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Income inequality is good, and fighting markets is like trying to stop the tide. It's accumulated wealth that is the problem (and leads to the corruption of fr

Income inequality is good, and fighting markets is like trying to stop the tide. It's accumulated wealth that is the problem (and leads to the corruption of free markets and democracy). Policies should be focused on that - taxing wealth rather than work, and encouraging profitable investments rather than sitting on assets. Whereas now the so-called "left-wing" policies are awful - rent control is popular in Europe despite being an unfair disaster in Sweden. There are high taxes on income and high VAT, whilst inheritance, land and wealth taxes have been abolished, greatly hurting social mobility while benefiting established, inherited wealth. Same with a lot of focus on patching up symptoms - like not prosecuting low-value shoplifting, allowing squatting on "empty" properties, etc. rather than trying to improve market conditions, education and training and the housing market, etc. to ensure that everyone could get a much better salary to begin with.

danaris 3y ago
> Income inequality is good [Citation needed] To be clear, I'm not implying that it would be good to have absolutely everyone make exactly the same amount. I'm saying that income inequality at high levels is bad, demonstrably so, and inevitably leads to concentrations of wealth. I'm also not sure why you think that high VAT and lack of inheritance and wealth taxes are "left-wing" policies. Those are all regressive, and exactly the kinds of things that the right wing is pushing for here in the US. At most, I would think that such policies would be compromises between a left wing that wants progressive income taxes alongside inheritance and wealth taxes, and a right wing that wants VAT and basically nothing else.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
PrimeMcFly 3y ago
We need wealth limits for companies (which should be more like co-ops), proportional to the size of the company, with everything pasta threshold going back into UBI or something. Same for individual wealth accumulation. People could do more projects/start more companies to earn more, but no one should be accumulating millions by doing almost nothing as is the case now.
- prottog 3y ago
  > no one should be accumulating millions by doing almost nothing as is the case now Outside of people who inherit this kind of wealth, who exactly is accumulating millions just sitting on their asses?
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    People who earn via investing for starters. And then you have people earning millions, that at least when compared to the numerous workers being underpaid and actually doing the hard work that generates profit, basically do so little work they may as well be sitting on their asses.
    - umrcumrcu 3y ago
      You would effectively ban investment then? No one could earn any money from index funds?
      - mxkopy 3y ago
        black/white fallacy
        umrcumrcu 3y ago
        Someone has a million in index funds and earns more than a Walmart worker by "sitting on their ass". Are you proposing a ban to that?
        mxkopy 3y ago
        limit != ban Capital gains taxes don't prevent an investor from making money.
        nickpp 3y ago
        They do disincentivize and thus reduce the investment in the area though. An area which helps the economy grow and in process creates good services and jobs for everybody.
prottog 3y ago
> encouraging profitable investments rather than sitting on assets A difficult distinction to make, since profitable investments are also assets that one would presumably like to sit on for a while.
- klabb3 3y ago
  The majority of “investments”, as in loans granted by banks, are people with fixed assets buying more fixed assets, such as real estate. The innovators, mom & pops, farmers etc who take a loan for a venture are the minority. Makes sense for the capital holder. Why take risks when cornering markets is much safer?
- peterashford 3y ago
  I think he's referring to "rent seeking behaviour"
lamontcg 3y ago
> Income inequality is good, Yeah I don't agree with that. > It's accumulated wealth that is the problem I do agree that wealth inequality is the bigger problem, and I should have used that term instead.
- Dig1t 3y ago
  It doesn’t sound nice when phrased that way but I think OP is correct. The fact that doctors make 500k per year in the US is a good thing, because it takes a decade of dedicated study and long hours to become good at it, the reward is that high salary. A world where doctors and McDonald’s workers are compensated exactly the same is one where something major is obviously broken. As long as the McDonald’s worker has some kind of decent safety net underneath them, I think having a large disparity in pay between the two jobs is just fine.
  - ModernMech 3y ago
    I don’t think when people say “income inequality is bad”, they mean doctors and McDonald’s workers should be paid the same. That’s a straw man.
    - lend000 3y ago
      How can you be so sure? That's what it literally means. The onus is on them to better understand and convey their own position, if that is in fact their position.
      - ModernMech 3y ago
        One, because it’s absurd, so in making this assumption, you are painting them as absurd. Two, because they are willing to tell you if you spend some time talking to them.
      - lamontcg 3y ago
        Most people mean that the gini coefficient is too high, not that it should be zero. Income/wealth inequality is a floating point scale somewhere in the range of 0..1 and neither extreme is likely to be possible or optimum. But that is a fucking mouthful which is why normal humans just say things like 'wealth inequality is bad' -- until the internet's favorite pedantic muppets show up in the comments demanding clarification.
r00fus 3y ago
> Income inequality is good I agreed with the rest of your comment but this is... strange. You might agree if it's rephrased as "extreme income inequality" is bad? "Harrison Bergeron" was a straw man argument posing as a short story - don't let the similar strawman of "no income inequality" overshadow the more present and real threat to society of growing extreme income inequality. Some twitter posts accurately phrase this as the "too expensive to live" problem for some.
over_bridge 3y ago
Your comment is quite a ride to read. I, like some other commenters, had an immediate negative reaction to the 'income inequality is good' statement. Having read the whole thing a few times I generally agree with your position. Differences in salary reflect differences in demand for certain roles, or the value you can bring to them. It's a real time signal. They can act as an incentive to draw more people to that position or signal when one is saturated. The system is abused a bit when finance jobs pay a lot despite dubious value to society, and teachers are underpaid relative to their importance, but as a general rule it works. Wealth inequality is the major issue. It might be 'natural' in the sense that each generation of parents passes advantages to their kids, but I also think its a mark of civilization to be able to keep it in check. If you earned it, great, but when you die lets not burden the future with your family dynasty of rich but useless descendants. All people can't be born equal if your financial situation is determined five generations before you were conceived.
- nickpp 3y ago
  > dubious value to society I am curious if you know a system that can rank and precisely tell me the respective values to society for each action, job, hobby etc humans engage in.
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    There isn’t one. Whether you intended to or not this is a very typical capitalist strawman that claims that because central planning failed (of course it did), we can say literally nothing about value and therefore anything goes to the lowest bidder. The problem is that as it stands, the set of oligarchs currently holding their positions (see recent work from Stanford etc showing the US at least is clearly and oligarchy) are the ones doing all the planning. However it’s in the form of “investments” and the accompanying regulatory capture. So this idea of a “free market” with perfect information not only isn’t possible - as economists agree - but it’s not even DESIRABLE as power law in such a system dictates that profit will ALWAYS be the paramount virtue subordinate to any other.
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
randomcarbloke 3y ago
Income inequality isn't good or bad, it doesn't necessarily imply a working model as I gather you believe...nor does it suggest extractive behaviours, and people's aversion to it is absurd and ideological - see other replies to you. Absolute poverty is the real enemy, but it is possible to have high inequality and low poverty. Where I disagree with you is in accumulated wealth being the problem...it isn't generally bad or unproductive, but this is asset dependent, land-wealth is a sink and Georgist measures could significantly improve productivity and capital acceleration. But the so called "left-wing" you describe seems intent on punitive taxation as opposed to productive...

