Bernie Sanders exposes billionaires who are buying US government.

[Jon Miller]

Anybody for whom the financial cost of education is a barrier in the us is DOING IT WRONG.

The issue is that the more rational poor people will not consider taking out a loan for anything really.

Especially since in their experience incomes are small, financial shocks are uncertain, and loans are very bad.

JM

[notyoueither]

Then you went ahead and said "no, it isn't" when I used the iPhone example to support my argument that there were intrinsic problems to inequality (envy being part of that).

Let's drill down to this.

Inequality (not poverty) is bad for society because people are envious.

Society is better off if as many people as possible accomplish as much as possible as we all will share some benefits.

Accomplishment requires effort.

The way we encourage people to spend the effort to accomplish is to reward them out of step than if they had not excerted themselves.

We can restrain the ability of people to accomplish things so that a few will not feel envy, or we can tell the envious to STFU.

I'm kind of leaning towards the latter. I'm also finding it difficult to think of a society that experienced a revolution absent serious malfunctions in availability and distribution of essential goods, or a serious ideological problem. People simply do not go to the barricades for want of discretionary goods.

[Jon Miller]

I personally think that the abuse of the weak (poor) by the strong (rich) that happens with (greater) inequality is much much more significant than envy.

There is clear evidence that there is one set of rules for the rich/famous and another set of rules for the poor. Someone who steals a bike gets 20 years in prison, someone who steals millions gets a fine/slap on the wrist.

People who have to sell their bodies are not the rich.

People who take jobs which cause a significant decrease in health/life expectancy/quality of life are not the rich. And it is such that when the person takes them, they are happy to because they are that desperate for work... and they are paid a pittance.

JM

[notyoueither]

@Alby

Providing healthcare to all reduces the threshhold of poverty, you silly goose.

A Canadian with 10K income is richer than an American with the same, all else being equal (which it is not). The reason is that the Canadian will not have to spend money for healthcare. The same goes for education. An American with zero income and kids is richer than a citizen of a state who has kids and has to pay for elementary education.

[notyoueither]

I personally think that the abuse of the weak (poor) by the strong (rich) that happens with (greater) inequality is much much more significant than envy.

There is clear evidence that there is one set of rules for the rich/famous and another set of rules for the poor. Someone who steals a bike gets 20 years in prison, someone who steals millions gets a fine/slap on the wrist.

People who have to sell their bodies are not the rich.

People who take jobs which cause a significant decrease in health/life expectancy/quality of life are not the rich. And it is such that when the person takes them, they are happy to because they are that desperate for work... and they are paid a pittance.

JM

The solution to what you speak of is not to restrain the able, it is to reform legal systems.

20 years in prison for stealing a bike? Can we talk about a legal system that is not a joke? (FYI, I am aware of the three strikes your out laws in the US; the US is legally ****ed, it is not a good comparison for the discussion of what should be).

Hookers are a whole other conversation.

[Jon Miller]

The wealthy have control of the legal system/political system. They are the reason why the legal system is a joke.

Crimes which they do are not punished or punished lightly. Crimes which the poor commit are punished in a draconian manner.

This is true for theft (in it's various guises, rich theft is often legal), for drugs/etc, for avoiding the law (the way rich don't pay taxes is 'legal', the way poor people don't pay taxes isn't), and so on.

JM

[notyoueither]

You are speaking of the US, yes?

It is not helpful if a discussion of ideas is dominated by one severely disfunctional state.

Better to say that if the legal system is captured, then "the wealthy have control of the legal system/political system. They [become] the reason why the legal system is a joke.

Crimes which they do are not punished or punished lightly. Crimes which the poor commit are punished in a draconian manner."

The discussin could them be, do we guard against legal system capture by restraining the able, or do we find another way?

I think I'm going for 'these are not the droids your looking for', dear Emperor.

[Jon Miller]

There is a correlation between inequality and capture of the legal system.

JM

[notyoueither]

There does not have to be.

Aim your hammer where the problem actually is, rather than at the circuitry of our economy. A hammer is a poor tool to fix a circuit board (that doesn't need fixing).

[Aeson]

Let's drill down to this.

Inequality (not poverty) is bad for society because people are envious.

It is one of the negatives associated with inequality itself. That there are intrinsic negatives with inequality is essentially the whole point, since Kuci denied there are any negatives and you asked what the problem with inequality without poverty is.

Society is better off if as many people as possible accomplish as much as possible as we all will share some benefits.

Accomplishment requires effort.

The way we encourage people to spend the effort to accomplish is to reward them out of step than if they had not excerted themselves.

Incentive is of course important.

