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Moving on to how the author of the cato.org article uses the data he cites, I have to say that the same patterns present in the other "myths" are also present here. For example, he cites the paper "Does Wealth Inequality Matter for Growth?: The effect of Billionaire Wealth, Income Distribution, and Poverty" by Bagchi and Svejnar, the cato.org article cites the following quote:
Which is from the abstract of the paper (not usually best practice, but OK). That conclusion is at least plausible. But then, how does the cato.org article make use of this quote? It claims this conclusion means that the key variable in economic freedom is not market forces, but government-dispensed favors. Bagchi and Svejnar say nothing about "economic freedom" and do not, anywhere in their paper, establish such a sharp dichotomy between government favors and market forces, as if those are the only two alternatives. Digging into the article itself, it turns out that what Bagchi and Svejnar are focused on is whether or not inequality affects economic growth--they find that it does, but when they factor out government favors, they find no effect. Again, that's quite plausible, but is an utterly different conclusion than what the cato.org article says is their conclusion.
Additionally, especially in this section, the cato.org article cites some questionable sources. For example, a quote from one paper reads:
but then goes on to say:
Which is pretty revealing. The paper is clearly shot through with unsupported opinion, and is not really a data-driven argument. It's not the kind of paper that I would ever cite, nor would any good scholar, philosopher, or theorist.
Anyway, there's a lot more I could say, but the above hits the high points. I don't want to give the impression that I'm totally negative on the viewpoint from the cato.org paper--I've tried to point out where I think the author has a point. I don't believe that capitalism is all bad, or for that matter, even half bad. It has some features that lead to injustice and inequality, and that can end up rewarding unvirtuous behavior, and for those reasons, it must be balanced by its opposite, socialism--which itself is equally bad if allowed to be total within an economy.
These things said, on the whole I did not find the cato.org article very impressive, for the reasons stated. Again, the article makes a few good points, but generally seems to be aiming at a conclusion and scrambling after any source that will support that conclusion.
Wheew.(finis)
I don't find this kind of argument very convincing. We've negotiated lots of other similar situations and circumstances. Who determines what is murder vs. what is justified homicide? Who determines what is fair use of a published work vs. copyright infringement? Who determines what should be a fundamental freedom vs. not? What this kind of argument turns on is the fact that sometimes it is difficult to identify borderline cases. It wants you to focus on those at the expense of all the clear-cut cases that are out there, which are usually the majority of cases.The crux of matter is who determines 'what is enough' and who is given the power to confiscate anything above that.
Inequality has been the reality since the very beginning. Seeking to impose 'equality' (in quotes on purpose as it never is) by force is the tyrants dream, one we see playing out in nations such as Cuba and North Korea, which isn't 'equality' even in the most generous sense of the definition - there are always other who are 'more equal' than the rest.
It is this 'equality' which the political left is selling to those on the lower end of the economic scale, and do so not for the economic impact, not for the betterment of those on lower end of the economic scale, they are selling it strictly for the level of power and control over others that it would give them, i.e. dictating winners and losers at their whim. Once the left has this, the single party state is next, as they'd go and confiscate all the resources for their political opposition and run unopposed.
Scratch a liberal, or a progressive, find a tyrant.
Well, it was his father who started the company, and who hired me, but that's an aside. The problem here is that investing is a whole lot easier than what a lot of people have to do to earn their daily bread these days--especially when you can hire professionals who just skim a percentage of the gains.Your personal anecdote points out that had not your wealthy boss started that company, hired good people to run it, even though sometimes against his order, would soon fall out of his economic strata. From my view, the wealthy not only earn their way to that economic strata, they have to keep earning their place to remain there, even if its just having the foresight of investing large stakes of their money and living off of the earned interest and dividends (those investments enabling others to not only build their paths to wealthy, but also to give opportunities to large swaths of others in the form of employment - mutually agreed swap of skills and knowledge for compensation).
They would be less free to do so in the sense they'd be able to invest less, if I had my way, and more of that money would go to the middle and lower classes. But no, I would not cut off that freedom utterly, or probably even to the extent you might think.In the system we have, they are free to do so. In the proposed opposite system, they are not free to do so.
