Exceptions to this rule come about for specific reasons. Before the industrial revolution, there just wasn't that much power to go around. Everyone was working their land for sustenance, and the rent-seeking nobility extracted some percent of production because that's what there was to extract. When the industrial revolution came, those who figured out how to exploit it became the new nobility and worked their employees to the bone. It was only after actual, bloody, war between the factory owners and the employees that we got labor rights, which were a truce agreement. And that agreement's been steadily declining since Reagan. It took a while because the beneficiaries of the labor rights era were able to hold onto their wealth and pass it down to their children, but now we're back in the same factory feudalism situation again, but with different technological status.

Not that above commentator is meaning that.

But many "thought leaders" i.e. Jordan Petersen play around with similar motte-and-bailey - "hierarchies are natural" (examples with lobsters, apes, whatever) --> "existing hierarchies should be preserved" (not defended in the argument but implied).

Probably some downvoters are reacting to the structural similarity, although taken in good faith i think above commenter makes a fine point about the historical pattern of periods of equality being short lived and brought about by great intentional effort while sliding back to inequality seems to occur all of the time.

the surpluses of the agrarian farmers meant that the pharaoh lived a life vastly different from anyone in his kingdom.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Until the black death came in the 1300's and killed an estimated 30–60% of Europe's population, and now the nobility had nobody to rent seek or even to work their land.

So then, for the first time ever, the surviving workers gained bargaining power as landowners (lords) competed for labor, leading to high cash wages, better working conditions, and more freedom for peasants, because the feudal lords hadn't yet figured out how to replace the peasants with slaves, H1-Bs and illegals from across the planet.

So according to history, including your post-WW1 example, the only times peasants gained bargaining power was when millions of them died through world wars and global pestilence.

Looking at recent unfolding history, "There's something very familiar about all this" -Biff Tannen

https://medium.com/luminasticity/the-new-exploiters-9d8a0684...

Not sure what point you're trying to make.

Britain, France and allies were fighting Hitler in 1939. Russia was allied with Hitler until 1941, when Hitler attacked:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...

Just i know there were preferred trading partners and aide packages from countries to one side or the other, but if Perl Harbor hadn't happened, it was by no means certain the US and many other countries would have entered the war and instead just let it settle itself.

Of course Europe was involved in the European war. Turns out Europe is only a small part of the world tho.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement

It seems like the signatories to that treaty had no issue with the Nazis annexing particular bits of Europe at the time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Although one may call it superficial, a mere formality no indicator of self-determination in the Republic, it is remarkable that the Soviet ruble had 15 local languages printed on the banknote.

I cannot see a way out other than socialism, unfortunately.

Why unfortunately? Because under current conditions a revolution seems very unlikely, and if you really decide to become a socialist, committed and organized, you risk a lot.

You risk imprisonment, getting beaten by the police, going to prison for quite some time. And by investing your time and energy studying Marxist theory, Lenin, matters regarding the unique material conditions of the country you are revolting in, you risk your 'field', by field I mean you risk your occupation or profession. For example, you are a biologist, and you can't see a way out of this capitalist predicament, and feel a strong responsibility towards the world, you are now robbed of your time because you have to study socialist theory.

The other person in your field is indifferent (not a moral judgment) about politics, and will outperform you.

That's very true, especially if the revolution succeeds. Only few OG Bolsheviks survived purges by their own comrades, for example.

or why Mao was all about continuous revolution.

The problem remains that the US voter consistently demonstrates they don't actually care about these problems though, compared to using the state to intentionally inflict misery on subgroups they don't like.

The most radical thing the current administration proves is how unimportant taxes and cost of living actually were to its voters, given the broad support it retains despite overtly and continuously raising or making both those problems worse (read cares as: "understands" - for a group which wouldn't shut up about it, apparently significant changes aren't crippling enough to get them to change their vote in many cases).

