I still think the focus on wealth/income inequality rather than on absolute poverty is irrational. I've seen people justify it to me on the grounds that people care about relative poverty, which to me reads "people are jealous". But then the result is:
1) A focus on inequality is irrational.
2) People focus on inequality for irrational reasons.
This means that if policy-makers and intellectuals fully give in to the people's wishes, we'll accept decreases in wealth in exchange for more equality indefinitely. If this sounds like a strawman, it's because we have "backstops" to inequality-decreasing wealth-destruction. But why should we tolerate any wealth destruction at all?
And if reducing inequality is possible without wealth destruction, why focus on inequality?
(This is besides the "Oxfam problem" -- there never is a coherent definition of "wealth" and Oxfam never seems to fully value people's homes and work animals and suchlike in poor countries.)
The reason we care so much about inequality has nothing to do with jealousy and everything to do with power[1]. As resources are a major source of power (and often vice-versa), and because power is relative, inequality of resources means inequality of power. And as power means influence (and so the ability to reduce another's freedom), inequality reduces overall freedom.
As freedom can never be total[2], the question is do we prefer to reduce the freedom of the powerful few (whose freedom is already large) in order to increase that of the many, or vice-versa?
So while absolute income is certainly very important, ignoring inequality is simply irrational for someone who values freedom.
[2]: One person can be totally free; two cannot. X would either be free to infringe on Y's freedom or not -- in either case, freedom is no longer total.
First, it's important to note that when I talk about equality I mean statistical equality within acceptable margins. I.e., not that all people personally have equal power. As to your question, it's a matter of values. As I said in another comment, Western democratic (aspirational) values are such that all lives have equal value. Your personal values may differ. We can't justify our values based on some mathematical formula; that's the meaning of values. They are core beliefs.
Nevertheless, we could point out some obvious problems with different value systems from the Western democratic ones. For example, how is it even possible to distribute anything based on virtue and competence? We cannot distribute power based on actual competence and virtue, but only on perceived or measured competence and virtue, and that is very different. Measured competence and virtue are circumstantial, and in our real world (as opposed to some imagined utopia), reality is that power may strongly influence circumstance (and so our perception of competence and virtue). Say, if a powerful country exploits a less powerful one, steals its resources and enslaves its people, it creates a circumstance where those exploited people may have adversarial conditions to display their competence and virtue. So we would say that even if our values were such that we believed that power should be distributed based on competence and virtue, doing so would be impossible, and attempting to do so (based on measured competence and virtue) would actually result in something very different. This is why the term meritocracy is satirical (or, at least, it was coined as a satirical term), because it's obvious that true merit cannot really be measured, and any attempt at meritocracy would be no better than a system based on, say, hereditary value (nobility).
Having said that, to some acceptable degree, even in democratic societies we do want to reward virtue and competence. We put criminals in prison (taking most power from them), and reward competent virtuous people with success that imbues power. But we don't want the disparity to grow too large because we're aware that 1. our measurement of virtue and competence is flawed, and 2. too large a disparity causes great harm to freedom.
This is an interesting answer. But I'm not sure if inequality-of-power-driven-by-inequality-of-wealth can be problematized (put into the discussion and on the agenda) and fought in such a way that equalizes power. We're shuffling power around and the dynamics of power inequality aren't clear at all.
Great inequality of wealth is virtually always an inequality of power, and so it is "problematized". You're right that all social dynamics are complex (even economics, or "the dynmaics of wealth", isn't known to the way it can be effectively controlled), but at the end of the day, policies are made based on values. A society that values the maximization of freedom would fight against growing wealth inequality beyond a point it deems acceptable.
A complicating factor is that, while power is relative, it certainly grows sub-linearly in the absolute baseline. For example, if I have nothing, someone with a few thousands of dollars can have great power over me. But if I have $0.5M, even someone with $1B wouldn't have as much power over me[1]. This is why absolute wealth is also very important, which is why the question of "would we rather have more absolute wealth or less inequality?" doesn't have a simple answer.
