> Not a single country has reported a harmonious society without suffering and inequality.

What's wrong with inequality? Inequality is not the problem. If someone has a net worth of $500k and another person has a net worth of $10mil, is that bad? Of course not. That's inequality, but so what? Why this obsession with money? And a nation of poor people has high equality. Is that desirable? Equality is a red herring, and possibly an expression of envy.

Poverty is the problem. Oligarchic abuse of wealth for tyrannical purposes is. A society obsessed with money is. We should absolutely not be aiming for equality, as there is no reason for it or value in it.

But you are absolutely correct when you hint at the need to consider human nature. A sound philosophical anthropology is the basis for a sound society and a sound culture. The concepts of human nature our society and culture are built on are defective and emaciated, even deranged.

The economy exists for the benefit of society and its members. It is only a part of human life, but within that sphere, it should serve its participants. It absolutely should not be a means of exploiting others and extracting and concentrating wealth at the expense of others. This is what rapacious capitalism celebrates. Usury and financial speculation are perhaps the distillation of such state-sanctioned exploitation.

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triceratops 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> If someone has a net worth of $500k and another person has a net worth of $10mil, is that bad? Of course not.

If both have the same level of political and social influence: not bad at all.

> Oligarchic abuse of wealth for tyrannical purposes is

Bang on.

> We should absolutely not be aiming for equality

It's a rough barometer to tell us how close we are to an abusive oligarchy.

	▲	lo_zamoyski 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> If both have the same level of political and social influence: not bad at all. While I don't think money should determine the degree of political influence, I contest two presuppositions here. 1. How much political influence money buys is related to how virtuous the political class is. It is not written anywhere that money must determine political influence. If you believe political means can be used to attain equality (socialist states are the closest this has been achieved, resulting in widespread poverty and a concentration of wealth in a small tyrannical party class), then you have no reason to dismiss the possibility of reducing the effect of money on politics without resorting to some kind of enforced equality. 2. There is no value in equal political influence. Why should everyone have equal political influence? That sounds horrible! We want political influence to be proportionate with authority, which is to say relevant qualifications. The mob has no qualifications. Besides, the mob is easily influenced by those with money. So, if you want to remove the influence of money from politics, equal political influence is exactly what you don't want. > It's a rough barometer to tell us how close we are to an abusive oligarchy. We do live in an oligarchy, sure, but recall Plato's analysis in the Republic of how a polity degenerates. What comes after oligarchy? Democracy! So equality is not an improvement over oligarchy. It's the last phase before full blown tyranny. What you want is to localize politics as much as possible and kick issues up the political hierarchy only as needed. This means political leadership lives closer to constituents and shares the same reality with them. Corruption becomes easier to spot as well. It's easier to lynch your local political leader, and the local leadership will know that.

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dostick 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Inequality is based on random luck of birth. Why defend inequality if you don’t know how much better system we can design? It seems that you’re defending capitalism. And having an economy does not require capitalism or communism specifically.

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lo_zamoyski 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Inequality is based on random luck of birth.

We are each unequal to each other, yes. So what? Why is that bad? Why is equality good?

> It seems that you’re defending capitalism.

I'm not defending or attacking capitalism. I'm attacking the thoughtlessly repeated presupposition that inequality is bad as such. There is no justification for the claim that we should all be equally rich.

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fragmede 2 days ago | parent [-]

Because we should all have the opportunity to live good respectable lives. That's way easier if you chose better parents before you were born, but for those that chose their parents poorly, they shouldn't be penalized and should still have every opportunity.

	▲	lo_zamoyski 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Equality does not follow from the fact that it is good to help those in need.