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Comment by Xylakant | Hacker News Reader

> but what you have written is different from "concerned about inequality".

I don't think so. Henry Ford for example realized that paying solid wages allows people to buy more cars [1], in turn increasing the profits for Ford. Reducing inequality in a society strongly correlates with social peace and happiness, which in turn fosters the economy. Good social equality also helps a larger part of the population to achieve good education, broadening the pool of skilled labor. Certainly, a single bad actor in a good environment can reap benefits from behaving "anti-social", but in the long run that's a spiral to the bottom. So I think that smart companies should be concerned about a raise in inequality, even if it's only for their own good. And making sure that you keep inequality low in your own workforce is the first step.

[1] http://corporate.ford.com/news-center/press-releases-detail/...

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Henry Ford for example realized that paying solid wages allows people to buy more cars [1]...

More precisely, Henry Ford convinced a bunch of innumerate reporters and politicians that paying solid wages allows people to buy more cars.

Showing that high wages alone [1] only hurt Ford is simple math. Say a car costs X to build and Ford can sell them for X+P. If Ford gives a worker X+P in wages, and the worker spends X+P on a Ford car, Ford winds up losing X.

[1] Higher wages helped Ford to poach more productive workers from the competition.

> Showing that high wages alone [1] only hurt Ford is simple math.

If Ford is the only company paying high wages - yes. However, somebody needs to buy the products and services that companies offer and the more people can afford a service, the broader the potential customer base. A high inequality concentrates a huge share of the income and capital at the upper end of the scale. However, there's only so many cars a person can buy and drive, only a limited amount of phones you'll buy, only a strictly limited amount of haircuts you'll need, not matter how high your income is. The trickle down effect that's always promoted is a myth.

Keep in mind that there are a couple ways of achieving inequality:

* Rich people at the top and extremely poor people at the bottom. I generally think this is a bad thing.

* People who are ok at the bottom, and really, really rich people at the top. I'm less convinced this is a problem.

In any event though, this is swerving into kind of philosophical terrain about what we all view as the best society.

I too got out of Silicon Valley because I didn't like it, but that's fine, the world is a big place and there is room for different ways of doing things without hating on some large, successful companies because they don't have a political view that you happen to like.

I don't hate these companies. But I do think their existence is damaging to society. The world is a big place, but these companies operate in the country I live in, invariably pay no tax (or little enough so as not to be meaningful), and generate/perpetuate inequality - which itself is associated with a host of problems from crime to mental well-being to economic growth itself.

I'm not convinced by your dichotomy. There are many other distributions possible, and this binary appears to limit the argument to serve your needs. Data?

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