The Facts Illustrate Why It's Wrong For 1% To Own As Much As 99%
Fact: As of 2017, the average (mean) Paramedic full time annual salary in the UK is £37,857, and the median is £37,235. For part time employees, this drops to a mean of £15,520.
[1]
Fact: As of 2017, Sri and Gopi Hinduja topped the Sunday Times Rich List, with a worth of £16,200m (or £16.2bn). [2]
Fact: Paramedics [i]save lives[/I]. [3] [4] [5]
Fact: The Hinduja Group is known for products and services which can be categorised as automotive, financial services, information technology enabled services, oil and gas, media and telecom. And the Hinduja Group has been implicated in scandals. [6] [7]
[1]
Fact: As of 2017, Sri and Gopi Hinduja topped the Sunday Times Rich List, with a worth of £16,200m (or £16.2bn). [2]
Fact: Paramedics [i]save lives[/I]. [3] [4] [5]
Fact: The Hinduja Group is known for products and services which can be categorised as automotive, financial services, information technology enabled services, oil and gas, media and telecom. And the Hinduja Group has been implicated in scandals. [6] [7]
Comments (203)
Yes, you don't see it. That's the problem. It's a bit like an inkblot test. What does this tell us about you?
This demonstrates that I have not set up a puzzle which is impossible to solve.
Quoting Wosret
Why hasn't this happened? And don't you think that it's wrong that it has not, and that this is the norm, and that it has been so for a very long time? Don't you think that we need systematic reform?
See, the rich don't get richer and the poor poorer! Everyone gets rich, just the richer get way way way fucking richer.
This.
Sapientia views these facts through a frame of theft, which isn't true.
You haven't analysed the contributions to society that the Hinduja group, through all of their businesses make or have made. Presumably, your paramedics need a lot of things, including phones, etc. in order to save lives. So society is all interconnected, the ones who do most for society aren't necessarily the ones who save lives directly, but rather the ones who are most responsible for the entire system functioning as well as it does - meaning the ones who play the biggest part. Paramedics may offer a lot of value, but they do so supported by a very large network, and, individually, only to very few people.
Wealth = Value x Quantity. If you deliver high value but to super few people, how can you expect to be wealthy? :s
Quoting Thorongil
The rich should not get way way way fucking richer. That is not right.
Why? If the area under their value-quantity graph is much bigger, then of course they should get way way way richer.
Of course you don't see it. That's exactly what I expected.
Because ideally, we want paramedics to be available for everyone, so that the first option of charging more, and being more speedy, especially focusing more on revenue rather than saving lives, wouldn't be healthy for the attentions, and ambitions of the paramedics, that isn't their job.
It is an extremely complex issue. Poverty has never been as low, it's also true that the difference between the rich and the poor has never been greater, and we're really beating that rock for more and more water, and eventually, it will no longer deliver. We could also just die of thirst now... but maybe, just maybe, later won't come...
No, it's just cause you're really not providing a reason why this is so. It may be so - I'm not saying that it definitely isn't, I haven't studied the Hinduja group to say it isn't.
You're just pointing to something and saying it's unfair without providing an analysis for that. You just decide, a priori, that it is unfair.
Because it's not fair.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, "of course".
I don't need no "value-quantity graph" to know right from wrong.
Property is theft. Highly paid executives, receiving perhaps $40 to 100+ million dollars in compensation, are way way way more fucking thieves than the average workers. Especially since they frequently do not deliver greater values to shareholders, in proportion to their increased salaries. Boards of directors are, in general, families of thieves, so they approve these high salary packages.
Why? What if the rich become rich because lots of people give them money? Who's to blame for the wealth inequality in that case?
Settle down, Proudhon.
Quoting Bitter Crank
What have they stolen?
I did that in the other discussion: the discussion that you created, and which this discussion is responding to. You saw it with your own eyes. This is an illustration of a prior point, and it's not the first. (Recall the example of the Premier League footballer).
Is there a bridge for this gap? Where's the common ground?
We have anti-trust laws to ensure that wealth and power aren't too concentrated within specific corporations. Could the same kind of laws be created for individual wealth and power? Would that be opposed to Enlightenment values?
Of course, that's not the [i]only[/I] implication.
Can anyone spot any more?
All of these jobs also pay way, way, way less than the CEOs of hospitals, food corporations, construction and excavation companies, bureaucrats at the top of civil services, and so on. CEOs do not save lives, and actually, they don't facilitate the saving of lives. Their job is to make sure that in commercial operations, they are as profitable as possible, and in government operations, making sure that corporations are not annoyed too much.
In general, highly paid topic executives and board members function as parasites in the bowels of companies which provide important services. These companies should be wormed regularly.
Wealth and services which workers produced. Executives do not produce. They are there to insure profitability for stockholders.
Wealthy stockholders, in turn, are not productive either.
Yes, the laws are on the books, but are honored in the breach fairly often. It may not be the case that one company, for instance, controls all television cable systems, but in fact a handful (like, two or three big ones and a bag of very small operations) control cable.
When you add in the cross direction of companies (called interlocking directorates) there is a practical monopoly for many industries.
That sixteen thousand million implies that you can't count either. No billionaires in your world anyway, just "thousand millionaires"... lame.
This falsely assumes the rich are not themselves workers or producers.
However, an olive branch: the notion of a legal obligation to make profit is a morally abhorrent notion. But I see nothing wrong with people making lots of money because people voluntarily give it to them.
Because it's not fair.
Quoting Thorongil
Anyone who has the power to rectify the situation, but does not, is to blame.
You don't seem to know what you're talking about.
[1] [2]
None of this is true in my hypothetical scenario.
What don't you get about that? Are you suggesting that you and your hypothetical brownie business is worth more than the value of saving lives?
Nah, you just don't get it. It was a kind of test, and you failed.
Take Bill Gates: Gates was very lucky that IBM bought his user-unfriendly operating system (DOS) for their new line of personal computers which were something of a gamble: Personal computers were not an established thing when they first came out. Neither were Apple's first products. Because he was lucky, we were stuck with that fucking operating system for a long time. I don't hate Microsoft or Bill Gates. Many of his products are fine, and once he figured out how to build a decent user interface, things were better. But I don't think Gates did anything so distinguished that he deserves to be the richest guy, or that Apple deserves to be the richest company. The same goes for Walmart, Amazon (which is now twice as big as Walmart), Facebook, Twitter, Google, et al.
I think we both know what you must do.
I don't really understand your question. You seem to be equivocating on "worth" and "value". The monetary value of my company, given its assets and expected profits, is £2,000,000. That's more than the paramedic gets paid.
I don't know what you mean by deserve here. I own a business that sells lots of brownies. An investor, seeing its success, was willing to spend £1,000,000 of his money to buy half the business. What's the problem? Should he have spent less?
I would have less of a problem with a company like Apple (or 500 other ones) IF tax collection on their profits was higher, more efficient and more effective. As it is, a lot of revenue is lost owning to lobbying for favors and sheltering wealth in tax havens.
I'm not equivocating, and do you think that I don't know that? I'm asking you whether you think that that's right. I'm asking you whether you think that that monetary evaluation is in sync with the value (in a broader sense) of your business, based on what it does, compared to the value (in a broader sense) of a parademic, based on what he or she does.
I still don't understand the issue. If you think that the paramedic isn't getting paid enough then you should speak to his employer. My brownie business has nothing to do with his wage. Or if you think that my business isn't worth £2,000,000 then you should speak to the investor and convince him to offer a smaller amount for the same share. But then he'd probably just be outbid by someone else. And even if he's not, I'm still making quite a lot more than the paramedic based on the income from selling brownies. Maybe I should charge at cost? But then how would that help the paramedic? At best it helps him save money on the occasional brownie.
Sure. But what has that go to do with money?
The point Sapientia is making (and I agree with his view) is that jobs that involve saving lives, or enhancing minds (teachers, for instance) are worth more than making money, and that those worthwhile jobs should be paid more.
In the world we live in, nobody will arrest you for making a million bucks when you sell your start up brownie making operation. That doesn't make your brownies as worth while as saved lives.
My assessment of why you do not understand the issue is that you are too engrossed in business norms to think outside of the box.
So what's the solution? A business owner should gift shares of his company to paramedics?
What kind of economy would allow for that? How can the millions of paramedics and teachers ever be richer than the man who owns 10% of a business with annual profits of a £1 billion?
That would be great, but would he or she be willing to do so? My prediction is that many business owners would not be willing. Therefore, the redistribution should be forced.
So the people who spend millions buying shares in a business will be forced to give them away? Then why would they buy them in the first place?
Your idealistic scenario makes no economic sense.
Yes, they'd be forced to give them away. That would be an example of forceful redistribution.
Your second question makes no sense. They had already bought them, under the corrupt system in place at the time. Things would be different now. The wealth would be more evenly spread - for the many, not the few - and we'd live in a fairer society as a result.
The rich get richer because the poor get poorer.
The enormous concentration of wealth among a very small number of people distorts the flow of capital. The small number of exceeding rich people can not invest their vast wealth in millions of worthwhile projects--that is far too time and energy consuming--so they end up sitting on it, or enlarging it by screwing around with currency trading, and the like. The millions of worthwhile projects, mean while, are starving for cash.
The poor get poorer also because the very rich hide their assets from governments, so governments have less money than they should to invest in their people.
There may be people on planets around other stars who are inconceivably richer than anyone on earth. It doesn't matter, because our economy isn't involved with theirs. But when you have people on earth who are inconceivably richer than 99.9% of everyone else here, it definitely caused economic problems.
They won't be richer than your plutocrat, and after forced redistribution, your plutocrat won't be rich and will have to get a real job. He might want to be something useful like a sanitation worker. And because of the redistribution of wealth, he will be better paid than sanitation workers were before the redistribution.
He gets a real job doing something useful, and gets paid a decent wage. Win win.
Olive branches are being accepted at this time. Thank you.
And do what with them? Owning shares doesn't help put food on the table. They can't sell them because there's nobody to buy them any more. I suppose if every company was forced to pay out dividends, but only enough to amount to a supplementary income else all these paramedics and teachers will just quit and live of these payments. But dividends reduce share value, and given that there's now no trading the shares won't really increase (especially given that the company now has less money to invest and grow). Rinse and repeat, until the shares aren't worth much (although I'm no expert in economics, so maybe I'm missing something). And of course no new businesses will be started as there's now no incentive.
Again, I think your idealistic scenario makes no economic sense. Or maybe this will just end up as communism?
I suppose you're a fan of Cohen? Egalitarianism for its own sake? I'm more partial to Rawls. Massive wealth inequality is acceptable if it means the worst off are as well off as possible.
Better for the 1% to have £1,000,000 and the 99% to have £30,000 than for everyone to have £20,000.
Imagine, if you will, and if censorship will permit, a picture of an olive branch, which is grasped at both ends by a pair of hands, and which has been snapped in half.
This would be symbolic of the antagonism I wish to express, in a somewhat humorous manner, towards such a peace offering.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, and I wish that my fellow moderators would appreciate this more, and be a little less intolerant.
Quoting Sapientia
A rather ominous declaration. What if they resist? Are you simply going to murder them? Stalin tried that with the kulaks, and after piling up their corpses, the result of the redistribution was mass famine.
I didn't plan to [I]say[/I] anything at all, but that didn't quite work out. I'm not rejecting the claim or the common ground. Just the peace offering. It would take more than that for me to give up the fight - that's all.
Of course not. I see no need to jump to such drastic measures. How could they resist? The authorities could just seize funds or assets, couldn't they? They could just take over ownership. Or they could impose economic sanctions. Or resistance could even be met with a prison sentence before resorting to murder.
Resistance is futile. Their wealth will be distributed.
If what I said is totalitarian, then I can't think of a government that is not totalitarian. Authorities do those things under the current system. Are you suggesting that these methods should not be employed by the state under any circumstance, because that would amount to totalitarianism? That'd be a bit of a stretch. It's not either Thorongil's brand of liberalism or totalitarianism. There's space in between.