Again, I don't find this kind of reply very convincing, in that it's never applied out of principle. Suppose we said the same to, say, the families of murder victims? Hey, life is unfair. Sometimes one person murders another. Get over it.Haven't you heard that life's unfair? Life, and reality for that matter, there will always be disparent outcomes. It is unavoidable and inevitable, yet the opposite approach tries to dictate outcomes, independent of, and in spite of, these realities, as well as people's good or bad decisions along the way.
Usually, when I've looked into such analyses, I've found similar to what I found about the cato.org article--they tend to ignore a lot to reach a conclusion. But I'm happy to take a look at an analysis.The previously cited statistics about elevating the globe's abject poverty applicable here.
Again, not so fast. It's often a talking point that socialism always fails. Aside from the fact that there have been some successes, there's one very big problem, which is that western powers since WWII have imposed heavy economic sanctions on countries that adopted socialist reforms, sometimes literally the day after they had done so and without any apparent reason other than the adoption of those reforms. When you're a small country that exports, say, coffee and potassium to the United States and Europe, and suddenly, those markets refuse to purchase from you any longer, of course your economy is going to fail.Free Market Capitalism has elevated large parts of the globe's population's standard of living from abject poverty to middle class, and here you are apparently purporting that we should discard it, and impose a government run confiscatory wealth redistribution - centralized economic planning - which has shown itself a failure throughout history?
Not if you make it just enough to live, but not very comfortably. People get tired of eating only rice and living in a cramped apartment. But most people are not couch potatoes. Most people have energy and they want to do something meaningful. The lazy welfare queens exist, but they're few and far between. They aren't typical of most people.Again, dressing up power and control in the guise of addressing inequality, and tossing in inefficiency.
Take Universal Basic Income.
If you give UBI to people, they are going to figure out how to live on just that, and they won't 'study something, to develop a talent or a special insight or what-have-you, to contribute to knowledge and overall skill'. A long record of human nature has established this.
You should read up on the work done on monopsony power as economists started developing it in the early 00's. Companies found ways to short circuit this sort of economic pressure that is supposed to be the balancing upward pressure on wages. Adam Smith himself warned about companies doing exactly this, and we let it happen. We've let it happen many times, and don't seem to learn the lesson.This 'less incentive to work' is manifest when you give people UBI.
If 'when reasonable work is not rewarded reasonably', people in the free market system chose to change something, be it jobs, or responsibilities in their present role to gain that reasonable reward. Dictating from on high what is reasonable reward for reasonable work isn't the solution to anything except motivating people to game that system, this too well established in rate of government benefits fraud.
Well...you did post a pretty long article. I often find conservatives complaining that no one wants to engage here, so I decided to do that.Wheew.
When I was in college, I wrote for the school newspaper and once did an interview with Michael Tanner. I also read a great (and prescient) book he wrote back during the Bush years called Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservativism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.
Well, if you do not agree, you should be able to find the flaw in my analysis. Are any of my premises false? Is there a mistake in reasoning somewhere?I don't agree with this zero sum gain view of the economy.
Do please tell me how Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, etc., hwo their wealth has prevented you from earning more, should you have chosen to do so?
Oh right. It hasn't.
The reality is that wealth, investments, building companies such as Amazon, Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, etc. has enabled others opportunities to increase their incomes than had they not made those investments or built those companies. Even in a more passive role, investing in stocks or mutuals, makes capital available for other to build or growth companies which do the same thing, provide others with opportunities to elevate themselves.
Again, I don't agree with the zero sum game view of economics.
No. Not by itself.Free Market Capitalism has elevated large parts of the globe's population's standard of living from abject poverty to middle class, and here you are apparently purporting that we should discard it, and impose a government run confiscatory wealth redistribution - centralized economic planning - which has shown itself a failure throughout history?
Growing government control and power over people isn't the solution as history has proven.I don't find this kind of argument very convincing. We've negotiated lots of other similar situations and circumstances. Who determines what is murder vs. what is justified homicide? Who determines what is fair use of a published work vs. copyright infringement? Who determines what should be a fundamental freedom vs. not? What this kind of argument turns on is the fact that sometimes it is difficult to identify borderline cases. It wants you to focus on those at the expense of all the clear-cut cases that are out there, which are usually the majority of cases.
As I said farther down, I agree that some inequality is inevitable, and probably even a social good, as it provides an incentive to do our best.
Who's the one or ones who are to determine this (along with how much of what gets confiscated and redistributed?)But there's also clearly a time when we just have too much, which is what we have now.
