Is inequality actually a bad thing, assuming those at the bottom of society have enough to live a decent life

Jesus Christ you'r illiterate, this topic has N O T H I N G to do with race

I'm addressing your own statement which implies that anything to do with race belongs in /pol/, idiot.

Gross inequality is a bad thing - I don't care how hardworking or talented someone is, they shouldn't be worth a million times as much as the poorest. Injust inequality is a bad thing - each person should be rich or poor on their own merits, not because their father or grandfather became wealthy.

But I don't think some people being wealthier than others because they're more talented or just plain work harder is automatically a bad thing. People naturally prioritize different things, if someone prioritizes being wealthy over having free time more than someone else, he should be able to trade some of his free time for more wealth.

If you're going to be racist please go to /pol/

Inequality of romance is a bad thing.

Tfw no gf

I think not being able to move up in the social, economical ladder just because of what defines your genetics is the worst crime

...

Moron

Were a mistake

>they shouldn't be worth a million times as much as the poorest
Why not? If the other person has enough money to take care of himself and his family - why should he care if there's someone out there who makes 1,000,000 times as much as he does? That's just envy.

Because there's no reason except "muh capitalism" for anyone to make that much.

The real bullshit is when someone is rich only because of the rich parents and such. I can turn a blind eye on people who worked to became rich.

It's not conducive to meritocracy to have too great of income inequality. Also, the situation you describe would be difficult, due to the effects of inflation. If everyone can spend a larger amount of money, prices should go up in a capitalist system.

Inequality is just a meme made up by people who want an excuse to steal things.

Imagine you lived in a commie utopia and while you were sitting around the campfire smoking weed, your neighbor was busy building a windmill because he personally wants more electricity for himself.

All of a sudden YOU HATE HIM. You don't have a windmill. You could never be bothered to pull yourself away from your lifestyle to build one. You're not even interested in how he did it so you can learn, in your mind he is different and that is weird, stupid, annoying and bad. There is a native American in your Kumbaya group and you are ok with the superficial differences in culture between you and him, you have been raised to believe native Americans are the shit (not a bad thing), but this guy... This guy has DIFFERENT VALUES. He wants different things in life. He is not a hedonist. You have never been instructed to accept differences like this.

How well someone participates in the group and entertains you is how you judge a person after all and he is very bad at it because he spends time on that windmill thing. He is "the other", he is from another tribe, he is "them" in "us and them".

He has committed the grave crime of accumulating wealth and not sharing it with others. What's more he did it using his own time and energy without exploiting anyone, thus challenging your most heartfelt beliefs, you have to search for an excuse to hate him out of principle.

This is how liberals actually think. It is a kind of netorare panic and how you would expect bigotry to manifest in a society hysterical over bigotry. The core of their ideology is the belief that "tribalism" is part of a conspiracy against them, not human nature, not something to be understood so it can be minimized and healthy outlets can be found, not something they could ever be guilty of even if they have the exact same emotions when they do it.

Why should there be any reason for someone to make money? Everyone should be free to do what they want so long as it doesn't negatively affect someone else or society at large.

Because inequality without justification is bad. If you and me do the same job equally well, but I get paid twice as much, is that not an injustice that should be corrected?

That's not the same thing as most wealth disparities and is blatantly oversimplifying things into a sugarcoated 'moral' issue when it isn't.

What are you going to do, take away people's money because of their birth? Because of factors beyond their control?

And I'm not saying all inequality is bad. Hell, if you really are that talented and really work that hard, you should get to be a multimillionaire. But I don't think anyone can really deserve to own practically unlimited amounts of money.

>What are you going to do, take away people's money because of their birth?
That's sort of the point, isn't it? It's not really THEIR money. It's simply money that belongs(or belonged) to their parents.

> What are you going to do
Nothing you shouldn't punish people because of their dumb luck. The real problem in a society is unchecked influence of rich people on a politics.

>t's not really THEIR money.
Ever heard of inheritance?

You do realize that the topic is precisely why we should abolish that, right? Inheritance is not some sort of inherent right.

Inherent rights are decided by the society.

>Is inequality actually a bad thing, assuming those at the bottom of society have enough to live a decent life.
I don't know and probably neither do you because most research on the topic has been heavily dominated by politics and ideology.

My personal suspicion is that excessive inequality leads to a lot of problems that could otherwise be avoided. On the contrary, excessive equality would also lead to problems. I think there is a "sweet spot", and that most European countries lie somewhere around that sweet spot. I think America is just slightly too unequal.

