Billionaires, making the world a better place (for them)

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

 

12 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Given other shit Lucas says, I'm quite sure he meant America too.

You could argue it. But we won't know until we make a good attempt to model the issue and make an empirical investigation of it. And according to Lucas ,evidently, any investigation to distributional matters and how it ultimately affects human welfare isn't legit. And I think that is a bunch of horseshit. It's almost like Lucas wants to cut off an entire field of research and exploration well because he just doesn't like it or something.

 

Perhaps. If that is the case it is pretty absurd, yes. 

Regarding the latter we have the old Kuznets curve. Seems to show exactly that, although it has also been criticized. I don't know where the academic consensus stands on it now.

7 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

Maybe some of them didnt get their Billions in a "deceitfull" way, (i doubt it though, and it certanly was and is unfair), but for me the real problem is not exactly in how they make their money, the problem is that they can hoard all that money and the incredible power  (coercive power too) that comes with it. 

And i dont have "faith" in reformative politic either, cuz i dont belive they want the system that made them billionaires to change in any meaningfull way. And as we saw with the reforms that took place in the pass, they dont last, why?, in my view, becouse the system is inheretly flawed, and the poeple and corporations that benefit from the system wont allow for them to last, and will lobby for them to be changed back, and will succed eventualy, cuz they are billionaires and extremley powerfull and influential, and capitalism works in their favor. 

And the term "equal opportunity" seems meaningless to me. Its been so used and abused that it sounds like a buzz word, like a reformist word. i dont trust that is being use in good faith. 

So you are against reformist politics because they don't last. As opposed to what, revolutionary politics? Most of the various communist regimes collapsed or liberalized after just a few decades. Even North Korea is moving away from its command economy these days. 

Meanwhile most Western countries still have their "reformist" welfare and labor laws in place, even if they have been rolled back a little bit in recent decades. 

Oh, and also without murdering their populations by the millions and stuff like that. 

[OldGimletEye]

14 minutes ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Perhaps. If that is the case it is pretty absurd, yes. 

I don't think there is any perhaps about it. Lucas implied that the debate had been resolved decisively in his favor and any further investigation into the matter is a waste of time. That simply is and was not the case.

I'm not saying that growth isn't important. It is. But, for Lucas to act like that is the only issue to examined is wrong. And secondly, I don't believe the framework of the equity vs. growth trade off holds under all conditions, and anyways, I'd argue, it is probably not the correct framework to work in anyway.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

12 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I don't think there is any perhaps about it. Lucas implied that the debate had been resolved decisively in his favor and any further investigation into the matter is a waste of time. That simply is and was not the case.

I'm not saying that growth isn't important. It is. But, for Lucas to act like that is the only issue to examined is wrong. And secondly, I don't believe the framework of the equity vs. growth trade off holds under all conditions, and anyways, I'd argue, it is probably not the correct framework to work in anyway.

Right. 

Well, it is probably not the only framework at least. South Korea managed to get very high rates of economic growth for a couple of decades without creating that large income inequalities in the process, for example. They did however really work their people to the bone instead. Also without them receiving much living standard improvements at first, since almost all the surplus was just saved and reinvested into further growing the economy. So I guess there are many roads to Rome. 

But that is for developing countries, and hence a digression from the topic. 

[OldGimletEye]

29 minutes ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

So you are against reformist politics because they don't last. As opposed to what, revolutionary politics? Most of the various communist regimes collapsed or liberalized after just a few decades. Even North Korea is moving away from its command economy these days. 

Meanwhile most Western countries still have their "reformist" welfare and labor laws in place, even if they have been rolled back a little bit in recent decades. 

Oh, and also without murdering their populations by the millions and stuff like that. 

Let me add a few things here:

1. When we get into this discussion of re-designing a whole new system from the ground up, or whatever, I'm a bit skittish about that, because I have no idea what a new system built from the ground up would look like. And neither does anybody else I'd imagine.

2. What I'm more confident about is that there are a lot specific issues under the current system that we can and do need to be fixed.

3. Economic sustainability is different from political sustainability. I have no doubt that the elites will always try undermine reforms. In fact, I think a lot of US history since the New Deal can be viewed in that light. Preventing that is something worth thinking about. I'm not sure I have answer to that, a complete answer at least, but in the United States, at a minimum, we badly need campaign finance reform.

