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Topic: Wealth and social justice (Read 1463 times) |
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David Lucifer
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Wealth and social justice
« on: 2005-03-14 19:29:08 » |
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Is it fair that some people make a lot more money than others? For example in 2002 the average player in the NBA earned $4.65 million while at the same time the average American's salary was $35,560. Do professional basketball players really deserve to earn more than 100 times as much as the average worker?
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DrSebby
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RE: virus: Wealth and social justice
« Reply #1 on: 2005-03-15 08:33:14 » |
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...well the responsibility really lies with all the buffoons who pay for the
jerseys, buy the advertised merchandise and so forth. but if you you
examine some sports such as pro football(NFL) you have to consider that many
would-be superstars are effectively crippled after endless years of play and
training before they are actually able to play. perhaps that's just with
the NFL...but if im not mistaken, the average lifespan of a pro football
player is around 57 yrs old. the other sports im less sympathetic to...but
still, it is the choice of the suckers that buy all the related material and
the tickets that create the revenue. if i sell idiot pills for 10$ a
pop...are you going to blame me, or walter and all of his AKC friends? it's
a tricky question....along the same lines as; "should films of people dying
be aired during primetime if the advertisers are willing to pay?
DrSebby.
"Courage...and shuffle the cards".
----Original Message Follows----
From: "David Lucifer" <david@lucifer.com>
Reply-To: virus@lucifer.com
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: virus: Wealth and social justice
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 17:29:08 -0700
Is it fair that some people make a lot more money than others? For example
in 2002 the average player in the NBA earned $4.65 million while at the same
time the average American's salary was $35,560. Do professional basketball
players really deserve to earn more than 100 times as much as the average
worker?
----
This message was posted by David Lucifer to the Virus 2005 board on Church
of Virus BBS.
<http://www.churchofvirus.org/bbs/index.php?board=65;action=display;threadid=31928>
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"courage and shuffle the cards..."
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Alex Future Bokov
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Re: virus: Wealth and social justice
« Reply #2 on: 2005-03-15 10:14:01 » |
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Market irrationalities/imbalances are a financial energy which can be
harnessed, and the process of harnessing them corrects/exhausts them. So
far, the only way I've found to harness the irrationality of consumers
being willing to pay tremendous amounts of money for spectator sports
and related products is the tremendou amount of money and time I save
each year by not joining their numbers. But there have to be additional
methods.
Maybe the pricing of certain goods/services with a usefulness not
related to sports fluctuates with the timing of sporting events? One
thing people who live near the UM stadium in Ann Arbor do is rent out
their lawns for parking during home games... fans are willing to pay top
dollar for spots. Another, non-financial way I exploit this
irrationality is as an instant way to slightly improve a stranger's
opinion of me-- all I have to do is say something about the San Antonio
Spurs and they'll feel this glow of shared allegiance... although I'm
not too good at this, because the only player's name I even remember is
Tim Duncan, and I don't even know if he's with the Spurs anymore.
From: "David Lucifer" <david@lucifer.com>
> Is it fair that some people make a lot more money than others? For
> example in 2002 the average player in the NBA earned $4.65 million
> while at the same time the average American's salary was $35,560. Do
> professional basketball players really deserve to earn more than 100
> times as much as the average worker?
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Ophis
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Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #3 on: 2005-03-15 18:24:44 » |
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DrSebby raises some interesting points to which I would add that these NBA players provide entertainment to millions of other individuals. Entertainment is a "good" that is in high demand and sports players are compensated for providing it. If you compare this with other providers of goods that reach a similar number of customers, I suspect you'll find that the millions made by NBA players are not unreasonable.
With all this said, we need to keep in mind that everyone values any particular good differently than everyone else. In addition, the value we assign to something changes constantly as our whims, goals, and projects change. Given this, it becomes impossible for any one entity to arbitrarily declare that this particular market price is "unfair" and that the fair price should instead be X.