We can restrain the ability of people to accomplish things so that a few will not feel envy, or we can tell the envious to STFU.

There is a whole range of possibility here, not just an either/or. Currently we (in the US) have an ok balance that probably could be better. We don't allow most of the truly egregious problems that a truly free market would allow for. Yes, this means billionaires can't outright buy your child to force them to go work in the coal mines, which probably means they aren't as rich as they could be, but that doesn't mean they just throw their hands up in the air and decide not to produce.

Worldwide we have a very bad situation with way too much poverty caused by inequality of birthright and legal protection. (One of the reasons why the question of "what is wrong with inequality without poverty" is somewhat missing the point, because various forms of inequality can and often have been contributing factors to poverty.)

I'm kind of leaning towards the latter. I'm also finding it difficult to think of a society that experienced a revolution absent serious malfunctions in availability and distribution of essential goods, or a serious ideological problem. People simply do not go to the barricades for want of discretionary goods.

You're viewing revolution as the only form of negative instability contributed to by inequality. Consider for a moment various special interest groups (unions, homeowners, baby-boomers) who get detrimental legislation passed with class envy contributing to the cause.

For an example of a revolution in a society absent of poverty I'd have to say we will have to wait until we have one to observe to see if it actually could happen. (It seems rather straightforward that it could at least in extreme situations. Several revolutions and lots of armed insurrections have occurred lead by, and sometiems almost entirely composed of privileged classes.) The lack of something happening because the conditions for the experiment have never actually been met isn't much of a proof.

[Aeson]

Let's drill down to this.

Inequality (not poverty) is bad for society because people are envious.

It is one of the negatives associated with inequality itself. That there are intrinsic negatives with inequality is essentially the whole point, since Kuci denied there are any negatives and you asked what the problem with inequality without poverty is.

Society is better off if as many people as possible accomplish as much as possible as we all will share some benefits.

Accomplishment requires effort.

The way we encourage people to spend the effort to accomplish is to reward them out of step than if they had not excerted themselves.

Incentive is of course important.

We can restrain the ability of people to accomplish things so that a few will not feel envy, or we can tell the envious to STFU.

There is a whole range of possibility here, not just an either/or. Currently we (in the US) have an ok balance that probably could be better. We don't allow most of the truly egregious problems that a truly free market would allow for. Yes, this means billionaires can't outright buy your child to force them to go work in the coal mines, which probably means they aren't as rich as they could be, but that doesn't mean they just throw their hands up in the air and decide not to produce.

Worldwide we have a very bad situation with way too much poverty caused by inequality of birthright and legal protection. (One of the reasons why the question of "what is wrong with inequality without poverty" is somewhat missing the point, because various forms of inequality can and often have been contributing factors to poverty.)

I'm kind of leaning towards the latter. I'm also finding it difficult to think of a society that experienced a revolution absent serious malfunctions in availability and distribution of essential goods, or a serious ideological problem. People simply do not go to the barricades for want of discretionary goods.

You're viewing revolution as the only form of negative instability contributed to by inequality. Consider for a moment various special interest groups (unions, homeowners, baby-boomers) who get detrimental legislation passed with class envy contributing to the cause.

For an example of a revolution in a society absent of poverty I'd have to say we will have to wait until we have one to observe to see if it actually could happen. (It seems rather straightforward that it could at least in extreme situations. Several revolutions and lots of armed insurrections have occurred lead by, and sometiems almost entirely composed of privileged classes.) The lack of something happening because the conditions for the experiment have never actually been met isn't much of a proof.

[Fake Boris]

Having lived in Mexico, where inequality is dramatic, I can attest that there are a lot of undesirable social effects from inequality. These alone IMO are worth fighting against.

[Fake Boris]

You're an idiot.

Sorry, but by the time I posted this, this is all that was available to reply to.

[DaShi]

Has this thread degraded into a discussion about slavery yet?

[KrazyHorse]

There is clear evidence that there is one set of rules for the rich/famous and another set of rules for the poor. Someone who steals a bike gets 20 years in prison, someone who steals millions gets a fine/slap on the wrist.

Grow up, dude. Characterizing behavior which is criminalized after the fact through use of prosecutorial intimidation and overbroad statutes is not "theft". It's populist revenge.

People who have to sell their bodies are not the rich.

So? Selling their body is a free choice, and I respect their ability to make this decision for themselves.

People who take jobs which cause a significant decrease in health/life expectancy/quality of life are not the rich.

a) bull****, you lazy son of a *****. Stress kills. In my opinion you're a selfish bastard for refusing to work a real job amd help subsidize the less talented through taxes like I do
b) see above. I respect the ability of people to trade off risk