
The Dream Hoarders: How America's Top Percent Perpetuates Inequality - huihuiilly
https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-education-opportunity/richard-v-reeves-dream-hoarders-how-americas-top-20-percent
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earthscienceman
I'm really interested to see how this is received here on Hacker News where
articles like "Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company" get
a warm reception. I really think that 'startup culture' and 'dream hoarding'
are way more integrally linked than anyone on this website would like to
admit. The success of many a startup relies on investors whose capital comes
entirely from the concentration of wealth and the lack of redistribution. Then
their continued success as enterprises very often hinges on their own ability
to hoard, concentrate, and 'reinvest' their own wealth.

And whenever someone makes the point I'm making in this post, people rush in
to point out that you can do so much good with lots of money. As if that
somehow runs in opposition to hoarding it from being used by the broader
population in the first place. It's as if you caused the collapse of an entire
economic structure and then said 'but look what I'm going to do with all these
resources!'.

Also: for me, the most interesting part is that I would have no problem with
this system _if_ there wasn't such a miserable bottom rung beneath them, i.e.
the poorest of poor in the USA. If we had actually reached some post-scarcity
conditions and the poorest among us were still well off, then I would be much
less concerned about the ethics of startups. But as it stands, I think the
startup/VC world needs to have a reckoning with their place in all of this...
not that it will actually happen.

edit: it was downed off the front page in an hour.

~~~
aantix
Don’t most U.S. based poor still have housing, food, cable television, air
conditioning, heat, cell phones, and access to public libraries with WiFi?

It’s not luxury but isn’t it major progress vs 100 years ago?

~~~
earthscienceman
At the risk of being demeaning, this could only be a reply from someone with
money who knows no one without it. Go travel around the poorest areas in the
US and spend time talking to people, you'll learn really quickly how little
access to cell phones or public libraries with WiFi are improving their life.

Sure almost everyone in this country has a computer in their pocket, they also
very often have no access to fresh groceries at the same time. The town I grew
up in is 60% below the poverty line and the nearest grocery store with fresh
produce is a 30 minute drive away. That's over 800 people in one city who eat
frozen gas station food on a daily basis. Do you think their wifi access and
cable television is a good measure of their quality of life? They've also had
to shutdown the local hospital recently. Meaning their already-terrible access
to healthcare just got that much worse. Most people there only visit a doctor
once every 5 years.

And I can already imagine the replies to this "well, times are changing,
they're living in a dying region". Which... while true... doesn't come close
to forgiving the systemic problems that put them in this situation. Systemic
problems that by no measure _had_ to come to fruition, if we had only had a
stronger system of wealth distribution and thus physical and educational
support for the people at the bottom of the pile.

Also, for the record, they're actually closing the library in my hometown.

~~~
nilskidoo
Something many people may be unaware of, is that one cannot receive food
stamps without a physical street address. Meaning that the numbers on food
stamps and the numbers of homeless are for the most part 2 separate groups of
people. Combined, they easily represent half the population. And I insist that
census statisticians constantly downplay homeless stats, for two reasons.
Because the real numbers are embarrassing, and because you cannot hit a moving
target.

~~~
tlb
About 9% of US households use food stamps at some point in the year [0]. About
0.17% of US people are homeless on a given night [1]. Nowhere near half.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assista...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States)

~~~
nilskidoo
And by my years in the streets do I insist that such figures are full-on lies,
lies told to comfort the masses away from throwing trashcans through shop
windows and burning down city hall and the like. Most of said masses don't
look away from their screens long enough to see the real picture.

------
antt
I did a back of the envelope calculation for techie scum and how much we make
on average.

If we assume that there are two million of us, each earning on average
$200,000 and saving $80,000 of that it means our wealth as a class grows by
160,000,000,000 per year. The Forbs Rich List's wealth increased by
2,900,000,000,000 last year.

You can see the three extra zeros at the end. It's not the top 20% or the
techie scum, or whichever other group is currently not underwater that's
destroying the economy.

It's much easier to make those with nothing attack those with little for the
benefit of those with everything than to fix the economy.

~~~
markbnj
> If we assume that there are two million of us, each earning on average
> $200,000 and saving $80,000

At least the last two of those numbers seem very high to me. $200k might be
the average if you're just looking at major metro tech markets like SF and
NYC, but that's not going to get you anywhere near 2m people is it? I suspect
the true average compensation for technology professionals is less than half
that.

~~~
antt
The point is that even with the highest possible numbers us techie scum are
still a rounding error to the national economy. Which makes us an incredibly
useful punching bag for the economist who wants to try his hand at populism
without jeopardizing his tenure.

------
amvalo
The top 1% control 40% of the US's wealth, while the next 9% after that
control... 36%. But most of that 9% still have to work at something resembling
a real job.

So I see nothing wrong with focusing on the top 1%.

