Bitcoin wealth inequality and why it is bad

[deisik]

Inequality is a natural phenomenon, it exists almost everywhere: A few land lords hold majority of the land, a few bankers hold majority of the gold. This is partly due to each people's different vision and most importantly because the effect of time: Even if every one start with the same resource in the beginning, over time, wealth will shift to those who are interested in accumulating more and more, kind of centralization

I never said anything to the contrary

The problem is that the landlords don't mean to use their land as a means of payment. Since you (or someone else, for that matter) is sure to bring forth the example of fiat (and its alleged distribution unevenness), which I already addressed (to a degree), I explain that issue more fully here. Fiat money distribution unevenness is actually non-existent, since people apparently confuse it with the inequality in real wealth (e.g. land or gold) which is only specified in terms of money. Further, the very nature of fiat works against this unevenness. Fiat monies are depreciating (losing value) over time, which effectively prevents people from keeping their wealth as money (in the form of). Further, given the amount of money in circulation, the existing true money inequality is minuscule and massively irrelevant...

[johnyj]

Fiat money distribution unevenness is actually non-existent, since people apparently confuse it with the inequality in real wealth (e.g. land or gold) which is only specified in terms of money. Further, the very nature of fiat works against this unevenness. Fiat monies are depreciating (losing value) over time, which effectively prevents people from keeping their wealth as money (in the form of). Further, given the amount of money in circulation, the existing true money inequality is minuscule and massively irrelevant...

Fiat money distribution unevenness is the most clear: EVERY dollar belongs to central bank when they were created, a few bankers hold 100% of all the money in the beginning. Of course central banks immediately spent those money by loaning them out after they were created, bought large amount of land/bonds. So it seems that they don't hold large amount of money, but all the assets they are holding were bought with those money (The amount of assets in the world are still magnitudes larger than money supply)

Imagine that hundreds of years ago, Alice had all the land in a country and Bob had nothing. This is 100% vs 0% inequality

Then Bob started to work as a gold miner and traded between the producers. Soon he became a gold smith that actively manage the gold for merchants around the country, and eventually become a banker. Now he is owning about 10% of the wealth of the country, still 90% vs 10% inequality

Then Bob managed to become a central bank after several centuries, and successfully removed gold standard. Now Bob can print as much money as he want to buy whatever he want, just keep inflation low, if he is too hurry, inflation will pick up quickly

However, at the same time, Alice discovered Bob's trick, she start to raise the price of her land following Bob's money printing, so after a while Bob's money printing will just raise the price of Alice's land, and no matter how much money Bob print, he will never be able to buy enough land to change the inequality landscape, he will just make Alice richer and richer

So, if the ownership is protected by law, then inequality once established, is almost impossible to change, especially it is something that is scarce and have good utility like land

In a communism model you would remove the private ownership for every thing, replace it with collective ownership and centralized planning, that is maybe a way to permanently eliminate inequality, but it is also very inefficient and unproductive

[deisik]

Fiat money distribution unevenness is the most clear: EVERY dollar belongs to central bank when they were created, a few bankers hold 100% of all the money in the beginning. Of course central banks immediately spent those money by loaning them out after they were created, bought large amount of land/bonds. So it seems that they don't hold large amount of money, but all the assets they are holding were bought with those money (The amount of assets in the world are still magnitudes larger than money supply)

This is a weak argument. What you consider as money is not yet money if 100% of it is in the central bank. In other words, it is not so much important what money is as what money does (and how it goes, wtf). Regarding the amount of assets vs money supply, this is just meaningless since money has no value of its own (save for transactional and exchange utility, of course). It is essentially an abstraction for measuring the value of things against each other...