Even in today's society, getting inheritance is not something you're automatically entitled to. That's why things such as testaments exist.

Further, there's no logical connect between "My parents are wealthy" and "therefore, I deserve to be wealthy as well." You haven't earned that money, therefore you're not really entitled to it.

>The wealthy deserve their wealth as they have worked hard for it
>The wealthy should be able to give their wealth to their children without having to work hard for it
These things dont mix

some people are born smart
some people are born pretty
some pretty are born rich

Deal with it

Cunts like you are the cancer that has killed Veeky Forums.

When we mention inequality, we usually do so with the idea in mind that those who are "unequal" are living in undesirable circumstances- otherwise, they would just be described as being "less well off" but still in liveable conditions.

some people are born in a country where inheritance is heavily taxed.

deal with it

Therefore, it probably is a bad thing, as this expectation of the definition of "inequality" wont go away any time soon due to political posturing or whatever, and so therefore you have to accept it as I kinda described

Learn to ignore posts you don't like, crybaby.

You should tax the ones who earns fat stacks of cash through just growing capital. Rise the minimum wage and ensure people are paid in measure of how much education they need for the job, how much time and health they sacrifice and further.

Then think of inheritance as a gift. Do you want to forbid large gifts on the ground that the recipient doesn't deserve it?

>So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due. But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.

Inequality is good if it leads to constructive rather than destructive activity.

It's okay, as long as certain conditions are met. One being:

>assuming those at the bottom of society have enough to live a decent life.

The other being to ensure that it is possible for those at the bottom to reach the top. If a situation develops where an entrenched upper class is developed and it is effectively impossible for anyone from the lower class to join them, that would be an unacceptable level of inequality. I would say that the level of inequality we see today is at the very edge of what can be considered 'acceptable' - but if the poor keep getting poorer and the rich keep getting richer and the gradual erosion of opportunity continues, we could risk the effective return of serfdom.

>This is how liberals actually think

No, it's a strawman fabricated to 'disprove' liberal ideals

No human alive knows what word equal means these days.

>Do you want to forbid large gifts on the ground that the recipient doesn't deserve it?
I think large financial donations should be taxed, yes.

The only thing that gives humans value is value given to them by other humans. The richest is considered 1,000,000 times more valuable than the poorest by the people who give him money for his products or services

sometimes humans aren't good at distributing value, but blame humans for being stupid, not the rich from gaining benefit from stupidity

>enforced equality

enforced by whom? what gives the human who endorses equality power over he who doesn't? what gives you the authority to dictate how other people interact?

>I think large financial donations should be taxed, yes.

Why? The money has already been taxed.

Rich and poor alike are happier when levels of inequality are low. It doesn't matter what the absolute values are, it's the degree of inequality that leads to social strife. For example, Nepal is uniformly poor but has very high levels of happiness, while Brazil has some of the richest and poorest people on Earth and has massive social problems as a result.

Yes, you can see the effects of inequality in modern democracies now - generally leading to disaffected populations electing more and more extreme politicians who put at risk the system that has given us unprecedented levels of wealth (a very simplistic take but it has some truth to it).

People view their wealth as relative to those around them and their status in society, people do not want to be too obviously 'losers'. The way wealth is distributed is very arbitrary, so it is fair to recognise some adjustments may need to be made to keep the system going. Absolute and relative understandings of wealth/poverty are both valid.

That being said, we shouldn't enact measures that reduce inequality but impedes economic growth too much.

Including you?

If by "decent life", you meant wage that doesn't force you to apply for food stamps, then it would be pretty decent.

However the less the inequality better simply because if the lowest class of workers are able to enjoy life to the fullest, and the highest class able to stay relatively same, then obviously the result would be much better.

The current inequality is a terrible thing.

Even Marxists don't want absolute equality.

People want to be as free as anyone else. They don't want to be told they can't do something when someone else can. Sometimes the reasons for this are just social constructs. Sometimes not. Aristocracy and slavery for example are based on social constructs of certain conceptions of property and rights. People don't want a loss of freedom just because of a social construct.

This isn't even a paper man. This is the debate equivalent of punching a paper cutout. You've ever had an actual conversation about this with anyone except your manual labor colleagues, have you?

The windmill is the product of his labor, and therefore the man is entitled to the product of his labor.

What is a decent life?

