Hey there, interesting points, but I wanted to flag that I find the last section quite concerning. Essentially it says "everybody who disagrees with me is obviously wrong and has bad, hidden intentions". This does not strike me as a good start for a debate. These topics are obviously complex and difficult to assess and you can easily come to very different conclusions, even by reading the same source material, as much of it is also about what your general view on how humans behave is.
Rather than immediately accusing me, how about you start with specifics about where that you think that I am incorrect?
No, there is no section that states "everybody who disagrees with me is obviously wrong and has bad, hidden intentions".
That is obviously a deliberate misstatement of what I actually said.
And since you appear to believe that I said that I made the statement in the "the last section," I am not quite how you can say that I am "starting a debate" with such a statement. Plus the debate on Inequality has been going on for over 200 years. I did not start it. We are all aware of the arguments of each side. For those who are not aware, there is a linked video.
I find it weird that you claim to speak for openness to other opinions, while immediately accusing me of saying "everybody who disagrees with me is obviously wrong and has bad, hidden intentions".
Trying to achieve “ equality “ at any cost will get you Cuba or Venezuela but we are literally seeing the wealthiest man on the planet asserting enormous influence on US politics. You can argue that progressive donors captured the Democratic Party some time ago and drove it into a wall. A worker based party became the party of identity and got smoked last November. I’m pretty sure that Republican Party’s new donors will do the same to it.
By a lot of measures inequality is as high as it’s been since the Gilded Age. It took a progressive conservative from a wealthy background to attack the Trusts that tied up control of much of the US at the turn of the 20th century. America boomed.
Do we really think our elected officials are listening to the people ? How long before the country is just a pack of rent seekers ?
One example is private equity. These guys have access to cheaper capital and a huge advantage of carried interest. How can mom and pop fight this ? You been to a veterinary service recently ? Thry are all controlled by private equity now. Guess who has access to Washington DC politicians ? Private equity is poorly understood and it’s undermining small scale capitalism.
One final point is who benefited from quantitative easing ? The people who have the easiest access to cheaper money provided by the Fed. Joe Six Pack got a stimulus check if he was lucky while hedge funds and private capital were leveraging to buy every asset they could. The net wealth of the richest 1% soared because of QE.
I have worked for decades of Wall Street including for hedge funds. The game is skewed. Power matters
Most of this comment really does not have much to do with the topic of the article. It is a commenting rule in this Substack that you need to keep on topic.
If Equality is not achievable, none of this comment really matters.
You can write your own Substack article on whatever you want.
MEDICARE includes a substantial MEDICARE ADVANTAGE PLANS which are private insurance plans/ Medicare Advantage is not free—we seniors are responsible for paying “out of pocket” costs that include premiums, deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments. Canada and Europe have something closer to Medicare for all, not the patchwork that presently besets Americans. A reminder in case you are unaware, that health issues in the U.S. force elderly Americans into bankruptcies..."The rate of people age 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, and this group now accounts for 12% of all filers, a far greater share than in 1991 (2%). Driving the surge, the study suggests, is a three-decade shift of financial risk from government and employers to individuals"
Your diatribe re: Progressive Democrats is, in the main, unwarranted and speaks to your inherent biases, not factual realities.
This article is not about Medicare or health insurance. It is about Equality, its effects, and whether Equality can be achieved.
A commenting rule in this Substack is that all comments need to be on the topic of the article. If you continue to post off-topic, I may delete your comments.
My "bias" is to promote material progress and upward mobility and focus on results. I do not subscribe to any ideology.
I know that this theory is popular among the Right, but I do not believe it. The typical Left-of-Center voter is not interested in power. I think the main problem is largely a lack of concern for results.
I do think, however, that all popular movements and institutions have a real potential of being infiltrated by sociopaths who see "good intentions" as a sign of weakness. Every society has wolves, and those wolves always seek to make others believe that they are sheep.
People who obsess over their own good intentions are particularly vulnerable to sociopaths who are perfectly willing to lie to achieve power, income, and wealth. They have a hard time conceiving of a person that appears to believe what they believe being a dangerous actor.
It was your sociopaths (or at least those in charge or seeking to be in charge) which I was referencing, not the voters. They take issues like inequality which either cannot ever be solved, or issues like homelessness where the supposed solutions actually make the problem worse over time and use these as an excuse to justify there election.