[deisik]

Imagine that hundreds of years ago, Alice had all the land in a country and Bob had nothing. This is 100% vs 0% inequality

Then Bob started to work as a gold miner and traded between the producers. Soon he became a gold smith that actively manage the gold for merchants around the country, and eventually become a banker. Now he is owning about 10% of the wealth of the country, still 90% vs 10% inequality

Then Bob managed to become a central bank after several centuries, and successfully removed gold standard. Now Bob can print as much money as he want to buy whatever he want, just keep inflation low, if he is too hurry, inflation will pick up quickly

However, at the same time, Alice discovered Bob's trick, she start to raise the price of her land following Bob's money printing, so after a while Bob's money printing will just raise the price of Alice's land, and no matter how much money Bob print, he will never be able to buy enough land to change the inequality landscape, he will just make Alice richer and richer

So, if the ownership is protected by law, then inequality once established, is almost impossible to change, especially it is something that is scarce and have good utility like land

In a communism model you would remove the private ownership for every thing, replace it with collective ownership and centralized planning, that is maybe a way to permanently eliminate inequality, but it is also very inefficient and unproductive

I'm not talking about real wealth inequality. I'm not even talking about fiat/Bitcoin distribution unevenness taken in isolation, without its effects on the utility of money (Bitcoin and fiat) as a means of payment vs its utility as a store of value. In fact, the former is of interest to me only as long as it affects the latter, since this influence determines the future (or fate) of Bitcoin and is the topic of this thread...

Fiat money, in this aspect, can be considered as a model, or a yardstick for gauging Bitcoin performance

[Preen]

Wealth inequality is a fact of life. Nuff said.

Meritocracy does not drive our society, nepotism does.

For the very few people who work super hard and meet the right people, success knocks at their door.

For everyone else, it's just eternal enslavement to governments, corporations et al.

[johnyj]

Fiat money distribution unevenness is the most clear: EVERY dollar belongs to central bank when they were created, a few bankers hold 100% of all the money in the beginning. Of course central banks immediately spent those money by loaning them out after they were created, bought large amount of land/bonds. So it seems that they don't hold large amount of money, but all the assets they are holding were bought with those money (The amount of assets in the world are still magnitudes larger than money supply)

This is a weak argument. What you consider as money is not yet money if 100% of it is in the central bank. In other words, it is not so much important what money is as what money does (and how it goes, wtf). Regarding the amount of assets vs money supply, this is just meaningless since money has no value of its own (save for transactional and exchange utility, of course). It is essentially an abstraction for measuring the value of things against each other...

It is not an argument but a fact. Look at those thousands of alt-coins, they all have great transaction capability and can do a lot, but they worth nothing and almost no one cares. This tells that what money does is least important if the money does not have value of its own. Trying to downplay the importance of money's value and replace it with transaction demand is bank's scheme to mask the fact and print themselves some more money at mean time

If merchants have enough knowledge of money, then the moment central banks start to print money, they will raise the price of their goods/services at same rate, in order to protect them from being robbed by the banks. Currently only a few merchants understand this (those who only accept honest money) but I guess the number of them will rise over time once more and more people have gained such insight

[johnyj]

I'm not talking about real wealth inequality. I'm not even talking about fiat/Bitcoin distribution unevenness taken in isolation, without its effects on the utility of money (Bitcoin and fiat) as a means of payment vs its utility as a store of value. In fact, the former is of interest to me only as long as it affects the latter, since this influence determines the future (or fate) of Bitcoin and is the topic of this thread...

Fiat money, in this aspect, can be considered as a model, or a yardstick for gauging Bitcoin performance

You can think this way: If in future the transaction fee income raised to 50 bitcoins per block while the block reward almost decreased to zero, then every miner would become the early adopter: They can mine coin exactly like early CPU miners at 50 coins per block, and if they want to accumulate coins, after 4 years they would have 50% of the total coin supply

Technically, that goal is not unrealistic: Given average transaction size is about 0.5 bitcoin and a transaction fee of 0.005 bitcoin (1%) is acceptable, you only need to process 10000 such transaction in each block to reach 50 bitcoins, which is doable with 8MB blocks, quite manageable

However, in fiat money system this is impossible, the faster you make money, the faster the fiat money will be printed at magnitudes higher speed, so you always end up with a very small percentage of the total money supply

[countryfree]

Sorry, I can't vote. I'd like to choose "I fully support Bitcoin wealth inequality" but I can't.
Hey, I live in the real world. Inequality is a fact of life, it's everywhere in nature, and it's only normal that the best and brightest are more successful than those who are not. I don't like D. Trump, though.

