Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart

Re:Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart by gnaritas on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @01:07PM (#14959907)

> Why is this a problem, as long as everyone is not worse off?

First, humans are animals with an innate sense of fairness, it's a problem because it's not fair, and when too many people feel things are too unfair, war results. So it's a problem because this shit is what starts wars.

> Growth should go to the people who make it possible

That would be the workers, those actually doing the work, and that's the problem, they're not getting the growth. The capitalists aren't doing the work, they're not where the increased productivity is coming from.

> Now these are people like us.

No group of people should be capture so much of the economic improvement we create by eliminating those other people's livelihoods.

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Re:Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart by anovikov on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @02:19PM (#14960851)

Why is that not fair? It seems to be the opposite. Relative equality 50 years ago was partially driven by technology (structure of productive forces, as Marxists would say), partially by monopolies of trade unions. Changing first isn't fair or not: it is just life, everything goes. Changing second is totally fair.

Workers doing the work aren't driving anything, they are being displaced in huge numbers. Income share of capitalists isn't rising, if anything it is falling as returns on capital diminish, which is more than compensating for increased value of that capital. Top 1% who are capturing most of growth are people working for hire (share of income from capital is very small in top 1%, small in top 0.1%, and moderate in top 0.01%, dominating only in the very, very, very small fraction of extremely rich - billionaires). Otherwise, people who win are like, top coders. Top designers. Yes, top lawyers. Top everyone. We are living in the world where success almost infinitely scales.

If some part of population loses as a result well, in every generation we have winners and we have losers. Family farmers 50 years ago also lost all their capital, sources of income, been thrown out of their land and felt like it was deeply unfair and predatory. That could be a problem if it resulted in increasing crime rates (but these are solvable with proper investments, including in software like crime prediction). But, crime rates are falling.

In short, whenever i see someone shouting 'we are becoming less equal, that isn't fair, huge troubles are on the way' i can't help but remember Soviet Union where i grew up. That country was pretty fucking equal, at least on paper. Trust me you don't want to try it on yourself.

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Re:Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart by gnaritas on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @03:05PM (#14961357)

You completely ignored the point being made, a society that sucks for most people where the benefits flow to only a few is going to be seen as unfair by all those people who aren't benefiting from it and when that gets too extreme, it leads to war. Economic inequality to the extreme is dangerous for everyone. Trying to justify why it is fair, what you did above, is utterly missing the point. You can't dismiss the majority of the population as "some part of the population". You may as well have said "let them eat cake." An economy that benefits only a few, is a broken economy.

[ Parent | on HN ]