scottdisco
rip this joint please
seconded.
nice one that paper re economics and violent conflict Vim, will have a look later. btw, greatly appreciated your recent composite/House of War post re Estonian austerity.
Labour - where now?
- Thread starter Slothrop
- Start date
seconded.
nice one that paper re economics and violent conflict Vim, will have a look later. btw, greatly appreciated your recent composite/House of War post re Estonian austerity.
grizzleb
Well-known member
Does anyone really feel envious when we see people cutting about in Ferraris? I think it's pretty funny. So many rich people can define themselves only in the context of their wealth. There's a corrupting and pretty pitiful element to richness as well, no?
I read in the metro that some questionnaire or other showed that a large majority of people earning 150k or less don't consider themselves 'rich', which kind of sums up the way that wealth works. As soon as you earn more, you spend more, on the same stuff, apart that it is now more expensive. And other trifling, needless, throwaway stuff.
@mixed_biscuits - how does 'conspicious consumption' redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor? Just because Gucci employs people for minimum wage doesn't necessarily mean it's doing them a favour.
I read in the metro that some questionnaire or other showed that a large majority of people earning 150k or less don't consider themselves 'rich', which kind of sums up the way that wealth works. As soon as you earn more, you spend more, on the same stuff, apart that it is now more expensive. And other trifling, needless, throwaway stuff.
@mixed_biscuits - how does 'conspicious consumption' redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor? Just because Gucci employs people for minimum wage doesn't necessarily mean it's doing them a favour.
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mixed_biscuits
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Perhaps, but I think that arguments for wealth-limitation from compassion are more likely to be disingenuous than not in the case of the rich, as, inevitably, the next people to be seen cutting about in Ferraris will be the wealth limiters themselves.
Well, I suppose because, firstly, the 'spend, spend, spend' ethos means that money gets recycled quickly and, secondly, because the kinds of goods that are bought are over-priced and so its producers are thus paid over the odds.
vimothy
yurp
Ultimately, we kind of want rich people to spend money: it becomes income for the rest of us. On the other hand, rich people who do not spend money are not consuming economic output and so are not receiving any real benefit from their wealth--just amassing paper.
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Re house prices, Phillipe Legrain: http://www.philippelegrain.com/another-dangerous-property-boom/
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Re house prices, Phillipe Legrain: http://www.philippelegrain.com/another-dangerous-property-boom/
Won't be the actual producers who benefit the most from that though will it. That difference being the essence of capitalism and all.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
i was also going to have a go at asking about the first bracketed aside in m_b's point number 1 earlier (which, tbf to m_b, they somewhat tentatively introduced w the word "perhaps"), but this is a shorter and better reply than what i was about to say.
the point w producers being paid over the odds is that we're still in a very unequal society.
and producers of a lot of goods that are sold in, for example, High Street UK (w its wealthy chain owners, its financially savvy chain shareholders, its struggling small businesses, and its shop-floor staff, the whole spectrum, granted), are actually basement wage Chinese factory workers. etc.
i agree, from the pov of a very rich person, that compassion arguments re limiting their wealth are not cutting it, from their pov.
grizzleb
Well-known member
I wasn't arguing for wealth limitation out of compassion, more just making an aside about wealth/envy. Free time is the one thing which wealth gets you that is enviable, all the other trappings are just stuff people use to shore up the fact that maybe their free time is just wasted...
Are its producers paid over the odds? Aren't the 'producers' who make such goods (the owners of a gucci factory) just other rich people? I'd assume their raw material suppliers are just paid a standard price. Does money get recycled quickly when someone buys a one-off 'luxury' item, or to put it another day - is more money recycled quickly by one person buying one 150k car, as compared to 15 people buying a 10k car?
vimothy
yurp
The more important question, since spending is income, is who has the higher marginal propensity to consume--the rich or the poor?
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
I guess what I think is required in order to sort discussions like these out is a very clear model of what each person would consider to constitute an equal society as, depending on the assumptions that one makes about the constitution of individual humans and their interaction, one person's 'equal' society and 'fair outcome' can look very different to the next person's.
For instance, one might minimise individuals' cultural and financial capital at birth, but still end up with huge differences in outcomes, with some people gaining far more from their environment than others. If one assumes that there are intrinsic, important differences between individuals, then one would judge such a differentiated outcome as being 'fair' (assuming one forgives the cosmic unfairness); if one takes the blank slate view, then it would seem utterly unfair, with success the product of connivance or, at best, dumb luck and so more tinkering would be required.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
as a % of income, surely the poor?
(do you know the answer Vim, or are you just being rhetorical?!)
oh btw m_b, a fair point. i just meant from say the Gini coefficient pov etc. that's a good starting basis to ground these sorts of chats.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
and so the other way for MPS. righto.