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Just Be Rich
2021 — 2024，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇文章从财富不平等和中产阶级萎缩谈起，讨论在赢家通吃的经济中，“只要变富”为何是一种忽视结构性障碍的建议。它涉及创业致富、阶层流动和平台经济等议题，并回应了把贫富差距简单归因于个人努力的观点。
为什么经久不衰：它把关于不平等、精英体制与创业神话的长期争论讲得直接，今天仍有助于理解赢家通吃时代的阶层焦虑。
HN 评论精选
不平等本身未必有害，关键看是否零和；应区分寻租与生产性致富，并从全球视角看贫困下降。
不平等本身不是坏事。设想90%的人过着按今天美元计的百万富翁式可持续生活，10%过着亿万富翁式生活，不平等很大但未必有问题。只有零和博弈中的不平等才是坏的；富人确实会抽租、操纵系统巩固财富，这显然是 Graham 反对的，但靠减少浪费、用技术提高生产率致富的企业家值得赞扬，并没有让穷人更穷。拿今天和1980年的财富分布比很傻：这是全球经济，应从全球视角看；几乎所有美国人都处在全球收入前10%，全球贫困自1980年以来大幅下降。仅凭出生在美国就过上舒适中产生活已不再成立；我也不认为美国无技能工人仅因出生于此就该拿孟加拉国同等工人的10倍工资。
baron816查看英文原文
Inequality by itself is not a bad thing. Let's start from there. If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic. Inequality is only bad if you're in a zero-sum game. The rich do have the power to extract rents and "rig the system" to cement their wealth and power. Those are things Graham is clearly against. But an entrepreneur who gets rich by reducing waste and improving productivity by harnessing technology deserves our praise. They're not causing the "poor to get poorer". And comparing the wealth distribution of today to that of 1980 is pretty silly. We're in a global economy now, so if you want to be fair, you need to look at it from a global perspective. Almost all Americans are going to fall in the top 10% of earners globally. And global poverty has collapsed since 1980. Yes, you no longer get a comfy middle class life just by virtue of being born in the US (regardless of skills) anymore. I personally don't believe that an unskilled worker in the US deserves to be paid 10X what an equivalent worker in Bangladesh makes just because they were lucky enough to be born here.
创业致富受家庭、地域、支持网络和容错空间限制，贫穷本身是最大阻碍。
很多和马斯克或乔布斯一样聪明、有动力的人，永远无法创办公司并变富：他们有优先的家庭责任、生活在高收入国家之外、没有支持网络，一旦失败就跌到底，或过去犯过阻碍潜能的错误。我仍建议大家追求梦想，但贫穷是阻止人这么做的最强力量。
d_silin查看英文原文
A lot of people who are just as smart and motived as Elon Musk or Steve Jobs will never be able to start their own companies and get rich. Because they have family obligations that take priority. Because they live outside high-income countries. Because they have no access to support network, so when they fail, they fall all the way to bottom. Because they may have made a crippling mistake in their pasts that now prevents them from reaching their full potential. And so on and on. While I would still recommend everyone to pursue the dreams over never trying to do so - being poor is the single most powerful force that prevents people from doing that.
中产萎缩之外，市场从本地池塘变成赢家通吃的海洋，可规模化职业让普通从业者被明星挤出。
好文章，我之前不知道中产阶级占比下降得这么厉害。我认为财富“去民主化”还有另一个因素：过去你可以是自家池塘里最大的鱼，但池塘变大后越来越像赢家通吃的海洋。随着更多职业可规模化，原本稳定的工作变得有风险：远程医疗让明星医生服务远方市场，Peloton 让明星教练一次服务数千人，使本地普通教练变得多余；同样的动态适用于许多服务和知识工作。
ramblerman查看英文原文
Great article, I wasn't aware the share of the middle class had dropped so significantly. I think there is also another factor that plays a role in the de-democratization of wealth. In the olden days you could be the biggest fish in your pond, but as that pond grows it's becoming more and more a winner takes all ocean. > As more occupations become scalable, jobs that were previously stable are becoming risky. Telehealth enables superstar doctors to serve customers in markets that were previously inaccessible to them. Connected fitness devices like Peloton allow superstar instructors to serve thousands of customers at a time, making the average instructor in your local gym redundant. The same dynamic applies to many other service and knowledge jobs. - https://www.drorpoleg.com/the-ponzi-career/
以 Grab 为例说明平台巨头如何用补贴和规则挤压司机，最终赢家通吃、财富来自劳动者。
有一家小公司 MyTeksi，以盈利为目的的社会初创企业，使命是革新出租车行业。它推出 GrabCar，用更高工资、更高质量服务和更低价格击垮出租车行业。为赢下对 Uber 的战争，它会谎报车辆到达时间，也欺骗司机：承诺开进难到达地区给100美元奖金，却从奖金里扣费只付70%；有时因客户抱怨留下水瓶等小理由封禁司机。尽管你评分4.7，它不只解雇你，还会拿走你所有收入。最终它熬过 Uber 并收购了它，没涨价但不再打折，现在就叫 Grab。它仍自认是改善他人生活的好人，但改善的是谁的生活？是亿万富翁靠他人辛苦劳动致富。别误会，亿万富翁努力工作并承担风险，但这和司机一样辛苦吗？
muzani查看英文原文
There's a little company called MyTeksi. My is a for-profit social startup with a mission to revolutionise the taxi industry. They started GrabCar, which killed off the taxi industry with higher wages, higher quality services, lower prices. To win the war against Uber, they'd lie about how long it took for a car to arrive, and they'd deceive drivers as well. A driver might be promised a $100 bonus for driving into an inaccessible area. And for the bonuses they could claim they'd be paid 70% because their fee was deducted from the bonus. Sometimes they'd ban a driver for small reasons like a customer complaining about leaving a water bottle. Not only would they fire you despite your 4.7 star rating, they'd take all your earnings. Eventually, they outlasted Uber, acquired them. They didn't raise prices but they no longer offered discounts. Now they're simply called Grab. They still hold on to the idea that they are the good guys who are improving the lives of others, but whose lives? It's billionaires getting rich off the hard labor of others. Don't get me wrong - the billionaires worked hard and took risks, but is it as hard as the drivers that they kick off the platform?
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