[over_bridge]

Your comment is quite a ride to read. I, like some other commenters, had an immediate negative reaction to the 'income inequality is good' statement.

Having read the whole thing a few times I generally agree with your position. Differences in salary reflect differences in demand for certain roles, or the value you can bring to them. It's a real time signal. They can act as an incentive to draw more people to that position or signal when one is saturated. The system is abused a bit when finance jobs pay a lot despite dubious value to society, and teachers are underpaid relative to their importance, but as a general rule it works.

Wealth inequality is the major issue. It might be 'natural' in the sense that each generation of parents passes advantages to their kids, but I also think its a mark of civilization to be able to keep it in check. If you earned it, great, but when you die lets not burden the future with your family dynasty of rich but useless descendants.

All people can't be born equal if your financial situation is determined five generations before you were conceived.

[nickpp]

> dubious value to society

I am curious if you know a system that can rank and precisely tell me the respective values to society for each action, job, hobby etc humans engage in.

[AndrewKemendo]

There isn’t one. Whether you intended to or not this is a very typical capitalist strawman that claims that because central planning failed (of course it did), we can say literally nothing about value and therefore anything goes to the lowest bidder.

The problem is that as it stands, the set of oligarchs currently holding their positions (see recent work from Stanford etc showing the US at least is clearly and oligarchy) are the ones doing all the planning.

However it’s in the form of “investments” and the accompanying regulatory capture.

So this idea of a “free market” with perfect information not only isn’t possible - as economists agree - but it’s not even DESIRABLE as power law in such a system dictates that profit will ALWAYS be the paramount virtue subordinate to any other.

[nickpp]

Of course there is. We are using it every day to decide how much a loaf of bread and an hour of work should cost. We couldn't function without it and economies that tried to abolish it failed to even feed their citizens.

No one other than ivory towers academics is dreaming about "perfect information". The rest of the world is using those "imperfect" free markets just fine.

[AndrewKemendo]

Dude what? You personally have effectively zero control of pricing other than deciding what to buy from a small group of planners

Those planners are called “buyers” and they choose the products that live on the shelves and in online shops.

They don’t put anything for sale on your behalf, everything everywhere all the time is meant to push you into making a purchasing decision that is marginally related to your personal best interest.

Nobody asked for a Dorito taco yet these companies successfully have slowly propagandized millions of people into thinking that this collection of sugar fat and starch at massive scale is a good decision for society and we just sit back and pretend like people are evaluating these products equivalently with their best substitute.

[nickpp]

Read up on the Law of Supply and Demand. I evaluate countless products every day, with an incredible diverse offering from huge box stores to tiny mom&pops and farmer's markets.

I have never heard of somebody being made to buy those Dorito tacos. Do you think you know better than millions of people? Are they the ones being brainwashed while you are the only one with a clear perspective?

[deterministic]

Yep. It’s called the market place.

[eli_gottlieb]

Ahahahahaha sure, if P=NP https://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2284

[nickpp]

Yet, "inefficient" as they are, free markets are the only system we found for this purpose. And it's being proved every day, over and over again. If you know of another, please do write about it here.

[oblio]

The market place hates real long term vision and maintenance.

That's why teachers are so poorly paid even though everyone does the lip service of thanking them.

[nickpp]

Private markets are just fine with long term visions. Job's Apple and Elon Musk's SpaceX and Tesla come to mind.

But, of course, free markets also decide whose visions to adopt. And that is unbearable to leftists who want nothing more than to impose their vision of how society should work on us.

[deterministic]

Teachers are well paid in Finland and Denmark (for example).