
Is it the Wealth Gap that's bad or the Empathy Gap that comes with it? - petenixey
http://peternixey.com/post/138096727423/is-it-the-wealth-gap-thats-bad-or-the-empathy-gap
======
twoquestions
This guy put into much better words what I've been thinking for a while.

It doesn't matter to me at all that Bill Gates has more money than God,
because he's empathetic to people who aren't as rich and aren't as great as he
is, and wants to continue to use his strength to lift people up instead of
feathering his own nest even more.

It's when people get the idea that "I'm better, so I deserve better than
Them!" that really raises my eyebrows. I have no problem with people having
more money than me, it's when they make a new world for themselves (like the
movie in the article) and cut themselves off from the world they served in
order to get rich is when Really Bad Things Happen.

~~~
spikels
Can you give some examples of the "Really Bad Things" you are thinking of?

~~~
jgroszko
Not even as sinister as sibling comment here talking about genocides, these
billionaires are wielding disproportionate political power to encourage
policies that effect lower classes negatively to the benefit of their own
bottom line.

On a foreign scale, defense contractors have a vested interest in keeping the
Middle East unstable and have the political power to push congress towards
putting more US forces there. Domestically, it's hard to find a more plausible
explanation for so many state governors doing things like opting out of ACA,
limiting unions, closing schools, or enabling the Flint water crisis.

~~~
RickHull
> so many state governors doing things like ... enabling the Flint water
> crisis.

Beware of simplistic narratives. It now looks like Flint took on the very
tough job of water treatment as a _jobs / stimulus program_[1] -- something
they turned out to be completely incompetent at -- and also as a way to
resolve a pricing spat with Detroit over water supply.

As well the Michigan DEQ shoulders a lot of the blame for covering up the
issues.

1\. [http://reason.com/blog/2016/01/25/the-flint-water-crisis-
is-...](http://reason.com/blog/2016/01/25/the-flint-water-crisis-is-the-
result-of)

~~~
jgroszko
Ahhh good point, I haven't actually been following that story very closely.

------
white-flame
If the poor end of the wealth gap are still better off than 90% of the rest of
the world, why does the wealth gap matter?

That was my thinking for quite a while.

However, the one thing that happens here in the US is that the wealthy have
more representation and power in the legal system. Be it federal or local, the
systems tend to get slanted against the not-wealthy because the wealthy take
over the communications channel to the movers & shakers.

It's in many ways becoming the new "taxation without representation".

~~~
rayiner
Even leaving aside rich using their status to solidify their position,
consider this: are the policies that maximize GDP and lead to high wealth
inequality the same policies that maximize the prosperity of the middle 50% of
the population? No economic rule I know of guarantees that to be the case.

Wealth isn't created in a vacuum. Wealth can only be created in places with a
high level of social order. That social order isn't created by exceptional
individuals, it's created by the behavior and attitudes of ordinary people.
Given that, why should societies not structure themselves to maximize the
prosperity of the majority?

~~~
paulpauper
I've heard of this argument. 'Why do the rich need so much money? Why not just
create a 'wealth cap'? The problem is, capitalism is about incentives. When
you create a negative incentives, it creates externalities, possibly in the
form of companies moving overseas, job loss, and economic stagnation. Second,
is it fair for someone or some entity to confiscate what is not theirs, beyond
taxes? Third, capitalism is expensive. Venture capital is funded by wealthy,
an example being the Space-x and Blue Origin rocket programs, both very costly
and funded by billionaires Musk and Jeff Bezos. If taxes were much higher,
such programs may not exist.

Most venture capital is private:

[http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MK-
CQ161_KEYWOR_16...](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MK-
CQ161_KEYWOR_16U_20141020111505.jpg)

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/humanitys-last-great-hope-
ventur...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/humanitys-last-great-hope-venture-
capitalists-1413817498)

High corporate tax rates create an economic incentive for companies to move
factories and offices overseas through 'inversions' to get a lower tax rate:

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2015/08/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2015/08/economist-explains-9)

Relative to most developed countries, America has a very high corporate tax
rate:

It’s a rock-solid fact that the U.S. corporate statutory tax rate is the
highest among developed nations and is significantly higher than the average.
According to 2014 data from the OECD, the combined federal and state statutory
corporate tax rate for the United States is 39.1 percent. The average of the
other 33 members of the OECD is 24.8 percent — 14.3 percentage points lower
than the U.S. rate. Weighted by country GDP, the average for these 33
countries is 28.3 percent — 10.8 percentage points lower than the U.S. rate.

~~~
totalrobe
Venture capital is important, but don't forget that the recent private space
ventures have piggybacked on 50 years of government funded technologies...same
as pretty much the entire modern IT industry that developed out of military
and publicly funded research.

------
Terr_
It's not just empathy in the social buddies sense, but also that -- to quote a
study name -- "Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior."

Abstract:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086)

PDF:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/21/1118373109.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/21/1118373109.full.pdf)

And yes, there are some hints to _causation_ in there, where a participant was
made "wealthier" (in a game context) and then differences were observed.

