No, I'm not down with that idea except in the case of people who are really really poor. I asked you before, how does someone having more money than me prohibit me from becoming wealthy?

Not even wrong. What matters is the pattern of wealth distribution. You don't seem to want to consider aggregate effects at all. Inequality is a property of an income distribution, you can see its effects over communities and how people in those communities live their lives and what they are likely to be able to do with them. Crime obviously has an impact here.

Right, what does this have to do with the individual becoming wealthy which is the topic, granting that we were discussing social mobility?

The individual becoming wealthy is made less likely through inequality, inequality scales with poverty, crime, poor social mobility... I had a lot of details on this in the mega-post I made at the start.

What benefits?

Well the hope is that economic growth increases the average livelihood of people. But what it actually does (see the papers I linked in the first post) is entrench patterns of inequality, people without much before have proportionally less when an economy grows.

Why is it so difficult for you to consider the aggregate properties and changes in circumstance suggested by an income distribution? You're telling stories about people while eliding the things that affect their average livelihood, free time, propensity to commit and be a victim of crime, greater exposure to risks due to an inability to save money...

Not even wrong. What matters is the pattern of wealth distribution. You don't seem to want to consider aggregate effects at all. Inequality is a property of an income distribution, you can see its effects over communities and how people in those communities live their lives and what they are likely to be able to do with them. Crime obviously has an impact here. — fdrake

You haven't addressed the question...

The individual becoming wealthy is made less likely through inequality, inequality scales with poverty, crime, poor social mobility... I had a lot of details on this in the mega-post I made at the start. — fdrake

I know that's what you claim, but for example, most billionaires are self-made. Many of them come from among the poor too. That's stats, you know, the stuff you like.

In addition, how many amongst the poor buy cigarettes and alcohol even though they don't have sufficient money for food? There's many such people out there. Do they have no responsibility for the continuation of their poverty?

But what it actually does (see the papers I linked in the first post) is entrench patterns of inequality, people without much before have proportionally less when an economy grows. — fdrake

Yeah so what? Of course if everyone's wealth grows, and you don't do anything to grow yours, you will remain RELATIVELY poor. But relative poverty is not of interest to me. If you have money for food, electricity, and the other basic necessities of life, and assuming you have access to healthcare and other necessities, what's the issue? If you had those before everyone's wealth grew, you still have them now, even though relative to them you're poorer. What's the problem there? The only problem may be that you're envious, because there are political agitators who tell you that you should have more, etc.

We should focus on providing that bare minimum for everyone, not more. If you want more, you have to work for it.

Why is it so difficult for you to consider the aggregate properties and changes in circumstance suggested by an income distribution? — fdrake

I don't believe in stats, I believe in people.

You're telling stories about people while eliding the things that affect their average livelihood, free time, propensity to commit and be a victim of crime, greater exposure to risks due to an inability to save money... — fdrake

So if I am poor, is it not a moral choice whether I steal or not? Am I not responsible for stealing? Or what's the matter here? And what does all this have to do with the ability to become wealthy? :s

You're exactly like the people here. Seems like you guys don't understand how the market works... For example:

Here are some issues: 1. Businesses need startup capital and people need to eat. If you're not making money fast enough to save up for your bills, food, and the capital you need to start up your business, then you can't no matter how entrepreneurially talented you are. 2. The capitalist argument you present either ignores the fact that he is now exploiting his former peers or insists that the his exploitation of others is not immoral, but a reward. 3. It still doesn't address how much of his capital came from exploited workers or how the rarest resources often are stolen from indigenous peoples. The theoretical capitalist argument you're presenting, again, either ignores that or considers it his rewards. Both of these are problematic.
It does address this self-made-man vision. It says that this self-made-man isn't built from the ground up. He's climbed on the backs of other workers and indigenous peoples to get where he is. He climbs those people and asks those he's standing on why they aren't also on ladders like he is, unaware of the fact that there is no ladder. — Takarov

(1) is entirely false. Many businesses don't need a startup capital, or if they do it is very small, or you can otherwise obtain it by working the business yourself before you hire others. There's also a ton of arbitrage opportunities always around for making a startup capital.

(2) Employing others isn't exploitation since the job of organising production requires effort, knowledge and expertise and it must also be rewarded, even though it doesn't actually produce a product - it's still necessary to achieve that production on a greater level and obtain, for example, economies of scale.

(3) That may be true, but it's unavoidable within our economies. Whatever you do, even if you are an employee, you're basically exploiting resources stolen from 3rd world countries.

@Agustino, do you still call yourself a socialist? I see very little evidence of that here. On the contrary, this isn't just a defence of capitalism, but a defence of capitalism of the worst kind. Are you familiar with the phrase, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"? Are you familiar with the theory of the exploitation of labour, of surplus capital, and so on? Not so long ago, you claimed to be in favour of restraining, rather than strengthening, big business. One way of doing that is through progressive taxation, which, in this discussion, you've strongly opposed.