It’s the responsibility of thoughtful people in a civilized society to find ways of solving problems, even very large and deep ones, without violence.

As soon as we think “there’s no alternative other than violence”, we need to think harder. All the worst atrocities in history happened because enough people allowed themselves to think “violence is the only answer”.

Just want to make sure I understand you fully.

I'll remember this when my country of which i'm a citizen uses these same defensive weapons to secure any mineral wealth in Australia.

If you don't want to engage in political arguments then don't involve yourself in a subthread that wasn't even flagged.

In either case i'll leave and let you keep your echo chamber.

He is either leaking private conversations or lying.

It’s beyond an echo chamber, he is trying to modify the conversation to fit his perspective.

This happened because he’s consistently harnessed the power of the popular vote. Just today he flexed that muscle in Indiana.

I’m distraught that my fellow Americans keep falling for his circus barking and he’s made it clear that norms don’t matter and gerrymandering may be the end of the republic. But you can’t deny the power of the regular persons vote after him.

There isn't actually one monolithic class of billionaires that all share the same interests and want the same things; and even though an individual billionaire can be personally influential, they simply do not have the power to unilaterally determine the political direction of a country. But regardless of what political direction a country does go in, there's probably some billionaire who is more or less aligned with that direction. So anyone who dislikes that political direction can point to the nearest-ideologically-aligned billionaire and blame them for influencing politics in that way, despite the fact that if the tables were turned and their side was winning, someone else would point to whatever billionaire aligned with them as an evil influencer.

Um, no. His popularity comes from a willingness to actually do the things that many other politicians said they were going to do, often while campaigning, and never did.

He cut taxes for all taxpayers, which did benefit the middle class quite a bit.

He hasn’t invaded Iran, and there’s a good chance of a revolution against Iran’s terrorist Islamist regime.

Winning!

well, as long as the policy changes in question can be implemented by executive order. good luck doing anything that requires actual legislation.

> The problem remains that the US voter consistently demonstrates they don't actually care about these problems though, compared to using the state to intentionally inflict misery on subgroups they don't like.

what does this mean, exactly? it sounds like you're trying to say that things would have been different, if only those pesky voters hadn't voted for Trump. but they _did_ vote for someone other than Trump in 2020, and that did very little to affect the issues mentioned in the article

What people are actually experiencing is not wealth inequality, but cost disease. Vital things (housing, healthcare, education) are more expensive - and that's mostly the fault of state action.

1) You have to get it out of your head that it is enough when everyone has X standard of living. It isn't. It's enough when less than a critical threshold of the population is dissatisfied, and that dissatisfaction can come no matter what the median/lowest standard of living is. This is just how societies work, uniformly.

2) Money is a ledger supported by a social contract. Spending wealth in ways that erode the social contract is bad. I think we can all agree 500M dollar yachts, empty luxury apartment buildings, and buying up shorelines in populated areas are all bad looks, and therefore, erode the social contract. The wealthy really need to step in and police each other socially here, if they want to continue being wealthy.

We already do. Most of what governments do is reactionary to dissatisfaction.

> then changing laws because those people are "dissatisfied" seems kind of arbitrary

It's the opposite of arbitrary. Governments generally rule via power invested in them by the populace. Doing things that alleviate dissatisfaction is a survival tactic.

> dissatisfaction is kind of the human condition.

This is why building a rational and cooperative society is important, because they are the cure for misplaced dissatisfaction. That being said, historically, governments aren't stable, and that is, in large part, due to some of your points.

Neither restrictive zoning, nor the administrative bloat in academia that caused tuition to skyrocket, were lobbied into existence by people like Bezos and Musk. They are result of tireless lobbying of relatively unimportant people seeking their own little rent.

While, let's be clear, administrative bloat in academia is a very real issue, pointing to that as the true root issue is far more nebulous. Student loans being made non-dischargeable by bankruptcy meant that universities could afford to raise tuitions because lenders would be happy/ier to fund those loans because they will get their pound of flesh, even if it takes decades longer than designed.