No, they don't do what you're apparently suggesting, which is wealth confiscation across the board. Perhaps you only want to steal from Sri and Gopi Hinduja, though, I don't know.
I'm aware of that. They do it under different circumstances. But that could change. And no, that doesn't necessarily mean totalitarianism; and no, totalitarianism is not what I'm advocating. I'm a democrat.
Dictatorships don't have to wait, however.
Agreed, but can you and Sapientia guarantee that your wealth distribution doesn't lower the standard of living for everyone? Because although fairness is a good principle, I would rather live in an unequal world where most people have a higher standard of living, than one where most people struggle to make ends meet.
In other words, I would worry that in attempt to be fair, you would ruin the economy by ignoring sound economic principles.
Now maybe there is a middle ground between excessive wealth imbalance and equal but poor for everyone. One thing you don't want to do is cripple economic output by disentivizing people. You also don't want to the government to play the role of the market. That's been tried, and it doesn't work well.
In one of my quoted passages, the economist noted that the present extremely disproportionate distribution of income was not always the case. The present imbalance has accumulated since the 1970s. Within the structure of this society, the best bet would be to squeeze the wealth out of the rich by a series of tax reforms which would aim at two things: Putting idle cash to work (like buying municipal bonds for infrastructure), and secondly, extracting the wealth through taxes. Tax law could make receiving an out-of-proportion income very disadvantageous.
It is my belief that putting the rich on a stringent diet and gradually spreading the wealth would be constructive. Giving people a huge windfall would probably result in tons of wasted money and inflation, as way too much money suddenly started chasing the normal supply of goods.
One of the changes I would like to see is a guaranteed minimum income. The economy has changed, and we are probably not going to see anything close to full, good employment again. Long-term unemployed and people who have left the workforce (because there was no work), need a minimum stable income both for social stability and for their own good. Everything paid to them will be spent back into the economy. It's really quite doable.
It should be well within the capabilities of the G20, or G30, to bring an end to tax sheltering by pisspot countries.
I agree. I'm not sure why the question is being framed as total wealth redistribution versus no wealth redistribution, rather than how much.
If the government were to pursue all wealth, which seems unlikely considering how many of the wealthy are in government, it would remove any incentive for innovation or hard work. Taking a portion could alleviate many ills of society while still allowing for entrepreneurship to be adequately compensated.
Please cite it here.
Quoting Sapientia
"No, I need no analysis, screw that, I've already decided it's unfair" :-}
You two, especially Sapientia, have some serious misunderstanding about what wealth is.
For example, in his very first post, Sapientia compares the yearly income of an individual paramedic with the total assets of the Hinduja family. Of course, that's like comparing apples and oranges, because the two are NOT the same.
Wealth is a measure of your control over (1) value-creating mechanisms (production), and (2) distribution networks that can make them widely available. Now when you two say something as idiotic as the "redistribution of wealth", you don't understand what you're talking about. What are you going to redistribute from the Hinduja family? :s You're going to shut down the factories, sell the land, buildings, inventory, etc. and then re-distribute the money or what? :s You're going to give each paramedic a piece of paper saying that he owns a teeny tiny part of the business and what will he do with it, use it as toilet paper? :s He has no time to check what the business is doing, nor is he capable to manage it to any extent.
Now you may think that the Hinduja family live very lavish lifestyles. Maybe, I don't know. You should check what their incomes are. Maybe their incomes are not fair, maybe they are. But I can tell you one thing for sure - they do deserve to take home many many many orders of magnitude more than a single paramedic. A single paramedic does not save lives alone. He saves lives by relying on instruments created by people like the Hinduja families, cars, oil, phones, etc.
Furthermore, the quantity of good done by a single paramedic is small. A single paramedic hasn't created a system of value-production and distribution of that value through society. Rather he participates in such a system. So he does a lot of good, but to how many people per year? 3000? And out of those 3000, only a teeny tiny percentage are actually "saved". Most people who call the paramedic are given a pat on their back and sent on their way.
https://emtlife.com/threads/how-often-do-paramedics-save-lives.30587/
Well someone like the Hinduja family, they would help maybe 40-50 million or more people per year. Even if they help each person less than the paramedic does, overall they do provide far more help to society than an individual paramedic, hence why they make more.
Let's say that the Hinduja family pockets $90 million per year in income (which seems quite excessive at first). That means they are equivalent to 3000 paramedics. That seems reasonable. They probably provide as much value as 3000 paramedics in a year.
And how does the Hinduja family have control over production and distribution? They do it the old fashioned way. They own it.
Quoting Agustino
Regular Mother Theresa's they are.
It would be more accurate to say that 40-50 million people help the Hinduja family. Without their 75,000 employees and millions of consumers, the Hinduja family would be back in Karachi peddling used pots and pans from a small cart.
Look: I think everybody understands that successful businesses are run by talented, hard-working, more-or-less honest opportunists and exploiters. The legal and political systems of the West, and some developed/developing countries is structured to disproportionately favor and facilitate opportunism and exploitation.
Capitalism is based in that legal and political framework. Without it, opportunists and exploiters would have to resort to crude and primitive methods (a la mafia) to succeed. Capitalism avoids individual mafia operations by legalizing and enforcing exploitation of both workers and consumers by the opportunistic companies it spawns. At least it does now. In an earlier era of capitalism, there wasn't all that much difference between a crooked operation and a righteous one.
I don't know how big your operation is. I am guessing you are more like a hard-working farmer who works by himself. He has to do all the hard work of running the small farm--and it is a lot of hard work. His profit at the end of the year are his own. If, however, he is a bright opportunist and owns many farms and employs many people, he will--of necessity, since he is a capitalist--exploit the people that work for him. He will get rich, they will not, though they are doing all the work and he merely cracks the whip.
He will pay them as little as possible. He will fire them if they start organizing a union to protect their own interests. He will probably fire them if he thinks they are not working hard enough. He might not offer any health insurance. He might not give them vacation time. If unemployment in his neck of the woods is high, he will feel very secure. There's always somebody else who wants a job. If unemployment is very low, he might be forced to pay more, or offer benefits. If things get too bad, his employees might organize a walkout, leaving crops unharvested and several thousand cows waiting for their twice daily milking.
Enlarge the situation to the size of the Hinduja family, and that will explain how they got where they are.
I have to go now. I didn't get into the selling side of opportunism and exploitation.
Yeah, of course they own it, because they built the infrastructure of the value generation and distribution networks themselves from the ground up. Otherwise, they wouldn't get to own it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Right - and without the Hinduja family, the 75,000 employees and millions of consumers wouldn't have access to the products and services they do today.
Both depend on each other.
Quoting Bitter Crank
They are not opportunists and exploiters at all. That's where you have it wrong. You cannot eliminate the entrepreneur - even in communism, there would be people who CONTROL the value generation mechanisms and distribution networks. They are your capitalists, it doesn't matter that on paper it says that all the employees own the business. They may own it, but they surely can't all control it.
That's what wealth and ownership ultimately is. It is control over the production and distribution networks. All workers together cannot control production and distribution, since they're busy working on actually producing the products.
Quoting Bitter Crank
It doesn't facilitate exploitation, at least not in this regard. If I, as Michael told you, make homemade brownies, start selling them making use of the internet say, and I'm doing this all alone, make my startup capital that way, and then I proceed to employ people to make them, while I'm busy growing my distribution network, getting more traffic to my website, etc. etc. until I have sold so many brownies, to so many willing customers, that I have become mega rich, what's the problem? And when I say I became "mega rich" all that means is that I own control of the (now big) production and distribution networks that I've created.
Quoting Bitter Crank
How is someone exploiting consumers? Consumers aren't forced to buy, they surrender the money to gain access to a product that they desire, to something valuable that can help them. So for example, say you have arthritis. I come to you, and I ask you, "Do you have stiff joints and frequent joint pain?" you say yes. So then I'm like "Why not try this XXXX natural supplement that I sell, here's the research on it, and if it makes you feel better we can set up a monthly recurring fee and it's delivered to your door on the very same day, you don't have to do anything. If you don't like it, then I'll give you a 100% money back guarantee". You say yes. What's the problem with that? That's how marketing works. Build awareness of pain/problem, show a potential solution, and the customer flips out the wallet and buys.
Employees aren't exploited either so long as they get a fair share for the value that they produce. Most of the "heavy duty" work is carried by the SYSTEM that is created - that's what the entrepreneur works on - not by the individual worker. If you add all the workers together - all their salaries - you get probably what is the biggest single cost for all businesses. You add the raw material costs, and all other associated expenses, and you get the full costs. Where does the profit, the difference between revenue and costs come from? It comes from the system of automated production and the scale achieved by the distribution network setup by the entrepreneur.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Right, that's how I currently am, pretty much, apart from accounting and some legal help.
Quoting Bitter Crank
To own many farms he has to set up the system, nobody will do it for him. Nobody comes to his house and tells him "wouldn't you like to own all these farms kind Sir?"
Quoting Bitter Crank
Depends on what kind of business you want to run. You can certainly opt for the high employee turnover model, where you don't give a damn about the people who work in your business, and every chance you get to screw them over you use to the fullest. The problem with that, apart from the moral issues, is that it doesn't work very well, and it increases your costs. Furthermore, you never entrench yourself as a pillar of your community, and therefore are always disposable - you're always the object around which everyone's anger is likely to focus. People aren't going to go die with you in battle. The first opportunity they get, they will betray you. Now if that's the kind of business you want to build, up to you.
But I think it's wiser to build a business where the people know they can trust you and you can trust them.
That's why internationalism is important. [I]"Workers of the world, unite!"[/I]
Which side are you on?
They say in Harlan County there are no neutrals there.
You'll either be union man or thug for J. H. Blair.§
Which side are you on?
§ Harlan County Kentucky is coal country. J. H. Blair was a County Sheriff in the pocket of union-busting miner-killing coal companies.
Pete Seeger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g
Barry Bragg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbddqXib814
Here we are, seeking out the reds
Trying to keep the communists in order
Just remember when you're sleeping in your beds
They're only two days drive from the texas border
How can a country large as ours
Be scared of such a threat
Well if they won't work for us
They're against us you can bet
They may be sovereign countries
But you folks at home forget
That they all want what we've got
But they don't know it yet
We're making the world safe for capitalism
Here we come with our candy and our guns
And our corporate muscle marches in behind us
For freedom's just another world for nothing left to sell
And if you want narcotics we can get you those as well
We help the multi-nationals
When they cry out protect us
The locals scream and shout a bit
But we don't let that affect us
We're here to lend a helping hand
In case they don't elect us
How dare they buy our products
Yet still they don't respect us
We're making the world safe for capitalism
If you thought the army
Was here protecting people like yourself
I've some news for you
We're here to defend wealth
Away with nuns and bishops
The good lord will help those that help themselves
I've some news for you
We're here to defend wealth
We're making the world safe for capitalism
Quoting Bitter Crank
See? Bitter Crank gets it. Agustino, Thorongil, and Michael need to up their game.
I am not necessarily arguing that they should be paid more than that man, just that they should be paid more than they currently are, and that that man should be paid less than he currently is. What kind of economy would allow for that? A fairer economy.
Good answer.
Maybe it will. Communism isn't off the table.
The talk of shares stemmed from you. I just went along with it. My main point was about forceful redistribution in a broader sense. There would be various ways to go about that. As I've stressed before, I too have no expertise in economics. I would go with what works without sacrificing too much.
I think that you're getting a bit too carried away with yourself here, and that you need to slow down and carefully go back over a few things.
What do you mean, "given that there's now no trading"? Why would that be a given? That wasn't something that I said, so are you suggesting that it's a consequence of something that I've said? I mentioned trade that would not be as free, but I didn't mention anything about no trade at all.
No, I can't guarantee that, and I am willing to consider the middle ground of which you speak.
I share your worry, and I have been reading about political history in the United Kingdom in recent years, so I have some understanding - albeit not enough of an understanding - of those last few sentences of yours. But I haven't given up hope yet, and if I am forced to make some compromises here and there along the way, then so be it. Certainly, I have not discarded the idea of government intervention, in some form or other.