One way of doing that is through progressive taxation, which, in this discussion, you've strongly rejected. — Sapientia

Financial speculation and trading stocks, etc. is only a way for rich people to maintain their wealth and avoid having inflation eat it up - once they are already rich. Having said that, I am actually opposed to financial speculation since it doesn't produce anything useful. So I wouldn't mind taxing PROFITS (definitely at least short-term profits) from that at 90%. — Agustino

Read the above. Also you misinterpret my position. I am against big business, which means multinational corporations, which seek to control the government and enact laws that prevent competition and protect them. I'm not against entrepreneurial endeavours.

Are you familiar with phrase, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"? — Sapientia

Yes, but I like Stalin's rephrasing: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work"

Are you familiar with the theory of the exploitation of labour, of surplus capital, and so on? — Sapientia

Yes. I disagree for the reason outlined in my previous post, right above you.

Not so long ago, you claimed to be in favour of restraining, rather than strengthening big business. — Sapientia

Yes - I am entirely for restraining non-entrepreneurial endeavours which seek to stifle competition and get in bed with the government.

do you still call yourself a socialist? — Sapientia

I am left-leaning in terms of my economics, sure. But not with regards to entrepreneurship and private ownership. I am a distributist in many regards.

Who created wealth for the past 200 years? Only a handful of industrious people. — Agustino

A handful of industrious people like (not mentioning all the well known current rich folks)

Samuel Crompton (Spinning Mule) Great Britain
Thomas Newcomen (Steam Engine) Great Britain
Johns Hopkins (commercial, banking, railroads) USA
John D. Rockefeller (Oil) the world
Andrew Carnegie (Steel) USA
Cornelius Vanderbilt (Railroads) USA
John Jacob Astor (Fur, Real Estate (like... Waldorf Astoria Hotel) USA
James Hill (Railroads) USA
Jamsetji Tata (Shipping, Steel, Hotels...) India
Richard Trevithick (Sugar) Germany
Coco Chanel (Fashion) France
Enzo Ferrari (Sports Cars) Italy
J. R. D. Tata (Everything) India
Richard Branson (Media, Transportation) UK
Rod Aldridge (Business process outsourcing), UK
Hernán Botbol (Internet) Argentina
Strive Masiyiwa (Telecommunication) Zimbabwe

Sure, a handful. But... none of these people actually produced much wealth themselves. Andrew Carnegie wasn't shoveling iron ore into the coke ovens; Jamsetji Tata wasn't steering the freighters; Strive Masiyiwa wasn't bolting together cell towers in Zimbabwe.

It just isn't possible for one person to invent and develop large industries which produce millions or billions of dollars of income. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did start working on computers in their families garages (so they say), but before long they, like other entrepreneurs, had to start hiring people to develop and produce code, pieces of gadgetry, and so on. Generally setting up production (plant and people) requires loaned capital.

You, AGUCORP, sitting at your desk somewhere in Eastern Europe, providing some services to other businesses, are not going to become rich. At some point you will have to start hiring other people to sit at desks, answer phones and emails, and to do this you will need to obtain capital, probably first with a loan, then with maybe selling shares. If Big Finance thinks you have the makings of becoming the Bloomberg of Business in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Belarus, and Botswana, they might back you, then you might become rich.

But no matter how rich Agustino gets as founder of AGUCORP, it won't be on the basis of your personal labor. Your ideas, sure; certainly the ideas of your employees too.

You are too wrapped up in the idea of the Glorious Solitary Knight of Commerce to see that wealth is created socially by dozens, hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands of people working to produce wealth. And then, in order for you to become very, very rich, you have to expropriate a slice of the value all those people created, and keep it for yourself.

You don't have to be a physically powerful ox of a man to personally do the expropriating. Expropriation is a social affair, and the rules of commerce (assuming there are rules of commerce wherever you are operating out of) allow for, and facilitate the expropriation. The armed services of the country you are working in are paid to make sure your employees do not turn on you and seize your business services goldmine (expropriating the expropriators). The Courts are there to make sure that your patents, trademarks, and contracts are protected. The stock markets are there to facilitate your IPO, and various business already exist to facilitate your financial operation.

You haven't addressed the question...

I know, I reject the framing of the issue that produces it. As you said:

I don't believe in stats, I believe in people

Which means your method of questioning will never even see aggregate properties and what propensities they endow to individuals. Despite these propensities being both real and measurable, you have cultivated a blindspot to this kind of analysis. It isn't surprising that you don't see the methodological issues in your line of questioning.

So if I am poor, is it not a moral choice whether I steal or not? Am I not responsible for stealing? Or what's the matter here? And what does all this have to do with the ability to become wealthy? :s

The fact that you equate societal properties manifesting as changing propensities for individual actions with the possibility and individual responsibility for doing those actions is exactly a symptom of your blindspot for aggregate properties and constraints.

Note that they are soft constraints, society doesn't make your decisions for you, you make decisions in the contexts and communities it generates and is constituted by.