4. With regard to the US, our left probably could use a tad dose more of "revolutionary" politics, since its up against a party that has gone crazy and is playing for keeps. In short, I'm more reformist in actual policy, but am willing to be a tad more revolutionary in politics. I'd argue that the strategy of "triangulation" as it was in the 1990s largely backfired.

[sologdin]

Most of the various communist regimes collapsed or liberalized after just a few decades. Even North Korea is moving away from its command economy these days. 

not a useful evaluation.  the master cylinder, as it were, was afflicted sequentially in a way that has no analogue in the US: the fascist chevauchee, which had followed upon the joint western intervention into the russian civil war, which had followed its birth in the first world war. its own rapid industrialization before and after the second world war is something of paying the iron price of industrialization, contracting into a generation all the suffering had been amortized over centuries in the cappy west.  the soviets were off the rails of left doctrine, certainly, and are accordingly impossible for me to endorse as a model of development--but it is similarly difficult to ignore the achievement of surviving over seventy years of global siege.  perhaps the right should not have tried to strangle the bolshevik baby in its cradle; the scions thereof will long remember it.

[Serious Callers Only]

I suspect there are going to be either death camps in the US before 5 to 20 years or lots of 'why didn't we nationalize X and Y and lock up the oligarchs earlier'. Maybe both ofc (mafia fascism has a tendency to eat their own too, as we can see in Russia). Glad not to have children, it's a frightening world and a frightening century. If i had a child right now (not in the us), and in the wildly optimistic idea that they survive 80 years, they'll die with one of the daily 50-60 C heatwaves here, not to mention the famines.

[Altherion]

7 hours ago, sologdin said:

not a useful evaluation.  the master cylinder, as it were, was afflicted sequentially in a way that has no analogue in the US: the fascist chevauchee, which had followed upon the joint western intervention into the russian civil war, which had followed its birth in the first world war. its own rapid industrialization before and after the second world war is something of paying the iron price of industrialization, contracting into a generation all the suffering had been amortized over centuries in the cappy west.  the soviets were off the rails of left doctrine, certainly, and are accordingly impossible for me to endorse as a model of development--but it is similarly difficult to ignore the achievement of surviving over seventy years of global siege.  perhaps the right should not have tried to strangle the bolshevik baby in its cradle; the scions thereof will long remember it.

This is true, but two of the three points are highly likely to apply to any Communist regime (or at least they've usually been present for most of the past ones): it will be born in times of turmoil and capitalist countries will try to strangle it in its cradle. The part that may be different is that depending on where the regime arises, it may not need to catch up to the modern level of technology and infrastructure.

Also, the troublesome precedent for Communist regimes getting rid of billionaires isn't the Soviet Union, it's the other permanent UN Security Counsel member that has lasted seventy years: China is still Communist, but its number of billionaires is second only to the US.

[felice]

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

capitalist countries will try to strangle it in its cradle.

In that case, isn't capitalism the problem?

3 hours ago, Altherion said:

China is still Communist, but its number of billionaires is second only to the US.

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word "Communist" that I wasn't previously aware of. It's like saying North Korea is still Democratic, but it only has one political party.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

16 hours ago, sologdin said:

Most of the various communist regimes collapsed or liberalized after just a few decades. Even North Korea is moving away from its command economy these days. 

not a useful evaluation.  the master cylinder, as it were, was afflicted sequentially in a way that has no analogue in the US: the fascist chevauchee, which had followed upon the joint western intervention into the russian civil war, which had followed its birth in the first world war. its own rapid industrialization before and after the second world war is something of paying the iron price of industrialization, contracting into a generation all the suffering had been amortized over centuries in the cappy west.  the soviets were off the rails of left doctrine, certainly, and are accordingly impossible for me to endorse as a model of development--but it is similarly difficult to ignore the achievement of surviving over seventy years of global siege.  perhaps the right should not have tried to strangle the bolshevik baby in its cradle; the scions thereof will long remember it.

I was not mainly talking about the Soviet Union, since as you allude to it lasted a good deal longer than most Communist regimes. Vietnam started loosening up its economy just around 10 years after conquering South Vietnam. China had about 25 years of command economy before Deng Xiaoping's reforms. The Khmer Rouge only held power for 4 years. The various Eastern block regimes (DDR, Romania, etc) lasted for roughly 44 years. 

Not that long lasting compared to Western states' more reformist approaches to these questions, in other words. 

