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Comment by judah | Hacker News Reader

>> "Research suggests Graham is both overestimating the importance of startups to inequality and underestimating the damage high inequality can inflict. Researchers from the University..."

I choose to draw my views not from politically-charged academics and their statistics, which can be made to prove most anything.

Instead, I align my views with those who have actual experience in creating wealth and building the economy. PG knows his stuff. His realistic view of inequality fits neither the political agenda of academia nor the agenda of this article's author. For this reason, the author demonizes PG as a "big-shot venture capitalist."

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> Instead, I align my views with those who have actual experience in creating wealth and building the economy. PG knows his stuff.

Perhaps PG is so busy with that stuff that he's less aware of people who are wealthy but don't do a great deal to create wealth, but manage to obtain it in other ways. Both contribute to inequality. "How much" is probably the realm of the academics you deride.

"PG knows his stuff."

No doubt, but PG's "stuff" is specifically around how to find and nurture startups to be successful. It's not necessarily his stuff to understand how optimizing for his particular line of business will affect the economy as a whole.

To denunciate researchers as having a "political agenda", because their opinion does not fit into the own political agenda, does not sound very honest to me.

They are pushing a political agenda -- leftist views on inequality -- and are doing so in line with the vast majority of academics in Europe and the United States[0].

[0]: http://heterodoxacademy.org/problems/

When all the academics say the same, than maybe some should start listening. But it is of course easier to denunciate other opinions.

<Irony>Also many academics in Europe say, that climate change is happening -- shame on Europe! What academics from Europe say, must be wrong!

And of course "leftist views" are also wrong all the time. Don't listen to those that are called leftist or similar in Fox News or other trustworthy channels. </Irony>

Sometimes, ideas become accepted because there is so much evidence in support of them that it would be perverse to believe otherwise (e.g., the Earth is round).

Other times, however, ideas become widely accepted, even entrenched, without any real evidence. Such entrenched beliefs often arise because they support particular political or moral agendas; if the beliefs are falsified, the moral agenda will be threatened.

The academic views on inequality fall firmly in the latter category.

At least when it comes to economics, the actual leftists are definitely on the fringe.

I don't mean New Keynesian partisans like Paul Krugman. Actual Post-Keynesians (particularly Kaleckians and MMTers) and Marxians are rare, though perhaps growing as a result of the aftermath in 2008. Nevertheless, the Great Depression also had major economic cults emerge like the Townsend Plan and Social Credit which since receded.

Well, the important part is you've figured out how to automatically reject the math of anyone who doesn't agree with you.

We're presented with two differing views of inequality.

PG uses his unique experience in funding and producing thousands of companies, resulting in a real dent in the economy.

On the other side, we have a journalist who demonizes the PG and backs up his view using academic statistics.

If you feel statistics from certain academics have more weight to you than pragmatic experience from the likes of Paaul Graham, by all means side with the journalist's view, and advocate for reducing inequality by reducing wealth and startups.

> PG uses his unique experience in funding and producing thousands of companies

And therein lies the rub: A) PG is exposed to a very specific part of the economy: the startup scene. So while his experience certainly is unique, it's not such a long shot to think that his understanding of what's going on may be biased. B) PG (and the people he work with) could themselves be financially hurt by new financial policies, i.e. he is partial to the cause.

So forgive me for preferring to listen to "certain academics" who, while individually most likely are both biased and partial, as a group simply hold more weight.

> and advocate for reducing inequality by reducing wealth and startups.

Did you even read the same article the rest of us did?

Sure, technical innovations and engineering are creating wealth. Building upp walled gardens of capital assets to be traded as chess pieces in the game of dominance over resources does not, that part (and when it comes to y-combinator that is the major part) is probably destroying more wealth than it creates.

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