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On the other hand, were the 1950s as probably the most equal decade in US history really that bad, or "immoral"? We had:
- income tax rates up to 94% redistributing income on a massive scale
- strong labor unions watching over the spread between CEO and average worker pay
- pension plans protecting workers from the first day of work until death; allowing safe retirement at 65
- strong GDP growth and the benefits of this shared much more equally
I can't find anything wrong economically nor morally with this situation.
I can. Tyranny. And Theft.
-Redistribution of wealth is inherently immoral and evil and presumes that you are born into slavery to others.
-Mandating that workers must join a collective and pay that collective to form a mob and steal the wealth of employers against their will is evil and immoral.
-Pension plans can be provided by oneself, and for oneself. They are available and effective in the private market.
-A utilitarian argument that is invalid and does not the address of inherent immorality in stealing from others based on need.
Recently, I read "The Great Leveler" by Stanford ancient history professor Scheidler. His thesis is that only extreme violence or a pandemic like the Black Plague can temporarily diminish income and wealth inequality for maybe a couple generations but then it reasserts itself inexorably. In essence we are still in an exceptional circumstance following WW1 + WW2, but we also see that inequality is ramping up again massively.
The only events ("The four Horsemen") leveling inequality are:
- mass mobilbization warfare (WW2)
- state collapse (Somalia)
- transformative revolutions (October Revolution)
- pandemics (Black Plague)
...
I haven't read The Great Leveler by Walter Scheidel, so I guess that makes me qualified to comment.
I wonder about his conclusions for causes of leveling inequality. I'm thinking specifically about some video talks I've viewed, given by Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor. In one of them, he discusses something called the Great Compression - specifically, the narrowing of earned income amounts between those on the top of the wage ladder and those on the bottom.
The Great Compression started in 1937 and continued until the 1970's. It was apparently caused by several factors:
- Greatly expanded powers by labor unions.
- A highly progressive income tax.
- Protection from foreign goods, either by tariffs or by the effects of WW2 on the rest of the world's economy.
All this started to unravel when (imo) the dependency of the U.S. economy upon foreign oil was exposed by OPEC. In order to get back to better economic times, various presidential administrations (both Republican and Democratic) have cause the U.S. economy to shed its powerful labor unions and its highly progressive income tax. However, a global economy strategy was also pursued, with the reasoning that the United States could fill in the top half of the economy with high-paying/high-tech jobs while outsourcing the low-tech/low-paying jobs.
The problem is that it's not working - the Great Compression of the wage scale since the 1970's has given way to the Great Expansion of the wage scale. The result is that there's not enough money getting into the hands of those on the bottom half of the wage ladder to drive a consumer-oriented economy.
-Redistribution of wealth is inherently immoral and evil and presumes that you are born into slavery to others.
-Mandating that workers must join a collective and pay that collective to form a mob and steal the wealth of employers against their will is evil and immoral.
-Pension plans can be provided by oneself, and for oneself. They are available and effective in the private market.
-A utilitarian argument that is invalid and does not the address of inherent immorality in stealing from others based on need.
Yes and no. The question is what is the higher morality. Create good outcomes for most people at the cost of redistribution or creating immensely great outcomes for a small amount of people and allow worse outcomes for most. There's really two sides to the argument.
1950/60: much more people can afford to retire safely
2017: most people cannot retire at all. A few people can retire extremely well.
State collapse impoverishes everyone. The Germanic invaders lived worse than peaceful migrants who entered the Roman Empire before and not cause its collapse. In fact,Europeans lived worse than during the Roman Empire into the Industrial Revolution, for a cool 1400+ years.
This is true if you were to believe that wars and things like state collapse are simply happening. Under whatever pretext. Except that from what I do know, at least for the last 4 centuries all wars were designed as part of the ongoing humanity "management" plan.
Hence, those who invest into war only profit from it. That what I was referring to. You may do basic, really basic research on say how heavily international banking families and corporations invested into Germany. Driving it "drang nah Ost". Just an example.
ALL wars were always done for financial reasons. Someone always benefits from them. Qui Bono. He who profits he committed the crime.
it's not that hard really, plenty of info. Iraq, for example.
I haven't read The Great Leveler by Walter Scheidel, so I guess that makes me qualified to comment.
I wonder about his conclusions for causes of leveling inequality. I'm thinking specifically about some video talks I've viewed, given by Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor. In one of them, he discusses something called the Great Compression - specifically, the narrowing of earned income amounts between those on the top of the wage ladder and those on the bottom.
The Great Compression started in 1937 and continued until the 1970's. It was apparently caused by several factors:
- Greatly expanded powers by labor unions.
- A highly progressive income tax.
- Protection from foreign goods, either by tariffs or by the effects of WW2 on the rest of the world's economy.
