Now here is a refreshing take on an old story

gavvet (78) in inequality • 8 years ago

When I saw this I immediately thought of our grand steemit audience.

What are your thoughts? Read it from a crypto and blockchain perspective

I could quote or summarize the article but that would prevent most from reading it... and that would be a pitty.

The title is a follows:

Inequality’s Dead End—And the Possibility of a New, Long-Term Direction

Here is a hint to the content.

For a start, the income of the top 1 percent has more than doubled in the past two decades, from roughly 10 percent of all income in 1980 to more than 22 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, wages for the bottom 80 percent of American workers have been essentially stagnant in real terms for at least three decades.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/03/10/inequality-s-dead-end-and-the-possibility-of-a-new-long-term-direction/?utm_source=Daily+Newswire&utm_campaign=95dbd99e80-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_7&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_94063a1d17-95dbd99e80-12579937

inequality greed crypto cooperatives

8 years ago by gavvet (78)

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kyriacos (71) · 8 years ago (edited)

That is a report for people who are clueless about economics and with little to no understanding about statistics.

A Statistic with no analysis is indistinguishable from magic

Here is Thomas Sowell debunking the 1% in under 5 minutes

In Steemit and in general in cryptos the inequality is much more massive and real. 6 miners in China own 95% of all Bitcoin. 99% of the owners of crypto have less than 10 btc. 30 whales in Steemit own 99.9% of everything.

The FIAT world right now is much more fairer than our seemingly "decentralised" systems. This is something all crypto enthousiasts need to digest

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gavvet (78) · 8 years ago

wow, its amazing how many perspectives a group of people can find in the same article....I wasn't even thinking steemit economy... I was thinking more along the lines of the promise of decentralized systems and enabling ground up initiatives.

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kyriacos (71) · 8 years ago (edited)

We keep using that word "decentralised". It is not decentralised. The function, the architecture is decentralised but the way the economy works is very much centralised—way more than the current FIAT system.

You could call 500 different municipality systems under a fiat currency "decentralised"; much like you can call 500 owners of of an altcoin with 1 of them owning 99.9%.

The decentralised thing is only a mirage that is being shilled in the crypto circles. it does not apply (so far at least). The crypto guys seem to be way more greedy (and scummy) than the FIAT elites.

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gavvet (78) · 8 years ago (edited)

I'm thinking a little further ahead, yes, agreed much of crypto is not a great place right now but it has promise.

When current crypto economies are turned on their head by becoming value creating economies that is when I see the real promise of decentralized blockchain based solutions making a real difference.

Its the architecture that can enable this:

Viewed in developmental terms, what is interesting is that existing cooperative businesses have reached the point at which they can begin to make political claims on money earmarked for economic development—democratized ownership is providing an institutional platform for further steps to democratize ownership.

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kyriacos (71) · 8 years ago (edited)

If you are thinking far ahead then you should see that the point is not the crypto but the token economy. Even governments around the world adopt the blockchain tech. Remember the blockchain is FOREVER. They love the way entries are set in stone. They can track anything, anyone. Sweden, Estonia, USA, Switzerland, Japan all started implementing them. Banks like the Mitsubishi of Tokyo and Santander UK are working on issuing their own tokens as we speak.

We already have value creating economies. That is a bogus term. The only thing that will change is the way the value is transfered. The technology—which is decentralised token systems.

It is similar to upgrading from SATA drives to SSD. The point remains the same..storage— Is just the latter has more benefits than the previous one (although the old one has an edge still on a few things).

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gavvet (78) · 8 years ago

To use your semantics then...
When a real economy is tokenised I see the potential for it to be more inclusive by the way value is transferred. Also if it correctly designed and implemented then there are less parasites to suck value out of the economy.

The parasites generally siphon out the portion that would do the most good at the grassroots level.

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kyriacos (71) · 8 years ago

Perhaps you should think along the lines of fee-less micro-transactions. Fiat systems are expensive to operate and slow. That gives fiat systems the excuse to charge fees and that burden usually falls heaviest on the ones that can least afford it.

You mean like gas in ethereum? there is a transaction fee. Scale any blockchain enough and you get a delay time as well. Sure it can be worked out but so as well with FIAT. also don't forget. you can have a crypto token backed up with FIAT currency. the two are not mutually exclusive. Also security. there is an insurance (usually up to 100.000) for the small guy in the bank. not such thing is the crypto world. so as far as the "small guy's" interest goes, he is better of with the fee/protection.

The token economy is peer to peer... no third party required and hence no exorbitant parasitic fees.

I am sure that by now we have all figured out that there are plenty of third parties in the token economy. ask vitalik to name ones or that mysterious guy in the netherlands that somehow is in charge of all major updated of Bitcoin.

Token systems also give identity and reputation to sectors of the population that are informal and identity-less.

Reputation already exists under government. i wrote an entire article about it. Actually in th token world, and as far as we have seen so far with various tokens the littl guy is better of there. again. so far.

The current unidentified and unbanked.
this actually helps my argument. also, once in the blockchain, always in th blockchain. at least with conventional means you can erase your identity. in the tokenised systems your identity is there. forever.

Those that, under current systems, are totally ignored... perhaps not much of a problem in the US but maybe you should come for a visit to Africa or the rest of the third world.

I am not American. I actually lived with aboriginal people in Australia and i know first hand what poverty is. These communities have their own token systems, in their own way. The technological leap is way too advanced even for the average western computer user to jump into it. you can't expect the impoverished that know very little about computers to adopt this.

so no. absolutely no advantages so far other than governmental hard-filing. the only ones that would wish a reputation system are the ones on top. try to open an account in steemit with 0 rep and lets talk again about how the unidentified reputation will work for you.

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kyriacos (71) · 8 years ago

To use your semantics then...
When a real economy is tokenised I see the potential for it to be more inclusive by the way value is transferred.

how? bank notes are inclusive as well. much like tokens you either hold them or not. sure many people don't have a bank account but have an internet connection but that is rather another technological issue which has been long solved with plastic money.

Also if it correctly designed and implemented then there are less parasites to suck value out of the economy.

I don't see how this can work better. How? What is the advantage of the token economy that will repell parasites?

The parasites generally siphon out the portion that would do the most good at the grassroots level.

very poetic but I don't see how. give me one advantage how the token will have over fiat or the most basic plastic/electronic card.

(if you are going with the inflationa and printing of money ..then i will bring hard forks—which will be the case over and over again making the system even more centralised).

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gavvet (78) · 8 years ago

Perhaps you should think along the lines of fee-less micro-transactions.

Fiat systems are expensive to operate and slow. That gives fiat systems the excuse to charge fees and that burden usually falls heaviest on the ones that can least afford it.

The token economy is peer to peer... no third party required and hence no exorbitant parasitic fees.

Token systems also give identity and reputation to sectors of the population that are informal and identity-less.

The current unidentified and unbanked.

Those that, under current systems, are totally ignored... perhaps not much of a problem in the US but maybe you should come for a visit to Africa or the rest of the third world.

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svamiva (60) · 8 years ago

Last report (made two months ago) was about inequality on Steemit decreasing
https://steemit.com/stats/@liberosist/steem-power-distribution-trends-september-update
I'm a bit surprised that nobody seem to be interested to make an update.

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jlufer (75) · 8 years ago

Excellent information, thank you very much my friend @gavvet for sharing this valuable information

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awgbibb (70) · 8 years ago

A long Read, I have read that a person who owns a mansion , several cars, etc , but has retired , therefore not showing an Income, in the USA is considered to be below the Poverty line?

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