We may not be able to identify all the border cases correctly, but we can certainly identify the clear ones.
Says you.Elon Musk has too much,
"Fortune favors the bold", "The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward".in the sense that he has more wealth than he can ever use for his own personal needs, or even the needs of everyone he knows even by one-time acquaintance.
As cited in previous post, the every economic system you wish to destroy is the one which has lifted the most people from abject poverty to better standards of living. Let the system continue, the remaining will be too in due time.When you have a few million people who are starving
Of those enlightened personal rights, the right to property earned, is one you wish to destroy.while another few own so much wealth they decide to install solid gold toilet seats on their five private 757s, so as to be able to poop seated on solid gold at 30,000 feet, something has gone wrong. It's especially gone wrong when those who have little work full time or are willing to work full time and are trying to find work.
What counts as a tyrant is relative to the sensibilities of the time, at least from an historical perspective. That said, I consider it a great insight of the Enlightenment period that the correct form of government is a representative democracy with checks and balances, plus protections for certain personal rights.
Slippery slope. Take the step and give government the power to take all you have, and it will, and gulags will shortly follow.Conservatives often paint folks like Bernie in light of China or the Soviet Union, but nobody, not me, not Bernie, not AOC, wants that. There are ways to balance out inequality without resorting to gulags.
This is exactly what economic mobility between levels is talking about. The father elevated the family to high economic level, and the son, through his inactions, and actions, is going to reduce that family's economic level.Well, it was his father who started the company, and who hired me, but that's an aside.
Do you really think that monies which are invested in corporations don't end up benefitting the middle and lower classes?The problem here is that investing is a whole lot easier than what a lot of people have to do to earn their daily bread these days--especially when you can hire professionals who just skim a percentage of the gains.
They would be less free to do so in the sense they'd be able to invest less, if I had my way, and more of that money would go to the middle and lower classes. But no, I would not cut off that freedom utterly, or probably even to the extent you might think.
No one is purporting law of the jungle here (this, a false equivalency which you are drawing)Again, I don't find this kind of reply very convincing, in that it's never applied out of principle. Suppose we said the same to, say, the families of murder victims? Hey, life is unfair. Sometimes one person murders another. Get over it.
We aren't living by the much-vaunted law of the jungle. When we form a society, one bedrock principle thereof is justice--we make a society precisely so that we can resist the law of the jungle, because we humans don't do very well under such law. We therefore have a responsibility to make things just, which involves discovering injustice and working towards the equilibrium that justice implies. If we notice that something is unfair, we have a responsibility to fix it.
The post I quoted has a citation.Usually, when I've looked into such analyses, I've found similar to what I found about the cato.org article--they tend to ignore a lot to reach a conclusion. But I'm happy to take a look at an analysis.
Again, the post I quoted has a citation.Again, not so fast. It's often a talking point that socialism always fails. Aside from the fact that there have been some successes, there's one very big problem, which is that western powers since WWII have imposed heavy economic sanctions on countries that adopted socialist reforms, sometimes literally the day after they had done so and without any apparent reason other than the adoption of those reforms. When you're a small country that exports, say, coffee and potassium to the United States and Europe, and suddenly, those markets refuse to purchase from you any longer, of course your economy is going to fail.
This appears to be little more than mewling when socialism is be rightfully criticized.It's literally like we have snipers set up, and anyone who flies a socialist flag, we shoot, and then turn around and say "see! anyone who flies the socialist flag dies!"...and people seem to find it convincing.
Yet, it is progressives who keep wanting to grow the power of the state and control over individuals, eroding those individual's rights and liberties of making their own decisions.This is not to say that some socialist countries have done some really awful things. Some have. Again, I don't want to do those things--and neither does any other progressive.
We have seen the number of benefits as well as the amount of benefits consistently increase. I think you have an unrealistic expectation of human behavior. More often we have seen the tactic of take the benefits and adopt an illegal side hustle off the books, in order to maintain those benefits.Not if you make it just enough to live, but not very comfortably. People get tired of eating only rice and living in a cramped apartment. But most people are not couch potatoes. Most people have energy and they want to do something meaningful. The lazy welfare queens exist, but they're few and far between. They aren't typical of most people.
The regulated free market system that the US has arrived at is about as close to ideal as I think we can expect to achieve, sure, some tweaks around the edges for specific issues, but on whole pretty good, striving for equality of opportunity without over controlling and interfering.Well...you did post a pretty long article. I often find conservatives complaining that no one wants to engage here, so I decided to do that.
