What's wrong with unequal wealth distribution? (Was: 2013-12-10 Bitcoin Proves..

[capoeira]

If rich value them and use them to trade, why would they be useless? Can you trade 1 kilogram bars of gold? No. But I bet you wish you could.

'cause they can't pay them "slaves" nor "bread"

I do not understand.

You're not alone

even worse that i understand that(why) you guys don't understand

[Mike Christ]

If rich value them and use them to trade, why would they be useless? Can you trade 1 kilogram bars of gold? No. But I bet you wish you could.

'cause they can't pay them "slaves" nor "bread"

I do not understand.

You're not alone

even worse that i understand that(why) you guys don't understand

You don't even understand Bitcoin.

[bryant.coleman]

once BTC is dominant currency, and 95% of BTCs are in the hand of 5% of world population. why would those 95% who got the rest stay with Bitcoin? they will abandon it and simply adopt another coin, wouldn't they? BTC will have only value between the richs, which would make them useless.

40% of the USD is owned by 1% of the population. So has the remaining 99% abandoned it in favor of a new currency? No. Will the same doomsday scenario happen to BTC? My answer is NO.

[Hideyoshi]

If rich value them and use them to trade, why would they be useless? Can you trade 1 kilogram bars of gold? No. But I bet you wish you could.

'cause they can't pay them "slaves" nor "bread"

I do not understand.

You're not alone

even worse that i understand that(why) you guys don't understand

I did not understand because I did not understand your english. Who is it that you call "they" and "them", and why is slaves and bread involved? Please to be more specific.

Also, it would be pretty bad if you did not understand what you yourself have said. So I am glad that you understand what it is that you said that we did not understand. Hopefully you can explain it to us too.

[capoeira]

once BTC is dominant currency, and 95% of BTCs are in the hand of 5% of world population. why would those 95% who got the rest stay with Bitcoin? they will abandon it and simply adopt another coin, wouldn't they? BTC will have only value between the richs, which would make them useless.

40% of the USD is owned by 1% of the population. So has the remaining 99% abandoned it in favor of a new currency? No. Will the same doomsday scenario happen to BTC? My answer is NO.

here is where the revolution is, they are not forced to use "their" currency anymore

If rich value them and use them to trade, why would they be useless? Can you trade 1 kilogram bars of gold? No. But I bet you wish you could.

'cause they can't pay them "slaves" nor "bread"

I do not understand.

You're not alone

even worse that i understand that(why) you guys don't understand

I did not understand because I did not understand your english. Who is it that you call "they" and "them", and why is slaves and bread involved? Please to be more specific.

Also, it would be pretty bad if you did not understand what you yourself have said. So I am glad that you understand what it is that you said that we did not understand. Hopefully you can explain it to us too.

ok, if only the 5% that own 95% of the coins accept them as value, they wont be able to pay their workers with it, they wont be able to buy any product of "the other 95%"

[Hideyoshi]

If rich value them and use them to trade, why would they be useless? Can you trade 1 kilogram bars of gold? No. But I bet you wish you could.

ok, if only the 5% that own 95% of the coins accept them as value, they wont be able to pay their workers with it, they wont be able to buy any product of "the other 95%"

I would not be surprised that 5% owns 95% of all gold bars. Probably of all gold in existence. This 5% mostly uses it as store of value, and to trade amongst themselves. Does this mean that 95% do not want to have gold, too? Would you not want receive any gold as payment? Since you know this 5% accepts this currency, and they also likely own many of the biggest businesses, why would workers not take it, if they know they can use it to buy anything they want from 5%? There is higher chance the 5% will not take some currency that 95% make, than 95% not taking currency that 5% have. Richard Branson is now taking bitcoin, and many rich still have gold, but no rich person takes Fureai Kippu or Ithaca Hours.

[capoeira]

If rich value them and use them to trade, why would they be useless? Can you trade 1 kilogram bars of gold? No. But I bet you wish you could.

ok, if only the 5% that own 95% of the coins accept them as value, they wont be able to pay their workers with it, they wont be able to buy any product of "the other 95%"

I would not be surprised that 5% owns 95% of all gold bars. Probably of all gold in existence. This 5% mostly uses it as store of value, and to trade amongst themselves. Does this mean that 95% do not want to have gold, too? Would you not want receive any gold as payment? Since you know this 5% accepts this currency, and they also likely own many of the biggest businesses, why would workers not take it, if they know they can use it to buy anything they want from 5%? There is higher chance the 5% will not take some currency that 95% make, than 95% not taking currency that 5% have. Richard Branson is now taking bitcoin, and many rich still have gold, but no rich person takes Fureai Kippu or Ithaca Hours.

perhaps because it's the first time they are getting consciousness that they don't have to accept the value of "gold" (wich is BTC in that case)? i'm asking, because i don't know; i'm still thinking about all this. all i know is that you can't compare virtual currencies to fiat neither gold. why has gold value for everyone? because everybody told them it has, their whole life. now with Bitcoin everybody gets the chance to "think" for the first time. and this time we have the internet.
i'm still brainstorming about all this

[jinni]

I tend to the view that poverty is being unable to meet basic needs such as housing and food.  Unequal wealth distribution tends to involve inefficient allocation of capital so if there are many people of good character that are having problems making ends meet that would be an issue.

