Comments on: Unequal Inequality

By: Paul Gowder

Paul Gowder — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 00:01:07 +0000

At least international inequality is a huge, huge, huge subject of discussion amongst activists, government, NGOs, and political philosophers and theorists (in the latter category, check out the burgeoning literature on global justice).

By: michael vassar

michael vassar — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 22:04:08 +0000

I don’t think that Steve Sailer is saying that ONLY 3 matters, but rather that 3 matters a lot.
I think that it’s worth noting that non-experiential consumption inequality may be a good thing, for instance, if people with very high productivity have house-keepers to save them time this helps everyone.
It’s true though that the inefficiency of experiential consumption on luxury goods is an argument for greater equality.

By: Ben Abbott

Ben Abbott — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:49:25 +0000

One only need to compare Stephen Hawking to Michael Jordan to realize that inequality exists and is not necessarily a problem.

However, inequality with respect to opportunity is a problem. This is why I support free-trade, public education, and equal opportunity legislation.

I would point out that equal opportunity will not create equal representation. Equal access to an opportunity does not mean that those who grasp the opportunity will be proportionately representative of the population at large.

By: TGGP

TGGP — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:34:57 +0000

Steve Sailer seemed to say that #3 is the only one that really matters in this response to David Friedman and Will Wilkinson's dismissing of inequality.

By: Bruce Britton

Bruce Britton — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:25:02 +0000

There are 4 types of inequality. Three are:
Wealth inequality (inequality in one’s claims on resources);
Income inequality (inequality in the yearly increment to wealth); and
Consumption inequality (inequality in the resources actually claimed).

Of these three, consumption inequality is the one primarily relevant to the effects of material resources on well being (wealth not contributing to well-being-that-is-due-to-material-factors unless you spend it (except for misers)).

But consumption inequality has to be divided into two parts:
nominal consumption inequality (inequality in the amount spent);
and most important
Experiential Consumption Inequality (inequality in how good ones experience of living is, insofar as ones experience is due to material factors).

The only important form of inequality for conscious beings is Experiential Consumption Inequality.

But Experiential Consumption Inequality can only vary within very narrow limits, once a person has enough to satisfy basic needs.

This is because every person has only 16 hours a day to live, and can only do 1 thing at a time. So a person who has 2 cars (or 10), or 2 houses (or 10), can only live in one house at a time, or only drive one car at a time, and any satisfaction they experience is due to their experience: one car’s worth, or one house’s worth, not 10 cars worth or 10 houses worth.

A person who buys a $300 meal can only eat as much as a person who buys a $10 meal; their satisfaction is not 30 times as great ($300/$10).

In addition, the decreasing marginal utility of consumption kicks in to decrease the increment in well being: the $10 meal may be way more satisfying than the $300 meal if the $10 eater is hungry. To someone without a car, getting one car is deeply satisfying; to someone who has 9 cars, another may be a pain in the ass (”Stop with the cars already!”).

This is why differences in wealth (income, consumption) do not turn into differences in well being, once you get above basic needs (google World Database of Happiness for exhaustive empirical verification).

By: Cobb

Cobb — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 14:09:24 +0000

It seems to me that there is a direct contradiction between a desire for income parity and respect for indigenous culture. The most salient principles geopolitical neocons evangelize are all about extending the economic conditions which guide their own actions to nations that don’t have those economies. I think the conflict is unavoidable. Think colonialism. If you want to have money like me, then you must do as I do. If you want to have democracy like me, then you must give up the meaning of your internecine conflicts and work them out as I would.

I believe that the very things we key in on when considering the corruption of a third world country is precisely the extent to which its leader(s) live in the style of the West and its people do not. Those leaders who presumably adopt Western values cannot pull Western economies out of their hat. It’s easy for small numbers of people to sell out (buy in) but you need the entire economy for the people to do so.

Economies must be grown. They cannot be bought, sold or transferred.

On a smaller scale when we talk about income equality between families you cannot avoid a discussion of values, or of cultural differences which express those values in a social context.

Aside from all that, what is the point of income equality if it does not provide social equality? And between social equals, what difference does income make?

By: joeo

joeo — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 01:52:40 +0000

Here is the chapter of conley’s book where he gives the 75% figure.

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375713811&view=excerpt

He uses an estimate of 0.5 for the correlation between sibling’s log incomes.

By: Robin Hanson

Robin Hanson — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 21:50:53 +0000

Curt, Dalton Conley is a respected and competent sociologist whom I know personally and have confidence in. You may care more about people you interact, but you don’t interact much with most people in your nation. So that reasoning would suggest a focus on inequality at the town/city level.

Doug, the fact that we have stronger national than world governments is in large part a choice we have made, because we care more about other people in our nation than in the rest of the world.

By: Curt Adams

Curt Adams — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:41:51 +0000

Robin, do you have a better link for the claim that almost all income inequality in intrafamily? I find that extremely hard to believe in the face of evidence (mentioned here http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05133/504149.stm) that 40-65% of income disparity is passed from parents to children, plus the fact that there’s going to be some sibling correlation apart from parental effects. My own anectdotal evidence is also the important disparities are between, not within families. A link to the option to purchase a pop science book is, well, underwhelming.

Regarding why intracountry income differences count and not the others: I think it’s because that’s the inequality that people will care about – because they must interact with those of differing income, and incomes can be transfered, unlike beauty or intelligence. I don’t interact much with people of different times or nations. Intrafamily and especially interday interactions are a very different ball game. Objectively the horrors in Africa are far worse than what goes on in the barrios of Santa Ana a few miles from where I live. But I have to see and deal with the locals, producing visceral effects on me, and their situation can affect me criminally or politically. Further, I can potentially participate in political alliances with them to achieve my own goals. I can get little personal benefit from alleviating poverty in Africa.

By: Doug S.

Doug S. — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 20:13:51 +0000

Regarding inequality between nations: it seems like it’s harder for a government to affect other nations than it is for it to affect its own, so addressing inequality between nations may seem to be a job for our (relatively toothless) international institutions than individual national governments.