Income Inequality Is Not A Bad Thing
I taped a TV show the other day for the web -- will announce when it goes up on YouTube and there's a link.
On the show, the host asked me if I could anything for a living, what would I do?
Exactly what I do, I said. Writing. Writing books. Writing my science-based column and articles that mean something, like the one I wrote recently for Penthouse Australia.
I've had some financial struggles lately, and I'm trying to hang in there and applying for grants to complete my next science-based book, a medical expose plus practical advice. I write day and (as much as possible into the) night.
But, again, I love what I do, and writing this book is important -- a moral issue, in fact...exposing how evidence-free an area of medicine is. So...I cut out everything. I have no car, buy no clothes, buy no new stuff, and don't go out. Not even for a cup of coffee.
I pay my rent, my utilities, and the sweetheart of a guy who edits me.
It sucks not to be able to go out -- I'm an extravert, and I used to love going to a bar near my house or the coffee place near me. Both are now closed as the Venice boulevard near me became hipster central, and filled with pricey boutiques that have to be money laundering entities or the anchor for merchants who mainly sell online, because some stores never seem to move any of their pricey, ridiculous merchandise.
However...
I do what I do because it has meaning to me, and it's a choice. I could make more money if I did other work. I'm hoping writing will eventually pay again or I'll get the speaking engagements I trained for and thought would save me financially. (Who knew -- colleges don't want to hear speakers about how to be confident; you need to talk about how ashamed students should all feel for their "privilege," etc.)
All in all, it's ultimately a choice to do what I do, and I guess if things get really terrible, to the point I'm going to be homeless, I'll be forced to do something else.
I don't have any shame about the state of things; it's this way for a lot of people who used to earn well. It's just a tough fact.
And the fact that I make less money and am struggling also doesn't make me screech about "income inequality" or demand wealth transfers. By the way, the latter is not a moral thing to do. Nor is it immoral or bad that Jeff Bezos has a fuckton more money than I do. How great that he created this vast, hugely successful company out of nothing. (I have the same reverence for other builders and entrepreneurs, from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk and...sorry I can't think of anybody more off the beaten path.)
This is a roundabout way to get to the link that inspired this -- Antonis Giannakopoulos's piece at Mises Institute on "Four Reasons Inequality Isn't What You Think It Is":
One of the defining characteristics of advocates for socialism is an obsession with equality. According to this line of thinking, inequality is the central problem of the modern world, and it demands a centralized solution. Thus, socialists--and more mild social democrats--push to use the power of the state to force the transfer of wealth from the productive and successful to those who are less so. This is the way to achieve social justice, they contend.But inequality is not the societal plague that socialists allege it to be.
...Does Wealth Accrue at the Expense of the Poor?
One of the socialists' key assumptions is that there is always a losing side in a transaction. They think that wealth is like a pie, and that the rich take the largest slice, leaving workers and customers with almost nothing. In reality the market is always expanding the pie, and voluntary exchanges are always win-win when they are made.
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and all the other "evil capitalists" have managed to create an unprecedented amount of wealth, but not only for themselves. Those working for them have benefited from their jobs, and the people who buy their products and services have benefited from better or cheaper goods (or both). Other benefits include more time to pursue more important things, and in ways that cannot be quantified (i.e., they are measured in psychic profit). The entrepreneurs, in turn, have benefited from the services of their workers--which are well worth paying for. Entrepreneurs also benefit from the voluntary purchases made by their customers.
Profit and Competition Are Not Antithetical to Collaboration
Socialists pit profit and competition against an ideal of sharing and collaboration. But rather than being a wicked, stolen good, profit is a crucial incentive for collaborative human action.
People are always searching for the best and cheapest products in order to satisfy their needs, and their demands raise prices. The prospect of profit quickly pushes entrepreneurs into producing what people want--and what they are willing to pay for. Profits illustrate how much people value an entrepreneur's services. Consumers only pay if the entrepreneur satisfies their desires.
...Income Inequality Is Heightened by a Restrained Market
The Left makes the mistake of arguing that only the rich have gotten richer and attack capitalism without looking at the facts. The market has made nearly everyone richer, not only in terms of income but also in terms of the overall quality of life and the products that they own.