[1]: Although it is not true that my own "fuck you" money is enough to completely counteract the richer person's power. For example, their wealth is used to indirectly affect many people, say through political campaign ads, who then change the laws and thus influence me.
I agree with your comments, but I want to add to it. I agree that wealth inequality leads to power inequality. And I agree that curtails freedom. But I think it also tends to societal instability. Closing the loop, we care about wealth inequality because we don't want society to collapse.
Not in itself. Even the various Communist revolutions cited in other comments don't correlate well with inequality: Tsarist Russia in 1905 and 1917 had lower levels of inequality than Victorian England.
Yes, yes. I agree with all of this (well, "grows sub-linearly" is grossly speculative, but matches the marginal utility of consumption, etc.) But you misunderstand my question.
To counteract the power of wealth, some other sort of power is needed. Doesn't this lead to power inequality again? Do we know anything about power inequality dynamics that lets us choose this or that structure of coercion?
Well, democracy counteracts the power of wealth when it places limitations on it (in the form of policies that aim to reduce wealth inequality and in more limited ways like regulating political campaign finance) as well as other forms of power (like hereditary authority, power through the threat of violence not controlled by society etc.).
Even if we did have a good model of power dynamics, controlling it would still be hard, as it's an intractable system. Instead, what we have is politics, where different groups fight for their power (and freedom). That's exactly what politics is. When power inequality grows too much, we have revolutions.
What scares me is that we may be seeing an increase in soft, non-authoritarian power (like the power in the hands of companies like Google and Facebook), that is almost as bad as authoritarian power but harder to fight against because it doesn't feel coercive.
It has to do with universal commodification. Check out Michael Walzer and 'Spheres of Justice.' He makes the case for a kind of 'complex equality' where power in one sphere doesn't bleed into another. Thus having a lot of money would allow you to buy fancy paintings and a nice car and typical commodities but when it comes to something like healthcare, we'd be better off if money couldn't be used to buy a better version of it. The easiest thing to make the case to be a separate sphere is education. Should a wealthy parent really be able to opt-out of public education and pay for a better one? Perhaps all of society would benefit if we put everyone 'on the same side' so to speak and the rich and poor alike had to advocate for improvements to the same universal system.
That's a nice idea, although I suspect it would garner much opposition if it were workable at all. One of the main reasons for accumulating wealth beyond a certain point is, I would assume, to gain power :)
Sure, that's the thing about political philosophy, it's all so radical. Still though we can bring in shades of these ideas to our world, just small reductions in the power of wealth on healthcare or education are nice.
That is an interesting idea. I have not read the book so just wondering what will be his solution for concentration of power within the sphere or it is just a lesser evil system.
Young men see rich men with beautiful women flying to anywhere they want on the planet. Only a few of them will get that when they're older, and it oftens boils down to intelligence, work ethic, cleverness, other abilities like athletics and looks, and a few lucky breaks that they take advantage of. Exceptions being inherited wealth. Law of averages, those who do make it are hard working and intelligent. Law of averages, those who do not are often less so. However, everyone still wants the hot girl and the jet. So what's the right thing to do? Take "power" from [Hard working and intelligent]U[Scott Disick, Donald JR] to normalize influence across everyone? Should the group, who by and large, has contributed more to the society not have proportionally more say? And then the issue becomes more nuanced when you take into account inheritance and things of that nature.
I'm a bit confused by this statement. In the vast majority of cases where an individual purchases something, they do it because they want it (food is purchased because the body desires food, phones are purchased because the brain likes communication and connectedness, medical care is purchased because people realize it helps them, etc). Therefore, for someone to have accumulated a large amount of profit, enough people must have decided that whatever they are offering is beneficial.
Simply put, if a person has a large amount of money earned through a truly free market, then they must have provided a benefit to society.
Now, this can be confused by things like regulation. Regulatory capture, corruption, and many other things can all force people to purchase things they do not desire or do not provide as much benefit as a different product, but this is not an issue that can be solved by more regulation or taxation. Instead, it is an issue with interference in the market which causes the inequalities that I would agree, very much do exist.
