Yaron Answers: Is Inequality A Growing Problem?

This short video was extracted from a longer debate with Paul Vaaler from the University of Minnesota and Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute on executive compensation

[grouse]

Is inequality a good measure of success?

[billmelater]

You can't invoke a "duty to society" without first establishing what it is and who gets to define it.  Society does not actually exist.  There are only individuals who are only capable within their own faculties.  Humans are not a hive mind.  To define humans by "society" or "public" is to deny a fundamental reality.  "Society" is defined by the individuals within it, not the other way around.

Favoring the individual over the group is not done at the expense of the group or another individual as Paul might assert.  That is to say that individual rights do not preclude the rights of others nor do they establish a supremacy of rights.  Individual rights means that each individual has the same rights in equal measure which means that in order for you to have rights, these rights must also be able to be applied to others in equal measure without contradiction.  It is from that understanding of things that we can then define concepts such as "theft".  People like Paul however, would take your money for their perceived good and THEN define the concept of theft based on how they feel about their actions afterward.

[PSht.]

In Russia we have manufactured "inequality" to avoid natural "inequality" :)

[TheTektronik]

The government should represent it's people it should not have the power that it has now. Government policies should be judged on it's results rather than it's intentions.

[danehudson]

My idea of capitalism is like the olympic games. Government is supposed to be the referee, set a level and equal playing field for everyone competing.
You have competitors that win or lose.Yet you have rules like Health and Safety.

[tregun]

None of the arguments of Yaron's opponent make sense nor have relevance to the subject under discussion.