If a more gradual approach would work better, then a more gradual approach is what I would favour. I'm reasonable like that.
And I'm not completely historically ignorant, either. I have read a bit about the so-called great leap forward, for example.
No, not necessarily. It's not even remotely that simple. There's more to quality of life than the gross amount of money we have at our disposal even if we specify that money has exactly the same purchasing power. For example, how are the rich using their money in Sapientia's 1%/99% scenario? Suppose they're using it to create a society of blind consumers just able enough to work and buy their crap? Suppose they have absolute control over the media and politics (which they would considering they own 99% of the wealth) and that they use this to unfairly entrench their power and privilege? Suppose their ultimate aim is to deindividualise the 99% to the point where no-one but them and their progeny are even able to think beyond their current circumstances? It's not impossible to have a dystopia with a solid median income but where the disparities in material wealth are so great that the relative power of those with the lesser share becomes essentially negligible. And as technology advances the means to create such a dystopia become much more accessible to those at the top of the wealth pyramid. To give the 1%, 99% of the wealth would be to give them virtually 100% of the power over which direction society goes in and that would be social and (for the majority) personal suicide.
So, we're not just talking about decontextualised amounts of money here, we're talking about social reality and our place in it. I'd much rather live in a less materialistic, more creative and more democratic society where everyone has a lower average amount of money and doesn't care because they're not blind materially-obsessed consumers than a run-away plutocracy where we have a bit more but that's likely to become intolerably oppressive if not outright dystopian.
Then as I said before, you should speak to the paramedic's employer. Me and my brownie business have nothing to do with how much he gets paid. And I might not actually have a high salary. I just own 50% of a business that owns a number of assets and makes enough of a profit that some investor has valued it at £2,000,000 and chosen to buy the other half of the company with that in mind.
I think it's ridiculous to then decide that because saving lives is more importing than making brownies that ownership of my company should be forcibly redistributed.
I was referring to Rawls' theory. There are other parts to it that include equal rights to vote and run for office, freedom of speech and assembly, etc.
The issue here seems to just be the unequal distribution of wealth. There's nothing in principle wrong with it. Given that in Sap's hypothetical scenario the government has the power and willingness to forcibly redistribute wealth, we're clearly not dealing with a plutocratic dystopia.
Yep, I agree. Sappy and Bitter Crank obviously don't like accumulations of wealth, but they have done precious little to rationally justify this dislike, apart from saying it's oppression, without being able to show how.
I think a progressive tax rate, a decent minimum wage, anti-discrimination rules, and regulations for working conditions, environmental impact, and quality of goods is sufficient intervention.
You're dancing around the issue a bit. What do you think a 1% / 99% society would actually look like and would you be happy to live in it?
But @fdrake already did the legwork in terms of analysis on this and provided you with ample evidence of the negative effects of unequal distributions of wealth.
I think a shift in perspective regarding the ultimate aim of life, like that outlined by Baden, is a necessary component of any compelling critique of your position.
If one assumes that creating optimal conditions for economic development - as manifested in things like entrepreneurial activity/success and overall economic growth - is the sine qua non of a happy life and a happy political community, then IMO advocates of unregulated (or less regulated) capitalism will win the argument since the free market does seem much better than its alternatives at things like allocating resources, maximizing efficiency and productivity, spurring on technological development, etc.
Nevertheless, there do seem to be some serious drawbacks - in addition to those already mentioned - to such an excessive preoccupation with monetary considerations and individual wealth accumulation: the narrowing down of relationships to instrumental ones with literally everything being reduced to the level of exploitable resource; a heightened level of envy and resentment among the masses against the 1% and a reciprocal fear of the the 99% on the part of the extremely wealthy, both of which erode important communal bonds transcending economic relationships; the role of education being entirely subordinated to this larger economic project at the expense of more 'elevated' interpretations of its function within the life of an individual and a community; individuals and groups perceiving each other as competitors rather than collaborators in their single-minded fixation on accumulating wealth; the highest cultural exemplars (which all aspire towards) not being the wisest, the most virtuous, the most noble, the most thoughtful/poetic/philosophical/artistically inspired, but rather the rich and the powerful (e.g. Donald Trump); etc. etc.
Hyperbole aside, this modern consumerist world which capitalism has created is debased in many ways, and that 'big picture' way of looking at it is important. I would also add, however, that forms of socialism or communism which do NOT challenge guiding assumptions concerning essentials aren't much better, other than the fact that they want to divide the pie in a more equitable way, which is a sentiment I can definitely appreciate.
I'm thinking of simple and basic questions like: what characterizes a 'successful' life? what's the proper aim of education beyond the technical training one undertakes to satisfy his or her material needs and, for the more ambitious, their aspirations for significant wealth? etc. I could be wrong about this, but it seems that a major element underlying our consumerist civilization is the widespread agreement, albeit tacit agreement for the most part, regarding the values and assumptions which dictate the way we think and act, the way we direct our energies and abilities.
I didn't articulate that very well, I'm afraid, but the reason I liked Baden's post so much is that he gets right to the heart of the matter about what kind of world he wants to live in and what he considers to be important; and unlike most people he doesn't take it for granted that material success (and what it can buy you) is the most important thing in life. Getting at capitalism at that base level - at the type of life which is held up as exemplary, at the type of human beings it produces, etc. - is precisely where it's most vulnerable IMO to thoughtful analysis.
I'm obviously biased, of course, and not nearly smart enough to become successful - i.e. wealthy and powerful - within this system as it exists. It's not complete hell, as I imagine Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia were, but I do believe that this planet could be much more hospitable than it currently is if we could somehow shift the way we understand ourselves and our world. These self-conceptions have changed historically, and significantly so, and there's no reason to believe they couldn't do so at some point in the future.
So the issue seems just as much (if not more) cultural and philosophical as it is economic. We could stop buying needless shit, we could start spending more time cultivating non-instrumental relationships with others (and 'nature,' however pathetic that sounds), we could start reading and thinking and appreciating things that are currently viewed as non-productive wastes of time since they don't typically provide us with financial payoff, etc.
That's a world I would like future generations to live in since I see it as being vastly superior to the one we inhabit now. Not all will agree with this largely negative assessment, obviously, but I don't think it's too far-fetched to assume that others may eventually come to find life in this world to be unsatisfying in many ways - inhuman and barbaric even.
Kinda like what we have now? From here:
So that's £1,025,984 to £36,810. Remarkably close to my random example.
That would not be true under what I have proposed. The incentive would be a proportionate reward. That would be an incentive for many. It might not be an incentive for a few wrongheaded people who believe that they're entitled to more than that - even as much as 99% - but so be it.
Yes, I’m right with you on this, we’ve got to extrapolate not only from present material circumstances but also political and social dynamics in order to get a clearer view of the bigger picture here. We can already see what happens when the rich leverage their political power to pull more and more resources their way, and that is that the benefits of increased technological and systems knowledge don't filter down into increased living standards for the majority in the proportionate way they should. And when you get to the point where technology is racing ahead at faster levels than ever but living standards are standing still or even reversing then something is seriously wrong. Where have the benefits gone? Why aren’t things getting better for everyone? I’m thinking here of the US in particular which made massive gains in personal, technological and social wealth in the first half of the century largely as a result of technological and, particularly, industrial progress, but which has now become exhibit A in how the rich can use advances, particularly in media, to gain control over a system and game it to their advantage. One simple example of this is the use of brand power which allows companies to distort the market and sell their stuff at an inflated price. Trivial on the surface maybe, but in order to do that, they need to distort us. Hence modern marketing. And when you extrapolate the use of tools like this out to a scenario where the richest 1% have 99% of the resources and consider what the privileged few would need to do to the rest of us and to society as a whole to get there then you begin to envisage the kind of dystopian reality I outlined. Not only that but you may also begin to envisage the opposite, the society we could have if we focused on creating for ourselves the circumstances in which we can flourish not primarily materially but in other ways. Which brings us to the next stage of analysis:
Quoting Erik
Very succinctly put. For example the questions: What is work? What is the goal of work? What is leisure? How does entertainment function? What kind of material goods is it desirable to have? are likely to yield very ideologically loaded answers if asked of most people. And the often superficial focus of conversations concerning political alternatives or the results of political interventions are a symptom of the deeper problem: We don’t even know how to imagine ourselves out of a consumerist lifestyle and we judge alternate proposed scenarios based on the underlying logic of the one we are presently stuck in. A recipe for stasis, for rearranging the deckchairs, or even worse poking more holes in the hull as Agu would seem to want.
Quoting Erik
Exactly, material goods beyond those that provide for basic survival bring quickly diminishing returns in terms of happiness. Opportunities for learning and self-expression in terms of creativity and relationships are much more key. But we’re not focused on that enough. It’s as if we think we’re perpetually in danger of starvation or homelessness when we should have reached a level of technology whereby those concerns can be left behind and we can put our energies in that which is beyond the material.
No. Cite it yourself if need be. I'm certain that you know what I'm referring to. I spoke about balance and proportion, I gave you analogies, and I have given you concrete examples. You just don't recognise as fairness or unfairness what I do, and there's only so much that I can do about that. You can lead a horse to water...
I think that your values are inconsistent, Agustino. Elsewhere, I have seen you praise family values, yet here, you praise the individual in spite of family values. You can't have your cake and eat it. Associating society, or a community, with family values, such as sharing and cooperation, is exemplified in my position, yet diminished in yours. Your position, in contrast, promotes selfishness - an attitude of "Every man for himself!". Instead of each person getting their fair share, the average person must fend for themselves and get what they're given, whilst those few who are able to exploit the system and reap the reward are at liberty to do so.
The top 1% do not yet own 99% of the wealth, which is the hypothetical of the OP. Not even close. It's more like 50%. So the question stands.
Right, and we discussed in what regards he is right and in what regards he isn't. He's not right that if 1% owns 99% of the wealth it's necessarily bad. That 1% of the wealth left may be enough - hypothetically - for the 99% to be able to have a decent life.
If you ignore just about every factor except the purely economic. Use your imagination. Dig a little deeper.
Actually the OP is "Why It's Wrong For [the] 1% To Own As Much As [the] 99%". So they own 50%, not 99%.
Or at least that's how I read it.
Besides, I was addressing your criticism of my claim that "[it's] better for the 1% to have £1,000,000 and the 99% to have £30,000 than for everyone to have £20,000."
By that logic they could own any percent below 99% which would make the conversation pointless. Obey the spirit of the OP!!!
Re your edit: OK, but I did specify (because I realized this did not amount to 1% / 99%) that it was the OP hypothetical I was attacking not so much the status quo. But seriously, that aside, what do you envision it would take to get us to 1% / 99% and would you be happy to live there provided your income was the same as it is now? And what else, if anything, do you think would change?
I'm not an economist/mathematician, so I'm not sure. Is it even possible for the top 1% to own 99% of the wealth?
In practical terms I hope not, but I'm just asking you to look out your hypothetical window and at least imagine the ride there. Do you like what you see?
I feel like you may be being overly conservative with regards to your predictive ability based on knowledge of past and present trends, but I won't badger you.
No, I actually have no clue.
Quoting Sapientia
Yeah, and I asked you what does balance and proportion have to do with this? Why is it that things need to be proportionately distributed, and if they do, what does that mean? Does that mean equal? Maybe some do deserve to get a lot more than others.
Quoting Sapientia
I've just asked you to show me how it is unfair. You're just telling me that it is, you're not giving me any reasons why. You're just stomping your feet that it is. That's dogma, not thinking.
Quoting Sapientia
Families are required to have a successful business. Who will run the business and continue your work after you die?
Quoting Sapientia
What stops your average person from starting a business and being successful? I want CONCRETE answers now, not bullshit 99% of businesses fail. I'm not concerned about that. I want to know why they fail, and hopefully amongst the reasons there will be a few which the average person cannot even access. That hasn't been my experience though.