danaris 3y ago

> Income inequality is good [Citation needed] To be clear, I'm not implying that it would be good to have absolutely everyone make exactly the same amount. I'm saying that income inequality at high levels is bad, demonstrably so, and inevitably leads to concentrations of wealth. I'm also not sure why you think that high VAT and lack of inheritance and wealth taxes are "left-wing" policies. Those are all regressive, and exactly the kinds of things that the right wing is pushing for here in the US. At most, I would think that such policies would be compromises between a left wing that wants progressive income taxes alongside inheritance and wealth taxes, and a right wing that wants VAT and basically nothing else.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

PrimeMcFly 3y ago

We need wealth limits for companies (which should be more like co-ops), proportional to the size of the company, with everything pasta threshold going back into UBI or something. Same for individual wealth accumulation. People could do more projects/start more companies to earn more, but no one should be accumulating millions by doing almost nothing as is the case now.

prottog 3y ago
> no one should be accumulating millions by doing almost nothing as is the case now Outside of people who inherit this kind of wealth, who exactly is accumulating millions just sitting on their asses?
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  People who earn via investing for starters. And then you have people earning millions, that at least when compared to the numerous workers being underpaid and actually doing the hard work that generates profit, basically do so little work they may as well be sitting on their asses.
  - umrcumrcu 3y ago
    You would effectively ban investment then? No one could earn any money from index funds?
    - mxkopy 3y ago
      black/white fallacy
      - umrcumrcu 3y ago
        Someone has a million in index funds and earns more than a Walmart worker by "sitting on their ass". Are you proposing a ban to that?
        mxkopy 3y ago
        limit != ban Capital gains taxes don't prevent an investor from making money.
        nickpp 3y ago
        They do disincentivize and thus reduce the investment in the area though. An area which helps the economy grow and in process creates good services and jobs for everybody.

