Why is it unfair? — Agustino
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? — Agustino
Who decides that and based on what criteria? — Agustino
No, you don't decide how to appropriate the money of other people by force, that is certainly not moral. — Agustino
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? — Agustino
Again, this can be at most a legal issue, not a moral one. — Agustino
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. — Agustino
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.
So you're not able to provide a reason for why it is unfair? You're not able to put your finger on the harm that someone else having more than you does to you?I went on to explain that. At some point it's down to you. You either recognise it or you don't. If you don't recognise it, you don't recognise it. — Sapientia
Right, but what is proportional isn't very clear to most people. So take the example I gave to BC:If you change the situation by altering factors such that the wealth is not excessive on one side, then we're talking about something else. I said that fairness means getting a proportionate slice of the pie, and I stand by that. — Sapientia
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? — Agustino
In order to advance to large corporation, you have to collect the surplus value that employees have.
You startiff(by) buying $3 raw material per product and said product takes an hour to produce. Let's say your employees add $5 of value onto a $3 value product. You sell said product for its value: $8. You already sink $3 per product as the cost, so the max profit you can make is $5 if you pay your workers nothing. Obviously that isn't an option. If you give your workers the full value they add onto it ($5), then you have a cost of $8 and no profit to put back into the company to exoand. Let's say you set yourself up woth a modest profit margin: $1. That means you have to pay your workers $4 dollars when they made $5 worth of value. In a sense, you have to pay the workers less value than they create to be profitable. — Takarov
I agree, but politicians want it to be like that, because they need the loopholes to launder money too. Why do you think tax codes, etc. aren't fixed? :s It's because the people in government are corrupt. If they were paragons of virtue, they would fix them, it's not super complicated.Unfortunately, I am not in a position to do so. Only a comparatively small number of people are in such a position, as you well know. So you're being unreasonable. I would much rather see that done than complain about it. In fact, if that was done, then I would have no reason to complain about the situation, and my complaints about it would cease. — Sapientia
are not the self-made billionaires generating wealth and jobs as well? — Marchesk
It's because the people in government are corrupt. If they were paragons of virtue, they would fix them, it's not super complicated. — Agustino
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. — Agustino
the 1% — Agustino
So you're not able to provide a reason for why it is unfair? You're not able to put your finger on the harm that someone else having more than you does to you? — Agustino
What would the 1% do if the bottom 99% didn't work for them, purchase their products or services, pay their portion of taxes to help perpetuate the system which disproportionately benefits the wealthy, etc.? — Erik
No, but I actually don't understand any possible reason for it :s . So far you have told me that it's unfair because:No, that's not a fair assessment. Come on, Agustino, I think you know that that's not what I was getting at. I have already explained why it is unfair. I was pointing out to you the fact that explanation can only go so far, and that understanding is what is required. If you don't understand it the way that I do, despite explanation, then we might be at an impasse. — Sapientia
So it's unfair because it's unfair. And it's unfair because it's excessive (what's the link between excessive and unfair?). And it's unfair because it's unbalanced :s - why is unbalanced unfair necessarily? It impacts people like you - how? Just because there are people who need the money more than me doesn't necessarily mean that it should be redistributed by force.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.
>:OPlease send me all of your fictive commodity (bank transfers are convenient) as it uselessly accumulates at AguCorp. — Bitter Crank
Right, okay, now I see what you mean. Yes, that is a problem. What do you think can be done to motivate these people to invest that money in the economy and not just hoard it and sit on it?The problem with a small number of people owning the bulk of wealth (in the United States, in any economic group, or the world) is that they monopolize capital. They tend to sit on it. Consider Apple's $250 billion dollar savings account. It's been growing steadily over the last several years. What good is it doing? — Bitter Crank
I agree, so perhaps above a certain level it makes no sense to permit the accumulation of wealth since the person cannot put it to use anymore without basically employing an army of people.The absurdly rich population can't put their extraordinary large share of wealth to productive use at the level where it would really make a huge difference (among the entrepreneurs at the bottom third of the economic distribution, give or take a billion people). They can't because the task of investing in a billion small entrepreneurs would exhaust their time-and-organizational resources. — Bitter Crank
Yeah, I agree with this. So what solution would you propose for the stagnation of capital, because it seems that that is the real problem, not only its concentration in a few hands?So we have trillions of dollars accumulating, which are not benefitting anyone. Meanwhile, a couple billion small entrepreneurs need capital and can't get it. — Bitter Crank
I don't think this is relevant to inequality. — fdrake
No, but it was dealing with your mistaken notion that the 99% don't have access to wealth generation mechanisms. — Agustino
Really? What access to them do the 99% have? Besides their jobs. — fdrake
Starting a business? — Agustino
That's nonsense. It's not a gamble since the result depends on you and your skills to quite a large extent. I advocate that you educate yourself before doing that.Are you suggesting that those included in the 99% should each take a gamble with a 90% chance of failure by starting a business? That doesn't sound like good advice to me. — Sapientia
But at what point do you set this limit? — Marchesk
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. — Marchesk
Do you penalize them for their company's success and returns on investment because it's excessive? — Marchesk
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? — Marchesk
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? — Marchesk
That's nonsense. It's not a gamble since the result depends on you and your skills to quite a large extent. I advocate that you educate yourself before doing that.