I suppose I should reiterate something--kinda my top-line thought here. I am not a proponent of pure socialism, any more than I am a proponent of pure capitalism. I may look like a proponent of socialism to a capitalist, but I will look like a proponent of capitalism to a socialist. Just as we have a government that has checks and balances written into its systems, so do capitalism and socialism contain elements that check and balance out the extremes inherent in the other. For that reason, I am a proponent of a mixed economy. I do believe that we are too much to the capitalism side in this country, but that does not mean I want to swing us over to pure socialism. The trick, say I, is just in finding where the natural point of equilibrium between two basic forces in human societies lies: the balance point between cooperation (socialism) and competition (market economics). We need both to survive and thrive.
It wouldn't be amusing, it would be the right thing to do. Make the idle rich pay their fair share of taxes, like everyone else has to.It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.
Perhaps if Demcorats weren't such flaming idiots they would get back to their roots of being for the working man and actually do something useful for the middle class on taxes. Instead they'll focus all their energy on letting hairy 40 year old men into the women's bathroom and telling little Johnny he's actually Sarah.
The tax rate cut which was obliterated by the inflation it created? That tax cut?So,........when was the last time Democrats put forward a bill cutting the tax rate for the middle class? I mean they talk about it all the time so what exactly are they doing up on Capitol Hill?
Link to your musings?It would be so amusing if Trump undercut Democrats and hiked taxes on the rich to pay for tax cuts for the middle class.
Perhaps if Demcorats weren't such flaming idiots they would get back to their roots of being for the working man and actually do something useful for the middle class on taxes. Instead they'll focus all their energy on letting hairy 40 year old men into the women's bathroom and telling little Johnny he's actually Sarah.
A govt with any power can take anything away. Even if it never gave it in the 1st place.Growing government control and power over people isn't the solution as history has proven.
A government which has the power to give you all you want, has the power to take all you have, and it is this that you are purporting here in your posts, a government that takes all from their disfavored tribes to give away to their favored tribes. You'd have thought that humans have evolved higher than these baser drives by now.
Who's the one or ones who are to determine this (along with how much of what gets confiscated and redistributed?)
You?
Says you.
"Fortune favors the bold", "The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward".
As cited in previous post, the every economic system you wish to destroy is the one which has lifted the most people from abject poverty to better standards of living. Let the system continue, the remaining will be too in due time.
Of those enlightened personal rights, the right to property earned, is one you wish to destroy.
Slippery slope. Take the step and give government the power to take all you have, and it will, and gulags will shortly follow.
This is exactly what economic mobility between levels is talking about. The father elevated the family to high economic level, and the son, through his inactions, and actions, is going to reduce that family's economic level.
Do you really think that monies which are invested in corporations don't end up benefitting the middle and lower classes?
Benefitting the middle and lower classes in the form of affordable goods and services as well as opportunities for employment?
I am mostly replying to your post to respond to this one. Their rebuttal to "inequality has never been higher" is to point at completely irrelevant things like "wealth redistribution." Oh the rich pay more taxes than the poor and some of that money goes to the poor, so the real inequality is less!!Is this your pitch for a government run confiscatory and forced wealth redistribution?
MYTH 1. Inequality Has Never Been Worse
This isn't a myth. Elon Musk did not earn 300+ billion dollars. Nobody does. It is literally impossible for a person to earn that much via their own efforts. Instead, you get this rich by having thousands of people work for you, and you take the proceeds of their labor. That is, quite literally, the basis of employment.MYTH 2. The Rich Didn’t Earn Their Money
Meh.A govt with any power can take anything away. Even if it never gave it in the 1st place.
Your point is not very informative.
I'm inclined to disagree.There are no rights to property. Just laws stating who's the owner.
A rather binary point of view, I think.And there's no such thing as free markets. Laws, taxes, regulations, subsidies, monopolies, all make free markets non existent.
I am mostly replying to your post to respond to this one. Their rebuttal to "inequality has never been higher" is to point at completely irrelevant things like "wealth redistribution." Oh the rich pay more taxes than the poor and some of that money goes to the poor, so the real inequality is less!!
lmao
Here you are completely wrong, in so much as working, taking risks and making good decisions (like when to get out) is how Musk built his wealth.This isn't a myth. Elon Musk did not earn 300+ billion dollars. Nobody does. It is literally impossible for a person to earn that much via their own efforts.
