Inequality Talk Is About Grabbing By Robin Hanson
- what if most billionaires had super-powers of the traditional comic book sort, like x-ray vision or an ability to fly, etc.? That is, what if people with physical super-powers earned billions in the labor market by selling the use of these powers? Would folks be just as eager to tax them to reduce unfair inequality? My guess is no,
- my favored theory of expressed inequality concerns: that inequality talk is usually a covert way of coordinating who to maybe grab stuff from
- teoria generale: la società pone dei principi e poi escogita dei modi per violarli nei confronti di chi in ogni caso non potrebbe difendersi da un'aggressione, per esempio i pochi ricchi nei confronti della massa. Questi principi sono spesso condivisi sia dalla massa (che ottiene il suo bottino) sia dai pochi (che scampano l'aggressione limitando i danni)
- people usually justify their inequality concerns by noting that inequality can make lower folks feel bad, that justification can apply equally to a great many sorts of inequality. Yet concern is actually only voiced about a very particular sort: financial inequality at a given time between the families of a nation. The puzzle in need of explaining is: why is so little concern expressed about all the other sorts of inequality?
- We don’t discuss (manca l'indignazione morale) inequalities across time, because it is hard to grab much more than we do from the past or the future. We don’t much discuss the inequality of rich foreigners, because it is much harder to grab their stuff. We don’t much discuss inequality of those with unusual artistic abilities or sexual attractiveness, because we can’t directly grab their advantages and while we might try to grab their material goods to compensate, they don’t have that much, and the grabbing would be hard
- diseguaglianze che non ci indignano: finanziarie tra persone distanti nel tempo e nello spazio; tra qualità artistiche e sportive; bellezza, simpatia, buon umore;
continua