Taxing the extremely wealthy basically does nothing to decrease the property values of this class of people en masse, and decreasing their property values en masse is precisely what it would mean to make housing more affordable for more people.

"But CHILDREN will SCREAM here!" shouted one such lady at me when I dared express my opposition against her petition, which demanded a stop to a "megalomaniac" plan to build approximately fifteen apartments half a kilometer away.

"You were a child once, too," I said.

"Sure, but I was A GOOD BEHAVED ONE, NOT LIKE TODAY'S BRATS!" at that time, she was positively screaming as well.

M'kay.

The situation in the US may be different, but the few YIMBY blogs and articles I have read mostly described their efforts as an uphill battle against progressive politicians who were certain that development leads to gentrification and gentrification is bad. Given that the YIMBY movement originated in California, this may just be an aftereffect of Californian politics. But in general, it is blue cities and regions that are known for very restrictive zoning policies.

Medical care is getting better, insurance is required to pay for more and more things, but that drives up insurance costs.

In my county, fire sprinklers are required in all new houses.

Costs go up, but at least, in theory, you're getting something in return.

You're welcome to blame the state. Without those actions, things would be somewhat more affordable. But it seems pretty clear from the data on inequality that inequality is a much bigger factor in bidding up living costs than the fact that I need to install sprinklers in my house, even if sprinklers are a very large cost relative to my income.

One of the pillars of capitalism is that the entire economy is more efficient when decision making power is dispersed as close as possible to the people making economic decisions aka what they buy.

When we have ended up in a situation where a handful of people are making all the economic decisions because they have all the money, there is no functional difference between that situation and a command economy.

If you’re a believer in capitalism as a tool to eliminate scarcity you should view the existence of billionaires(adjust for inflation) over the longer term as policy failures that are eroding capitalisms ability to create more and more.

That’s not cost disease. That is wealth inequality killing people.

It sounds trivial but the effect to various tax evasion strategies is very important. It's also something that really ought to be uncontroversial. Read the book!

I disagree with TFA's idea that a wealth tax is the best solution. IMO wealth is easier to hide than income, it's just that nobody bothers right now with there being no wealth tax.

It's natural that things are less equal now that we're not farmers or hunter-gatherers. Economies of scale will massively enrich those who take build them.

Sometimes it is claimed that inequality is a problem because the rich will control politics. But populism is surging and the rich seem to have a harder time controlling politics than ever, largely due to the disintegration of the print/tv media.

How 5k will make a difference?

This reminds me of when Bernie Sanders was asked why it's OK for him to be a millionaire and he said something akin to "If you write a popular book like I did, you can be a millionaire too." Well maybe if you reinvent electric cars and space travel or build a company that ships you almost anything you can think of within 2 days then you can be a billionaire.

I recognize there are still people who are food insecure, and I think it's an abomination how people are suffering (many poor rural black people in the south don't even have access to basic plumbing and end up with diseases like hookworm), but making wealthy people into a boogeyman just seems like an emotional argument so much of the time.

If there is no public transportation available, an old Toyota Yaris is also enough to have a comfortable commute.

Education returns the investment to a nation at around 9%/year. Transportation infrastructure (especially if it's not only for roads in dense urban centres) also has a decent ROI. Investment in science, fundamental research that most private entities don't have the risk appetite for, has a massive ROI for a nation over time.

Providing public services and safety nets for a society also free up humans to take risks such as starting businesses, if you know you will be able to survive with dignity even if it all crashes and burns you are more inclined to try out that business idea instead of being stuck at a bad job. It makes bad jobs also more unattractive, requiring better salaries which reduces the gap between the haves and have-nots, this lowers crime, increases social cohesion, etc.

What exactly is the benefit for society of not taxing wealthy people out of 2% of their wealth? They mostly don't use that wealth to invest in risky ventures, they rely on banks for that.