Your second paragraph is problematic. First, truly free markets are unlikely to be an accurate statement of where someone earned their money (e.g. the US is nowhere near that, so that excludes every wealthy American). Second, the use of earn -- does that exclude people who extract a large amount of money, like Martin Shrekli? Finally, it does not address the elephant in the room, that most people who have lots of money have inherited it, not necessarily earned it themselves.
1) I agree that free markets are not where most people earn there money, but to me it seems like that is something we should strive for by reducing and stopping interference in the market by government regulation.
2) Martin Shkreli is an interesting statement (assuming you are referring to his raising of drug prices, not what he was prosecuted for). I strongly believe that the only reason he was able to raise prices so exorbitantly is because of interference in the market place both on the grounds of copyright laws and the stringent drug testing that is required. If something like google were to suddenly start charging five thousand dollars to use the site, people would quickly move to a competitor (or, if there was no competitor, someone would create one). This is not possible in the drug industry due to government regulation, so although what he did was wrong, it is not something I think can be solved with more laws.
3) Sure, most people have inherited there money, but in a free market someone up the line most certainly earned it. Assuming you don't believe that there is something that makes one person more special than another, who is holding money is irrelevant to whether or not it is fairly earned.
I'm not sure what to tell you, people who have built organizations that employee thousands of people have contributed more to society than average. If that needs further justification then I'm not even sure how to respond to that.
You're reading things into what I'm saying - if Elon Musk raises a campaign fundraiser for his favorite candidate, do I mind that? Do I mind him having more "power" in that people listen to his twitter account over joe schmo? Not at all. Is he colluding with other executives to fix automative prices and then pressuring his candidate to change regulations as a favor when they're elected? Yes. That makes me a "plutocracy supporter"?
>I'm not sure what to tell you, people who have built organizations that employee thousands of people have contributed more to society than average. If that needs further justification then I'm not even sure how to respond to that.
A very large portion of those people have contributed more suffering to the world, and continue to do so through the continued exploitation of the worker class and lower classes.
Should probably bow out after this one; I don't think there is much room for rational discussion for my viewpoints here.
I agree that walmart is a piece of crap, but you don't really know what suffering is. Please ask your grandparents what options their grandparents had in life.
If you have some notion that corporations that try to profit are a blight on society and that their abolition will lead to some dream world, then by all means. Please knock over all the establishments, nationalize all corporations and divy profits amongst the workers, redivide the wealth of every millionaire, publish a list of banned words like 'wealth', and so on, and then point me to the nearest democracy.
"I'm not sure what to tell you, people who have built organizations that employee thousands of people have contributed more to society than average. If that needs further justification then I'm not even sure how to respond to that."
I hear that often but is it really true? Maybe they just have found a way to funnel money to themselves instead of it going to other businesses. For example has Walmart created anything or did they just take the money that would otherwise have gone to a lot of small businesses? For sure they were very smart but did they make the country better? I am not so sure.
They sold things more cheaply than other businesses could do. That's almost the purest example of benefiting others you can come up with, it's only one step short of literally putting money in their customer's pockets.
In the end they took money out of the pockets of a lot of small bushiness, put a lot of it into their own pockets and also a lot benefited customers. Maybe it's an overall benefit but I don't think it's that clear. It's not like they developed some new technology that opened totally new markets.
What, so the other businesses should be allowed to remain profitable while screwing over their customers on price even after a competitor comes along who can do a better job? Please, this is what markets are all about.
The correlation between money earned for work and the relative value of that work is rather low. There is no "group, who by and large, has contributed more to the society". There is only "society", nothing exists in a vacuum.
Do you think Steve Jobs could have achieved what he did had there not been any firefighters, primary school teachers, steelworkers, lumberjacks, bus drivers, janitors, soldiers, etc to indirectly or directly support his liberty to achieve his dreams? Do you think factory workers in China have had any impact on Jobs' success? All of them earn less than he did. Are they somehow lazy and deserving of their situation?
The reduction of income/power inequality isn't a bad thing that the poor, lazy masses want in order to get rich doing nothing. Quite the contrary. The point is to raise the standard of living of people doing jobs that, if some part of society had their say, would probably not even be paid. Reducing the wealth gap doesn't mean you can't be successful anymore.