The indication that 9/10 businesses fail on average says nothing about you and your potential. Your chances may be worse or better than that. Starting a business isn't playing the lottery. — Agustino
Please send me all of your fictive commodity (bank transfers are convenient) as it uselessly accumulates at AguCorp. — Bitter Crank
Statistics don't work like this in this case. Events - such as business success - are not random. Statistics must be considered differently with regards to business success than you would treat them when applied to radioactive decay for example. The phenomenon underneath radioactive decay is truly random, with specific outcomes being impossible to predict in individual cases. That's not the case in business.Individualistic aspirational nonsense. It's not sensible to disregard the data that 9/10 businesses fail on average. There's a fine line between being confident and being foolhardy. — Sapientia
Understanding that statistics don't apply to individuals and that you need to gain a deeper, bottom-up and causal understanding of success and failure in business before starting out isn't being foolhardy. It's just being rational. If you are rational, then you always minimise your risks.There's a fine line between being confident and being foolhardy. — Sapientia
No, I can't respond in that manner if you arrive at a basic truth that is unfair. What is unfairness? Unfairness is not giving to each what they deserve. So, first of all, we must understand what each person deserves. I would say that we all deserve access to the basic necessities of life - healthy food, clean water, access to education, access to healthcare, and shelter. Other things apart from those, must, to one extent or another, be earned by participation in society. It's okay if we provide these basic necessities for all, but no more. Providing more would be unjust, since we don't deserve more by default.Any answer I give, you can just respond by questioning how or why that is fair. — 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. — Agustino
I agree with you on this.Inequality in a society where upward mobility is the rule rather than the exception would be much more likely to be acceptable than the situation we find ourselves in now, where it is reversed. — Benkei
Well, it makes sense for a corporation to have limited liability. I mean if I start a business, and something goes wrong and my company is taken to court, do you think I should pay with all of my personal assets too? Limited liability is the only way to make sense of it, and say that the company is only liable to pay up to whatever its working capital happens to be.Take corporations that have limited liability and therefore externalise costs to society at large yet protects capital who also pay lower taxes. — Benkei
If the labourer cannot find employment elsewhere that is true.The idea that capital risks more is also something I reject. A labourer loses his livelihood, which is worse than losing part of your savings. — Benkei
I agree with this. That's the problem of corruption and big government getting in bed with big business.The exercise of political power by means of capital creates an uneven playing field and this has become increasingly more uneven as power consolidates — Benkei
Well, it makes sense for a corporation to have limited liability. I mean if I start a business, and something goes wrong and my company is taken to court, do you think I should pay with all of my personal assets too? — Agustino
No, I can't respond in that manner if you arrive at a basic truth that is unfair. What is unfairness? Unfairness is not giving to each what they deserve. So, first of all, we must understand what each person deserves. I would say that we all deserve access to the basic necessities of life - healthy food, clean water, access to education, access to healthcare, and shelter. Other things apart from those, must, to one extent or another, be earned by participation in society. It's okay if we provide these basic necessities for all, but no more. Providing more would be unjust, since we don't deserve more by default. — Agustino
Interesting, I never knew the industrial revolution happened without limited liability. But I can tell you that without limited liability things look quite scary, especially on a large scale where you can't really control what's happening in 100% of the cases. — Agustino
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