Wealth, in the relevant sense, is a broad term relating to monetary worth, not what Agustino rigidly defines it to be. It can of course be measured, and it can of course be measured in various ways.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, of course. I didn't compare like for like. But that doesn't matter, because we both know roughly what the results would be if I did, and it wouldn't make much of a difference. So, although I may have compared apples and oranges, you have committed the greater misdeed of making a fuss over nothing.
The questions you ask in the next part of your reply appear ill-considered. Why would the factory need to be shut down, the land sold, and so on? They can either keep what they own, and keep running the business, but play by the rules, or they can give it up, or they can have someone else take it out of their hands. There would be others who are competent enough and willing to take over. Why would you think that I expect the paramedics to run the business, rather than, at least initially, after the redistribution, receive a share of the profits thus far amassed? You seem to just be attacking a straw man.
Quoting Agustino
That would be a waste of time. The chances that my expectations would be wildly mistaken is very slim. And if, despite all of the odds, that turned out to be the case, I would just pick a better example.
Quoting Agustino
No, they don't, but these are just our respective opinions. Yours is no more objective than mine. Perhaps they deserve to take home more than a paramedic - that could be argued, at least. But that they deserve to take home as much as 99% - that is untenable.
Quoting Agustino
The Hinduja family would be proportionately rewarded. The Hinduja family are replaceable. If the Hinduja family were not willing to work under the system I propose, then the Hinduja family would be replaced. This isn't a negotiation.
What actually happened in the discussion was that I left when you started saying statistics can't be applied to individuals. There's no such thing as an income distribution, 1% can't own the money of 99% because they're statistics and don't apply to individuals. The ratio of the minimum wage to big mac index doesn't mean anything for people's lives because statistics can't be applied to individuals. The amount of money lost per year in a country due to tax avoidance doesn't matter because it's a statistic and statistics don't apply to individuals.
I understand it quite well, statistics apply to individuals insofar as they support your arguments, and they do not apply to individuals to the extent that they do not support your arguments.
Money is a fictive commodity though. It only gets its value because we agree, collectively, to give it value and to respect that value in order to facilitate trade with each other. Without money, I would only be able to give you my corn for your wheat and so on so forth.
What is important is the real productive capacities and distribution networks that underly money. That is what real wealth is. And it's not because I define it that way, rather I define it that way because that's what my analysis reveals wealth to be. If you understand that money is fictive - that it gets its value only because we collectively agree to give it value and respect that value for the purpose of trading more easily - then you perceive at once that something isn't valuable because it is worth a lot of money, BUT RATHER it is worth a lot of money BECAUSE it is valuable. So that value is the underlying kernel, the inner essence of money as Karl (or Hegel) would say.
Quoting Sapientia
No, no, it wouldn't make much difference, just of the order of a couple of 1000s :-}
16,000 million vs 30K
50 million vs 30K
Right. No big difference.
Quoting Sapientia
What are the rules?
Quoting Sapientia
Why would it be fair for the paramedics to receive a share of the profits of a business that they do not run and are not involved in? :s - so basically you have these people who do almost 0 for those factories, and yet they get to have a part of the profits... I cannot see how that is fair.
Quoting Sapientia
So if you were mistaken, then in this particular case it would be okay to let them have so much wealth right?
Quoting Sapientia
Everything in society is some sort of negotiation, if we don't negotiate then we're effectively at war. Negotiation prevents conflicts which can lead to a lot more damage. And the wealthy can negotiate as much as the poor for that matter. It seems that you imagine yourself to be somewhat like Putin, walking into town, meeting the billionaire (Oleg Deripaska), and telling him what to do or otherwise...
But even Putin negotiates. When someone runs a business, they know all the ins and outs of it. Every business is different, it's not like anyone else has, at the time, the same expertise that the Hinduja family has in running their business. They know everything about it. So it's stupid to lose their talent and ability at running it on your side.
No, they only apply to individuals in-so-far as you don't know what you're talking about.
Quite frankly, you're not worth my time with this nonsense.
If you cannot see that you're equivocating on two different notions of statistics, that is your problem.
If I take 1 billion people and see that the average life risk of lung cancer is X%, then that doesn't necessarily apply to me as an individual (so long as I don't smoke, I live an active lifestyle, not exposed to radon gas, etc. etc.)
Now if I take a group of products and see how much their price increases on average, then in-so-far as I buy those products, that price increase (or inflation) applies to me and any individuals equally.
There are two different notions of statistics there. In one case, there are underlying causes which lead to lung cancer, which have ZERO to do with your particular statistic, and a lot to do with the individual (whether they smoke like a snake, etc.) . In the other case, the underlying cause leading to your money's devaluation actually is the price increase observed statistically.
Now stop wasting my time.
You're completely forgetting the application of base rates. Also your claim that a phenomenon has to be 'truly random' to have statistics applied to its study is just false. Model fits from experiments in physics follow the same principles as ones which are used to model asset returns and goods prices.
So, for base rates: if you're healthy and don't smoke, your probability of smoking is a downward adjustment from the base rate - but still pretty close to it. P(you get cancer) is proportional to P(you get cancer given base rate)*P(base rate). In a similar manner, P(you commit a crime given that you're in a ghetto) is proportional to P(you live in a ghetto given you commit a crime)*P(crime base rate). I'm not conflating 'different notions of statistics' at all - you're ignorant of how to manipulate probabilities. If you were a mine worker, your probability of lung cancer would be an upwards adjustment of the base rate.
The group of products has a change in price, which is also modelled stochastically (like with a GARCH process for financial assets) when it's modelled at all. Same notion of statistics.
You getting cancer given that you're healthy is (generates, really) exactly the same type of random variable as you getting cancer.
Of course, none of this will be convincing to you, that's why I stepped away.
The way in which aggregate properties of societies constrain individuals is exactly what we're discussing. To say that the statistics don't apply on an individual level is to change the terms of the analysis - committing a pernicious category error.
I hope you surprise me by re-evaluating your position on how statistics are relevant for ascertaining what it's like for people to live in societies.
I never claimed that :s . Either you start representing what I say truthfully, or there's no point discussing.
Quoting fdrake
Yeah, so what?
Quoting fdrake
I don't see what this has to do with anything else. This is just obfuscation. For example:
P(lung cancer | ~smoker ) = P(~smoker | lung cancer) x P(lung cancer) / P(~smoker)
That's true. So what? Of course you can calculate a specific probability that applies to you by and large. But that requires that you analyse the particular features of your own situation, not that you look at what generally happens. There surely might be such a thing as a base rate, or there may just be our lack of knowledge of what causes those things - so we stick a number on it, and that remains the number until whatever causes that thing changes.
Quoting fdrake
No, it doesn't mean it IS that, but it can be modelled as that. That's a big big difference. The map is not the territory. I'm interested to get to know the territory, not approximations on the map.
Yeah I want to flip the tables, since there is free will when it comes to human behaviour, hence why there is moral agency and responsibility for one's actions.
The statistics are part of the map. They're like signposts, signalling and quantifying relationships in the territory.
Quoting Sapientia
I can agree with BC, which I do, without subscribing to the boilerplate Marxism you've been peddling in this thread.
"I believe all these facts limit my agency therefore they are false" - exactly why I stepped away in the first place. You don't actually care about patterns in the territory. Or about the methodological principles which bring them out.
That is only if the territory is random - ie if there is no directly identifiable efficient cause.
No. Physical models are fit to data which are generated deterministically. The parameter fitting process still assumes the data is indistinguishable from random data. Just look at least squares estimation used in the highschool physics experiment to determine F=MA. More generally experimental physicists use B-splines to quantify novel trends, when there isn't a parametric model to fit to the data. All of this applies on the backdrop of measurement imprecision, which is assumed to be random. Hence, while the Higgs Boson was still a fresh discovery at CERN, the media kept reporting the buzzword that it was a '5 sigma result'.
The use of statistics to quantify things and learn about them does not depend on your interpretation of Aristotelian metaphysics. If it is incompatible in your eyes, so much the worse for your personal metaphysics.
Haven't you noticed the boilerplate Marxism I've been peddling?
Yep, like gas molecules so what? In the case of gas, we're interested in what happens to the gas as a whole, not what happens to an individual molecule. That's why we use statistics. If we were interested in what happens to a molecule individually, then we would use F = ma combined with elastic collisions, conservation of kinetic energy and momentum, etc. And we can actually predict this, deterministically, using computer simulations. We could also - given enough computing power - derive the same collective properties of gases out of the individual behaviour of each gas molecule, but why waste so many resources, when we have a shortcut?
Yah, but you keep talking as if you were in the stone ages of business when you put the whip on workers and forced them to work while starving in your factory... Today it's not the same, at least not in the West. That may happen though, unfortunately, in places like China. Business has evolved and changed.
You're saying that statistics only works when the thing it's applied to is random. I gave you a counter-example. Parameter estimation is used to assess the accordance of theoretical prediction of deterministic systems with their experimental behaviour. You're just wrong on this one I'm afraid.
I gave you exactly the same example. The movement of gas molecules is deterministic. But yet we use statistics to assess certain gas properties - why? Because we're interested in the behaviour of the gas as a whole - WHICH CAN BE MODELLED AS RANDOM, although quite evidently it is not random in reality, but merely approximates what we would identify as random behaviour.
"Estimation theory is a branch of statistics that deals with estimating the values of parameters based on measured empirical data that has a random component"
Ok. What's wrong with doing this Aug:
Also:
You literally just skim read the wikipedia article to find the first thing you could say to me that looked like a counterpoint. In order to estimate parameters in a model, a noise term is added which makes the terms treated a random variable. This is why physicists spend so long dealing with measurement error - quantifying random uncertainty from their measurements in deterministic systems.
Well, multiple things. Firstly and most importantly, society is made of individuals. Individuals aren't like gas molecules - they have free will. That doesn't mean their behaviour may not be predictable, but it is still marked by the presence of free will and hence moral responsibility.
Second of all, when we're interested in what's possible for an individual, just like when we're interested in what an individual gas molecule does - we don't use a statistical analysis. We only use a statistical analysis when we're interested in the behaviour of all individuals taken together.
Quoting fdrake
I didn't skim anything, it's the first phrase. And I do understand how statistics are used.
Individuals are far more complicated than gas molecules therefore we can't treat them as random and use their aggregate properties to study their properties as a whole?
No... We're interested in what individuals do, and what things constrain and promote their behaviour. This just goes to show you didn't understand why I brought in conditional probability. Say you're deciding whether to give money to a new start up. If you're savvy you'll know that 90% of business start ups fail. Then you'll see what their business model is, see what their ingoings and outgoings are, evaluated how likely the business is to expand - see what evidence there is that the start up is doing the things that make a business successful, and how long that is likely to continue. If the latter process appears to outweigh the initial high failure rate, if they impress you and provide good evidence that they're a good investment - you'll give them the money. This is placing a bet on what you believe to be good odds: a conditional probability.
Conditional probability gives you an indexing of general societal properties to individual endeavours and contexts. Everyone still has free will. It just so happens that, say, those in areas with higher crime rates tend to choose to commit criminal acts. The underlying reasons for that can be analysed, and individual motivation plays a part. What also plays a part is their context. Think people would stand on the street selling drugs and in the line of fire if they were the child of a rich businessperson ? No, of course you don't.
Probabilistic summaries, properties of aggregates are entirely consistent with the capacity of individuals to make decisions. We've been over this a few times now.
No, since they have free will. You cannot extend your analogy from purely determinisic - actually not even that, but rather fatalistic - molecules to people.
But on the other hand, if you are interested in what happens to society, rather than to individuals, sure.
Quoting fdrake
I don't see it working that way. I will totally ignore that 90% of business start ups fail, and simply ask myself what makes a business successful, if it's the right time for their particular business, if I can do something to make them successful apart from capital and what's the upside vs the downside.
Regarding the last point, clearly, even if something has a 90% chance of success but the potential upside in case of success is 10% return, and if it fails, then -100% return, it would be stupid to invest cause negative expected value.
