I would actually suggest that you have not emphasized the essential importance of inequality enough!
In a complex dynamic system such as human society, the knowledge and problem solving capacity is in great part a factor of specialization and exchange. For this to work reasonably well, there needs to be signals and rewards for the discovery and fulfillment of the actions necessary produce the constant changing stream of solutions necessary for human flourishing. In other words, we depend upon a merit based system where the best and brightest are channeled into the role where they can add the most value (and where they are strongly disincentivized to waste their time). Potential brain surgeons need somehow to be encouraged to spend decades of their lives learning to add their special value, while entrepreneurs are incentivized to experiment with billions of risk to create long shot novel benefits to consumers.
The point is that inequality isn’t something which we should apologize for, it is something which is necessary and should be celebrated as such.
Of course, not all inequality is good inequality, and even good inequality can have negative side effects. Examples of bad inequality are where the system is rigged to benefit the successful at the expense of others. Rent seeking, privilege, cartels, monopolies, elite exploitation, cheating and so forth. Examples of negative externalities include how failure can lead to negative spirals of catastrophic collapse. Bad inequality does need to be minimized, but good inequality needs to be encouraged and rewarded. And there is even bad equality, such as where free riders benefit at the expense of the productive, reducing inequality while lowering total productivity.
I have a lot more I could say, but have already gone on too long. Let me just end by stating that I agree that the focus of a successful society is on prosperity and progress and fairness and not inequality of outcome. Indeed, where I see excessive focus on reducing inequality I usually also see an attempt to undermine the system and replace decentralized complexity with authoritarian control.
I would not say that inequality is necessary for progress to start, but it is an inevitable outcome of a dynamic society. It is really about how people achieve their income and wealth, not whether some achieve more than others (which is inevitable in all societies beyond Hunter Gatherers.
• huge mass of peasants living at subsistence levels.
• Modern societies have much higher standards-of-living, but similar levels of inequality.
To some degree this is comparing apples and oranges.
There can certainly be a high, middle, and low classifications for wealth or what have you, so premodern and modern societies had/have wide disparities.
But (at least in the US) the definition of "poverty" keeps changing to some % level of income, so is always a relative measure that can "never" be totally corrected. Someone has to be in the top 1% and some others in the bottom quintile by definition.
But most of us think of real poverty (as an absolute measure) at or almost below subsistence as provided above: begging for food or scrounging for it in garbage, sleeping in doorways, etc. Even homeless people with tents and shopping carts are pretty well up above subsistence. And I saw mentioned somewhere that even the poorest folks in the US pretty much match the middle class in India, etc.
All of this leading to a question as to what would we really consider a (not so relative) definition of poverty or subsistence today? Obama said "at some point you have made enough money", but then goes on to live in a $15M estate in Mass. coast (and 2 or 3 others?). Many of us don't really mind others having "great" wealth as we know they can't use more than 2 or 3 yachts, planes, mansions, etc., as long as that they don't use that wealth to assume greater political control than one person/one vote and whatever open (non corrupt) persuasion they pursue in "fair" political contests. That is the "unfairness" that Dems and Repubs both complain about. "Don't tread on me!" :-)
Remember that the Scheidl book is about inequality, not poverty. Those are two very different things, although they are often conflated.
Defining poverty in wealthy societies is highly contested and fairly arbitrary. The official federal definition made some sense in the 1960s, but not anymore. I will write more on this later. I generally prefer the term “lower-income” instead of poor, but I think we are stuck with the term.
Subsistence is typically defined as about $450 per year. Obviously, not applicable to wealthy societies today.
"Someone has to be in the top 1% and some others in the bottom quintile by definition."
And what this makes clear is that current complaints about equality of outcome are primarily concerned not with the quality and quantity of material wealth. but about which percentile ranking one occupies *relative* to other members of society. Perception as opposed to concrete possession.
It's all about relative status and not about sufficiency of material assets.
