Well, discussions of poverty, seem to be unpopular, amongst wealthier folks.

Probably comes from the only real solutions to poverty, are transferring portions of wealth from richer people, to poorer.

That type of discussion won't really happen, in the Halls of Power, because...

...those folks are richer, so they look for any solution that doesn't involve them, having to divest anything.

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pbh101 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Based on your comments, it sounds like you wouldn’t be satisfied with a solution to poverty that didn’t involve resource transfer or also ‘solving’ resource ‘hogging’.

‘Expanding the pie’ is what has the most evidence of poverty reduction by a wide margin, and capitalist-style allocation systems have the strongest evidence of pie-expansion.

I don’t think we have evidence of compulsory resource transfer ever working to the satisfaction of those pushing for more of it, nor do I think we have a clear model of how it can morally/ethically be sufficiently accomplished to meet the standards of those advocating for it for poverty reducing reasons. Primarily because the bar implicitly rises due to the hedonic treadmill.

No system is perfect, including the one we have now, but I would caution at taking for granted incremental/gradual improvements because today isn’t fully solved. I see a theme of impatience and desire for extreme system scrutability/legibility at the expense of empirically examining what has the best chance of accomplishing the stated goals and leaning into that.

(To be clear, no fan of musk here, I don’t think the solution is simply unfettered capitalism, and I’m under no illusion of ever being a billionaire, but above all that I’m more convinced that resource transfer will never ever accomplish its stated goals on its own.

I further don’t think this absolves one from duty to the less fortunate, just quibbling with the absolutist statement that transfers are the only real solution.)

	▲	ChrisMarshallNY 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, the "transfer" part wouldn't be necessary, if all the wealth hadn't been "hogged," already (where we are now). Revolutions (what happens, when the hogging goes too far) tend to put knuckleheads in charge, and don't always help. Some folks are very good at fighting (and campaigning), but terrible at actually governing. The long-term solution is to arrange the realtime distribution more equitably. That's the part that has been whittled away, and that terrifies people.

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altruios a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Smart people will let green flow from themselves before any red.

	▲	Obscurity4340 a day ago \| parent [-]
		Are you saying the smart rich ones will let taxes and other contributions flow from them out of fear of later blood flowing from them?

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jpadkins a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> Probably comes from the only real solutions to poverty, are transferring portions of wealth from richer people, to poorer.

What a strange conclusion. Why is that the only real solution? How much wealth was transferred from rich to poor during 1870 to 1950 in the US (when most of the US population was freed from poverty)? What was the mechanism that transferred the wealth? Where and when did this wealth transfer reduce poverty, what are the historical examples of this solution working?

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ChrisMarshallNY a day ago | parent | next [-]

This is a good example of where the conversation goes, when the subject comes up.

The issue is not with resource transfer, but of resource hogging.

History also shows a fairly regular cadence of what happens, when an elite minority starts accumulating all the resources for themselves, to the detriment of most.

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jpadkins a day ago | parent | next [-]

> History also shows a fairly regular cadence of what happens, when an elite minority starts accumulating all the resources for themselves, to the detriment of most.

When and where? I gave a specific example of when and where poverty was actually reduced in a significant way. 1850 - 1950 US is probably one of the most objective examples of free markets in history. Of course there were super rich (robber barrons) that concentrated wealth, but there was also huge amounts of people being pulled out of poverty. That's how capitalism works. What resources did super rich hog in a free market society that hurt everyone else? (btw resource hogging is a different problem than poverty. You are goal shifting, unless you can prove that resource hogging causes poverty)

