This is a response to a Vox article against "Equality of Opportunity" by Dylan Matthews.
tl;dr - Dylan argues against "Equality of Opportunity." He may favor the usual rival, "Equality of Outcomes." It is unclear to me. What is clear is that he favors a focus on outcomes over opportunity.
For any logical discussion to occur, everyone must agree on assumptions. I will attempt to dissect my assumptions so they may be challenged fairly and understood wholly in the below format:
- Goal
Dylan says that equality of opportunity leaves the underprivileged in the dust, and that we should focus on outcomes. Although I agree, I still don’t believe *equality* of outcomes is where we should rest our attention, rather *raising minimum outcomes*.
The problem with equality of anything is that incentives aren’t aligned with reality. In this universe, you are rewarded for *ability* and *understanding*, not for “striving harder.” No matter how hard I “strive,” drinking gasoline just isn’t going bring the benefits of drinking water.
And what does striving even mean? How do you measure the amount of “strife” endured? Why is it desirable to “strive?”
"Amount strived" seems to be a measure of pain and suffering endured as a cost to achieving a goal. Why should we encourage more of this? It is clear to me that any good story needs a plot, and any good life needs a struggle, but maximizing reward for those who maximize “strife” should not be the goal. Additionally, we can easily see in my previous example that suffering more does not correlate to greater reward.
Therefore, we also don’t want to dampen outcomes of those who are succeeding in the name of equality, which Dylan points to by noting the absurdity of preventing a parent from teach C++ to his or her children. This is because we know that wellbeing isn’t a zero-sum game as long as the sun keeps blasting our planet with magnitudes more energy daily than we ever consume in a decade, and therefore bringing standards of living down for the upper class in itself does nothing to raise the standards for the impoverished. That being said, if something provably raises the minimum living standards of ALL (not just American, or European) humans (and even house pets, livestock, majestic beasts, rodents, and petunias), then it should be fine to marginally lower the absolute living standards of the rich. However, most (if not all) policies just lower both. - Method
Now we are clear on a goal of raising minimum *outcomes*, we can talk about raising minimum wages. We can talk about cost-free/government-provided healthcare. The most important principle that is lacking in political discussions is separating *intent* from ability.
The problem with these ideas is that they are fallacious from the start. They have great intentions, but are simplistic, first-order solutions. (For more on n-th order solutions, I recommend reading Ray Dalio's [Principles](http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgewater-Associates-Ray-Dalio-Principles.pdf).)
My most primitive bodily functions run on glucose. I want to maximize fuel to my body, so I eat only Krispy Kreame doughnuts. What is wrong with this statement? Exactly what is wrong with all of the failed policies of government.
These are complex systems, and more value can’t just be conjured out of thin air. It is only created when *incentives align with reality*. Healthcare isn’t free of cost, and it never will be, no matter how we attempt to obscure the cost by publicizing it. Wages come from a source, and the *objective value* of that source must be increased for it to truly give out more *objective value*, instead of a nominal amount (a perceived reality).
What comes out of this is that we need to be VERY careful what we are aiming for, and be sure that we aren’t reaching for fool’s gold. We must ensure we have proper metrics for our goals, because if we screw those up, we can easily move in the wrong direction. Moving in the wrong direction means it would have been better to *do nothing*. So we should try not to do that. - Measurement As Dylan said, “intergenerational elasticity of income” has its faults. But so do his facile metrics of “poverty” and “income.” There is no such thing as an objective “poverty,” nor is there an objective “income.” These are both aggregations of many underlying factors, skewed to *subjective* degrees. Yes, someone who receives $100,000 per year is almost certainly better off than someone who receives $10,000, but these are still simplistic measurements in the end, which, like the “intergenerational elasticity of income” numbers in article, are poor metrics upon which we can base economic outcomes. To generate an accurate measurement, we need to analyze single-dimensional metrics separately for each proposed solution.
ConclusionWe want everyone to be happy, but we need to be clear with what that means. Broad aggregate metrics incorporate assumptions by nature. In order to be accurate, we must analyze more data against simpler metrics that are a product of defining clearly what it is that we desire and ensuring that which we desire isn't paradoxical to begin with. Let's not be victims of demagoguery.
(From here, I'd like to request constructive criticism and discussion. I'm sure I've made some fallacious argument or broad assumption myself, and would like to see where this ends up after careful piecemeal analysis.)
I have to say, just from a personal perspective, I hate articles where the author rants about all the flaws in one argument (often straw men since no intelligent people devote significant efforts to obviously pointless endeavors) and then concludes with their hypothesis without giving any coherent argument themselves, any indication as to the assumptions they are working under, or any actionable intelligence whatsoever. I mean, we don't even know if this guy took econ 101. Does he even realize that these are problems and solutions that involve policies that span decades? Does he even understand how the American economy evolved over the last hundred years from a surplus economy to a deficit economy and how that transition was leveraged by central bankers and policymakers to guarantee that international capital flooded the US? No, he probably just thinks that taxing the rich solves every problem. Vox blows.
Poverty is a big word, that covers cultural and other issues and surely involves more than just money. Safe money, as I call it, may do much, but training, intellectual and cultural development, micro-credit, and what some call love may be necessary to overcome the mentality of poverty.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by safe money?
Basically, it means it keeps its value by not deflating, it may mean access to a bank or equivalent, and it's easy to use. I don't like how in some countries money loses its value and so cannot be trusted. Also would you feel safe having all your money in cash? Crypto-currency can be a better option.
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