There is some truth to what you are saying, but I believe sociopaths in power will say whatever they think they need to say to stay in power and increase their power. They typically are good at short-term tactics and very bad at the long game.
For that reason, I do not think that sociopaths consciously advocate for Equality because it is "an impossible outcome of equal outcomes justifies endless interference and thus unlimited power."
Some do, however.
I think a lot of it is just an excuse to spend money, which then creates followers who want a steady flow of income. A lot of government spending is really patronage.
Frankly the naive tend to be worse than the sociopaths when in power. At least sociopaths know that the system failing on their watch will reflect badly on them.
Good point, but I think that the truly naive are gradually weeded out over time or they lose their naïveté.
Unfortunately, sociopaths are the one most attracted to power and the most willing to work ridiculously hard for decades to reach the summit of power.
The real threat is the ability of very intelligent sociopaths to manipulate the naive using clever terminology and argumentation. Most every cult has a smart charismatic male sociopath manipulating a large group of naive young women. And guess who gets all the sex and money.
Unfortunately, their genes propagate to the next generation because it works. The only way to beat smart sociopaths is to force them to compete against each other in non-violent transparent competition. That forces them to produce benefits to society.
The more you concentrate power and limit competition and transparency, the more the sociopaths prosper at society’s expense.
'From my own personal perspective, I would rather live in a society with equality than one without equality'
As long as this is true for a lot of people leftist economic policies will attract the populace despite their lack of success. Thee best thing is to try to mitigate the damages from any experimental ideas that get implemented until we find sth that works
I am not 100% clear what you are trying to say, but I do not think that it is necessary to get rid of people thinking that Equality is a good thing.
I think it is perfectly plausible to believe that Equality is a good thing, but it cannot be attained, and the negative consequences of doing so are much greater than the positive consequences.
Oddly, I think MM concedes this point too quickly. I do not think it would be preferable to live in a society with equal (or substantially more equal) incomes.
First, some people do not want to make money every year. There are other priorities, and some want to pursue education, travel, leisure and live off their savings. This measures as inequality. When I retired early at age 49 I went from top to bottom quintile in a year, yet my life improved.
Second and related, income tends to move up and down dramatically over a family’s life cycle. This is a good thing as it reflects upward potential from education, experience, training and so on. I want to live in a society where incomes rise with experience and value added, and this is one of high annual inequality (we would need a measure of lifetime income equality to compensate). For an analogy, would you rather send your child to an elementary school with max equality (measured in knowledge) between first and sixth graders or maximum inequality? The answer is obvious and contrary to the preaching of the left.
Third, inequality is the signal and incentive to do something different. Lower inequality removes feedback on proper behavior and how best to contribute.
Fourth, the range on income always has a lower bound of zero. And this includes legitimate cases such as students, people drawing on assets, and others. On the other hand, higher income is all things considered, usually better both for the earner and the society they contribute to (assuming good institutional incentives). Thus as incomes increase, the inequality will tend to increase in a healthy society, even with reasonable safety nets.
I am not suggesting that unlimited inequality is good, just that there is a sweet spot and it isn’t that the least income inequality is best.
I don't disagree with your points, but given that complex societies have no means to create that "sweet spot" or get to "the least income inequality," it does not really matter.
Inequality in society is not a knob that we can easily turn.
There are in fact prosperous and dynamic nations with relatively lower levels of inequality and I see no evidence that it hurts them. Switzerland is the best example:
I can also foresee a future where all humans in a society have the same genes (or at least the most important ones for economic growth), so we could have high levels of growth and significantly lower levels of inequality.
I would to be surprised if he deletes mine as well. The author left a fairly nasty comment on one of my linked article. Ironically, he was accusing me of assuming bad intentions in others.
Equality is a very touchy subject with many people, but yet those same people constantly talk about it.
Hey there, interesting points, but I wanted to flag that I find the last section quite concerning. Essentially it says "everybody who disagrees with me is obviously wrong and has bad, hidden intentions". This does not strike me as a good start for a debate. These topics are obviously complex and difficult to assess and you can easily come to very different conclusions, even by reading the same source material, as much of it is also about what your general view on how humans behave is.
