Why "x% of people have y% of the wealth" is irrelevant.

[Borodog]

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Under capitalism, fortunes can only be build by continually innovating and pleasing large numbers of customers.

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Then this "capitalism" is of marginal relevance. (I suppose the large number of beneficiaries of the violent 19th century European empires were pretty pleased with themselves, though they weren't the "customers" really.)

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Societies are not capitalist exactly to the extent of states interfere in their markets. So complaining about 19th state aggression in a thread about the free market is of "marginal relevance."

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Who's complaining? I'm simply pointing out that your capitalist model is not a sufficient basis for extrapolating the virtuousness of all fortunes. Your OP did not make it clear that its conclusions are applicable only to a specific ideal society.

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Yes it did, obviously, since that is exactly what you complained about. Please stop doing what you are doing to my thread.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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But you aren't going to manage to convince everybody to think like you, so the conflict isn't going away. So even though you may be right, you are still a contributor to keeping the conflict alive (as am I).

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You are conflating intellectual disagreement with property disputes.

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No, I mean that the intellectual disagreements is not going away and thus the property disputes is not going away either. There are people that think that you aren't entitled to all that you think you are entitled to, as long as it is such there is a de facto property dispute as well.

[latefordinner]

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That's because much of it is outlawed. It's a great trick. Make it illegal to provide charity, and then claim there is a market failure in charitable giving. For example, the state makes one jump through an incredible amount of extremely costly hoops to set up any charity of significant scale. Why? Because those in government don't want the competition. For example, where I come from, it is a crime to cook food for the homeless.

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Though I agree with you in part (I have actually been arrested for cooking/distributing food for the homeless with Food Not Bombs), I think it's mostly a false argument. You can't honestly tell me you think that the reason more rich people don't voluntarily give to the poor is because it's too hard and costly can you?

[Borodog]

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The ""x% of people have y% of the wealth" stat isn't irrelevant, it is just incomplete. Certainly it is useful in describing different societies with similar levels of total wealth.

Given the diminishing marginal utility of wealth, it would be generally preferable from a utilitarian perspective to spread wealth around as much as possible, if that spreading doesn't decrease the total amount of wealth created.

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Except, of course, that coercively "spreading wealth" cannot help but decrease the total amount of wealth created. Breaking up capital accumulations necessarilly reduces the productivity of capital, not to mention incentive effects. Over time the relative reduction in wealth due to coercive redistribution is exponential.

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You say:

"It does not matter if 3% of the people own 90% of the wealth, if the standard of living of the individuals continues to go up."

...Except it does matter if the standard of living would have gone up even more had wealth been less concentrated.

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Except, again, it couldn't have.

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The fact that American capitalism has made things slightly better for the poor doesn't mean another system could not have made even greater improvements.

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Your bias is betrayed by your terminology. Capitalism has made things mind-bogglingly better for the poor, not "slightly."

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In fact, if one accepts that people's labor/leisure curves are backward bending at certain points, a higher level of taxation could create incentive to produce more wealth.

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If one accepts that incentives matter, one doesn't accept this.

[LinusKS]

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You're making the mistake of treating wealth as if it were an objective, rather than a relative measure.

It really doesn't matter whether the kings and queens were poorer than the janitor in terms of colot TVs and Ipods; because the kings and queens were not acquainted with the janitor. Their point of reference was to the people over whom they ruled.

Similarly, it doesn't matter if a janitor is richer than the monarchs. He's not comparing himself to the kings and queens. He's point of reference is to the people whose toilets he cleans. If he's poorer then them (which is what it means to clean their toilets), then he's poor. Regardless of the queens and kings.

To put it differently, the rich need the poor; without the poor, they cannot exist. The poor, on the other hand, having nothing to lose but their chains.

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Thanks for neatly illustrating that your entire worldview and personal philosophy is based on envy. I couldn't have illustrated it better myself.

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Is it that you don't get it, or does it just piss you off when someone has the temerity to contradict you?

Because if it's the first, I can try again; but if it's the second, I'm guessing you just go around feeling pissed off a lot.

[Skidoo]

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Under capitalism, fortunes can only be build by continually innovating and pleasing large numbers of customers.

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Then this "capitalism" is of marginal relevance. (I suppose the large number of beneficiaries of the violent 19th century European empires were pretty pleased with themselves, though they weren't the "customers" really.)

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Societies are not capitalist exactly to the extent of states interfere in their markets. So complaining about 19th state aggression in a thread about the free market is of "marginal relevance."

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Who's complaining? I'm simply pointing out that your capitalist model is not a sufficient basis for extrapolating the virtuousness of all fortunes. Your OP did not make it clear that its conclusions are applicable only to a specific ideal society.

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Yes it did, obviously, since that is exactly what you complained about. Please stop doing what you are doing to my thread.

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No, your premise was based on an ideal. Your conclusions were, as far as I can tell, general. That's what I'm "complaining" about.

If you think I'm doing something to "your thread" that is not according to Hoyle, then be specific about it. Don't leave it up to me to guess what your problem is.