~~~
Kalium
If memory serves, there's a critical detail that isn't in this study and
wasn't checked by it. "Higher social class" people cheat to help _themselves_
and "lower social class" people cheat to help _one another_ when both are
given salient opportunities.

Neither group is more honest than the other.

------
browseatwork
Some studies showing effects of higher wealth on people below. Not perfect,
and e.g. the simple correlation between unethical and law breaking is naive,
but it's some data.

tl;dr: "Abtract: Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods
reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class
individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to
break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up
laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit
unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others
(study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of
winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7)
than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated
that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part,
by their more favorable attitudes toward greed."

[http://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086.short](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/11/4086.short)

One weird thing- these and some other studies I have read support poorer
people have more empathy/make more eye contact in conversation and pay more
attention to conversation partners/etc. Why then does that group seem on the
whole to have more antagonism towards wealthier people (than vice versa)?

~~~
mercer
> One weird thing- these and some other studies I have read support poorer
> people have more empathy/make more eye contact in conversation and pay more
> attention to conversation partners/etc. Why then does that group seem on the
> whole to have more antagonism towards wealthier people (than vice versa)?

Could be because they have reasons to be angry at the wealthier class as a
whole, but do not necessarily apply this on an interpersonal level. It reminds
me of the experiments done where a wallet left on the streets is returned more
often in poorer areas of town than in richer areas.

I suppose it makes sense. The poorer you are, the more dependent you are on
the people around you, and the worse your experiences, the easier it might be
to empathize with others (as you 'know' what it is like). On the other hand,
the richer you are, the easier it is to get what you want or need without
relying on others, and the more difficult it is to empathize with the plight
of the 'common man'.

------
sharemywin
Capitalism works best when two parties have similar information, resources,
etc. Cell phone contracts are a perfect example. They've had teams of lawyers,
arbitration and everything thing else on their side and lobbyists to write the
laws to fit them. I can sign it or leave it. I also remember democracy isn't
two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. So I'm not saying
socialism's the answer either. I think taxing the rich is the lazy way out.
like libertarian-ism "let's do nothing and that will fix it". I think we're on
the wrong side of the Laffer curve and because poor people spend more and
there for generate more now income.

~~~
beat
Read Peter Thiel. The perfect capitalism of frictionless competition and
complete transparency is the enemy of its own intent. In highly competitive
and transparent markets, profits are driven asymptotically to zero. Groceries,
gasoline, airline tickets... these are extremely low-margin industries.

Capitalism succeeds only when capitalism fails - when monopolies (global or
local) appear that permit high-friction (and thus high profit) transactions.
This can be old-school abusive monopolies that we regulate against, or it can
be monopolies of craftsmanship - products so superior to the competition that
they're peerless.

At any rate, capitalism where everyone has similar information and resources
works quite poorly.

~~~
StephenCanis
I just wanted to point out that Peter Thiel is discussing his ideas in the
context of creating a very successful company. He is not talking about what
system is best for society in general - rather what is best for an individual
business owner.

Generally in economic theory companies in perfectly competitive industries
have zero "economic profit" which means they earn enough profit to compensate
the owners for capital invested. Effectively the owners are getting fairly
compensated for the risk of investing their capital.

In a monopoly the owner is getting compensated not based on risk of investment
but rather how much can be extracted from the customers. This is clearly good
for the owner and not so good for everyone else.

Creating a monopoly based on a superior product is a good thing for everyone
since you are innovating and creating something that was not there before. You
should be able to hold this monopoly if no one can effectively reproduce it.
However, any kind of regulation to maintain your monopoly is likely bad for
everyone except yourself. In theory, without regulation you would expect most
monopolies to fall or have reduced power as other players come into the
market.

I think Peter Thiel has a very good way of thinking about the motivation for
innovation in a capitalistic market. However, outside of brand new
innovations, monopolies are likely bad for a society as a whole.

