How equal should Ireland be?

Qualitymark

Nelson Mandela: “I am influenced more than ever before by the conviction that social equality is the only basis of human happiness”

How equal should Ireland be?

A few articles to spark ideas:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/business/economy/income-inequality-may-take-toll-on-growth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

“Growth becomes more fragile” in countries with high levels of inequality like the United States, said Jonathan D. Ostry of the International Monetary Fund, whose research suggests that the widening disparity since the 1980s might shorten (US) economic expansions by as much as a third.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/02/how-not-to-solve-inequality/

The Swiss are furious about income inequality. The story is a familiar one. According to Reuters, in 1984 top earners in Swiss firms made 6 times as much as the bottom earners. Today, they make 43-times what bottom earners make. At some banks and firms, CEOs make 200-times the salary of the lowest-paid employee.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/krueger_cap_speech_final_remarks.pdf

My theme in this talk is that the rise in inequality in the United States over the last three decades has reached the point that inequality in incomes is causing an unhealthy division in opportunities, and is a threat to our economic growth. Restoring a greater degree of fairness to the U.S. job market would be good for businesses, good for the economy, and good for the country.

kneemos

Is there any suggestions as to how better equality could be achieved in those links.Too early for reading.

Qualitymark

If you build it, it will come.

TeddyTedson

Qualitymark wrote: »

If you fap it, it will come.

FYP

crazygeryy

Far too intelligent a question for ah.

jimgoose

As little as what?? I don't understand. Where's the tea?

Vitaliorange

Equality doesn't mean everyone should be paid the same regardless of the job they do, it means no one should be unfairly held back or denied opportunities based on their race, gender etc...

If a company wants to pay their CEO ridiculous wages that's their perogitive and they are entitled to do that. Thats not inequality.

Qualitymark

Jimgoose - how much less should be the disposable income of the poorest than the disposable income of the richest.

jimgoose

Qualitymark wrote: »

Jimgoose - how much less should be the disposable income of the poorest than the disposable income of the richest.

Ah - I see. More coffee required. Well, it seems to me poverty is relative. Someone could be earning a million times less than the likes of Richard Branson or Larry Ellison and still be quite comfortable, or at least not short of any basics. In brief, the question is a bit of a how-deep-is-a-hole, and fretting about it or attempting to control it is solving the wrong problem and a dangerously Soviet kind of a notion, IMO.

The Dagda

jimgoose wrote: »

Ah - I see. More coffee required. Well, it seems to me poverty is relative. Someone could be earning a million times less than the likes of Richard Branson or Larry Ellison and still be quite comfortable, or at least not short of any basics. In brief, the question is a bit of a how-deep-is-a-hole, and fretting about it or attempting to control it is solving the wrong problem and a dangerously Soviet kind of a notion, IMO.

Ooh QM he burned you! :pac:

hfallada

I wouldn't put Mandela and equality in the same sentence considering inequality has soared since apartheid
And corruption which never existed during apartheid is everywhere.

How fair should a society be? 37% of tax is paid by the top 10% in society who work are to be crippled by tax. Generally the people that pay the most tax in Ireland are the people that work extremely hard and have gone to college for several years. I think Ireland tax system to is equatable and is starting to discourage work

speedboatchase

I'm all for equal opportunities, but not equal outcomes.

martingriff

hfallada wrote: »

I wouldn't put Mandela and equality in the same sentence considering inequality has soared since apartheid
And corruption which never existed during apartheid is everywhere.

How fair should a society be? 37% of tax is paid by the top 10% in society who work are to be crippled by tax. Generally the people that pay the most tax in Ireland are the people that work extremely hard and have gone to college for several years. I think Ireland tax system to is equatable and is starting to discourage work

Really it never existed. I fine that very hard to take. The blacks of the country would disagree with you.

Don't take that as saying there is no corruption now and the have gone the opposite way to try to create inequality which is a stupid way of doing it.

