Hacker News Reader

Comment by regal | Hacker News Reader

By the middle of this article, I felt refreshed to be reading something that seemed to be saying, "There are people who struggle economically, but that's okay - the world is an imperfect place, and people take their own lives down their own paths that make them better or worse."

Into the second half though, the overtones began to paint a very Upton Sinclair-like story of crushing, inescapable poverty, and ultimately the piece ends with the same message The Jungle ends with: it's unfair that some people make a lot more money than other people do.

And I'm left with the same question I always have for these arguments: Mr. Article Writer, how much of your income would YOU like to give to the heroes of these stories?

Everybody always wants to say, "Oh it's so sad that these people are suffering," and then generously volunteer that someone else pay for it: "Hey! Why don't we make THAT guy give that OTHER guy his money!" Nobody ever offers his own money, though.

Wonder why that is...

View on HN

"And lurking at the bottom of this morass one finds flagrantly irrational ideas about the human condition. Many of my critics pretend that they have been entirely self-made. They seem to feel responsible for their intellectual gifts, for their freedom from injury and disease, and for the fact that they were born at a specific moment in history. Many appear to have absolutely no awareness of how lucky one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, to not have cerebral palsy, or to not have been bankrupted in middle age by the mortal illness of a spouse.

Many of us have been extraordinarily lucky—and we did not earn it. Many good people have been extraordinarily unlucky—and they did not deserve it. And yet I get the distinct sense that if I asked some of my readers why they weren’t born with club feet, or orphaned before the age of five, they would not hesitate to take credit for these accomplishments. There is a stunning lack of insight into the unfolding of human events that passes for moral and economic wisdom in some circles. And it is pernicious. Followers of Rand, in particular, believe that only a blind reliance on market forces and the narrowest conception of self interest can steer us collectively toward the best civilization possible and that any attempt to impose wisdom or compassion from the top—no matter who is at the top and no matter what the need—is necessarily corrupting of the whole enterprise. This conviction is, at the very least, unproven. And there are many reasons to believe that it is dangerously wrong."

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-to-lose-readers-witho...

Q: What was Ayn Rand’s view on charity?

A: My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.

[From “Playboy’s 1964 interview with Ayn Rand”]

> Followers of Rand, in particular, believe that only a blind reliance on market forces and the narrowest conception of self interest can steer us collectively toward the best civilization possible and that any attempt to impose wisdom or compassion from the top—no matter who is at the top and no matter what the need—is necessarily corrupting of the whole enterprise.

Most critics of Rand that I encounter base their opinion on an incorrect caricature that is reinforced by other critics repeating the same incorrect untruths. I consider myself to be generally in agreement with most of Rand's philosophy, but am nothing like your description of her followers. Granted, a lot of her advocates are purely self-interested idiots, but it wasn't Rand's teachings that brought them to that state.

It isn't an incorrect caricature if "a lot of her advocates are purely self-interested idiots".

Caricature of Rand herself, not her followers.

But there's no caricature of Rand in the quote.

True, I was speaking generally but probably shouldn't have in this context.

"Followers of Rand, in particular, believe that ..."

He was clearly talking about her followers. And you avoided his main point, that none of us are truly selfmade. We've all been very lucky if we are successful. That shakes the foundation of Rand's philosophy b

It isn't an incorrect caricature if "a lot of her advocates are purely self-interested idiots".

Does not follow... The fact that a lot of Christians are raving fundamentalists who reject science and logic, is not a reflection on Christ... likewise, that a lot of self-described Randians may be "purely self-interested idiots" is no reflection on Rand. Rand can't control what the people who come after her and claim association with her name do, any more than Jesus can. Substitute any other famous/influential character from history for Rand or Jesus in the above, and the point remains the same.

I'm an atheist, but grew up Catholic and I know religious doctrine very well indeed. Jesus didn't build his reputation on telling people to ignore science and logic; for every exhortation to his followers that they needed to have some faith in God, there was another one that was very practical, such as 'God helps those who help themselves.' There's no way he expected people to pray for rain only to die of thirst, if there was a lake within walking distance.

I don't want to assign the faults of Randians to Rand, but I think it's fair to say tat she disapproved of altruism and reified individualism as the acme of human achievement. I can sort of understand this given the circumstances of her birth and so on, but Rand (or at least the average Randian) seems suspicious of voluntary and specific collectivism as well as mandatory or universal collectivism. I'm a bit of a hermit, but when I am being social I like working on a team and I find the relentless insistence on individualism as the only valid kind of self-actualization rather pathetic.