~~~
sharemywin
if you think of most of the unicorns they are held up by copyright. google,
facebook, even say uber etc. if I can scrape their sites I could make a
derivative possibly even better.

~~~
StephenCanis
Copyright and other protections allow a temporary (maybe not so temporary
anymore) monopoly on your exact idea. That's a good way to spur innovation
since you reward the people creating those innovations. You could still
compete with any of those products and people still do.

I think temporary monopolies are good - permanent monopolies maybe not so
much. It's an interesting way to think about capitalism that's for sure.

------
danharaj
The empathy gap is just one way in which the distribution and flow of capital
organizes social relations.

My position is that it isn't even the wealth gap that is the issue. The wealth
gap is itself just one way in which the distribution and flow of capital
organizes social relations. I think it is short-sighted to focus on particular
rich people and their exorbitant wealth even though it is a grotesque
experience: gawking at the rich has a visceral appeal like watching a horror
movie or reading a Kafka novel.

Nobody talks about the 'wealth gap' between governments and people. Nobody
talks about the 'wealth gap' between banks and people. They talk about the
relationships i mentioned, they just don't frame it as a 'wealth gap'. Nobody
talks about the 'wealth gap' when the police harass homeless people.
Ultimately though, the relation between government and people and financial
institutions and people and police/army and people is as much a consequence of
the dynamics of capital as rich people being inconsiderate assholes.

And of course it's a self-referential non-linear system. Governments and
financial institutions and individual capitalists and armies shape the rules
and command the forces that make capital a thing. Even so, governments, banks,
capitalists, and armies may each in turn fall as the wheel of fortune turns,
but Government, Bank, Capitalist, Army in the abstract are part and parcel of
capitalism.

~~~
jlangemeier
It may be nitpicking the point, but a lot of this is a non-issue in most cases
and you're setting up a false dichotomy with straw-men.

The reason people don't think about a "wealth gap" with their government is
multifaceted:

1\. The government provides goods and services that they use and since most
people gain benefit from it, they don't question the outcome or source. 2\. A
government as an entity usually doesn't run a surplus, so while they may have
a $1T budget, they're running at a deficit, if they were a human, we'd
question their spending habit, not be angry or envious. Wealth, by most
people's standards is a positive P&L. 3\. Since a government runs at a net
loss, and provides a net gain to society there isn't a loss of emotional
capital towards the government in most people's minds.

Banks, while they make a tidy profit (especially the large banks) don't have
what you would consider large amounts of fluid capital either. They take and
store your money for later, at some rate; they will also give out loans based
on criterion that allow them to make a small sum off of the interest due to
the assumption that most people will make regular payments (that's why you
have to apply and just don't get the money). The large majority of banking in
the USA is actually done through local banking corporation than big box
groups, so getting angry at all banks because the folks at Lehman Brothers
wear hats on their asses is a gross over generalization.

A standing army, much like the government that runs it, is removed from the
capital equation since they are an entity that resides out of the normal
checks and balances of a capitalist style society; this is why you see both
military and governmental entities under any system that isn't fully
Anarchistic. Police don't harass people due to the fact that they are funded,
those that harass people do so because they're assholes, we care about people
being assholes.

Your definition of capital is even too broad; capital generally implies all
physical goods, whether that is money or product is rather immaterial, these
things are there no matter the system, even Anarchistic systems have capital.
Capitalism on the other hand is an economic system codified generally by the
supply & demand curve that most people see in Economics 101; this can be
contrasted with Communalism, Agrarianism, Communism, Bazaar/Barter, and
various other economic structures. These are inherently separate from
governmental systems that the lay-man usually associates with them, such as:
Socialism, Democracy, Republics, Anarchism, Oligarchies, and the like.

It comes down to this; people care about others being jerks, it doesn't matter
if you have money or not. If you aren't sensitive to the motives of those
around you, whether you're doing it out of spite or ignorance, it will be
taken like you don't care and spite/anger is a result. The article is pretty
darn good at pointing that out, and I would tend to agree. I would also tend
towards most people seeing someone with a wealth level that they only see from
Powerball and the Lottery, complaining about getting taxed to be the most
abhorrent form of pedant whining that could be imagined; or even worse,
completely writing off the fact that the system is set up to exponentially
reward people with enough capital to take advantage of it. Paul's expose is
along those lines, he's defending a system that encourages the top 1% of 1% of
our society to expand exponentially while the rest ride the wave and accept
the scrap.

