Oddbean new post about | logout
 So we shouldn't fight for freedom because freedom is going to turn into the same sort of authoritarianism we have always had... You might as well be arguing that we can't free the slaves because if we don't enslave them someone else will.

The pareto distribution is a natural result of voluntary choice. 20% of the men get 80% of the sex because they are what women choose. Introducing some sort of institutionalized rape or coercive distribution of relationships isn't a solution to the problem. Those "controls" & "redistributions" are the silly plans that cannot succeed & ultimately fail over & over. Freedom is a relatively very new idea.

People spend 80% of their earnings with 20% of the producers because they produce the best stuff. But that 20% changes all the time. There is far more upward mobility & turn over in a free market than in any other system. Even with all of the govt controls, most of the richest entrepenuers in the US today came from middle class families. Basically all of the largest companies 100 years ago are dead.