As for the Soviets, saying that the West tried to strangle them in their cradle is not really true. They got a significant amount of military and financial aid from the German Empire in the initial phases of their coup, since Germany wanted them to run Russia into the ground so as to reduce the threat from the east. While some Western countries did later intervene during the Russian civil war, their forces did very little fighting. 

[Kalbear]

Just to be really, really clear - I am not of the opinion that we need to execute or punish billionaires. 

I am of the opinion that billionaires are by their nature incredibly dangerous to a functioning democratic society, and no single human should have that much concentrated power. If you want to somehow fix it such that billionaires do not wield massive, disproportionate power, be my guest - but I suspect that that will prove to be incredibly difficult, and the simplest solution is to ensure that billionaires cannot exist in any way, or at least make it significantly harder to be one. 

It has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with the simple fact that that much concentrated wealth distorts democratic institutions, destroys checks and balances and becomes an illiberal force, even with the best of intentions. 

As I said, even if you assume Bill Gates is a pure force of good, he is still harmful to the overall system and how things work because of all the people and organizations that are indebted not to governments or cultures or other things, but to him specifically. That is a problem for a lot of reasons. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

I'm sure there are a google ways around it but I think we need legislation for a maximum wage / compensation / exercise of options.  Like, if you're the CEO of DeezNutz, you can only cash out 300 times the minimum wage in one year.  

Or maybe some provision that let's companies get a tax break for boosting salaries of workers earning less than 80k a year, with a heavier reward at the bottom.

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

I'm sure there are a google ways around it but I think we need legislation for a maximum wage / compensation / exercise of options.  Like, if you're the CEO of DeezNutz, you can only cash out 300 times the minimum wage in one year.  

Or maybe some provision that let's companies get a tax break for boosting salaries of workers earning less than 80k a year, with a heavier reward at the bottom.

But, then you run into the problem of the army of lobbyists already deployed to kill your proposals.

[Larry of the Lawn]

6 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

But, then you run into the problem of the army of lobbyists already deployed to kill your proposals.

Likely a Navy and Airforce and Coast Guard as well

[Altherion]

22 hours ago, felice said:

In that case, isn't capitalism the problem?

From the perspective of the revolutionaries, yes. Of course, the capitalists have exactly the opposite perspective.

22 hours ago, felice said:

Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word "Communist" that I wasn't previously aware of. It's like saying North Korea is still Democratic, but it only has one political party.

Would you also say that the USSR was no longer Communist during the NEP period? I think both NEP-era USSR and today's China still qualify as Communist despite the mixed economies. The Communist Party of China is still running the show -- if wealthy Chinese business owners try to do what is routinely done by their Western counterparts, they're arrested, their property is expropriated and they may even be executed.

[felice]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Would you also say that the USSR was no longer Communist during the NEP period?

Certainly.

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

The Communist Party of China is still running the show -- if wealthy Chinese business owners try to do what is routinely done by their Western counterparts, they're arrested, their property is expropriated and they may even be executed.

"The rich aren't above the law" isn't the definition of communism; it's not even compatible with communism, since there wouldn't be any rich people for it to apply to.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

On 4/14/2019 at 1:45 AM, OldGimletEye said:

Let me add a few things here:

1. When we get into this discussion of re-designing a whole new system from the ground up, or whatever, I'm a bit skittish about that, because I have no idea what a new system built from the ground up would look like. And neither does anybody else I'd imagine.

2. What I'm more confident about is that there are a lot specific issues under the current system that we can and do need to be fixed.

3. Economic sustainability is different from political sustainability. I have no doubt that the elites will always try undermine reforms. In fact, I think a lot of US history since the New Deal can be viewed in that light. Preventing that is something worth thinking about. I'm not sure I have answer to that, a complete answer at least, but in the United States, at a minimum, we badly need campaign finance reform.

4. With regard to the US, our left probably could use a tad dose more of "revolutionary" politics, since its up against a party that has gone crazy and is playing for keeps. In short, I'm more reformist in actual policy, but am willing to be a tad more revolutionary in politics. I'd argue that the strategy of "triangulation" as it was in the 1990s largely backfired.

 Regarding 3, I do not doubt that US elites will try to undermine reforms either. That said, isn't a popular saying in political science that all laws are temporary, or something like that? What I mean is that achieving a system that is perpetually safe from being undermined is unrealistic, and is hence not a standard that different choices should be evaluated against. 