Leftists also ignore income mobility in market economies, when studies show that in fact most people born to the richest fifth of Americans fall out of that bracket within twenty years while most of those born to the poorest fifth climb to a higher quintile and even to the top.
Though their rhetoric makes it seem surprising, this makes sense. As Ludwig von Mises pointed out in The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, the businessman owes his wealth to his customers, and this wealth is inevitably lost or diminished when others enter the market who can better satisfy the consumer through lower prices and/or a better quality of goods and services.
The problem with income inequality today is that it isn't entirely a byproduct of the free market but instead is the result of a market crippled by interventionist policies, such as regulations, expensive licenses, and the most complicated tax system in the history of this country. Such restrictions have limited competition and made wealth creation more difficult, causing the stagnation of the middle and lower classes.
Though leftists contend that these restrictions protect people from the "dangers" of the free market, they actually protect the corporate interests that progressives claim to stand against.
Colossal businesses like Amazon and Walmart in fact favor higher minimum wages and increased regulations. They have the funds to implement them with ease, and such regulations end up acting as a protective barrier, keeping startups and potential competitors from entering the market. With competition blocked, these businesses can grow artificially large and don't have to work as hard to earn people's business. Instead they can spend money on lawyers and DC lobbyists to fence small businesses out of the market.
Ironically, efforts to regulate businesses in the name of protecting laborers and consumers harms small businesses and makes everyone less equal than they could be in a free market.
Conclusion
Markets are not the enemy of inequality. Regulated markets are. The income inequality that naturally occurs in the free market as a result of human uniqueness is needlessly amplified by restrictive government policies to the detriment of all.
Voluntary exchanges in capitalism are mutually advantageous. If they weren't, the exchange would never take place. People who live in countries with more economic and social freedom enjoy greater incomes and a higher standard of living. Free trade has contributed more to the alleviation of poverty than have all the government-run programs. Socialist intervention in the market can only distance man from eradicating poverty and from happiness: only unrestrained competition driven by profit can bring about the expansion of choice, the fall in prices, and the increased satisfaction that make us wealthier.
There's income inequality and there's income inequality.
I would say if a society has a few people living in palaces and everyone else in off-the-grid shacks, that society is broken.
NicoleK at February 29, 2020 5:56 AM
That is government's doing. Zoning regulations prohibit housing from being built here. Buildings being built are stopped through regulations.
And then there's the fact that housing cannot solve the mental illness and drug problems of 78% of the homeless. Christopher Rufo, at a think tank dinner I went to recently, said a number of the people hanging out on Skid Row have housing; they just want to be where the crime, drugs, and action are.
Amy Alkon at February 29, 2020 6:37 AM
> There's income inequality and
> there's income inequality.
I just spent fifteen minutes writing a reply to flame the flesh off Nicolek's bones. It woulda been epic. (If anyone wants a private copy, just to put in you journal or something, shoot me an email.)
> There's income inequality and
> there's income inequality.
That's not principled thinking. The next paragraph doesn't help.
Crid at February 29, 2020 6:42 AM
And props to Amy for an excellent blog post.
Crid at February 29, 2020 6:43 AM
Amy - Put Gregg in a tie and I'll buy you guys a round sometime next week.
Crid at February 29, 2020 6:45 AM
Do you disagree, Crid?
Most of my life people pointed out to me how much better the US was than various other places because we had a strong middle class. Is that not something worth preserving?
NicoleK at February 29, 2020 7:42 AM
Here's what I wrote a while back about income inequality: link
Kent McManigal at February 29, 2020 7:56 AM
Income inequality isn't bad NicoleK. Some of the factors causing it may be. One common cause of inequality is a government that only gives opportunities to government officials. Such people are rarely the best. Heck, they are rarely even barely competent. Such societies tend to fall apart as more skilled and more motivated people revolt or as more egalitarian neighbors conqueror them. But another common cause of inequality is a meritorious society. A culture that allows people to rise and fall based on their demonstrated merits can end up with high income and wealth inequality as well.
On it's own income and wealth inequality doesn't matter. It may only be indicative of other actually significant problems.
Ben at February 29, 2020 8:58 AM
Most of my life people pointed out to me how much better the US was than various other places because we had a strong middle class. Is that not something worth preserving?