YES!

And in this case, significant wealth inequality would simply be an indicator, a signal that something is wrong in the society.

It's not a root problem in and of itself that needs to be corrected. If the *real* root problems are fixed, the inequality will likewise be corrected. To try to suppress the symptom instead of curing the disease seems a waste of effort to me, and a distraction from the real issues.

First, you have absolute poverty. I think it can be subdivided into two categories: (1) getting enough food and water to be able to survive another day (probably around $1-$2 a day); (2) getting varied and healthy food, access to the means to achieve that like a fridge, having electricity, having electric lighting, having time-saving devices like a washing machine, having Internet access and a basic computer and finally having a shelter for the weather.

We can all agree that people not having (1) is a big problem in and off it self, no matter if it is a symptom of something else. (2) is in my opinion about where everybody needs to be to be able to eliminate absolute poverty completely.

When it comes to relative poverty, or income inequality apart from absolute poverty, it is a whole different discussion. I definitely think there are a number of things that are wrong with society that end up causing gross wealth inequality. But sometimes the symptoms themselves can kill you, and in such cases one needs to treat the symptoms first before one can fix the root cause. I think that gross inequality causes absolute poverty, crime, loss of opportunity and a negative feedback loop. In other words, one of the causes of gross wealth inequality can be wealth inequality in itself.

So I do not reject that one should find the root problems in society and tackle them, I'm saying that we cannot ignore glaring inequality, simply because it causes too many problems.

Now on to the root problem. I think what we are talking about here is culture. People in general need to have a more cooperative culture. I'm not saying that healthy competition is bad, I'm just saying that if you play football (soccer) and while dribbling your opponent falls down, the right thing to do is to help him/her up, make sure they are okay and continue playing trying to win - kicking your opponent while down might help you win the competition, but it is not part of a culture that is beneficial in the long term.

Translating this to a real life situation, one can see that if someone is having problems, people having an ideal culture will try to help. But this is where most people (and NGOs and governments) fail badly - giving them a free lunch is just likely to make them dependent on you, you would actually not be helping them at all. What you need to do is educate them, teach them the skillsets they need to take themselves out of their hardship, thus creating a positive feedback loop for them. However, the further down someone is, the harder it is to teach someone the right skillsets - in these situations one needs employ the best teaching methods for teaching hard lessons: tricking them into realizing by themselves how to improve.

My point is that if one really wants to tackle the evils of the world, starting by teaching people how to resolve their misery and better their life as a means of reducing inequality is a great way to do it.

[bryant.coleman]

My point is that if one really wants to tackle the evils of the world, starting by teaching people how to resolve their misery and better their life as a means of reducing inequality is a great way to do it.

Great point. Nations which have tried wealth re-distribution (Cuba and North Korea, and more recently Venezuela and Bolivia) have failed miserably in removing the social and economic inequality. They just ended up with ruined economies. This is a failed idea. Why we should retry it?

[jinni]

My point is that if one really wants to tackle the evils of the world, starting by teaching people how to resolve their misery and better their life as a means of reducing inequality is a great way to do it.

Great point. Nations which have tried wealth re-distribution (Cuba and North Korea, and more recently Venezuela and Bolivia) have failed miserably in removing the social and economic inequality. They just ended up with ruined economies. This is a failed idea. Why we should retry it?

And yet other countries who have tried it: Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland are in fact low on crime, good on healthcare and health in general, low on social tensions, etc - all while being among the wealthiest countries in the world.

But that those countries have tried wealth re-distribution, and still manage to be in the top tier of a bunch of lousy countries (i.e. the West) is irrelevant because:

I didn't mention the word re-distribution at all - I said:

teaching people how to resolve their misery and better their life.

If you read carefully what I posted you will see that I am in fact criticizing re-distribution when I say that:

giving them a free lunch is just likely to make them dependent on you, you would actually not be helping them at all.

Actually, the most obvious example of how spectacularly wealth re-distribution can fail is international aid to poor countries. This has probably caused a lot more harm than good. But as mentioned, some countries managed to do it internally while not creating too much of a mess - this however does not mean that re-distributing wealth is an effective way of reducing inequality.

But that does not mean that inequality is inconsequential.

