> The whole idea of inequality, while potentially useful, kind of assumes a fixed pie.
No. The idea of income inequality assumes that no matter the size of the pie, everyone should have a decent slice of pie that lets them live comfortably.
Industrialization was supposed to reduce the amount of hours we work and increase our quality of life. We seemed to have reached a floor at 40/50 hours a week and many many people are struggling to make ends meet, even if the richest countries in the world. There's a problem.
And yet even the poorest in the US still have TVs and refrigerators. I don't dismiss that life is difficult for many, but I also realize that they're working hard for a higher standard of living than is possible in many other times in history and many countries today.
And in actuality, the poorest quintile in the USA is the quintile that works the least hours, not the most! Why do the top 20% of Americans work so much, then they could potentially work less and earn less? Perhaps that's the tradeoff that they as a group make?
Yes, poor people today have access to technology which didn't exist hundreds of years ago. What of it? Poor people everywhere in every era under every economic system have access to technology which didn't exist in the past; this is the nature of time. Paupers of the late Neolithic had access to wheels their ancestors could only dream of.
The comparison of note isn't between the present and the past, but between the system in place and alternative possible systems; between the present/future that is, and the present/future that could be. (Somehow, the same folks who love to proclaim "It's Econ 101…" also always go on to compare present to past to somehow prove the poor are getting a grand deal, instead of thinking about "opportunity cost" for the poor compared to alternative presents under alternative choices for how to structure society's wealth.)
As for the idea that the poorest 20% in the US are voluntarily choosing to live in poverty out of work-shyness, while the richest 20% have contrastingly simply opted-in to their different status along some trade-off curve, this is both laughably ignorant and cruelly smug.
The other thing is that in life there’s a trade off between leisure time and work time. The more you get paid, the more likely you are to want to work more. If you only make $7 an hour, your opportunity cost for an hour of TV is $7. If you make $100, your opportunity cost is $100.
If course it isn’t that simple, and there are other effects (google the labor s curve), but that’s the general idea.
Sorry, can’t respond to the whole comment right this moment, but just want to apoligize if i was unclear. I was simply responding to the argument about how people today still work 40 hours, and that for the most part richer people work more than poorer people, which suggests arguments around hours worked aren’t necessarily valid.
Pointing out that poor people (especially poor ethnic minorities) have cellphones and TVs and that many have trouble finding and holding jobs without doing any further investigation of people’s circumstances or any attempt at empathy is a favorite talking point of race-baiting politicians on the right who want to drum up outrage in support of cutting basic social services and public infrastructure, so they can return the money to their rich donors.
But having a cellphone and a TV doesn’t provide someone a reasonable standard of living if they can’t also afford housing, basic medical care, nutritious food, childcare, schooling, transportation, wintertime heating, clothing, and the like. People who are lacking basic necessities like shelter and access to transportation, and who often additionally suffer from injuries, mental illness, chronic depression/anxiety, substance abuse problems, etc., and even more often face systemic discrimination (if only for gaps in their resume, poor hygiene, etc.), find it incredibly difficult to fix every problem in their lives by themselves and pull off a complicated and time-demanding middle-class lifestyle. Blaming them for their own predicament is cruel and counterproductive, even in those cases where there were a list of poor choices involved, and often has the effect of whitewashing situations where people ended up getting screwed by fraud and abuse (either systematic or personal). It is based on a fallacious world-view wherein people are inherently virtuous or sinful, and the sinful are both irredeemable and deserve whatever misery they get.
(Which is not to discount the benefits of gadgets: The prices of consumer electronics have been pushed down to incredibly cheap levels by massive economies of scale, people have a strong demand for communications and entertainment, and having access to such tools makes a big positive difference on people ’s lives. But it doesn’t replace food and shelter.)
All fair points - it’s all a matter of perspective. I’m saying “poor people are better off in the brutally capitalist US than in communist Laos or in 1800s America.”
You’re saying “poor people have a lot of difficulties.”
I also believe that capitalism is the reason for that improvement in standard of living, especially for the poor, which is why i make the point.
This is a well written comment which presents the other side of the inequality with sympathy and humanity. It's a shame that it's being downvoted into obscurity and it's painfully appropriate given how the prevailing mood in the real world seems to be "poor people deserve to be poor". We like to see ourselves as different in the tech community but it seems we're quite more than happy to throw our lot in with the rich and powerful in this regard.
I don’t ever hear Sanders saying one good thing about capitalism. I don’t hear his supporters saying anything nice about it easier- i really do feel like it needs defending.
In 2011, Bernie Sanders explained that "These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina..."
Most people don't jump up to "defend capitalism" because it is already the status quo in America. It is already being aptly defended by the oligarchy of big business that profit off of the inequality being discussed here.
You argue in another comment that "you just want it to be said" that modern American poor are better off than the poor people in Laos in the 1800's. Congratulations, you've won that strawman argument.
Now you should move on to how to solve the actual current problems of the modern poor and the hollowing out of the American middle class rather than wasting your breath defending the current status quo and arguing against improving people's lives. It might be a better use of brainpower.
I'm more inclined to interpret that as an observation on the opportunity of upward mobility in the US rather than an appeal to mimic Venezuela.
And as for capitalism, the core of it mandates a perfect information symmetry and rational actors, of which the latter is dependant on the former, and the former has never been actualised. The US (or any country really) doesn't have a fair capitalist market, nor does it need defending.
And yet even the poorest in the US still have TVs and refrigerators.
Homelessness has skyrocketed in the US. The poorest here have neither TVs nor refrigerators (except the few their salvaging for the scrap metal value). The homeless generally don't have paid employment (meaning ordinary waged employment) since their appearance keeps them from being hired by most businesses but being homeless is a hellish amount of work.
I would be interested in seeing your stats. I worked while homeless. I did freelance writing and, later, resume writing. I have known homeless individuals with regular jobs.
I don't know what the statistics are. But I would be very interested in seeing stats on how many/what percent of homeless have some kind of earned income, if you know of any reliable data on the topic.
(Edit: Or maybe clarify your intent. I had earned income, though no job. We could quibble at length about what constitutes earned income. For example, does recycling for money constitute earned income?)
Clarified above. Some homeless do manage to get ordinary waged work but given the requirements of most employers, it's not surprising that these poorest people don't appear employments statistics (the canard raised by the post I was replying to).
I don't have statistics and I suspect that getting statistics here is very difficult. A homeless person has little interest in answering a survey and certainly no one wants to appear homeless so just about any data source is going to be iffy.
I set up an OLAP cube for the biggest charity for the homeless in Portland, OR and in my experience no-one locally has good data on the homeless. It is a demographic which is difficult to survey.
No. The idea of income inequality assumes that no matter the size of the pie, everyone should have a decent slice of pie that lets them live comfortably.
Industrialization was supposed to reduce the amount of hours we work and increase our quality of life. We seemed to have reached a floor at 40/50 hours a week and many many people are struggling to make ends meet, even if the richest countries in the world. There's a problem.