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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jan 22, 2019 - 01:04am PT
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Money makes some people jealous.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Jan 22, 2019 - 06:10am PT
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Just a couple of academic additions.
We live in a world of scarce resources. It appears there will never be enough of anything to satisfy what people want. That appears to be a given in human nature, and it seems to make hearts bleed. (Look up “Dukkha.“)
Much of economics is a study of mass behavior, not of individual behavior. When talking about this or that individual, one needs to leave economics for cognitive science, psychology, etc.
Although economics measures “value” financially, financial value is a manipulatable surrogate for happiness (according to theory). The intended plan of economics is to organize various operations for greater mass happiness. It assumes greater mass happiness comes from more material goods.
Doubts about any of those principles or values will lead to philosophical discussions about The Human Condition. Who and what we are would seem to be the real question to discuss.
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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Jan 22, 2019 - 06:22am PT
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Just finishing re-reading Josephson's: The Robber Barons
Couple of takes--When you have too much money-ie you can't spend it all- than what people tend to do is re-invest it and it snowballs and snowballs- This is what happened 100 years ago seems to be the same trend
The robber barons were very good at accumulation but that seems to be about it- they didn't have a great sense of fun or personality
In Pickety's book: Capital, he points out that the 1% had about the same in 1900 as they do now in terms of distributed wealth-kind of amazing when you think that 10% have 90% of everything and the low 50% will live their lives accumulating zero wealth.
The flipside is the Hillbilly elegy- people that work and then spend it away on silly things that don't hold value
All sorts of philosophical streets to go down-who is happier etc. but human nature seems to trend toward trying to keep what you got if you got it.
And now back to trying to learn more about Cannabis stocks............
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Jan 22, 2019 - 06:25am PT
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The whole liberal mindset revolves around a pity-party. "Why bother" to work for $10 per hour, because you can't enjoy a particular lifestyle right out of the gate. "Better to be on welfare." Well, THAT is what's wrong with welfare! Your played out stereotypes will not affect the true liberal mind who is willing to give back to help Veterans, special needs children, abused women and others that have had no hand in their misfortunes. Your lazy friend on the couch has no bearing on our sadness for those who suffer.
Apparently the Conservative mind is prone to self-aggrandizing the common effort we share in having made a living. You promote and elevate a cartoon like gang of social villains simply to excuse your greed and bitterness.
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Keith Reed
climber
Johnson county TX
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Jan 22, 2019 - 07:09am PT
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My first wall o’text and it’s not mine.
This is from a libtard web page by a man named Frank Wilhoit.
“There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.
There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.
There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.
As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.
So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whateverthef*#kkindofstupidnoise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.
No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.’
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 22, 2019 - 08:38am PT
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I greatly appreciate madbolter1's recounting of his own experiences in life.
One lesson I have learned in my old age is that my own experience does not generalize, that is, taking my interpretation of how I came to be "successful" fails to be an accurate and complete accounting, and as such, could only be a anecdote, not a road map, for people seeking "success" along the same path.
Importantly, we often fail to acknowledge the help we get along the way from so many people, and the random opportunities that may not be available to others.
I also started out "under capitalized" in my life and found a way to relative security. I don't, for a minute, believe that I did this on my own. I have always, as a literal physicist, thought the phrase "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" to be an absurd impossibility, at least physically, I've come to believe it is equally absurd metaphorically.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Jan 22, 2019 - 08:43am PT
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A wall worth throwing out there, thanks for that Keith!
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:00am PT
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MadB, you still don't understand that some people were born not smart enough to do anytimg else but simple jobs.
That fact doesn't make the "why bother" mentality less of an outrage.
At King Soopers (grocery store) a couple of days ago, there was an obviously mentally disabled guy bagging groceries. He was slow and pretty ineffectual. But people were kind to and patient with him. He was doing what he could. Nobody around him had a "why bother" mentality.
The guy who really taught me how to drive a rig, I mean the nuances of going from "competent" to excellent, was a guy named Will. I doubt he had a 100 IQ. He was a waddling tub of lard out of the cockpit, like a sea lion out of water, and he was NO conversationalist!
But when Will climbed in behind the wheel, everything changed. Will was in his natural element, like a sea lion in the water. Will could do things with gearing, with one finger on the shifter, that I had not imagined was possible. And his spatial awareness was flat-out amazing. Most impressive was that Will could back a set of doubles.