One of the reasons statistical approaches to gas behaviour works was because it took something incredibly complicated with loads of variables - the individual trajectories of gas molecules; made a few simplifying assumptions like no particle interaction, then derived statistical properties based on the simplification. I don't think it's particularly contentious to say that people and the systems they create through their interaction are far more complex than any gas. This is then an excellent motivation for using statistical summaries to get information about individuals in societies - what promotes and constrains their behaviour.
The simplifications inherent in creating summary statistics are largely either subpopulation based - you estimate a property of a population based on a sample - or inherent to the calculation; like aggregating 'crimes per capita' over a country despite there being local variations in crime rates per capita.
Ignoring base rates about their own business or businesses they like is probably one of the distinguishing features of entrepreneurs and investors. They condition on their own exceptionalness and believe it with great vigour.
So you're quite happy to average over a poorly estimated distribution of an individual's success to calculate an expected return, but as far as betting on whether someone who just committed a crime is a member of a place with high crime rate and a high population or low crime rate with a low population... That's a no go. Riiiiiiight.
False. The paramedic's employer must get additional funds from somewhere. I propose they be taken, in part, from your brownie business.
Quoting Michael
You might not actually have a high salary. That is possible, I suppose. Still, I do not care. Wherever there is the money, and wherever it is excessive, that's where it will be taken from. That might effect your salary or that might effect some other part of your business.
Quoting Michael
I don't care whether you think it ridiculous. It's called justice.
Yeah, because the paramedic's employer certainly deserves the benefits of Mike's brownie business, he did a lot of work for it >:)
I don't think that's how it works. Rather we realised that what we're interested in isn't the motion of any one particular gas particle, but rather what the gas as a whole - all the particles - can do. So we didn't bother with all the extensive calculations, and found a simple way to approximate it. It goes back to the question of what are you interested in. That determines the tools and approach you'll take when solving the problem.
Quoting fdrake
That is certainly true if you conceive of individuals in a fatalistic manner, and ignore the role free will plays. I may be born in a ghetto and still refuse to resort to stealing due to my moral values even if 99% of others in the ghetto steal. So the stats don't determine or influence what I choose to do, my moral character, as it is shaped by my free choices, determines that.
You'll now ask why do the ghetto folks commit more crime statistically than the non-ghetto folk. Well, probably because the ghetto folk encounter temptation more than the non-ghetto folk. If the non-ghetto folk encountered temptation too, most of them, lacking character, may resort to stealing too. That's probably true. So the solution to that is first of all improving people's moral condition, and secondly preventing that extreme level of deprivation, which has nothing to do with whether 1% own 99% or whatever. It has to do with whether the 99% have enough to meet basic needs.
Quoting fdrake
It's because entrepreneurs work themselves in the business, so they know that they can do what it takes to make it successful. An investor doesn't work directly in the business, though they may provide advice, so they don't know whether the founder will actually do what it takes or knows what he has to do, or understands his industry well enough. So they need to factor their lack of knowledge in, that's why they resort to using stats. The entrepreneur doesn't have a lack of knowledge - he generally knows, quite well.
Quoting fdrake
That's an essential feature of successful entrepreneurs.
Quoting fdrake
No, of course, I'm going to bet on him coming from the place with high crime rate and high population vs the low crime rate and low population one. But that's because I don't have knowledge - it's my own ignorance of what is actually the case that forces me to resort to using statistics. If I actually knew what was the case, I wouldn't bother with stats. But I need to take a decision in the absence of knowledge - so then I'm concerned with stats and forms of hedging my risks.
The issue here is disproportionate distribution of wealth. (I doubt anyone here is advocating that a hierarchical pay structure be scrapped). And there [i]is[/I] something in principle wrong with that. It violates a most ethical principle of fairness.
Quoting Michael
Bear in mind that that government would be [i]a reaction to[/I] what some might, with some element of truth, characterise as a plutocratic dystopia.
You still have to say how it does that, apart from saying it's unbalanced without explaining why imbalance is bad. You also have to define what a proportionate or fair distribution is in the first place. Or do we just have to go with Sappy's gut feeling? >:)
And for the umpteenth time, if you don't recognise it as unfair, then there's only so much that I can do. Stop looking outside of yourself for the answer. Gut feeling, conscience... call it what you will: it comes into play of necessity.
And do you propose to interview every member of a society in order to analyse its aggregate properties?
No, because I don't have enough time, and good enough results can be achieved by other means. But understanding what those means are involves understanding the root of the problem. In this case, the root is moral - so the moral aspect has to be addressed first.
Quoting Sapientia
Sorry, but I honestly do fail to see your reasons. To me it seems like a dogma.
Do you see a role for statistics in finding problem areas in the organisation of a society that contribute to people making immoral decisions?
Hmmm let me rephrase. I do see a role for statistics in illustrating what situations may act as temptations for immoral behaviour, however not contributing to that immorality.
Morality is a matter of the heart, even the nice non-ghetto folk who don't steal may not be moral in their hearts - they simply do not meet the required temptations for their immorality to show itself. But that in itself isn't being moral. A sort of hypocrisy.
Now we probably agree in practice if not in principle. However you're still going to be hostile to the ideas that inequality and poverty contribute to these temptations and their relationship can be understood statistically, I bet.
Also, say there's an intervention in a community with the aim of making it have less crime. Some kind of moral education initiative, would you say the success of the initiative could be measured by how the crime rate per capita behaves over the next few years? Also whether and how many of those people who were instructed in the initiative committed crimes?
It's not dogma. It's just that at some point you hit upon a foundation. We each have our foundations. You're no different to me in that regard. The problem is that I recognise a foundation when I see it, and act accordingly, whereas you keep pressing.
Yes, obviously poverty and inequality can be temptations for immoral behaviour. That's what statistics show. But that kind of inequality has nothing to do with 1% owning 99% and the others owning just 1%. It has to do with whether the 99% have their basic needs met.
Quoting fdrake
Yes, obviously.
Quoting fdrake
More or less, however, you have to be careful as people always have free will, so it's impossible to get everyone to be moral.
I don't think it's a foundation cause it's not a basic idea, we can go beyond that and ask why it is wrong? And we have to reach some notion of harm, or to show how each doesn't get what they deserve (so first we'd need to determine what each SHOULD get, and then see if they do or don't). That would be the basic idea.
So what should the entrepreneur get? What should his wage, if he is responsible for starting massive industrial production, be? And what should the paramedic's wage be? If the entrepreneur, through his efforts, earns 1,000,000x the paramedic's earnings, is that a problem so long as the paramedic can meet all his basic needs with what he gets?
We don't disagree about what fairness is - fairness is each getting what they deserve. We disagree what each deserves, but fortunately, that's something that can be calculated mathematically and determined scientifically.
Well yeah, the ratio of crime rates of those subject to the intervention and the per capita rate in the general community excluding the people subject to the intervention is a good statistic for that. Doesn't need 100% success rate to be a good thing, nor to be shown to be a good thing.
I think this is a relevant difference. There are different statistics to measure these things. The overall level of inequality in terms of wealth possession is something that could be decreased through wealth redistribution measures, and funded in a variety of ways (in the UK and US actually enforcing its fucking tax laws on multinationals would go a long way, not that there are enough staff to do it in the UK for some reason :(). So this is the kind of inequality that would be measured by the 99% and 1% sharing equal amounts of money.
Another way, somewhat maxi-min inspired, of measuring inequality would be a survey of expenditures of those within the lowest 5%, then the proportion of their total income which would be devoted to necessities. Another way of finding this threshold would be to construct a budget from local prices for housing, food, electricity etc then looking at communities in these areas which would struggle to obtain these things on average.
I'm of the opinion that the latter measure, and measures inspired by ratios of living expenses (or minimal living expenses) to incomes more generally, are much more sensitive to deprivation, and provide metrics for evaluating improvement in targeted communities. A very high proportion of total income spent solely on basic sustenance on average would make a community a good candidate for intervention. Targeting the worst off areas to incentivise investment in small businesses there (tax incentives without their abuse), providing community education, organising community policing from those within the community and neighbourhood watches and doing whatever can be done to increase the healthcare of those in the areas (like needle banks in areas with heroin problems).
The stats will tell you where those target areas for intervention are. They'll also give you feedback on policy effectiveness, at the same time as personal interviews (payed, of course) with those who engage and do not engage with the intervention measures.
It's ridiculous that you think this is justice.
Why are you even asking me that? What if I don't want to start a business? What if I want to become a paramedic? I'm arguing for decent wages for decent jobs, and an end to excessive wages which don't truly reflect contribution. I don't care how many brownies you make, put things into perspective. We can live without brownies, but paramedics play a vital role in society.
And decent wages for decent jobs doesn't mean that a decent job should have an income which is 1% of what it could be. If that same job could have an income, say, 20% more than what it does, but the reason that it doesn't is because wealth is disproportionately concentrated elsewhere, without justification, then, when put into perspective, that's hardly a decent wage.
:-d
Of course I am aware that industry and business has changed. Only 9% of American workers labor in factories. Larger percentages work in transportation, warehousing, wholesale, and retail of physical products. Service work employs the bulk of the remainder in a wide variety of fields, everything from bio-molecular research to fabric design to night watchmen. You are a service worker, albeit self-employed. There are also a large number of people engaged in entrepreneurial work, mostly providing one kind of service or another.
The nature of business, however, has not changed since the stone age. Whether a product is being made or a service being performed, the object is to add value through labor (in your case, typing furiously away on your computer). When hired help perform service labor, the value they receive in pay for their work must be considerably exceeded by the value of the services sold. If it isn't considerably exceeded, then either no profit is produced, or not enough profit is produced to satisfy the desires of the proprietor. So whether one is talking about workers in an early 19th century cotton mill or workers writing code for a killer iPhone app, it's pretty much all the same.
Your POV of business is from the proprietors' side. My POV is from the workers side. I could enthuse about the glories of free enterprise from your POV, but you are already doing that. NO NEED further adulation.
The situation of labor--excluding elite laborers in academic institutions, industrial research, civil service, the arts, entertainment, and such--is not great. I'll speak only for the US situation. Here there has been a continual slide of income and purchasing power since the 1970s. It has gradual, rather than precipitous. The "good times" of the post-WWII economic boom ended in the 1970s, It isn't that people were suddenly reduced to begging on the streets, such as happened in the Great Depression. Rather, the average worker's standard of living has been ratcheted down, notch by notch.
The reason people have not experienced worse consequences is that workers have greatly increased the number of hours worked. First spouses (e.g., women) started working part-time jobs to supplement household income. Then these spouses started looking for full time jobs. The previous full-time male started adding small part-time jobs. sometimes older children also started taking jobs (like 15-17 year olds)--and not stuff like mowing lawns.
The increased labor helped a great deal. Another approach that households have used to hold on to the standard of living that they previously had, or if younger--think they should have--is credit card debt. Buy it now! Don't save up for some decent furniture; the replacement car; the replacement or new whatever -- buy it on credit. This works quite well, as long as one limits credit use and pays it off as quickly as possible. That's not usually what happens.
Home equity loans are another approach that many workers have employed to hold on to what they felt to be reasonable expectation. Their house needed work (normal wear and tear, added children, relatives moving in, etc.). The quickest and supposedly least risky way to obtain the funds was through a home equity loan: You have, say, $40,000 in equity. You might borrow $30,000 against that. It's essentially a second mortgage. What often happens is that some of the money is spent on repairs (new roof, kitchen replacement) and then credit card debt is paid down. However, the kitchen product didn't get finished, and credit card debt starts recurring. Plus, there is the second mortgage to pay on.
At this point, any slippage in standard of living is likely to be permanent, because the options to stave it off have been used. All this has been going on since the 40+ year decline in income and living starts started. A substantial share of the working class has now been economically dried out. They don't have any more.
Some people, in the upper portion of the working class--the people who call themselves middle class--have had to do the same thing, except that their incomes are higher and generally they have not been drained of economic resources.