The basis of employment, especially in an 'at will' environment such as the US, is a mutually agreed upon exchange of someone's skills, knowledge, abilities and their value add, for an agreed upon compensation.Instead, you get this rich by having thousands of people work for you, and you take the proceeds of their labor. That is, quite literally, the basis of employment.
Study up on how job markets work, because its not how you appear to be thinking that they do.Now, don't reflexively go into some right wing spin to claim I'm saying rich people don't work or that CEOs don't deserve a good income. Their work is valuable, but their extreme wealth objectively does come from the labor of others. And there's no magic law of the universe that says they must earn the share they currently earn.
I think you're starting with a misunderstanding of who has a claim on wealth in the first place. Again, you're talking about wealth after it has already been distributed according to a scheme that does not exist in nature, but is, rather, the result of laws we humans have written. There's nothing particularly right about most of them, and it is those very rules that are at issue here. Your replies generally assume they are right, and then, of course, it's easy to conclude that they are.Growing government control and power over people isn't the solution as history has proven.
A government which has the power to give you all you want, has the power to take all you have, and it is this that you are purporting here in your posts, a government that takes all from their disfavored tribes to give away to their favored tribes. You'd have thought that humans have evolved higher than these baser drives by now.
Again, not talking about confiscation and redistribution. Just production and distribution. As to who...that's a good question, but we could figure that out pretty easily. Representative democracy is a good place to start.Who's the one or ones who are to determine this (along with how much of what gets confiscated and redistributed?)
You?
This is not always true, either."Fortune favors the bold", "The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward".
I don't think you cited anything. It seems to me untrue that pure capitalism has lifted the most people from abject poverty; it looks like mixed economic systems did. But feel free to cite something and I'll take a look at it.As cited in previous post, the every economic system you wish to destroy is the one which has lifted the most people from abject poverty to better standards of living. Let the system continue, the remaining will be too in due time.
Actually, no. I don't think that right exists in reality. No one--not me, not you, not Musk, not anyone, earns their wealth these days.Of those enlightened personal rights, the right to property earned, is one you wish to destroy.
There's a reason we call it the slippery slope fallacy--because it is. Taking one step, three, five, whatever steps, toward something does not mean we have to go all the way to it.Slippery slope. Take the step and give government the power to take all you have, and it will, and gulags will shortly follow.
But the thing is, he didn't. I and other there recognized the ineptitude at the top and we kept the company going despite the son's absurd directives. In the meantime, the son had received close to half a billion dollars in wealth from his father's efforts; it's unlikely he was going to sink down the economic ladder.This is exactly what economic mobility between levels is talking about. The father elevated the family to high economic level, and the son, through his inactions, and actions, is going to reduce that family's economic level.
I think I would say it's more complicated than that.Do you really think that monies which are invested in corporations don't end up benefitting the middle and lower classes?
Benefitting the middle and lower classes in the form of affordable goods and services as well as opportunities for employment?
Not meant to be an equivalence...not even sure how what I wrote could be seen that way. The point was that this response:No one is purporting law of the jungle here (this, a false equivalency which you are drawing)
Again, what do you mean by power? If you mean, writing a set of laws that would distribute wealth more equitably, which government will follow, then this is obviously false. If you mean, power regardless of laws or rules, then we pretty much blow past that marker the moment we establish a government.But if you give government the power to confiscate all you have, law of the jungle is what you'll get.
That's probably what we would have regardless of what the tax rate was.The focus will shift from earning and growing wealth to hiding it from the government, or for paying off the government (congress) for tax loop holes, which is what we have now.
It does, but it's not clear what we're meant to draw from it. The period over which the decline in poverty is reported is a period of mixed economics, not pure capitalism. To get pure capitalism, you need to go back before roughly 1930. That period was marked by high inequality and squalor for a great many in the midst of unprecedented wealth for a few.The post I quoted has a citation.
They seem to be fairly balanced to me...and their people are generally happier than ours are.Also, this scenario that you cite, I'm rather skeptical that it happened, I'm looking at the Western EU democracies which have leaned more to the socialist end of the spectrum.
Can you provide an example?Yet, it is progressives who keep wanting to grow the power of the state and control over individuals, eroding those individual's rights and liberties of making their own decisions.
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