Some of you will know what I'm saying. Even backing a truck/trailer (with a tongue) is beyond counterintuitive! But a set of doubles is a whole new order of thing. People would actually gather around on the docks when Will would pull in with a set of doubles. "Okay, watch this. He's not gonna go drop the back trailer and dolly. He's gonna back the whole set in and drop that back trailer right at the dock." And Will would snake the whole set back in, slick as you please.
He spent many an hour in big parking lots trying to teach me how to back a set. The best I could do was learn to back enough to get out of trouble (like finding yourself in a dead-end situation). But actually "back a set" in the relevant sense was forever beyond me.
Nothing I'm saying should be construed as "pull oneself up by one's bootstraps." "Society" just is cooperation between people! But voluntary "help" bears zero relation to the welfare state that consists in forcibly stealing some arbitrary amount from one person in order to hand it to another person, entity, or corporation. The systematization of "why bother" is theft, plain and simple.
And with very, very, VERRRRRY rare exception, people can work and meet their own needs (NOT all of their wants). The fact that there are rare exceptions does not justify the entire welfare state as we know it!
The problem with all proposed "fixes" to "wealth disparity" is that they are unprincipled and arbitrary. And just saying something like, "They shouldn't have that much," PRESUMES a sense of "should" that is not grounded in any moral principle that I'm aware of.
Should we help each other? Of course! "Should" the government forcibly extract arbitrary amounts of "help" from the "better off"? Well, as I say, I have yet to hear the moral theory (and I've studied 'em!) that sustains THAT notion.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:04am PT
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Will sounds like a guy I’d like to meet! Bet he would pick up backing a B747 in no time!
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:07am PT
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I'm not broadly against capitalism or free trade. I think there's a pretty good argument to be made that it has improved the lives of billions of people around the world.
That said, I do think that there's also an argument to be made that some redistribution of wealth from the extremely wealthy to the middle and lower classes would be beneficial to society as a whole. Think of it as trickle up instead of trickle down.
And an issue primarily in the US is that the game is starting to get increasingly rigged against social and income mobility. The rich can afford to pay for better schools, tutors, etc. Yes, sometimes people with enough smarts and hard work can overcome that. But it's very hard. Again I'd argue that trying to do something to level this playing field would benefit society as a whole.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:11am PT
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stevep, our kids aren’t helping themselves much, especially those lucky enough to get a college
degree. They haven’t figured out that there are 2.5 billion Indians and Chinese who are not
getting degrees in gender studies or art history.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:31am PT
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^^^ Yes!
Wow, yeah, Will was such an impressive guy. I am seriously honored to have known him and had him invest so much of himself in me bitd. That guy was just the consummate trucker through and through, as though he was born to the wheel.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:36am PT
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MB can argue all that he wants about cause, but the statistics are valid.
What remains is the simple question:
Is such wealth inequality a good thing?
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:51am PT
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Should we help each other? Of course! "Should" the government forcibly extract arbitrary amounts of "help" from the "better off"? Well, as I say, I have yet to hear the moral theory (and I've studied 'em!) that sustains THAT notion. That theory is well beyond a notion- that notion has been in successful application in Western Europe, the United States and the British Commonwealth for 70 years. We all understand that Governments suffer from inefficiency, are reactive and rarely intuitive because of the electoral process yet, a well regulated and accountable Government remains the best vehicle for mass distribution.
What remains a theory is pure capitalism on a large scale with a citizenry that directly takes care of the disadvantaged- it doesn't exist.
If you want to see pure capitalism, go to a Cockfight.
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:56am PT
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Here is a true story about redistribution of wealth.
One year, I paid more in federal income tax than the average American makes(gross pay not net) in their entire life.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Jan 22, 2019 - 11:59am PT
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And...
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 22, 2019 - 12:04pm PT
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I think I come back to these topics because I am so conflicted. A huge part of me agrees with Madbolter's perspective, shaped in large part because I grew up with lack of money as a constant consideration, and with a strong work ethic. The idea of giving somebody something for nothing rubs me the wrong way, because it's not fair to the person who defers their short-term happiness in favor of a better future, by putting in the hard work. What if everyone who generates value gave up (or stops making it available for the benefit of others), as in the thesis of Atlas Shrugged?
