More equal societies do better

[felice]

This paragraph blows my mind.

In the real world, people aren't clones

I suppose I should be grateful that you are willing to concede at least that much. It's bit of an understatement though.

Sure, but my point was, if they were clones, the world would look exactly the same! (Er, I mean economically relative to our world, not visually 8) There'd still be billionaires and homeless people, even if there were absolutely no differences in personal qualities between them. I think that indicates there could be something of a flaw in the system.

Good luck eradicating the effects of luck with legislation.

Mitigating rather than eradicating, and there's plenty of legislation around the world that is having rather good luck in that regard (providing for minimum wages, unemployment benefits, public healthcare, etc).

First things first, we'll need to get rid of the lottery and all gambling. Better throw the stock market in there too.

Not entirely without merit, though I wouldn't advise criminalising private gambling.

Then we can get to work equalizing the people who were born with Down Syndrome and those born with Mensa IQ's.

Yes, I'm all for assistance for people with Down Syndrome. Bringing everyone up to Mensa-level IQ is also an admirable goal, though a long term one; in the mean time, it couldn't hurt to properly fund all schools and provide extra assistance for special needs kids.

Eventually we'll be able to do something about Halle Berry.

Get her a decent hair stylist, you mean?

If you own the ice cream shop you can make it a policy that dropped ice cream is replaced free of charge. You can affect people's happiness, equalize injustice, and make the world a better place.

If you pass a law stating that ice cream shop owners must replace any ice cream which does not effectively reach the mouth of the consumer...you're a thug. You are contributing to injustice and making the world a worse place.

What if it's a publicly owned ice cream shop, so the owner and the lawmaker are the same? Does that make replacing dropped icecream a good thing or a bad thing? It makes no difference to the non-owner shop assistant serving the icecream whether their employer is a private individual or the state...

Tolkien put some brilliant words in Gandalf's mouth when he said "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

Yes, I oppose the death penalty too.

I think this concept applies to other areas of human interaction. You can't force someone to be successful so you should not forcibly take away someone else's success. You can't make someone lucky so you should not take away the luck of others.

But you can change the system to minimise the impact of luck over skill and work, and equalise opportunity for success.

What I see here is an argument for mediocrity. Eliminate the extremes and everyone can live better in their bland and passionless worlds.

No, not at all - it's an argument for more even wealth distribution, it says nothing about how blandly or extremely you can use your share.

[felice]

The answer to the question is no, BTW.

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. On a lot of issues, yes, referendums will produce poor outcomes due to uninformed voters, unrepresentative turnout, etc. One idea that I think might work well though is being able to directly allocate your share of taxes to different departments. Eg I could direct nothing to the military, and plenty to health and education. Parties could have default allocations, so who you voted for would determine where your share of taxes went if you didn't want to go to the trouble of specifying everything yourself. This would work a lot better with more equal wealth distribution, though.

See? You think it's obvious, like 2+2=4 and wonder in your mind how everyone doesn't see it. Confirmation bias takes over because you discuss it on internet message boards where 19 out of 20 people will agree with you.

Yes, I see. The tricky question is how to discuss the issues with all these people who aren't on the boards...

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

I'M super drunk and it'd not fair I think th govern,net should legislate alcohol

[S John]

For the record I intend to come in here and fight this battle some more tomorrow or possibly Monday. But I'm going to go ahead and put it out there that its hard for me to keep track and argue point for point when my posts get chopped up and I'm debating multiple people.. which is why I haven't bothered today.

I don't think any of you are flat out wrong, but I do see that we might have some fundamental differences in terms of what we think is fair and what kind of societies we wanna live in.

But, its the weekend, y'know. I'm just bumping the thread right now. I'll be back. :smoking:

[McCracken]

I think the problem is people here have complelty differant view understandings of certain priciples.

Meritocracy -

Firstly it has been argued that the poor within society have chosen their life conditions by not working hard enough. The problem with this is that we don't live in anything close to a meritocracy. Alot of people work as hard as they possibly can but still struggle to make ends meat and to feel included within society while others do not work at all and own vast fortunes.

Capitalism is not a system where people get what they put into it. People nagotiate earnings using the rescources they have. These resources include

Wealth - material possesions/money

Social capital - This is having a social netweork that will provide you with oppertunities. Also it is knowledge of the behaviours, skills and mannors of the middle/upper classes. These include how someone articulates themselves to knowing about the right food and how prepare and eat it. Also attitudes to education and work would come under this.