~~~
skookumchuck
That's incorrect. The government controls most of the US wealth. For starters,
the government spends 40% of the GDP. Add to that the value of the military,
roads, buildings, schools, etc., and all the land the government owns.

~~~
specialist
This is actually correct.

Wealth and Democracy: How Great Fortunes and Government Created America's
Aristocracy by Kevin Phillips

[https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Fortunes-
Government-...](https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Democracy-Fortunes-Government-
Aristocracy-ebook/dp/B000QEJ0U6)

Similarly, the USA previously decided three times to explicitly create its
middle class. The New Deal, the Homestead Act, etc. Policy choices which were
hard fought and narrowly won.

~~~
skookumchuck
The middle class existed long before 1930. In fact, the middle class was well
established in colonial times. The growth of the middle class in the 19th
century can be seen in spectacular gains in life expectancy, infant mortality
reduction, and average height.

------
awakeasleep
I have to roll my eyes at these articles that say we should be angry at the
second to top quintile- a quintile whose total wealth is something like 12% of
the national total.

The middle quintile holds about 3% of national wealth.

Thats really low, but the 60-80% group isn't exactly high or disproportionate.

We're talking about a real power law distribution of wealth in the USA, and
it's downright counterproductive to scold or shame the hockey stick before the
blade.

~~~
harryh
This article isn't about the second to top quintile, it's about the top
quintile. "America's Top 20 Percent" is right there in the title.

~~~
mulmen
The HN title is missing the "20".

~~~
rdiddly
Heh - did someone type '%20' into the HN submission form? If that were turned
into a URL parameter on clicking Submit, then the %20 would be interpreted as
a space. Just a theory. Been troubleshooting too much today perhaps...

------
jedberg
The 529 tax plan anecdote at the beginning was interesting -- a Democrat
proposed a reasonable change to the tax code that was scuttled by other
Democrats because it would alienate their base.

It reminds me of some other sensible tax policy that the Democrats have been
trying to eliminate for a while -- the SALT deduction and the mortgage
deduction. The GOP did them a huge favor by eliminating those deductions.

When the Democrats eventually gain control again, I suspect those deductions
will be left out.

~~~
Gibbon1
It's a good example of how broad based politics is dead. 90% of the public is
locked out of the political process completely.

------
chasingthewind
Vox had some good criticisms of this book when it came out in 2017.

[https://www.vox.com/the-big-
idea/2017/8/30/16224112/reeves-h...](https://www.vox.com/the-big-
idea/2017/8/30/16224112/reeves-hoarders-dream-economic-inequality-book-review)

------
skookumchuck
> But it is a stubborn mathematical fact that, at any given time, the top
> fifth of the income distribution can accommodate only 20 percent of the
> population. Relative intergenerational mobility is necessarily a zero-sum
> game. For one person to move up the ladder, somebody else must move down.

The author is hung up on the idea that there will always be a bottom 20% and
an top 20%. Might as well bay at the moon.

~~~
Pfhreak
I disagree with that assessment. You are, in my opinion, being overly
reductive.

The author is recognizing that there is a power disparity between different
income brackets, and that power disparity is used to limit upward mobility. No
wealthy family wants their children to be less successful than they were, and
they can invest much more time and resources into ensuring their children are
successful than the bracket below them.

This is at odds with the 'American Dream' that's sold to many of us -- that
this is a country of limitless economic mobility if you just put in the elbow
grease.

~~~
skookumchuck
Defining the lowest quintile as poor and then complaining that there's no way
to escape the math is ridiculous.

------
daseiner1
Shocker: the top 20% possess superior values, habits, and cultural systems for
social success and upward mobility, and make choices to gear themselves and
their children towards development of important skills to thrive in the modern
workplace.

Disappointed that 4,000 words of herd morality drivel is upvoted on HN. Guess
it's en vogue everywhere, even here.

~~~
mdorazio
And the other 80% don't possess those things because...?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
At least partly because when the 20% try to show the 80% that they need these
things, the 20% get accused of cultural imperialism for daring to suggest that
_their_ values and culture are better than others'.