Qualitymark

hfallada wrote: »

I wouldn't put Mandela and equality in the same sentence considering inequality has soared since apartheid
And corruption which never existed during apartheid is everywhere.

I was surprised at this statement, hfallada, having friends who left South Africa during apartheid because of the corruption there.

Here's a small piece citing some of the corruption that existed:

http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2013/08/22/a-baffling-silence-on-the-long-tail-of-apartheid-corruption

But back to Ireland: how equal do you want Ireland to be, and why?

jimgoose

speedboatchase wrote: »

I'm all for equal opportunities, but not equal outcomes.

Equal outcomes removes all opportunity. In the old Soviet setups, a fella could have a job pushing a cart 500 yards, from a machine to a silo. Another fella turns eighteen and needs a job. So he's brought in to push the cart 250 yards, at which point the original cart-pusher takes over and completes the harrowing task. Instead of creating wealth and work through productivity and what-have-you, an existing, itself largely plug-useless, job is split exactly in two and the new fella gets half. And that kids, is why the Soviet Union disappeared up its own arse!

seamus

hfallada wrote: »

I wouldn't put Mandela and equality in the same sentence considering inequality has soared since apartheid
And corruption which never existed during apartheid is everywhere.

Wait, are you trying to claim that inequality and corruption didn't exist in South Africa during apartheid?

tritium

Assuming everyone has a sufficient basic income why should any one care what that relativity between top and bottom is? Or to put it another way, assuming everyone is given a fair opportunity to achieve (not necessarily true), why worry about the rewards associated with achievememt?-people will attempt to succeed relative to the benefit they perceive for themselves

Qualitymark

If possible, let's not divert into discussions about South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United States, etc, or into slogan thinking. Let's quietly look at how equal or unequal we'd like our country to be, and to what works best for our country.

kneemos

tritium wrote: »

Assuming everyone has a sufficient basic income why should any one care what that relativity between top and bottom is? Or to put it another way, assuming everyone is given a fair opportunity to achieve (not necessarily true), why worry about the rewards associated with achievememt?-people will attempt to succeed relative to the benefit they perceive for themselves

Because it's bad for the economy apparently.

Annasopra

The Dagda wrote: »

Ooh QM he burned you! :pac:

Hilarious. All he did was basically say - oh you're a Soviet commie. It seems to be his stock answer.

Annasopra

speedboatchase wrote: »

I'm all for equal opportunities, but not equal outcomes.

The problem is that unequal outcomes mean that equal opportunities are extremely difficult to create.

jimgoose

mango salsa wrote: »

Hilarious. All he did was basically say - oh you're a Soviet commie. It seems to be his stock answer.

I said no such thing. What I said was more along the lines of that kind of approach to the problem of poverty being, in my view, misguided and representative of the sort of thinking the pathological form of which often leads to the sort of economic problems seen in the old Soviets. Further, I was discussing the OPs idea, most certainly not the OP and whether or not he/she is a "Soviet commie". I don't have any "stock answers" alas, so I'm regrettably not as entertaining as some.

kneemos

Don't think we have much choice but to pay the going rate for our top earners.Our doctors have left for better pay and conditions,likewise our CEO's and others at the top of their game.

Qualitymark

speedboatchase wrote: »

I'm all for equal opportunities, but not equal outcomes.

Mulled over this while eating my pancakes. Do you mean that you're all for people to have an equal chance, as long as this doesn't result in their becoming equal? That's what your statement seems to mean, but is it really what you mean?

Let's leave the Soviet question out of this. For a start, the Soviet Union was in no way equal. For a finish, Russia is a hideous place since the collapse of the Soviet Union too. So it's not a useful place to use as an example. More realistic examples are the Scandinavian countries and Japan.

As for the consultants and executives leaving Ireland because they can get better pay elsewhere, well, that's their choice and reflects their values. They've had, mostly, a free education up to degree level (as was Ireland's case until recently), for which they weren't expected to pay anything back, except in paying tax on their earnings.

I wonder if anyone's done a study of the effectiveness of managers and medical consultants in relation to their pay levels.

