Comment by amelius
3 days ago
Yeah if you look at the Boltzmann Wealth Model, where every actor gives away 1 dollar to a random person, and you repeat this, then if you start with an equal wealth distribution, you end up with an exponential wealth distribution. That shows how strong exponential curves are :) A few "lucky" individuals become very wealthy, while the vast majority of people end up with very little or nothing.
The effect is so strong that I'm starting to wonder if we should have laws against power laws, like we have in engineering when we try to make things stable.
I believe a power law acts differently from an exponential distribution. I think wealth distribution is commonly approximated by a Pareto distribution.
In your model, the exponential distribution is caused by the fact that you cannot go below zero; otherwise, it would be a normal distribution.
I don't agree with your opinion about laws against power laws, but that is another matter.
That sounds semantically equivalent to legislating the value of the traditional gravitational constant.
Seems like a good argument against flat taxes
>The effect is so strong that I'm starting to wonder if we should have laws against power laws
This is literally and unironically communism.
Why? You want to earn exponentially more than other people the harder you work? Instead of just linear?
Let me be more specific. Communism constitutes one way to combat the power law via law. Not all forms of law combatting power law are communism.
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Sigmoid wealth tax maybe?
that's what progressive taxation is
Maybe, if you get the coefficients right.
I mean, do we want the economy to be stable?
Not in a 'oh the rich don't so they control the media and so we don't' sorta way. But like in a 'lets educate people on the pluses and minuses, debate a while, and then come to an informed conclusion' sorta way.
Like, deep down, does the average person actually want a stable economy? Because it seems to me that there is an even split historically between the folks that want stability and a little patch of land and weekly rhythms, and the folks that just want to drunkenly burn couches in the street every full moon, or some such thing.
Not to be glib here at all. I like, would actually like to know the answer. Sorry if this comes off the cuff seeming.
I have a dumbed down version of this question as variant of the Voight-Kampff test (Bladerunner) that goes like this.
You have 2 choices for how the world is shaped, pick 1:
A. You have a modest but comfortable home, a job that pays you enough so that you have what you need and can afford occasional luxuries (e.g., an annual holiday abroad), have good health insurance, access to education and childcare, etc. Everybody else has the same thing, and because of this you live in communities where the arts flourish because nobody has to worry about becoming homeless or destitute.
B. You live in magnificent mansion, one of dozens you own around the world (accessible via one of your personal Gulfstream jets). You have more money then you could ever spend in a lifetime (even recklessly). Your homes are staffed with obedient servants who cater to your every desire. I mean anything. You own them. Your mansions are on palatial estates with secure walls and guards to keep out the rabble outside -- who fight for scraps and are desperate enough to do any kind of work to keep your factories humming and printing cash.
I wouldn't hesitate to choose A because that's a world I'd love to live in and the world of B horrifies me. I don't say this as virtue signaling, it's my innate reaction.
I think that a significant portion of the population would love to choose B. And in some ways, some already have.
I really hate to call people stupid, but I would actually go ahead and call people who choose option B idiots.
I'm sorry if that offends anyone reading this, you can downvote me out of spite if that makes you feel better.
I say this because I read a while ago (like years) an article in the Economist showing that happiness in a society is correlated with equality - (sorry for the dash I am a human I just happen to use em dashes sometimes) not just amongst the poor, but also for the rich.
You'll note that rich people in highly unequal societies tend to struggle with mental illness more than in equal societies.
Money doesn't buy happiness. Being filthy rich won't heal the hurt in your heart. If you're too stupid too realize that, that's fine, enjoy your suffering, but I'd appreciate you having the honesty to admit that you're a deluded moron instead of trying to create completely false arguments for why the misery you're creating for yourself and others is actually a sign of anything less than pure human stupidity.
I couldn't find the original Economist article, nor the study it cited, but here's a link I found on Google.
https://leftfootforward.org/2017/03/people-are-happier-in-mo...
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I think most people want to earn more the harder they work, and I think that is fine.
However, power laws basically spoil it because it gives a hard worker an exponential advantage, where they can (and will) use that money against other people who made different life choices.
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You could go do A right now at a local level. You don't though, because you don't actually want to live that way. It reeks of virtue signaling despite your protest.
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Seems like you left out the "millionaire next door." There are a lot of people who want to save up enough money to retire. Some of them want to retire early. This doesn't involve any mansions or extravagant living, but it does mean investing well.
How many people think multiple mansions is a realistic option for them? Not that many, I'd expect.
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If you ask people what they want, they'll request some impossible combination of attributes without consideration of any tradeoffs.
They will also try to push all negative externalities on to people wealthier than themselves. Most people see themselves as middle class or lower middle class, even up to relatively high income levels. If you ask each of them where the tax rate should be increased, the answer is usually a few steps higher than their own income.
UBI is a topic where this becomes very obvious. When you explain UBI to most people they assume they will be receiving the UBI and some abstract combination of billionaires and corporations would pay for it. Then you show them the math that it wouldn't work and they start to become less enamored with the idea. (Or lately: They just don't believe you and retreat to their imagined ideal free of pesky economics)