The Genie

This is something my friend Hedge forwarded to me:

"Gini was an Italian statistician who invented a very simple way to rate the relationship between the richest and poorest ten per cent of the population in any given country. A rating of zero in his coefficient means that there's no inequality: everyone in the land has exactly the same income. (Obviously nowhere like this actually exists.) A rating of one means that one individual is hogging the entire wealth of the land. (Some African states are a bit like this, with one gigantic palace for the president and a starving population.) If you'll allow me to play on words, think of inequality as a genie. A Gini rating of zero means this genie is absent, and a rating of 1 means the genie is there, squatting over the land like a malevolent monster. Because, yes, this genie is evil. Rather than giving you three wishes, he's going to take all your happiness away and replace it with envy, bitterness, insecurity and resentment. Unless, that is, you're already unusually rich."

there's more. Check it out, it's pretty interesting.

It's interesting to note that on the inside, I secretly cringe whenever he talks about Communism as a good thing. Perhaps I was properly programmed during the Cold War and ensuing nuclear arms race or I know enough bad things from China's history. Or maybe it's just that the word has been so vilified by contemporary American dialog that you probably couldn't bring it up without having to deal with a lot of kneejerk responses to the mere mention of it.

And come to think of it, I kneejerk on "Welfare state." I think, "no, an institutionalized welfare state is BAD! It'll be abused. People will take advantage of it. Laziness! Evil! blahbitty blah blah..." And then it occurred to me that I'm not certain that's exactly what he's talking about. Or maybe it is. But even so, the issue is much more complex that "Lazy people will take advantage of the system!" Which is exactly what George Lakoff was talking about -- framing the debate. More food for thought.

Of course, these days when I think about Capitalism, I almost immediately think: greed, irresponsible, selfishness. Well, that and the Oingo Boingo song...

Given that, I'm not sure where that leaves me at this point.