How can "a lot" of a group be "purely" both "self-interested" and "idiots"? I do not think this statement can be anything more than rhetoric and schoolyard name calling.

I would say people have a strong interest in themselves and their personal welfare. This should be expected or we would probably not exist as a species. However the interesting thing about humans and some other intelligent animals is that they are also interested in the welfare of others, including non-relations, and even other species (some argue that this is part of a broader form of self-interest like the golden rule). However none of this should deny that people are motivated by self-interest most of the time.

While libertarians talk about self-interest more than most I don't think there is any good evidence that their actions are any more selfish than non-libertarians. I would suggest they are simply making an observation about human nature that explains a huge fraction of human behavior.

that's a quote from the person I was replying to.

"However none of this should deny that people are motivated by self-interest most of the time."

Sure, but that doesn't mean we should build a philosophy and our institutions around the idea that it's good! This is very different than "simply making an observation about human nature".

And the biggest flaw in libertarianism is the idea that humans make logical decisions, which is one of the most egregious denials of human nature I've ever seen.

And the biggest flaw in contemporary liberalism is the idea that these very obvious flaws in human nature are somehow transcended by the humans we elect to office.

> Nobody ever offers his own money, though.

A lot of people offer their money. Most countries have social security systems, which were voted in by people who stand to lose money over them. If I give a homeless guy $10,000, that won't stop all the other homeless guys from causing me all the problems that they cause (like not buying enough stuff to provide me with a better job, or clogging up the local emergency ward because they got pneumonia). But if I conspire (with a few fellow voters) to give $10,000 to all the homeless guys, then the problem is partially solved.

And it's not like all these countries with social security nets are forcing rich people to pay for it. It's no secret that the truly rich often don't pay taxes.

And it's not like all these countries with social security nets are forcing rich people to pay for it.

This is very true. America leans more heavily on the rich to pay for government than the rest of the OECD. Only Australia even comes close.

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/no-country-leans-upper-income-...

Those stats are extremely misleading, because in the US the rich are also disproportional beneficiaries of their tax money (compared to other countries).

In the US the rich pay taxes for schools they end up with better schools in their neighborhood. And they get better parks, and better libraries and better everything in rich neighborhoods. Very little of that money ends up improving poorer neighborhoods, so in the US rich people pay those taxes mostly to themselves. The taxes aren't very re-distributive, which defeats the point of progressive taxation.

Tax deductions in the US also go disproportionately to rich people, whereas in Europe there are many big tax breaks for poor and middle class families.

So it's absolutely not the case that the US has the most progressive tax system among industrialized nations (as claimed in the linked article). Only when you creatively slice and dice the data can you arrive at such a conclusion.

> In the US the rich pay taxes for schools they end up with better schools in their neighborhood. And they get better parks, and better libraries and better everything in rich neighborhoods. Very little of that money ends up improving poorer neighborhoods, so in the US rich people pay those taxes mostly to themselves. The taxes aren't very re-distributive, which defeats the point of progressive taxation.

And Americans wonder why their school system sucks? Why they have more people in prison than China?

Not everyone makes their own path.

Some have paths chosen for them by genetics or simply by misfortune. And amongst those that have chosen the wrong path, is it reasonable in such a rich society that they should have to be selling blood plasma to keep food on the table?

I don't think it's unfair that some make more than others do. I think it's unfair that many are scratching around for money for the bills and enough to eat, when we have a society of riches and excess beyond anything seen before in history.

So I offer my own money in the form of taxes. We know from history that when welfare is entirely down to charity we get a shortfall, a growing underclass, mass criminality, workhouses, inescapable poverty etc etc.

It's also worth pointing out that social mobility in the US is very low.[1]The single greatest predictor to your future wealth is your parent's wealth, which obviously you had nothing to do with.

1) http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2009/08/social-mobi...

As the middle-class son of an uneducated single mother who didn't get a high-school diploma until after I did, I'm having a little trouble buying that...

There actually seems to be quite a lot of evidence for the US having a low social mobility. I recall some articles a while back in The Economist about it [1][2], something that surprised me a few years ago. Not any more. It doesn't take long to find many reports detailing this.

[1] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571417-how-prevent-v...

[2] http://www.economist.com/node/21571399

The data exist whether you "buy" them or not. Social mobility in the US is somewhat crap as of late. It's been widely reported.

Your comment is indicative of a lot of our problems with political discourse. You must be smart enough to understand that your experience as an individual isn't necessarily representative of everyone as a whole, or everyone who grew up in your situation.