Anyone complaining about people earning "too much" money are either evil or unaware of their envy problem. The worst are usually rich people a few steps down from the level about which they complain. I recall reading an article by a woman married to a doctor in Manhattan who was furious that her husband's salary could not longer afford the finest addresses, and that Jews and Asian people were making more money in "dirty" fields such as banking or software. It was published in the New Yorker or similar publication. I thought it was a gag article, but it was not.
As hatred for minorities becomes socially unacceptable, people need new people to hate. Right now the favored target for marginalization are poor white people, and poor people in general, but people who earned wealth themselves (not inheriting it) are an easy target of ridicule. I have seen this used as a proxy for anti-Asian or anti-Semitic feelings.
We are rapidly turning into Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron story where attractive people must wear masks and where the intelligent must have loud buzzing noises come out of permanent ear phones every ten seconds to remove their privilege.
The worst inequalities happen at birth. Tall, attractive people have easier lives, save for the extra rape risk (clearly an unpleasant aspect few consider when they are jealous). Natural intelligence or appealing personalities also matter more than inheriting millions. If we turn envy into public policy, some kind of human rights tragedy is guaranteed.
It would be so much easier if we simply aimed for a society where people roughly had a decent chance, everything would work out best, but this would do nothing to put the successful people "in their place." I am shocked at hatred of success, but it is common. One can see it when busy bodies complain that "no one should make that much money!" That statement is disgusting and common. Oddly, it often comes from rich white ladies who cannot stand the thought of someone with considerably more than themselves, especially if it is an immigrant or the wrong kind of minority (Asians seem to solicit the most hate for reasons I cannot understand).
Didn’t we make significant reforms after the Gilded Age which was probably the greatest period of inequality in US history ? Teddy Roosevelt’s anti trust busting legislation for instance. This all happened without a war or revolution.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free.
I would actually suggest that you have not emphasized the essential importance of inequality enough!
In a complex dynamic system such as human society, the knowledge and problem solving capacity is in great part a factor of specialization and exchange. For this to work reasonably well, there needs to be signals and rewards for the discovery and fulfillment of the actions necessary produce the constant changing stream of solutions necessary for human flourishing. In other words, we depend upon a merit based system where the best and brightest are channeled into the role where they can add the most value (and where they are strongly disincentivized to waste their time). Potential brain surgeons need somehow to be encouraged to spend decades of their lives learning to add their special value, while entrepreneurs are incentivized to experiment with billions of risk to create long shot novel benefits to consumers.
The point is that inequality isn’t something which we should apologize for, it is something which is necessary and should be celebrated as such.
Of course, not all inequality is good inequality, and even good inequality can have negative side effects. Examples of bad inequality are where the system is rigged to benefit the successful at the expense of others. Rent seeking, privilege, cartels, monopolies, elite exploitation, cheating and so forth. Examples of negative externalities include how failure can lead to negative spirals of catastrophic collapse. Bad inequality does need to be minimized, but good inequality needs to be encouraged and rewarded. And there is even bad equality, such as where free riders benefit at the expense of the productive, reducing inequality while lowering total productivity.
I have a lot more I could say, but have already gone on too long. Let me just end by stating that I agree that the focus of a successful society is on prosperity and progress and fairness and not inequality of outcome. Indeed, where I see excessive focus on reducing inequality I usually also see an attempt to undermine the system and replace decentralized complexity with authoritarian control.
I largely agree with you.
I would not say that inequality is necessary for progress to start, but it is an inevitable outcome of a dynamic society. It is really about how people achieve their income and wealth, not whether some achieve more than others (which is inevitable in all societies beyond Hunter Gatherers.
From Quick summary of Scheidel’s book
• huge mass of peasants living at subsistence levels.
• Modern societies have much higher standards-of-living, but similar levels of inequality.
To some degree this is comparing apples and oranges.
There can certainly be a high, middle, and low classifications for wealth or what have you, so premodern and modern societies had/have wide disparities.
But (at least in the US) the definition of "poverty" keeps changing to some % level of income, so is always a relative measure that can "never" be totally corrected. Someone has to be in the top 1% and some others in the bottom quintile by definition.
