I'm a fan of markets -- they are excellent systems for allocating resources and allowing permission-free innovation.
But I am not a market fundamentalist, nor do I agree with the naturalistic fallacy argument that "because it turns out that way in the free market, it is therefore right."
It seems like people have lost the ability over the past 30 years or so to think in non-fundamentalist terms. Everything must be absolute. It's idiotic. In complex systems, it's actually pretty rare for the optimum point to lie at the extreme end of any variable range. Fitness peaks are almost always found at some intersection point that represents a best compromise between multiple interacting tradeoffs.
History seems to indicate that a free market economy with some amount of wealth redistribution represents an optimum, or fitness peak. Experiments in extreme free markets seem to devolve into pathologically ridiculous wealth concentration, while experiments in pure egalitarian socialism seem to succumb to free rider parasitism problems and corruption. The terminal state of pure capitalism seems to be corporate/financial feudalism, while the terminal state of pure socialism seems to be the mafia state (e.g. Putinistan or the Chinese kleptocracy). Neither extreme seems either desirable or stable, and both seem to devolve rapidly into some form of totalitarianism.
I'd personally advocate a simple, completely impartial system like a universal basic income or a negative income tax along with some benefits like a basic level of universal health coverage and public education. Taxation should be progressive because it's precisely at the extreme ends of the income curve that the relationship between value creation and renumeration seems to break down and become most pathological, but that progressiveness should probably be rather skewed toward the high end. The taxation curve should probably look like a hockey stick.
Look very closely at the graph. Income inequality was falling before the income tax was instituted in 1917. And not a few years later it went haywire and income inequality basically maxed out in the runup to the great depression.
I'm so sick of that retort. Nobody ever asks for citations for something they agree with. You don't provide any citation other than a reference to a spurious lack of correlation on a graph. Just as correlation doesn't prove causation, lack of correlation doesn't prove lack of causation.
So you agree that Zuckerberg deserves millions of times more compensation than Berners-Lee?
Yeah, I should have said 'examples please', because that's a pretty strong statement, given that history has generally been pretty shitty for humans over the last few millions of years. I am not convinced that wealth redistribution (the few times it has been tried) has been effective, and certainly less effective than things like 'abolishing slavery', 'ending wars', 'ousting dictators', 'eliminating corruptions', and the like.
as for the question of just desserts, i don't think there really is such a thing. I work towards curing cancer, plowing a lot of personal resources towards it (including money) and not expecting any profit. I also feed people with HIV/AIDS every week and volunteer at a homeless shelter, but do I expect to 'deserve' anything from that? Not really.
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Capitalism isn't just about creating value, but capturing the value you create.
Tim Berners-Lee did little to capture the value he created (and I am grateful for it!).
Exactly.
I'm a fan of markets -- they are excellent systems for allocating resources and allowing permission-free innovation.
But I am not a market fundamentalist, nor do I agree with the naturalistic fallacy argument that "because it turns out that way in the free market, it is therefore right."
It seems like people have lost the ability over the past 30 years or so to think in non-fundamentalist terms. Everything must be absolute. It's idiotic. In complex systems, it's actually pretty rare for the optimum point to lie at the extreme end of any variable range. Fitness peaks are almost always found at some intersection point that represents a best compromise between multiple interacting tradeoffs.
History seems to indicate that a free market economy with some amount of wealth redistribution represents an optimum, or fitness peak. Experiments in extreme free markets seem to devolve into pathologically ridiculous wealth concentration, while experiments in pure egalitarian socialism seem to succumb to free rider parasitism problems and corruption. The terminal state of pure capitalism seems to be corporate/financial feudalism, while the terminal state of pure socialism seems to be the mafia state (e.g. Putinistan or the Chinese kleptocracy). Neither extreme seems either desirable or stable, and both seem to devolve rapidly into some form of totalitarianism.
I'd personally advocate a simple, completely impartial system like a universal basic income or a negative income tax along with some benefits like a basic level of universal health coverage and public education. Taxation should be progressive because it's precisely at the extreme ends of the income curve that the relationship between value creation and renumeration seems to break down and become most pathological, but that progressiveness should probably be rather skewed toward the high end. The taxation curve should probably look like a hockey stick.
"History seems to indicate"... Citation please.
Look very closely at the graph. Income inequality was falling before the income tax was instituted in 1917. And not a few years later it went haywire and income inequality basically maxed out in the runup to the great depression.
I'm so sick of that retort. Nobody ever asks for citations for something they agree with. You don't provide any citation other than a reference to a spurious lack of correlation on a graph. Just as correlation doesn't prove causation, lack of correlation doesn't prove lack of causation.
So you agree that Zuckerberg deserves millions of times more compensation than Berners-Lee?
Yeah, I should have said 'examples please', because that's a pretty strong statement, given that history has generally been pretty shitty for humans over the last few millions of years. I am not convinced that wealth redistribution (the few times it has been tried) has been effective, and certainly less effective than things like 'abolishing slavery', 'ending wars', 'ousting dictators', 'eliminating corruptions', and the like.
as for the question of just desserts, i don't think there really is such a thing. I work towards curing cancer, plowing a lot of personal resources towards it (including money) and not expecting any profit. I also feed people with HIV/AIDS every week and volunteer at a homeless shelter, but do I expect to 'deserve' anything from that? Not really.