So why did you even make the comment? Because accepting the data might lead you to a place politically that you aren't ready to go? Accepting it might conflict with some portion of your worldview? You believe nothing that is widely reported is true? Just genuinely contrariness?

You should use some of your middle class income to take some courses in probability and statistics.

The plural of anecdote is not data. Just search "social mobility OECD". Could probably even use I'm feeling lucky or ducky, if you've made the switch to DDG.

As the upper-middle-class (for the area I now live in) son of a single mother whose serious health problems prevented her from finishing college, I spent a good chunk of my childhood on food stamps. I was even on medicaid for a while when I turned 18 and child support and my father's insurance stopped.

The only reason I now own my own home, have good insurance, and don't worry about money is because when I was 19, a hiring manager 600 miles away who knew me from web forums took a chance. I had just enough cash for a plane ticket. I walked into an office in Santa Clara one Spring morning and got handed the keys to the kingdom.

Fifteen months later the company imploded and I had two offers from four interviews, all arranged by further connections I'd made on the job.

Logically, that never should have happened. I had no formal qualifications, not even a diploma, and no documented experience. I don't think they even bothered with the standard background check, and I know they never checked my references (which were real but borderline worthless).

I made the right connection at the right time. I got lucky. If I hadn't, I'm not entirely sure I'd actually be alive right now, but I would definitely at least be several years behind where I am now.

Everyone has different experiences. You can't assume yours is ordinary, nor that what worked for you would have worked for anyone else.

I'd argue very few people make their own path. While anecdotal, looking at those around me, most 'paths' people go down are a result of external forces that have been internalized over time.

Hell, even look at myself, very few of my choices were a result of just my own thinking, convictions, and/or discipline, and those that I do consider my own can partially be explained by my genetic makeup. But I don't want to reduce this argument too far.

My point is that the path we go down is mostly followed 'by default' and not a result of our own individual actions and choices. And I find that those who've had the most fortuitous defaults tend to ascribe them to their 'selves' more than others do. I think this is incorrect, and even if it's not, the more ethical position is to assume it is incorrect.

> We know from history that when welfare is entirely down to charity we get a shortfall, a growing underclass, mass criminality, workhouses, inescapable poverty etc etc.

This is not supported by history, in fact you can correlate mass criminality in the US to the start of the mass welfare state of the great society. Crime was much lower during the great depression when there really was a large underclass, and there were far fewer safety nets. There are dozens of poor third world countries that can't afford welfare programs that are far safer than the US.

I think your opinion of what this piece implies is a bit skewed. I see this scenario played out over and over everywhere I look. I happen to be one of the lucky ones, I won the genetic lottery, and the geographic one too. I expect to be able to make a decent living at least until the brain rot sets in. The sad fact is though, at least it appears to me, is that there will be fewer jobs for the majority of the population every year. At the same time the wealth that society as a whole is producing is accumulating at an increasing rate. I do not think the author of this article wants everyone else to shoulder the plight of the masses. I think that he, like many others suggest that society as a whole considers a method to allocate a portion of our GDP to those who have been eliminated from the game. The most ironic part of this ongoing discussion, it that the people around me who are most vocal about letting "these parasites" fend for themselves, are the next group that will be in the same boat. Yes, many of these "hard working" design engineers who paid their way through the public supported universities, will not be needed when the tech evolves just a little bit more. Then the lower 85% will be the extraneous work force, and the beat goes on.

I really don't like this argument. First, advocacy of an idea is good in itself. Second, the advocate putting their money where their mouth is will only impoverish them self while making very little change. However, if overall society was to adopt a united approach to it, the results would be very different. I'm not going to give up 10% of my income if it's just me doing it, but if everyone is doing it, I'd be willing (assuming there is a non-stupid plan for how to spend it, which is not likely).

Are you saying that a writer at a newspaper who makes median income is actually in a position to give some of that income to poor families, versus a CEO who makes $15 million a year?

His meaning was quite clear from what he wrote. If you must, argue against his points, don't just appeal to emotions - they are never useful for conducting policy.

I'm not appealing to emotion. My question is rather simple and I want him/her to answer it.

It's not just an appeal to emotion, there's a valid point in enraged_camel's post. It's not hypocrisy to defend redistribution only by people who own more than X, even if that X is above the author's income. There's a qualitative difference between owning a median income and "fuck you money".

regal's point, on the other hand, is not only completely speculative, as it's completely irrelevant, because the argument isn't invalidated even if stated by an hypocrite.

scoff

Funny you're complaining about that comment: This whole piece is one big emotion appeal for class warfare and unionism

"If only Little Johnny's parent's union jobs didn't disappear, then he wouldn't have lived in a broken home, and would have buckled down and gone to college!"

