> So the thing is... tax dollars go more to dropping bombs on civilians in the Middle East and to ICE and the NSA because that's what people overwhelmingly want.
Support for the War in Iraq was 39% in 2004, 30% in 2006, 34% in 2007, etc. Despite massive PR campaigns on the part of politicians and the natural tendency to ("support the troops"), our various military adventures are actually not very popular among average Americans.
But they are very very popular among rich members of the military-industrial complex, and those people have enough money to win elections and buy politicians, so here we are.
> Do we have a net excess of Feeneys in the world, or Kochs?
Kochs, absolutely, unequivocally. There is no billionaire on Earth who could fix all of the damage caused to the environment by the Koch brothers, any more than a sufficiently well-intentioned German Chancellor could undo the damage Hitler caused.
This is one of the fundamental asymmetries of life: it is easier to destroy than build, easier to harm than heal. With a cheap kitchen knife and a fraction of a Newton of force, you can sever someone's head. Can you as easily put it back?
This is, I think, the core reason why inequality is dangerous. Because when you concentrate power in fewer people, the variance of the resulting outcomes increases. And if you increase that variance, the bad outcomes get worse more than the good outcomes get better.
Say what you will about hunter-gatherer societies, but they never dropped a nuclear bomb, caused a Holocaust, or filled the atmosphere with lead fumes. We obviously shouldn't dial inequality back to pre-industrial levels, but the existence of billionaires is essentially playing global-scale random wildcards in the game of life.
Support for the War in Iraq was 39% in 2004, 30% in 2006, 34% in 2007, etc. Despite massive PR campaigns on the part of politicians and the natural tendency to ("support the troops"), our various military adventures are actually not very popular among average Americans.
But they are very very popular among rich members of the military-industrial complex, and those people have enough money to win elections and buy politicians, so here we are.
> Do we have a net excess of Feeneys in the world, or Kochs?
Kochs, absolutely, unequivocally. There is no billionaire on Earth who could fix all of the damage caused to the environment by the Koch brothers, any more than a sufficiently well-intentioned German Chancellor could undo the damage Hitler caused.
This is one of the fundamental asymmetries of life: it is easier to destroy than build, easier to harm than heal. With a cheap kitchen knife and a fraction of a Newton of force, you can sever someone's head. Can you as easily put it back?
This is, I think, the core reason why inequality is dangerous. Because when you concentrate power in fewer people, the variance of the resulting outcomes increases. And if you increase that variance, the bad outcomes get worse more than the good outcomes get better.
Say what you will about hunter-gatherer societies, but they never dropped a nuclear bomb, caused a Holocaust, or filled the atmosphere with lead fumes. We obviously shouldn't dial inequality back to pre-industrial levels, but the existence of billionaires is essentially playing global-scale random wildcards in the game of life.