, the king of England couldn't get an A/C unit at any cost, today they're perfectly ubiquitous. Education? Yeah, there is some real differences here, but the bottom has gone up tremendously: in living memory, kids were pulled from school to help in the fields. Poor kids, obviously, the rich didn't go in the fields. Today, thanks to the mechanisation of agriculture, all kids can stay in school uninterrupted. And even the poorest kids can read by almost free electrical lights. Even 100 years ago, the rich would have to read by candlelight. The rich can buy marginally better cars than you and I, but not by a lot. Fancier, but not really better clothes. Their houses might be bigger and fancier, but not more capable at keeping you and your family warm (or cool) and dry. Certainly, the rich have more luxurious options, but not really a lot better. The richest man on earth can't buy a better smartphone than me or get a better signal than me - that's why those ghastly diamond-encrusted phones exist. But their text messages don't arrive faster than mine and they like the exact same cat videos as me on the exact same Facebook. Still too vulgar and consumerist? How about the environment? Once, the rich enjoyed clean air, clean water and safe disposal of sewage by living in the country. But do you know why they dusted all the time in old books? Indoor coalfires are messy affairs. If you lived in the city (rich or poor), there would be no clean water, smoggy, dirty air and literally shit flowing in the streets. Today, even the worst tenements in the densest cities have clean, running water, flushing toilets and smogless radiators. The air might not be quite as clean as it could be, but it's a far cry from the smog-hell it once was - and a lot cleaner than just a few decades ago, thanks to better cars. The perks you list were always perks of the nobility, they are not recent gains - but you're making the perfect an enemy of the extremely good. The much more interesting point is all the perks they've lost and are losing, and those are extremely numerous.