Soo… since this is a debate about how much benefit poor people get from general increases, let’s put a poor individual on the other side of your door. Say that person needs $1000 to feed their kids that year. Are you actually saying that mother or father will starve their kids just to stick it to the neighbors?

I think this is your fundamental flaw. Perhaps wealthy middle class type people who have all their day to day needs taken care of can indulge in wasteful economic jealousy, but people who need money for food, homes and clothes do not. And that’s who we’re really talking about, right?

What negatives is this equality causing? I don’t see riots. I don’t see Bill Gates being murdered. I don’t see the poor rising up in mobs and burning down corporate headquarters. If “inequality” is an objective negative, surely it has some additional side effects we can point at.

Frankly, I think poor people are smarter than you. I think they’re going to take their $1000 and be better off, and happier, and also realize that their neighbors having money is ALSO a good for them, because those neighbors don’t need to turn to less savory means of acquiring money, will take better care of their neighborhood, and just be plain happier now that they can also feed their kids (and buy a new TV too!). Sure, perhaps they’ll feel a twinge that they couldn’t get one too, but it’s funny how having healthy, well-fed kids can overcome that.

You assume that strict material jealousy, bereft of any objective analysis of one’s circumstances, is the defining characteristic of American life. It’s not just false, it’s rather disgusting misanthropy.

Soo… since this is a debate about how much benefit poor people get from general increases, let’s put a poor individual on the other side of your door. Say that person needs $1000 to feed their kids that year. Are you actually saying that mother or father will starve their kids just to stick it to the neighbors?

I think this is your fundamental flaw. Perhaps wealthy middle class type people who have all their day to day needs taken care of can indulge in wasteful economic jealousy, but people who need money for food, homes and clothes do not. And that’s who we’re really talking about, right?

What negatives is this equality causing? I don’t see riots. I don’t see Bill Gates being murdered. I don’t see the poor rising up in mobs and burning down corporate headquarters. If “inequality” is an objective negative, surely it has some additional side effects we can point at.

Frankly, I think poor people are smarter than you. I think they’re going to take their $1000 and be better off, and happier, and also realize that their neighbors having money is ALSO a good for them, because those neighbors don’t need to turn to less savory means of acquiring money, will take better care of their neighborhood, and just be plain happier now that they can also feed their kids (and buy a new TV too!). Sure, perhaps they’ll feel a twinge that they couldn’t get one too, but it’s funny how having healthy, well-fed kids can overcome that.

You assume that strict material jealousy, bereft of any objective analysis of one’s circumstances, is the defining characteristic of American life. It’s not just false, it’s rather disgusting misanthropy.

Really? The single biggest problem is income inequality? (Presuming, from context, that that’s the form of inequality meant; if you really meant “inequality per se in no specific context”, that’s really weird.)

How’s that, now?

(Plus I’m not at all sure that someone else making more money than me is making me unhappy. I certainly don’t feel unhappy because Bill Gates is fantastically wealthy. But that might just be because I’m atypical.

I, at any rate, would be happy with a bit more purchasing power to improve my lot, even if other people gained even more, thus reducing my relative wealth!)

Retief: It’s both. It’s primarily a result of individuals and their actions (apart from the systemic factors and the occasional inheritance, etc.), but not in such a way that it’s easily amenable to anyone’s control. (Emergent phenomena, after all, emerge from something; in this case, individual actions. Just like the invisible hand of the market emerges from the actions of individual participants.)

Really? The single biggest problem is income inequality? (Presuming, from context, that that’s the form of inequality meant; if you really meant “inequality per se in no specific context”, that’s really weird.)

How’s that, now?

(Plus I’m not at all sure that someone else making more money than me is making me unhappy. I certainly don’t feel unhappy because Bill Gates is fantastically wealthy. But that might just be because I’m atypical.

I, at any rate, would be happy with a bit more purchasing power to improve my lot, even if other people gained even more, thus reducing my relative wealth!)

Retief: It’s both. It’s primarily a result of individuals and their actions (apart from the systemic factors and the occasional inheritance, etc.), but not in such a way that it’s easily amenable to anyone’s control. (Emergent phenomena, after all, emerge from something; in this case, individual actions. Just like the invisible hand of the market emerges from the actions of individual participants.)

I think people accept inequality of income very well – as long as they perceive that higher incomes derive from talent and from effort. I wish the general public understood risk/reward a little better, as that would likewise help them understand the greater flows to entrepreneurs.

I think people accept inequality of income very well – as long as they perceive that higher incomes derive from talent and from effort. I wish the general public understood risk/reward a little better, as that would likewise help them understand the greater flows to entrepreneurs.