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0 pointschordalkeyboard5y ago0 comments

> That's why injecting the concept of morality feels misplaced: if the there already is redistribution, then workers taking a share through governmental action is just an actor exercising whatever power they had, where they previously did not and other actors did.

My perspective is that people who allocate capital see this effort as workers becoming rent-seekers. So there are capitalists, and a capitalist rent-seekers; and there are workers, and worker rent-seekers.

> if the there already is redistribution,

So if people are opposed to the rent-seeking, they might fell that the correct decision is to avoid increasing the amount of rent-seeking.

> The flipside of that concept is to have privatized profits but collectivized negative externalities.

This exists and is terrible.

> That's not to mention entire industries consisting in intelligent and skilled workers spending their lives redistributing wealth from a wealthy person to another (traders, corporate lawyers, etc.)

So some of this is actual productive work that allocates capital or resolves disputes, and its not always easy to draw the line between parasitic activity and productive activity in these domains. Even if the line can be drawn in theory its not clear how to regulate it. And the regulatory effort is itself vulnerable to parasitism, rent-seeking, and capture by the object of regulation.

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Bakary5y ago

>My perspective is that people who allocate capital see this effort as workers becoming rent-seekers. So there are capitalists, and a capitalist rent-seekers; and there are workers, and worker rent-seekers.

Out of these two phenomena, which do you think is the most problematic when it comes to making a less hellish society? Usually capital allocators have captured massive surpluses without giving equivalent productivity in return, and the work of allocating capital is romanticized by those same allocators to be far more productive than it probably is in reality. In reality, the concept of privatized profits and collectivized externalities is so central as to erase most other concerns. Not to mention that the work that actually generates capital or labor itself will logically be far more important in aggregate to work that merely allocates capital they did not generate, even if of course that work can have positive consequences.

>So some of this is actual productive work that allocates capital or resolves disputes, and its not always easy to draw the line between parasitic activity and productive activity in these domains

If these professions were to strike, would the public even notice unless told to? Some specific capital owners would not get wealth redistributed to them from other unluckier owners with less redistribution specialists, but the welfare of the rest of the population would not be impacted since the actual wealth produced would still be there.

chordalkeyboardOP5y ago

> Out of these two phenomena, which do you think is the most problematic when it comes to making a less hellish society?

I'm not sure I could differentiate on the basis of some objective criteria. Capital rent-seekers seem to attempt to build a moat around their capital so that other capitalists can't compete with them and drive the rate of return down. Worker rent-seekers seem to take advantage of vulnerabilities in the social fabric in order to parasitize the system. They both take advantage of the regulatory system in order to enable this activity. The capitalist rent-seekers each individually have a larger effect, but there are many more worker-level rent-seekers.

> Usually capital allocators have captured massive surpluses without giving equivalent productivity in return, and the work of allocating capital is romanticized by those same allocators to be far more productive than it probably is in reality.

I'm not buying that. Allocating capital is productive activity, its what enables the workers to work more productively. The capitalist risks his capital by making allocation decisions, the profit he earns is his wage. You want me to give the worker credit for being productive when he is so productive because the capitalist created the conditions for that productivity by hiring him and giving him access to tools. Some other capitalist would have made different, possibly inferior, allocation decisions and the worker wouldn't have been as productive. People also romanticize labor, and labor is a necessary disutility.

> Not to mention that the work that actually generates capital or labor itself will logically be far more important in aggregate to work that merely allocates capital they did not generate, even if of course that work can have positive consequences.

Correctly allocating capital does make more capital. Allocating capital is labor. Investment decisions generate more capital.

> If these professions were to strike, would the public even notice unless told to?

Yes, they would. People who want to sue other people would have difficulty finding a lawyer. People with pending disputes wouldn't reach timely resolution and would have to find other dispute resolution methods. People who want to invest their surplus would find it harder to invest, and would have to find another way to allocate their surplus, since the investment market was on strike. People who wanted to find other people to invest in capital for their business would be unable to, and innovation would decrease.

> Some specific capital owners would not get wealth redistributed to them from other unluckier owners with less redistribution specialists, but the welfare of the rest of the population would not be impacted since the actual wealth produced would still be there.

Wealth is continually increasing. You're suggesting that we could stop generating more wealth with no ill effect.

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