What specifically are you suggesting happen? Did I say anywhere in my post that tax rates should not be raised for the wealthy, or that the estate tax should not be raised?
I am making a specific counterargument to a post arguing that wealth correlates with power, power is the true measure of inequality, and that it should thus be normalized instead.
I am thoroughly questioning the reading comprehension skills of virtually everybody responding to me.
If you think that the problem that we have with inequality is that some people have jets and hot couples you are missing the point of the parent's post.
I couldn't care less that Mr.Rich have a jet, I care that Mr.Rich decide to mess with the political process in order to get more jets. I care that in the more advances societies of the world in the most rich period of history, there are people that struggle to get necessary health-care or a roof over their heads (probably because Mr.Rich is messing with the political process).
>>"Should the group, who by and large, has contributed more to the society not have proportionally more say?"
Of course they should. It's only that, probably, we have different views about who that group is.
On the contrary: experiments show that even in a completely merit-less, artificial environment, we still get a power-law distribution of wealth (there is just no specific agent who'll be the one ultra-wealthy one).
More relevantly, you can manipulate this model in various ways to create either a less exponential curve with no completely poor agents, or undifferentiated equalness. You can code in things like income tax and so on.
The single most effective way to make the curve (on completely meritless income, remember) cease to impoverish anyone without cause, is to apply an incredibly tiny WEALTH tax. Then it takes care of itself, and you can jack up your 'income' all you want, and hey if you spend it all then you don't pay wealth tax! It requires about three percent each cycle. Not 50%, not 95%: 3%.
This is in the total absence of effort, merit, or indeed quality of labor or thought. If you would like more income and you're a special snowflake, by all means work harder and smarter and have more income. If you spend it, you'll have a lot of fun, and if you hoard it, it will eventually dwindle, but you'll be in a society where you can easily make more.
>However, everyone still wants the hot girl and the jet.
No. Just give me a functioning society with a solid safety net and adequately funded social services in place, and a life of reasonable means that will allow me to grow old in peace and comfort, and which guarantees my children and grandchildren and their grandchildren's grandchildren the same benefits.
You can also look at measures of class mobility, which suggest that the rich are staying rich, and the poor poor, more so than they have in recent history.
Er, the quote for exhibit 1 actually suggests that intelligence is a better (but not "overwhelmingly" better) predictor than parental SES ("being born into wealth")--and reading the paper, that's in fact the correct interpretation:
> Meta-analysis demonstrated that parental SES and academic performance are indeed positively related to career success but the predictive power of these variables is not stronger than that of intelligence (see Table 1). In fact, intelligence exhibited several correlations with the measures of success that were larger than the respective correlations for other predictors suggesting that intelligence is, after all, a better predictor of success.
Since intelligence is just one of many personality factors that might increase productivity (e.g. diligence or conscientiousness are important for a successful career) the fact that intelligence alone is a better predictor of SES than parental SES is actually kind of surprising in the other direction.
(This is especially striking since "high parental SES" means not only "being born into wealth," but also "having the genes of people with high SES." If SES is correlated with things that are heritable--it is--we should absolutely expect parental SES to have a large effect on outcomes no matter what.)
If you've read it in depth, did the paper look at causality at all?
There is evidence that poverty causes a drop in intelligence (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/poverty-intelligen...) If this is the case then a correlation between intelligence and wealth is not necessarily indicating that intelligence causes wealth.
In no way am I supporting or agreeing with unfettered inherited wealth and you're making an obvious statement. With that being said, someone with high intelligence and a strong work ethic does have opportunity for success, especially in the US, more so than someone with average intelligence and a strong work ethic. Of course other factors come into play. That is basic common sense.
> Law of averages, those who do make it are hard working and intelligent. Law of averages, those who do not are often less so.
I don't know how you came up with this "law of averages" but I do know that you haven't seen the paper's results.
> Take "power" from [Hard working and intelligent]U[Scott Disick, Donald JR] to normalize influence across everyone?
