Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Billionaires, Surplus, And Replaceability


Listen Later

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/billionaires-surplus-and-replaceability

The typical neoliberal defense of self-made billionaires goes: entrepreneurs and other businesspeople create a lot of value. EG an entrepreneur who invents/produces/markets a better car has helped people get where they're going faster, more safely, with less pollution, etc. People value that some amount, represented by them being willing to spend money on the car. The entrepreneur should get to keep some of that value, both because it's only fair, and because it incentivizes people to keep creating value in the future.

How much should they keep? The usual answer is that the surplus gets distributed between the company and the customers. So suppose that this new type of car makes the world $200 billion better off. We could have the company charge exactly the same price as the old car, in which case customers get a better car for free. We could have the company charge enough extra to make a $200 billion profit, in which case customers are no better off than before (they have a bit less money, and a bit better car). Or they could split it down the middle, and customers would end up better off than before and the company would make some money. Which of these distributions happens depends on competition; if there's no competition, the company will be able to take the whole surplus; if there's a lot of competition, all the companies will compete to lower prices until they've handed most of the surplus to the customers. Then once the company has some portion of the surplus, it divides it among capital and labor in an abstractly similar way, although with lots of extra complications based on whether the labor is unionized, etc.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Astral Codex Ten PodcastBy Jeremiah

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

129 ratings


More shows like Astral Codex Ten Podcast

View all
Odd Lots by Bloomberg

Odd Lots

1,995 Listeners

Very Bad Wizards by Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro

Very Bad Wizards

2,670 Listeners

Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,343 Listeners

EconTalk by Russ Roberts

EconTalk

4,277 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,460 Listeners

Robert Wright's Nonzero by Nonzero

Robert Wright's Nonzero

591 Listeners

The Good Fight by Yascha Mounk

The Good Fight

906 Listeners

ChinaTalk by Jordan Schneider

ChinaTalk

292 Listeners

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie by The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

739 Listeners

Conversations With Coleman by The Free Press

Conversations With Coleman

587 Listeners

GoodFellows: Conversations on Economics, History & Geopolitics by Hoover Institution

GoodFellows: Conversations on Economics, History & Geopolitics

706 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

531 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,559 Listeners

Ones and Tooze by Foreign  Policy

Ones and Tooze

370 Listeners

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg by Turpentine

"Econ 102" with Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg

156 Listeners