>freedom
>this meme again

Unlike other cuckfucks, I don't think inequality is a bad thing inherently. If you live in a decent place, that's safe, have the ability to pursue your own wants and desires, have a social life and a decent job, and that's about as "bad" as life gets, then yeah, inequality is meaningless. The Western "poor" sicken me, honestly. As someone who's had to live literally picking up scrap metal to eat rice every day, being a low-tier wage slave is such an easy and comfortable life it's ridiculous.

Americans especially just seem to lack any and all ability to budget for themselves. Something like 75% of people in this country are living "paycheck to paycheck", which is typically code for "I don't understand how money works".

Inequality between those with nothing and those with nothing is FAR more stark than those with something and those with everything. "People shouldn't be able to luxuriate themselves!" is such a nothingburger of an argument, it comes from nothing; there's no reason someone shouldn't be able to have more than someone else.

Western babbies complaining about rent and how expensive buying shit food is when they could simply learn to cook cheap meals for themselves is hilarious. It's very easy to live a simple and clean life here if you don't live in a ghetto, and a lot easier than in places where people have to work ten times as hard for ten times less pay.

>She doesn't want everyone to be equal
Does Roswaal even know you're shitposting?

>This is how liberals actually think.

Amazing bait.

No, the issue with wealth inequality is not necessarily differences in standard living, but differences in power. Though the former is a result of the latter.

>Something like 75% of people in this country are living "paycheck to paycheck", which is typically code for "I don't understand how money works".
>only get paid enough to pay rent food and maybe internet and a cell phone
>"Omg wtf why can't the poor only spend 10% of their income like me (make a million a year) when will the poor realize bill gates earned his billions by cutting coupons and pinching pennies"
gtfo

You cant possibly try to claim Subaru is equal to anyone.

>Americans especially just seem to lack any and all ability to budget for themselves. Something like 75% of people in this country are living "paycheck to paycheck", which is typically code for "I don't understand how money works".
A lot of them are saddled in predatory debt and paying off interest as well, making things worse. Predatory debt that does not add to the productivity of the economy and result in the generation of real goods and services. It's in these corporation's interests to make Home Ec about baking cakes so boys don't want to take it and girls don't learn useful things.

> if you don't live in a ghetto
Hmm, I wonder what causes poverty traps to be poverty traps

Equality is impossible under human psychology, w are programmed to always want more than another.

We're also programed to resent those that have more than us unless you're a beta cuck. Humans are gong to want something that isn't the current state of reality no matter what.

>Hmm, I wonder what causes poverty traps to be poverty traps

The moral deffeciencies that cause the parents to be poor get passed to the kids.

>When the gains for promoting the public good are low, the rich are more likely to foster cooperation and that cooperation spreads.

>When more people get rich, this magnanimous system starts to erode.

>In systems where gains from being public spirited are high, cooperation declines as inequality increases—in part because the rich grow afraid of the nearby rich and in part because they don’t want to be taken advantage of.

>On the contrary, excessive equality would also lead to problems.
Why, and what problems?

>Why?
To raise tax revenue.

>The money has already been taxed.
Who cares? Money circulates, it's going to be taxed at various points in the cycle.

Rich people become poor paying for poor to be rich.

No, assuming the rich are moderately so rather than hoarding obscene amounts of resources and power which leads to nothing good. Carrots for achievement need to exist, which is not possible with true equality. Obviously in a utopia everyone would be equally great but that is entirely irrelevant to our reality.

>What are you going to do, take away people's money because of their birth?

Have more appropriate taxation and inheritance regulations in place for a start.

they acually do tho.
When I was a liberal I remember wanting a luxury-tax just to fuck up people whose wealth deviated from the collective.

>Inherent rights are decided by the society.

And if society should deem such gross inheritance to be ludicrous then what are you going to do about it Rand?

Because everyone in western societies already has equal opportunity under the law, so then we're necessarily talking about equality of outcome, which is a nebulous and frankly retarded concept to begin with.

What ends up happening is any statistical disparity that naturally occurs between groups, is now up for grabs to be labeled as the result of some unfalsifiable concept like institutional racism/sexism/etc, giving the left license to socially re engineer pretty much anything they feel like..

Do blacks only make up 5% of pro hockey players? Well obviously the only reason that disparity could exist is institutional racism, clearly we need the government to intervene and impose hiring quotas to bring in more black players at the expense of anyone else. And the best part is you never have to actually prove your theory exists! The fact that a disparate impact in the distribution of black players merely EXISTS is proof of discrimination, checkmate racists.

