[ExI] Status, Envy, and Economics

[Lee Corbin]

Damien S. writes

>> I ask since, so far, the rich have been rather well behaved (here
>> in the west). Yes, there has been corruption---too much, of course.
>> But the benefits we get from having a lot of rich people around vastly
> 
> The West also has strong governments enforcing the laws and
> redistributing income to the desperate.

The redistribution of money to the desperate is irrelevant, I think,
to the main issue of the moment, namely whether anyone will
get "out of hand" as riches increase exponentially.

>> ...regardless of how rich Bill Gates get, the actual guns and
>> badges do remain in the hands of the properly authorized.
>> Private soldiers have not been a threat. You presume
> 
> But would that remain true if Bill Gates went from having at most 1% the
> combined income of everyone else in the country to have a million times
> the combined income of everyone else?

I don't see why that would affect it. Unlike most libertarians or
conservatives, to me it seems essential that people get *very*
closely watched by future governments. Right now almost any
disaffected person can slay thousands.

So if a Bill Gates had 99% of the wealth, it would be incumbent
upon the elected officials to keep a wary eye on him---or, by 
that time I say, a wary eye on everyone. The truly dangerous
weapons of any era must remain in the hands of the community
(i.e. the government), simply for practical reasons.

Now of course, this wanders into just how you go about monitoring
very clever AI researchers who're working for Bill and so forth. But
that's been addressed before, and a lot, and also elsewhere. Just
making Bill as poor as everyone else doesn't remove that challenge.

> And you're presuming that exponentially greater inequality than we've
> experienced would not be a problem.

Right.  The greater inequality in and of itself does not seem to be
a problem. The only valid reason (everything thing else being equal)
that greater inequality is undesireable is that it weakens the social
bonds of a nation;  but probably you and a number of others here
would actually see that as a benefit.

>> To some extent, the great Scandanavian nations
>> you admire so much are technically being pulled along
>> by the U.S. and other advanced nations.  I believe that
>> technical progress would come to a complete stop if
> 
> Do you have evidence for those beliefs?

No, you've got me there. It's just something I find likely.

> has the US showing 25% higher GDP/capita than France.  But going by
> Judt, Americans are probably working 20% more hours, so most of the
> difference is just working longer, not better.  And the stat is GDP(PPP);
> PPP makes a lot of countries look poorer than the US, I suspect
> *because* they're more egalitarian and so there's less local cheap labor
> (but no one has to be the local cheap labor.)  Raw GDP -- which is
> relevant for imports, and international competetiveness -- is much
> closer, meaning that lots of those countries are probably *more*
> productive than the US.

I don't know, it's possible I suppose. But on principle it stands to 
reason that the greater economic freedoms of the U.S. are what
have made Silicon Valley and other innovations possible. You 
do know how hard it is to start a company in Germany, for instance.

Sincerely sorry I don't have time to research this (or even to follow your
links). You win by default here.  Perhaps I can reply to some of your
other stuff later.

Lee

> Patents per capita might be another measure.  Japan and S. Korea kick
> our butt, Sweden comes in right behind the US, other major social
> democracies aren't far behind, though some trail down a lot (Canada,
> Italy.)  All the Nordics are doing decently for themselves, apart from
> Denmark and Iceland.
> http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_pat_gra-economy-patents-granted
> 
> Economic Freedom?  By the rankings of the Heritage Foundation -- which
> is rather conservative -- Denmark ties the US (which isn't nearly
> first), and Sweden and Finland are right behind.
> http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_eco_fre-economy-economic-freedom
> 
> I have no idea what this "technological achievement" is measuring, but
> the US bracketed by Finland above and Sweden and Japan below.  The US
> tops "innovation" but not by a huge margin.
> http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_inn-economy-innovation
> Then there's this funky
> http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gro_com_sco-economy-growth-competitiveness-score
> again, Finland US Sweden leading.
> US is 7th in R&D, or 6th discounting the Togo outlier:
> http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_res_and_dev_spe-economy-research-and-development-spending