Apart
from for reasons of envy and insecurity, the obsession the left have with
inequality is truly bizarre. We are more evolutionarily primed to keep up with
the Joneses in the same socio-economic group as us than we are the Joneses in
socio-economic groups high above us. If you're going for a job at Burger King
it's more natural (not to mention sensible) to care about competition from
other people going for the same job at Burger King than whether the Chief
Executive of Burger King has two or three more cars than you do.
Everyone
understands this when the example in question is a nightclub. If you go into a
nightclub on the pull, the greater the number of attractive single males there are inside the
less chance you have of pulling. Just like in evolutionary biology, men in
nightclubs should be concerned about their status in comparison with other men,
and women with other women. But they should not be concerned about all men equally,
because those concerned about their status should be most concerned with other
men in their selectability range - that is, those with pulling power similar
to them.
If super
handsome Charles increases his pulling power by an extra percentage point after
having an even better hairstyle or a few extra sessions at the gym, that will
disadvantage his nearest super handsome rivals more than it will disadvantage
average Tony, who is more concerned about the pulling prowess of average Andy
and average Darren. In the same way, if a low-skilled immigrant comes into the UK
Seeing the
regularity with which the champagne socialist social justice warriors blather
and whinge about inequality, take to the streets with their placards, sit on
debating panels and write their confused missives in left wing newspapers - I
really do find it one of the most absurdly peculiar obsessions that humans have.
The fact that a small proportion of society has made a lot of money by creating
value in society for a large proportion of society (something very
few people have the skill and ingenuity to do) should not be a reason for
masses to get on their hobbyhorses and scoff at the 'horrid injustices' of
inequality. The huge wealth gulf is precisely the kind of power law we should
expect to see in a society of freely made commercial decisions.
It's an irony missed
by so many, but the main way that less well off people ought to care about rich
people is in the fact that they are often the investors and job creators who
can give them a living (and in many cases lift
them out of poverty). Suppose a corporation sets up factories in Mozambique London
or New York London
or New York
There is an
intelligent conversation to be had about possible problems that may occur if
power and influence becomes heavily concentrated in the hands of a very few, to
the extent that a tiny proportion of people in the world end up controlling the
global economy, the media, the laws that govern us, and eventually our freedoms
and liberties. But the trouble with that hypothesis is twofold:
Firstly, there
is absolutely no
evidence that that is happening or will happen, and there are plenty
of reasons to think
the opposite. And secondly, you really do get the impression that this
future dystopia is not really a big factor in many people's thinking - they appear
to be just bitter and envious about the rich because they live under a
misapprehension that if the higher-skilled workers earned less it would somehow
magically mean that lower-skilled workers suddenly earned more - an idea that
just isn't based on reality, because wages are conditioned by the marginal
product of labour not the fanciful whims of the populists, and because the
economy is not a fixed pie, meaning just because someone has lots it
does not mean they are taking your share.
