[shric]

Walter, I believe the idea against wealth inequality is not purely that there are wealthier people but that their wealth should be redistributed such that the wealthier people are less wealthy (but still wealthier) and the poorer people are less poor (but still poorer).

[WalterBright]

There have been many attempts at taking from the rich and giving to the poor, and the result was always everybody was worse off except the people who ran the government.

[saulapremium]

No, that is not always the result, very far from it. You seem to believe that society is just the natural state of things, and "government" is almost just in the way. It's an incredible blindness to the privilege you enjoy.

[WalterBright]

The proper role of government is to protect people from thieves and murderers and externalities and provide national defense.

I am not an anarchist.

> privilege you enjoy

Privileges anyone enjoys living in the United States. That's why millions are always trying to come here.

[disgruntledphd2]

> The proper role of government is to protect people from thieves and murderers and externalities and provide national defense.

This is a 19th century regalian viewpoint (which is fine). Taken to its logical conclusion, education and healthcare services should not be provided by the government. I think that this is a wildly unpopular viewpoint, and is really unlikely to lead to good outcomes in our kind of society.

[fragmede]

The French had a few thoughts about this, back in the day.

FDR's New Deal raised taxes on the wealthy, and gave to the poor. Seems to have done America well. Post-war Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan land redistribution did well. And of course, there's the Nordic countries. Norway happens too have oil, but that doesn't explain Sweden and Denmark.

[wvenable]

Although some people due want to literally take from the rich and give to the poor, the actual problem with wealth inequality is that game is rigged.

Capitalism not natural order; it has rules and winners and losers. It's actually more like sports. With sport, the goal is to create entertainment by rewarding physical excellence, mental excellence, and successful risk taking. Similarly, the goal of capitalism to create a better society by rewarding physical excellence, mental excellence, and successful risk taking.

What happens to a sport when players cheat or exploit the rules to win? It's no longer entertaining! When the best players can no longer win that's boring. And, in sport, when that happens the rules are changed or enforced better to bring it back in line.

Capitalism is the same. We are reaching the point where we are no longer properly rewarding excellence that is benefiting society. So the rules need to be enforced and rules need to be changed to bring that back in line. Inequality of this magnitude shows that rewards have outstripped the benefits to society and needs to be corrected.

[crummy]

Are you arguing against the concept of progress taxation entirely?

[fragmede]

The French had a few thoughts about this, back in the day.

[srean]

Norway seems to be doing swell.

[crossbody]

Well, if Norway managed to pull it off, we can just ignore all the countless counter examples

[srean]

Another way is to learn from what Norway is doing right and see what can be replicated. Norway is not a sole example though, just a prominent one.

[crossbody]

Can we? Do we even know the counterfactual? Perhaps Norway would have been 2x richer (incl. their poorest people) if they implemented ultra aggressive libertarian policies.

The best we can do is learn from natural expriments like Finland and Estonia being about as rich before ww2, then by 90s the gap got massive since one was forced adopt more redistributive policies. Same with North / South Korea. Here we have at least some hope of extracting causality

[srean]

Counterfactuals no, but one can make good-faith scientific attempts. We don't because we are locked by ideologies.

[WalterBright]

It's nice to live on top of an ocean of oil to cover the deficits.

[srean]

Indeed.

It has rarely (if at all) worked out for any other country though. One or the other super power will make sure that does not happen.

US scuttling Iran's nationalisation of their oil being one example.

Even without geopolitical meddling, landfall discoveries of wealth at national scale has been frightfully difficult to manage well or to realize the value of. Your currency strengthens, your other industries lose out the on the price war, your economy gets skewed and sensitive to the health of one sector. In general it has been a curse than a boon.

Norway has so far pulled this of phenomenally well.

[andyferris]

That’s incorrect.

In most western nations, the “people who run the government” get paid a salary similar to a good software engineer (or maybe a doctor), and progressive taxation lets the government fund social services including free healthcare and tertiary education.

Rather than use Stalin as a straw man, maybe try take your nation in direction that helps people, rather than away?