I didn’t read the thread, but the answers to the title questions are no and no, LDO, with the critical issues being how we define “rich” and “business.” At present, the bottom 50% of the world’s population shares something like 1% or 2% of its wealth (see figures from Credit Suisse). In a socialist system that allowed some degree of inequality (to reward leadership, efficient or high quality work, technological innovation, smart long-term investment, etc.) the bottom 50% of the world’s population would share something like 25% of its wealth. Then 25% to the next 25%, and 50% divided among the top 25%. This is all hypothetical and approximate, of course, and plenty of reasonable arguments exist for a variety of different distributions. The point is that something like this is clearly the goal that socialist redistribution, effectuated through tax policy and a high minimum wage, is meant to achieve.
This means, of course, that the wealth ceiling has to come way, way, way down from where it is now, and that the wealth scale will be far more graduated across the board (in my toy example, the average rich person out-earns the average poor person by a factor of 4:1). Socialist programs such as a government jobs guarantee (organized around the creation of renewable energy infrastructure and other public goods), universal health care (health being a sine qua non of economic production), and free education (understood as the obligation of parents to children)–together with a standard battery of liberal anti-discrimination measures–would ensure that who ends up where is (mostly) non-arbitrary.
In such a system, there would be relatively rich people–including, for instance, some people who run especially popular businesses–but no one would be entitled to a share of wealth comparable to those enjoyed by today’s ultra-rich. For reference, the 1% today controls something like 45% of global wealth (Credit Suisse again). If you assume that money and political power are correlated (they are), isn’t it obvious that the results of this process–law and social policy–will be corrupt and undemocratic? Specifically, the resulting laws will ensure the perpetuation of the same staggering inequality that produced them.
I take your point, but intuitively I don’t find much of a difference between a course of action where the harm is intended but permissible where the justification is that the total outcome is morally better than the harm is otherwise worse, and a course of action where the harm is merely foreseen but the calculus is the same. I suppose the main idea here is to give people an out who otherwise believe in some rule based/duty based prohibition of causing intentional harm.
Re: Global Mean Annual Income being $2,920: Citing this to show that poor people in the U.S. are rich by global standards depends on a confusion between nominal income and real purchasing power. As my post above implies, the relevant question is what percentage of global population controls–i.e., has property rights in–what percentage of global wealth. Ultimately, you have to ask yourself just how extreme of a Gini coefficient is morally acceptable.
There’s also a lot of work that doesn’t get counted. If you live somewhere where many people build their own homes, and help each other do it, what’s the effect on GDP or income per capita?
We can quibble on which stat to use but I don’t think there is much debate that 99% of people living in the US are richer than the poorest rest of the global population.
Put another way. You know you will be born poor. Do you choose the US or a randomly drawn other country?
It’s a symptom of what is wrong that most people in the US would pay more attention to the rank in wealth than happiness when picking a country to be born in.
Uh, sorry, no, it’s not quibbling. The units matter when you’re doing economic calculations. I mean, define “born poor.” Is it: My parents each make $2,920 annually, with no savings or investments? Born in the U.S., I would be homeless for sure. Born elsewhere in the world, I’d actually be much better better off (assuming I’m allowed to exchange my currency). Put another way, if you want to use USD rather than “share of global wealth” as the units, you can only do these calculations nationally. If we divided U.S. wealth equally among U.S. citizens, we’d each end up with around $300,000 (or more).
Do you not find much of a difference because the outcome is the same? It’s probably not a compelling argument for someone who intuitively assumes a consequentialist point of view. If you believe that intent matters, then maybe you see things differently.
If being poor in the US is being rich globally what is being rich in the US globally?
This one always bugs me not because it’s not true our poor are rich comparably but because it seems like a way for the rich in America to downplay their riches compared to the poor here. Stop complaining I have all the money you are rich compared too…!
Pretty sure that’s just in the US. There are different happiness rankings, but Panama kicks ass and I don’t think that $80k number, or $75k, is global.
Again, symptom of the problem. It is hard to be happy in the US when you’re even lower middle class, despite having a cell phone and Netflix.
Yeah I don’t think the cheapest rentals are going for $300/month in Senegal or whatever so I’m not sure what relevance everyone seems to think average income has.
Like, you guys remember how every degenerate poker bro moved to Thailand in 2008 to grind 50NL and live a lavish lifestyle from rakeback income?
You have to adjust for purchasing power parity. I’d snap take 25k outside the us than in it. High probability of being middle class plus thanks to ppp. But if it’s 25k here or equivalent to 25k elsewhere I probably take here if you aren’t guaranteeing me one of the better Euro countries.
The question can’t be if you are given $25k/year which county would you pick. Nobody would pick the US. Your safety net sucks compared to Canada and Western Europe. Anyone would pick one of those.
You would only pick the US if you had an equal chance of getting Canada and Congo, otherwise.
I read a later article that I can‘t find right now that questions the validity of the study. I don‘t remember the details but maybe we shouldn’t accept it as gospel quite yet.