Excuse me but those benefits weren't result of the Guilded Age. Correlation, not causation. Both things were a result of the industrial revolution and globalization.

Exactly. The Gilded Age was also a result of the industrial revolution and globalization. It describes a period of history - during which, these things happened.

Exactly. As was communism for that matter. Ultimately almost all major economic change had technology at its root. And where that change has undesirable side effects it's the job of government to address them.

Wet pavements do not cause rain

You can't really support the argument that the Gilded Age actively caused these negative things by virtue of them taking place during the Gilded Age without supporting the argument that the Gilded Age caused positive things by virtue of them taking place during the period.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here, but there are direct causal links between the Gilded Age and robber barons causing huge harms, like union busting using bullets, and absolutely no causal links between robber barons and global decreases in poverty.

Put another way, it's very easy to prove that without robber barons we wouldn't have had many of the terrible abuses during the Gilded Age, and also very easy to prove we would have had worldwide improvements in the human condition even without the robber barons.

No causal links?

No robber barons mean no railway expansion and no massive expansion of jobs west, so no immigration boom. Robber barons are also responsible for financial regulation, futures markets which allowed for much greater predictability and sustained farming output, increased ties to Europe and specifically the UK over Germany, the massive increases in production brought by low oil prices and standardization of performance, arguably unions and labor reforms and a standard wage.

And if you have morals, you can also say they weren't worth it. You could make the same argument about slavery, etc, but suggesting it was totally worth would be pretty bonkers.

Humanity can accomplish great things without dehumanizing or hurting most of the population, and being critical of the morality of these systems is a big part of that.

Are you actually saying that the advancements coming from a foundation built in the latter half of the 19th century aren't worth the cost?

I don't agree with that at all, and I'm not sure I would if I had to pay that cost myself, either.

Ignoring that it's very odd to retroactively justify immoral behavior because of unintended, positive side effects: I'm saying that being critical, like asking if the slave-like conditions of most of the population were actually necessary, is a pretty reasonable thing to do. This isn't black and white issue, like I have to pick between "a couple generations have horrible working lives" vs "antibiotics exist". I'm asking if both were possible, and I'd argue that they would be if the people at the top were willing to accept even a little less.

I think the phrasing of your first sentence is fascinating. Does that mean you think that the behavior (union busting, incorporation, or the creation of financial markets, for example) was solely intended to have malicious consequences, and that there were no positive motivations or intent?

Also, it's not that odd. It's a direct response to the criticism you levy - that these things are not worth it. How are you to judge if you only take the immoral acts in a vacuum? You brought up slavery again; their conditions were not slave-like, simply impoverished.

I agree that it's a good idea to question whether periods of chaos, destruction or immorality are actually necessary for progress. It's been pretty much taken as a given since Hegel, but it's a good thing to verify and even within those boundaries there may be some behaviors we can effectively limit while leaving the good bits.

As to your final argument, I don't actually know if that's true, but it's immaterial because that's not how people have done it.

The actions that led to the conditions of the gilded age were most certainly selfish acts of the ruling class. The conditions were not created for the sake of it, or because it was funny etc.

I sincerely doubt the people making all the money were not doing it because the poor people they were exploiting (or killing) might eventually get iPhones or penicillin

I also don't know why I can't criticize the conditions resulting from policies in the gilded age because there's a chance that the policies were maybe not "soley intended to have malicious consequences". Again, things aren't black and white. "Modern tech is nice" and "poverty is bad" are not diametrically opposing ideas.

I'm confused by what you're arguing here. People want to reduce inequality, and you're argument seems to boil down to "nothing really matters anyway" or "maybe them being poor is for the best" (which you insist is something we can never actually find out..?) If you're saying that human nature is inherently corrupt and humanity can't unite to make progress for broadly selfish reasons, I might actually agree. But talking about how this is shitty and / or how to fix it doesn't seem pointless, either.

I have never said and do not support a statement that 'maybe them being poor is for the best.'

You started out saying a moral person would say that the positive consequences of the gilded age were not worth its negative experiences. I disagree.

You then say: "Ignoring that it's very odd to retroactively justify immoral behavior because of unintended, positive side effects: I'm saying that being critical, like asking if the slave-like conditions of most of the population were actually necessary, is a pretty reasonable thing to do."

By saying this you are effectively saying that I am defending immoral behavior with the misconception that such behavior directly led unintentionally to positive consequences. I don't think that, and I'm not doing that. I'm specifically saying that removing 'robber barons' from the equation entirely removes both the positive effects and actions and the negative. The positive and negative are done by the same person, but the actions causing them were entirely different. This isn't simple, as you continue to point out (while, it seems, attempting to simplify it entirely)

People want to reduce inequality - ok, how? I think that's important to figure out. What kind of inequality? Wealth or income or some other kind? What is the consequence of inequality?