Political capital - having influence of political figures.

The most important factor in determining how much of these rescources someone has is who their perants are.

Absolute poverty/Relative poverty

People ask why does it matter if someone earns $$$$$ because most people in the USA can aford a standard of life higher than people from previous generatons or from differant countries. The reason it matters is people don't experiance their material wealth in absolute terms they expierance it in relative terms. For example there have been and are societies where no one can afford to own shoes and they survive fine without them but within a first world country we would consider shoes a neccessity. To fully participate in a country like the USA you need certain standard of home, clothes, furniture, food etc. People who cannot afford the sufficiant standard of these things will isolated and judged by society. They will feel like faliures and will be starved of what humuns really need and that is recognition and acceptance from thier fellow humuns.

Importantly this book has demonstrated that relative poverty creates worse health, violance, social mobility and happyness outcomes for everyone including those at the top. This is because inquality is corosive to soical cohesion which is very important to our lived expierance of living within society, more so than material wealth. After all i think we'd all agree humun relationships are far more important to us than material wealth.

i was going to write alot more here but i'm a bit tired so i'll just leave it at that for the moment

[The Fan]

i was going to write alot more here but i'm a bit tired so i'll just leave it at that for the moment

So far, quite good points, I look forward to the rest. Thank you

[McCracken]

Continuesing from my last post.

Individualism/Collectivism

I think these differant ways of viewing the world is a major division between those who believe in the sanctity of the market and those who don't.

Some people view society as a mass of individuals who have made a social contract to abide by the laws of society such as to not commit acts of violance. This helps protect the phyisicaly strong/violant taking by force from the physicaly weak/passive but these laws should be kept from intefering much past this level. I think this attitude is quit pavalent in the USA, i would argue that this didn't just come about naturally but has come about through power struggles and social engineering.

I believe these poeple would generally argue that what they've earned through the market is theirs by right and the the government have little to no right to any of those earnings. The problem is those people didn't earn their money in a bubble. They needed other people to make that profit whether in the shape of employees, co-workers or the countless people who created the social and physical structures we all operate in.

For example someone one ownes goldmine needs workers to mine the gold as well customers who want the gold and a society in general who recognises his (most owners of the means of production are male) legal right to the gold and is willing to use force to protect that right. These things are provided to him by society. Now under the libetarian market system the gold mine owner will be able to use his position as owner of this resource combined with all that society is offering to creat vast profits. The only part of society he needs to pay back is the workers which from position as a owner of a means of production he has the leverage to pay them next to nothing. The workers are just as important in creating this wealth as he is. They will be forced to work far harder than the owner does. But because of the power inbalance the workers are fucked while the owner takes all the profits. Now i'm sure most of us agree that people shouldn't be able to use the power to inflict violence when competing for rescources so why shuld we allow financial and social powers to be used when we agree who gets what.

[Aemon Stark]

See? You think it's obvious, like 2+2=4 and wonder in your mind how everyone doesn't see it. Confirmation bias takes over because you discuss it on internet message boards where 19 out of 20 people will agree with you.

And probably among those who think that maintaining the Bush tax cuts for the rich is sound fiscal policy.

[Lyanna Stark]

I'M super drunk and it'd not fair I think th govern,net should legislate alcohol

I agree with this, whatever it means!! :D

[Lummel]

Really I recommend reading the spirit level by Pickett and Wilkinson - honestly I don't make commission on any sales - to anybody who is at least a little bit curious or interested in how societies tick.

It's less than 300 pages long, has graphs and cartoons some of which are even moderately amusing.

It's not about bashing the USA or about left/right politics. Three countries that consistently have worse social outcomes are the USA, Portugal and Israel. Portugal has had plenty of left wing governments - at least since 1974 - but consistently does worse in terms of social outcomes than, for example, Italy. Israel... well Peter Dykemann-Campbell said they had a commie government and who's going to argue with that? Amongst the countries with consistently better social outcomes you've got three monacharies and as for Japanese left wing politics - I think the three japanese socialists meet up a bar once a year.

I very much doubt that Norway, Japan, Finland and Sweden set out to achieve the social benefits they have accrued - they most probably were the by products of other policies they were pursuing.

For those of us living in less equal societies we spend a lot of money dealing with the consequences of that inequality. Whether through government programmes, charitable spending, lost working hours and, in my opinion, most seriously the loss of the input and potential innovation into our economies from those people who lose out in our societies.

