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Comment by dmitrig01 | Hacker News Reader

To what end? "Best" implies towards a certain goal. Is the goal economic growth? Or is it a fair society? Those are very different.

For example, if the goal is a fair society, then we should have a wealth tax, to disincentivize wealth equality. (And an income tax isn't so bad either in).

Having only a consumption tax makes sense if the goal is (only) to reduce consumption.

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The goal is economic growth, which matters more than anything else. Fun fact: in 1900, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, at about 60% of US GDP per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/argentina-was-one-o.... Today, Argentina has under 20% of the GDP per capita of the US. The difference is that the U.S. has grown at about 1.7% annually for the past century and change, while Argentina only grew at about 1% annually.

Maybe you're willing to give up 70 basis points in pursuit of a "fairer" society, but that means your grandkids will live in a much poorer society than they'd otherwise live in. This is the trajectory Europe is in currently. Having missed the boat on the Internet, space travel, and now AI, I suspect my grandkids will see a world where people are immigrating from Europe to China the way we see people immigrating from Argentina to the U.S.

> The goal is economic growth, which matters more than anything else.

That sounds like an argument for human slavery

And is not sustainable with finite and contested resources.

False. The consensus is that slavery hurts economic growth.

Economists have known slavery is inefficient since Adam Smith. Non-free labor creates a deadweight loss and inefficient allocation of capital.

> The goal is economic growth, which matters more than anything else.

To some people, but not everyone. It doesn't make sense to give unqualified "bests" without these kinds of caveats.

I don't personally share this view. I don't think growth or wealth are inherently good.

I believe economic growth is important to improve the lives of citizens who struggle to obtain the means of subsistence, but beyond that I don’t really see the point. Growth becomes actively harmful when it exacerbates wealth inequality.

Using GDP per capita as the metric assumes that the proceeds of economic growth “trickle down” uniformly, and this is obviously not true.

GDP per capita is possibly the most worthless, detached-from-reality statistic I've ever seen. Japan has 38% of US GDP per capita; Mississipi, the lowest state, has a significant lead. And yet day-to-day life in Japan is infinitely richer than in even the highest GDP state. A much greater percentage of Japanese people have access to adequate food, housing, and healthcare, with sufficient money left over to enjoy life/hobbies. Perhaps a lower percentage of Japanese people have superyachts. Optimizing for the outcome of a shithole nation where tens of millions are denied access to healthcare, life expectancy is below almost any other developed nation, crime is out of control and the prison population is the highest in the world, etc seems greatly mistaken to me.

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