Where is this middle class going? has it occurred to you that some portion of them are moving upwards? and some portion of the wealthy are moving down?
A refresher from yesterday's linkies:
https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/how-a-russians-grocery-store-trip-in-1989-exposed-the-lie-of-socialism/
Who in today's America has to stand in line to wait for their bread? pretty much just the homeless. The poor are given debit cards. Remember socialism promises equality of outcome. What that means in reality is we'll all be equally miserable.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 29, 2020 8:58 AM
"I would say if a society has a few people living in palaces and everyone else in off-the-grid shacks, that society is broken."
If so, not because of the people in "palaces".
It's because many people have no idea how to produce, then earn and keep wealth.
They probably ought to read this.
Of course, there are a lot of people who think they can vote money for themselves... and sometimes they're right. It's only the money YOU worked for. How unjust, you, you elitist, you, wanting to keep that!
Conveniently, you've helped label California as a major offender of this type, if real. Tent cities, anyone?
By the way - it's not "inequality", but dependency that is the actual offense, because inequality results from actual diversity, which produces different abilities immune to the fantasies some profess.
-----
By the way, about those tent cities... LivePD®, 2/1/19, featured a stop to investigate a guy parked in the dark next to a small group of tents in Salinas, CA. The Mercedes was occupied by a guy whose excuse for the meth found on him was that he was a heroin addict.
If only that stuff was legal, he'd be rich, right?
If only the rich gave up knowing how to make and keep money, HE would be rich, right?
And everyone in a tent is a fully aware and capable citizen if not for those nasty other people, who, for instance, build the Mercedes.
Pbbbb.
Radwaste at February 29, 2020 9:22 AM
PATREON!!!
KateC at February 29, 2020 11:17 AM
NicoleK: I would say if a society has a few people living in palaces and everyone else in off-the-grid shacks, that society is broken.
Exactly. Kind of like what California is evolving into.
Ken R at February 29, 2020 11:50 AM
Radwaste: 'If so, not because of the people in "palaces"'.
Unless the people in palaces got their by colluding with people in government to increase their advantages and other people's disadvantages.
Ken R at February 29, 2020 11:55 AM
Most of the time the people in those palaces are government officials. It really helps to cut out any middlemen. That way you don't have to worry about those government officials colluding with someone else to steal all of your stuff.
Ben at February 29, 2020 12:40 PM
> Do you disagree, Crid?
I certainly disagree with this:
> There's income inequality and
> there's income inequality.
Over my not-inconsiderable lifetime, the number of people pulled out of poverty has been stunning; over that of my parents, it's been literally unimaginable. You can scan the science fiction from the late-19th: No one on the planet ever dreamt, not in the foggiest opium delusion, how much better life was about to become.
Not for everyone, of course. There's been "income inequality" throughout. But when you coyly smirk through a tautology, as if to demand that I appeal to your singular and difficult-to-articulate insights about righteousness, I think persuasion is better spent elsewhere.
> Most of my life people pointed
> out to me how much better the
> US was than various other places
> because we had a strong middle
> class. Is that not something
> worth preserving?
The American middle class, perhaps the strongest pillar of decency in the twentieth century, has been decimated.
But how would you feel if it turned out that more people were leaving it my climbing out than by falling out?
Because that's exactly what's happening. Most of those people want nothing to do with your 'preservation.'
Crid at February 29, 2020 12:54 PM
In general, the income inequality most often whined about by Leftists is not due to capitalists using force and violence to monopolize all the resources. Rather, as Raddy points out, it is due to people not able or willing to contribute to society - a society that rewards greater contributions with higher monetary rewards.
Delayed gratification equals greater rewards later - and not just in economic pursuits.
If you spent your time in college learning medicine or engineering, chances are you'll make more. If you spent your post high school years learning plumbing, chances are you'll make more - and more than likely offer a greater actual contribution to society than the average social worker or politician; perhaps greater even than the average MBA or hedge fund manager.
If you cannot be counted upon to arrive at work on time or to accurately stock a grocery store shelf, chances are you'll make minimum wage all your life (and be worth less than that in the marketplace).
Welcome to the real world, buttercup.
Conan the Grammarian at February 29, 2020 1:52 PM
> due to people not able or
> willing to contribute
We should all seek to be compassionate. I believe that with all my heart. And we should also see the world as it is.
