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Comment by tehjoker | Hacker News Reader

Inequality is bad because people with more money have power over people with less. Ideally, we would live in a democracy (understood by the Greeks to mean rule by the poor, given they massively outnumber the rich), but we don't. We should change this.

Stated another way, your boss has power over you. Why? It could be because they earned a lot of money through their own labor, or it could be because they had access to capital that you do not. Uber loses money hand over fist, but Uber management has more power than their drivers. Why? Management has access to capital, and drivers do not.

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Isn't the Greeks way random selection from the citizens (elite) of a city? I don't recall their way being understood as rule by the poor

What the Greeks actually did and what was understood by contemporary political philosophers could be quite different.

That's an unknowable and that's throwing around FUD without evidence, based on speculation.

There is a bigger problem with unlimited, pay-to-play democracy: corruption. This starts with candidates having to raise vast sums from wealthy donors and a continuing appearance of corruption keeping them happy over the needs of the many. That's a critical flaw, because, for example in the US, many judges, sheriffs, district attorneys (public prosecutors), city council members and state legislators all require raising campaign funds for their elections. It's ridiculous.

Here's where the Greeks are known to actually have had something different, but better in this specific regard: "jury duty" for public service.

A modern adaptation would work like this (simplified):

- everyone with taxed income or profits is assigned to specialties and/or leadership lotteries based on their field and expertise

- public jobs are randomly assigned based on expertise

- 1 year term limit

- fulfilling the term prevents one from being chose for X years (say 15 years, changed based on demand from jobs and supply of eligible)

- able to be removed for cause

- unlike jury duty, vaccines or "comfort animals," there would be fewer exceptions and deferments (new parent, elder caretaking, disability, etc.)

Plato detested democracy, but characterized it as thus.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes

> we would live in a democracy (understood by the Greeks to mean rule by the poor, given they massively outnumber the rich)

Democracy in Ancient Greece explicitly meant that only the wealthy city elites would be able to vote.

What? The fact that your boss has power over you within a company has nothing to do with how much money they personally have relative to you. There is no correlation.

My boss also only has power over me in the context of my job. They have exactly zero power when it comes to all other aspects of my life.

"Flexible schedules" in retail make it so low-wage workers are always on call and must curtail the rest of their lives even during their "free time".

Rich people can make political donations, lobby, run for office, dictate private law (corporate policies), fix wages etc. Wealth is power.

You would not seek employment with the company under servile terms unless you needed employment to survive. The company needs you less than you need them, so they can get away with bossing you around.

Not in a market where your skills are in demand. This single input single output equation breaks down relatively easily.

This is true! It's an individualistic, non-political way to balance the power of money. Shouldn't the rest of the population have access to decent living and working conditions though? Going to bed, gn all. :)

Being a boss isn't inherently evil, it's just workers are exploited in most current circumstances. Worker-owned co-ops and organized labor are the ways out of this, but requires workers to first summon the courage to risk being fired.

There is a minor effect to it - who can afford to walk away more. It has some correlation in that those in poverty are essentially always precarious while the better off can either have reserves or be "overleveraged".

A place to look at is Scandinavia. Although it's far from perfect, the gap between rich and poor is smaller, it feels doable to move social classes and taxes redistribute excessive wealth effectively.

That is my experience. In contrast, I've felt that places like UK treat you like an untermensch if you have less money. And addressing PG's point, in the UK rich classes have lobbied to set laws in their favor. Pure rent seeking or as PG puts it here stealing. For example, they have architected the real estate market in such a way that if you are poor it's hard to climb the property ladder and you will be poised to give them a big chunk of your income.

>> Scandinavia

How easy is it to immigrate into Scandinavia and become a citizen?

It depends on the country and your origin. Not too hard.

>the gap between rich and poor is smaller.

Depends on what you mean...Sweden actually has slightly higher wealth inequality than the USA, despite the much higher income inequality in the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_eq...

People who are rich are equally rare, and so require a larger voice to represent themselves and not be eliminated by the masses/will of the majority.

This is the rich person's point of view, but it is not one that is compatible with majoritarian democracy.

The causes are by regulatory and political capture when money in politics corruption is allowed in ever-increasing amounts becoming a self-reinforcing, vicious cycle. Beyond any notion of "pie," this also permits greater and greater wealth transfer poor -> rich, through raising taxes on the lower classes, raising fines, increasing prison terms and cutting support services. It's often touted as "austerity," "reducing bloat," "reducing regulations," and "private-public partnerships."

When inequality becomes too extreme, a country becomes a third-world country with high corruption, low civic involvement and is often perched on the cliff of revolution. Brazil and the US come to mind.

Another problem is the word "democracy" doesn't have one meaning. The most wide-held view would seem to be: officials are elected and do the people's work. The US, as with many developed economies, has become a de-facto klepto-plutocracy masquerading a democracy (psephocracy, technically) because very little attention is given to the people's problems with most policies, money and effort going towards catering to and subsidizing the rich. Furthermore, "democracy" has a different meaning in diplo-speak, it means "whatever the prevailing hegemony wants" in that context. In addition, regular people often conflate democracy with many of elements anarchy, which also doesn't scale in the real world.

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