Are CEO's really doing 1000x the work as an engineer? Are Angel investors
really doing 100x the work of a founder? Should someone playing the stock
market really be taxed at a nominal rate nearly half that of someone earning a
wage as an engineer, scientist, or even a burger flipper?

------
dsugarman
> _But, as Paul Graham points out, that is not the same thing as saying that
> inequality is bad. What it says is that poverty is bad. And that’s something
> that I don’t think anyone would argue with._

I think that's the point isn't it? The rest of the post talks about how you
don't have empathy with a wealth gap, but the examples given are really
showing how it is hard to empathize with those in poverty and that's where the
the problem is. It is hard for someone who even was in poverty in the past to
empathize with people currently in poverty because you aren't going through it
every day.

~~~
lintiness
all his anecdotes really showed was he hasn't got a damn clue what "poverty"
is.

------
dsmithatx
The wealthy are getting huge raises and big golden parachutes. The workers are
lucky to be getting a 3% raise in good years. Some of us have even taken pay
cuts as they take bigger pay increases. The execs are basically stealing away
our extra spending money and our kids college education. I'd argue the Wealth
Gap follows a gap of empathy. Then look at how the wealthy use politics to
misappropriate and destroy social security. They don't even care about the
middle class workers as they become elderly.

------
golergka
I'm pretty sure I've seen an episode of Friends with the exact same story
about splitting the lunch. But after that story, I expected the author to
bring analogy back to the realm of social and economic matters, and show how,
on global scale, wealthy are trying to "divide by the number of people" when
they've been ordering more than others, but he never delivered. Just as the
book that he criticized, it's just a sympathetic story.

------
pierrebai
The main problem is viewing the wealth inequality as a state instead of an
outcome. The problem is not in the inequality in itself but in the process and
environement that result in the inequality. A country with higher inequality
is very likely one where opportunities and power are inequal.

(And to address a comment I read about inequality being a reflection of
ability and efficiency: I think we're better off with some inneficiency if it
means more people have control over their lives. No, farm lands should not go
to the most efficient farmers. It should be spread to distribute the most
well-being to the most people.)

------
bobby_9x
I grew up poor, made okay money when I started my development career, and now
make more money than all of my friends from the business I started 5 years
ago.

I am by no means rich, but I am comfortable. I also have a pretty flexible
schedule and I bought a nice house a couple of years ago.

I've pretty much stopped telling people that I have a business because there
is an automatic assumption that I am rich and either should pay more for
something or don't understand what it's like to be poor.

I've seen so many friends that barely scrape by, but choose to spend tons of
cash every month on booze, weed, entertainment, new electronics, concerts, and
all sorts of other non-essentials.

I sacrificed all of this for years (I never get the latest and greatest phone
and get the cheapest plan from Walmart), in exchange for a comfortable life
now.

Should I now somehow feel bad about this? Frankly, I'm tired of the people
that wasted so much of their own money through poor life choices telling me
why I should be giving more of the money I earned to pay for their lifestyle.

With the attitudes I see online and in the media about anyone that has money,
it's really not hard to see why the rich seem like they have lost any kind of
empathy for the poor...I know I have.

------
vinceguidry
I don't understand the point he makes about forced discretionary spending. I
have never bought a round of drinks at a bar, except in foreign countries
where a round cost me less than $5. I don't ever feel like there's
discretionary spending I'm _forced_ to take. I either can afford it or I
can't, and if I can't, I don't buy it and I don't feel guilty about it.

I buy other's drinks all the time. Never a whole round. That's ridiculous. Why
he felt obligated to do that was left unsaid, but I doubt his reasons would
convince me that he was actually forced to do that.

More generally, as you rise up the social ranks, you have to get more and more
comfortable with gross differences in wealth and learn to be able to be
comfortable with and accommodate socially those with so much more or so much
less than you. This guy never seemed to learn that trick.

Were I buying a round of drinks and everyone else got $5 drinks and this one
guy wanted a $20 drink, I'd have been like, "Ooh dude, can't really swing
that, mind getting something cheaper?" If he does mind, just don't buy his
drink. He's not going to get mad if you can't afford to buy him a drink.

Buying rounds at all, though, that's just insane if you need to keep a strict
budget. It smacks of irresponsibility. If people are taking turns buying
rounds, just opt out and pay for what you drink.