Please, please listen to Sam Harris and Charles Murray.
You can skip the first ten minutes of the introduction. But you're going to want to be listening at 18 minutes, when the race talk gets serious. And you'll want to understand that given the ever-increasing importance of intelligence, we're talking about half of humanity in every other subset.(And just to be really clear, if you're so deluded as to think that brains and character are the same thing, understand that being white does *not* put you at the top of top of the intelligence ranking… And these guys don't even talk about the intellectually enriched Cohanim.)
America's governmental machinery has been composed to reward the educable fastest and most reliably. Since World War II, the system hasn't paid much attention to the rest of our citizenry at all.
I sincerely regard the election of Trump as the first slapback from this grotesque inequity… Not that Trump was elected by people too stupid to know better, but that he brilliantly positioned himself as an expression of their resentment.
I'm not a uniformly bright guy. But when I think of having twenty or even 30 fewer IQ points, as uncounted millions of decent Americans do, I'm ashamed of our culture in a profound way. We've institutionalized monstrosities.
It's seriously possible that Covid-19 will, in the most brutal manner possible, compel corrections in this regard.
Because viri don't care.
Crid at February 29, 2020 4:20 PM
NicoleK, what you're missing is everyone is NOT living in off the grid shacks. The lowest quintile of income in the USA has seen greater growth in their spending power over the last 20 years and enjoys more current spending power than the lowest quintile in any of those countries you're so fond of crowing about.
bw1 at February 29, 2020 4:41 PM
I fully agree. And I think there is nothing wrong with a program that assists people who cannot contribute to society, but want to.
And any program like that will have some free riders, a price to be paid. It's when you make it too easy for the free riders to latch on that things get out of hand.
But people who need help should be able to get it.
Conan the Grammarian at February 29, 2020 6:09 PM
> But people who need help
> should be able to get it.
Yes to that, and I should have been clearer.
Since at least WWII —and throughout whatever the name is for our modern technocratic age— no thought has been given to the place we'll make for people with an IQ lower than about 90 in *any* context… Not just in economics and employment. That's somewhere between 16% and 25% of the human race. If you're not bright, our culture isn't merely challenging, it's COLD.
This deficiency exceeds the correction of anything you or I could imagine as a 'program.' The domain which probably comes closest to full embrace is the smaller churches.
Pick any chart you like. Blend them together, because skin color doesn't help when you're off the left shoulder of the bell.
Also, the Ashkenazi claim the top spots in all those charts, and probably have for as long as there have been good numbers. (I remembered a brief media mania for the Cohanim about 30 years ago, but that was apparently about things besides sheer candlepower.)
And Dammit, I heard a podcast a few months ago that described a particular neuromuscular disorder that traveled astride those same brainy Jewish genes. I can't remember the details.
Crid at February 29, 2020 6:58 PM
That would be Tay-Sachs disease, Crid.
Rex Little at March 1, 2020 4:37 AM
No, it was something else. It traveled with the especially bright ones, not just the Tribe generally.
Crid at March 1, 2020 6:45 AM
"People who need help should get it"
-.-.-
Sure - but not necessarily from the wasteful corrupt one-way ratchet of gubmint bureaucracies. Which demonstrably perpetuate problems.
The incredible dislocation, urbanization, and vocational retraining of the industrial revolution were effected largely through non-governmental communal organizations. Same for the absorbtion of waves of immigrants.
Both of those stories with obvious parallels to the educational challenges Crid and others refer to above.
Better results, lower cost, more accountability. Training for skills AND values like initiative and responsibility.
And community support for those who most need it.
And a revitalization of voluntary community as a social force to counter Leviathan.
This is what Made America Great in the 19th century. Lotsa lessons for moderns.
Ben David at March 1, 2020 6:55 AM
To get back there we need to start having common values. Even just on this site we don't only have a difference of opinion or differences in preferred ways to accomplish things we also have different values that are irreconcilable.
Social support is based on having common values. Without those common goals we won't have common actions.
Ben at March 1, 2020 7:09 AM
Have you ever noticed that when people buy something both the buyer and seller say thank you? This is because they both benefit.