Yeah so what? Of course if everyone's wealth grows, and you don't do anything to grow yours, you will remain RELATIVELY poor. But relative poverty is not of interest to me. If you have money for food, electricity, and the other basic necessities of life, and assuming you have access to healthcare and other necessities, what's the issue? If you had those before everyone's wealth grew, you still have them now, even though relative to them you're poorer. What's the problem there? The only problem may be that you're envious, because there are political agitators who tell you that you should have more, etc.

Well, despite that your assumptions are often false for people on minimum wage in America... You're completely wrong about having the same standard of living if everyone's wealth grows. If you're poor, you're disproportionately effected by inflation - which is strongly correlated with economic growth. Your means don't stretch as far when real wages lag inflation (which they have for some time).

I'm actually quite well off and do contract work in addition to my job, so stop your daft psychologising. It was much better when you were insulting me for things more relevant to the issue. I can appreciate a good 'you don't even know this, you damn fool', not 'you're wrong and i'm better than you so there nyer i have money u jelly lol?'. Even though both are bad form, your standards of insult are slipping man!

Perhaps this makes the point about your methodological errors better. Would you be able to get a job at the OECD by saying 'I don't believe in stats, I believe in people', not looking at all the measurable effects inequality has on people's lives, and apparently skirting over the problems that come along with inequality and poverty? Probably not, but then you 'don't care about relative poverty'.

I submit that no one at the OECD would think your approach to these problems was particularly good, being mostly composed of select success stories, claims that your opponent is stupid, claims that your opponent doesn't understand things that are largely irrelevant to the debate, and an absolute insistence on moralising category errors in analysing societal properties.

If you want to understand how a societal configuration effects its people, it should be done in the aggregate, it should employ concepts sensitive to changes in individual agency. You've used success stories and the possibility of 'making it', they're the only methodological constructs you've used to understand inequality. By definition they're not sensitive to aggregate properties - the first is a selection of decontextualised anecdotes demonstrating possibilities for action at best, the second is a blunt insistence to not analyse the ways societal configurations can impact people.

Why doesn't everyone become an entrepreneur like Agustino of the giant AGUCORP? Are they all stupid, fat, lazy, addicted, welfare dependent, uneducated morons?

Some people are, of course. That's just the normal distribution. At the opposite end of the distribution are highly motivated, energetic, acquisitive, skilled individuals who have stumbled upon opportunity and have sunk their teeth into it's haunches. What will happen to most of them? Many of them will fail in their entrepreneurial projects. Some will do as well in their business as they would have done if they had worked for someone else. A diminishing number will make it into the big time.

In the middle of the distribution are about 80% of the population. We are people who are reasonably smart to very smart, energetic, educated, motivated, etc. who are not interested in becoming individual entrepreneurs. Perhaps we have other interests which are more important than working 16 hour days trying to establish a business. Perhaps we are interested in spending time with our families; pursuing our demanding careers in education, welding, medicine, carpentry, accounting, bricklaying, architecture, cooking, civil service, sales, auto repair, or whatever.

There is nothing especially exalted about individual entrepreneurial effort. If you like it, I am sure it is most enjoyable. It's probably like the public health job of syphilis contact tracing: it requires training, considerable skill, dedication, attention to detail, persistence, and intelligence. If you enjoy doing syphilis contact tracing, tuberculosis case finding, optometry, repairing alternators, religious work, garbage hauling, milking cows--whatever it is, it's enjoyable and useful.

Getting rich? For most people, getting or being rich is an idle fantasy or unimportant, and in any case, not a fixation that people should be encouraged to dwell on. Riches are not good for people's morals.

A handful of industrious people like (not mentioning all the well known current rich folks) — Bitter Crank

Yep, exactly.

Cornelius Vanderbilt (Railroads) USA — Bitter Crank

Started out poor.

Richard Branson (Media, Transportation) UK — Bitter Crank

Started out middle class.

John D. Rockefeller (Oil) the world — Bitter Crank

Started out poor.

Andrew Carnegie (Steel) USA — Bitter Crank

Started out poor.

John Jacob Astor (Fur, Real Estate (like... Waldorf Astoria Hotel) USA — Bitter Crank

Started out poor.

The others I haven't heard about or read about much.

Andrew Carnegie wasn't shoveling iron ore into the coke ovens — Bitter Crank

But who learned about the technology, who brought it to the US, who organised production, who risked his capital, who worked as a poor boy his way up, etc.? The steel part came after Carnegie was quite successful in business and investments.

It just isn't possible for one person to invent and develop large industries which produce millions or billions of dollars of income. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did start working on computers in their families garages, but before long they, like other entrepreneurs, had to start hiring people to develop and produce code, pieces of gadgetry, and so on. — Bitter Crank

I agree, but do we need people to organised production? Organised production achieves economies of scale, which are not achieveable by separate labourers, even if they can do the job themselves. Is it unfair, for example, for the entrepreneur to take these economies of scale for himself, allowing the labourers to earn only what they could earn if they were working by themselves?

and to do this you will need to obtain capital, probably first with a loan, then with maybe selling shares. If Big Finance thinks you have the makings of becoming the Bloomberg of Business in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Belarus, and Botswana, they might back you, then you might become rich. — Bitter Crank

That might work like that in the US, but here most successful businessmen have bootstrapped their operations (excluding the ones who made their wealth through corruption and theft with the government, which are a lot of them).