	▲	jodrellblank a day ago \| parent [-]
		> "1850 - 1950 US" The poorest in a population are not the well-educated self-made wealthy, they are the uneducated, unemployed, enslaved, disempowered, disabled, homeless, widowed, sick, isolated, and those whose lives are affected by the suffering of deaths and the work of caring for those people. During the time period you picked it seems there was a non-trivial amount of government spending specifically educating the people, employing the unemployed, funding the disabled and widowed and elderly, avoiding sickness and death, feeding the hungry, improving pay for the employed, and more, e.g. The 1865 abolishing of slavery in the USA meaning all employers had to pay workers. The 1874 Michigan supreme court ruling that local governments had the legal right to fund high schools with tax money. By 1896 40% of all federal government spending was through the Bureau of Pensions to 750,000 civil war veterans and 222,000 widows and other dependents. The High School Movement[1] from 1910 to 1940 where 18% of American 15 year-olds were in high school at the start of that and 9% graduated at age 18, to 73% enrolled and the median youth had a high school diploma at the end. The first statewide minimum wage in 1912 in Minnesota. A colossal increase in federal government spending, starting with $15 Billion total in all the years from 1850 - 1900[2] increasing to $18 Billion in the year 1918, to $92 Billion in the year 1945, with growing billions and tens of billions in the intermediate years, including employing 22% - 24% of all American men as soldiers in WWII. The 1933 New Deal creation of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, funding soup kitchens, relief payments, and work projects. The 1933 and 1935 New Deal creation of Civilian Conservation Corps and Civil Works Administration, hiring millions of unemployed workers. The 1935 creation of Social Security (reducing poverty among the elderly). The first Federal minimum wage in 1938. Infant mortality dropped from ~197 per 1000 live births in 1850 to 100 in 1915 and <30 in 1950 due to milk Pasteurization pushed by the US public health service under Roosevelt. Jersey City got fed up of ~100 - 150 people dying of Typhoid fever every year around 1900 and sued the Jersey City Water Supply Company over bacterial contamination in the water. That lead to them developing chlorination. Hooray the free market at last! Oh they were initially paid millions to build the reservoir and pipeline which contaminated and killing people. Oh when they developed chlorination it was because it was cheap. And when they spent all of 99 days on it, they put it straight in the water supply of 200,000 people with no large scale testing or approval, no consent and no warning.[4] Two World Wars which laid waste to the manufacturing competition and left the USA as a large manufacturer. The US government funding 6 Penicillin production plants under the War Production Board in 1943. Not to mention income tax introduced in 1913 and the top rate for the highest earners rising from 7% to 67% at the start of WWI, and rising to 62% after the Depression, and peaking at 94% in 1945 with a historically low cutoff threshold, for one specific way money was redistributed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_school_movement [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#H... [3] https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/government-spending-... [4] https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/distillations-pod/jer...

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jacquesm a day ago | parent | prev [-]

This is an uncomfortable truth for HN where a large number of participants believe themselves to be the next Elon Musk. They're not temporarily embarrassed millionaires, they are millionaires that are temporarily embarrassed billionaires. Speaking of re-allocation of wealth is the scariest thing you could say around here :) Keep doing it anyway.

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ChrisMarshallNY a day ago | parent [-]

I will. It's funny to watch the reactions, and worth the downvotes (I can afford them). There's a rather ... predictable ... zeitgeist on this site. I basically enjoy being here, but watching the Musk stans at play can be a bit irritating. I often see jaw-droppingly heartless comments, made here.

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jpadkins a day ago | parent [-]

You can't engage in an actual conversation about your beliefs or conclusions here, because it's pretty easy to disprove your ideas or solutions. You have shifted the thread away from my questions or examples. You have zero evidence that transferring wealth solves poverty.

And pretending its people that idolize musk is pure cope. At least get it right, and watch some Milton Friedan if you want to understand where many of us get our views from. You prioritize signaling that you are virtuous ("heartless comments") versus actually doing good. I hope that one day you use a rational, scientific rigor to actually examine do your family's preferred solutions do good or just feel good. I give to charities that actually deal with the root causes of poverty in the US, and I have first hand interactions with the people that it helps.

	▲	jodrellblank a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If capitalism is what frees people from poverty, why (in your view) is the charity that you do needed at all? Has there just been not enough capitalism in the USA in the last 76 years of increasing the GDP from $2.4T in 1950 to $32T today?
	▲	ChrisMarshallNY a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Have a great day!

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davedx a day ago | parent | prev [-]

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