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Comment by hcurtiss | Hacker News Reader

And almost for the entirety of that period, humans lived in abject poverty. The rise of capitalism perfectly correlates with the most spectacular increase in human flourishing and prosperity in the history of our species. Even in the last fifty years, liberalizing economies, private ownership, and contract law have lifted tens of millions out of poverty, mostly in SE Asia.

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And yet many in capitalist society lived and still live in abject poverty, despite the fact that there are enough resources so that no one should be left wanting. Nevertheless, you've somehow convinced yourself that those people either (a) don't matter, (b) deserve it, or (c) can't be helped.

If the goal is to reduce poverty, I fail to see how the existence of billionaires is a positive outcome, either now, in the form of Musk and his ilk; in the form of the robber barons of the late 18th century; or in the form of the noble lords of the feudal period to owned a lot but contributed nothing.

It's not, but if the existence of billionaires correlates strongly with an increase in the median standard of living, I'm all for it. My politics are not driven by envy -- only what consistently produces the best outcome for the most.

Regarding the idea that we can design a system where "no one should be left wanting," that sounds nice. So does big rock candy mountain. There is no such system.

> It's not, but if the existence of billionaires correlates strongly with an increase in the median standard of living, I'm all for it.

Great, but it doesn't. The gap between the poor and the wealthy has only grown in the US, especially since Reagan's "trickle down" economics.

https://www.statista.com/chart/35953/inequality-wealth-gap-u...

The accusations against the working poor of "envy" are a barbaric slur. People just want to get valued fairly.

But, again, the gap between the poor and the wealthy is irrelevant. Income inequality doesn't describe what's best for the most. If more income inequality produces a better outcome for the majority, it becomes very difficult to argue income inequality is, itself, bad. While the GINI index has certainly increased over the last fifty years in the US, real median household income and real personal consumption expenditures have too, all while poverty rates have substantially declined. It is exceedingly difficult to argue by any objective metric that rising income inequality has handicapped median standard of living.

We see similar trends around the world. In fact, the countries that have struggled the most with stagnating standards of living are precisely those that have most aggressively imposed redistributionist policies.

Income inequality with rising standards of living for the median is only bad if your politics are driven by envy.

It's not irrelevant. It wasn't irrelevant when the same arguments were made in favor of feudal lords. People want to fairly compensated: the premise of "a day's pay for a day's work" is based on it. If the idle rich are vacuuming up profits that properly belong to the working class, you're asking for a revolution. There is absolutely nothing to suggest a causal relationship between massive wealth in the upper classes and any benefit for the rest of society. last time that happened in the US, the robber barons and Wall Street class nearly brought down the world economy.

I don't recall what arguments were made in favor of feudal lords. And one could hardly call that system "capitalism," which is the subject of this thread. I maintain that the relevant objective should be the best outcome for the most. There is abundant objective evidence that capitalism is the economic system best suited to that objective, even if it produces varying degrees -- and sometimes large amounts -- of income inequality.

Feudalism is the end-state of capitalism, as I've already commented: it is the consequence of all capital (typically, arable land) ending in the hands of a select few (lords), who then derive income by renting it out (tenant farmer system). As a result, the lords themselves never contribute labor and exist only as parasites on a system dependent on laborers who have no opportunity to acquire capital.

I can think of no capitalist society in the last thousand years that has produced feudalism.

Then you aren't trying very hard or (more likely) pretending to not know history.

Every feudalist society began with the accumulation of capital. That's what land ownership is. It happened in mainland Europe and Britain, it happened in Russia, it happened in Japan. Any society with land-owning "lords".

How do you think they got to be lords? Hard work?

But not all "capitalist" societies have the same percentage in "abject poverty". So that makes me think that capitalism by itself is not the only major determinant of some of the bad things that we see, but rather the lack of interest and of focus to fix actual issues. Many societies can learn from others and improve their situation. Note: and many, if not most actually do, check : https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/the-share-and-number-of-p...

If the goal is to reduce poverty, the number of billionaire is actually irelevant. How you fund reducing poverty might influence the number of billionaires, but, for me it is more important what each society does for the poor, rather than counting how many are billionaires today.

> If the goal is to reduce poverty, the number of billionaire is actually irelevant. How you fund reducing poverty might influence the number of billionaires, but, for me it is more important what each society does for the poor, rather than counting how many are billionaires today.

You're so close. The only missing connection is the realization that billionaires exercise outsize influence, and will affect government policy to help themselves, not the poor. The only way for the poor to not have their voice silenced by the rich is to reduce the rich.

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