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Comment by tjic | Hacker News Reader

I continue to suggest that inequality is an actively good thing.

Freeing 100 people from jail will increase their inequality; should we therefore oppose it?

It depends on where the inequality is coming from. If I own more than you because I worked harder, it is ok. But if I own more than you because I stole from you, it is not.

No, the inequality is still bad, it's the productivity it incentivised which is good.

If we could get the productivity without the inequality, that would be better. Maybe that's not possible, but unless we recognise the distinction, we won't notice if we find a way to achieve that.

Shouldn't someone get more if they work harder or invent a better mouse trap or are we all just ants in a giant social machine meant to extract as much out of us until we die. The problem is too much and you have enough power to effect the rules.

No, we should do whatever maximises utility. (I guess I should have said the utility is the good thing, not the productivity.)

If rewarding people for hard work creates more utility, then we should do that, but we shouldn't try to moralise it.

I agree with your statement. I just feel like a lot of times in the public discourse there is an underlying assumption that most, if not all, of the inequality comes from theft or foul play.

Fundamentally every inequality has ever been the source for war. Be it measurable inequality or perceived.

Inequality is not the source of war, it is the source of everything that you see. It's also known as diversity and is the basis of life. You can't be rooting for diversity and against inequality at the same time - you're contradicting yourself. Unless you're also against diversity, in which case you really don't understand much of anything.

Inequality can only ever increase. The opposite is unnatural (and rather impossible).

Well sure, if you define "inequality" to mean any differences between people, then it includes diversity.

But of course, what people are actually talking about is inequality of utility, which is a mostly distinct subset of that, and fairly unambiguously bad when considered on its own.

You can then argue that inequality is necessary for other good things, but you're going to have to try harder than vague rhetoric like the "basis of life".

Diversity =/= inequality, unless you live in some weird universe where every unique state has a unique utility value.

Inequality is bad. Other things may be good. If your action achieves something good at the expense of more inequality, then it may still be worth doing.

If inequality itself is good, then does that mean we should apply punitive taxes to poor people and subsidize the rich?

> If inequality itself is good, then does that mean we should apply punitive taxes to poor people and subsidize the rich?

It's kind of what we around here, don't we? Most rich don't pay much in taxes, effectively subsidized by state

Perhaps, but few people would argue that we should, at least not directly.

The top 5% pay over 55% of all Federal taxes.

And that is not enough, as their wealth is higher than that 55%.

But that's not the argument I'm responding to.

I don't get it.

What things have prisoners/jail common with privatization?

Please explain.

You're going to need to elaborate a bit on that one...

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