I’m wondering if wealth-re-distribution in the “best case” scenario would have any positive effects.
So, assume a world in which the top-x wealthy have wealth that resides purely in the form of gold. Not stocks, or bond or whatever, so taking it away from them won’t de-stabilize the economy in the same sense that taking away stock from a CEO will break down the incentives chain that keep a company running properly.
Also, assume that everyone likes gold so much, that it will keep it’s inherent value once it’s re-distributed.
Would this have any effect besides a sudden~ish price inflation for stuff like food, housing, cars… etc, since everyone can now buy more/better, thus demand goes up at once with no modification in production.
As in, would this wealth redistribution be able to re-direct more resources into relevant industries to keep them more efficient ?
It seems to me that a lot of common-usage products are already heavily efficient in terms of production compared to luxury product, since the market is much broader.
Where, improvements can be made, the issue usually seems to be regulatory/ethical/consensus-related (e.g. zoning laws for housing, experimental ethics and drug-trail statistical power regulations for medical research).
So, for example, custom-cat production is very expensive not because the materials are expensive, but because a custom yacht requires loads of specialized artisan work. However, if all those artisans were to go out of business and be forced to get jobs at a mass-production facility… would that bring any benefits in terms of how the cars are designed to make production cheaper ? Even assuming 10 years pass and they are re-trained as highly-skilled mass-car producers, would that help ? Or are there physical limitations (e.g. cost of materials, time needed to ensamble an engine) or regulatory limitations (e.g. safety testing) that keep the prices of cars above a certain threshold (seems to be ~4,000euros) for the cheapest possible car one could make.
Intutition pump by thinking about this in the context of consumption curves in ones own life. i.e. is any utility gained by moving consumption forward or backward in time between selves?
for example, custom-cat production is very expensive not because the materials are expensive, but because a custom yacht requires loads of specialized artisan work.
Presumably a typo? Though I bet there is something like designer cats.
That’s a very weak man form of redistribution. If you redistribute into services, such as public health and education, you avoid the inflationary problem, and since both are labour intensive, you can create jobs.
That is actually a good point, I was focused too much on material goods and not thinking of service jobs.
Indeed, even if you take the real form of redistribution, which is closer to evening out social status than redistributing any form of real wealth. It would probably incentivize people to go into arguably useful service jobs more. (e.g. there are probably a lot of people which would be good medical researchers that become traders or “tech entrepreneurs” because in our current world it yields much more social status, even if the difference in actual material goods is not so great, wealth itself allows for signaling high status).
For some reason, despite reading socialist philosophers/activists which make these arguments… I’m just unable to stick them anywhere in my brain in such a way that I can remember them next time I even think about trying to argue a strong-man representation of redistribution.
I’m wondering if wealth-re-distribution in the “best case” scenario would have any positive effects.
So, assume a world in which the top-x wealthy have wealth that resides purely in the form of gold. Not stocks, or bond or whatever, so taking it away from them won’t de-stabilize the economy in the same sense that taking away stock from a CEO will break down the incentives chain that keep a company running properly.
Also, assume that everyone likes gold so much, that it will keep it’s inherent value once it’s re-distributed.
Would this have any effect besides a sudden~ish price inflation for stuff like food, housing, cars… etc, since everyone can now buy more/better, thus demand goes up at once with no modification in production.
As in, would this wealth redistribution be able to re-direct more resources into relevant industries to keep them more efficient ?
It seems to me that a lot of common-usage products are already heavily efficient in terms of production compared to luxury product, since the market is much broader.
Where, improvements can be made, the issue usually seems to be regulatory/ethical/consensus-related (e.g. zoning laws for housing, experimental ethics and drug-trail statistical power regulations for medical research).
So, for example, custom-cat production is very expensive not because the materials are expensive, but because a custom yacht requires loads of specialized artisan work. However, if all those artisans were to go out of business and be forced to get jobs at a mass-production facility… would that bring any benefits in terms of how the cars are designed to make production cheaper ? Even assuming 10 years pass and they are re-trained as highly-skilled mass-car producers, would that help ? Or are there physical limitations (e.g. cost of materials, time needed to ensamble an engine) or regulatory limitations (e.g. safety testing) that keep the prices of cars above a certain threshold (seems to be ~4,000euros) for the cheapest possible car one could make.
Same question goes for all mass-produced items.
Intutition pump by thinking about this in the context of consumption curves in ones own life. i.e. is any utility gained by moving consumption forward or backward in time between selves?
Presumably a typo? Though I bet there is something like designer cats.
Yes, I meant to say yacht, but honestly I think the typo might be better.
I’m informed there is such a thing as designer cats, so the example still holds in principle.
I’m not sure the price of food, etc. would inflate—the price of gold might drop instead.
That’s a very weak man form of redistribution. If you redistribute into services, such as public health and education, you avoid the inflationary problem, and since both are labour intensive, you can create jobs.
That is actually a good point, I was focused too much on material goods and not thinking of service jobs.
Indeed, even if you take the real form of redistribution, which is closer to evening out social status than redistributing any form of real wealth. It would probably incentivize people to go into arguably useful service jobs more. (e.g. there are probably a lot of people which would be good medical researchers that become traders or “tech entrepreneurs” because in our current world it yields much more social status, even if the difference in actual material goods is not so great, wealth itself allows for signaling high status).
For some reason, despite reading socialist philosophers/activists which make these arguments… I’m just unable to stick them anywhere in my brain in such a way that I can remember them next time I even think about trying to argue a strong-man representation of redistribution.
Thanks for pointing this out.