There was an interesting video a couple years ago. Some wits went out with a survey to a Cali campus asking people to sign a motion for grade equality: if you make A donate an As to someone making Cs. The students ALL objected that they worked hard for their grades.
The only way to make a ton of money is to make lots of people better off with products/services that are faster, cheaper, better (assuming you didn't get gov help--ie corruption). People line up to buy the latest apple product or see the latest Marvel movie. They don't sound exploited to me.
The motivation behind inventors, entrepreneurs, and business owners is to be successful and get at least a little bit rich. Feeding off envy is a very dangerous political ploy.
cc at March 1, 2020 9:21 AM
To get back there we need to start having common values. Even just on this site we don't only have a difference of opinion or differences in preferred ways to accomplish things we also have different values that are irreconcilable.
Social support is based on having common values. Without those common goals we won't have common actions.
Ben at March 1, 2020 7:09 AM
Studies seem to indicate that liberals are very conservative in their private lives and actions.. so their real values are the same as mine. I just don’t give lip service to the destructive woke nonsense they parrot in public.
The beauty of capitalism is that I don’t have to be united in though and action with anyone. I am perfectly free to work towards my own best interests, and so are you.
Ben, when you get started with this common action crap, it makes me doubt your sanity, and your common sense.
Isab at March 1, 2020 10:29 AM
> obvious parallels to the
> educational challenges Crid
> and others refer to above.
Your intention may have been sardonic, but no, no, no: Education doesn't make people smart, it just rewards those who are.
The problem will never have anything to do with education.
People who tell you it does are either [A.] liberal Democrats or [B.] academics or quite probably [C.] both. When school is what comes to mind when you think of less-intelligent people, you might (sincerely, might) be part of the problem.
Crid at March 1, 2020 11:24 AM
Crid:
Education doesn't make people smart, it just rewards those who are.
------------
I am not talking about making people smart, I am talking about making them useful enough to not be a burden, and to avoid the evils their idleness causes for themselves and others.
I do not buy the notion that technology is eliminating all the manual jobs. By shifting the value of smarter people's time, tech creates opportunities in service and other areas. Automation makes other tasks do-able by the less able.
Ben David at March 1, 2020 11:50 AM
You are probably reading things into what I said that I didn't intend to be there Isab.
Would you deny that public libraries are common action? They are paid with government dollars. We as a whole (however you want to define 'whole' electorally) must agree to spend our tax dollars on them for them to exist. Well, Amy thinks Drag Queen Story Hour is a great thing and all libraries should do it. I think it is a stupid thing and I don't want my tax dollars supporting it. When the librarians insist they are in charge and this will happen whether I like it or not then I decide to vote to defund public libraries. As I said conflicting values prevent collective actions.
Everything the government does falls under collective actions in that context. We live in a democracy and you need a significant voting base to get anything approved. Individual actions aren't affected by that. So what if your neighbors don't want build a homeless shelter or build a park. If you do it with your own money you don't need their support.
And in that context it doesn't matter what liberals do in their own homes. Their public values are different and they vote to enforce those publicly espoused values.
Ben at March 1, 2020 1:56 PM
Would you deny that public libraries are common action?
In an old style New England village direct democracy, I would agree that public libraries probably fit that definition.
But since the funds that operate my current public library has neither been allocated or voted on in any kind of reauthorization, within my lifetime, I believe this does not meet an example of common purpose.
In fact most local government authorizations are designed to not be responsive to the voters for a reason. Too many make work jobs might get the fickle bye bye from the voters.
Personally as a real libertarian, I vote against any expenditure that sets up government in completion with private enterprise. My local public library is in competition with Amazon, Barnes and noble, and all stores that sell and rent videos. Far far removed from their original mandate.
Isab at March 1, 2020 2:35 PM
You can scan the science fiction from the late-19th: No one on the planet ever dreamt, not in the foggiest opium delusion, how much better life was about to become.
______________________________________________
I read the article. ("Most Ordinary Americans in 2016 Are Richer Than Was John D. Rockefeller in 1916.")
I have mixed feelings about it.
Obviously, no one would want to live in an era when even rich people and their children often died young, due to the lack of modern medicine. (I knew of a mother, born in the 1890s, I think, whose mansion-dwelling family owned a factory in upstate New York; she had four children, starting in WWI, but IIRC, she never met any of her grandchildren - there may have been ten - because she died in 1940 of TB.)