[LinusKS]

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To put it differently, the rich need the poor; without the poor, they cannot exist. The poor, on the other hand, having nothing to lose but their chains (and homes and cars and color TV's) .

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The point you're missing is that it's the poor who build the homes, make the cars, and assemble the color TV's.

Why should they miss out on the things they themselves are creating?

[Borodog]

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That's because much of it is outlawed. It's a great trick. Make it illegal to provide charity, and then claim there is a market failure in charitable giving. For example, the state makes one jump through an incredible amount of extremely costly hoops to set up any charity of significant scale. Why? Because those in government don't want the competition. For example, where I come from, it is a crime to cook food for the homeless.

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Though I agree with you in part (I have actually been arrested for cooking/distributing food for the homeless with Food Not Bombs), I think it's mostly a false argument. You can't honestly tell me you think that the reason more rich people don't voluntarily give to the poor is because it's too hard and costly can you?

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That, as well as a number of other reasons, including, as I said, because it's often illegal. Not to mention the "That's why I pay taxes" effect.

This is of course completely separate from the fact that most government "charity" doesn't actually help the people it is supposed to. It pays bureaucrats and eeks the needy along in poverty and dependance on [censored] government "services."

The beauty of market charity is that it can be withheld from crappy providers, like any other service. Bad charities die, and good charities thrive. Government charities never die. In fact, the more they suck at their appointed task, the more money they can justify in taking from the taxpayer.

[Borodog]

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You're making the mistake of treating wealth as if it were an objective, rather than a relative measure.

It really doesn't matter whether the kings and queens were poorer than the janitor in terms of colot TVs and Ipods; because the kings and queens were not acquainted with the janitor. Their point of reference was to the people over whom they ruled.

Similarly, it doesn't matter if a janitor is richer than the monarchs. He's not comparing himself to the kings and queens. He's point of reference is to the people whose toilets he cleans. If he's poorer then them (which is what it means to clean their toilets), then he's poor. Regardless of the queens and kings.

To put it differently, the rich need the poor; without the poor, they cannot exist. The poor, on the other hand, having nothing to lose but their chains.

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Thanks for neatly illustrating that your entire worldview and personal philosophy is based on envy. I couldn't have illustrated it better myself.

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Is it that you don't get it, or does it just piss you off when someone has the temerity to contradict you?

Because if it's the first, I can try again; but if it's the second, I'm guessing you just go around feeling pissed off a lot.

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It's neither. you implied that absolute standards of living are irrelevent, that only relative current standards of living matter. That the janitors of today, who live better than the kings and queens of past centuries, should feel resentful that they are "poorer" than the Paris Hiltons of today. That is an envy-based philosophy. I'm not pissed about it at all. I find it sad that people have such a distorted worldview, but I'm not pissed.

[DVaut1]

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It doesn't matter if the "Gini" coefficient, a measure of "wealth concentration" continues to go up, because the standard of living of all individuals in society continues to go up. Anyone who doesn't believe this is invited to compare the standard of living of a modern janitor in the United States to kings and queens of prior centuries. The standard of living of the janitor is higher in practically every respect, with the exception of the ability to command servants.

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A few questions:

1) Why would we choose to use "standard of living" as a metric to compare the live of a modern American janitor, and royalty of prior centuries? Is this a fair comparison? If we were to use "quality of life" as our metric, instead -- we might find there are big differences, particularly with regards to such variables like leisure time.

2) I don't doubt the pie is bigger, globally. I don't even doubt that capitalism has played a large role in making that pie bigger; but can we not agree that using an American janitors as our sample might lead us to some false conclusions about the empirical realities of the life of the poor -- particularly when we expand our view globally? If we were to instead compare the life of a modern Chinese rice farmer -- or the modern Bangladeshi squatter -- how much has their lot improved in the past five or six centuries? I'd suggest they're essentially no better than their ancestors were 500 years ago; I might be wrong on this count. But if you're willing to concede that I'm correct -- that the life of your average Chinese rice farmer, or southeast Asian squatter, is no better than it was 500 years or a millennium ago -- then your claim that the standard of living of all continues to go up appears to be awfully dubious.

I suspect some of your ideological opponents would be willing to concede that your typical American -- even lower and middle class Americans, like janitors -- lives a life of relative luxury. But I suspect that your opponents would suggest that much of America's material wealth is attributable to the US government's ability to wield military force, which in turn gives Americans undue influence in international relations and the global economy.

So, again, I'm willing to concede that the pie is bigger. I'll happily concede capitalism has made that pie bigger. I'll go further and concede many of the technological advances, which have made the quality of life for many in the West so much better than their ancestors, are also the product of capitalism. I'll even concede that some measure of the increased global population (which, in turn, leads to increased production capabilities --> cheaper prices --> more widely available goods) is attributable to capitalism. But I don't think any of this addresses many of the moral and ethical concerns that people have concerning income and wealth disparity, so I'm going to admit that I don't really see where this thread gets us, exactly. And, lastly, as I note above, I'm not entirely sure the comparison you ask us to make is entirely appropriate.