"Why does this group of people, who I know little about as individuals, have it so well?!"

Typical bleeding-heart bull, which is, of course, what this movie is about (and how this author barkers for his friend's movie). "Come one, and all, see how unfair life is in America!"

It's too bad these families both work so hard and barely get by. Maybe they did get screwed over by circumstance. Maybe they shouldn't had assume union jobs were forever. Maybe the lure of a paying job today to help the family kept those kids out of college. Or maybe those kids were fuck ups and didn't take school seriously. I guess I should pay for a ticket to find out if I should feel superior to the family or to the CEOs.

Complaining about how life is unfair will get folks into the art movie theater, but it's not going to provide opportunities for these families to better their lot.

More to the point, the writer is in little position to do so. The CEO, however, is getting that fifteen million out of the value created by workers like the Stanleys and the Nuemanns.

So should the Stanleys get paid more? Let's say the CEO makes $15 million leading 10,000 workers. Let's just pay the CEO zero and divide up the money. We can give each worker a $1500 yearly raise. Sure, that'll change things. What CEO who has proven his value at leading the large organization would work for nothing? There's a scarcity of CEO skills and an abundance of lower skilled labor. Supply and demand are unbreakable laws of nature. If I am at a pure mountain stream, why would I pay a guy standing next to me $5 for a cup of water from that same stream? If I'm in the desert, I would have no problem paying $20 for that same cup.

Interestingly, many folks asking other people to get paid less or contribute more have no problem consuming other people's hard work for free -- specifically folks that have no problem with software piracy, for instance. Under some theories, the CEO is getting rich "off the work of others," yet hypocritically, people seem to have no problem pirating music and software -- which is effectively getting "rich" off of someone else's work.

There is no evidence that there is an efficient competitive market for CEOs.

In fact, there is quite a bit of evidence that the market for CEOs is quite the opposite -- that often CEO A sits on the board of CEOs who sit on A's board.

I won't go too far in to the other points, just to say that yes, there are quite a few people who would benefit greatly from getting to keep an extra 1500 dollars per year of the value they create.

Then again, we could pay the CEO $5m and the 10,000 workers could make an extra $1,000/year, so some other distribution proportional to the effort & ability.

$5m/year doesn't sound so awful. Are you saying that the $15m CEO is definitely 3 times better? How are you quantifying that? How do you explain the fact that some CEOs see pay rises even though their firm's revenue or share price declines over the same period?

Here's an experiment. Let's give 92% of all of the income that the rich people make to the poor. How much will there be to go around? Not enough by a long shot. If we taxed the rich at 100% it wouldn't even cover the budget deficit for one year.

But, these folks that make a fairly middle income suggesting that someone else give more are exactly the problem. No one wants to give more when it reduces their quality of life. There are plenty of people waiting for kidney transplants, yet when was the last time a New Yorker writer went to volunteer to give up a kidney for someone he's never met?

America should ask why manufacturing has left the US. Rising costs. Yet what has caused costs to rise? It isn't like greed is a new invention. Something has changed though .. Burdensome regulation and unfettered litigation for one. Have you ever tried to open a factory in California? Good luck. It can take years and sometimes a decade due to NIMBY politics. In China, you can have a factory opened in just over a year -- construction and government approvals included. I won't suggest we turn into China but the extreme on the other end is what we're facing. The increasing numbers of poor are the result of an economic environment that is primarily caused by limousine left wingers that think they've been anointed guardians of everyone else's destiny. They'd rather stop a factory from being built and have the potential workers in poverty from which they can eventually be saved by government intervention. The cite boogey men such as "CO2" yet, poverty causes for death than CO2 ever has.

The rich CEOs aren't stealing from the people, they're players within the system just like everyone else. They don't make the laws. As far as rich, there are plenty of $120,000 per year developers on HN that wouldn't think of working for $60k. To a poor person, 60k is a fortune. I think some religious figure once said something about casting the first stone.. There was another dude from India that mentioned something about all life being suffering. There will always be poor people because life has winners and losers. To suggest any different is to revisit the 'prosperity' of the Soviet Union in the 1950s.

>> Let's give 92% of all of the income that the rich people make to the poor. How much will there be to go around? Not enough by a long shot. If we taxed the rich at 100% it wouldn't even cover the budget deficit for one year.

