Comment by throw0101d
5 hours ago
> Have you lived through the late 90s big tech boom or the current AI boom?
Inequality (at least in the US) started growing in the 1980s, after Reagan got elected. For causes I'd start with these:
5 hours ago
> Have you lived through the late 90s big tech boom or the current AI boom?
Inequality (at least in the US) started growing in the 1980s, after Reagan got elected. For causes I'd start with these:
What people often forget is what preceded the Friedman Doctrine. Management would simply directly use company resources for their own personal benefit. This went from employing their entire family (and in the 1970's that did not mean 1 nephew, it meant 50 of them), to Free VIP access to Disneyworld, all-inclusive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_33
Frankly, my grandfather is dead now, but I did have one or two conversations with him about how equal society was before the Friedman doctrine, and, certainly for the first 30 years or so it was definitely more equal, not less.
Which isn't to say that now the Friedman doctrine is causing a problem too. I just don't think the solution lies in turning it back. Economic arguments are so shallow these days. Even early communists pointed out that some functions in society will have unequal access to resources. This is not something that can be prevented while maintaining the use that that has. The means of production have a purpose and confiscating and redistributing them will do nothing but cause a disaster. It very much will not get everyone an iPhone and an apartment. And, the part communists forgot (and "forgot" in many cases) is that confiscating them simply creates a new upper class, it doesn't solve the class difference.