But most of us think of real poverty (as an absolute measure) at or almost below subsistence as provided above: begging for food or scrounging for it in garbage, sleeping in doorways, etc. Even homeless people with tents and shopping carts are pretty well up above subsistence. And I saw mentioned somewhere that even the poorest folks in the US pretty much match the middle class in India, etc.
All of this leading to a question as to what would we really consider a (not so relative) definition of poverty or subsistence today? Obama said "at some point you have made enough money", but then goes on to live in a $15M estate in Mass. coast (and 2 or 3 others?). Many of us don't really mind others having "great" wealth as we know they can't use more than 2 or 3 yachts, planes, mansions, etc., as long as that they don't use that wealth to assume greater political control than one person/one vote and whatever open (non corrupt) persuasion they pursue in "fair" political contests. That is the "unfairness" that Dems and Repubs both complain about. "Don't tread on me!" :-)
Remember that the Scheidl book is about inequality, not poverty. Those are two very different things, although they are often conflated.
Defining poverty in wealthy societies is highly contested and fairly arbitrary. The official federal definition made some sense in the 1960s, but not anymore. I will write more on this later. I generally prefer the term “lower-income” instead of poor, but I think we are stuck with the term.
Subsistence is typically defined as about $450 per year. Obviously, not applicable to wealthy societies today.
"Someone has to be in the top 1% and some others in the bottom quintile by definition."
And what this makes clear is that current complaints about equality of outcome are primarily concerned not with the quality and quantity of material wealth. but about which percentile ranking one occupies *relative* to other members of society. Perception as opposed to concrete possession.
It's all about relative status and not about sufficiency of material assets.
Anyone complaining about people earning "too much" money are either evil or unaware of their envy problem. The worst are usually rich people a few steps down from the level about which they complain. I recall reading an article by a woman married to a doctor in Manhattan who was furious that her husband's salary could not longer afford the finest addresses, and that Jews and Asian people were making more money in "dirty" fields such as banking or software. It was published in the New Yorker or similar publication. I thought it was a gag article, but it was not.
As hatred for minorities becomes socially unacceptable, people need new people to hate. Right now the favored target for marginalization are poor white people, and poor people in general, but people who earned wealth themselves (not inheriting it) are an easy target of ridicule. I have seen this used as a proxy for anti-Asian or anti-Semitic feelings.
We are rapidly turning into Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron story where attractive people must wear masks and where the intelligent must have loud buzzing noises come out of permanent ear phones every ten seconds to remove their privilege.
The worst inequalities happen at birth. Tall, attractive people have easier lives, save for the extra rape risk (clearly an unpleasant aspect few consider when they are jealous). Natural intelligence or appealing personalities also matter more than inheriting millions. If we turn envy into public policy, some kind of human rights tragedy is guaranteed.
It would be so much easier if we simply aimed for a society where people roughly had a decent chance, everything would work out best, but this would do nothing to put the successful people "in their place." I am shocked at hatred of success, but it is common. One can see it when busy bodies complain that "no one should make that much money!" That statement is disgusting and common. Oddly, it often comes from rich white ladies who cannot stand the thought of someone with considerably more than themselves, especially if it is an immigrant or the wrong kind of minority (Asians seem to solicit the most hate for reasons I cannot understand).
Perhaps we are still trapped in the post-Agrarian/Monarchy/Capitalist dilemma of Equality vs. Inequality.
Perhaps we could evaluate the societal balance differently, maybe a (admittedly half baked) triangle -
Stability vs. Dynamism vs. Opportunity
where Productivity and Fulfillment are the outcomes to optimize for
and the productive forces are the inputs.
Didn’t we make significant reforms after the Gilded Age which was probably the greatest period of inequality in US history ? Teddy Roosevelt’s anti trust busting legislation for instance. This all happened without a war or revolution.
Edit needed:
“Equality is simply too vague of a concept to have any true meeting.”
Good catch!
Corrected.