At some point you will have to start hiring other people to sit at desks, — Bitter Crank

Yes, that's true.

answer phones and emails — Bitter Crank

I already have to do that, because it's not like business comes automatically to you - you need to reach out and find it.

You are too wrapped up in the idea of the Glorious Solitary Knight of Commerce to see that wealth is created socially by dozens, hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands of people working to produce wealth. And then, in order for you to become very, very rich, you have to expropriate a slice of the value all those people created, and keep it for yourself. — Bitter Crank

Okay but go back to my previous point. So say I start a web development company. I will hire people, but I won't hire jack-of-all-trades like myself. I will hire, for example, an HTML/CSS expert, a javascript expert, a backend/PHP expert, a database expert, a Wordpress expert, a Node JS expert etc. etc. and put them to work. Now they will do the work a lot faster since they are experts at each individual component. They can probably do each individual component of the project much faster (and better) than I can.

So they are going to earn a fair amount for their individual work - but I will take for myself all the benefits that emerge from me having brought them together right? Any economies of scale, I will take for myself, since that was my work, to bring them together, and set the whole system up. So if they can finish projects faster than I can alone, then anything extra I will take. Isn't that fair?

The armed services of the country you are working in are paid to make sure your employees do not turn on you and seize your business services goldmine (expropriating the expropriators). — Bitter Crank

It's very complicated to do that, because specialisation means typically one person does just one small bit. These actual constraints are a lot more important than the legal ones here.

The Courts are there to make sure that your patents, trademarks, and contracts are protected. — Bitter Crank

Forget it, if I have to rely on the courts or government for anything, including ensuring I get paid, then I'm dead here. I have to rely on payment agreements, contracts, etc. to make sure that I get paid. That doesn't mean courts will ever enforce them, what I mean is... For example, asking for a certain percentage upfront, getting paid along the way, and other such tactics. You have to get a feel for whether people will cheat you or not here - typically it's good to leave some work for the future also, since if they have to keep working with you, less likely that you get cheated.

The statement that I was referring to, Agustino, was your statement on the first page, namely that the war against progressive taxation is a good thing. It is not, and neither is gross wealth inequality. That can never be fair. Your notion of fairness is warped. Fairness means getting a proportionate slice of the pie, not as much as you can get your grubby hands on. That you wouldn't mind taxing profits (or at least short-term profits) from financial speculation at 90%, is not nearly enough. You aren't truly against big business, you're just in favour of small business, and big business just happens to get in the way. To truly be against big business is to be against the inherent unfairness at its heart, which manifests itself in terms of tax avoidence, gross accumulation of wealth, exploitation, jaded interests, and so on. You can't be ethical, yet pick and choose what to take issue with. And you can't be ethical, yet pass off immorality as entrepreneurial endeavours.

You have to get a feel for whether people will cheat you or not here — Agustino

"Here" is no different than everywhere. There are crooks everywhere. So, how do you protect yourself? Through established legal institutions or do you employ your own goon squad as enforcers?

The statement that I was referring to, Agustino, was your statement on the first page, namely that the war against progressive taxation is a good thing. It is not, and neither is gross wealth inequality. — Sapientia

With regards to what is happening in the US, and pretty much everywhere, yes, I do think business taxes should go down.

To truly be against big business is to be against the inherent unfairness at its heart — Sapientia

As far as I'm concerned that unfairness is just corruption and getting in bed with governments. That's how they gain unfair advantages and squish out smaller businesses. Accumulation of money and tax avoidance aren't such big problems in and of themselves. Again, the fact that someone has more money than you doesn't stop you in any way from making your own money - and tax avoidance isn't necessarily immoral, although it is indeed illegal.

So, how do you protect yourself? — Bitter Crank

I told you how. By structuring the deal in such a way such that it's not really feasible that I get cheated (or if I do get cheated, I only lose a small bit). This is achieved by asking for a certain % of the contract upfront (before doing the work), or getting paid along the way such that to continue working you need to receive a certain payment. I certainly don't rely on established legal institutions, nor on my own enforcement squad.

I did get cheated before, and I just don't work with that business ever again, and if anyone asks me about them I say bad things. So it's all about not getting too hurt if such a thing happens, not about entirely preventing it. It doesn't work in corrupt developing nations.

I'm actually quite well off and do contract work in addition to my job, so stop your daft psychologising. It was much better when you were insulting me for things more relevant to the issue. I can appreciate a good 'you don't even know this, you damn fool', not 'you're wrong and i'm better than you so there nyer i have money u jelly lol?'. Even though both are bad form, your standards of insult are slipping man! — fdrake

:s - what's wrong with you, I actually haven't insulted you in that post at all, and especially not about how much money you have. How much money you (or I) have is irrelevant in a discussion which aims to find the truth. If you're from the US, you're probably richer than me anyway. Hopefully, you do realise the "you" there is a hypothetical "you" who is in those circumstances, not you in particular.

