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Wealth inequality


Altherion

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Socially, sure. But I'd give that lesser weight than the constant coverage alludes to.

Economically? Not so sure. They all want to waste money on self serving shit whilst hiding behind the veneer of 'social services' or 'defense.'

Both are important, and money is misguidedly squandered in fucktons on their behalf.

Saying "they both waste money" (even conceding this point) is a gross oversimplification though since they both "waste money" on different things.

You can say they both generally disadvantage the poor and help the rich, but they most definitely don't do it the same way. Their economic policies are pretty distinct in most cases, baring the "centrist" deficit hawk democrats.

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You can say they both generally disadvantage the poor and help the rich, but they most definitely don't do it the same way. Their economic policies are pretty distinct in most cases, baring the "centrist" deficit hawk democrats

I think some of you guys are def. going too far with the theme that there's no difference between the parties on economics. I would concede that the parties are quite similar in that they're both pretty much hopelessly compromised by being sold out to special interests and big money donors and whatnot, but there are still big ideological differences on taxation. True, there was that recent compromise, but it was just that. A little bit of what one party wanted (or at least its president) and a little bit of what the other party wanted (at least its Senate leadership).

So...

...on the one hand we have the Republicans, who, at least in theory want to get government of the backs of businesses so they can turn said businesses into dangerous sweatshops staffed by ill paid drones (but might, also at least in theory, allow for small businesses to prosper);

and on the other hand, we have the Democrats, who at least in theory are more in favor of workers rights and better pay, but are also real big on the sort of rules and tax policies that cripple or kill all but the largest of businesses and greatly constrain personal freedoms. In this scenario, the drones are not directly treated nearly as badly as they are under the Republicans, but are still heavily constrained all the same.

About the difference of getting beaten with a club or drinking slow poison on a daily basis. Either way, one way or another, you loose.

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but are also real big on the sort of rules and tax policies that cripple or kill all but the largest of businesses

That must be why there's no small businesses left in the social democracies of Europe.

Or perhaps you're exaggerating just a teeny weeny bit?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Interesting economist article....

The progressive master narrative runs on the fuel of class interest, but it makes an arbitrary exception for members of the progressive technocratic elite, like Mr Stiglitz. This is the loophole through which the Ouroboros escapes self-cannibalism. These men and women, the technocratic elite, in virtue of their superior moral rectitude and mastery of the relevant social science may be trusted with almost unlimited power to manage the nation's economy, wars, and far-flung imperial holdings on behalf of the democratic public. Sure, these godlike king-making powers make professional courtiers of the money men, but not to worry. The public-minded technocrat pledges in his heart of hearts to express only the will of the people, especially the least among us. Thus our Joe Stiglitzes and Samantha Powerses, desiring nothing but the best all of us, stand arm in arm as a sturdy bulwark against the tide of money that threatens to corrupt our politics. Of course, at times the wishes of the people diverge from the opinion of the technocrats. In which case, we cannot but suspect that public opinion has been manipulated by the rich, or by "market fundamentalist" ideologues financed by rich people, such that, as Mr Stiglitz puts it "one big part of the reason we have so much inequality is that the top 1 percent want it that way". If the financial system collapses and cripples the economy, if the American military gets bogged down in a blood-soaked trillion-dollar quagmire, that's because the technocrats in or near positions of power had too little influence, not too much. Or they were the wrong technocrats. Or, if all this seems too far-fetched ... Look! Over there! Inequality!
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Wealth inequality can't be examined in a vacuum.

If person A sells lawnmowers to X Y and Z and they all mow lawns and increase their wealth by 2X, but person A has increased his wealth by 10X, that's increased wealth inequality, but also increased wealth for all. The pie is not finite.

Some would prefer equality and no growth to inequality and universal growth. At root, it's just plain envy. People have always resented and maligned the rich merchant.

Now if wealth is being stolen to create inequality, that's different.

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Wealth inequality can't be examined in a vacuum.

If person A sells lawnmowers to X Y and Z and they all mow lawns and increase their wealth by 2X, but person A has increased his wealth by 10X, that's increased wealth inequality, but also increased wealth for all. The pie is not finite.

Some would prefer equality and no growth to inequality and universal growth. At root, it's just plain envy. People have always resented and maligned the rich merchant.

Now if wealth is being stolen to create inequality, that's different.

But how do you track these things? It's not like each cent is marked. So when we do look at aggregate trends, since we can't track wealth accumulation on an individual level as it relates to other individuals, we see that the richest section is growing richer while the poorest section is getting more poor. So, clearly, this is not the scenario where everyone increases their respective wealth, albeit to different degrees. The word "stolen" is problematic, so I'd just say that the increase in wealth for the upper-most SECs (say, top 1%) is accompanied by the decrease in wealth in the lowest SECs (say, the lowest 10%). So, no, things are not just fine and dandy, and we're not all improving.

And it's too facile to call this sort of critical analysis of wealth distribution class envy. You're not even engaging the data at this point. Graphs and data have been posted on the distribution. Why not comment on that instead of the abstract example of lawnmower sold to X, Y, and Z?

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Also, just because it's possible to increase total wealth and inequality at the same time, doesn't mean you can't increase total wealth without increasing inequality. The total wealth increase doesn't excuse the inequality increase. And the pie is finite; we might not have made it as big as possible yet, but at least while we're stuck on this planet, there is a maximum possible size.

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Here's some data we've seen before, but broken down more interstingly:

http://www.cpeterson.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/deJt2-510x480.png

It's interesting that wealthy or poor, conservative or liberal, the views are basically the same. There's some shift in the directions you'd expect, but not that much. The people making $100k only bump the amount of wealth they want in the top 20% from 30% to 40%.

And everyone is dead wrong and way off in how they think the distribution is. And everyone wants it even more equal.

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There was an article in the NYTimes a couple of weeks ago proposing a "toil index" to measure economic growth instead of GDP.

One of the underlying ideas is to measure how much the average person needs to work (at average pay) to enjoy the average expectation of lifestyle. It raged against inequality for making people unhappy and envious. Happiness is relative and if we see our neighbor with a bigger house or a shinier car, then we must match their consumption or else feel inadequate and sad. The real evil-doers in this article were not the mega-rich, but the slightly more rich who you might encounter every day. Because you directly and frequently encounter their almost, but not quite, attainable extra consumption, it is they who make you unhappy.

I felt the entire proposal institutionalized envy. No-one should be allowed to succeed, because their greater capacity for consumption makes others feel bad. No-one of the same level of income should be allowed to spend more and save less because their additional consumption makes others feel bad. Once expectations are raised, people are doomed to chase those expectations and work harder just to maintain the same level of happiness, running to stay in place. Thus, the toil index.

I support more equality of wealth, but this sounded like communist claptrap. Humans are social animals who cannot resist competing for status. It fuels our successes and causes some of our greatest strife. We have winners and loser strung out in a very long spectrum. Any forced equalization of status and abolishment of competition is (1) doomed to failure because the status competition will inevitably re-emerge; (2) inhumanly robotic, seeing people as cultured bacteria rather than people; and (3) would cause economic armageddon even faster than growing wealth inequality.

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