8 ms·

1% of England's population is about 550,000, that is extreme inequality. You seem to think its OK for a small percentage of people to have everything as long as

1% of England's population is about 550,000, that is extreme inequality. You seem to think its OK for a small percentage of people to have everything as long as you have the right to roam around. I respectfully disagree. Wealth equals political and social power and it should be divided more evenly in order to ensure democracy. Make not mistake Capitalism mean fair and free - but in our warped form of Capitalism we have those with money rigging the rules for their own benefit and as such we don't have Capitalism we have Aristocracy.

0xADEADBEE 7y ago
I think you're being uncharitable towards OP's post; he doesn't make the case you're suggesting. Although I'm not sure that your broader point is too far off.
deepstream 7y ago
how can we cure these poor people from this delusion that they have a right to possess what they have not earned? life is inequitable you have to fight to get a higher station. substituting taking responsibility to create wealth for convincing yourself you're entitled to it just disempowers you. I'm not saying it's not hard. but that it is hard is not special and that it is hard is the motivation to overcome it. and when you get there that your hard earned achievement can be taken away by people who don't want to overcome is wrong. The fundamental point is this wealth is not some free right it's not some magical thing that just exists. wealth is precisely the value created by overcoming difficulties. wealth is made by work and the people who make it ought to be free to choose what they do with it rather than coerced into surrendering it in the name of equity, a false equity which is inequitable to the moral nature of wealth, responsibility and hard work. that kind of idea is a disease that will erode away the social foundation. I'm not saying wealth disparity is easy nor that it creates no problems. it creates a lot of problems but I don't believe the solution is by redistribution. at least not at this stage of human and economic evolution. while our species is still bounded by the amount of energy we can extract from our surroundings. taxes yes, State yes, a social welfare net yes, but not to an excessive degree, and not to cure inequality. if energy was free of course it should be distributed to all without cost. like air. but it's not. to do so would bankrupt our species in the name of compassion. the greater compassion is the realization of the poor state we're in, and the preservation of all. not the temporary satisfaction of some who convinced themselves that things should be easy. one day as a species we will get there. no crushing disparity. but we're not there yet. trying to live like we are already there is a toxic delusion that doesn't help us get to that more compassionate future.
- dpc59 7y ago
  most wealth wasn't earned but inherited, fuck out of here with your upper middle class delusions about wealth
- int_19h 7y ago
  Wealth is made by labor, yes. But it is not accumulated by it. It's accumulated by being in a position of power whereby you can extract rents from the laborers who make it. In older times, this was done by threat of physical force. These days, it's more often done by exploiting some economic advantage - for example, if you own any valuable resource, such as land or means of production, you can extract rent from people who use it. Whenever you see concentrated wealth with such extreme disparity that you have one person owning more than a million others, there are only two possible conclusions: either they really are a million times more productive, or it was actually produced by that million, and extracted from them via rents. You could argue that those rents are fair, since they stem from legitimate ownership. But what makes it legitimate? Most land was originally taken by force, for example, and the result enshrined in law (that was written by the people who did this) post factum. If that doesn't make economic advantages that stem from such ownership unfair, then surely the same standard holds today, and those people have no right to complain if society decides to take it away from them by force, and enshrine it into law, just because it can.
  - mbrock 7y ago
    Exactly, and there’s in particular the very special kind of rent extracted by the hiring of people to work for you without profit-sharing, and using your negotiation power as a capital owner to get people to agree to the terms of your employment contract stipulating your appropriation of the whole work product. I’ve found the writings of David Ellerman to be very elucidating on this topic, and admirable for giving a deep critique of capitalism without any reliance on Marxism. He relies on a labor theory of property rather than a labor theory of value, and a Lockean liberal notion of inalienable rights. Two short texts that make a good introduction: https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/human-rentals/the-great-debate/ https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/human-rentals/the-great-... https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/human-rentals/the-fundamental-myth/ https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/human-rentals/the-fundam...
viscanti 7y ago
> You seem to think its OK for a small percentage of people to have everything as long as you have the right to roam around. Agriculture in the United Kingdom uses 69% of the country's land area. 476,000 people work on those farms. That farms take up a disproportionate amount of land compared to urban areas doesn't tell us anything about income inequality. Most people in England want to live in cities, so even the wealthiest citizens might own little to no land (how much land does a wealthy penthouse owner own if all they own is that penthouse). To be clear, I'm not saying that income inequality doesn't exist. We just don't see examples of it by looking at farmland.
- externalreality 7y ago
  Sure, its farms. Tell me another one. If yo see who owns all the wealth, it would be about an equal percentage of the population. Stop deflecting from the gross income inequality that exists in UK and across the world. Its a fight that you can't win because the numbers don't support you. (pfss. "It's farms").
  - viscanti 7y ago
    > the numbers don't support you. 69% of all the land in the UK is farm land. Most farms are owned by individual farmers. Those farmers make up roughly 1% of the total population. The numbers absolutely support this (feel free to research it yourself if you don't want to take my comment as gospel). There are legitimate signs of income inequality. This just happens to not be one of them. No one defines income equality as everyone in the country owning roughly the same acres of land. The vast majority of people live in urban areas, so we wouldn't expect that those city-dwellers all owned roughly the same percent of farmland.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  The wealthy penthouse owner is actually an interesting case in point. Traditionally England only had Leasehold ownership of 3D space, you couldn't own it in perpetuity. Since the penthouse is presumably above many other properties belonging to other people its owner could only own a "long lease" (e.g. 100 or 250 years) on the penthouse, with the permanent freehold rights separate, often owned by brass plate companies with the ground rent and other fees paid to them disappearing into opaque foreign corporations. Some years ago, recognising that this is crap, the British government introduced Commonhold, a way to own 3D space that acknowledges that the property owners who share the same physical building need to work together but rejects the approach that the Freehold should be a profit centre for rent-seeking third party investors. So in principle today a penthouse could be owned Commonhold, which means it comes with membership of a "Commonhold Association" an entity that exists only so that the Commonhold owners can all be members, and to own the Freehold that they're all dependent on instead of it being possible for somebody else to own that. In practice people didn't say "I demand Commonhold" and accept a price premium for this improved ownership. So if you developed a piece of land after the reform you had the choice, sell a property Commonhold for £X or sell the same property as Leasehold with say a £1000pa escalator ground rent going to Property Holding Corp 3472 based in the British Virgin Islands, for £X. It was a no brainer, and there are very few Commonhold properties today and plenty of these mysterious property holding corporations earning fat stacks.