Limiting the creation of powerful feudal lords that are close to matching in power a democratic society's government is not the same as normalizing influence across everyone. Our choices aren't limited to feudalism and communism.
> Should the group, who by and large, has contributed more to the society not have proportionally more say?
That is a question of values, and you may have different ones, but the values on which democracies are founded say no (whether or not those values are actually realized is a different question). Less democratic societies say yes. I am not saying that a democracy is absolutely superior to an oligarchy, but you must understand where your values lie. All things considered, I value democracy more.
What makes you think that often it boils down to intelligence and work ethic and the exceptions are inherited wealth. The law of averages is just as likely to support the idea that those who are born into high class families will stay high class as it is what you're proposing.
I did not write a lengthy thesis to explicate every idea, but I would associate inherited wealth with high class and would certainly not consider that a slight stretch.
You contradict yourself. You say that "those who do make it are hard working and intelligent", while also acknowledging that there are people who "made it" who aren't "hard working and intelligent" (Scott Disick, Donald JR).
I mentioned there are exceptions to that and explicitly mentioned it is a law of averages rather than an absolute rule...which is basically your comment.
if we affirm the existing power rather than redistribute it, we're exaggerating the impact of luck by affirming that those who are lucky are by definition those who are more deserving of luck and power. even though the major differentiating factor between them and legions of identical people was luck.
Unfortunately, human society is made up of humans, irrational though they may be. A high degree of inequality usually indicates one of two things: a dictatorship, or a society that is liable to vote in populist leaders (and hence potentially turn into a dictatorship). An highly unequal society is not a healthy society.
"An highly unequal society is not a healthy society."
That's the most important point. If people stop feeling that they have a part of growth in the economy they stop engaging and a country loses cohesion.
"People are jealous" seems to me like the uncharitable formulation. I'd phrase it more along the lines of: "we evolved in small tribes and are more acutely aware of relative status than absolute welfare." Most people's assessment of how well off they are comes from comparison with their neighbors rather than absolute knowledge of weather they have enough.
I agree though that eliminating severe poverty is a more worthy humanitarian goal than trying to produce equity.
Inequality is intensely tied to social mobility. Check out the Great Gatsby Curve or this talk on snowball inequality. The common sense way to think of it is that as the rich entrench themselves further and further apart from the rest of us, it becomes harder and harder to jump the gap, the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and we move from meritocracy to aristocracy.
I would say we have already reestablished a de facto aristocracy.
The richest live like kings. Actually they enjoy a level of luxury that even the richest kings of old couldn't possibly have imagined. They basically live like gods, with virtually unchecked power, influence and wealth.
It is possibly the most lavish private home in the world, and it overlooks the absolutely crushing poverty of Mumbai's worst slums. The sheer level of cognitive dissonance is mindboggling.
I basically agree, Gregory Clark is an economic historian and he's published some stuff which suggests that advantages last for something like 10-15 generations which is absolutely mind-blowing. Check out that voicerepublic link, it has a take on inequality/meritocracy which is different from the usual attacks on meritocracy but I think a lot stronger, it at least gave me a lot to think about.
The word meritocracy was invented as a sarcr term to describe aristocracy wearing false dressing of equal opportunity.
That's why people clamoring for "meritocracy" today are
looked down upon for their self-unawareness.
The focus on inequality is irrational only for rich people or machines. Humans are social beings right from the start. You always compare yourself to others. Given that wealth mostly depends on your birth and not on your efforts given your resources, the focus on inequality is very rational.
> we'll accept decreases in wealth in exchange for more equality indefinitely.
That doesn't necessarily follow, I imagine that there is a level of inequality where total wealth, or at least total utility, even for the rich, starts to go down. For instance once you start having to go to private school, and live in a walled off community to keep the unwashed proletariat out so they don't steal from you / kill you.
You have to accept that people are irrational and deal with it, or modify them genetically.
Poor people in the US often lead nightmarishly stressful daily lives to make ends meet, having to work long hours doing self-destructive jobs, and being ever exposed to ruin by chance events. Their likelihood of achieving peace and happiness is quite orthogonal to whether they have plumbing, refrigeration, TVs and smartphones. It need not have anything to do with jealousy.
