But fundamentally, yes, this is an argument about two things:
1. Inequality is at what many would consider to be unacceptable highs [1] and historically when that has happened in the past violence has followed, therefore I think it would be better that we had the conversation about it now.
2. I think it is fair to ask questions about what kind of moral and ethical lines have been crossed in order to reach a net worth of $171 billion dollars.
We as a society are within our rights to take moments like this as a time to stop and ask some questions about if "the system" is working in a way that seems fair to some or fair to the majority and ideally even all. I'm not offering an answer on that one just prompting a moment of reflection.
[1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never...
Many people also routinely watch the Kardashians. We're trying to get at the root of a moral right, and citing what "most people" think is basically irrelevant.
"Inequality is at what many would consider to be unacceptable highs"
Citation that shows causal relationship is needed here.
Can we do this without the snark? It's not worth engaging otherwise.
Do you even consider inequality to be a problem in society and if so do you have any thoughts on what we should do about it?
What's the problem with there beeing people with 100000 times my NW? specially if it's a guy that created one of the biggest business on the planet?
The problem is there being persons that can't afford to eat, but blaming bezos would only be fair if the way he got his money actually contributed to the lack of basic needs meet by the needed.
Most humans (except maybe Buddhists and Daoists) are on a hedonic treadmill. So long as their condition today is better than it was yesterday, they generally derive greater contentment than being better off in absolute terms and then plateauing.
This "most people were better off over time" is the stuff stable societies are made of. It's why post WWII America did so well. It's why China has been doing well for 20-30 years now. When most everyone is doing better today than yesterday and believes they will be doing better tomorrow than today, they are content.
Even poverty is tolerable if things are improving over time because you adjust your expectations.
The lack of improvement over time is what makes prisons for example such an awful punishment. You're placed in a state where your conditions are not only worse in absolute terms but there is no prospect of it really improving until your really.
I also think that too much information or mis-informations, or simply bias or selective information can damage the way you perceive if thinks are getting better or worse, but that's another topic.
Would you consider this poverty? Cost-wise and earning-wise most people would consider it poverty, but it didn't feel like poverty because I knew what I was doing and I adjusted my expectations accordingly. I reckon I lived on about $2700 over those 8 months in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Would I want to do it again? No. Could I do it again if I had to? Yes.
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-yea...
1. Governments are ultimately responsible for this.
2. These social safety nets are funded by taxes
3. The specific man in this specific story runs a company that as recently as a few months ago was labelled the worst offender for tax avoidance. [1]
4. Jeff is now wealthier as a result of avoiding taxes on both a company and personal level
5. People who otherwise might have had a hot meal and a roof over their heads now don't.
There is a whole separate counter argument to what I have just said about how it wasn't technically illegal to avoid the taxes using the specific loopholes that he has used. My original comment about people are ultimately responsible for the kind of society they want to live in speaks directly to this.
Should we maybe think about closing some of those loopholes and getting a lot more serious about tax avoidance among the top 0.1% of companies and people in the world?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/02/new-study-d...
What does it mean for those that now have power? What does it mean for those that do not? Is the equality maintainable? How are decisions made? Other than maybe land, is the wealth that has value today even valuable any more once divided equally and everyone has it? From the point in time where the wealth is divided equally, does it increase or decrease globally from that point forward? Why or why not? How does the change in incentives change people and change the world?
Now this thought experiment should be the most extreme end but not misaligned with what many people think is ideal. Ideal doesn't mean workable and it's important to explore what aspects are workable and what are not because if we're going to chase something utopian on paper, we better well understand the unintended consequences.
My bet is that anyone that honestly pursues this line of thinking and really considers the second and third order effects, that they'll quickly discover lots of problems and come to the conclusion that like extreme inequality, extreme equality is also bad over time, and it's only after coming to that conclusion do they concern themselves with the better question "how much inequality is the right amount of inequality and what kinds of inequality are in everyone's best interest?
Anyone that has spent time really pondering Rawls' thought experiments such as the original position and veil of ignorance should be right at home here.
This is a straw man. No one is arguing equal distribution of all wealth. Any sane observer is arguing the historic levels of inequality are a cause of many undesirable social issues.
When someone is fighting equality with no hedging in their argument, that's usually a sign that they haven't considered what happens if they achieve what they are arguing for.
I'm not arguing that extreme inequality is good. It's bad in the same way extreme equality is bad. Once you recognize both are bad and why they are bad, you're more free to explore where you believe the balance point should be.