Rather than immediately accusing me, how about you start with specifics about where that you think that I am incorrect?
No, there is no section that states "everybody who disagrees with me is obviously wrong and has bad, hidden intentions".
That is obviously a deliberate misstatement of what I actually said.
And since you appear to believe that I said that I made the statement in the "the last section," I am not quite how you can say that I am "starting a debate" with such a statement. Plus the debate on Inequality has been going on for over 200 years. I did not start it. We are all aware of the arguments of each side. For those who are not aware, there is a linked video.
I find it weird that you claim to speak for openness to other opinions, while immediately accusing me of saying "everybody who disagrees with me is obviously wrong and has bad, hidden intentions".
Do you want a real debate on the facts or not?
Trying to achieve “ equality “ at any cost will get you Cuba or Venezuela but we are literally seeing the wealthiest man on the planet asserting enormous influence on US politics. You can argue that progressive donors captured the Democratic Party some time ago and drove it into a wall. A worker based party became the party of identity and got smoked last November. I’m pretty sure that Republican Party’s new donors will do the same to it.
By a lot of measures inequality is as high as it’s been since the Gilded Age. It took a progressive conservative from a wealthy background to attack the Trusts that tied up control of much of the US at the turn of the 20th century. America boomed.
Do we really think our elected officials are listening to the people ? How long before the country is just a pack of rent seekers ?
One example is private equity. These guys have access to cheaper capital and a huge advantage of carried interest. How can mom and pop fight this ? You been to a veterinary service recently ? Thry are all controlled by private equity now. Guess who has access to Washington DC politicians ? Private equity is poorly understood and it’s undermining small scale capitalism.
One final point is who benefited from quantitative easing ? The people who have the easiest access to cheaper money provided by the Fed. Joe Six Pack got a stimulus check if he was lucky while hedge funds and private capital were leveraging to buy every asset they could. The net wealth of the richest 1% soared because of QE.
I have worked for decades of Wall Street including for hedge funds. The game is skewed. Power matters
Most of this comment really does not have much to do with the topic of the article. It is a commenting rule in this Substack that you need to keep on topic.
If Equality is not achievable, none of this comment really matters.
You can write your own Substack article on whatever you want.
MEDICARE includes a substantial MEDICARE ADVANTAGE PLANS which are private insurance plans/ Medicare Advantage is not free—we seniors are responsible for paying “out of pocket” costs that include premiums, deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments. Canada and Europe have something closer to Medicare for all, not the patchwork that presently besets Americans. A reminder in case you are unaware, that health issues in the U.S. force elderly Americans into bankruptcies..."The rate of people age 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, and this group now accounts for 12% of all filers, a far greater share than in 1991 (2%). Driving the surge, the study suggests, is a three-decade shift of financial risk from government and employers to individuals"
Your diatribe re: Progressive Democrats is, in the main, unwarranted and speaks to your inherent biases, not factual realities.
This article is not about Medicare or health insurance. It is about Equality, its effects, and whether Equality can be achieved.
A commenting rule in this Substack is that all comments need to be on the topic of the article. If you continue to post off-topic, I may delete your comments.
My "bias" is to promote material progress and upward mobility and focus on results. I do not subscribe to any ideology.
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/a-manifesto-for-the-progress-based
“…it is hard to believe that the Left is based on the “good intentions” that they claim.”
Another explanation is that achieving an impossible outcome of equal outcomes justifies endless interference and thus unlimited power.
I know that this theory is popular among the Right, but I do not believe it. The typical Left-of-Center voter is not interested in power. I think the main problem is largely a lack of concern for results.
I do think, however, that all popular movements and institutions have a real potential of being infiltrated by sociopaths who see "good intentions" as a sign of weakness. Every society has wolves, and those wolves always seek to make others believe that they are sheep.
People who obsess over their own good intentions are particularly vulnerable to sociopaths who are perfectly willing to lie to achieve power, income, and wealth. They have a hard time conceiving of a person that appears to believe what they believe being a dangerous actor.
It was your sociopaths (or at least those in charge or seeking to be in charge) which I was referencing, not the voters. They take issues like inequality which either cannot ever be solved, or issues like homelessness where the supposed solutions actually make the problem worse over time and use these as an excuse to justify there election.
