much of the inequality we presently see is just and right and good, because what’s happening is that people are being rewarded in proportion to the value they create.
My position is weaker: I don’t make claims about what is “right and good”. It’s really an observation that different abilities of people to create value will “naturally” lead to inequality unless someone (like a government) takes explicit active measures to counteract this.
people get rewarded not for actual value created but for value delivered to the people who pay them
I don’t know what “actual value” is. I treat value as subjective—different people can and do assign different value to the same thing. For the same reason I find “value to society” a suspect concept.
whoever downvoted my earlier comment (whether Lumifer or someone else)
I generally don’t up- or down-vote comments in threads in which I participate. Specifically, I didn’t vote on any comments in this thread.
It’s really an observation that different abilities [...] will “naturally” lead to inequality
Then yes, I agree with that.
I treat value as subjective
Me too. What I wrote should be regarded as shorthand for something like this: “net value to society, which of course different people will assess in different ways; I have mine, Eli has his, Lumifer has his or hers, etc. I expect these different assessments to be similar enough that it isn’t worth filling this discussion with metaethical digressions about how different people have different values”. Perhaps there’s some way I could have put it that wouldn’t have given the impression I was talking about magical Objective Real Moral Value without filling the thread with metaethical digressions, but I didn’t happen to spot one :-).
For the same reason I find “value to society” a suspect concept.
I’m not sure I understand this. It looks to me as if the following two questions are basically independent: (1) Is there one true way of assessing value, that isn’t dependent on any particular valuer’s values? (2) Is there, for typical ways of assessing value, a meaningful way to aggregate costs and benefits to lots of different people into an overall “value to society”? I answer “almost certainly no” to #1 but “yes, at least roughly” to #2.
I generally don’t up- or down-vote comments in threads in which I participate.
My position is weaker: I don’t make claims about what is “right and good”. It’s really an observation that different abilities of people to create value will “naturally” lead to inequality unless someone (like a government) takes explicit active measures to counteract this.
I don’t know what “actual value” is. I treat value as subjective—different people can and do assign different value to the same thing. For the same reason I find “value to society” a suspect concept.
I generally don’t up- or down-vote comments in threads in which I participate. Specifically, I didn’t vote on any comments in this thread.
Then yes, I agree with that.
Me too. What I wrote should be regarded as shorthand for something like this: “net value to society, which of course different people will assess in different ways; I have mine, Eli has his, Lumifer has his or hers, etc. I expect these different assessments to be similar enough that it isn’t worth filling this discussion with metaethical digressions about how different people have different values”. Perhaps there’s some way I could have put it that wouldn’t have given the impression I was talking about magical Objective Real Moral Value without filling the thread with metaethical digressions, but I didn’t happen to spot one :-).
I’m not sure I understand this. It looks to me as if the following two questions are basically independent: (1) Is there one true way of assessing value, that isn’t dependent on any particular valuer’s values? (2) Is there, for typical ways of assessing value, a meaningful way to aggregate costs and benefits to lots of different people into an overall “value to society”? I answer “almost certainly no” to #1 but “yes, at least roughly” to #2.
Useful to know. (Neither do I, FWIW.)