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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Here's a presentation outlining a study by an economist at the World Bank, renowned stronghold of proper Marxist thought. Yeah that paper is arguing something totally different. It's saying that in an absolute sense (ie, actual dollars of average salaries) inequality is high but that the majority of that is explained by differences in the per-capita income of the countries in question. It's a great argument for why citizenship is arbitrary and immigration should be more fluid, but it's not saying "the world is more unequal" unless you squint at it. e: The other issue with the Gini coefficient is that it's highly sensitive to population growth - obviously, there was a massive increase in population during the industrial revolution because people didn't die as much in childhood, and the people who had kids the most were the poor. With that in mind of course inequality would rise if you define inequality as "x% of the population having y amount of wealth". computer parts fucked around with this message at 03:48 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 03:41
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Actually the world economy today is more unequal than ever in human history - and it's getting more unequal. A cursory google search of the academic literature on the subject might do you some good! Inequality worldwide hasn't really risen in decades. It's the developed world primarily that's growing unequal while developing countries are becoming less unequal. Also one thing about inequality is that it means not everyone is dirt poor. Which most people have been for most of human history.
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May 3, 2014 04:12
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Broad brushing the developing world is equally misguided and dangerous. Anyone who has made a serious effort to look at inequality and China and India would find it both rampant and disproportionate to their economic growth. It can and will continue to be this way because the developed world, and the companies that outsource from them, depend on it- because it effectively undermines the working class of both the developed and developing countries. To really frame this debate, would anyone like to guess what would happen if you asked a company like Walmart to relinquish their access of four billion working bodies on the other side of the planet?
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May 3, 2014 06:23
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computer parts posted:Yeah that paper is arguing something totally different. It's saying that in an absolute sense (ie, actual dollars of average salaries) inequality is high but that the majority of that is explained by differences in the per-capita income of the countries in question. The paper specifically attacks this idea if I understand what you are trying to say; you somehow read it backwards. The world is more unequal today than ever. However, most of that inequality is located along the divide between the first and third world rather than between workers and management in either - though it notes that could be changing. In any case, the world is growing more unequal. Over the last 200 years, with a hiccup or two along the way, inequality has steadily grown and now globally surpasses historical estimates of extreme local inequality in antiquity such as Ancient Rome. DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 07:25 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 07:19
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Job Truniht posted:Broad brushing the developing world is equally misguided and dangerous. Anyone who has made a serious effort to look at inequality and China and India would find it both rampant and disproportionate to their economic growth. It can and will continue to be this way because the developed world, and the companies that outsource from them, depend on it- because it effectively undermines the working class of both the developed and developing countries. I think this is a good point, particularly for American Capitalism. US Capitalistic growth and expansion has always-ALWAYS-relied on the subjugation and unequal power balances for the "free markets" to work at home. At first it was actual slave labor, then massive influxes of foreign populations combined with west ward expansion that allowed for relatively cheap goods and services combined with imperial interests abroad, then it was imported Chinese workers, then lots of war, then Hispanics, and now its Hispanics and Asian workers in developing countries. It seems that the less capital can take advantage of ridiculously cheap labor, the more unequal it becomes for the entire system. When I look back at American economic history, there was nearly always some kind of factor that massively lent itself to growth and prosperity; war, slave labor, expansion into unowned land (free new assets), or cheap labor that does not directly benefit local economies. Every time the US has had a slowdown or bad time is when those factors are mitigated and capital is allowed to concentrate. I hate to make a possible silly reference, but it seems Mr. Zorg is right; causing destruction in some way shape or form is what drives the economy. When that stuff stops, the economy seizes up.  When I combine this with fair representation of the people, it seems if capitalism is to succeed, people NEED to be disenfranchised in some way otherwise it has no access to cheap labor. If people all have relatively equal footing in regard to economic needs, then the whole system slows down. In a sense this inequality seems to be a function, not a "wrong way" of capitalism as some have argued here.
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May 3, 2014 12:10
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This has been really interesting reading everyone. I think with strong controls, most systems can work including Capitalism and Democracy, but the corruption and regulatory capture that has occurred is truly scary. These inefficiencies are not a failure of those ideologies through but rather the failure of individualism. What I mean by that is the reason we signed a social contract has been distorted, by saying it was a shrewd move to maximize the individual. This taints the individual's views of the collective through, the total is seen as a sum and not a more desirable more than the sum of it's part. This simply means that the wealth an individual controls is thus not available to the whole, who would have made better decision, probably; more heads are better than one! This discrepancy builds over time,reducing the potential of the collective, increasing the risk of a collapse. Capitalism's big problem is the lack of accountability for anything, preventing the possibility of learning useful lessons. A balance sheet, for example, can be changed to include costs of the disposal of your product, greenhouse emissions, a donation to all employee's school, or maybe an employee happiness index, where the state needs to be compensated for making the employee healthier after working there; Getting an accurate cost seems imperative to seeing if profit seeking decisions are right. Capital will not like this , but it's an incomplete and immoral approach to enjoy maximum profit because of ignore costs that you passed on and didn't bother to figure out. The NSA surveillance apparatus would be a great way to monitor everything, providing transparency, if you give open access to all citizens, and tape everyone 24/7. This is my crazy solution to the problems above. I haven't considered how other states are dealt with, but I hope our openness gives them inspiration because only complete transparency works against corruption. How flawed is this view, am I missing something?