SpaceTime

Ireland's doing OK-ish in terms of income equality on most matrixes.

Since the demise of the celtic tigre, income equality here has balanced out a lot but, I'm not necessarily sure that was in a positive way and was more a case of the demise of a large % of the really super-wealthy when the assets bubble burst.

We've better income equality than our nearest neighbours, the UK, but worse than most of Northern Europe.

http://www.publicpolicy.ie/income-inequality-ireland-2/

I think we need to be careful with comparisons with Norway in particular though, but comparisons with Finland, Denmark and Sweden are perfectly reasonable.

Qualitymark

Thanks, SpaceTime, this looks like a good report. And this is really interesting:

Mint Aero

I dont care what the fatcats get but one shouldn't drive the poor into oblivion lest we seek to live in a state where the people work for 50 euros a week and live at home with their parents because they can't afford rent that only ever goes up and up to make the rich richer

Qualitymark

I'd question the idea that huge salaries make people work better. For example, look at the relatively new practice of ministers having 'advisers'; in theory there is a maximum salary of €92,000 for these advisors - this is a salary most people in Ireland would gape at. In practice, the maximum is breached in almost every case, and people are paid more than one-and-a-half times this amount.
Separately, the real advisors who are supposed to advise the ministers - the senior civil servants of their departments - are also enormously paid, with increments, expenses and perks.
Yet one can see little evidence of great talent in the advice provided by these separate sources.

KyussBishop

Forget money for a moment, and think about the raw physical resources we have in our economy, and think of how much better off people could be if they were distributed more equally.

Sounds simple, when you think of the raw physical resources and products that make up the economy, seems like there's more than enough for a happy and equitable life for everybody.

Now consider money: Money controls the distribution of all those resources (it even controls the distribution of workers, who get to produce those resources), and despite the resources (and workers) being plentiful, for some reason there are a lot of people who do not get enough of the money (or enough work), to get an equitable share of the resources in society.


Looking at distribution, based on resources: Looks easy to make an equitable society.
Looking at distribution, based on money: Looks impossible to have an equitable society, so many intractable/abstract economic problems that nobody really seems to understand.


If you want to see how equal society can be, look at how you can distribute the physical resources/products (and the labour that works-with/produces them), if you want to see how society is deliberately kept in an unequal state, look at how the teaching of economics and management of money, is corrupted by politics (it is quite an ugly mess - as you will see on any economic discussion on boards, which is dominated by right vs left politics).

hansfrei

jimgoose wrote: »

Equal outcomes removes all opportunity. In the old Soviet setups, a fella could have a job pushing a cart 500 yards, from a machine to a silo. Another fella turns eighteen and needs a job. So he's brought in to push the cart 250 yards, at which point the original cart-pusher takes over and completes the harrowing task. Instead of creating wealth and work through productivity and what-have-you, an existing, itself largely plug-useless, job is split exactly in two and the new fella gets half. And that kids, is why the Soviet Union disappeared up its own arse!

That kind of thing still happens here. Duplication of work in the PS is kinda the same thing really.

Fratton Fred

I'm all for equality.

I'd like to have the money to spend all day flitting between the pub and the bookies Luke some of the dead beats I see in Dun Laoghaire.

Qualitymark

Dead beats? Ginsberg?

ScumLord

I think equality is the wrong word to use. It implies that everyone should be the same and that's never going to happen, hopefully.

Men and women won't ever be equal because we're different, we want and enjoy different things. What's needed is respect for those differences. Respect for different cultures should be the same, if someone wants to be Muslim or Christian that should be respected, attempting to make two totally different things equal just seems like an impossible task.

Vitaliorange

KyussBishop wrote: »

Forget money for a moment, and think about the raw physical resources we have in our economy, and think of how much better off people could be if they were distributed more equally.

Sounds simple, when you think of the raw physical resources and products that make up the economy, seems like there's more than enough for a happy and equitable life for everybody.