0xADEADBEE 7y ago

I think you're being uncharitable towards OP's post; he doesn't make the case you're suggesting. Although I'm not sure that your broader point is too far off.

deepstream 7y ago

how can we cure these poor people from this delusion that they have a right to possess what they have not earned? life is inequitable you have to fight to get a higher station. substituting taking responsibility to create wealth for convincing yourself you're entitled to it just disempowers you. I'm not saying it's not hard. but that it is hard is not special and that it is hard is the motivation to overcome it. and when you get there that your hard earned achievement can be taken away by people who don't want to overcome is wrong. The fundamental point is this wealth is not some free right it's not some magical thing that just exists. wealth is precisely the value created by overcoming difficulties. wealth is made by work and the people who make it ought to be free to choose what they do with it rather than coerced into surrendering it in the name of equity, a false equity which is inequitable to the moral nature of wealth, responsibility and hard work. that kind of idea is a disease that will erode away the social foundation. I'm not saying wealth disparity is easy nor that it creates no problems. it creates a lot of problems but I don't believe the solution is by redistribution. at least not at this stage of human and economic evolution. while our species is still bounded by the amount of energy we can extract from our surroundings. taxes yes, State yes, a social welfare net yes, but not to an excessive degree, and not to cure inequality. if energy was free of course it should be distributed to all without cost. like air. but it's not. to do so would bankrupt our species in the name of compassion. the greater compassion is the realization of the poor state we're in, and the preservation of all. not the temporary satisfaction of some who convinced themselves that things should be easy. one day as a species we will get there. no crushing disparity. but we're not there yet. trying to live like we are already there is a toxic delusion that doesn't help us get to that more compassionate future.