If you have money for food, electricity, and the other basic necessities of life, and assuming you have access to healthcare and other necessities, what's the issue? If you had those before everyone's wealth grew, you still have them now, even though relative to them you're poorer. What's the problem there? The only problem may be that you're envious, because there are political agitators who tell you that you should have more, etc

Getting rich? For most people, getting or being rich is an idle fantasy or unimportant, and in any case, not a fixation that people should be encouraged to dwell on. Riches are not good for people's morals. — Bitter Crank

It's not about having the most money, it's about doing the most useful work for society that you can do. That requires money to scale and finance your efforts. You seem to have missed all my posts about money being irrelevant to wealth, and wealth being formed of value x quantity of goods/services, where money is just a shadow.

It's pretty patronising regardless of whether the addressee is out there somewhere or me. As if the only problem arising from income inequality is envy.

It's pretty patronising regardless of whether the addressee is out there somewhere or me. As if the only problem arising from income inequality is envy. — fdrake

:-} That's not what I said. I said envy emerges because certain people, political agitators, tell poor people that they really should be wealthy, but it's because they are exploited that they're not. That breeds envy and hatred. Instead, they should be taught the skills that they need, and encouraged to work, study and learn, since they too can earn more money if that's what they want.

Well, despite that your assumptions are often false for people on minimum wage in America... You're completely wrong about having the same standard of living if everyone's wealth grows. If you're poor, you're disproportionately effected by inflation - which is strongly correlated with economic growth. Your means don't stretch as far when real wages lag inflation (which they have for some time). — fdrake

What's inflation in the US? 2%/year? So they lose approx. $400 (assuming $20,000/annum) in 12 months in buying power assuming wages don't increase. That is approximately 1 week of work or 60 hours. You are right, it is actually quite a bit, so I suppose yes, inflation does impact the poor. So then it's really a bad idea not to try to grow your income.

The fact that you equate societal properties manifesting as changing propensities for individual actions with the possibility and individual responsibility for doing those actions is exactly a symptom of your blindspot for aggregate properties and constraints.

Note that they are soft constraints, society doesn't make your decisions for you, you make decisions in the contexts and communities it generates and is constituted by. — fdrake

Right, so then there is no iron-will necessity of robbing others if you're poor, it's just more of a temptation. Is this what you mean?

it's about doing the most useful work for society that you can do. — Agustino

Yes, very good idea. I think most people have striven to do that.

That requires money to scale and finance your efforts. — Agustino

Of course it requires an expenditure of money. Most of money which made my work possible (health education, social services) came from social investment. The non-profit NGO sector is, in general, socially financed. (I don't know about where you live, but in this part of the US, non-profits form a significant sector of the economy.)

You seem to have missed all my posts about money being irrelevant to wealth ... where money is just a shadow. — Agustino

No, I just didn't buy those points. A nation's wealth surely is composed of the resources of its people, an asset that isn't readily measured in dollars. Individual wealth IS measured in dollars, pounds, euros, or some currency; wealth consists of property, cash, and shares. Your talents and potential just don't count as "wealth" in any ordinary usage. Features of your mind are too intangible to count as assets.

:-} That's not what I said. I said envy emerges because certain people, political agitators, tell poor people that they really should be wealthy, but it's because they are exploited that they're not. That breeds envy and hatred. Instead, they should be taught the skills that they need, and encouraged to work, study and learn, since they too can earn more money if that's what they want.

The data on this is pretty complicated. It's often the case that poverty is used as the dependent variable in a study, then it's found that more educated implies less poor. That's a global trend AFAIK. But it's also the case that more poor implies less educated, and there's some evidence that people from poorer backgrounds are empoverished mentally as well as materially; they're worse at learning! It's also often the case that the available schooling is of a much lower quality in poor communities and countries. The effect of education on poverty and inequality is always relative to the average or expected education of a population, or relevant sub-population - like being the only Spanish tutor in an interested community would be quite profitable.

In Pakistan, being able to read gives you a big advantage. In the UK, being able to read is normal, not having finished highschool or an equivalent course is a big disadvantage. Similar to the US. Not having a degree is becoming a large disadvantage, to the tune of 35% reduction in median income in the UK.

If you give someone access to high quality education (relative to the population and community), and they know the relevance of it to their welfare from their upbringing and previous education (not always the case with poor areas), their standard of living should (is more likely than before) go up. The converse is also true, if a community is poor, they are less likely to be able to increase their skills within that community, so will be 'stuck in a rut'. Put 'being stuck in a rut' together with poverty - lack of food, shelter, basic living conditions, and you start getting some real motivation for crime. No other options, few skills, what you gonna do?

Prostitution, theft, selling drugs. Might sometimes be the only way to make enough to live by. Hell, even use this newfound wealth to catapult you out of your bad circumstances like someone in the article I linked just there.

