Is it actually Viliam’s point? [that a larger fraction of the world’s economic inequality arises from taking by force or fraud than from creating value]
I believe this, at least in long turn; i.e. that even if once in a while some genius creates a lot of wealth and succeeds to capture a significant amount of it, sooner or later most of that money will pass into hands of people who are experts on taking value from others.
No Marxism here, merely an assumption that people who specialize at X will become good at X, especially when X can be simply measured. Here X is “taking value from others”.
consider e.g. Soviet Russia. A lot of value was taken by force, but economic inequality was very low.
Nope, that was merely the official propaganda. In fact, high-level Communists were rich. Not only they had much more money, but perhaps more importantly, they were allowed to use “common property” that the average muggle wasn’t allowed to touch. For example, there would be a large villa that nominally belonged to the state, but in fact someone specific lived there. Or there would be a service provided nominally to anyone (chosen by an unspecified algorithm), but in fact only high-level Communists had that service available and average muggles didn’t. High-level Communists were also in much better positions to steal things or blackmail people.
consider the massive growth of wealth in China over the last 20 years. Where did this wealth come from—did the Chinese create it or did they steal it from someone?
How is this wealth distributed among the specific Chinese? It can be both true that “China” created the wealth, and that the specific “Chinese” who own it, mostly stole it (from the other Chinese).
Marxist-style analysis would claim that capital owners are fleecing the workers who actually create value
My argument is completely unrelated to this. For me the worrying part about rich people is that they can use their wealth to (1) do crime more safely, and even (2) change laws so that the things they wanted to do are no longer crimes, but the things that other people wanted to do suddenly become crimes.
I disagree. As I mentioned, they did live better (more comfortably, higher consumption) than the peons, but not to the degree that I would call “rich”. I don’t believe that critics of communist regimes, both internal and external, called the party bosses “rich” either. For comparison, consider, say, corrupt South/Central American dictatorships.
Things have changed, of course. Putin is very rich.
the worrying part about rich people is that they can use their wealth to (1) do crime more safely, and even (2) change laws
You are worried about power, not wealth.
It’s true that wealth can be converted to power—sometimes, to some degree, at some conversion rate. But if you actually want power, the straightforward way is attempt to acquire more power directly.
There is also the inverse worry: if no individuals have power, who does? Is it good for individuals to have no power, to be cogs/slaves/sheep?
I believe this, at least in long turn; i.e. that even if once in a while some genius creates a lot of wealth and succeeds to capture a significant amount of it, sooner or later most of that money will pass into hands of people who are experts on taking value from others.
No Marxism here, merely an assumption that people who specialize at X will become good at X, especially when X can be simply measured. Here X is “taking value from others”.
Nope, that was merely the official propaganda. In fact, high-level Communists were rich. Not only they had much more money, but perhaps more importantly, they were allowed to use “common property” that the average muggle wasn’t allowed to touch. For example, there would be a large villa that nominally belonged to the state, but in fact someone specific lived there. Or there would be a service provided nominally to anyone (chosen by an unspecified algorithm), but in fact only high-level Communists had that service available and average muggles didn’t. High-level Communists were also in much better positions to steal things or blackmail people.
How is this wealth distributed among the specific Chinese? It can be both true that “China” created the wealth, and that the specific “Chinese” who own it, mostly stole it (from the other Chinese).
My argument is completely unrelated to this. For me the worrying part about rich people is that they can use their wealth to (1) do crime more safely, and even (2) change laws so that the things they wanted to do are no longer crimes, but the things that other people wanted to do suddenly become crimes.
I disagree. As I mentioned, they did live better (more comfortably, higher consumption) than the peons, but not to the degree that I would call “rich”. I don’t believe that critics of communist regimes, both internal and external, called the party bosses “rich” either. For comparison, consider, say, corrupt South/Central American dictatorships.
Things have changed, of course. Putin is very rich.
You are worried about power, not wealth.
It’s true that wealth can be converted to power—sometimes, to some degree, at some conversion rate. But if you actually want power, the straightforward way is attempt to acquire more power directly.
There is also the inverse worry: if no individuals have power, who does? Is it good for individuals to have no power, to be cogs/slaves/sheep?