Yes I take on board the Lord o' Bones point that what works in Finland say, isn't necessarily scalable to a bigger economy. On the other hand do you want to be left dealing continually with the symptoms of social problems or do you think that it might be more efficient to have a go at tackling the causes? It's like this dull story: a man and a woman are taking a walk down to the riverside when they see somebody helplessly floating down the river and sure to drown. The man dives in and rescues the drowner, he just had time to say "It's a good thing that we were passing when we did or else this one would have been a goner" when a another person came floating down - choking on the river water, and then another, and another. At this the woman starts to walk up the bank. The man says " where are you going? We've got to stay here and save these people", to which the woman answered "I'm going up stream to find the bugger who's throwing all these people in and give him what for!"

[Lyanna Stark]

Yes I take on board the Lord o' Bones point that what works in Finland say, isn't necessarily scalable to a bigger economy. On the other hand do you want to be left dealing continually with the symptoms of social problems or do you think that it might be more efficient to have a go at tackling the causes?

Love the story. :lol:

As for the "special snowflake" reason; I don't really buy this. Take the policy or whatever, use the good bits, ditch the good ones, adjust it and put some thought into how it could fit wherever you are.

[Timbits]

title made me laugh

More equal societies do better

does it not speak for itself?

What a strange debate

[Lummel]

Love the story. :lol:

As for the "special snowflake" reason; I don't really buy this. Take the policy or whatever, use the good bits, ditch the good ones, adjust it and put some thought into how it could fit wherever you are.

I don't think it is quite as simple as that. For starters there's taking policies that work and can be measured to be effective from foreign lands & tweaking them to fit local circumstances. That would be evidence based policy making, which Pickett and Wilkinson call for and all true hearted technocrats would approve of. But then there is the whole business of achieving equality, or a more equal society at any rate. Are there specific policies that moved the Japanese, finnish, norwegian and swedish societies towards equality, or was this something they stumbled on as a by product of other policies, quite possibly pragmatic responses to their local and immediate situations, or is this the combination of policies plus trends / prevalent beliefs and values in those societies & then why be narrow minded about this - maybe some mixture of all three.

If we're looking at the first two alternatives then it could be possible to adapt and trial them in other countries. If it's the third or fourth possibility then it's less a special snowflake situation more unfavourable soil conditions and the transplanted policy might not be able to take root. That would be my pessimistic reading. The good news is that similar policies might be applicable to developing countries that have the same kind of endemic poverty that you could find in Scandinavia circa 1900 or which are trying to recover from war and the impact of defeat as Japan was in the 1950s (plus no doubt the endemic poverty that you could have found among the lowest orders of pre-war japanese society).

Something that I took away from the book was the sense that because of the inequalities in UK society we would have to spend more and put in more energy and enthusiasm to deal with our social problems than a more equal society simply because we don't just have to deal with the problem but also with the entire weight of the social attitudes that are causing that problem like pushing some rock uphill. It's not enough to inspire those at the bottom of society with ambition, self esteem or even to skill them up and give them some sense of entitlement to participate in national life, you also have to deal with the prejudices of the rest of society. Hard work.

[Galactus]

I very much doubt that Norway, Japan, Finland and Sweden set out to achieve the social benefits they have accrued - they most probably were the by products of other policies they were pursuing.

Actually, at least for Sweden that has indeed been the objective for a relatively long-ish span of time. (Not the only one, but there were certainly policies deliberately targeted towards eliminating class differences, both social and economic, even at some expense)

[Lummel]

OK, I'm happy to be corrected on this. Maybe somebody can fill us in on some of the other countries.

Although having said that there's a difference between having a policy ambition to create a more equal society and having policies that actually achieve that goal directly.

For example a labour government in the UK (ie the left wing party) promoted the adoption of comprehensive schools and the removal of selective grammar schools (and the secondary modern schools for the yobs like me who couldn't get into the grammar schools) on the grounds of creating a more equal education system. However some decades on we now see that wealthier parents responded by moving their children into private schools while at the same time an important and effective route for some working class children to achieve social mobility was closed off. So we end up with a more unequal education system than before - the exact opposite of what was intended.

[ants]

I will point out that if you think about it, surely even some of those arguing against the feasibility of these ideas or their practicality in the USA should recognise that these already exist to some degree. In public schools. And if you can agree that is one good step, surely you can start considering if some of the other elements would also be good steps?

For example, could S John have got to where he is now if there was no government funding at all at any stage of the education process? And I suspect his College/University benefits from at least some government funding, or he got lower interest student loans, or some elements of assistance directly or indirectly for his higher education.

