With your point 1 I can somewhat agree. Yes, inequality certainly seems pretty high - I'm not sure that's a slam dunk case that it's morally wrong, but it's certainly something worth thinking about and deciding whether we want to do something about.

But here's where I lose you: > 2. I think it is fair to ask questions about what kind of moral and ethical lines have been crossed in order to reach a net worth of $171 billion dollars.

Why? I mean, sure, it's always a fair question to ask if moral lines have been crossed, but why do you assume that amassing great wealth is in in itself morally wrong, or only happens if you do immoral things? That's at least the implication I take from your statements.

Many people who are making the median wage in the States (as an example) have vastly more wealth than the poorest people in the world. Did they do something immoral? Not really. Maybe the "system" itself is immoral or something (though I'd love to hear an actual suggestion of a better system), but why start off assuming there's a moral failure instead of just "here's the way things work, ok looks like it leads to some pretty bad outcomes, let's try and think how we minimize those". Why start name-calling instead?

well, something being obvious does not make it an axiom, not worth of an argument and/or a proof. in fact, there are many examples "obviously right" views that can be proven wrong. Thank you for the points you've provided, I agree with them totally. I just wanted to see what kind of logic stood behind your opinion, that's it :)

Every time someone argues in favor of equality as an unquestionable good I have to ask: Have you done a thought experiment where you have a perfectly equal society? Like tomorrow imagine that all the world's wealth was equally distributed for a moment. Now play out the scenario into the future one year, 5 years, 10 years, 25 years, 50 years. Think about all the unintended consequences of that policy.

What does it mean for those that now have power? What does it mean for those that do not? Is the equality maintainable? How are decisions made? Other than maybe land, is the wealth that has value today even valuable any more once divided equally and everyone has it? From the point in time where the wealth is divided equally, does it increase or decrease globally from that point forward? Why or why not? How does the change in incentives change people and change the world?

Now this thought experiment should be the most extreme end but not misaligned with what many people think is ideal. Ideal doesn't mean workable and it's important to explore what aspects are workable and what are not because if we're going to chase something utopian on paper, we better well understand the unintended consequences.

My bet is that anyone that honestly pursues this line of thinking and really considers the second and third order effects, that they'll quickly discover lots of problems and come to the conclusion that like extreme inequality, extreme equality is also bad over time, and it's only after coming to that conclusion do they concern themselves with the better question "how much inequality is the right amount of inequality and what kinds of inequality are in everyone's best interest?

Anyone that has spent time really pondering Rawls' thought experiments such as the original position and veil of ignorance should be right at home here.

> Like tomorrow imagine that all the world's wealth was equally distributed for a moment.

This is a straw man. No one is arguing equal distribution of all wealth. Any sane observer is arguing the historic levels of inequality are a cause of many undesirable social issues.

It's a thought exercise presented in socratic style so that someone learns to recognize the problems with the other extreme. Only when you see the dilemmas that exist at both extremes do you start figuring out where the balance it.

When someone is fighting equality with no hedging in their argument, that's usually a sign that they haven't considered what happens if they achieve what they are arguing for.

I'm not arguing that extreme inequality is good. It's bad in the same way extreme equality is bad. Once you recognize both are bad and why they are bad, you're more free to explore where you believe the balance point should be.

My personal view is that the problem isn't that we have a power law distribution (1/x). My view is that a distribution of 100/x is preferable to one of 1/x. The difference in equality from the top to the bottom can be extreme so long as the distribution between the two contains lots of people fairly evenly spread out and there is the possibility for someone to move up and down on that distribution on their own volition and effort. This produces a society that will produce productivity benefits that over time improve the conditions of those worst off.

I didn't see this response for whatever reason so sorry about the delay.

I think the premise is a bit flawed here. An argument for reducing inequality isn't an argument for enforced equality. I would actually largely agree with you in that one of the main flaws of an extreme communist / no personal property approach is that it fundamentally isn't compatible with human nature.

However, that wasn't something I was arguing for at all either so I can't really defend it.

Just so I am not accused of hiding behind vague statements though what I am actually arguing for is more aggressive taxes on billionaires both in terms of real numbers but also primarily in addressing avoidance issues. I am also extremely in favor of the idea that workers should receive a living wage. I don't see any aspect of that which I would consider to be incompatible with a healthy and functional democracy / capitalist society.

Inequality has positive consequences as well as negative ones. It's more likely to create venture capital and a market for high risk investments that have a significant chance to lose all the capital invested. Venture capital is a bad idea for retirement funds which would be the majority of investments in a relatively or perfectly equal world. I think it's likely you'd see significant declines in pursuing risky ideas that can change the world, for example a lot of the projects pursued by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation, wouldn't be possible without the unequal capital that leads to billionaires contributing significant capital to such endeavours. Space exploration seems to be an area of substantial interest to billionaires where we now see private companies making substantial achievements while NASA and many other government space programs seem to be in decline from their peak.