And yet, I see a few cases of things that don't sit right with me, that somehow need to be done better:
1. When it comes to acquiring money, pre-existence of money is given too much weight in comparison to hard work (physical or intellectual). If there was a true correlation between the existence of money and the prior completion of hard physical or intellectual work to create something of value, then I suppose this would be "fair". But money can also be attained through a variety of criminal or unethical means that short-circuit the correlation of money with creation of value. As such, money itself should have a discounted valuation as compared to creation of new value, when it comes to creating new wealth. But because we have a market of supply and demand, and the supply of folks with lots of money is typically going to be smaller than the supply of people willing to do hard work and generate great ideas and intellectual progress... well then the people who do the actual work are typically going to fare worse in a negotiation with a provider of capital. The answer is not so heavy-handed as to just say those who do the work deserve all the value of the output. The input capital (the part related to prior creation of value) should be rewarded with new capital. I don't see how this can really be solved, but it seems an important line of inquiry. Rather, it would be nice to hear from more well-read and educated folks, what systems that have already been explored or developed that address this problem.
2. Society should have a safety net to care for people who really have no other options... but it is hard to separate real need from folks who just aren't willing to put in the hard work to better their circumstances. This is why it becomes easier to give up on the problem and just accept a degree of loss/theft, and simplify the administration of the system by giving a baseline level of income/healthcare/etc. Various low-income or circumstance-based programs would seem more fair, but that also leads to a bloating of government to manage and administer such a program, and there would still be theft/loss associated with such a system.
3. We should have more focused (and potentially painful) discussions about what are truly rights for each individual that we as a society endeavor to offer within the set of resources available, without regard to what effort or inputs the individual contributes. The label of "death panels" should be called out as counter-productive for healthcare discussions. What are the minimum material needs for a person to have "dignity" and be able to pursue "happiness"? After reading Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" I conclude that humans require very little in the way of minimum material needs, or even freedom from pain, etc.... So the discussion of material needs dissolves pretty quickly if the criteria is "happiness".
I think the argument for what level of material wealth should a person be "morally" obligated to receive is zero. It pains me to say that, and jostles my sensibilities for how a society should function, but I do strongly believe that our happiness is NOT a function of our material circumstances. But that's not the whole picture... just because material wealth is not required for happiness, that does not preclude that there should be some sort of "fairness" when it comes to wealth distribution and how to evaluate the contributions of capital vs labor in the generation of value and new wealth.
I guess I'll wrap up these rambling musings by focusing on what I am coming to see (at least in this particular moment) as the key points:
1. how to create accountability/justice around the provenance of money. Possession of money seems to imply the fruits of previous labors and wealth generation, which in turn grants it a type of moral value and fairness, which is the basis for suitability in using it for trade. This is the bright side of money. But if that money can be acquired through violent destructive acts or thievery or any act that ultimately does not improve society as a whole, then money obtained in that way has a negative moral value. We don't have a way to distinguish these sources of money. Money is just money, a stateless thing that erases crimes and systematically creates the incentives to commit crimes in a society. Corporations and complex financial instruments further obscure the provenance and morality of how the money was generated, further encourage crime and activities that are counter to the interests of the society.
Maybe wealth representation should by law not be stateless, so that those who are potentially receiving the money or wealth in exchange for something can assign a moral value to it and be judged by society, and have that factor that into the transaction. What if there was a currency like BitCoin, but it contained another dimension to indicate the "morality rating" that identifies a set of values and how much that money has been tainted? Then people can be empowered to choose with their money what type of world they want to live in, by setting personal thresholds for how much "taint" they are willing to do business with. Yes today we can shop at Walmart and know that in some ways we are making the world a worse place. In other circumstances, e.g. when working with online vendors, we don't have a clear picture of how good or bad different entities are and the marketing image they present can be very different from what they actually do behind the scenes. I haven't fleshed out the entire system, but I think it is conceivable to have a framework for defining a currency in terms of value and "morality" or "purity" that represents how favorable the use of that money has been for society. Keeping track of state along with the actual value of a wealth-bearing instrument opens a Pandora's box of other things that could need to be regulated (e.g. what if someone started a stateful currency that tracked its interaction by race or ethnicity or sexual orientation or marginalized groups and was used as a mechanism to repress these groups)?
OK, bringing the ramble to a close now.
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SusanA
Sport climber
Bay Area
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Jan 22, 2019 - 12:14pm PT
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One year, I paid more in federal income tax than the average American makes(gross pay not net) in their entire life.
You did more work in one year than the average person does in their life?
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