The uppermost portions of the working class, the actual petite and haute bourgeoisie, and the super rich have, of course, not experienced any losses at all. They have benefitted from the economic policies since the Reagan administration (1980-1988) and following that were intended to benefit them. People like you (not you, personally, of course) take well off people as the standard model, who if they need to work are often quite industrious, and say to the working class: "Well, if you were industrious, you too could be well off! All that you have to do is get off your fat asses and get to work."
Yeah, because the rest of society ought to fail to reach its true potential because of Mike's selfishness in relation to his brownie business. Mike ought to learn to share for the benefit of society. What would Jesus do?
As such, without X societal conditions, Y entrepreneurial project cannot materialize. Therefore, profits coming from such projects were not generated solely by Z entrepreneur, not even mostly by him, and he doesn't deserve most of the profits.
As others have mentioned, Z is replaceable in regards to whether Y materializes or not. X isn't.
But most Z don't believe this. They believe they come out of vacuum, that they deserve most of the wealth being produced by Y, never taking into account that without education and nurturing provided by society, they wouldn't be Z at all.
I think what Sapientia is saying is that society should, justly, get more of the wealth produced by Ys.
As to what's wrong if 1% of people own 99% of the wealth, Baden and Erik already spoke beautifully on the topic.
What is there not to like about Coke and Pepsi? Nothing. Actually, 50% of hard core Stalinists prefer Pepsi, and the other 50% prefer Coke
How could one criticize these inexpensive universally loved products which people individually choose to buy and drink? Who wouldn't like to buy the world a coke? It's the real thing! So buy it, asshole.
First, soft drinks, without regard to the brand or the maker, are expensive forms of nutrition-free beverages. The drinks are high in sugar, contain caffeine, a mildly addicting alkaloid, or are sugar free but contain artificial sweeteners which have zero positive function in the body.
Second, they are environmental unsound. It isn't so much the syrup (which is a combination of cola nut extract, fruit juices, and some other unknown stuff). It's the environmental costs of petrochemicals and aluminum used to contain the product. There is also the cost of shipping and cooling the nutritionally useless product. (It isn't even as good as plain water.)
Speaking of water, in India Coke and Pepsi are drawing down critical aquifer to make their products. They also draw down aquifers containing unusually good water to sell as... water. How much does Pepsi and Coke pay for the water diverted from normal human usage to abnormal "bottled water" usage? Nothing.
Coke, Pepsi, Fanta, Royal Crown, 7UP, and every other bottled drink company externalize the cost of the 200 billion cans per year. 2% of the world's energy is used in mining and refining aluminum, the highest energy cost for any metal. The energy needed to make 4 aluminum cans is about the same amount of energy in a 12 oz can of gasoline.
About 93,250,000 cans have been recycled so far this year. 93.5 million vs. 200 billion made and wasted.
17,000,000 barrels of oil 535,500,000 gallons per year go into making plastic bottles. 190,000 homes could be heated with the the energy needed to make a years worth of plastic bottles. Last year the average American used 167 disposable water bottles, but only recycled 38.
Bottled water is not more healthful than typical tap water in Europe, OZ, NZ, and North America (and some other countries, as well).
Coke gives life? Not really.
Yes, and it seems like it's almost patriotic to drink it in the U.S. That's how deep the rot is. Whereas makers of this kind of semi-toxic crap actually should be ostracized, their product labelled as dangerous to health, advertising banned and heavy taxes put on it to pay to clean up the environmental mess it contributes to. These are the kind of practical steps I'd like to see taking place now.
Hopefully we aren't looking to Jesus to provide economic models.
Quoting Sapientia
The concern is that redistributing the wealth of successful businesses is going to screw up the market's valuation. We can say that Lebron James (famous basketball player) shouldn't make more than X amount that a school teacher does. Alright, but then what happens to the market as a result of setting that proportional value which has nothing to do with what value the market would set? You're going to be sending weird pricing signals to consumers and producers.
I don't think justice applies here. It's a balancing act of wanting a fair society where a small number can't dominate politics and marketing, while still wanting the economy to work well enough.
Now that we are in a global capitalist system, the cycle seems to be happening again. Can we somehow defuse the situation, or are we going to have to grab the pitch forks?
We have a system of laws that regulate the market in a certain way. So I'll just put a few (value-laden?) questions out there along which lines people can think and why to me, the current setup is not fair and probably not sustainable in the long run.
Who here thinks that tax policy and laws, liability laws, bankruptcy laws, financial laws and anti-trust laws have not been heavily influenced this century by corporations with the purpose of minimizing the effects of those regulations to their bottom line?
In the case of taxes, given the costs of running a government, where do the funds come from if not a fair part from capital gains taxes?
In the case of liability laws, if damages exceed the capital of a corporation, who pays for them?
In the case of bankruptcy laws, if debt exceeds the capital of a corporation, who bears the consequence?
in the case of financial laws, who bears the costs when banks invest with other people's money while their algorithm cannot take every conceivable risk into account and those risks realise themselves?
In the case of anti-trust laws, who bears the costs if capital is further concentrated (with the subsequent possibility to exercise more power)?
Who here thinks such influence has decreased rather than increased over time, or, has it remained relatively the same?
Who here thinks it is as easy for mortal natural persons with rather disparate dreams, motives, intelligence and interest to organise themselves in the same manner as immortal corporations can, who, at a bare minimum share the motive to make profits?
The questions I think we should be asking ourselves are, for starters (and therefore non-exhaustive):
What is a fair level of taxation for labour vs. capital? Are current levels fair or an expression of power (through cash)?
I'd argue that we should introduce a land tax (to the extent countries don't have them) and increase taxes on capital gains and profit to the extent that they are more or less equal to the taxes typical wage labourers pay. I mean really, if corporations want to be "persons" so badly, they should be treated like them.
What is a fair distribution of power (the ability to make decisions), risks and benefits? It is often argued "capital" takes the most risk but is this really so? Capital already has power to make decisions and as such it "risks" what it can influence. Its risks are mitigated further by limited liability and bankruptcy laws. Any debt and damages exceeding capital of a corporation are paid for by the wider community, whereas the wider community has zero power in whatever decisions "capital" took that led to bankruptcy or liability. It's not clear why this is fair. Meanwhile, a labourer risks his livelihood and in a debt-fueled economy tends to risk his house, car and whatnot, that haven't been fully paid off yet. The labourer opting to work for company A instead of B takes a risk that management aren't a bunch of nitwits and that's assuming he has a choice where to work to begin with.
Ideally, I'd see a repeal of limited liability if possible and an introduction of personal liability for shareholders. We can immediately set fire to all IFRS and GAAP rules as the standard of reporting will be set by shareholders who now have a vested interest in being properly informed and in a manner that meets their specific requirements. I suspect insurance companies will be willing to offer a new insurance to cover the risks for these shareholders. Obviously, the costs of doing business will increase but it buys us fairness - and principles cost money. Sorry.
I meant that we disagree over what, more precisely, constitutes fairness - which, like you say, relates to what each deserves. That's where we hit upon a foundation, or at least come very close. (And I hope that you're not trying to contrast your position from mine by suggesting that I would not likewise utilise mathematics to determine fair pay - although I'm not sure what role you imagine that science could play here).
Now, given that I've already addressed - although perhaps not answered to your satisfaction - the issues that you raise here, do you have any productive questions to ask or points to raise? I told you that I'm not an expert, that I'm not best equipped to give you the finer details which you seek, that I can only give you a rough outline, and that I don't think that it's necessary to go into every little detail or present a fully formed plan in order to discuss and debate the essentials.
What I can do is, as I've explained, point to examples, like those that I've already given, which, in my view, indicate excess or undervaluation, and explain as much as I'm capable of explaining why that's the way that I see it. I've already done this to some extent, so I suggest you start there and think about any issues you have with what I've said thus far which have not been covered or which don't lead to a dead end.
To answer your question about whether it's a problem that an entrepreneur, through his efforts - and, I would add, of necessity, the efforts of countless others (something which should not be glossed over) - should get (not "earn", which would be begging the question) a million times what the paramedic gets, provided that the paramedic can meet all his basic needs with what he gets: yes, it's a problem, and a problem which strikes me as obvious. The problem would be that, in my assessment - which I think is the right assessment - the entrepreneur doesn't deserve to get that much, because he has not earned that amount for himself, but has instead earned some lesser proportion for himself, and the remainder has been earned for the progression of society, so that it might be spent on things like public services, infrastructure, or alleviating underpay.
Well, I'm saying that so far you haven't used mathematics and science to determine what fairness is in this economic context. The reason for that is that you have not even explained what, economically speaking, constitutes value, and how fairness is to be calculated or arrived at. So you're effectively engaged, at the moment, in a non-scientific polemic. You haven't shown a mathematical way to determine how much X should get paid, and how this should relate to his activity.
Quoting Sapientia
My productive question is that I'd like you to clarify for yourself and for the rest of us how fairness can be mathematically assessed by laying down a framework for determining what each person should get paid based on the value they provide.
Quoting Sapientia
Right, an outline is what I'm looking for. It would also be useful if you analyse a particular case to show how it would work.
Quoting Sapientia
How have you determined this? That's the science and mathematics I'm interested in. Otherwise, it's just a polemic.
So let's go to the very basics. Economics deals with the production and distribution of value through a society. Money is merely a means to quantify and trade that value within society, but, like all approximations, it is not perfect, since not everything can be quantified (easily) in money.
Let's take a very easy example. Suppose I spend 2 hours setting up a Google Adwords campaign for a client, which helps him earn $10,000 in net profit. What value did my work/services bring to society in that case - well it depends on what goods I've sold, and a whole host of other factors - but let's take a first approximation for the sake of calculation and say that this value corresponds to the increase in net sales. Would it be fair for me to get paid $1000 (10%) in that exchange for 2 hours worth of work?
Another example. Suppose I am an engineer and independent contractor working on ship engines. I specialise in a particularly new class of ships that many world transportation companies are acquiring. There are very few people who specialise in this ship. Something goes wrong in one of those ships, and it no longer functions to transport the goods. My client moves $6,000,000 worth of goods each day using that ship (maybe those are much needed medicines, which save lives). So if he doesn't get me to fix it, then he (and all of society which depends on those goods) will lose $6,000,000/day. Is it fair that I am paid $600,000 for 10 hours of work?
Please remember through this discussions that money is nothing but a way to quantify the value of certain goods/services for society.
Take another case. Suppose I am a paramedic saving 5 lives a week. That's 260 lives per year. What's the value of 1 life to society? Well, the average value that person can produce or distribute. Say that's 30K/year*20 years left on average (most people saved being older, and 30K being the average income of those saved). 600K. So 10% of that value? 5%? 30-60K\year seems fair given the value they provide.
To generalise. It seems that economic fairness consists in person X producing or distributing value to society, and being paid a small portion of that value, the rest going to the well-being of society. Correct? So unfairness would come from person X appropriating too great of a percentage from the portion of value he provides to the economy.
Value is usually quantified in money, and in the first 2 examples I've given above (all which are realistic examples, by the way), it is relatively easy to quantify the value in financial terms. But there are other, non-financial terms too. For example, do the goods produced/distributed cause hidden costs to society that aren't usually taken into account - health, environmental, etc. So it's a bit more complicated. Those hidden costs can also be calculated in money - if we screw up the environment, we need to spend money and resources to fix it and avoid worse consequences, etc. etc.
To increase fairness it seems we have two problems.
1) We have to be able to quantify this value more accurately in financial terms, even for things that are non-financial in nature (saving lives). There's also things like the preservation of life, such as in the case of old people, who are not DIRECTLY productive anymore (maybe they can be productive through their wisdom though). How much of our society's resources should be devoted to preserving or saving the lives of those people? By increasing resources, we can save more and more lives, but there obviously will be a break-even point - at some point, allocating more resources to this will have negative effects, since we won't have anymore resources for other things we do need.
2) How many resources should be allocated to people who simply cannot be productive (to each according to his need part)? And how should we incorporate this together with (1)? This refers to people with illnesses, etc.
