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Comment by jonasvp | Hacker News Reader

Well and concisely put. This is the actually the one fact we should try to get into these people's heads. The only change is in the _distribution_ of wealth.

What we should be worried about is not wealth but welfare. And I'm not sure polluting the environment and using up non-renewable resources improves anybody's welfare. Not even that of the people profiting from it.

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You are incorrect, the distribution of wealth means less money spent on healthcare or drug research, or growing food. If it takes more effort, that effort has to come from somewhere.

Okay, so the _re_distribution of wealth by a certain political action implies less money spent somewhere. Yes, that's what redistribution of wealth means.

But again, how would spending less effort on digging up non-renewable resources negatively impact healthcare? True, the effort must come from somewhere and it comes from not doing certain things we're doing that we now know are impacting us negatively.

It's not spending less effort on non-renewable resources; it's spending more effort on renewable resources to achieve the same amount of production from the non-renewable resource. So to maintain current levels of production the level of effort would have to increase, when switching which means everyone works harder/longer for no increase production.

Determining the distribution is the sole purpose of an economic system. Don't trivialize it.

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