As for number 4, I suppose you could argue that in terms of political strategy. But then you'd really want to make sure that you don't end up in a situation where those people actually end up taking power. Courting extremists is a dangerous game that has backfired many times in the past. 

However, I get the impression that your definition of "revolutionary" does not necessarily mean actual communists. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

On 4/13/2019 at 7:45 PM, OldGimletEye said:

4. With regard to the US, our left probably could use a tad dose more of "revolutionary" politics, since its up against a party that has gone crazy and is playing for keeps. In short, I'm more reformist in actual policy, but am willing to be a tad more revolutionary in politics. I'd argue that the strategy of "triangulation" as it was in the 1990s largely backfired.

What do you mean by "revolutionary"?  I'm super, super cynical about at least one definition of "revolutionary" politics, as I believe a close examination of many revolutions is that they begin at least as revolutions by and for relatively elite groups, despite lip service to the contrary.  Some do devolve into something broader, but, again, to be cynical, after massive upheaval and loss of life, stability, prosperity, etc., they resolve by simply reestablishing a different elite.  

[OldGimletEye]

2 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

What do you mean by "revolutionary"?  I'm super, super cynical about at least one definition of "revolutionary" politics, as I believe a close examination of many revolutions is that they begin at least as revolutions by and for relatively elite groups, despite lip service to the contrary.  Some do devolve into something broader, but, again, to be cynical, after massive upheaval and loss of life, stability, prosperity, etc., they resolve by simply reestablishing a different elite.  

I mean a hell of a lot more hard nosed with it's political style, if not really "revolutionary". For instance, if Mitch McConnell wants to play games with the New Green Deal, then that little stunt by him, needs to be taken and jammed up up his butt, along with the rest of the Republican Party.

[Spring Bass]

On 4/15/2019 at 10:24 AM, sologdin said:

its own rapid industrialization before and after the second world war is something of paying the iron price of industrialization, contracting into a generation all the suffering had been amortized over centuries in the cappy west. 

It's not actually clear that Russian industrialization and economic growth was any faster on overage over the nearly 30 years that it happened, than it had been in Imperial Russia in the thirty years prior. Germany and Japan also industrialized faster and more effectively during their periods of industrialization. Of course, as with basically all economic statistics before World War 2, it's hard to determine such things for certain. 

 

On 4/16/2019 at 5:13 PM, Kalbear said:

If you want to somehow fix it such that billionaires do not wield massive, disproportionate power, be my guest - but I suspect that that will prove to be incredibly difficult, and the simplest solution is to ensure that billionaires cannot exist in any way, or at least make it significantly harder to be one. 

I'd be on board for making it much harder to inherit that much money (or impossible), but newly created billionaires tend to be drawn from a pool of ruthless, ambitious, lucky people. I consider it a virtue that we channel most of them into the private sector to compete over who has the biggest share value (sometimes creating valuable companies in the process and in any case being more removed from anything resembling straightforward political power), rather than creating a system where their inevitable competition for power and prestige has to go even more through the state , breaking the system in the process. The biggest problem is that we don't do enough to limit them from passing that on to heirs, and we don't have as strong countervailing forces in the form of unions and labor-friendly rules as other countries do. 

 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Spring Bass said:

I'd be on board for making it much harder to inherit that much money (or impossible), but newly created billionaires tend to be drawn from a pool of ruthless, ambitious, lucky people. I consider it a virtue that we channel most of them into the private sector to compete over who has the biggest share value (sometimes creating valuable companies in the process and in any case being more removed from anything resembling straightforward political power), rather than creating a system where their inevitable competition for power and prestige has to go through the state , breaking the system in the process. The biggest problem is that we don't do enough to limit them from passing that on to heirs, and we don't have as strong countervailing forces in the form of unions and labor-friendly rules as other countries do. 

  

I don't think that's the biggest problem. It's a problem, sure, but not one that is as breaking as whether or not someone with that much money decides to be political or not.

The Koch brothers, for example, have essentially remade the entire Conservative wing of politics into largely their image. Their think tanks pick justices, their think tanks write laws, their strategies are what guided the Republicans to gerrymander the entire country for 10 years. Whether they inherited wealth or not doesn't really matter here; what matters in this case is the massive power that they get to wield without being accountable in any way. And because wealth is largely a good proxy for voting power as well, it means those who they pay are pretty well shielded from popular issues and the like, or running against 'good' candidates.