I don't deny that at any one time, the market price for NBA players might be "too high" or "too low". Decisions happen on the margin so of course, the market price never actually reflects the "equilibrium" or "fair" price. If the price of NBA players is too high at a particular moment, there will be market pressures that will tend to reduce that price (for example, a team might not make enough advertising revenue or ticket sales to offer as high a contract as it wanted to hire a particular player). On average, over time, the market price is the only price that can be considered to be "fair".
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David Lucifer
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Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #4 on: 2005-03-16 00:14:43 » |
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I didn't really want to discuss professional sports, sorry if my example was misleading. I could have used any highly paid group: CEOs, movie stars, hedge fund managers. The specifics aren't important. I was just hoping that the question would lead to an discussion about the relation between wealth, value, money and fairness.
Let's look at wealth and money first. They are often used interchangeably but if they aren't the same that would lead to confusion. I don't think they are the same. Wealth is what we want, pretty much by definition. Anything that serves our needs or wants is wealth. Ophis mentioned that individuals differ in their wants, so what they consider wealth would also differ. To the extent that we share desires and needs (two words that I suggest lie on a continuum) we would also agree constitutes wealth (e.g. shelter, having enough to eat).
Money is a rather recent invention that merely allows parties to exchange wealth more easily. If you wanted to trade something you had for something you wanted before money you had to find someone else that had what you wanted and wanted what you had. After money you could trade for a token of value with one party, and exchange that same token with a third party for something else. Money must be one of the greatest inventions of all time along with writing and the wheel. Having a lot of money may make you wealthy, but only if you can spend it on stuff you really want. Likewise you don't need any money to be wealthy if you have everything you want already or someone else gives it to you. Or if you can steal it, but that is a topic for another post.
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Ophis
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Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #5 on: 2005-03-16 01:19:18 » |
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I think there currently is a downward trend in CEO compensation that suggest a correction from the market's high point, which was arguably reached just a few years ago. This being said, the government's recent wave of prosecution and the imposition of additional risks on corporate executives through legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley is guaranteed to have an impact on CEO compensation. As the personal risks of holding one of the "top jobs" increases, companies will have to offer more attractive packages if they want to attract the best executives.
On the nature of wealth, I would wholeheartedly agree with David. Many *thought* they were wealthy a few years ago before the dot-com bubble burst. Unfortunately, they learned only too quickly that one is not wealthy because one has pieces of papers with fancy signatures or electronic accounts with lots of numbers.
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Alex Future Bokov
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Re: virus: Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #6 on: 2005-03-16 12:31:55 » |
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Is equal distribution of desired objects/outcomes/situations an
axiomatic good? If yes, then are there any other axiomatic goods of
equal or higher priority? If not, what are the axiomatic goods to which
equal distribution is instrumental, and are we sure that it's the best
path to acchieving them?
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David Lucifer
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Re: virus: Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #7 on: 2005-03-17 12:34:21 » |
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Quote from: Alex Future Bokov on 2005-03-16 12:31:55
Is equal distribution of desired objects/outcomes/situations an
axiomatic good? |
There's a couple of schools of thought on that 
One is "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability." The group that believes this tend to have a lot of conflicts with the group that prefers "To each according to his ability, from each according to his needs."
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Ophis
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Re: virus: Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #8 on: 2005-03-17 13:33:13 » |
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Quote from: Alex Future Bokov on 2005-03-16 12:31:55 Is equal distribution of desired objects/outcomes/situations an
axiomatic good? If yes, then are there any other axiomatic goods of
equal or higher priority? If not, what are the axiomatic goods to which
equal distribution is instrumental, and are we sure that it's the best
path to acchieving them? |
The problem is that the "desires" and the "priorities" and even what is a "good" is different between individuals. Before we even start talking about "equal distribution", we need to have a uniform concensus of what the needs, desires, and priorities are. The only way to achieve this uniform concensus is to impose it on a population. Although this might be done in the name of "social justice", I personally think it is one of the greatest social INjustice that can be done.
