It all depends on what you want to optimize for. But for me, and I suspect a lot of people, the happiness of society seems like a decent starting point (let's assume for the moment that most Americans / 1st world citizens are at the point where base survival is not in question)
The current rate of inequality is massively inefficient if you're trying to optimize happiness. The bottom 2 quintiles of Americans control so little wealth that keeping food on the table is their primary concern. Meanwhile, an extremely small and shrinking proportion of the population control an outsized amount of wealth, to the point where it's not reasonably usable in an efficient way by those people.
It's like saying that the proper way to divide 100 loaves of bread between 100 people is to give 1 person 95 loaves and every other person a slice of bread. No one is starving, but you're making 1 person very happy at the expense of 99 others.
The bread analogy doesn't make any sense. Inequality is a relative metric, not an absolute one. If I only need one loaf of bread to survive, who cares if my neighbor has 100 or 1000?
It's in the article. In the 60's the CEO-worker pay ratio was 20:1. Now it's 354:1.
Do you think that this kind of disproportion doesn't affect the way the whole system works? I expect the voice of a CEO to be heard more than that of a ordinary worker, and at 20:1 maybe I can sort of keep up. But at 354:1, how will I ever keep up? That's stopping the CEOs of the world from banding up in a gang that distorts how democracy works up to a point where I don't matter at all?
Well, one possible reason is that we may have an inbuilt sense of "fairness" - capachin monkeys have been demonstrated in experiments to get angry if they get unfairly rewarded. So might not people feel angry in the same circumstances?
A valid criticism of socialism for running societies (rather than institutions) is that it doesn't align well with "human nature" - but it might also be the case where the "winner takes all" aspects of capitalism also have similar problems.
It's key that monkeys, like humans, object to unfairness--not 'inequality.' Turns out that relative contribution matters a lot to how monkeys/people judge rewards.[1]
How is society becoming more feudal? I've heard this from so many people and the evidence doesn't seem to support it. For example, ~64% of Americans own a home. What % of feudal peasants owned a shovel, let alone a home?
Not necessarily, as historical Communist societies show. It just could be more of the lower class, nearly zero middle class, and, unavoidably, some comrades that are much more equal than the rest of the population.
Reducing inequality down to the point of literal equality was shown to lower the quality of life.
ryanbrunner|8 years ago
The current rate of inequality is massively inefficient if you're trying to optimize happiness. The bottom 2 quintiles of Americans control so little wealth that keeping food on the table is their primary concern. Meanwhile, an extremely small and shrinking proportion of the population control an outsized amount of wealth, to the point where it's not reasonably usable in an efficient way by those people.
It's like saying that the proper way to divide 100 loaves of bread between 100 people is to give 1 person 95 loaves and every other person a slice of bread. No one is starving, but you're making 1 person very happy at the expense of 99 others.
bmmayer1|8 years ago
oblio|8 years ago
Do you think that this kind of disproportion doesn't affect the way the whole system works? I expect the voice of a CEO to be heard more than that of a ordinary worker, and at 20:1 maybe I can sort of keep up. But at 354:1, how will I ever keep up? That's stopping the CEOs of the world from banding up in a gang that distorts how democracy works up to a point where I don't matter at all?
arethuza|8 years ago
A valid criticism of socialism for running societies (rather than institutions) is that it doesn't align well with "human nature" - but it might also be the case where the "winner takes all" aspects of capitalism also have similar problems.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_...
bmmayer1|8 years ago
[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0082
pharrlax|8 years ago
bmmayer1|8 years ago
geoka9|8 years ago
nine_k|8 years ago
Reducing inequality down to the point of literal equality was shown to lower the quality of life.