prottog 3y ago

> encouraging profitable investments rather than sitting on assets A difficult distinction to make, since profitable investments are also assets that one would presumably like to sit on for a while.

klabb3 3y ago
The majority of “investments”, as in loans granted by banks, are people with fixed assets buying more fixed assets, such as real estate. The innovators, mom & pops, farmers etc who take a loan for a venture are the minority. Makes sense for the capital holder. Why take risks when cornering markets is much safer?
peterashford 3y ago
I think he's referring to "rent seeking behaviour"

lamontcg 3y ago

> Income inequality is good, Yeah I don't agree with that. > It's accumulated wealth that is the problem I do agree that wealth inequality is the bigger problem, and I should have used that term instead.

Dig1t 3y ago
It doesn’t sound nice when phrased that way but I think OP is correct. The fact that doctors make 500k per year in the US is a good thing, because it takes a decade of dedicated study and long hours to become good at it, the reward is that high salary. A world where doctors and McDonald’s workers are compensated exactly the same is one where something major is obviously broken. As long as the McDonald’s worker has some kind of decent safety net underneath them, I think having a large disparity in pay between the two jobs is just fine.
- ModernMech 3y ago
  I don’t think when people say “income inequality is bad”, they mean doctors and McDonald’s workers should be paid the same. That’s a straw man.
  - lend000 3y ago
    How can you be so sure? That's what it literally means. The onus is on them to better understand and convey their own position, if that is in fact their position.
    - ModernMech 3y ago
      One, because it’s absurd, so in making this assumption, you are painting them as absurd. Two, because they are willing to tell you if you spend some time talking to them.
    - lamontcg 3y ago
      Most people mean that the gini coefficient is too high, not that it should be zero. Income/wealth inequality is a floating point scale somewhere in the range of 0..1 and neither extreme is likely to be possible or optimum. But that is a fucking mouthful which is why normal humans just say things like 'wealth inequality is bad' -- until the internet's favorite pedantic muppets show up in the comments demanding clarification.

r00fus 3y ago

> Income inequality is good I agreed with the rest of your comment but this is... strange. You might agree if it's rephrased as "extreme income inequality" is bad? "Harrison Bergeron" was a straw man argument posing as a short story - don't let the similar strawman of "no income inequality" overshadow the more present and real threat to society of growing extreme income inequality. Some twitter posts accurately phrase this as the "too expensive to live" problem for some.

over_bridge 3y ago

Your comment is quite a ride to read. I, like some other commenters, had an immediate negative reaction to the 'income inequality is good' statement. Having read the whole thing a few times I generally agree with your position. Differences in salary reflect differences in demand for certain roles, or the value you can bring to them. It's a real time signal. They can act as an incentive to draw more people to that position or signal when one is saturated. The system is abused a bit when finance jobs pay a lot despite dubious value to society, and teachers are underpaid relative to their importance, but as a general rule it works. Wealth inequality is the major issue. It might be 'natural' in the sense that each generation of parents passes advantages to their kids, but I also think its a mark of civilization to be able to keep it in check. If you earned it, great, but when you die lets not burden the future with your family dynasty of rich but useless descendants. All people can't be born equal if your financial situation is determined five generations before you were conceived.

nickpp 3y ago
> dubious value to society I am curious if you know a system that can rank and precisely tell me the respective values to society for each action, job, hobby etc humans engage in.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  There isn’t one. Whether you intended to or not this is a very typical capitalist strawman that claims that because central planning failed (of course it did), we can say literally nothing about value and therefore anything goes to the lowest bidder. The problem is that as it stands, the set of oligarchs currently holding their positions (see recent work from Stanford etc showing the US at least is clearly and oligarchy) are the ones doing all the planning. However it’s in the form of “investments” and the accompanying regulatory capture. So this idea of a “free market” with perfect information not only isn’t possible - as economists agree - but it’s not even DESIRABLE as power law in such a system dictates that profit will ALWAYS be the paramount virtue subordinate to any other.
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

randomcarbloke 3y ago

Income inequality isn't good or bad, it doesn't necessarily imply a working model as I gather you believe...nor does it suggest extractive behaviours, and people's aversion to it is absurd and ideological - see other replies to you. Absolute poverty is the real enemy, but it is possible to have high inequality and low poverty. Where I disagree with you is in accumulated wealth being the problem...it isn't generally bad or unproductive, but this is asset dependent, land-wealth is a sink and Georgist measures could significantly improve productivity and capital acceleration. But the so called "left-wing" you describe seems intent on punitive taxation as opposed to productive...