My personal view is that the problem isn't that we have a power law distribution (1/x). My view is that a distribution of 100/x is preferable to one of 1/x. The difference in equality from the top to the bottom can be extreme so long as the distribution between the two contains lots of people fairly evenly spread out and there is the possibility for someone to move up and down on that distribution on their own volition and effort. This produces a society that will produce productivity benefits that over time improve the conditions of those worst off.
I think the premise is a bit flawed here. An argument for reducing inequality isn't an argument for enforced equality. I would actually largely agree with you in that one of the main flaws of an extreme communist / no personal property approach is that it fundamentally isn't compatible with human nature.
However, that wasn't something I was arguing for at all either so I can't really defend it.
Just so I am not accused of hiding behind vague statements though what I am actually arguing for is more aggressive taxes on billionaires both in terms of real numbers but also primarily in addressing avoidance issues. I am also extremely in favor of the idea that workers should receive a living wage. I don't see any aspect of that which I would consider to be incompatible with a healthy and functional democracy / capitalist society.
As for maintaining inequality, it usually involves some form of force exerted on labour markets where voluntary exchange gets replaced by something involving almost entirely compulsion. Voluntary exchange of labour will always result in inequality as people's talents and the value of those talents are radically different. I'm not claiming markets get these problems correct (Many education and some health professionals seem to be dramatically underpaid relative to value), but people can at least make somewhat informed choices as to what they want to do with some knowledge of the value they will gain from it. A world where equality is enforced will have the government at a minimum telling people what they can earn from what they can do, and in sectors where demand is higher than supply they very likely end up enforcing who can do those things as well. Freedom of association in labour is very important to me and to me seems more valuable than enforced equality in a lot of ways.
I agree with the conclusion that the one big question is "How much inequality is right for society?". Another big question is some variant of "How can governments influence the distribution of that inequality without violating individual rights, while working to maximize a reasonable function of overall happiness?"
I'm of the opinion that trending towards a guaranteed basic income in supported by higher taxes and reduction in redundant programs is likely to be a good path forward provided those programs are carefully designed around incentives and the taxes are designed to be revenue efficient and minimally disruptive. I'm partially of this opinion because I believe it frees people up to pursue their artistic goals and could usher in a wave of unprecedented creativity in society. Not everyone is willing to go homeless to produce the next Harry Potter but many people will choose writing over a minimum wage job if given the choice. I think lower supply in labour markets leading to higher wages for some of the terrible jobs that currently people are made to do because of lack of alternatives is a net good thing for society even with the consequences of higher prices on some essential goods.
But here's where I lose you: > 2. I think it is fair to ask questions about what kind of moral and ethical lines have been crossed in order to reach a net worth of $171 billion dollars.
Why? I mean, sure, it's always a fair question to ask if moral lines have been crossed, but why do you assume that amassing great wealth is in in itself morally wrong, or only happens if you do immoral things? That's at least the implication I take from your statements.
Many people who are making the median wage in the States (as an example) have vastly more wealth than the poorest people in the world. Did they do something immoral? Not really. Maybe the "system" itself is immoral or something (though I'd love to hear an actual suggestion of a better system), but why start off assuming there's a moral failure instead of just "here's the way things work, ok looks like it leads to some pretty bad outcomes, let's try and think how we minimize those". Why start name-calling instead?
However, if you consider systems A and B, where system A is a bit better at using immense power for good than system B, you will notice that system A will result in a lot more good than system B. Therefore, if you care even a little bit about good things happening, you will be very keen to have system A instead of system B.
The fact that someone with immense power does something good becomes a lot less reassuring when you consider the opportunity cost of not having someone or some people who are a lot better at achieving good have that immense power.
You can't just dump a lot of power into someone you think that does good, because you have know way to know if (s)he is even able to manage that to start to do go.
At least bezos continues to improve the world infrastructure through amazon, and financing the space industry though blue origin.
Yes, that is pretty close to my point. We have created a system in which good people are not the people who get a lot of resources.
It's the difference between charity orgs with fading impact, and the ones that change people lives. Same applies to corporations, plenty changed the world for the better.
There are a lot of people who think they know what System A is and believe we are in System B but there's no lack of examples of people who get their chance to implement what they believe is System B and cause far more misery because they didn't know we were in System A (relatively speaking)
Personally, a system that generally rewards competency and is based on voluntary transactions to me is trending towards System A because people who amass power in such a system and maintain it generally do so because they are good at getting results through transactions that on the whole are generally voluntary and mutually beneficial.
It's easy to imagine systems which have more freedom and are better at rewarding competency. Like anarcho-syndicalism. If freedom and the rewarding of competency are what you value, why dismiss systems such as this? Throughout history humanity has gone through several systems. I'm not sure your justifications for believing the current one is the best would hold up to scrutiny.