I agree with you completely. I got downvoted on a thread several weeks ago for finding issue in the US placing below Mexico on a "(relative) child poverty" measure. Regardless of whether their methodology or even results are correct - I think it's guaranteed that many readers will distort that information and propagate that distortion onward.
But, pardon my cynicism and condescension, but, try arguing that with a group of social scientists/mathematicians doing null hypothesis papers with p-values at 1 SD, as well as with people, who frankly, are jealous of others and want more.
Unfortunately, on the flip side, I think there is still a "how big can my neighbor's house get relative to mine before I consider organizing a mob to break into it and steal all the jewels" element to human nature and society.
>people, who frankly, are jealous of others and want more.
That's always what it boils down to, isn't it? The one argument the hardcore libertarians and FYGM people always fall back to is "well, you're just jealous. If you just worked harder, you could afford it too", which has been shown again and again to be blatantly false and a clear example of a just world fallacy.
Luck plays an enormous part in how successful you are in life. There is obviously also a factor of being able to do something with those instances of luck, and again being born into the right family, having gone to the right school or having had the right encouragement is a huge factor. Once again, it boils down to luck, especially being born into the right family, with resources and support and an already-in-place social network to groom you and give you those opportunities.
Do you think the son of an alcoholic single mother has the same chances in life as the son of a bank director?
Social mobility is possible, but the deck is severely stacked in favor of those who already have the most.
Frankly, I think it is often jealousy. It is not blatantly false that if you work harder, take a second job, take night classes, save and start a business, that you can rise up in the social ladder and provide more opportunity for your children.
I have some personal biases here.
There are very different shades of privilege here. The bank director may have been the son of an immigrant, had straight A's in school, got perfect math scores and found an interest in finance, gotten into a top school, and generally worked hard his entire life. Their child also has natural ability in school, his father tells him to shut up, don't complain about anything, teaches them to work hard and pursue their talents but pays for their school. The kid works 80 hours a week, perhaps develops a talent and launches a business around it, and becomes successful as well.
The alcoholic single mother may not had an ounce of ability in school, partied her way through life and mooched off of her boyfriends until around 30 when she has to get a job and then keeps one to survive. Then she has a daughter, her daughter is very beautiful, fails out of school, is used to getting things for free as well, is jealous of her friends who have more, and does not end up going to college or doing anything of great significance.
And then of course you have successful father, child drinks and parties their way through life, abuses others, then inherits everything and preaches to others about how they had to sacrifice everything, and, against all odds, made it. I would not complain if this unfortunately substantial portion of our population got dropped off in Siberia.
I think it is very rare, but perhaps the next Von Neumann is working two jobs and failing out of school to pay the rent for his younger sister and alcoholic mother somewhere. That is a human tragedy and I hope it is rectified and I believe we've steadily been changing in that regard for centuries. We certainly have a lot of issues regarding educational opportunity that needs to be rectified. I think the wealthy are highly under taxed in this nation and that needs to be fixed, but anybody who thinks success is purely luck does not deserve success.
It is not purely luck, it is also about being in the right position and circumstance to make use of lucky happenstances, and actually about being in a position in life that makes those lucky happenstances more likely to happen.
Luck doesn't do much if you can't act on it. Conversely, lucky breaks happen more often to people who are able to expose themselves more to the possibility.
What you're saying is basic common sense (although apparently people are actually handed money to research this as well, which strikes me as scientific welfare).
Here is a recipe to have more "luck" in your life and to eventually be able to "capitalize on luck":
Smoke less weed
Drink less
Don't have kids without stable finances
Get a second job or work more hours or find a better job
Save money
Go home and read books, study, learn a skill, or prepare to go book to school
Start a business that can deliver value to consumers and/or society or work on side projects
Network with people and build relationships or mentors
Here is how to lose your ability to "capitalize on luck":
Whine about your life circumstances online
Complain that life is unfair online
Smoke weed and drink multiple times a week
Sit indoors all day watching tv and playing video games
Settle down and have kids before you have a stable life and have achieved the life goals you want to
I'm not sure what you are specifically complaining about more unless it is just a vacuous whinefest about life not being fair. That seems to be the case.