To find out, we need to view history as a complex thing and understand both the pleasant and unpleasant, as well as their consequences. Conflict has been a powerful tool, historically. The excesses of one group have often given rise to conflict with another group, which then created a system of greater equality. Could that have happened without the conflict? I'm not sure, I don't have many examples where that happened and a ton of examples where it didn't.

There are a lot of times where people did awful things and they either didn't result in positive consequences or what was positive was not worth the loss. The Gilded Age? Probably not one of those times.

Don't have a mock strawman argument this long. If you have a point to make, just make it. Don't write up a whole argument that includes weak responses so you conveniently 'win'.

Would Plato's 'The Republic' qualify also an overly long strawman?

I think you missed the point of the comment to which you're responding.

Also, why are you telling people how to have discussions?

>Would Plato's 'The Republic' qualify also an overly long strawman?

Yes, it's designed to illustrate a point and not engage someone in a discussion.

The comment I'm responding to just had a bunch of misrepresentations of people he/she disagrees with.

>Also, why are you telling people how to have discussions?

It's not a discussion, it's a lecture buried in a fake conversation without facts.

> Also, why are you telling people how to have discussions?

It seems like he thinks their argument is dishonest strawman and manipulative. The discussion is usually improved by people pointing that out, as it makes such argumentation less likely.

The problem is that he only thinks this, with hardly anything to back it up, and doesn't discuss the substance. He merely talks about his impression of the discussion.

The reply is correct, many discourses can also be considered "one sided", such as Socratic dialogues. However, it is also very possible that the commenter feels it's that way because they are biased to one or the other side of the debate themselves. I am not even sure which side they considered the strawman.

No, he's not the only one. Most of the arguments used are not the strongest possible arguments but are in fact extremely flawed, precisely in the ways you took them apart. fancy that.

You are wrong. I didn't mean to start a discussion. I meant to illustrate how people largely talk past each other yet make very good points overall. Both have ideological and pragmatic elements. Both make good points.

The fact that you think I took apart one and the other wasn't taken apart probably implies more about where YOU are on the political spectrum.

These are the actual arguments that people use. For example "China is one of the most authoritarian countries" is a great rejoinder to all the progress they have made using central planning. You may think it takes the position completely apart - since there is so much evidence lately of China's citizen ranking system and facial recognition and jailing dissidents, very reminiscent to the USSR, and China's history with Mao and so on. But it isn't such a slam dunk as you think. Because yes it is authoritarian but many people are OK with it the same way they are OK with anti terror laws here. They give up freedom for a temporary safety and prosperity, to quote Benjamin Franklin. But that is just one side of the story.

Or for example you may think "You support billionaires" is easily taken apart with "No, billionaires are the result of government." Which is pretty straightforward as most billionaires (in Russia for example) are in fact the result of government favors and being well connected. Libertarians are definitely arguing for eliminating coercive power structures and helping promote an environment where more can compete without coersion or licenses.

But I assure you that the other side's arguments are strong as well, you just dismiss them because they don't trigger in you all the supporting baggage that they would if you actually HELD that position.

In short you are reading a lot of your own bias into it. None of these arguments are slam dunk.

You didn't start a discussion. You lectured with a strawman conversation.

Why don't you respond to specific points yourself? I did have a mock argument because these aren't real people but all those are real (and relatively strong) arguments from both sides. The ones supporting IP are actually FROM Ayn Rand for example, paraphrased to include a reference to "you didn't build that".

>> "Well maybe if you abolished drug patents innovatio could come from all over the world instead of the chilling effects we have today. Open source beats closed in the long run and Open source Drugs would beat big pharma in the long tail whose plight isn't even worth pursuing for these guys. Newton said he stood on the shoulders of giants, why is medicine different than science?"

Literally no new drugs would be produced if there was no guarantee of sole distributor for some X number of years. What country has "open source" drugs?

Seems like a great place to nationalize the means of production! Why not? Economic incentives are inherently at odds with helpful medicine. If it helps too much you can't make money off it!

Modern day big-pharma would have shelved the polio vaccine in place of a daily pill one must take for the remainder of one's life.

Error, wrong, incorrect. Modern day big-pharma developed vaccines such as HPV. Current market forces incentivizes "best" treatment (heavily regulated of course as it should be). Don't spew false facts to try to push an agenda.

> Modern day big-pharma

the polio vaccine was released in 1955. My thought experiment literally cannot be "error, wrong, incorrect."

I'll solidify my thought experiment to Valeant. Valeant would have bought the polio vaccine, hiked the price, and reported significant growth in returns while the disease was not being eliminated.

Not to mention your assumption a pharma company created the first polio vaccine is false - it was developed at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine with heavy backing by the U.S. government.