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May 3, 2014 12:10
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:The paper specifically attacks this idea if I understand what you are trying to say; you somehow read it backwards. The world is more unequal today than ever. However, most of that inequality is located along the divide between the first and third world rather than between workers and management in either - though it notes that could be changing. In any case, the world is growing more unequal. Yeah and from what I've seen a lot of that can be explained by the relative population growth of the countries.
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May 3, 2014 13:47
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computer parts posted:Yeah and from what I've seen a lot of that can be explained by the relative population growth of the countries. Well one post ago you were saying that the world wasn't "really" more unequal than ever before in history. Now if you want to talk about why it's more unequal than ever before in history that's a different conversation. Like if you think population growth is exogenous that would be an interesting thing to hear.
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May 3, 2014 14:33
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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO posted:Well one post ago you were saying that the world wasn't "really" more unequal than ever before in history. Now if you want to talk about why it's more unequal than ever before in history that's a different conversation. What I said was "I'm curious as to what definition makes now more unequal than 130 years ago". It appears that answer is "Large amounts of population growth without corresponding wealth transfer in the developing world". That's nice, but it's sort of self-evident if you know what industrialization does to death rates and which countries are likely to have high fertility rates. quote:Like if you think population growth is exogenous that would be an interesting thing to hear. I would describe it more as a "lagging" factor - massive population growth is the first main characteristic of industrialization, because death rates are able to fall much faster than birth rates are. It's not a sign of "inequality" in the sense of "wealth is being concentrated more and more in one position" (or at least I haven't been shown proof of that). It is a sign of inequality in the sense of "X% of the population represents a lower share of wealth", but that seems to be a short term trend that will be balanced out as fertility rates fall. To put it another way - Japan and European countries are experiencing negative population growth. Does this mean that their inequality is decreasing within those countries just because people are dying? No, it just shows that you can manipulate the Gini coefficient.
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May 3, 2014 14:41
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Jastiger posted:I think this is a good point, particularly for American Capitalism. US Capitalistic growth and expansion has always-ALWAYS-relied on the subjugation and unequal power balances for the "free markets" to work at home. It's obvious why capitalism seeks and uses cheap labor. It's not at all obvious, and you make no argument for why this increases inequality or why capitalism depends on it. I'd argue that the US in the 50's and 60's was when the US had the least access to cheap labor (technology didn't support widescale outsourcing yet) and had the least inequality at home during this period. However while US inequality incresed around the time outsourcing picked up, giving poor Asian workers jobs isn't a bad thing from a global perspective and had massive benefits for them while not causing a rise in worldwide inequality levels.
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May 3, 2014 15:18
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computer parts posted:I would describe it more as a "lagging" factor - massive population growth is the first main characteristic of industrialization, because death rates are able to fall much faster than birth rates are. It's not a sign of "inequality" in the sense of "wealth is being concentrated more and more in one position" (or at least I haven't been shown proof of that). It is a sign of inequality in the sense of "X% of the population represents a lower share of wealth", but that seems to be a short term trend that will be balanced out as fertility rates fall. I would argue that since the economy tends to grow significantly faster in developing nations than the population does(though both grow a lot), increased inequality means exactly that; more wealth is being concentrated more and more in one position; maybe the top 10% or top 1% or whatever. When per capita GDP in India goes up 5% on average per year while the population is only growing at 1.6% per year in the same period, if that growth were being applied semi-equally inequality should be going down. That inequality is increasing means that gains are going vastly disproportionately to the already well-off. I agree the Gini coefficient is not a very good measurement. *Source for my India growth numbers, and my rising inequality in India claim.