But what it really comes down to is that no one wants to live in ANY situation where you KNOW things could be so much better - and they aren't. If you're borderline homeless, of course you're going to be unhappy, unless you live in a country where everyone is nomadic that way. Whereas any people who had sufficient food, clothing and shelter in ANY century, were likely to be more or less grateful for what they had, since they knew things could be worse - but didn't always know that things could be any better. So they were happy - and tenacious.
And when it comes to luxuries, all I can say is, while I'm glad to have a radio, I don't use it for the music that much, and while I have a somewhat big music collection, I seldom bother to use it much, in part because I was raised to LISTEN to music and treat it with respect - not just play it as a background. Besides, I can't play the same songs over and over without getting jaded. Nothing is any fun if you have as much of it as you want. So my point is, we are so flooded with luxuries these days - much of which we can get very cheaply, if we know where to look - that they can be hard to appreciate anyway. There's plenty to be said for just getting together and singing, dancing - or just plain interacting. Think of the song "What Do the Simple Folk Do?"
lenona at March 1, 2020 3:59 PM
Another example: I like takeout buffet food and sometimes I wish I could have more of it. But even if you bring your own fork, there's still the thick paper container that has to be thrown out at the end. More to the point, too many dishes get served at least twice a week anyway, so there's nothing special about them, and so I wouldn't get much pleasure from them. Whereas something I see only once or twice a month is more tempting, such as salmon in cream sauce. "Less is more."
lenona at March 1, 2020 4:10 PM
"largely through non-governmental communal organizations."
That's because they typically combine assistance with the proselytizing of the values that put them in a position to help others, and eventually they require behavioral change of those they help. In other words, they condition their help on willingness to adopt a more optimal value system. Government can't do that in a free society, which is why it shouldn't be in the charity business. It lacks the means to solve root causes and prevent free riders.
"To get back there we need to start having common values."
Values come from culture, and multiculturalism means you can't heirarchically rank values, so there's no means for optimization.
bw1 at March 1, 2020 5:20 PM
Lenona, it's about more than the gimmicks. It's about having reliable access to the things you need and the means to do what you want. The most significant differences between Rockefeller's life and yours lie in the certainty you have about how your day is going to go.
Take cars - everybody is all a flutter about bluetooth and heated seats and all the electronic nose wiping systems, but the most significant change since I was a kid is that on a winter morning when it's 5F outside, you know that the car is going to start, the first time, without some heavily nuanced dance of ignition key and gas pedal.
bw1 at March 1, 2020 5:26 PM
A fair take on your local library Isab. I don't know exactly how mine is funded and I agree government likes to be non-responsive to voters. At all levels.
Conan has long stood for good governance and reducing federal debt. But you can look at the thread on social security and it is clear he is more interested in getting his social security benefits than in balancing the budget. Just because someone speaks up for something doesn't mean it is an absolute priority. Which is one of the hidden benefits of our current two party system. You aren't voting on just one issue. You don't get to separate out the benefit you want and ignore the cost that comes with it. You have to vote for the whole package.
Barring some new technological discovery that massively increases productivity like microprocessors did it is not possible for federal revenues to keep up with 'mandatory spending' (i.e. welfare). For now there aren't the votes to pull back the welfare state. Maybe 30% in the house and 20% in the senate, but that is a very long way from 50% much less 60% some of those votes would require. Also a decent percentage of those congressmen are only for cuts as long as they haven't a chance of happening. So anyone who was actually serious about the budget and deficits doesn't care anymore. It can't be fixed. Same way no one cares when people complain politician x or y didn't control spending. Those are all nimbyism. They want someone else to do something but don't want to do anything themselves or their representatives.
That may be what flushes out those make work jobs. As the funds set aside for them are worth less and less in real value they may have to go find a real job to make ends meet. Though I'm probably being optimistic about that.
Ben at March 1, 2020 5:34 PM
And Ben talks a good game about responsible government, but he's fine with telling people to just write off any money the government takes from you and forget about holding that same government accountable for what it does with your money. After all, "it's not your money," he says.
Conan has also argued for the elimination of Social Security as currently configured (or in its entirety) as well as drastic scaling back of the welfare state.