~~~
iphoneseventeen
"More generally, as you rise up the social ranks, you have to get more and
more comfortable with gross differences in wealth and learn to be able to be
comfortable with and accommodate socially those with so much more or so much
less than you. This guy never seemed to learn that trick."

I am struggling with this as my income increases. My friends are looking at me
like I am Bill Gates. Any advice?

~~~
vinceguidry
Talk frank about money with them, and build up good boundaries. If you need
help learning how to say no, go hang out at a daycare sometime. There's a
difference between being well-off and being loaded, loaded people can
comfortably pay for the whole group's tab, the merely well-off can just buy
his and his date's.

The main thing to keep in mind is to not take it personally. Also try to be
more generous than you're used to being. It is a good thing to spread your
wealth around, so long as you can keep it within the bounds of reason. It
makes your life better in more ways than you can keep track of.

Another thing you might do is playfully adopt the alpha role. If they ask you
to buy another round, you could sit back and be like, "sorry boys, daddy's all
out of money, maybe you kids could go make your own," and have a good laugh
about it.

------
paulpauper
Maybe we need to come to terms with the fact that the <a
[http://greyenlightenment.com/the-meritocracy-we-dont-
underst...](http://greyenlightenment.com/the-meritocracy-we-dont-understand)
meritocracy is one stratified by IQ, with some having the cognitive potential
to produce more merit than others, and those smarter people will tend to rise
to the top socially and economically, too. But the benefit is we get new
technologies, job creation, and higher standards of living. That doesn't mean
we need to do away with merit, but instead offer economic conditions for
everyone to succeed within their cognitive potential. You can't raise society
and the economy by chopping down the smartest, the most successful, which is I
think what Paul Graham was getting at. Class warfare is analogous to <i>Animal
Farm</i> where the uprising makes things worse.

~~~
bobby_9x
Uprisings always make things worse. Pretty much every 'revolutionary' in the
history of the world has ushered in soul-crushing fascism, except the american
revolution.

This is what makes Trump and Sanders so scary for America.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Violent uprisings make things worse, because even if they succeed they often
leave behind a massive power vacuum, that some people are only too glad to try
to fill.

However, peaceful uprisings have shown to be far less problematic. Think about
the revolutionary movements led by Gandhi and MLK.

I see no evidence that a Sanders presidency (or a Trump presidency, for that
matter) would lead to a violent uprising, so I'd suggest it's fine to calm
down a bit, you're unlikely to see America fall apart (or at least, you're
unlikely to see it fall apart because of a new president).

------
crimsonalucard
From the rich mans' perspective it's empathy. From the poor mans' perspective
it's unfair and unjust and they feel a sort of jealousy for a person who
extracts so much wealth from the economy.

We as humans are social creatures. We have evolved feelings of empathy and
jealousy because it was effective for the survival of the social group.

The caveat is we've also evolved feelings that promote survival of the
individual at the expense of the group. The task is to identify which feelings
are aligned to self interest and which promote the survival of the group.

I would argue that feelings of jealousy, envy and vengeance do not promote
survival of the individual. These feelings actually harm the individual when
he acts alone. Instead I would say these feelings exist to promote more fair
social behavior in big groups.

When wealth inequality becomes too extreme, poor people begin revolting.

------
andrewtbham
I'm unsure how this anecdote proves anything about a correlation between
empathy and wealth.

Whether you are rich or poor, you can have empathy. If you're interested in
empathy, I suggest you watch this brenee brown video. The video may seem
anecdotal but she has done a lot of research about shame and vulnerability
and... having read her books, money is not something that comes up in the
research.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw)

------
lambdasquirrel
[Shameless plug. I'd tried to write about this as well.]

 _We got into this journey for humble reasons: So that we don’t have to worry
about surviving. So that we could take care of things once and for all._

 _What does it mean then, if that is what’s really disconnecting? This cheap
sense of comfort, and not having to care about unfairness?_

[https://medium.com/@pierre.flying.squirrel/on-
inequality-1e7...](https://medium.com/@pierre.flying.squirrel/on-
inequality-1e74c6bfe8be#.jemx5x49z)

------
daodedickinson
Is it bad that we don't empathize with the Sentinelese? If they knew about us
they would feel worse because all of their comparisons, all of their
sensations and evaluations would change. The problem is that the poor cannot
sense the presence of the rich without immense pain. Neither redistribution,
nor empathy are as palliative as ignorance in this case.

~~~
flubert
What if we went in the opposite direction. Let's say we discovered another
more advanced civilization on a relatively nearby star. I wonder how bad would
people on earth would now feel, and how the feelings would be distributed.
Would rich people be more affected or poor people? Would some people find
excitement in trying to attain what the aliens had? Would others become
despondent? Would it be a complete non-event because they are so distant?

