Quote Originally Posted by mojo
Is it always a net good that the disparity in pay be ever more extreme?
Or is there some balance that is required for social stability?
It's not always good. Qatar is the simplest example, you're either very rich or you're poor, depending on your citizenship status. The question is why there is a wide income gap. If it's because a diverse economy is performing better than the global average, meaning a higher influx of very high paid jobs, then that isn't a problem.

There already is a balance. If someone gets too rich, I mean literally too rich, not poop's idea of too rich, then that has such a negative impact on the economy that it causes total social and financial collapse. Nobody can get that rich. To become ludicrously rich, you need to either get lucky, or take advantage of other peoples' economic output, which ultimately means slavery or paid labour. So that means a healthy economy is required if you want to get rich in a civilised society where people have employment rights and protections. You have to exploit people legally.

Market forces set the balance. If social stability is a problem, then better economic education is needed, instead of shit slinging identity politics which sets people against each other.

Should Bezos be making as much more than his employees as he does?
idk about Bezos specifically, but let's assume we're talking about a law abiding tax paying non corrupt rich ass motherfucker. How much he earns is a product of his economic relationships with other people and entities. People enter into contracts based on what is understood to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. If an employee of this hypothetical rich guy isn't happy with this arrangement, he can ask for a raise or quit. What business is it of outsiders to cast moral judgement? What do you care how much richer this guy is than his employees? Market forces made it happen, in this non corrupt example.

Of course you have a right to cast moral judgement where corruption is concerned. That's a different argument, unless you're of the belief that you can only get rich by being corrupt. If you believe that, then you're naturally going to distrust rich people.

I'm not naive. I know there's a lot of rich corrupt fuckers in this country and USA, Canada, everywhere except maybe Iceland. But I'm also not lacking that much faith in the capitalist system that I believe the only way to be rich is to be corrupt. I believe a lot of people are rich due to legal (read fair) accumulation of wealth through hard work and/or smart business decisions.

Doctors should earn more, OK. How much more, though?
How much doctors are economically worth is difficult to calculate in the UK since it's not market forces that determine their value... the government basically decide how much a doctor is worth, and that in turn influences the value of a good doctor to a private health company that wants to offer a superior service for profit. As far as the private sector goes, doctors can be paid whatever they can earn. That's a matter for the doctor, the health provider, and the willingness of the patient to pay the necessary cost. Market forces. The public sector, we should pay them as much as we can afford. I'm not going to pretend I'm remotely qualified to estimate that.

Do you see the problems with cranking it all the way the other direction where there is a poverty class and a uber rich class?
Poverty is very much a relative term. Poverty in England does not mean the same as poverty in Brazil. But for some reason the word still seems to carry the same weight.

True poverty is extremely rare in the UK, and presumably USA too. Not non-existent, we have homeless people begging on the streets, but even that is far preferable to living in the crime ridden shanty towns of Rio.

If we're talking about poverty in the relative context, then it always exists, because it just means the unemployed or very low earners. I can tell you from ten years of being unemployed that it was a personal choice. I lived in "poverty" for that period of time through choice. I was always capable of dragging my sorry ass into a hotel and cleaning bogs. I just couldn't be bothered. That was because a life of "poverty" in the UK isn't actually all that bad. Maybe not so fun if you have kids, but most people with kids tend to be more motivated to work than me. Nearly everyone in the UK is capable of working, and doing so lifts them out of poverty. Nearly everyone has the opportunity and power to not live in poverty. And those that don't, we take care of. That's the ideal society. We don't have that ideal, but nerfing rich fuckers isn't the way to create it.

No person is cranking up the dial. Market forces are. It's like a tide, it can't keep coming in. Eventually the same forces that cranked the dial up start to crank it down. That's assuming you have a healthy free market economy.