This is a bit of a non sequitur. The budget doesn't only go on the poor.

>Let's give 92% of all of the income that the rich people make to the poor. How much will there be to go around? Not enough by a long shot. If we taxed the rich at 100% it wouldn't even cover the budget deficit for one year.

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that the poor don't pay taxes, and that individuals and companies producing the goods they consume don't pay taxes.

> Let's give 92% of all of the income that the rich people make to the poor. How much will there be to go around? Not enough by a long shot.

The top 1% of people in the US have about 20% of the income. The US's GNI is about $14T, so that's about $3T for the top 1%. (So an average of about $1M per person; of course that's the mean; the median will be lower, and the threshold for the top 1% lower again.)

The official poverty line in the US is about $23k for a family of four; let's say $6k per person. The number of officially-poor people in the US is about 40M. If we suppose all those people are earning precisely nothing at present, taking them up to the poverty line would therefore cost about $240B, less than 10% of the income of the top 1%.

So ... it seems like giving 92% of the income of the rich to help the poor would help them rather a lot, actually.

"The rich CEOs aren't stealing from the people, they're players within the system just like everyone else. They don't make the laws."

Actually, they do write the laws. They fund special interest groups and give money to politicians to get elected. Big money often writes the law - with those same special interest groups attaching themselves to Congressional staffers and then providing the actual language that goes to the floor. I don't know what world you think you're living in when you can't see how money shapes our politics and laws.

My point was to call attention to the inanity of this argument we keep hearing over and over again from middle class people who want to have it easy while also feeling good about themselves that they're on the "poor people's side" trying to save them and make their lives better, while in actuality doing diddly-squat.

It's the oft-cried tripe of the modern middle-income West. See somebody having a harder time than you? It's okay! Just tell them how it's so wrong that they're suffering and rich people ought to just... give them stuff! There - feel like a good person now, don't you? Good deed for the day = done.

The fact is, there's somebody out there somewhere in the world who could be living a significantly enhanced life if our good writer were to put his money where his mouth is and donate a portion of his income to him/her - perhaps an impoverished individual in South America, or Africa, or Asia, who gets by on a meager $300 a year. Could our writer donate $3,000 to one of these individuals every year, and change her life? Perhaps another $3,000 to another individual still? Think of all the good he'd be doing... according to his very own argument.

But he's not doing that, is he? What's he doing instead?

The same thing every middle class Western person does: he talks. About how horrible it is that poor people are poor, and how evil it is that rich people are rich.

It's class preservation 101: put the spotlight on the bigger target, and keep it off of you. Nobody raises taxes on the middle class if everybody's upset at the upper class.

I agree. But, there is some value in "Advocacy" for people in this position. Although, that card is probably played out by now and its cliche/annoying unless someone actually proposes or better yet is actively involved in a solution.

There is a 2000 year old book that basically says "There will always be the poor" --not sure exactly what that means, but it kinda makes sense. For me, I've tried both large scale and small scale ways of helping "the poor" and I've developed the model of:

1. help people when you can & however you are able...It probably won't help them long-term though but maybe thats ok.

2. A few of those folks really are motivated to change their life for the better, so when you help them, it may pay off for the greater good.

Either way, studies show that helping others and "giving to a good cause" typically pays off higher "happiness dividends" than selfishly spending money on yourself (unless its for a new smartphone or laptop of course :))

That's no true, plenty of people who support legally enforced redistribution also donate money to charities.

> Nobody ever offers his own money, though.

Nobody needs to offer his own money, though. You give a moral answer to a social conflict. You miss the point.

And I'm left with the same question I always have for these arguments: Mr. Article Writer, how much of your income would YOU like to give to the heroes of these stories?

About 25%. I'm OK with a tax level of between 35-40% on a moderate (>$50k) income, and I'd like about 75% of that to be spent on helping other people especially through education and healthcare) and the other 25% to be spent on things like defense, NASA, cops and so on, that's meant to benefit everyone. I'm willing to negotiate these various percentages, within reason. When I can, I pay a bit more tax than I absolutely have to because it makes me feel good, although some years I don't earn that much and I just pay what I have to. I'm not demanding that you must pay much more tax, but I am happy to pay a moderate amount and then a bit extra if I can afford it.

Does that answer your question?

Warren Buffet is a noted advocate for higher taxes, and very few people have more to lose from higher taxes than he does.

On top of that, I have never heard a convincing argument that some people are poor because other people are rich.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com