So the question probably isn't whether you want none of these things (unless you're all advocating total removal of government funding from the school system), but where you draw the line. And maybe you should consider if schools are a good idea, if anything else is a good idea.

[litechick]

There are too many bad ideas floating around in this thread for it to be possible to address them all. I will settle for making a few points which I wish people would think about.

Stop being condescending to the poor. This person says it better than I could so I'll do a little quote:

White people spend a lot of time of worrying about poor people. It takes up a pretty significant portion of their day.

It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things.

I understand the point being made with fundamental attribution error. I get it and I can see how that tendency can manifest and throw us off track. However, you might also want to give people credit for doing exactly what they want to do.

People get so upset about socio-economic class mobility as if people are desperately trying to climb to a higher station and just can't make it. Forget SEC, most people don't even move away from their home towns. If some magazine were to do a story on how close people stay to home, it wouldn't be 'OMG people are physically incapable of moving more than 100 miles from the place they grew up!' They wouldn't spin it like that because the most simple and logical explanation is that people want to stay near their friends and family. It would seem ridiculous to pose it as a problem which needed to be solved.

My poor, beloved father has been trying to figure out why I moved away for 15 years or so. Every once in a while he asks but he's never satisfied with my answer. The trouble is that the question he really wants to ask is "why don't you want the things I want you to have?"

Since I'm white, I don't get called an 'oreo' or a 'banana' but it wouldn't surprise me if some of my folks refer to me with expressions like 'too big for her britches' or 'getting above herself' and I'm still poor by most standards.

That's another thing, middle class people don't fool me with their sleight of hand tricks to defer attention to the super rich. Even middle class people in America are in the top 3% of richest people in the world.

It seems like someone here suggested that we could take away 90% of a super rich person's money and it would be OK because they would still have $XX to live on. The thing you never want to forget is that you have more money than most people in the world can dream of. You can only claim that thusandsuch wealth redistribution program is fair if you think it would be fair when applied to You.

Punitive Taxation. I have long maintained that there is a line to be crossed where taxation is not fair and necessary but simply a punishment to people who are perceived as having too much. Bill Gates has been used both as an example of someone with way too much money and someone who is philanthropic and responsible with the money/power he has.

If people really cared about elevating the masses, they would spend more time pondering how to create incentives for more rich people to behave like Bill Gates (Buffet, Winfrey, etc.) The fact that we're talking about brutishly wresting money away from people who don't 'deserve' it rather than encouraging them to jump on the charity bandwagon tells me all I need to know.

To fully participate in a country like the USA you need certain standard of home, clothes, furniture, food etc. People who cannot afford the sufficiant standard of these things will isolated and judged by society. They will feel like faliures and will be starved of what humuns really need and that is recognition and acceptance from thier fellow humuns.

I am struggling with how to be kind and still make it clear what I think of this quote. The best I can do is to refer you to the star bellied sneeches.

If I understand correctly, it's no longer enough to make sure a person has shoes on their feet, you are suggesting that those shoes have to be Reebok. I feel ridiculous pointing out that if you make Reebok the lowest common denominator, if you decide that it is a basic human right for a person to have Reeboks and not some no-name KMart gym shoe, you accomplish nothing. Once everyone has a star belly, it will become uncool to have a star belly.

The basic problem with equalizing human beings is that you cannot create, you can only destroy. You do not have the power to make a person smart, you can only lobotomize the smart. You can't make a person beautiful you can only disfigure others.

Fairness has to be a two way street. If it's fair in one direction but not the other, then it's not fair.

[McCracken]

It's not condescending to the poor to suggest that not only do they want a better standard of living but that they deserve a better standard of living. You have linked to a snarky comedic article, which talks about middle class people wanting the poor to act like them, I havn't heard anyone suggest the poor should on this thread, except in the way of trying improve their income and i think it's you who have the fualty world view if you don't believe the poor want to improve their income. If you linked me to an article where you found poor people in the USA saying how they hate getting offered benafit programs and collective goods such as schools by their governement then you might of had a point, though it would take a study of good quality with a high representative sample to convince me.

Again people don't want more oppertunties for social mobility such as free access of education for their kids, they don't want a higher wage for the job their doing right now, they don't want a free health care and they don't want a decent pension. Please find me some evidence of this. Also it's not just the poor who benifit from these programs but everyone.