Now consider money: Money controls the distribution of all those resources (it even controls the distribution of workers, who get to produce those resources), and despite the resources (and workers) being plentiful, for some reason there are a lot of people who do not get enough of the money (or enough work), to get an equitable share of the resources in society.


Looking at distribution, based on resources: Looks easy to make an equitable society.
Looking at distribution, based on money: Looks impossible to have an equitable society, so many intractable/abstract economic problems that nobody really seems to understand.


If you want to see how equal society can be, look at how you can distribute the physical resources/products (and the labour that works-with/produces them), if you want to see how society is deliberately kept in an unequal state, look at how the teaching of economics and management of money, is corrupted by politics (it is quite an ugly mess - as you will see on any economic discussion on boards, which is dominated by right vs left politics).

How should the economy be set up in your opinion so that we live in an equal society?

KyussBishop

Vitaliorange wrote: »

How should the economy be set up in your opinion so that we live in an equal society?

It should be setup so that everyone has the opportunity to earn a living doing something both productive and personally fulfilling, and has the ability to have a decent minimum quality of life regardless of work - currently it's setup so that lots of people have to sit around doing nothing, producing nothing, and earning nothing, whenever the private sector can't find a way to employ them, and thus have to pick whatever job they can get - fulfilling or not.

All the resources are there to provide this, but the distribution of those resources (as determined by money) is all wrong - and government has the ability to correct this (until the private sector recovers and takes on this role), with adequate spending (which can be enabled, even while stuck in a politically deadlocked Europe and the Euro, using this method of funding).

Einhard

Equality of opportunity, not of outcome. That's how I see things.

Vitaliorange

Vitaliorange wrote: »

Equality doesn't mean everyone should be paid the same regardless of the job they do, it means no one should be unfairly held back or denied opportunities based on their race, gender etc...

If a company wants to pay their CEO ridiculous wages that's their perogitive and they are entitled to do that. Thats not inequality.

Couldn't agree more

seamus

KyussBishop wrote: »

It should be setup so that everyone has the opportunity to earn a living doing something both productive and personally fulfilling, and has the ability to have a decent minimum quality of life regardless of work

Do you believe that we have the ability at present to eliminate those jobs that we need, but very few people want to do? Like binmen or street sweepers?

How do you redistribute the imbalance of ability and demand so that all of those teenage girls who want to become catwalk models have the opportunity to do so?

BizzyC

x times as little as what?

KyussBishop

seamus wrote: »

Do you believe that we have the ability at present to eliminate those jobs that we need, but very few people want to do? Like binmen or street sweepers?

How do you redistribute the imbalance of ability and demand so that all of those teenage girls who want to become catwalk models have the opportunity to do so?

Jobs that are productive and fulfilling - I don't think catwalk type jobs are that productive, so I wouldn't argue for increasing the number of unproductive jobs, just to fit workers desires; just let 'the markets' determine how much of those jobs there will be.

If everyone had the ability to pursue both productive and fulfilling jobs, without artificial restraints on the number of jobs available, supply and demand would dictate that you'd have to increase the payment due for jobs like binmen and street sweepers, until they start to become desirable for people again.

Qualitymark

BizzyC wrote: »

x times as little as what?

Answered on the first page.

Companies paying CEOs as much as they like:
That's the company's choice, to distribute their fund of salary between all their workforce. Personally, I wouldn't have huge confidence in a company that pays a high salary to executives and low wages to its workforce, because I don't think that's going to make for good work practice.

Economic studies using metadata from many studies find that our idea that rich countries have great advantages and poor countries have enormous disadvantages are not completely accurate; the countries that do worst on factors like lack of education, children dying from illness, mothers dying in childbirth, numbers of people in jail, crime levels, etc are those that have the biggest gaps between rich and poor - the ones where people have the least chance to do ok.

seamus

KyussBishop wrote: »

Jobs that are productive and fulfilling - I don't think catwalk type jobs are that productive, so I wouldn't argue for increasing the number of unproductive jobs, just to fit workers desires; just let 'the markets' determine how much of those jobs there will be.