Well, so what? This is the price of true equality, so that's good right? Well now what happens is you've created a whole new system, where rather than actually solve whatever problem a marginalized group may legitimately have, there is now the incentive to perpetuate inequalities, as we've basically created a route to political power for any group with a claim to victimhood. After all, with all the redistribution we'll be doing, we're going to need a whole new labor force of bureaucrats and diversity specialists to administrate it all. Now you've got a whole cottage industry that has a vested interest in the existence of inequality, since there jobs would be obsolete if we ever could (we can't btw) make everyone 100% equal

Basically, it's a nice, if shortsighted sentiment that inevitably devolves into anarcho-tyranny, which can exist for a set period (we can always just tax the rich more, they still have money left right?), but only the most stunningly retarded would find that a preferable system.

"ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL. WE SHOULD LOVE AND CHERISH ALL OF THEM EQUALLY." O rly? And what about the cultures that practice human sacrifice? Are those equal too? Or how about Viking culture, or samurai culture, or Taliban culture, etc. etc. etc. But what the subhuman means by "culture" is merely some funny costumes and exotic dishes (which, by the way, are not equal either). That's how far his understanding of the concept of culture goes. And so it is with everything. So while hypocritically professing the equality of all cultures, he is hard at work in their destruction, and in the universalization and domination of his own: subhuman culture.

In short, all cultures are equal, but some are more equal than others. The subhumans are the pigs in Orwell's parable, and even Orwell himself was one of them: an eloquent and crafty little pig.

People have a vast problem dealing with the notion of the inequality of men. But that the only reason for this problem is envy and resentment is shown by the fact that when it comes to other species, not only is there no problem, but inequality is taken as a given and the mere implication that, for example, a dog may be equal to a man is treated by everyone as proof of madness and cause for internment in mental institutions (and this is indeed how it will eventually be with whoever keeps insisting on the equality of humans and subhumans). And yet a simple substitution is all it takes to reveal the sheer absurdity of the business. Change "men" to "lifeforms" and the deeply reactive nature of the equality lie, the massive incapacity to unblinkingly acknowledge the simple fact that some men are superior, and even vastly superior, to others, stands revealed. For in the end it all comes down to DNA, since species are ultimately fictitious. "All men are equal" means "all DNA is equal". And the only answer that can be given at this point is: O rly?

True democracy has the same endgame as true anarchy: the end of control, which is to say of government. At which point we arrive once more, not at equality, but in the jungle, which is to say the very starting point of a new autocracy.

Mistakes of the subhumans. They immediately interpret the idea of subjectivity as giving them free reign to support any viewpoint that they want, no matter how incoherent, ignorant and wretched. Sure, the ant too has its own perspective of things, and therefore its own subjective reality, but who gives a shit about the reality of an ant? The greater the man the greater — and hence the more objective — his perspective, and therefore the idea of subjectivity does not undermine the absolute rule of inequality in the universe but is precisely the mechanism by which it comes about.

As for capitalism, utter inequality is presupposed there, the difference with despotism being that the higher ups are chosen due to their capacity to OFFER others what they want, whereas in despotism due to their strength to impose their will on them. When the latter are no longer capable of retaining control of things, the former step in and take their place. When even the former (which is to say the capitalists) can no longer retain control, some amount of communism is injected in the form of socialism to quell the rising ressentiment; under full-blown capitalism as much as is necessary and no more. The varying amounts of socialism found in different countries are merely a reflection of the differing psychological compositions of the various populations. The most capable, ambitious and energetic — the Americans — have a minimal amount of it, whereas the most lethargic, lazy, effeminate, etc. — e.g. the French — have more. And then there are local idiosyncratic cases, as with e.g. the Scandinavians. These are very industrious little bees, but they are also enormously economically successful, for whatever reasons, which is why they don't mind so much that so much is taken away from them. The southern Europeans are far more lazy, but they are also poorer, so socialism stabilizes at a lower level, simply because their societies cannot afford to maintain a higher one for long. — There is no LOWER form of government than this — this varying mixture of capitalism with socialism. Communism is highly unstable (indeed, strictly speaking impossible), and hence either morphs into despotism (as Orwell saw), if the leadership is strong enough, or implodes and goes back to some mixture of socialism with capitalism if it isn't (as in China). Lower still lies complete anarchism — savagery — which again can only be temporary, instantaneous even (if not utterly fictional).