Yes i do believe the USA should be doing something to help change the inequality in the world as well all the other rich countries. Thats without even loking at the history of how the rich countires have stolen wealth off the poor countries and should be trying to recompensate them.

You can't stop the movement of fashoin once all the poor have it, the class above move on to somethng else. However you can change the gap between the poorest and the richest and condence the gaps between each socio-economic group. Therefore poorest won't be so far behind the group above and so on. There is plenty of evidence that this increases social cohesion so that everyones including those at the top benefit in health, happyness and the list goes on. That is what this thread is talking about. The evidence that has been presented to show this.

Using emotive words to talk about taxing Bill Gates is redicilous. We're not talking about anyhting brutish we're talking about creating a fairer, happier more functioning society. Relying on charity has been shown to be complety ineffective. Also it implies that people to a right to every penny thats in their wage. I disagree i contend that they owe some of that back to the society they live in and have helped them be where they are. As explained above.

[McCracken]

"The basic problem with equalizing human beings is that you cannot create, you can only destroy. You do not have the power to make a person smart, you can only lobotomize the smart. You can't make a person beautiful you can only disfigure others.

Fairness has to be a two way street. If it's fair in one direction but not the other, then it's not fair."

Its not about equalising human beings. Its about equalising to a degree people's income. No you can't force someone to be smart but you can give them the oppertunitie to get educated like everyone else. You can try to provide jobs that allow them to use their interlect and imagination instead of trying to turn them into a robot. So you certainly can create and it is inequality that destroys not eqaulity.

[Smashing Young Man]

There are too many bad ideas floating around in this thread for it to be possible to address them all. I will settle for making a few points which I wish people would think about.

Stop being condescending to the poor. This person says it better than I could so I'll do a little quote:

I understand the point being made with fundamental attribution error. I get it and I can see how that tendency can manifest and throw us off track. However, you might also want to give people credit for doing exactly what they want to do.

People get so upset about socio-economic class mobility as if people are desperately trying to climb to a higher station and just can't make it. Forget SEC, most people don't even move away from their home towns. If some magazine were to do a story on how close people stay to home, it wouldn't be 'OMG people are physically incapable of moving more than 100 miles from the place they grew up!' They wouldn't spin it like that because the most simple and logical explanation is that people want to stay near their friends and family. It would seem ridiculous to pose it as a problem which needed to be solved.

My poor, beloved father has been trying to figure out why I moved away for 15 years or so. Every once in a while he asks but he's never satisfied with my answer. The trouble is that the question he really wants to ask is "why don't you want the things I want you to have?"

Since I'm white, I don't get called an 'oreo' or a 'banana' but it wouldn't surprise me if some of my folks refer to me with expressions like 'too big for her britches' or 'getting above herself' and I'm still poor by most standards.

That's another thing, middle class people don't fool me with their sleight of hand tricks to defer attention to the super rich. Even middle class people in America are in the top 3% of richest people in the world.

It seems like someone here suggested that we could take away 90% of a super rich person's money and it would be OK because they would still have $XX to live on. The thing you never want to forget is that you have more money than most people in the world can dream of. You can only claim that thusandsuch wealth redistribution program is fair if you think it would be fair when applied to You.

Punitive Taxation. I have long maintained that there is a line to be crossed where taxation is not fair and necessary but simply a punishment to people who are perceived as having too much. Bill Gates has been used both as an example of someone with way too much money and someone who is philanthropic and responsible with the money/power he has.

If people really cared about elevating the masses, they would spend more time pondering how to create incentives for more rich people to behave like Bill Gates (Buffet, Winfrey, etc.) The fact that we're talking about brutishly wresting money away from people who don't 'deserve' it rather than encouraging them to jump on the charity bandwagon tells me all I need to know.

I am struggling with how to be kind and still make it clear what I think of this quote. The best I can do is to refer you to the star bellied sneeches.

If I understand correctly, it's no longer enough to make sure a person has shoes on their feet, you are suggesting that those shoes have to be Reebok. I feel ridiculous pointing out that if you make Reebok the lowest common denominator, if you decide that it is a basic human right for a person to have Reeboks and not some no-name KMart gym shoe, you accomplish nothing. Once everyone has a star belly, it will become uncool to have a star belly.

The basic problem with equalizing human beings is that you cannot create, you can only destroy. You do not have the power to make a person smart, you can only lobotomize the smart. You can't make a person beautiful you can only disfigure others.

Fairness has to be a two way street. If it's fair in one direction but not the other, then it's not fair.

Marry me.