[Spendulus]

.....

But that those countries have tried wealth re-distribution, and still manage to be in the top tier of a bunch of lousy countries (i.e. the West) is irrelevant because:

I didn't mention the word re-distribution at all - I said:

teaching people how to resolve their misery and better their life.

If you read carefully what I posted you will see that I am in fact criticizing re-distribution when I say that:....

I'm all for 'teaching people'...

But what does that mean or imply, today and tomorrow, since in a short two decades virtually all information is available to anyone on the planet with a cheap internet access device?

I am quite serious with this question, not because there are many arguments to the contrary ("but the illiterate! the children! the homeless! those in areas with no internet access!) but because of the signficant comparable, which is the basic ready access to information say picking three datum:

1970
1995
2013

[capoeira]

teaching people how to resolve their misery and better their life.

what will this solve? the pyramid won't change like this. for everybody going up a class, somebody has to go down.

[jinni]

.....

But that those countries have tried wealth re-distribution, and still manage to be in the top tier of a bunch of lousy countries (i.e. the West) is irrelevant because:

I didn't mention the word re-distribution at all - I said:

teaching people how to resolve their misery and better their life.

If you read carefully what I posted you will see that I am in fact criticizing re-distribution when I say that:....

I'm all for 'teaching people'...

But what does that mean or imply, today and tomorrow, since in a short two decades virtually all information is available to anyone on the planet with a cheap internet access device?

I am quite serious with this question, not because there are many arguments to the contrary ("but the illiterate! the children! the homeless! those in areas with no internet access!) but because of the signficant comparable, which is the basic ready access to information say picking three datum:

1970
1995
2013

Sometimes people are stuck in a way that it is very hard for them to help themselves out of that situation, if people are at such a point and another person realizes it, as well as what needs to be changed to get out of the rut, it would make a better society if that person went out of his/her way to help out to make that change possible for the ones stuck in a rut. Simply throwing money at someone is not helping them, it might even make their problems worse.

What is often the case in social democracies is that people vote for politicians who then throw money at the needy, but the people who vote for those politicians are not willing to actually do something themselves. Often they are themselves incompetent as well and would have nothing to contribute with even if they wanted to.

Hence what is needed is a more collaborative culture so that the destitute are not left in that position, but helped to overcome their shortcomings.

[Schleicher]

Here's an interesting Youtube video:
Paul Piff: Does money make you mean?

[Rassah]

teaching people how to resolve their misery and better their life.

what will this solve? the pyramid won't change like this. for everybody going up a class, somebody has to go down.

That's not entirely true. A poor village that earns it's money by sewing shoes and clothes by hand going up a class may be the village installing machines that do that for them, and earns more money by producing more shoes and clothing in a safer and cleaner environment.  Or poor vilagers that can only manage to live by farming their plot of dirt by hand, can move up a class by going to work in phone support for wealthier class, and earn more money to buy more and cheaper food produced by the wealthier class's automated farming machines. Both have happened in China and India.

[jinni]

Here's an interesting Youtube video:
Paul Piff: Does money make you mean?

This.

Piff's argument explains how important it is not to brush off inequality. He also explains how a culture that emphasizes community, cooperation and compassion help in reducing the adverse effects of inequality.

[Ekaros]

Economy isn't zero-sum game. So more equal wealth distribution in the end means that wealth the rich have has more power and can get more goods. And other hand it's also numbers game. 1 000 people spending 10 000 000 is less than 100 000 000 spending 10 000.

Most of the development has come from specialisation and without reasonable wealth distribution this can't happen.


So it's just question of how to get the money in hands of majority...

[player01]

This is easy,

If wealth distribution were equalized, it would sink to a lower common denominator because once people rely on a set income their drive for wealth is extremely diminished and they don't work as hard, then eventually people starve... but hey it would be equal, so that's... good?

[bryant.coleman]

If wealth distribution were equalized, it would sink to a lower common denominator because once people rely on a set income their drive for wealth is extremely diminished and they don't work as hard, then eventually people starve... but hey it would be equal, so that's... good?

If no one works, then who will grow the food crops? Who will patrol your town? Who will look after the public transportation and other facilities? It is bound to fail.

[desired_username]

If wealth distribution were equalized, it would sink to a lower common denominator because once people rely on a set income their drive for wealth is extremely diminished and they don't work as hard, then eventually people starve... but hey it would be equal, so that's... good?

If no one works, then who will grow the food crops? Who will patrol your town? Who will look after the public transportation and other facilities? It is bound to fail.

Why would anyone stop working?

Wealth distribution is just a data or a property of a system. I think most people are not speaking about giving everyone the same amount of money (it will never happen), but a shift from a greed oriented world to a cooperation and common good oriented world.

binary people are amusing.