Elwood P Dowd's Journal: Since when does google have grammar checking?

I just googled for "Suppose you wanted to get rid of economic inequality." because I was curious if anyone was going after Paul Graham's latest batch of self obsessed bullshit.

Google said that no, it didn't have any other occurrences, but

Did you mean: "Suppose you want to get rid of economic inequality."

Ha-ha! No!

I'm not as smart as Maciej Ceglowski, so I'm not going to pick apart this latest essay. But I'll start: Who the fuck advocates the elimination of economic inequality? Sure, I mean... communists. But who in our current political landscape is Graham arguing with? People advocate the elimination of poverty, but that's not the same thing. It doesn't even entail a reduction of economic inequality. People advocate the elimination of economic injustice, but that is also not the same thing. It also does not entail a reduction of economic inequality. I suspect his real problem is with progressive taxation, but if he wanted to make that specific an argument he'd just be parroting every simpleminded libertarian. And that argument has been made and unmade a million times.

Aside from his first sentence, few or none of his points are true. I mean, I've heard smart people say them all the time, but everyone has to take time off from being smart.

So if you see someone pull apart PG's "Inequality and Risk" article, gimme a holler.

(Edit 9/13/2005: Tim Bray took it on. He aims at the same point as me, but he actually makes it.)

s/eliminate/reduce/

[js7a]

So, I read the whole thing, and I have to say that I just plain agree with it. Nothing in it is incompatible with the workings of steeply progressive taxation, which doesn't eliminate the ability to become rich (or the corresponding necessary risk-taking) but rather then inequities brought about by less progressive tax structure. Sweden: Ericson, Ikea, Saab, Volvo, life expectance, infant mortality, cost of living, etc.

Re:s/eliminate/reduce/

[Elwood P Dowd]

But he didn't s/eliminate/reduce/. And I don't even know people that specifically advocate the reduction of economic inequality. People do frequently point to increases in economic inequality as proof that there is no just cause for our level of poverty, but unless they're soft in the head their problem is still poverty.

Re:s/eliminate/reduce/

[js7a]

Read the essay again -- the word "eliminate" only appears up front; everywhere else it is "reduce" or equivalent.

Re:s/eliminate/reduce/

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Well I'm in an MBA program these days, and I read and hear discussions regarding economic inequality. Not so much in Accounting classes or Marketing classes, but definately in International Business, or Econ courses. An arguement for outsourcing (to, say, India,) is that it reduces economic inequality. By offering oppurtunity and hope to bright, highly trained, hardworking people who can't find jobs we increase the stability of a region. The people who pay are of course their counterparts who lose job

Re:s/eliminate/reduce/

[civilizedINTENSITY]

The real opportunities are ones reaped by the businesses who do the moving.

Exactly! But there is an "evening out", a leveling of the playing field (in terms of the middle classes of the world's countries.) I never meant to suggest the powers that be (PTB) aren't clearly the real winners.

Re:s/eliminate/reduce/

[civilizedINTENSITY]

It isn't just about poverty. The article raises the question of a linkage between wealth and power, and corruption. At the very least, a system that allows for unlimited concentration of wealth is going to generate ever higher barriers to entry. The concern of some is that wealth (and hence power) is not earned today (in the USA) so much as inherited or married into...

The concentration of wealth in terms of a few large corporations is also troubling from the point of view of Free Markets. Especially tro