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May 3, 2014 15:22
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z0glin Warchief posted:I would argue that since the economy tends to grow significantly faster in developing nations than the population does(though both grow a lot), increased inequality means exactly that; more wealth is being concentrated more and more in one position; maybe the top 10% or top 1% or whatever. When per capita GDP in India goes up 5% on average per year while the population is only growing at 1.6% per year in the same period, if that growth were being applied semi-equally inequality should be going down. That inequality is increasing means that gains are going vastly disproportionately to the already well-off. From your second source: quote:"The main driver has been an increase in wage inequality between regular wage earners—contractual employees hired over a period of time," says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in a new report on inequality in the developed world and emerging economies. "By contrast, inequality in the casual wage sector—workers employed on a day-to-day basis—has remained more stable," the report said. So, the Indian economy is developing such that professional jobs in services and manufacturing are becoming available, and differences in the pay between those jobs is fairly large. Absolute poverty is declining. You can infer that from this quote from the same article: quote:There is evidence of growing concentration of wealth among the elite. The consumption of the top 20% of households grew at almost 3% per year in the 2000s as compared to 2% in the 1990s, while the growth in consumption of the bottom 20% of households remained unchanged at 1% per year. The article frames that as evidence of growing concentration of wealth among the elite, but it's generally a statement of growing incomes for everyone.
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May 3, 2014 16:15
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I'm not making the argument that people in general aren't seeing gains (they clearly are, though maybe not in a proportion I find ideal), just responding to (what I perceived as) an argument that increases in inequality were, at least in part, temporary and caused by increases in population and that when birth rates dropped off they would balance out. I don't think that is true; if anything, when population growth starts to slow, that will also slow economic growth (less people coming in to provide more demand and labor). Granted, with less new people coming in there will be less need for growth to provide the existing population with equivalent QoL increases, but by that point presumably the economy will have mostly "caught up" in terms of technology and growth will slow to similar levels as the more fully developed nations. And without that high growth, there's not very much, in relative or absolute terms, that is likely to go towards improving the lot of the lower classes, so I don't really see that inequality going away.* *Of course they could in theory implement some redistributive policies but I don't know how likely that is.
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May 3, 2014 16:47
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asdf32 posted:It's obvious why capitalism seeks and uses cheap labor. It's not at all obvious, and you make no argument for why this increases inequality or why capitalism depends on it. That is a good point about the inequality in the 50's and 60's, but we have to also point to the regulatory structure at the time. Remember, almost every other major economy wasn't developed or was destroyed in the war. Capital restrictions were still very strong in that taxes were relatively high, technology did not allow for rapid fire trading yet, and pay scales were not what they are now. Also my whole bit about the exploitation of others is still there- everyone HAD to buy from the US for durable goods. As soon as things returned to normal, the capitalist system began its trudge back towards inequality and disenfranchisement.
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May 3, 2014 16:53
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Jastiger posted:That is a good point about the inequality in the 50's and 60's, but we have to also point to the regulatory structure at the time. Remember, almost every other major economy wasn't developed or was destroyed in the war. Capital restrictions were still very strong in that taxes were relatively high, technology did not allow for rapid fire trading yet, and pay scales were not what they are now. Also my whole bit about the exploitation of others is still there- everyone HAD to buy from the US for durable goods. I'd be careful applying the word normal in the context of technological/economic conditions for any decade long period in the 20th century given how rapidly both of those things are evolving. While inequality maybe approaching 1920s levels that doesn't mean it's caused by the same things as back then. And I think it likely isn't given how drastically the economy has changed since then. Edit: I don't mean to say you can't make predictions, just that the word normal needs to be applied carefully, and the history of decades long past may have somewhat limited applicability to the economics of today. The idea that we maybe reverting to the pre-war "normal" of almost a century ago is hard to accept. asdf32 fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 18:23
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As Piketty points out in C21C, when the rate of return to capital (r) is greater than the rate of growth (economic + population), then the Capital to Income ratio K/I grows. Inherited wealth and capital ownership is currently much more important in Europe than in America (K/I = 7 vs 4) due to Europe's demographic situation. If America's population growth continues to slow, the same thing will be true here. An increase in K/I will lead to more inequality, due to the enormous inequality of capital ownership (which makes the inequality of labor income seem almost reasonable in comparison).
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May 3, 2014 22:14
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asdf32 posted:I'd be careful applying the word normal in the context of technological/economic conditions for any decade long period in the 20th century given how rapidly both of those things are evolving. While inequality maybe approaching 1920s levels that doesn't mean it's caused by the same things as back then. And I think it likely isn't given how drastically the economy has changed since then. asdf32, I generally agree with you that people are good and it will improve, but what do you think wealth is? I read your post when you mentioned running water, but your "normal" concept is an incomplete viewpoint I think. It's like slavers thinking they are helping, which even if absolutely true is neither here nor there. The discussion of wealth is a discussion of power, because wealth gives control. All of human conflict has been solved by who was wealthier, from wars to beach front homes. It's why the U.S can do as it wills and say anything, believe anything. There is no ideology, only strong vs weak. So even through you don't think it is all connected, the reason inequality sucks, and it's not because of human suffering, it is simply because society is not being efficient. Like increased technology is a result of more people getting agency, it's not a goal you know? Things just describe your wealth to others. Femur fucked around with this message at 02:51 on May 4, 2014 |
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May 4, 2014 02:17
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