[cjjuice]

Why when we talk about inequality we never talk about the tide of economic progress that capitalism produces.

If the rich get richer but the middle class has a better quality of life than what the rich had 200 years ago, is strict inequality still the only thing that matters?

[dwiel]

How do you measure quality of life though? People say this kind of thing all the time "the poor are better off now than rich of the past". My guess is that most poor of today would switch places with the rich of the past in a heartbeat.

My point is just that "quality of life" is more complex than just longer expected lifetime, or has access to faster internet, as nice as those things are.

[bhupy]

Great question.

Check out [1] and scroll down to Table A-7 (it's an Excel file). It's the real earnings data (in 2018 dollars), by gender, from 1960 to 2018 (though it's kind of spotty before 1967). What sticks out:

* For men (looking at Total Workers), real earnings are currently around 10% higher than they were in the 70s (moving from low-$40K's to recently just past mid-$40K's, with some peaks and valleys along the way). Doesn't sound like much, but...

* For women, earnings have roughly doubled in that timespan

* The number of men in the workforce has increased by almost 50%

* The number of women in the workforce has increased by almost 100%

From a certain perspective, it's kind of amazing that real earnings haven't gone down significantly.

In the last 20 years, median earnings, in real terms (adjusted for inflation), are up. Unemployment is at its lowest, and that's at the broadest definition of "unemployment" (U6) [2].

As for poverty, check out [3] from the US Census Bureau and scroll down to Table 6 (it’s an Excel file). It’s the percentage of people in America that are below 125% of the poverty line (I.e. near poor to absolutely poor) between 1959 and 2018. That percentage has gone down from 31% to 16%.

The median number of years to recoup the cost of a Bachelors degree in America, adjusted for inflation, has gone down since the 1980’s, from about 22 years to about 10 years. [4]

[1] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-26...

[2] https://twitter.com/jmhorp/status/1201903269095698432

[3] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

[4] https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2014/09/the-va...

[jopsen]

Nice work!

We often forget that things are no actually so bad.

[ranie93]

Some additional sources to inform opinions

Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts:

https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

The Pay of Corporate Executives and Financial Professionals as Evidence of Rents in Top 1 Percent Incomes:

https://www.epi.org/publication/pay-corporate-executives-fin...

[jimbokun]

> If the rich get richer but the middle class has a better quality of life than what the rich had 200 years ago

So no changes are called for until quality of life is literally as bad as it was 200 years ago?

In more recent times, quality of life and economic metrics are flat or down in the USA, at least. Life expectancy has gone down multiple years in a row now, for example.

[bhupy]

> Life expectancy has gone down multiple years in a row now, for example

It's been established that the cause of this, in America, is opioids and obesity, none of which are the fault of billionaires, broadly.

[sergiosgc]

Obesity must have a clear link with free personal time, which is essential for cultivating physical fitness. If you work two full-time jobs, there's no time for proper meal preparation, hitting the gym or going for a swim. Add poor quality meals to sedentarism, and obesity is an expected result.

[tootahe45]

Actually, it correlates with the opposite; low income and high dependence on others. Go stand outside wherever Americans collect welfare to take a look.

[vernie]

Those poor Sacklers...

[bhupy]

Hence my usage of the phrase “billionaires, broadly”.

Nobody is denying that the Sacklers are culpable for opioids, but what about Buffett, Bezos, Brin, Jay-Z, and Jerry Seinfeld? They’re all “billionaires” too, and it would be foolish to blame them m for obesity and opioids, and in turn, the falling average life expectancy.

[ranie93]

There is contention about what this supposed progress entails; if its as great as touted, if we could be doing much better, etc.

This open letter is a good starting point: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2019/2/3/pinker-and-global-...

>There is nothing worth celebrating about a world where inequality is so extreme that 58% of people are in poverty, while a few dozen billionaires have more than all of their wealth combined

I also think the point about changing goalposts to focusing on proportions (the absolute number of people in poverty is increasing) is interesting

[bhupy]

The problem with this line of thinking is

1) The amount of wealth held by ultra-billionaires isn't nearly enough to solve our poverty problems. If you seized literally all of the wealth of the the entire Forbes 400, it would fund the US federal government for 8 months.

2) Wealth is illiquid, and if one were to seize it, you can only seize it once. It isn't an ongoing stream unlike, say, income. So to amend the last statement, if you seized literally all of the wealth of the entire Forbes 400, it would fund the US government for 8 months, one time.

3) Wealth is not zero-sum, it is created. The global inflation-adjusted GDP has gone up from ~$2T in the mid 20th century to ~$110T today. The ultra-wealthy have enjoyed most of that growth, but one can argue that it's because they created that wealth. I.e. Bill Gates' net worth is only as much as it is because he created Microsoft, which has added ~$1T (its market cap) to the US GDP.

[ranie93]

Without checking the figures, I can agree with the idea that a one-time seizement wouldn't assuage much.

Certainly Bill Gates and his endeavors have created immense value for many.

None of these points are being contested or purported in the "line of thinking" you mention (the letter I linked I assume?)

[bhupy]

> None of these points are being contested or purported in the "line of thinking" you mention (the letter I linked I assume?)

These points are being purported/contested here:

"There is nothing worth celebrating about a world where inequality is so extreme that 58% of people are in poverty, while a few dozen billionaires have more than all of their wealth combined"

[ranie93]

They're not, but its fine to read between the lines. The letter makes no allusions to seizing wealth or stating that immense wealth hasn't been created.

[bhupy]

My point is that the more useful description of the problem is:

“There is nothing worth celebrating about a world where 58% of people are in poverty”.

The “inequality” and the presence of billionaires is a distraction from the real problem: poverty.

[tootahe45]

A one-time seizement assumes the money is just sitting there in a high-interest savings account or something. This is why we need proper education, but as soon as you mention basket weaving class should probably be replaced with something more relevant, you're a right-winger trying to dumb down the population.

[FernandoTN]

Capitalism has its perks, great advancements have been made in technology, quality of life and the development of cities that would otherwise have never existed.

The real issue lies when you look at the system in a more holistic, long term view, lets say another 200 years. In that time-frame the self propelling cycle of capital will make the accumulation of all wealth lie in a very small group.

In itself it is not a bad thing as long as advancements are still being made and the average quality of life is improved, however it leaves the system with a very centralized point of control.

This point of control could quickly deviate the system for purposes not entirely in the best interest of the species, put it as "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." It may be a possibility but not the great peril. The real issue lies in the central group having accumulated all resources, and then not being able to maintain said resources and leaving the whole system open to a single point of failure by a revolt of some sorts. (starting from scratch can take more energy that the energy required to topple the system, and sometimes there may not enough energy to build over...)

Do we really want to have a society were the integrity of it depends on a single point? Maybe we do, but it just might not end up being the most resilient system.

[bhupy]

Right, one wonders if the goal is to make the poor richer, or to make the rich poorer.

[tootahe45]

One of those is a lot easier than the other, so take a guess.

[frockington1]

Based on historical evidence, the outcome of socialism is extreme poverty. But I guess in a perverse way that does accomplish the goal