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Comment by entangld | Hacker News Reader

The author's main point seems to be that corrupt governments allow too much money in too few hands.

Maybe this isn't the grand theory to support them all, but it reminds me a lot of why cancer is so destructive. One part of a large community using far too many resources. There could be a cluster theory to support the causes of cancer as well, but cluster theories are very hard to find solutions for. We don't just need to casually understand the problem. We need to prevent it if possible.

At least this theory gives us a reasonable means of experimenting with and analyzing future failures.

Edit:removed my opinion of others' opinions.

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No it isn't. The author's main point is that corrupt governments siphon wealth into privileged hands at the expense of the public good. This isn't same as "allowing" wealth inequality. You can try to elide these things into being the same, but now you're misrepresenting things to make a politically charged point.

Geez. I'm not on a soapbox here. Don't accuse me.

If you're going to say I'm wrong, at least point out how I'm wrong. There isn't a big difference between what I said and:

>>corrupt governments siphon wealth into privileged hands at the expense of the public good.<<

The effect is the same. Too much money in too few hands. Countries don't only need the rule of law to protect us from violence. We also need it to protect us from semi-legal forms of theft.

Monarchs gathered wealth and provided protection, and they've been going out of business for quite a while now. Mexico has the richest person in the world along with a lot of corruption and lots of very poor people. How can a place be viable enough to support multibillionaires, and still have people living in shacks?

I'm trying to understand the truth.

The difference, near as I can tell (since I'm talking about what two other people are saying and thus quite likely could be misreading either or both of you) is the method by which this wealth concentration occurs.

To use extreme examples, in one case, the concentration comes from enslaving a populace, while in the other case the concentration could come from a pure free market where only contracts are enforced (and thus some people become extraordinarily wealthy by benefiting large numbers of people, as Steve Jobs & Bill Gates have.)

>How can a place be viable enough to support multibillionaires, and still have people living in shacks?

That's basically how capitalism works if left to its own devices. The place doesn't have to do anything at all.

The difference is based on how people perceive the inequality. If it is seen as being unfairly earned, it severely hurts the incentive to work (through, say, paying lower taxes than poorer people, being awarded business through lobbying or social classes, being born into wealth, exploiting or underpaying the working class, or more generally anything where random Person On The Street couldn't do the same thing).

It doesn't matter what the outcome is, as long as it is seen to be fair. As soon as it isn't, people will resent the system, subvert it or rebel. This is a trait we share with monkeys and elephants, and is possibly the basis of social organization.

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