Tag Archives: socialism

Anti-fragility

Evolution, capitalism and science are anti-fragile. Nassim Taleb introduced the idea to my consciousness.

Top-down optimized systems are always fragile. These three phenomena are not fragile. In fact, they gain from being shocked.

Evolution, capitalism and science also share this common algorithm: systematic, brutally honest trials of proposed solutions, followed by ruthless rejection of failures and amplification of successes. The human psyche may not be well-adapted to appreciate such systems. We seldom like honesty or rejection.

 

Income Distribution

 

There are five people at the table. One of them owns the table, the turkey, the stuffing, the salad and the pies. The other four people all pooled their resources to buy the cranberry sauce and the casserole. The richest 20% of  Americans own 84% of the wealth in America.

This graph is distribution of the Bottom 80%. This graph tops out at $100K. The people who own the vast majority of America are not even on this graph.

I got on this topic thanks to”The ‘American dream’ is actually Swedish.” Sweden is a social democracy, if I may remind the reader. http://www.thelocal.se/30008/20101103/

Data:

http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032007/hhinc/new06_000.htm

 

 

Data:

http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032007/hhinc/new06_000.htm