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referent
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Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #9 on: 2005-03-17 22:10:20 » |
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David,
On the topic of representing the concept of wealth, I'd suggest the following as a possible starting point:
Let's measure wealth as the amount of time an individual can satisfy their stated wants without having to take further action at increasing their resource pool.
-ref
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simul
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Re: virus: Wealth and social justice
« Reply #10 on: 2005-03-18 12:53:54 » |
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> revenue. if i sell idiot pills for 10$
> a pop...are you going to blame me,
> or walter and all of his AKC
> friends?
That's illegal.
In order to sell idiocy, you can't package it as a pill.
You can package it as a pit of fried meat and grease or as a set of moving images.
These are OK.
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First, read Bruce Sterling's "Distraction", and then read http://electionmethods.org.
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David Lucifer
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Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #11 on: 2005-03-18 15:50:23 » |
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Quote from: referent on 2005-03-17 22:10:20
Let's measure wealth as the amount of time an individual can satisfy their stated wants without having to take further action at increasing their resource pool. |
Interesting approach. Is that the same as asking how long they could live tolerably without working? Though the answer would be interesting and definitely correlated with wealth it doesn't differentiate between varying amounts of negative net worth at one end, or varying levels of independently wealthy people at the other end.
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David Lucifer
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Re: virus: Wealth and social justice
« Reply #12 on: 2005-03-18 15:57:23 » |
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Quote from: simul on 2005-03-18 12:53:54
In order to sell idiocy, you can't package it as a pill.
You can package it as a pit of fried meat and grease or as a set of moving images. |
Will you be selling fried meat and grease at the concession when you open your movie theater?
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referent
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Re:Wealth and social justice
« Reply #13 on: 2005-03-20 23:36:35 » |
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Quote from: David Lucifer on 2005-03-18 15:50:23
Interesting approach. Is that the same as asking how long they could live tolerably without working? Though the answer would be interesting and definitely correlated with wealth it doesn't differentiate between varying amounts of negative net worth at one end, or varying levels of independently wealthy people at the other end.
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Hmm...
I suppose I'm suggesting that relative cash flow has a much stronger binding to "wealth" than net worth. Since those who have significant positive cash flow very often have a high (and increasing) net worth, and net worth tends to be a very accessible metric (compared to cashflow patterns), we may be confusing the issue if we focus too much on net worth.
I believe this should address negative net worth, as one could use extreme negative net worth to generate positive cash-flow. (For example, you put $10,000 down on a $100,000 house, net -$90,000, and rent it for $200 over upkeep). Or course, in a lot of cases a negative net worth is simply going to generate negative cashflow(consumer debt).
(please adjust the following for inflation...)
Also, we could define "independent wealth" as satisfying one of two conditions: 1) net worth is greater than all remaining lifetime expenditures, based on a stated standard-of-living. 2) net cashflow is positive, while maintaining the stated standard-of-living, without working. Basically, what I mean is that if you're independently wealthy, working is no longer required; ever. If one chooses to do work anyway, that realized income can accrue toward 1, or be used as principal to generate passive income satisfying 2, but the term by definition excludes labor-dependent cash-flow from direct application.
Condition 1 is a bit wily, since a lifetime can be highly variable and may be a horrible indicator going forward in the 20-25+ year range, based on modern medical research.
Condition 2 appears more stable, as our stated standard-of-living is fixed, and any surplus cash-flow would create a compounding cashflow effect as the accrueing surplus was reinvested into generating more cashflow. Minimal asset allocation labor can be safely ignored, I think.
Of course, boundary cases might be highly erratic, so we can slap a contigency requirement on both conditons, say +15%  or maybe 50% 
-ref
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simul
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Re: virus: Wealth and social justice
« Reply #14 on: 2005-03-22 13:35:54 » |
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> Will you be selling fried meat and
> grease at the concession when
> you open your movie theater?
Smoothies and improv.
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First, read Bruce Sterling's "Distraction", and then read http://electionmethods.org.
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