All this started to unravel when (imo) the dependency of the U.S. economy upon foreign oil was exposed by OPEC. In order to get back to better economic times, various presidential administrations (both Republican and Democratic) have cause the U.S. economy to shed its powerful labor unions and its highly progressive income tax. However, a global economy strategy was also pursued, with the reasoning that the United States could fill in the top half of the economy with high-paying/high-tech jobs while outsourcing the low-tech/low-paying jobs.
The problem is that it's not working - the Great Compression of the wage scale since the 1970's has given way to the Great Expansion of the wage scale. The result is that there's not enough money getting into the hands of those on the bottom half of the wage ladder to drive a consumer-oriented economy.
Good points. According to Dr. Scheidel's thesis all policies that created the "Great Compression" were caused by WW2. They were direct effects from the war effort (create higher demand for labor, affording them a better bargaining position) but also indirect effects as the shared suffering and experience made people vote for progressive legislation etc. However, the argument then goes that this is an extremely exceptional circumstance that will go away after 1-2 generations and give way to the usual extreme distribution of income and wealth. There are multiple mechanisms for this, it seems inevitable.
Yes and no. The question is what is the higher morality. Create good outcomes for most people at the cost of redistribution or creating immensely great outcomes for a small amount of people and allow worse outcomes for most. There's really two sides to the argument.
1950/60: much more people can afford to retire safely
2017: most people cannot retire at all. A few people can retire extremely well.
Utilitarianism. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
No. They don't. The rights of the individual outweigh the needs of the one, or the many.
Without such rights, we are jungle animals ruled by physical force, and whoever can form the biggest mob with the most violent power gets to take from others based on perceived "need".
Redistribution is theft, and redistribution is a vehicle of ENVY.
I don't care who retires or when. Retirement is a function of individual planning, individual focus, and individual execution. One can retire whenever they want, provided they plan and execute when they are young.
Failure to be able to retire is failure to plan and failure to execute. It is an individual issue and should not be addressed with communal theft.
Inequality is natural and good. The best people will always do better. That is fair and just and natural and moral and correct. .
I can see an argument for inequality being natural, but I see no argument at all for inequality being fair, just, moral or correct.
Instead, I see where the innate human need for individual self preservation can in some cases be so powerful that it causes a belief that inequality is fair, just, moral and correct.
Perhaps this innate need is overdeveloped in some (unfortunately, perhaps overdeveloped in some that are in power, which eludes to the OP's second perspective on this subject posted today at 11:46 am)
OP, how do earthquakes figure into your argument in that post? I am not understanding the connection.
Inequality is natural. There is no solution to starting inequality. Amartya Sen argues in that the great equalizer is Freedom. The greater freedom a society can provide to its participants, the more likely its participants will overcome whatever challenges they face micro-economically and can improve their lot in life.
However, increasing freedom can be difficult to do, as there are often competing interests. How to balance, say a monopolists freedom to charge whatever rate they would like for a service only they provide, with the freedom of people to be able to use said service at a rate that still allows them to remain competitive.
There are many aspects where we see this in conflict. The freedom to work can be impaired by illness or disease. It would be a substantial achievement for a society to be able to rid these leading impairments, but at what cost? A State provided healthcare would provide some freedoms to the majority, but not necessarily allow minority ailments attention to be cured. It may stymie future development in areas that may otherwise occur. The question of is it better to have a cure nobody can afford or to have no cure at all.
There's also significant limitations placed on those without education. People of talent are still corralled into occupations that do not utilize their full potential. Alternatively, people with limited prospects cannot achieve modest growth if the cost of training is too high. Where does one focus to maximize freedom for a society overall?
I believe the correlation seen in periods of relative tranquility is really the eroding of personal freedoms for a greater portion of a population. Even today in our relatively good times, we have one of the smallest overall % of workforce participation. Some have certainly exercised their freedom to no longer work, but has this come at a cost of stopping development of future generations? Do institutions with significant market power curb competition to force an acceptance of what they offer being what should be the expectation? Are political leaders as accessible by all as they once were?
There are many aspects of freedom or bondage that tie together to keep inequality in place. The microeconomic decisions of individual participants are not good or bad, they are simply logical in a given environment. Where the definitions come through are within an entity's laws. Those lowest common denominator activity determinants that a culture can support in total, backed by the ability of either the government or the culture to enforce these minimums to create a fair playing field. Advanced economic countries with homogeneous population bases have an advantage in this element, albeit at the expense of the innovation brought through diversity.
The freedom aspect is also important to understand when trying to determine why seemingly well planned and intentioned goes with socialism or planned economies have ended in terrible failure. The freedom aspect is necessary to account for the grand diversity present in each person's microeconomic condition. Few will simply set aside their needs for the greater good of something else....unless they are free to do so and to a degree they can determine.
In a free society then, inequality can be seen less as a static picture of how things are and ever will be, and more of where a particular participant is in their family or other unit's cumulative achievement in an area. That isn't perfect, but it is hopeful, and has some rather good qualities that accompany it.
And....the thread drifts into a political argument over individualism vs collectivism, with no middle ground allowed...
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