As for maintaining inequality, it usually involves some form of force exerted on labour markets where voluntary exchange gets replaced by something involving almost entirely compulsion. Voluntary exchange of labour will always result in inequality as people's talents and the value of those talents are radically different. I'm not claiming markets get these problems correct (Many education and some health professionals seem to be dramatically underpaid relative to value), but people can at least make somewhat informed choices as to what they want to do with some knowledge of the value they will gain from it. A world where equality is enforced will have the government at a minimum telling people what they can earn from what they can do, and in sectors where demand is higher than supply they very likely end up enforcing who can do those things as well. Freedom of association in labour is very important to me and to me seems more valuable than enforced equality in a lot of ways.

I agree with the conclusion that the one big question is "How much inequality is right for society?". Another big question is some variant of "How can governments influence the distribution of that inequality without violating individual rights, while working to maximize a reasonable function of overall happiness?"

I'm of the opinion that trending towards a guaranteed basic income in supported by higher taxes and reduction in redundant programs is likely to be a good path forward provided those programs are carefully designed around incentives and the taxes are designed to be revenue efficient and minimally disruptive. I'm partially of this opinion because I believe it frees people up to pursue their artistic goals and could usher in a wave of unprecedented creativity in society. Not everyone is willing to go homeless to produce the next Harry Potter but many people will choose writing over a minimum wage job if given the choice. I think lower supply in labour markets leading to higher wages for some of the terrible jobs that currently people are made to do because of lack of alternatives is a net good thing for society even with the consequences of higher prices on some essential goods.

"Inequality is at what many would consider to be unacceptable highs"

Many people also routinely watch the Kardashians. We're trying to get at the root of a moral right, and citing what "most people" think is basically irrelevant.

"Inequality is at what many would consider to be unacceptable highs"

Citation that shows causal relationship is needed here.

I'm trying to have a serious conversation here and you're talking about "many people also watch the Kardashians" as some kind of counter argument.

Can we do this without the snark? It's not worth engaging otherwise.

Do you even consider inequality to be a problem in society and if so do you have any thoughts on what we should do about it?

Inequality is not an issue. Poverty is an issue.

What's the problem with there beeing people with 100000 times my NW? specially if it's a guy that created one of the biggest business on the planet?

The problem is there being persons that can't afford to eat, but blaming bezos would only be fair if the way he got his money actually contributed to the lack of basic needs meet by the needed.

I think the standard counter argument to this is essentially:

1. Governments are ultimately responsible for this.

2. These social safety nets are funded by taxes

3. The specific man in this specific story runs a company that as recently as a few months ago was labelled the worst offender for tax avoidance. [1]

4. Jeff is now wealthier as a result of avoiding taxes on both a company and personal level

5. People who otherwise might have had a hot meal and a roof over their heads now don't.

There is a whole separate counter argument to what I have just said about how it wasn't technically illegal to avoid the taxes using the specific loopholes that he has used. My original comment about people are ultimately responsible for the kind of society they want to live in speaks directly to this.

Should we maybe think about closing some of those loopholes and getting a lot more serious about tax avoidance among the top 0.1% of companies and people in the world?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/02/new-study-d...

I think saying poverty is the issue is heading in the right direction, but I would even go further and say that poverty is not the issue, but that conditions not improving over time is the issue.

Most humans (except maybe Buddhists and Daoists) are on a hedonic treadmill. So long as their condition today is better than it was yesterday, they generally derive greater contentment than being better off in absolute terms and then plateauing.

This "most people were better off over time" is the stuff stable societies are made of. It's why post WWII America did so well. It's why China has been doing well for 20-30 years now. When most everyone is doing better today than yesterday and believes they will be doing better tomorrow than today, they are content.

Even poverty is tolerable if things are improving over time because you adjust your expectations.

The lack of improvement over time is what makes prisons for example such an awful punishment. You're placed in a state where your conditions are not only worse in absolute terms but there is no prospect of it really improving until your really.

I see, it does make perfect sense, thank you.

I also think that too much information or mis-informations, or simply bias or selective information can damage the way you perceive if thinks are getting better or worse, but that's another topic.

I worry this question will sound snarky and it's not my intent but have you ever actually experienced what real poverty is like?

I guess that depends on how you define poverty. When I first moved to San Francisco, I slept on an air mattress for about 8 months and ate for about $2-3 a day and spent about $200 a month for health insurance. I walked most places at the time with the occasional muni fare. So my total monthly expenses was about $300 to $350 month once you include necessary incidentals. I don't think I had more than $300 in my bank account at one time. The only large purchase I made in that time period was a $200 pressure cooker, which I used to cook the beans I ate. I would buy black beans, kidney beans and rice in 20lb bags.

Would you consider this poverty? Cost-wise and earning-wise most people would consider it poverty, but it didn't feel like poverty because I knew what I was doing and I adjusted my expectations accordingly. I reckon I lived on about $2700 over those 8 months in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Would I want to do it again? No. Could I do it again if I had to? Yes.

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-yea...