So, the market decides what constitutes a "productive and fulfilling" job. How do you propose that "everyone has the opportunity to earn a living doing something both productive and personally fulfilling", when both of these are by definition completely subjective?
If the markets dictate job availability, then some people will not have the opportunity to pursue productive and fulfilling jobs.

If everyone had the ability to pursue both productive and fulfilling jobs, without artificial restraints on the number of jobs available, supply and demand would dictate that you'd have to increase the payment due for jobs like binmen and street sweepers, until they start to become desirable for people again.

So, standard supply and demand economics, then? Or am I misunderstanding you?

KyussBishop

seamus wrote: »

So, the market decides what constitutes a "productive and fulfilling" job.

That's not what I said?

seamus

Then I must be misunderstanding you.

You have said that you forsee a system where

"everyone has the opportunity to earn a living doing something both productive and personally fulfilling"

but also that

"I don't think catwalk type jobs are that productive, so I wouldn't argue for increasing the number of unproductive jobs, just to fit workers desires;"

Since personal fulfillment is completely subjective, and "productive" is quite subjective, then either people have free reign to do whatever jobs they want, or some people are going to be disappointed because some external force has decided that what they want to do isn't productive, or fulfilling, or both.

Vitaliorange

If everyone has equal resources far fewer people would put in the effort to create wealth. Everyone would be equally as poor and hungry.

KyussBishop

seamus wrote: »

Then I must be misunderstanding you.

You have said that you forsee a system where

"everyone has the opportunity to earn a living doing something both productive and personally fulfilling"

but also that

"I don't think catwalk type jobs are that productive, so I wouldn't argue for increasing the number of unproductive jobs, just to fit workers desires;"

Since personal fulfillment is completely subjective, and "productive" is quite subjective, then either people have free reign to do whatever jobs they want, or some people are going to be disappointed because some external force has decided that what they want to do isn't productive, or fulfilling, or both.

If someone is stuck on the idea of doing a catwalk type job, and this is unproductive, then it's best left for the markets to decide the supply of those jobs, and if there are a shortage of catwalk type jobs, those who want that will (if not among the lucky few) have to find something else.

People (generally) will have more than one type of job they would find fulfilling, and it would be up to them to (with the right support in education) find one that is both suited to them, and is judged as productive - how that would be judged, would depend on the type of jobs that are presently essential/needed (or heavily desired by the rest of society), or (when all/most of those former jobs are met) judged by other non-economic factors, like social happiness/benefit.

It all depends on the type of priorities you use to judge what kind of work is beneficial - today, the main decider in the private economy is money (and the people who control the flow of it), and the main decider in the public sector is a mix of money and social benefit.


In society overall, you're going to have a certain amount of jobs which are essential for the running of society, and a certain proportion of the total workforce who will need to fit those jobs - after those job positions are met, there is more flexibility for both lessening the workload on society (less work hours), as well as providing jobs which are more aimed at promoting social interests over economic interests.

Some of the 'essential' jobs would not always be fulfilling for those doing them, but the aim would be to have the right balance, of such a high level of general (guaranteed) employment, with high availability of fulfilling jobs, that those less-fulfilling jobs would have higher wages/rewards compared to the more-fulfilling ones (giving some added compensation, for jobs that may be less fulfilling).


I would actually argue, that some of the 'essential' jobs that would be needed (worldwide), are a very large amount of research and development on new energy technologies and infrastructural changes to that effect, to move away from fossil fuels - so an economy where people have ample fulfilling jobs, would probably have to wait until long after this.

ScumLord

KyussBishop wrote: »

It all depends on the type of priorities you use to judge what kind of work is beneficial - today, the main decider in the private economy is money

I don't see how you can change that, the pursuit of profit is the foundation of the modern economy.

I don't see how it's possible to achieve what you are describing. There's always people looking for vulnerabilities for them to exploit. That will never change because it's a fundamental part of human nature that's been there since humans started walking into new environments hundreds of thousands of years ago.

