The Richest Rich Are in a Class by Themselves

I partially agree with you but I don't think you can categorically state that the issue is any one thing.

Some people see income inequality as a problem in itself, a fundamental (literally) moral one. From that perspective, increased wealth at the top is bad for its own sake.

My concerns are mostly about money and power. I think the two are inevitably intertwined. I think both socialist & liberal (in the economic sense) ideologies put a lot of emphasis on decoupling them. Neither were successful. I don't think it's possible. Concentration of wealth and concentration of power are related problems. It's a potential threat to democracy. There are also positive feedback effects which are dangerous.

One way this manifests is closely related to the title (but not really the content) of this article. Talk about class is very coloured by the last century's political battles but one thing that is worth keeping in our lexicon is the marxist concept of "class," though without a lot of its extensions. The Marxist definition of class is more or less a group with shared economic and therefore political interest.

The modern underclasses, middle classes, millionaire and billionaire classes can have potentially divergent economic and political interest. An economic interest which represents a large part of the economy can translate into economic policy. In the case of the 0.1% it just takes a handful of individuals to create that kind of an influence.

Historically, countries have been openly run for the benefit of the upper classes.

When talking about income inequality it may be too narrow to only look at "how poor are the poorest people," because what's important in an inequality is the increasingly vast disparity between the poorest and the richest.

Focusing on the disparity is important because it highlights that there is systematic concentration of wealth, i.e. that the economic game seems to be stacked for the wealthiest: the rich really do get richer, while the poor really do get poorer.

Otherwise, when you look at the poorest of the poor, the knee-jerk rebuttal of some is just that, sure, some people are really poor, but they deserve it -- e.g. they are the deadbeats of society, or they should work harder, or they should get better educated. In constrast, the increasing disparity between the rich and poor gives evidence that something larger is going on.

I do agree that social mobility is important, as is expanding the middle class. But more than expanding the middle class, the income of the middle class should increase with the overall increase of wealth, which has not been occurring as of late.

Also, the concept of "more of us can move into the top 2% or 3%" is tautologically impossible :)

Well, I only partly agree. In a developed country, that the poor should have enough to survive is a given. But once survival is assured (and I'm not saying it is, but it's not far from it), there are other important issues to consider. Money isn't just glitz, glamour, mansions and fast cars. Money is also power. And when money is distributed unequally, so is power. Now, this is a price we have to pay, because completely egalitarian approaches seem to have failed so far, and in order to incentivize people to create, some inequality is actually good. But the question is how much. When is inequality so blatant that feudalism is near? When is inequality so atrocious that the basic values of democracy are threatened?

I don't think there are clear answers, but this is a continuous struggle in any capitalistic society. Capitalism has to be maintained, but curbed so that it doesn't run rampant.

>We are as stupid as the general population who believe we all can aspire to be members of the one-percenters.

Why would you want to be? You think having that much wealth would make you happy? Why not be satisfied with living a comfortable life of plenty?

>I have not once heard a compelling argument for why inheritance is a good thing for society.

You must not have kids, do you? It may not be good for society, but do you seriously want to prohibit parents from being able to pass things down to their children? That's a bit of a monstrous proposition, don't you think? Many families attach emotional significance to tangible property (land, a house, furniture, life insurance, etc), and stealing that from them because "you didn't earn that" is morally reprehensible.

I guess the question is, when is your money your money? I like to think once I've paid my income taxes and all the other taxes levied on my income, that the rest is mine. I own it and I'm free to do with as I like.

What estate taxes say is "none of it is your money. once you've paid your income taxes, we'll let you keep some of it, but if you die, we're taking the rest of it".

So individuals who want to pass down their family business to their child? Tough, the gov't gets it all. Want to make sure your surviving spouse and kids will be taken care of? Well that wouldn't be fair. The gov't takes it all.

I take the opposite stance, inheritance taxes make no sense at all.

From my point of view inheritance is a good thing because it ensures your family and loved ones will have a comfortable life once you pass away (kind of a life insurance).

Nevertheless it also bothers that people who inherit large fortunes can live a luxurious life without having to do real work a single day in their lifetimes.

Maybe putting a limit on how much wealth can be inherited by a single person would work better than a 100% estate tax. But this also raises another question, would you trust the government to manage your life's wealth after you die? I sure wouldn't!

I agree with the sentiment, but I think a 100% estate tax is never going to fly. I'm definitely for steeply increasing it as wealth goes up, however. Maybe it goes to 100% at some level (a billion?).

Even worse -- on top of the shaky ground of the argument that "income inequality is a huge evil" is built a remedy that the government is somehow going to equitably redistribute the wealth without destroying a great deal of it in the process.

