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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

Gini coefficient is a very blunt measure of inequality. You could have two countries, one with more equality, but a lower standard of living for the middle class and one country with higher inequality, but a much better standard of living for the middle class.

The 2nd (with higher inequality) is obviously preferred.

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Krugman agrees with you. What's a better measure?

That's a tough question. Like most things that are complex, there is probably no one measure that accurately captures inequality.

What would make sense to me would be measuring the wealth of the majority of the population (3 middle quintiles) and then bringing up the bottom quintile to an acceptable level with transfer payments.

That reminds me as well, a lot of the inequality measures that you see ignore government transfers. So yes, the Gini would measure employment income, but it's not an accurate picture of actual income at the end of the year.

FWIW, geek me would be ok with a basket of measures. Life expectancy, average weight & height, purchasing power, savings rate. I'm just hoping to find reasonably simple metrics which are least wrong proxies for larger concerns.

> The 2nd (with higher inequality) is obviously preferred.

Is this really obvious to modern left?

No in fact the modern left doesn't care absolute realties but all about relative power.

This statement really challenged me. I had to consider if I agree.

My first response was that the lefties (catchall phrase for purpose of this reply) I know fret over fairness. To even frame discussions in terms of power is seen as distasteful and largely avoided.

Then I was reminded that many lefties, especially younger cohorts, talk about privilege. In Ezra Klein's interview with Will Wilkinson, they discuss "white privilege" in terms of power. And power is a topic Ezra Klein is far more comfortable discussing (compared to me).

In conclusion, I mosdef agree that we lefties have a more systems-based view, where the relative power of the belligerents are considered. Further, the themes of privilege, equality, bias, opportunity, fairness (as used by misc lefties sub-cohorts) as rhetoric are really talking about relative power.

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