~~~
daodedickinson
I think that civilization might pop like a bubble and mass despondency would
occur as it seems to have occured when "low" discovers "high" on earth. There
is a feeling of superfluousness when one realizes they cannot contribute to
the forefront of culture, as I feel depressed when I feel I will never have
enough programming skill to get a job on this planet and will just be a human
pet my whole life. Nevertheless, I don't think aliens will ever show up. Human
desires are ultimately illogical and if "cultures" "advance" enough I think
they will disappear like the Dwemer, they will no longer be able to cross the
is-ought divide except perhaps to desire survival - perfect adaptation to the
environment. But perfect adaptation to the environment implies the antithesis
of power: it means your being is completely determined not from anything
inside but the outside. This means becoming invisible, becoming at one with
the universe, becoming the laws of physics themselves. Just imagine if we got
the technology to install into the brain like "whoa I know kung-fu" in The
Matrix. People could be backed up on github. Individuality would die out and
most people would feel horrifically superfluous. "Civilization" might have
drastically reduced desire for human bodies, especially combined with desire
engineering (one could remove survival instincts and bring world population
down to the 500 million many elites already want [including an editorial in my
local paper today]). But what is the end of such a society? I think space
exploration would be pointless if one had the computational ability to imagine
whole worlds and keep population down to a steady state except maybe one
nearby planet in case of an asteroid. One might engineer away the wanderlust
when trying to abolish pain and depression and all suffering.

------
lukasm
I think poor people hate wealthy not only because of corruption (use money to
get power or get away with a crime) and lack of empty, but because they could
do MORE [http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-
ethi...](http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/)

------
crimsonalucard
Make no mistake even as a moral problem the wealth gap isn't just about
empathy. The wealth gap is unjust, unfair and immoral.

Fairness implies that the wealth you generate as an individual is equivalent
to the wealth you earn and own.

Right now 1% of the population owns 50% of the worlds wealth.

For 1% of the world to own 50% of the worlds wealth implies that 1% of the
world generated 50% of the worlds' wealth.

It is not physically possible for a fraction of the human population to
generate half the worlds' wealth. There is no reality where this makes sense.
Thus for 1% of the population to own 50% of the worlds wealth, the 1% must
obtain wealth generated by other people.

A common example of how this happens is through the ownership of a
corporation. As an owner you own all the wealth generated by people who work
for you. As owner you can do zero work, yet extract the wealth generated by
hundreds of employees.

Owners essentially pay people less wealth than the wealth they generate. There
is no circumstance where people will explicitly agree to such a transaction
when given other choices.

It is fundamentally immoral and unfair to own wealth you did not produce or
generate. This is not a question of empathy, it is a question of fundamental
human rights.

------
jtth
It's the wealth gap. Next.

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paulpauper
People who are rich should not have to prove they are sufficiently empathetic.
There's a saying, 'offence is taken, not given'.

------
cryoshon
A few comments:

"If the most successful people are becoming more effective and the least
successful remain consistently ineffectual then you get a divergence in
wealth. If the baseline is zero and the top line goes up then the two of them
diverge."

The author's mistake here is to assume "being more effective" has any real
bearing on who is the most successful; random chance providing a substantial
push in the right direction and then post-facto narratives denying chance are
far more likely. Environmental factors increase exposure to upside of chance
while minimizing the downside risk. Therefore, rich white people are typically
thought of as the "most successful" people because they were born to a similar
demographic which ensured they would land in an okay spot.

"Is it really such an issue if a few people get rich so a lot of people can
wealthy?"

The "lot of people" aren't get wealthy. Most people are getting less wealthy
while the very richest are getting substantially more wealthy. By and large,
nobody is "getting rich" so much as "getting richer". As someone else said, "a
rising tide lifts all boats, but most people can't afford a boat, so they
drown."

"I’ve never met a wealthy person that hates the poor but I’m shocked by the
number of poor(er) people I know who hate the wealthy. I never really
understand why since they’ve never obviously suffered at the rich’s hands. But
then it something doesn’t have to be obviously bad to add up. It just has to
be occasional, careless or callous and over time it accumulates."