dpc59 7y ago
most wealth wasn't earned but inherited, fuck out of here with your upper middle class delusions about wealth
int_19h 7y ago
Wealth is made by labor, yes. But it is not accumulated by it. It's accumulated by being in a position of power whereby you can extract rents from the laborers who make it. In older times, this was done by threat of physical force. These days, it's more often done by exploiting some economic advantage - for example, if you own any valuable resource, such as land or means of production, you can extract rent from people who use it. Whenever you see concentrated wealth with such extreme disparity that you have one person owning more than a million others, there are only two possible conclusions: either they really are a million times more productive, or it was actually produced by that million, and extracted from them via rents. You could argue that those rents are fair, since they stem from legitimate ownership. But what makes it legitimate? Most land was originally taken by force, for example, and the result enshrined in law (that was written by the people who did this) post factum. If that doesn't make economic advantages that stem from such ownership unfair, then surely the same standard holds today, and those people have no right to complain if society decides to take it away from them by force, and enshrine it into law, just because it can.
- mbrock 7y ago
  Exactly, and there’s in particular the very special kind of rent extracted by the hiring of people to work for you without profit-sharing, and using your negotiation power as a capital owner to get people to agree to the terms of your employment contract stipulating your appropriation of the whole work product. I’ve found the writings of David Ellerman to be very elucidating on this topic, and admirable for giving a deep critique of capitalism without any reliance on Marxism. He relies on a labor theory of property rather than a labor theory of value, and a Lockean liberal notion of inalienable rights. Two short texts that make a good introduction: https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/human-rentals/the-great-debate/ https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/human-rentals/the-great-... https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/human-rentals/the-fundamental-myth/ https://www.abolishhumanrentals.org/human-rentals/the-fundam...

viscanti 7y ago

> You seem to think its OK for a small percentage of people to have everything as long as you have the right to roam around. Agriculture in the United Kingdom uses 69% of the country's land area. 476,000 people work on those farms. That farms take up a disproportionate amount of land compared to urban areas doesn't tell us anything about income inequality. Most people in England want to live in cities, so even the wealthiest citizens might own little to no land (how much land does a wealthy penthouse owner own if all they own is that penthouse). To be clear, I'm not saying that income inequality doesn't exist. We just don't see examples of it by looking at farmland.

externalreality 7y ago
Sure, its farms. Tell me another one. If yo see who owns all the wealth, it would be about an equal percentage of the population. Stop deflecting from the gross income inequality that exists in UK and across the world. Its a fight that you can't win because the numbers don't support you. (pfss. "It's farms").
- viscanti 7y ago
  > the numbers don't support you. 69% of all the land in the UK is farm land. Most farms are owned by individual farmers. Those farmers make up roughly 1% of the total population. The numbers absolutely support this (feel free to research it yourself if you don't want to take my comment as gospel). There are legitimate signs of income inequality. This just happens to not be one of them. No one defines income equality as everyone in the country owning roughly the same acres of land. The vast majority of people live in urban areas, so we wouldn't expect that those city-dwellers all owned roughly the same percent of farmland.
tialaramex 7y ago
The wealthy penthouse owner is actually an interesting case in point. Traditionally England only had Leasehold ownership of 3D space, you couldn't own it in perpetuity. Since the penthouse is presumably above many other properties belonging to other people its owner could only own a "long lease" (e.g. 100 or 250 years) on the penthouse, with the permanent freehold rights separate, often owned by brass plate companies with the ground rent and other fees paid to them disappearing into opaque foreign corporations. Some years ago, recognising that this is crap, the British government introduced Commonhold, a way to own 3D space that acknowledges that the property owners who share the same physical building need to work together but rejects the approach that the Freehold should be a profit centre for rent-seeking third party investors. So in principle today a penthouse could be owned Commonhold, which means it comes with membership of a "Commonhold Association" an entity that exists only so that the Commonhold owners can all be members, and to own the Freehold that they're all dependent on instead of it being possible for somebody else to own that. In practice people didn't say "I demand Commonhold" and accept a price premium for this improved ownership. So if you developed a piece of land after the reform you had the choice, sell a property Commonhold for £X or sell the same property as Leasehold with say a £1000pa escalator ground rent going to Property Holding Corp 3472 based in the British Virgin Islands, for £X. It was a no brainer, and there are very few Commonhold properties today and plenty of these mysterious property holding corporations earning fat stacks.