There is some truth to what you are saying, but I believe sociopaths in power will say whatever they think they need to say to stay in power and increase their power. They typically are good at short-term tactics and very bad at the long game.
For that reason, I do not think that sociopaths consciously advocate for Equality because it is "an impossible outcome of equal outcomes justifies endless interference and thus unlimited power."
Some do, however.
I think a lot of it is just an excuse to spend money, which then creates followers who want a steady flow of income. A lot of government spending is really patronage.
Frankly the naive tend to be worse than the sociopaths when in power. At least sociopaths know that the system failing on their watch will reflect badly on them.
Good point, but I think that the truly naive are gradually weeded out over time or they lose their naïveté.
Unfortunately, sociopaths are the one most attracted to power and the most willing to work ridiculously hard for decades to reach the summit of power.
The real threat is the ability of very intelligent sociopaths to manipulate the naive using clever terminology and argumentation. Most every cult has a smart charismatic male sociopath manipulating a large group of naive young women. And guess who gets all the sex and money.
Unfortunately, their genes propagate to the next generation because it works. The only way to beat smart sociopaths is to force them to compete against each other in non-violent transparent competition. That forces them to produce benefits to society.
The more you concentrate power and limit competition and transparency, the more the sociopaths prosper at society’s expense.
'From my own personal perspective, I would rather live in a society with equality than one without equality'
As long as this is true for a lot of people leftist economic policies will attract the populace despite their lack of success. Thee best thing is to try to mitigate the damages from any experimental ideas that get implemented until we find sth that works
I am not 100% clear what you are trying to say, but I do not think that it is necessary to get rid of people thinking that Equality is a good thing.
I think it is perfectly plausible to believe that Equality is a good thing, but it cannot be attained, and the negative consequences of doing so are much greater than the positive consequences.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point, though.
Oddly, I think MM concedes this point too quickly. I do not think it would be preferable to live in a society with equal (or substantially more equal) incomes.
First, some people do not want to make money every year. There are other priorities, and some want to pursue education, travel, leisure and live off their savings. This measures as inequality. When I retired early at age 49 I went from top to bottom quintile in a year, yet my life improved.
Second and related, income tends to move up and down dramatically over a family’s life cycle. This is a good thing as it reflects upward potential from education, experience, training and so on. I want to live in a society where incomes rise with experience and value added, and this is one of high annual inequality (we would need a measure of lifetime income equality to compensate). For an analogy, would you rather send your child to an elementary school with max equality (measured in knowledge) between first and sixth graders or maximum inequality? The answer is obvious and contrary to the preaching of the left.
Third, inequality is the signal and incentive to do something different. Lower inequality removes feedback on proper behavior and how best to contribute.
Fourth, the range on income always has a lower bound of zero. And this includes legitimate cases such as students, people drawing on assets, and others. On the other hand, higher income is all things considered, usually better both for the earner and the society they contribute to (assuming good institutional incentives). Thus as incomes increase, the inequality will tend to increase in a healthy society, even with reasonable safety nets.
I am not suggesting that unlimited inequality is good, just that there is a sweet spot and it isn’t that the least income inequality is best.
I don't disagree with your points, but given that complex societies have no means to create that "sweet spot" or get to "the least income inequality," it does not really matter.
Inequality in society is not a knob that we can easily turn.
There are in fact prosperous and dynamic nations with relatively lower levels of inequality and I see no evidence that it hurts them. Switzerland is the best example:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/switzerland-a-most-unusual-european
I can also foresee a future where all humans in a society have the same genes (or at least the most important ones for economic growth), so we could have high levels of growth and significantly lower levels of inequality.
I don’t disagree with your added comments either. Thanks.
As a fascinating side note though, here is an article which pretty much contradicts everything both of us believe on the topic.
https://existentialcrunch.substack.com/p/economic-inequality-and-societal
It is always interesting to read people from the exact opposite perspective.
Your comments there were great, as usual. Mine were deleted.
I would to be surprised if he deletes mine as well. The author left a fairly nasty comment on one of my linked article. Ironically, he was accusing me of assuming bad intentions in others.
Equality is a very touchy subject with many people, but yet those same people constantly talk about it.
LOL