There are a lot more details, but basically, do you agree or follow the ideas above so far?
You haven't yet explained how science could be applied to that end, despite my specifically raising that issue in my last reply - although perhaps you do so later on. (I haven't gotten that far yet). And I have explained why I haven't gone into that detail. I don't understand why you think that that's necessary. It would be necessary if it was down to us to implement what I've been outlining, but that's not the case. This is just a presentation of an idea to work on. I'm not going to delve too deeply into numbers. You're not going to get precision. What I can tell you is that, for example, £615,000-per-week for being a professional footballer is too much, and part of that amount should be redistributed. Why do you need a number? £300,000-per-week, 60%-per-week, it doesn't matter for the purpose of this discussion. It's just for arguments sake. Can't you use your imagination?
Quoting Agustino
That's not productive for the reasons that I've given. I think you expect too much of me. If you hire me an expert to come up with something like that, then I'll get back to you. Otherwise you'll have to make do.
Quoting Agustino
Based on the job role and what that job role should earn. If professional football is not as valuable as the emergency services, as I would maintain, then why doesn't the pay reflect that? It doesn't do so because that's just how it works out under the current economic model. Surely that can and should change.
Do you really need to ask why I think that professional football is not as valuable as the emergency services? You've played down the role of paramedics. Are you going to do that across the board? Surgeons? Firefighters? Police? Are you going to put professional footballers on a pedestal?
Quoting Agustino
It is, according to Marx's analysis in [I]Das Kapital[/I] - [I]which I know nothing about, having never read the book[/I] - the universal mirror or equivalent that keeps company with all other ordinary commodities. It is in fact no more than a commodity itself, because it is a representation of the exchange value of the ordinary commodity. It is both the means of exchange and the measure of value. But it is not the same as an ordinary commodity, because it is primarily considered in light of its exchange value rather than its use value, or, put differently, in light of its quantitative dimension rather than its qualitative dimension. And:
[quote=Marx, Das Kapital]As use values, commodities are, above all, of different qualities, but as exchange values they are merely different quantities, and consequently do not contain an atom of use value.
[...]
The exchange of commodities is evidently an act characterised by a total abstraction from use value.[/quote]
Quoting Agustino
Yeah, and that describes the current state of affairs.
Quoting Agustino
Yes, the gist of it at least. These are the finer details that can be worked on and a resolution found.
[I]"Marxism is finished. It might conceivably have had some relevance to a world of factories and food riots, coal miners and chimney sweeps, widespread misery and massed working classes. But it certainly has no bearing on the increasingly classless, socially mobile, postindustrial Western societies of the present. It is the creed of those who are too stubborn, fearful or deluded to accept that the world has changed for good, in both senses of the term".[/I]
Right? Wrong. (That's covered in the first chapter).
A factory employing 500 workers turns out 100 cars a day. The cars market value is $8,000 each, or $800,000. How much should each factory worker be paid, per day? $1,600? No.
Costs must be deducted from the expected income from the 100 cars.
- the cost of obtaining the daily supply of raw materials and parts (steel, aluminum, rubber, plastic, copper, upholstery, engines, glass, motors, fans, pumps, fasteners, etc. or 20% of retail) approximately $160,000
- the cost of daily operating the factory (electricity, water, gas, etc.) approximately $5,000 (a guess)
- preparing for the cost of replacing worn out tools and plant (approximately 1%) $8,000
- contributions to the cost of operating society (roads, railroads, schools, hospitals, services, etc. 20% of expected income) $160,000
- cash reserve to pay for supplies, unexpected or unbudgeted costs (accidents, supply price spikes, income shortfalls, cash purchases; 5%) $40,000
Without having to earn a profit for stockholders or highly paid executives, workers in this factory would earn $106.76 per hour. $427,000 after expenses / (500 workers x 8 hours) = $106.75 per hour. This is substantially less than many lawyers, consultants, and certainly highly paid executives get now, but it is also substantially more than many workers now get paid. Further, 20% of the factory income goes to what would normally be covered by taxes.
Over the course of 250 days, the workers would have produced $200,000,000 worth of goods (at retail) and contributed about $40,000,000 to social needs. Two million would have been set aside at the end of the year for repair and maintenance of plant and equipment. $10,000,000 would have been set aside for unexpected expenses (like storm damage, increase in raw materials, decrease in income, etc.
These figures can be adjusted, of course. The factory can make more cars, raise the price, cut their own wages, or find and use cheaper materials. The point is, without profit and the overhead of parasite classes, the workers would be taking home over 1/2 of the income the plant produced, and there would be no parasites getting money for nothing.
The workers deserve this because they are bearing the risk of failure. Maybe too few of their cars are sold, or aluminum and rubber become much more expensive.
Of course, in a rational, ecologically sensitive economy, personal autos would be obsolete--replaced by other kinds of transportation. But some kind of transportation would still be needed (unless we had to walk everywhere, then shoes would be the thing).
You have apparently not heard of the working poor in the United States. A "living wage" is reckoned to be... around $16 per hour. $16 was cited 17 years ago, it would certainly need to be higher now. Many workers earn less than the "living wage" (from which one can support children adequately, supply food, clothing, housing, and perhaps medical care). It probably isn't quite enough to support a spouse too, so $20 would be closer to the living wage for a married family of 4 people. 16 an hour about $33,600 a year. The average income is $48,000. The MEDIAN income about $44,000. So, a lot of people--50%--are below the median wage. Quite a few are below the "living wage" (which is somewhat higher than the poverty level).
16 per hour is less than it seems, because it doesn't include the cost of dentistry, transportation for two adults, various school costs (above and beyond free tuition for K-12), or any kind of disaster recovery costs (like when the furnace breaks down) and various other costs. Obviously both parents will have to work. If they both work, their very young children will need day care and pre-school, which for 2 children in a good program (not elite, just solid) can cost nearly as much as one parent makes.
American workers are either poor, or they are working hard for wages too low to support a family reasonably well.
So, FYI, the stone ages aren't over.
Yes, I have noticed that. And that's a very good question to which I do not know the answer. I hope that it's the former, but my hope is not enough. Clearly some kind of action would need to be taken. As Marx said, the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.
Yes, whatever you do, buy a new one! Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches.
Not quite, but countless people - including Agustino, to whom my reply was directed - would claim to seek the ethical foundation for their thinking from the teachings of Jesus, and would claim that the teachings of Jesus are of the utmost importance.
Quoting Marchesk
Yes, that's a concern. But I reckon that it can be made to work, albeit perhaps with some comprises here and there. I haven't reason enough to conclude that it cannot be made to work.
Because you need to show that you have a framework that can scientifically and mathematically determine how X needs to be rewarded, otherwise how will you determine it? By your gut feeling & prejudice?
Quoting Sapientia
I don't see why that's too much for the professional footballer. You've done no analysis of the value he provides in the economy, so...
This is what an analysis looks like:
Quoting Agustino
So I want you to think about the value that footballer produces - for his employers, for the spectators, etc. I want you to consider the number of people affected by his work too.
Quoting Sapientia
I haven't played it down, I've assessed how much value they provide individually.
Quoting Sapientia
Who said he's not as valuable? Have you done any analysis of his impact to determine that? :s
Quoting Sapientia
Right - money is only valuable qua commodity because of the value we agree to accord to it in governing our economic transactions.
Quoting Sapientia
Ok, so if you agree, then I presume that you're fine with doing this analysis for a footballer, or for any particular case you think is unfair, to determine their value right? Then from that we can see if they are earning a fair amount or not.
Quoting Sapientia
Marx may have been right, but in a different way than you think.
Well right, no - of course not, because, to begin with, not every worker adds as much value as the next.
Quoting Bitter Crank
What about costs with marketing and advertising, probably the single most important aspect of business?
Quoting Bitter Crank
So the cars sell by themselves right? :s
The way this works is that one person - whoever their leader happens to be - will need to go around and build relationships - with car dealerships, with governments, etc. - he will need to close big value contracts for them. Maybe 80% of the revenue will come from 10% of the contracts. Without his intelligence and leadership, the workers may produce value, but they cannot distribute it to society.
How much should this person get paid?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Well, too few of their cars will certainly be sold if all they bother to do is produce them :s ...
I don't need to do that. Someone with greater expertise can do that. And I don't need to rely on gut feeling and prejudice. Anyone with common sense can, from observation, rightly conclude that a building has collapsed. But you'd need an expert to assess with due precision what exactly caused the building to collapse. Are you suggesting that you do not possess this common sense?
Quoting Agustino
Then you must think that he has earned that amount. How is that possible? It's only possible within a selfish and greedy framework. That is a framework that clashes with the teachings of Jesus. You yourself mention John 2:15.
[quote=John 2:15]And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.[/quote]
Or do you abide by a different teaching?
[quote=Trump 2:15]And making a whip of cords, he stood back and did nothing. They all remained in the temple, with the sheep and oxen. The coins remained in the money-changers and the tables stayed exactly where they were. Business carried on as usual,
with no disturbances.[/quote]
Quoting Agustino
I have thought about that. Here are my thoughts: a footballer is considered valuable insofar as you enjoy watching, or making money out of, men or women playing a game which involves kicking around a ball on a field whilst lots of people stare at this on a screen or in the stands and moronically cheer, jeer, chant, and gesticulate. This is nowhere near as valuable as protecting the public and saving lives.
No, I am simply suggesting that deciding how much value someone has provided isn't a matter of common sense, it's something that has to be carefully analysed to determine.
Quoting Sapientia
Why is it only possible in a selfish and greedy framework? There are millions of people who want to watch him play and who love him.
Right, well I am against private banking pretty much anyway. Providing money at super high-interest rates isn't providing value to anyone.
And yes, obviously the house of God shouldn't be a place where commerce takes place.
Quoting Sapientia
It's not as simple as that. If you don't give those idiots you mention something to watch - games - circus as the Romans said, then they will cause problems through society. Romans invented the notion of bread and circus to control the masses, and they were right. If those people don't have that outlet, they will cause other, much more serious damage to society. Indeed, if we close such outlets, we will lose a lot more lives than we save by increasing pay to paramedics.
Because he's rich. People who are rich and successful are often despised by those who are jealous of them and their success.
Maybe while those who despised him spent their time drinking in a pub, he was working. I listened to an interview with him once where they described his work schedule, and it was quite tough - most people don't allocate that much time to business.
So, if it is Worset's intent to have everyone get paid equally, then he is arguing for the paramedic to make less than half of what he is making now in order for the rich to be just as poor as the paramedic.
If Worset is arguing for the paramedic to get paid more than he already is, which is already more than twice the amount they should get if everything were divided equally, which means that the paramedic's salary is already making someone else poorer as it stands right now, then raising the salary of the paramedic will just make the poorer more poor, as that raise has to come from somewhere, which Worset will probably argue that it should come out of the rich man's pockets, then what about those jobs that the rich man has created in his business, which will be eliminated, thereby hurting the poor even more?
As usual, the "good" intentions of liberals end up being not so good when you actually think about the consequences of their ideas.
>:O
Let me fix it:
Workers on an assembly line generally get paid without respect to the value of the part they are adding. They are all doing essentially the same task.
Quoting Agustino
I left out the post-production expenses to keep it simple. In a socialist economy, marketing and advertising are less important. but certainly, there are costs -- no matter what -- between the car leaving the factory and the car being driven away by a new owner. If nothing else, transportation and warehousing, and finally, displaying.
Where production for need, rather than production for profit prevails, whipping up enthusiasm for new cars, new can openers, new whatever, would not be practiced. Advertising is critical to consumer capitalism, because it takes effort to keep people on the consumption treadmill.
Quoting Agustino
Products for which there is a clear need do not require a lot of sales efforts. Medicine doesn't need advertising. Information about efficacy and deficiencies are the main thing. Similarly, where cars are manufactured for need, (limited because was transit should replace individual autos in dense population areas) sales don't need to be whipped up.
