I think the lives of the bottom 20% could be improved, and I think that we should ask those at the top 10% to help them out.
I think there are other more specific things we could worry about, like house prices out of control, nobody is paying to clean up the waste they produce, governments baling out rich people etc.
Talking about "inequality" in the abstract is not worthwhile.
Also, housing prices aren't "out of control" at all. Inflation is reducing the value of the dollar, and it's showing up in the real estate market. Inflation hurts anyone on a salary, not people with income dependent on assets that appreciate alongside inflation.
Also, the they in the "waste they produce" is referencing the richest business owners. They are reaping the benefits of the production processes and leaving everyone else with the pollution.
The root cause of all these things is the upper class either feeding on or taking advantage of the middle and lower classes. "Inequality" is just a term used as a window to look between the different classes.
Here in Australia, house prices are rising significantly faster than inflation. My personal suspicion is that its because everything else is so cheap, the middle class can afford borrow and spend more of their dual income salaries on their houses.
Yes sure, the "they" is business owners, but its expected that the business owners should then pass that cost down to the consumers that buy the products. Yes, the business owners are reaping the rewards, but so are all of us consumers. (It's future generations that will pay the price.)
The root cause may be that we allow some people to have too much power in our society. But the amount of money they have in their bank accounts is irrelevant. We live in a democracy so we can make rules that balances power, but we choose to allow people with a lot of money to have a lot of power.
I think its much more interesting to look at inequality of power than inequality of money.
I think inflation is rising a lot faster than you think. They don't admit there's actual inflation until it's already been here for a while.
> We live in a democracy so we can make rules that balances power
Not true and never has been. This is a pipe dream for suckers. The golden rule is that those with the gold make the rules.
> inequality of power vs inequality of money
Money buys power (lobbyists, legal bribes, media access, etc), so these are basically the same thing if someone with lots of money is interested in spending it on obtaining power.
How does that account for items we have today which were unavailable 20-30 years ago? E.g. even if I were rich in 1990 I wouldn't have a super computer in my pocket with access to infinite knowledge and entertainment.
> Inflation hurts anyone on a salary
And anyone with savings.
> They are reaping the benefits of the production processes and leaving everyone else with the pollution.
A CO2 tax would be more burdensome the further you go down the chain. Everyone is reaping the benefits there. Sure, _some_ mega corp executives get extra benefits, but in general waste producing fossil fuel burning ecosystem destroying processes have been the literal thing that has lifted people out of poverty. (To be clear I am very pro environmental regulation, climate change, etc, but am skeptical the impacts won't be felt the greatest at the bottom of the income brackets)
Anyone with savings that they keep in a mattress, or keep long-term in a checking account designed for short-term savings.
> Talking about "inequality" in the abstract is not worthwhile.
I thought the connection between the problems you state and inequality was obvious. I guess it has to be spelt out: inequality means the super-rich become literal rent-seekers by buying houses - not to live in, but for speculative investment purposes - hence current cash-only offers at ridiculous, above-asking prices. They don't care about negative externalities because they want more money now, and there is nothing to act as a check on their desires (since that requires money) so there's a lot of uncleaned waste. Lastly, the government bails them out because they are king-makers and politicians come to kiss the ring during election fundraisers. Elected positions are at risk ever so often during election season, but being wealthy is usually a lifetime "appointment", and wealthy people have more solidarity than politicians - and that's to politicians disadvantage.
Inequality results in power imbalances; the societal problems are second-order effects of the power imbalance. It is not "abstract" to point out that the first-order effect is problematic of, and by itself.
I think there are issues with our Democracy and our Media, not with our Capitalism.
PS: if we wanted to, a democracy could simply make it illegal buy investment property insuring that everybody had somewhere to live. Freeing people from the burden of rent. The government could probably even provide mortgages "at cost" so that the bank leaches didn't take their pound of flesh too.
We could examine our society at large and free ourselves of rent seeking behavior.
The question is, how do you stop Capitalism from subverting Democracy and the Media to perpetuate itself? I think one can successfully argue that capitalism is a human-scale paperclip maximizer, but for capital.
> PS: if we wanted to, a democracy could simply make it illegal buy investment property insuring that everybody had somewhere to live. Freeing people from the burden of rent.
Only if the wealthy allow it. You don't have to look very hard to find dead-in-the-water concepts/projects that have the support of a large majority of Americans across the political spectrum, but are hated by the wealthy, and therefore their politician proxies. These tend to die despite public popularity - alas, that's the downside of representative democracy.
>> the lives of the bottom 20% could be improved, and I think that we should ask those at the top 10% to help them out
Governments are taking money out of people's pockets by running a printing press / increasing taxes and using them for personal gains. Solution? Ask the government to take even more money. They will be ashamed and start working in the interests of every citizen.