So, yes, inequality promotes crime, but not in the manner of 'thou shalt be a drug dealer', a necessary divine mandate, but probabilistically - it raises the chances of individuals turning to crime.

It's interesting to compare Norway to the US here, the minimum wage (enforced through union action rather than law) in Norway for a minimal full time Job gives you something like 21 USD per hour for at least 36 hours a week. This is enough to live and save, even considering the mark up in prices from the US. Despite Norway still having an income distribution with a similar shape, violent crime and theft are a lot lower there.

The problem with inequality, like with most things, is determined by what relationships it has with other things, and what those things mean on the level of the community, the county and the country.

Edit: of course, not being able to read in the UK is a massive disadvantage...

With regards to what is happening in the US, and pretty much everywhere, yes, I do think business taxes should go down. — Agustino

Boo! (N)

As far as I'm concerned that unfairness is just corruption and getting in bed with governments. That's how they gain unfair advantages and squish out smaller businesses. Accumulation of money and tax avoidance aren't such big problems in and of themselves. Again, the fact that someone has more money than you doesn't stop you in any way from making your own money - and tax avoidance isn't necessarily immoral, although it is indeed illegal. — Agustino

Unfairness is that and more. Excessive accumulation of money is a problem, as is tax avoidance and evasion (I forget which is which, and would need to look it up). How is avoiding (or evading) paying what you owe to society not a problem? I'm not sure what you're getting at with your qualification, "in itself", so I'm not sure whether or not I agree. I mean, it's a problem in light of the consequences, rather than when considered in itself, so in that sense I would agree. And that it is not necessarily immoral, or that it is either legal or illegal, does not alter its status as immoral.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the few owning the much and the many owning nothing as long as owning nothing isn't a prison or death sentence.

Let's start with the oldest and most secure form of wealth: land. If most of the land is owned by a few people that's fine so long as there is enough public or poor-owned land that the poor masses have an equitable amount of living space.

Regardless of who owns what and why, if for whatever reason the population should require use of some private land to ensure an equitable standard of living, the moral argument telling them to stay on their own land breaks down (and potentially the larger system maintaining land use and ownership rights). That we can own private land is nice and all, and the free market is the strategy we're employing so we ought to keep private land ownership around if at all possible, but we must realize that we should only agree to this arrangement if it actually functions as a strategy and regime of wealth production and distribution. The concept of a monopoly is ubiquitous in anti-capitalist rhetoric, and there's a good reason why: Once enough of the wealth becomes concentrated into so few hands, they get the power to extort everyone else.

During a widespread food crisis, should one arise, the concept of ownership in general may be subject to change. If the population can be kept fed and entertained though (neither of which are easy to do these days), then you can do just about anything to them while maintaining whatever form of government. It doesn't matter how much you own; so long as I have access to bread and games I will be content. A few fancy praetorian can then quell the entire Colosseum.

There's also a new kind of wealth at stake that is only just beginning to be considered as such (and yet it can be just as powerful as traditional wealth). Data, information, and control over the media we use to transmit it. The massive conglomerates which control the bulk of our media outlets possess a clear and present conflict of interest when it comes to the impartial delivery of the news, honoring the privacy rights of individuals, and ensuring fair and equal access to the information super-network that is the internet.

News outlets owned by larger corporations surely act in the primary interest of profit rather than honest and useful news. There do exist smaller outlets which are laudably independent and provide a useful service, but they are small and lack the massive virtual monopoly of outreach that the mainstream networks and the dominant social media networks currently enjoy (and if they do become very successful, there's a good chance the owner will cash/sell out and it will become yet another ad-revenue driven buzz-feed like echo-chamber).

Consider that twitter may be in some ways the single most influential social media that presently exists, and then consider as a corporation twitter has absolute authority to un-verify, ban, block, berate, edit, and manipulate any user and any tweet at any time for any reason. So far twitter has mostly tried to uphold the value of free speech, but they've had many many failures. Traditionally radio and news media have been subject to some regulations in terms of quality and right of access (the right of people to do public broadcasting, the right of people to have access to public broadcasts, and perhaps even the unwritten right to not be outright lied to), but there are no such regulations in place for any online media. "Net-neutrality" is about disallowing service providers and corporations like google from making deals to keep their sites fast while slowing down everyone else. Should they succeed, the public would be morally obligated to step in and claim ownership or the right to regulate over whichever apparatus are required to maintain minimum equitable standards of public access to information through the internet.

The moral justification actually holding society together (and it's present distribution of wealth) is not our adherence to sacred and objective moral truths like land ownership rights, it is rather that the current arrangement works and is beneficial to us. If and when a given arrangement becomes too detrimental to too many people then that society rightly collapses; we need not go down with the ship of property rights if and when it comes down to it.

Yes, very good idea. I think most people have striven to do that. — Bitter Crank

From my experience, most people have striven to do well for themselves and for their families, not for society. Those who have striven for society, and have sought to achieve scale doing it are few.

They include some entrepreneurs (though probably not the vast majority), some social workers, some revolutionaries (like Ghandi), etc.

