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April 05, 2005
Matt Yglesias and the Socialist Utopia
I've been waiting for this concept to get mentioned, and thankfully Matt Yglesias has obliged me. (Note, I'm not picking on Matt, he just happened to make this argument).
What price growth? Creating a property-rights system that encourages investment and growth by permitting large profits and inequalities seems like an excellent idea when boosting real wages is a major priority. It does seem, however, that a point comes when we can do more good by redistributing the pie we already have than by baking more pie.
What Matt is saying is that, at some point, it won't really be very important to continue innovating at the rate we are now - so forcible redistribution of wealth will be ok. And this is a good point - if every country on Earth agreed to not try to outcompete each other, and live in redistributive harmony, socialist bliss would prevail.
And this would be true, EXCEPT FOR THE FUCKING ASTEROIDS/SUPERVOLCANOES/MYSTERIOUS 62 MY EXTINCTION CYCLE.
We are living on borrowed time. Until a significant and viable chunk (my preference is 10%) of our species and our technology is safe from extinction, we should not be getting comfortable with limiting innovation in the quest for equality.
Equality is a very good thing, and once we get to the point where we can stop/defer/deflect/significantly limit the damage from these potential disasters, perhaps then we can decide to limit innovation.
Because what good is egailitarianism if it means we're living in caves for fear of the wrath of the Thunder God?
Posted by jb at April 5, 2005 06:06 PM
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