[Nocturne]

There are a few topics here (and there) which try to discuss why enormous Bitcoin wealth inequality is bad for it in the long haul, but I didn't see where it had been explained why it is this way precisely. This assumption is correct, the reason (concise version, omitting the gory details) being that the two major functions that a currency is sought to fulfill are mutually exclusive (well, to a significant degree)...

I mean currency as a means of exchange and currency as a store of value

Wealth inequality is actually everywhere but not here I dont think it is possible in here.

[Nidaleee]

There are a few topics here (and there) which try to discuss why enormous Bitcoin wealth inequality is bad for it in the long haul, but I didn't see where it had been explained why it is this way precisely. This assumption is correct, the reason (concise version, omitting the gory details) being that the two major functions that a currency is sought to fulfill are mutually exclusive (well, to a significant degree)...

I mean currency as a means of exchange and currency as a store of value

I dont think its bad, its just bad for the people who did not believe in it today and will regret in the future.

[Rumichbit]

Wealth inequality will exist as long as humanity is dependent of matter.
As long as we need food, water, goods, property, there will always be inequality.

[maku]

Sorry, I can't vote. I'd like to choose "I fully support Bitcoin wealth inequality" but I can't.
Hey, I live in the real world. Inequality is a fact of life, it's everywhere in nature, and it's only normal that the best and brightest are more successful than those who are not. I don't like D. Trump, though.

Yes, I feel the same. You can't create perfect world where everyone will be equal, equally rich. Inequality is part of the nature.
Communists tried to test that in practice and it did not go that well. I am quite poor myself and I envy rich people but I know that this situation is part of the system.

[Nautiluss]

There are a few topics here (and there) which try to discuss why enormous Bitcoin wealth inequality is bad for it in the long haul, but I didn't see where it had been explained why it is this way precisely. This assumption is correct, the reason (concise version, omitting the gory details) being that the two major functions that a currency is sought to fulfill are mutually exclusive (well, to a significant degree)...

I mean currency as a means of exchange and currency as a store of value

We have to face the fact that wherever we go there is always inequality because it is nature of life.
Bitcoins may come out unequally for most people but to some wise investors it will be fair.

[deisik]

Hey guys, please, stop posting that (wealth) inequality is natural, part of nature, nature of life, whatever. This is not what this thread is about. This thread is about why Bitcoin wealth inequality is bad, on economic grounds before all, for its long-term fate. That has nothing to do with what nature intended...

And it intended us to die at twenty (epidemics, predators, etc), I don't see how anyone could be quite happy with that

[deisik]

I'm not talking about real wealth inequality. I'm not even talking about fiat/Bitcoin distribution unevenness taken in isolation, without its effects on the utility of money (Bitcoin and fiat) as a means of payment vs its utility as a store of value. In fact, the former is of interest to me only as long as it affects the latter, since this influence determines the future (or fate) of Bitcoin and is the topic of this thread...

Fiat money, in this aspect, can be considered as a model, or a yardstick for gauging Bitcoin performance

You can think this way: If in future the transaction fee income raised to 50 bitcoins per block while the block reward almost decreased to zero, then every miner would become the early adopter: They can mine coin exactly like early CPU miners at 50 coins per block, and if they want to accumulate coins, after 4 years they would have 50% of the total coin supply

Technically, that goal is not unrealistic: Given average transaction size is about 0.5 bitcoin and a transaction fee of 0.005 bitcoin (1%) is acceptable, you only need to process 10000 such transaction in each block to reach 50 bitcoins, which is doable with 8MB blocks, quite manageable

However, in fiat money system this is impossible, the faster you make money, the faster the fiat money will be printed at magnitudes higher speed, so you always end up with a very small percentage of the total money supply

I don't quite understand how is that related to the issue in question. You mean to say that Bitcoin facilitates further accumulation of wealth (i.e. making wealth inequality steeper)? I'm inclined to think so (though for other reasons), but I don't see how this can possibly make it fare better (long term)...

Do you have any reasons how it could?