There also isn't enough fulfilling jobs to go around. Jobs like that are few and far between and in high demand.

whiskey_bottle

Ireland is pretty equal already by comparison to most western countries , whether this can be maintained is another thing , our welfare system is a complete mess , I don't mean in sofar as its level of generosity , their is no real proportionate return on what you put in

Tiddlypeeps

tritium wrote: »

Assuming everyone has a sufficient basic income why should any one care what that relativity between top and bottom is? Or to put it another way, assuming everyone is given a fair opportunity to achieve (not necessarily true), why worry about the rewards associated with achievememt?-people will attempt to succeed relative to the benefit they perceive for themselves

The issue is that a large gap typically correlates with low living standards of the people at the bottom. The US being a good example. I'm not convinced there is a causal link there tho, it's probable but I haven't seen any data to back it up.


I think the government are the only people that can solve this issue. They need to ensure a minimum standard of living for those at the bottom. This could be done by many routes, ensuring minimum wage is high enough to have a reasonable standard of living or through creating alternative employment to compete with the private sector positions and also a good welfare system. The cheapest is obviously the minimum wage but that's probably not enough on it's own and would possibly need a combination of other things, welfare especially, to be effective.

If they are legally obliged to pay well or there are viable alternatives to working for less than enough to live from huge organisations like Wallmart then the likes of those organisations will be forced to up their game. That money would have to come directly from the people at the top (or from the companies profits which would often be effectively the same thing). This would even things out without turning the country into communist Russia.

It is definitely not a fair system when the people at the bottom create all the wealth and aren't even rewarded with a liveable wage while the people at the top enjoy insanely lavish lifestyles.

Vitaliorange

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

The issue is that a large gap typically correlates with low living standards of the people at the bottom. The US being a good example. I'm not convinced there is a causal link there tho, it's probable but I haven't seen any data to back it up.


I think the government are the only people that can solve this issue. They need to ensure a minimum standard of living for those at the bottom. This could be done by many routes, ensuring minimum wage is high enough to have a reasonable standard of living or through creating alternative employment to compete with the private sector positions and also a good welfare system. The cheapest is obviously the minimum wage but that's probably not enough on it's own and would possibly need a combination of other things, welfare especially, to be effective.

If they are legally obliged to pay well or there are viable alternatives to working for less than enough to live from huge organisations like Wallmart then the likes of those organisations will be forced to up their game. That money would have to come directly from the people at the top (or from the companies profits which would often be effectively the same thing). This would even things out without turning the country into communist Russia.

It is definitely not a fair system when the people at the bottom create all the wealth and aren't even rewarded with a liveable wage while the people at the top enjoy insanely lavish lifestyles.

If you increase the minimum wage you are just going to cause unemployment and/or more expensive products with less value for money.

whiskey_bottle

Tiddlypeeps wrote: »

The issue is that a large gap typically correlates with low living standards of the people at the bottom. The US being a good example. I'm not convinced there is a causal link there tho, it's probable but I haven't seen any data to back it up.


I think the government are the only people that can solve this issue. They need to ensure a minimum standard of living for those at the bottom. This could be done by many routes, ensuring minimum wage is high enough to have a reasonable standard of living or through creating alternative employment to compete with the private sector positions and also a good welfare system. The cheapest is obviously the minimum wage but that's probably not enough on it's own and would possibly need a combination of other things, welfare especially, to be effective.

If they are legally obliged to pay well or there are viable alternatives to working for less than enough to live from huge organisations like Wallmart then the likes of those organisations will be forced to up their game. That money would have to come directly from the people at the top (or from the companies profits which would often be effectively the same thing). This would even things out without turning the country into communist Russia.

It is definitely not a fair system when the people at the bottom create all the wealth and aren't even rewarded with a liveable wage while the people at the top enjoy insanely lavish lifestyles.

the minimum wage in Ireland is the second highest in the eu

where did you get the idea that the people at the bottom create all the wealth , how is that even remotely possible ?