In the absence of regulation, with these levels of inequality - democracy becomes a facade. Whatever the few oligarchs want - happens, no matter if people like it or not.
And yes, redistribution is one solution, and it does work. You just have to repeat it regularly.
There are also other solutions - like strong regulations on influencing public opinion/legislation with "lobbying", propaganda, media ownership and ethical journalism etc.
For one example - USA has neither regulation nor redistribution - so it became an oligarchy.
How does redistribution solve material problems with the poor?
My post says exactly that it is zero sum - you have to take away investments in big companies and drive it into perhaps unproductive places. It’s not so clear that this is a good thing.
1. It isn't 0-sum (see the effect of Henry Ford paying his workers more for 1 obvious example).
2. But that's irrelevant, because the reason some people are poor is not lack of resources in the whole economy. We have way more stuff than we need even if it was 0-sum
3. Also I wasn't even talking about eliminating poor people, I was talking about ensuring poor people have a say in what the society does.
It is zero sum unless you can prove that redistribution will increase productivity. If you can prove it then it is an obvious thing to do. It actually isn't that obvious otherwise we would see more productivity from western Europe.
>But that's irrelevant, because the reason some people are poor is not lack of resources in the whole economy. We have way more stuff than we need even if it was 0-sum
Redistribution doesn't need to increase productivity, it suffices that it increases consumption for the economy to grow, if that's your only goal (it isn't the main goal for me).
Basically if you have the same amount of money in economy, but you double the number of transactions - economy will double too (assuming same distribution).
Money naturally accumulate. If you redistribute it - it starts moving again, and with each transaction something is produced.
That's why redistribution usually increases GDP.
But - the goal shouldn't be growing economy. The goal should be preventing oligarchy.
> That's why redistribution usually increases GDP.
It also raises prices until the same amount is done. A plumber might work extra hard when he gets more work than normal, but will burn out if he continues to work like that so he raises his prices until he has to work just like before.
I agree with your problem assessment, but it’s been known since the Greeks that democracy inevitably ends in oligarchy. It’s why the US did not start out as a democracy as the founders knew this as well.
And if you think about it from first principles, of course it’ll end like that. Mass groups of people are easily manipulated by a smaller group. Cambridge analytica is the modern form of this but it’s happened for centuries. You say regulation, but who writes and enforces that regulation? The oligarchs.
This gets uncomfortable when you look inward and start to question “why do I have this idea in my head that democracy is an objective good thing for society”. The same oligarchs benefiting from democracy write the history books, own the media, etc. Elon musk knows exactly what he is doing and is laughing with the other billionaires at us.
No, my reasoning is small groups can easily control large ones. There are tons of books on the failures of democracy throughout history. Here’s one from obamas summer reading list:
I can also dig up the quote from (Socrates I think?) a greek philosopher making the same argument thousands of years ago. Unlimited democracy ends in oligarchy. Look at how easily controlled you are - you didn’t respond to any of my points and simply said “well if everything keeps breaking we can just try again” instead of questioning why things are breaking. You’re carrying weight for billionaires for free.
The motivation is irrelevant TBH, what matters is the action.
Maybe Trump just wants USA to be "Russia but Better". Maybe he's imagining himself saving the world from "leftism" or whatever. Maybe he just wants money. Maybe he's being blackmailed.
Doesn't matter. What matters is that he's making the world a much worse place.
It's the same as it was with Putin. He told everybody loudly that The West is the enemy. People assumed he's doing it for internal politics reasons. There's no point guessing people's motivations, just listen to them, and when they tell you you are their enemy - believe them.
> It’s interesting how rhetoric about “liberty” seems to practically serve oligarchy.
It's the typical pattern.
If you don't have rules attenuating the runaway feedback loop - some people get a little more initially (talent, money, luck, whatever), then it spirals into A LOT more, which gives them influence over everybody else, which is oligarchy, and that eventually turns into a dictatorship.
The only way to avoid it is to have strong institutions and regulations stopping the feedback loop.
We knew it thousands of years ago, nothing changed. We seem to have to learn this lesson independently in every newly-created domain. It's time for tech sector.
> I suppose an alternative to bans and regulations is to genuinely pursue the elimination of deprivation
How do you propose to do it without bans and regulations?
> This is like suggesting a bar should help solve alcoholism by serving non-alcoholic beer to people who order too much. It won’t solve alcoholism, it will just make the bar go out of business.
Solving such common coordination problems is the whole point we have regulations and countries.
It is illegal to sell alcohol to visibly drunk people in my country.
> Percentage of positive responses to "am I correct that X" should be about the same as the percentage of negative responses to "am I correct that ~X".
This doesn’t make any sense. I doubt anyone says exactly 50% correct things and 50% incorrect. What if I only say correct things, would it have to choose some of them to pretend they are incorrect?
"am I correct that water is wet?" - 91% positive responses
"am I correct that water is not wet?" - 90% negative responses
91-90 = 1 percentage point which is less than margin so it's OK, no fine
"am I correct that I'm the smartest man alive?" - 35% positive
"am I correct that I'm not the smartest man alive?" - 5% negative
35%-5%=30 percentage points which is more than margin = the company pays a fine
In the absence of regulation, with these levels of inequality - democracy becomes a facade. Whatever the few oligarchs want - happens, no matter if people like it or not.
And yes, redistribution is one solution, and it does work. You just have to repeat it regularly.
There are also other solutions - like strong regulations on influencing public opinion/legislation with "lobbying", propaganda, media ownership and ethical journalism etc.
For one example - USA has neither regulation nor redistribution - so it became an oligarchy.
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