>It is a kind of netorare panic
I think it's more of a paizuri thing and I seriously hope that wall of text was all a big joke because it sucks massive dong.

The moment the strongest men in the group step forward, new governments and government mixtures and nations spring forth, and the game begins anew.

There was far more equality on this planet before humans arrived. Subhumans think they invented it, but compared to us ants are practically equal. And the further back you go down the evolutionary tree, the more equality you find. Think amoebas, or even further back, hydrogen atoms. It is precisely the increase in inequality between the highest and lowest examples of a species that determines how high it stands in the tree of life, not the other way around, as the liberals are trying to convince us. The desire for equality is regressive, and every step towards it is a step back, towards monkeys, ants and amoebas.
Meanwhile, subhumans will continue to contend that things are more equal among us than among the other animals, but this philosophy of theirs is merely another symptom of the absurd amount of inequality that exists between us: so absurd that the majority of the population can fantasize about equality while, right in front of their eyes, the inequality chasm grows ever more gigantic. Not only are we not getting more equal then, but inequality is increasing every day, and the increasingly absurd theories that subhumans concoct to counter this increasing inequality are part of this rising inequality too, since they contribute to making a class of weak and stupid people ever weaker and stupider!

Once you have realized that there cannot exist equal things, order of rank follows immediately.

Yes.

everyone here is so deathly paranoid about /pol/ that an innocent post like actually proves to be effective bait in Veeky Forums

>construct top tier hotel next to a bunch of favellas and separate it with nothing but a flimsy wall the favelados can breach at any time and eat and rape all the rich people within
what were the hues thinking?

It provides meaning outside of religion, and a purpose. Sports are only worth doing to be better than other people, so b wealth can be seen as a long, massive game that provides meaning in the life of a materialist.

>your neighbor was busy building a windmill because he...
Reductionist drivel. You wrote that bullshit using technology which was invented by the department of defense for the purposes of calculating missile trajectories and communicated it through a public network built by DARPA and the public universities. Every last little piece of technology in your smartphone was invented by the CIA.

Modern complex interconnected societies involving hundreds of millions of people are not like simple agrarian economies of a few thousand individuals. Scientific advances don't come from rednecks tinkering in their garage, they come from researchers in the public system who can dedicate themselves to specific fields and become experts in them. New technology doesn't come from the solitary tortured inventor, it comes from a complex collaborative effort involving engineers, designers, and businessmen, each specializing in a specific field. Inequality isn't the fault or problem of a single individual or even a demography, it's everyone's problem because even the rich suffer when aggregate demand is aenemic, while the mega-wealthy make violent overthrow and the destruction of their status quo inevitable if they don't agree to take a haircut and return to more sustainable models.

>is
>bad

that is what rawlsian justice is

Maybe its not all or nothing? Maybe the ideal situation involves state production and private production? And maybe they should do what they're best at?

I agree 100%. The future is a mixed system which uses the strength of one to offset the weaknesses of the other.

The problem is that some people want to reduce things to be simpler than what they really are just for the sake of demonstrating an ideological conviction. Sure, it's a coherent system for the world that it describes, but is that the same thing as the world that we actually live in?

>Maybe its not all or nothing? Maybe the ideal situation involves state production and private production? And maybe they should do what they're best at?
>hay guiz lets add more contradictions to solve our current contradictions
t. social dumbocrat

It is irrelevant whether or not inequality is good or bad, because it is an inherent aspect of humanity. Human individuals genetically have different mental and physical capabilities, so some individuals will naturally rise to positions which others naturally could not.
It's like asking whether competition is good or bad. Even if it is bad, there's nothing we can do about it. Regardless of what delusional communists believe.

I'm a classical liberal. Any serious thinker on public policy realizes that the government has a place in creating fair and effecient markets. Beyond that the government is good at investing in the cultural capital by providing some form of public education and is good at investing in areas of research that may bear fruit in the far future but will not provide returns in the near term.

>let's place our bets on violent socialist revolutions occurring simultaneously across the globe all in ideological lock with each other step yes that will do the trick
t. 16 year old Marxist revolutionary

The only fair markets are markets without capital.

>implying im a marxist leninist

> The only fair markets are markets without capital.

That makes no sense.

t. idiot that thinks markets=capitalism

Scary, but sadly correct.

2nd last paragraph could have been straight out of Anthem.

Last paragraph needlessly brings in American politics; don't do that when everything else was painted in a picture. This is not the rebbit audience where you would have to explain the joke.