I do not think it is fair that the children of billionaires and movie stars are connected to half the planet via their parents and can get into nearly any door they want to, if that is the specific scenario you are referring to. We have been gradually shifting away from this for centuries - quite nearly only the children of nobles had access to education ~400 years ago.
I'm speaking from personal experience with the people I have met and observed. I do not subscribe to any conservative ideology or the hyper-liberalism espoused by many on this site. I am a reasonably intelligent white male with good parents born in the US with no disabilities so I am EXTREMELY fortunate. However, I also believe in the American social system that has produced virtually all of the technology in the world for the past 200 years that has drastically reduced global poverty and likely is the reason why slavery no longer exists, and I believe those who provide significant value to society should be lauded and allowed to "keep what they kill" to preserve our culture of achievement. While they should be taxed heavily, they should not be required to hand everything away so that people like you, who play doom and complain on the internet, can buy a new iPad with the proceeds of the redistributed wealth, or so that a new senator can spend the government surplus on a vacation and some hookers. Once social mobility, educational opportunity, access to similar healthcare, and basic human rights are preserved, rich people don't owe you crap despite what you think. Our society is clearly not perfect and certainly requires continuous work, but there is nothing stopping a hungry and intelligent kid in the US whose parents feed him and shelter him from becoming a multi-millionaire in this country or even president. If you want more, stop complaining and go earn it. If you think things are unfair, then stop complaining and go help people.
Again with the completely baseless strawman attacks, holy shit.
>"they should not be required to hand everything away so that people like you, who play doom and complain on the internet, can buy a new iPad with the proceeds of the redistributed wealth"
Please point out exactly where I have even come close to advocating this idea, which seems to only exist in the heads of conservative tax dodgers.
>"Once social mobility, educational opportunity, access to similar healthcare, and basic human rights are preserved, rich people don't owe you crap despite what you think."
They don't owe me anything personally, but they do owe society as a whole a hell of a lot.
>"there is nothing stopping a hungry and intelligent kid in the US whose parents feed him and shelter him from becoming a multi-millionaire in this country or even president."
Really? How about cultural stigma, institutional racism, old boys networks, country club nepotism, access to prestigious higher education, and a whole host of other factors?
Firstly, there are a lot of kids whose parents can barely feed and shelter them (hungry and well fed, can you make up your mind?), either despite their best efforts, or because they spend everything on booze or drugs. Secondly, even if they are adequately fed and sheltered, there is still massive societal pressure to not "rise beyond your station", both from above and below.
US society seems tailor made to keep the rich rich and the poor poor, by constantly putting obstacles in the way of progress, all because rich white old men are terrified they'll lose even a small part of their mountains of money.
No one (apart from hardcore old-school concrete commies) are advocating for 100% equal distribution of wealth. I believe that if someone puts their neck on the line and makes it big, good for them. But they should also pay their goddamn taxes and contribute back to society, and not with some excuse along the lines of "I'm investing the money in my own pet causes, so I shouldn't have to pay taxes". That's what's happening currently, the super rich don't feel any connection or responsibility towards keeping society running. They need a good strong lesson in humility.
I'm sure everything seems possible from your ivory tower, but that's not reality.
Same reason we hate google/amazon or any other (almost) monopolies. Money buys speech, power, influence, mind control. There is a reason rich contribute so much to political campaign donations.
1) A focus on inequality is irrational. 2) People focus on inequality for irrational reasons.
This means that if policy-makers and intellectuals fully give in to the people's wishes, we'll accept decreases in wealth in exchange for more equality indefinitely. If this sounds like a strawman, it's because we have "backstops" to inequality-decreasing wealth-destruction. But why should we tolerate any wealth destruction at all?
And if reducing inequality is possible without wealth destruction, why focus on inequality?
(This is besides the "Oxfam problem" -- there never is a coherent definition of "wealth" and Oxfam never seems to fully value people's homes and work animals and suchlike in poor countries.)