Income mobility is so much more important as an economic concern over income inequality.

How about start with this:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/lexington/2010/10/estate_tax_...

People much wiser than us founded America upon the principle that extreme wealth is incompatible with democracy.

EDIT: For emphasis, "Extreme" wealth is what I'm talking about here. Whatever arbitrary number we are choosing that allows this to happen--our potential future president courting a single citizen's favor:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-29/republican-presiden...

I feel it's more a question of why should such a small handful of people control such a massive proportion of the world's wealth and power. Especially if it's some form of dynastic wealth.

And then there is such a huge, sickening disparity between how the poorest populations of the world live - well over a billion people do not have even their basic needs met - and the excesses of the ultra-rich.

I don't have a solution, but it's galling nonetheless.

As long as a more equal distribution of wealth would reduce suffering, we can certainly consider wealth inequality harmful.

One would have to have rather alien values to think that luxuries for a few are preferable to food and health for all.

It's not the 0.1% are harmful. There will always be 0.1%, that's how percentages work. It's the proportion of wealth they control.

Would you support a system where 1 person controls 100% of the wealth? If not, why not?

If the current situation where the 1% control 35% of the wealth is not a problem, at what point do you think it would become a problem?

Yes, their wealth flows through the economy in a way that benefits rich people. You can see this most obviously in charity work where many charities are largely about catering to whatever rich people want to do. (How many opera houses do we need?) We are lucky that some of those at the top are relatively far-sighted, but this is far from universal.

Buying power also affects who businesses cater to and which startup business plans seem promising. As a result, a lot more effort goes into solving rich people's problems. Businesses segment on income (Walmart versus Trader Joe's versus whatever the very rich do.)

Something like guaranteed income would also flow through the economy, but at least the first hop guarantees more attention towards the problems of the poor, due to a bit more buying power. There would still be plenty of ways to make money.

The top 0.1% is not by definition harmful to society, but harm can come from when the 0.1% controls an increasingly disproportionate share of wealth. But of course, income inequality is not bad by axiom either.

The rub of increasing income inequality is that it undermines everyone benefiting from increasing wealth and technological advance (e.g. the hope that in the limit we'll approach a star-trek society).

Overall, we want a society in which wealth for all increases -- this is the futuristic dream of us working 15 hour work days by virtue of massive productivity gains from technological advance. Yet what seems to be currently happening in our economy is that technological advance enables increasing profit for a select few.

So happy to hear you say that. So much of the whole 99%/1% (or whatever arbitrary divide the pseudointellectual youth choose to focus on) fascination is fueled by envy. "Ugh, why should those corporate fat-cats have so much extra money when I can only afford the lesser quality otterbox for my new iphone?!" Inequality is not intrinsically bad. In fact, it's commonly accepted that so much extra wealth does not bring happiness, so perhaps we would do better to covet less and appreciate more.

I've read plausible arguments that the richest fortunes do not benefit society by being in play and that much of it is parked in various places, some off shore.

Their money may very well be funding lots of start ups. The wealthy employ lots of people.

Not really. Wealth is more accurately described by a power-law distribution.

-3 on that one.

i forget this is the tech hangout for the wanna-be-rich.

so now i'm sitting here trying to decide whether i can come up with something that will make you all understand how the super-duper-massively-rich have rigged the game.

poisoned the planet in their winner-take-all grudge-match, killed off animals like they were pit-bulls in a dog-fight, treated the polar ice-caps like ice-sculptures at a party, and kept throwing bigger rocks (a.k.a. bombs) at each other.

and by the time the split shifts the span, and you _might_ figure it out (or maybe not even then), it'll be too late.

way too late.

but i can't come up with anything, except just to say it, and since (as i just said) it'll be too late anyway, then i guess it doesn't even really have to be said at all, eh?

so yeah, chase your dreams, kids, and try to become rich...

probably best not to have any kids of your own, though, because you might find yourself getting attached to them, and worrying about their future, which they will never see, because the human race ran out of time before they got old.

-bowerbird

I don't really have any proof to use to refute your statement, but it seems to me to be a massive over-generalization. What about, for example, Bill Gates, who's been using his wealth to give back, start charities, etc. and plans to give all of it away over the course of the rest of his life?

Many of the rich might look at the poor and see a large class of people basically living off of their welfare checks -- which the rich would then say that they paid through taxes -- and say that those people are lazy and greedy and are hurting the economy.

I don't think either of these cases are true. There are good and bad apples in any class of people. I would say that it seems like people with power might have a tendency to become corrupted by that power -- but this isn't just money: politicians, big-time CEOs, etc. can end up like that too.