Of course it requires an expenditure of money. Most of money which made my work possible (health education, social services) came from social investment. The non-profit NGO sector is, in general, socially financed. (I don't know about where you live, but in this part of the US, non-profits form a significant sector of the economy.) — Bitter Crank

Yeah, but this social investment means that you are at the hands of others in terms of the work you do. If they cut the financing, your work is put to an end. That's not a good position to be in. It's like in business owning something like an Amazon FBA business - in one day, an Amazon policy change can make your business go from $10 million revenue to 0.

Individual wealth IS measured in dollars, pounds, euros, or some currency; wealth consists of property, cash, and shares. Your talents and potential just don't count as "wealth" in any ordinary usage. Features of your mind are too intangible to count as assets. — Bitter Crank

Why do you consider money to be wealth? Money is a fictive commodity, that's useful just to facilitate trade. It has no use in and of itself. Production of goods and services is what is useful. So if you return to my formula, Wealth = Value x Quantity, then it is controlling those two variables - value, through your skills, knowledge, expertise, technology, etc. and quantity - through distribution/production networks that you control - that wealth consists in. Money by itself, without access either to value or quanity is useless.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the few owning the much and the many owning nothing as long as owning nothing isn't a prison or death sentence. — VagabondSpectre

Yes, I obviously would agree.

Once enough of the wealth becomes concentrated into so few hands, they get the power to extort everyone else. — VagabondSpectre

That only works in silly games like Monopoly, in real life, unless the people in question are sociopathic or psychopathic, they would not want the workers to be extorted, since that is a breeding ground for rebellion and unrest. I'm sure if a food crisis were to arise, smart business owners would do their best to make sure food is as available as possible in the circumstance for the other workers. The entrepreneur cannot exist without the workers, so doing something that is bad for the workers is ultimately doing something that is bad for oneself as an entrepreneur.

Consider that twitter may be in some ways the single most influential social media that presently exists, and then consider as a corporation twitter has absolute authority to un-verify, ban, block, berate, edit, and manipulate any user and any tweet at any time for any reason. — VagabondSpectre

Doubtful, their user base is declining very rapidly, and they may actually go out of business sometime in the future.

That only works in silly games like Monopoly, in real life, unless the people in question are sociopathic or psychopathic, they would not want the workers to be extorted, since that is a breeding ground for rebellion and unrest. I'm sure if a food crisis were to arise, smart business owners would do their best to make sure food is as available as possible in the circumstance for the other workers. The entrepreneur cannot exist without the workers, so doing something that is bad for the workers is ultimately doing something that is bad for oneself as an entrepreneur. — Agustino

In some towns Wall-Mart has such a tight grip that decades owned small business that provide good jobs to the community (and keeps money within the community) go out of business. They indirectly create a large pool of out of work service industry workers which they can and do exploit. They over-hire and keep everyone on part time so that no befits or overtime need ever be offered, and at the first sniff of the word "union" they will happily fire and replace you. It's not just in the board game unfortunately. "Good for the workers" isn't as appealing to a corporation as "better for the stockholders" if they can get away with it. And boy do they get away with it...

Doubtful, their user base is declining very rapidly, and they may actually go out of business sometime in the future. — Agustino

Their user base is declining rapidly? That's just not true. They may have have had a down-tick in active users for a single quarter, but that doesn't spell doom, nor is the stock tanked.

At some point we may require competition/antitrust laws which ensure that the market can function as it is intended, and as we have done frequently in the past (with steel, oil and telecommunication) along with other regulations that ensure the existence of these companies is not detrimental in the long run.

Excessive accumulation of money is a problem — Sapientia

Why is it a problem? If I have, say, x1000 what you have, how does that negatively impact you? What impacts you is how much you have, not how much others have relative to you.

How is avoiding (or evading) paying what you owe to society not a problem? — Sapientia

Tax avoidance represents legal arrangements that allow you to minimise your tax burden. Even IF you owe that money to society (and who decides that that is the percentage that you actually owe), it doesn't mean that surrendering control over it to your

The question of morality isn't the same as the question of legality. It may not be immoral to not pay your taxes, depending on the circumstances. For example, if you live in a corrupt country where public money is misused or stolen, or if you can use the money in a better way than the government can for society, then obviously it would not be immoral to avoid paying your taxes.

Why is it a problem? If I have, say, x1000 what you have, how does that negatively impact you? What impacts you is how much you have, not how much others have relative to you. — Agustino

It's a problem if it's excessive. That would be a problem because it's unfair and creates an imbalance. And an imbalance impacts people like me. That would be money in excess of what you've earned, which you do not deserve, could go to those who need it more than you do, and therefore ought to be redistributed.

Tax avoidance represents legal arrangements that allow you to minimise your tax burden. Even IF you owe that money to society (and who decides that that is the percentage that you actually owe), it doesn't mean that surrendering control over it to your [...?] — Agustino

It's your burden for a reason. You shouldn't seek to minimise it without good reason, and you shouldn't be permitted to minimise it without approval from the right people.

Who decides? Well, we live in a democracy. We regularly elect a government for that purpose.