Ah, an out-of-touch comment by a rich man; the poor "hate" the rich because
they frequently seem as though they are from a different and better planet,
and they really think that it would be much better if all the poors could just
move to that planet gracefully, like they did. After all, "I did it so anyone
can do it." Completely and self-servingly ignoring the reality of wildly
different starting conditions while subtly implying that their final
superiority is some sort of inherent Aryan guarantee.

Additionally, the poor do obviously suffer at the rich's hands, though perhaps
they don't see it this way: bank overdraft charges, paychecks on prepaid
cards, more scrutiny and arrests for trivial offenses from law enforcement,
increasing rents, outrageously expensive and ineffective health insurance,
etc.

Anyways, just to put this topic directly to bed, the wealth gap is actually
bad, and the lack of empathy that the rich have for the poor is a historical
fact rather than an issue itself. The IMF is against wealth inequality and has
detailed how and why in depth:
[https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf](https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf)
and to be blunt, they know better than any of us here. The bottom line is
that, as the report says, "Societies with greater income inequality experience
slower and less stable economic growth." Even the capitalists have to get on
board with solving the problem of inequality when it's framed that way.

------
ilaksh
The biggest problem is the false belief that success is based on merit. This
leads to classism. Classism is just as bad as a caste system, but the
meritocracy myth makes it harder to take down.

~~~
civilian
I would say that merit is one of a few paths to success.

Is it really a good idea to get rid of the "meritocracy myth"? Even if it's
100% true, there is something to the idea that if you put in effort and work
hard, you have a better chance of being rewarded. The meritocracy myth
encourages hard work.

If we lived in a society where people truly believed that that hard work,
intelligence and effort had no correlation to success, then.... how does one
plan their ambitions? How does one even go about trying to earn more money?

~~~
ilaksh
You definitely have a better chance of being rewarded if you work hard and
have talent etc. But its a better chance, not a direct correlation.

The belief is that even if you have bad luck, eventually your good work and
talent will get you in the position you deserve. Even in the cases where that
works out, we sort of overlook decades of toil in obscurity in poverty.

The reality is that the relative success of people in the first world is
almost completely dependent upon the fact that they were born into the first
world.

For example, some significant percent graduate from college and enter into
office jobs, which then enables them to have a home, washing machine, car,
wife/husband, etc. Owning these things and marrying does determine success in
a real way. The percentage is significantly greater in some countries than
others. Does that mean that some countries have significantly more talented,
hard workers? Or is it because overall the other country is much less wealthy,
there are fewer good-paying jobs, and fewer student aid options?

This is where you run into another related issue: racism. If you pick certain
browner countries and compare them to whiter countries, a large percentage of
people will just say "Yup, those brown people aren't as talented and don't
work as hard".

------
tomp
> It doesn't matter to me at all that Bill Gates has more money than God,
> because he's empathetic to people who aren't as rich and aren't as great as
> he is,

I'm glad he learned empathy in his old age; but keep in mind that he was
ruthless, manipulative, exploitative, and caused _a lot_ of long-term damage
throughout most of his working life.

 _That 's_ the problem I have with the "rich" \- our system (and lack of
government oversight/enforcement) enables and encourages _evil_ , as long as
it makes profit.

~~~
WalterBright
> caused a lot of long-term damage

Examples?

> evil

My small business has competed against Microsoft since the 80s. While they are
tough competitors, I don't see anything they've done as evil.

Check out the book "In Search of Stupidity" by Chapman.

~~~
tomp
> Examples?

Internet Explorer. .doc format. Viruses.

> evil

They abused their monopoly to sell crap software and destroy competitors. At
least, that's what the courts say.

~~~
WalterBright
> Internet Explorer.

Nobody made you or anyone else use a free browser.

> .doc format.

Geez, it's a file format.

> Viruses.

Microsoft did not unleash any viruses on the world.

> They abused their monopoly to sell crap software and destroy competitors. At
> least, that's what the courts say.

Yeah, I'm familiar with what the Jackson court said. If you read "In Search of
Stupidity", Microsoft's competitors did a fine job of destroying themselves.
And Linux and Apple computers were always available for anyone to buy.

------
lintiness
there's no reason to believe that wealth destroys one's empathy. i can think
of numerous examples of the exact opposite (bill gates, etc.)

~~~
kmnc
Do good actions prove empathy?