Now, Ben, we can continue trading silly jabs like this or we can agree that we disagree about the purposes and reach of government taxation and move on. Your call.
Conan the Grammarian at March 1, 2020 6:02 PM
NicoleK:
"There's income inequality and there's income inequality.
I would say if a society has a few people living in palaces and everyone else in off-the-grid shacks, that society is broken."
I would agree; but, I would also say that a society doesn't have to go that far to be broken.
One example I can think of is when a CEO can run a company into the ground leaving employees without their pensions while the CEO and other executives float away on golden parachutes.
I don't begrudge them making way more money than me - they have a much more stressful job than I have; but, if they can screw over the company and the employees while getting away with megabucks despite their own incompetence that irks me to no end. And most definitely, I would say something is broken if there are not laws in place to protect the average person from such shameless behavior.
charles at March 1, 2020 6:26 PM
“, it's about more than the gimmicks. It's about having reliable access to the things you need and the means to do what you want. The most significant differences between Rockefeller's life and yours lie in the certainty you have about how your day is going to go.”
Precisely. I know a lot of clueless socialists and capitalists who have stated, after visiting a third world country that they didn’t understand what the big deal was about being poor, because the poor people they met, happened to be happy and in reasonably good health, so what was the big deal about being poor? They too saw wealth as being about *gadgets.*
They don’t understand that what money offers is a huge safety net for those who both have it, and are in a position to take advantage of it.
Something goes wrong, the poor third worlder keels over with a heart attack and dies at fifty. His counterpart the American engineer gets a stent run up his wrist, and into his heart, and lives another thirty healthy years.
Isab at March 1, 2020 6:53 PM
Good points, Isab, but I doubt the average person - or even average lefty - is going to pretend that there's nothing seriously wrong with any nation where the average life expectancy is 50 or so. Or even 60. (The life expectancy in the U.S. is close to 79 - and higher in some other countries.)
Trivia note. Mcklinton said, elsewhere:
"When I was in college (late 1970's) my physical anthropology professor explained that if you were 40, your chance of living to 80 were almost identical to what it would have been in Ancient Rome. It was surviving to 40 that was difficult then."
lenona at March 2, 2020 7:08 AM
I looked it up just now and it seems the worst place, in that respect, is the Central African Republic. Average age at death: 54.
There are 191 nations listed and 54 of them have a life expectancy of 70 or under. (Only a few of those are not in Africa. Seven "African" nations are better off - many are island nations; three others are Egypt, Libya and Algeria.)
lenona at March 2, 2020 7:38 AM
Good points, Isab, but I doubt the average person - or even average lefty - is going to pretend that there's nothing seriously wrong with any nation where the average life expectancy is 50 or so. Or even 60. (The life expectancy in the U.S. is close to 79 - and higher in some other countries.)
Yea they will be either ignoring or faking the statistics when it doesn’t suit their political goals. . You think life expectancy has gone up in Cuba since the revolution? Ha ha ha ha.
It is also pretty terrible in Russia, China, and or course even worse in North Korea. So all you will hear about is the literacy programs.
Isab at March 2, 2020 9:34 AM
Read that again. I said "average."
lenona at March 2, 2020 11:21 AM
Late to the party, but...
"The American middle class, perhaps the strongest pillar of decency in the twentieth century, has been decimated.
But how would you feel if it turned out that more people were leaving it my climbing out than by falling out?"
Granted, a fair percentage of the middle class is moving upwards into the wealthy classes. That's a good thing, no two ways about it. However, what I want to know is: where are the working-class people who should be moving upwards into the middle class? It doesn't seem to be happening, at least not from those charts Human Progress provided. That's where we seem to have lost the thread.
Cousin Dave at March 2, 2020 11:28 AM
Perhaps you should have brought those points up in that thread Conan. Instead you kept complaining about how you wanted to get 'your money' and admitting you were crazy to do so.
Also I never said anything about not holding the government accountable. You repeatedly accused me of that while refusing to hold people accountable due to being delusional.
All I insisted on was being honest instead of repeating advertising slogans.
On my side perhaps I shouldn't post after a drink. I tend to get rambly.
Ben at March 3, 2020 9:00 AM
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