The question of morality isn't the same as the question of legality. — Agustino

I know. That doesn't mean that the answers can't be in sync. That doesn't mean that there must be a discord between the two.

It may not be immoral to not pay your taxes, depending on the circumstances. For example, if you live in a corrupt country where public money is misused or stolen, or if you can use the money in a better way than the government can for society, then obviously it would not be immoral to avoid paying your taxes. — Agustino

Yes, granted, but that's often not the reality. At least, not over here. I don't live in North Korea or Syria, and neither do you. Let's keep it real.

That would be a problem because it's unfair — Sapientia

Why is it unfair?

creates an imbalance — Sapientia

Why is it an imbalance? Would it also be an imbalance if I work more than you? If I produce more than you? If I do something more valuable than you? If I do something at a much larger scale than you? Why or why not?

That would be money in excess of what you've earned — Sapientia

Who decides that and based on what criteria?

could go to those who need it more than you do, and therefore ought to be redistributed. — Sapientia

No, you don't decide how to appropriate the money of other people by force, that is certainly not moral.

It's your burden for a reason. — Sapientia

I can simply reorganize my affairs and still operate legally. If you don't want me to do that, then pass appropriate laws which don't allow for loopholes. Otherwise, why complain?

and you shouldn't be permitted to minimise it without approval from the right people. — Sapientia

Again, this can be at most a legal issue, not a moral one.

At least, not over here. I don't live in North Korea or Syria, and neither do you. Let's keep it real. — Sapientia

I am keeping it real. You have no idea how deep corruption runs in the Eastern European countries. You literarily cannot even begin to imagine - it's totally NOT like UK.

Syria and North Korea aren't just corrupt - their problems there have to do with more serious forms of violent oppression.

What's Wrong With 1% Owning As Much As 99%?

The accumulation of wealth is impossible without a society. Those who benefit the most from a society are indebted the most to society.

It's a problem if it's excessive. That would be a problem because it's unfair and creates an imbalance. And an imbalance impacts people like me. That would be money in excess of what you've earned, which you do not deserve, could go to those who need it more than you do, and therefore ought to be redistributed. — Sapientia

But at what point do you set this limit? If someone starts a software business today that becomes very successful and is used by millions of people, then they might become a billionaire at a fairly young age. Some of that will also be the result of investing their money, or funding other startups that turn out to be successful.

Do you penalize them for their company's success and returns on investment because it's excessive?

What if it's an entertainer or athlete who becomes widely popular and makes a similar amount of money, partly by starting another business and investing. Do you redistribute some of their wealth as well?

I understand that extreme wealth imbalance is a problem, but then again, are not the self-made billionaires generating wealth and jobs as well? Aren't they growing the economic pie? Should we penalize them for being more successful than most?

The data on this is pretty complicated. It's often the case that poverty is used as the dependent variable in a study, then it's found that more educated implies less poor. That's a global trend AFAIK. But it's also the case that more poor implies less educated, and there's some evidence that people from poorer backgrounds are empoverished mentally as well as materially; they're worse at learning! It's also often the case that the available schooling is of a much lower quality in poor communities and countries. The effect of education on poverty and inequality is always relative to the average or expected education of a population, or relevant sub-population - like being the only Spanish tutor in an interested community would be quite profitable. — fdrake

I agree, but again, notice how this refers mostly to non-Western societies. The PMC article focusing on Canada & US is interesting, BUT we must note that I don't think education in a school / university is much relevant today. That's not what I mean by education - I don't think that piece of paper (degree) is relevant I know now you'll throw the stats now how the one with a degree on average makes like 20-30K/year more than the other, yadda yadda. Not super interesting.

Educational institutions today are super inefficient, and for the most part in terms of actual skills you obtain, not that great.

Also interesting to note that relatively poor nations - for example, Russia - do much better in mathematics than the US today. However, they are poorer in terms of creativity, but in terms of pure technical ability, these ex-communist nations are very very good in their schooling.

Not having a degree is becoming a large disadvantage, to the tune of 35% reduction in median income in the UK. — fdrake

Depends on what you want to become. If you want to become an entrepreneur, a degree by itself is probably useless. If you want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a professor, then it's absolutely a must (for the most part). If you want to become an engineer it's not absolutely necessary either, but can be helpful, etc.

Put 'being stuck in a rut' together with poverty - lack of food, shelter, basic living conditions, and you start getting some real motivation for crime. No other options, few skills, what you gonna do? — fdrake

Sure.

It's interesting to compare Norway to the US here, the minimum wage (enforced through union action rather than law) in Norway for a minimal full time Job gives you something like 21 USD per hour for at least 36 hours a week. This is enough to live and save, even considering the mark up in prices from the US. Despite Norway still having an income distribution with a similar shape, violent crime and theft are a lot lower there. — fdrake

Right, so we return to what I was saying from the beginning. Relative poverty is irrelevant, what is relevant is whether most people in the country have enough money, not whether 99% of the wealth is owned by 1% but the 99% still have enough.