[quote Agustino:126709]How much should this person get paid?[/quote]
I would imagine distribution would be handled by a work group much like the one that made the cars in the first place. Distribution and sale completion are important, but in a socialist economy, maximizing sales isn't the point, so the rewards for this work group would be determined by the work group themselves.
There would not be people much more highly paid than anyone else.
Quoting Agustino
Sure, but assembly line workers are not all that is required to run the factory.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Why?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Sure, but you still have to let people know "Yo, we have a new car here guys". You still need to secure big contracts with other businesses, etc.
Quoting Bitter Crank
:s - I think this is a huge mistake. From my experience, no product, no matter how good it is and how needed it is can do without sales effort. Sales effort is the ABSOLUTE key ingredient in business, without this even the greatest product will fail. Most businesses fail for precisely this reason in fact. Neglect of the importance of sales. Sales don't come to you - you have to go out there and get them.
Many people have great ideas and start a business but have no clue how to get sales. Many other old folks I've worked with scratch their heads why their business is no longer going well... well, how can it go well when you spend so little effort on getting sales? :s
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yeah, I would agree with some of the other principles, but not here. Usually, companies find out that a large share of their revenue comes from relatively few customers (unless they are something like retail supermarkets). In my case last year, 80% of my revenue came from like 15% of clients. In the case of big factories it's the same. A single big contract will account for a large share of the revenue. The key person who secures that contract is absolutely important to the functioning of the business. So yeah, there may be a sales team, but those salesmen are all going out to try to secure contracts. They work relatively independently apart from the overall product strategy.
The other issue is that we cannot produce just for need. If we do that, then those people who don't produce just for need will outgrow everyone else, and then they will enforce their own standards on them. It's like the arms race - the US, Russia, China, etc. must all invest in a big army to prevent the others from becoming stronger than them.
I say why make people go through the economic "realities" in the first place?
This really isn't a very radical idea. Information technology allows much better coordination between supply and need. Regular polling, data on\, agricultural production, mining output, production capacity, consumption, unsold goods, shortages, etc. can put together a fairly good idea of needs and production capacity.
Those worker councils dealing with transportation would decide what the need for automobiles was, who (not individuals so much as groups, places) needed them, and where they were needed. Production councils would determine how to get them made. Raw material supply, transportation, production, distribution, etc. would be again coordinated.
Advertising is a feature of for-profit demand economies, which depend on at least high overall demand and preferably growing demand. Advertising is the primary tool by which demand is whipped up.
No, they won't grow at all because outside of Council Coordination, you will find no supplies, space, energy, markets, or anything else. Those who persist in trying to subvert council coordination will not be looked upon kindly.
Relax. It's merely an exercise to annoy Agustino who still believes in natalism.
Ah, carry on then. But, in a more specific context, what is it with the need to see people develop and have to interact with institutions, failing and achieving, setting goals etc, that needs to take place? Ah yes, little Johnny needs to interact with the schooling, then little Johnny needs to interact with the workplace. Little Johnny needs to navigate the world. Did more people like Johnny need to experience all this institutional interactions? Why? What does this prove? Having the kid is a statement to the world that someone needs to go through life's institutional interactions for some reason. There needs to be more humans that need to spend energy on maintaining their survival and boredom. That need problems to overcome for some odd reason.
Well, it is definitely perplexing. Birth is very unusual as it is a preference that affects a whole other life, for a lifetime. Birth is actually a strong political statement. People don't think of it like that, but it is. It is a very politically conservative statement. In a way, it is being beholden to the institutions of one's social setting. It is assenting to the idea that a person needs to go through life's social and institutional settings. This is something that needs to take place. They want little Johnny to be in the world. However, why the need for little Johnny to be in the world in the first place begs the question. They are making a political statement that a state of affairs needs to take place where a person needs to navigate life's historically-developed society with all its institutions and and expend energy for their own survival needs, comfort-seeking needs, and entertainment-seeking needs. They are literally forcing this political statement to take place "in the flesh". Somehow it is a good thing for new people to be born so that they can develop and interact with institutions. Why this needs to take place, I have no idea. Absurdity in the flesh is what is going on.
Maybe so that one day they can sit in their old age in their stone villa in the countryside and drink their morning coffee/tea, garden, and say cheerio to their significant other knowing that they put someone else through the inanities of life and they too can get this oh so delightful feeling.
My computer knows what you wrote, but I cannot mention it because Baden will whip me if I do. Suffice to say that "fair" trials of the "ruthless" entrepreneur in the heart of Siberia are something long-gone :D .
Quoting Bitter Crank
Sometimes phrases shapeshift too... Well, suffice to say that I wouldn't much like living in such a regimented economy. I much prefer as much economic freedom as possible, much like Tolkien's Shire. Which is why I prefer distributism. Everyone should be free to produce as they wish, and then seek to sell their produce. Why? Because, at least for me, a significant portion of my enjoyment of life comes from the useful work I freely choose to do for other people in the economy. I can't much imagine life without this, it would be quite grim.
I dislike the domination of large corporations precisely because they regiment many people to work for them, instead of allowing them to freely develop on their own.
And we probably agree on financial speculation (highly taxed profits) and banking (only public). But we obviously don't agree on economic liberalism in a general sense.
And I don't think I'm personally ruthless, quite the contrary. Yesterday I found a way to trick some people out of money from a service of theirs I use online. And guess what, I thought, I'm getting dough out of using this service, if I found a loophole, I will still pay them, cause I'm an honest man. If I really was ruthless in my work I would have been like "To hell with them, I don't give a damn about them. Let me just appropriate this for myself" - in fact, that's what communists used to do >:) - as Marcus Aurelius said, the best revenge is to be unlike the person who has done you the injury.
I don't like regimentation either, whether it is within a large corporation or small group. Utopian systems have hidden regimentation built in -- everyone would have to conform, whatever the shape of the utopia. Universal peace and contentment has the same problem: the only way to keep it going is for everyone to be in a strait-jacket of peace and contentment regimentation.
So why bother talking about utopian schemes in the first place? It's a way of highlighting the dystopian features of reality.
I'm not very familiar with distributism; I don't know whether Tolkien was familiar with Chesterton and Belloc -- two of the English Catholic promoters of distributivism. I suppose you could call the Shire economy distributist. Oddly, it's about the only place in the Middle Earth where any economic activity exists. Like, from whom did the Dwarves in Moria import food -- they are in the middle of a mountain range. We know Dwarves eat, because their first appearance finds them emptying Bilbo's larder.
I doubt that you are ruthless. If you were, you wouldn't take time off from your cottage computer consulting firm to discuss philosophy and theology. Plus, you are a young man and young people tend to be militant-whatever-they-are.
There is a lot about advanced capitalism to dislike though, especially as it has been manifested in its post World War II form--huge, regimented, military-industrial multinational complexity, and managed by a plutocracy. Its form in the gilded age -- post-Civil War until the Progressive Era when its wings were clipped was quite similar. The robber barons of the Gilded Age, the saints of present day capitalists, like Frick, Mellon, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan, et al were about as ruthless as the current crop. What they lacked was the modern Public Relations industry to perfume their deeds.
I have been reading a biography of Lenin: The Man, The Dictator, and the Master of Terror by Victor Sebestyen, and at least under the Tzars, Siberian exile wasn't always that bad. Lenin lived modestly with his wife in a small but adequate cabin, was free to go hiking and hunting (he never succeeding in bagging any game), could correspond -- as long as what he had to say got past the Okhrana censors, and so on. Lenin happened to land in one of the pleasant circles of hell. Jews, for instance, were sent to places far to the north, near the Arctic Circle, where exile tended to start at wretched and go downhill to fatal.
You lived in England... don't know whether you ever availed yourself of the National Health Service... I just read This Is Going To Hurt, an account of young doctor Kay's experience there. He praises the quality of care delivered, but working in the service was something of a nightmare. He's very sarcastic about the stupidity of both patients and institution, so it's quite enjoyable.
Right, but then such utopian critiques certainly incorporate some dystopian features themselves.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Tolkien would definitely have been familiar with Chesterton - he was part of the Inklings, including C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, all who were influenced by these Christian thinkers. In fact, for C.S. Lewis, Chesterton's book The Everlasting Man played a central role in his own conversion. He also called it the best book of popular apologetics. Ironic that his own book Mere Christianity is now better known.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I agree with that. That's largely due to the existence of an octopus formed largely of the financial industry. Hedge fund managers, board of directors of multinationals, CEOs, etc. They form part of a class of people I detest, which is the hierarchy climbing "politician" who cannot actually do anything practical, but has a nice smile and is willing to get into bed with whoever it takes to rise to the top. These people don't actually do anything productive, they merely appropriate what others do, while being servile to those higher than them. That's what the whole field of managers, etc. are doing.
So really it's entire "fields" of people - managers, judges, politicians, etc. which are included here.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Sounds interesting. Lenin had an interesting life.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Oh yes, I had quite a few encounters with the NHS. When I first got there it was still okay, it was quite good, excellent, and entirely free. But over the years it degraded a lot...
When I first got there, there were still a lot of walk-in centres, and it was really easy to get an appointment if you had a problem. You were treated relatively well too, and doctors were patient with you and addressed your concerns.
However, by the time I had left it was really terrible. Even if you had problems you had to wait WEEKS for an emergency appointment (if you couldn't, you were told to call the ambulance). The walk-in centres started to get closed (no more financing), and doctors started to become worse. Impatient, treated the patient like a statistic, etc.
For example, I had to wait 1 year to do a test in a hospital... And they kept saying "oh we will schedule you don't worry" when I called them, and then nothing would get done for months. I had to call like 4-5 times, and each person reassured me without doing anything. And they also moved me from doctor to doctor - a doctor I never actually got to meet :s . I just got their writings, which weren't too enlightening.
I'm not sure how it is now, but from what I've heard, it's still very bad.
ER rooms are prepared to do everything from cancer diagnosis to bone surgery, but their real function is handling emergencies like auto accident, gun shot wounds (big in the inner city), and heart attacks -- assuming the patient isn't DOA. The public interprets "emergency" to mean everything from accidental amputation of right hand to a bad cold or itchy scalp. (One of Adam Kay's ER stories was "patient presented with lumps on her tongue. Diagnosis: taste buds." Some patients are diverted to specialist wards like mental health and obstetric gynecology clinics.
I see, yeah, at the time I left there was basically no "urgent care", except running to the pharmacy and figuring it out yourself with the pharmacist, or calling the ambulance, or waiting like 2 weeks for an appointment.
Quoting Bitter Crank
In the UK it was all free, and the private ones were just exorbitantly expensive, and really not affordable, nor worth it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Generally, I do go for just any doctor anyways, I'm personally not very fussy about doctors :P
Wrong.
Gross Domestic Product measures very crudely production, not existing resources. It's basically a very flawed measure (invented By Keynes, if I remember correctly). The flaws of the GDP as a measure of prosperity are evident from the fact that World GDP rose quite spectacularly during WW2, during the greatest slaughter and destruction seen ever during the history of mankind.
And btw you are talking about GDP per capita.
And what you are otherwise saying could be said in another way: if income would be divided equally, not only would be the incentives for studying/learning for a more demanding job be squashed, but also the process would simply wreck totally the price mechanism for the supply and demand of the workforce. Not only would this be a huge hindrance to the functioning of the economy, but would likely create a black market and rampant corruption (for those jobs and services in high demand where people are willing to pay far more for the services than the average pay).
Mmmmkay, I wonder how production isn't related to resources as you can't produce anything without resources.
Why don't you do a Google search for, "If all the resources of the world were divided equally how much would everyone get?" I just did and the answer that popped up was $9000. So I guess I stand corrected, but this correction actually makes my point even more. When Googling the GDP of the world, you get $16,000 which is more because it includes resources (property and commodities), not just cash, which the prior search yields.
Quoting ssu
Uh, you seem to be making my argument AGAINST making everyone get paid equally for different work, the only problem with this example is how can anyone pay more for goods and services on a black market when they make the same as everyone else?