House of Eratosthenes

My question is, which argument do you think was made in a more compelling way, suitable for a persuasive presentation to an audience not initially receptive to it?

The question is to what extent we feel the level of inequality is reasonable.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

The top rate was 70 percent in the 1960s. Now, it’s 35 percent. I think there needs to be a little bit more asked of the people at the top.

Einstein neglected to mention that as a share of the total tax burden, the top earners now pay more than they did back in the 1960s when the top tax rate was essentially double what it is today.

I work with a lot of engineers, a pretty bright group overall. Back in 2008, a formerly died in the wool GOP guy voted before Obama because “he will stick it to the rich”. He ignored all facts in evidence that the wealthy are already getting seriously screwed.
- Physics Geek | 03/09/2011 @ 11:01
Equality is the death of progress. Progress–economic or otherwise– is always produced by the desire for inequality. Without the possibility of inequality, people live on the level of bare subsistence. Granted inequality, a small minority of souls turn barbarism into civilization without the slightest intention of doing so. Labor, Marx notwithstanding, is not the cause of most of our wealth: unaided, labor produces merely a bare subsistence. Man is not a laboring animal naturally; without especial incentive, he works as little as will enable him to sustain life–
Russell Kirk, more or less

Most people work just hard enough to not get fired, and get paid just enough not to quit–
George Carlin

The rake of the rich or super-rich is quite small, made substantial only by leverage, and is a small fraction of the rake of governments or “public” schemes. Steal every last dollar which has stuck to the rich and it will be gone in paying for six months of government. In a capitalist society, the poor and middle class become richer at an attractive rate only when the rich become richer at their exponential rate. Our ingrained envy is at odds with the result–a permanently target-rich environment for Marxists.
- xlibrl | 03/09/2011 @ 11:26
I’ve seen a causal relationship portrayed between wealth inequality and corruption/collapse/revolution in the countries affected by inequality. This troubles me and, naturally, makes me wonder “but what can we do to correct the inequality to bring back the middle class?” I just had another though: since correlation does not equal causation, is it the inequality that causes instability, or is it the other way around? (also possible would be that they are related to each other by a third as-yet unknown factor)
What if the inequality we’re seeing is a result of a systemic illness leading to crisis, rather than the other way around.
It’s kinda fun to poke holes in my own assumptions.
- Sepphina | 03/09/2011 @ 11:46
That quote from Carlin says it all, especially since he said: “Most people.” The exception to the “most” is what we’re really talking about with regard to the (self-made) rich. Not the old-wealth rich, the 2nd generation in the “rags to riches to rags in three generations” timeline. But the people who just aren’t right for the wage-slave bottom-level lifestyle because they bring too much excitement and quality to whatever it is they do.

And yes, over the longer term money tends to stick to them. Infuriatingly, when this is noticed, it is also noticed that they don’t seem to spend too much time or energy thinking about money and it sticks to them nevertheless.

It will always remain a mystery, as well as a symbol of injustice, to those who think of money as a reward. To those who think of money as wealth, it’s just natural. Whoever creates something will have to be close to the source of whatever it is, so it will tend to coagulate around them.
- mkfreeberg | 03/09/2011 @ 11:54
since correlation does not equal causation, is it the inequality that causes instability, or is it the other way around? (also possible would be that they are related to each other by a third as-yet unknown factor)

Bingo. In fact, I’ve always seen it that way — have yet to discern a single reason to re-think it. Instability…read that as despotism. If you run everything, you’d make it so you & your friends have all the money. Isn’t that right? You’d be a rather ineffectual and lazy tyrant if, under your own tutelage, you failed to rise up head & shoulders over your fellow countrymen in terms of assets, as well as luxury, power, et al.

In fact, when & where have we ever seen a dictatorship or oligarchy in which everyone had more-or-less the same amount of stuff? I mean, please don’t go telling me Castro or Chavez are supposed to be examples of this…
- mkfreeberg | 03/09/2011 @ 12:05
Honestly, I’ve always wondered where we got this idea that Equality = 100% pure unadulterated good. We’ve had equal societies in the past, up to and including near-perfect equality. And it sucked. Nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers roaming the savanna are about as equal as you can get — they have to be, or else everyone dies — and that’s literally one step removed from swinging in the fucking trees. This is what we’re all supposed to be so anxious to get back to?

I get called an asshole for pointing out (in admittedly much less felicitous language) that Russell Kirk is right, yet our leftists want us all to live like medieval serfs and they’re somehow paragons of virtue. Huh?
- Severian | 03/09/2011 @ 14:51

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Two Opinions About Wealth InequalityWednesday, March 9th, 2011

Two Opinions About Wealth Inequality
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011