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Fun thing to study and read about. The differences are quite small though. Wouldn't the error bars dwarf the differences? I'd assume you could tweak various assumptions and easily arrive at another conclusion.

I know that the Romans were good at record keeping for their time. But I understand the best population estimates for the Roman empire are based on economic metrics like agricultural modeling which in turn must make assumptions about wealth distribution. As for the Han, I don't think they've left us a complete census either.

To quote "How Many People? Ancient Demography" [0]:

> We generally estimate uncounted women, children and elderly males by using demographic modeling based on model life tables – data tables which project mortality simulations based on real-world populations. But how do you know what tables to use? The answer here has typically been that you comb the evidence you have (grave inscriptions, fragmentary census records that survive in Egypt) to create a statistical snapshot of your population and then try to match that, as best you can, to one of the extant models that ‘best fits.’ [...]

> That leaves the question of how many enslaved persons and those too poor to be counted in some of our figures.

[0] https://acoup.blog/2023/12/22/collections-how-many-people-an...

If the culture in question inhumates their dead, there is some chance to map the real structure of the population from excavated cemeteries. Exceptions still apply (executed criminals or suicides were often buried around the gallows instead of in cemeteries), but this is still a reasonable way to sample populations.

Cultures that prefer cremation, uh, that gets really complicated. We can't tell female ashes from male, nor tell the age of the deceased from them, even if the urn makes it through the centuries unscathed.

And with cultures that prefer more destructive burials (e.g. Parsis, where the dead are eaten by carrion fowl), there is basically zero chance.

Pre-Christian Rome tended to burn their dead, so no such luck.

Is there some assumption here that inequality is bad? Or that there's some ideal number? Or that there's a meaningful comparison with modern economies?

I see "inequality" as a concept like "uncertainty", it can be pointed to as the source of social and economic issues, but only is undesirable that rain is seen as undesirable weather. Nobody likes being on the wrong end of these, but they are inevitable and natural (to some extent) and I think we're better off trying to acheive a society that works with an equilibrium wealth distribution. Umbrellas rather than weather control machines.

The main argument against consumption inequality is that it's suboptimal in terms of average happiness / utility / well-being. If I spend $1M per month and transfer $1k of that spending to someone who spends $1k per month, average well-being would increase.

In the US, the top 10% are responsible for 50% of consumption. This means that higher redistribution can increase the spending of the bottom 90% by X% at the cost of decreasing the spending of the top 10% by X% (assuming no decrease in total production).

Of course, redistribution has negative effects too, I don't know what level of redistribution is optimal.

Well as shown by the original Communists, total redistribution just lets greedy people on the inside skim off the top. A taxation system with a properly constructed social safety net on the other hand, which is what I think you’re describing, is one where the wealthiest pay in the most and the least wealthy receive sufficient aid to get by.

A society where everybody can create wealth ends up far richer than one where one person hoards it all. So, yes, extreme inequality is bad for everybody, even those at the top of an unequal society.

Most people view the Nordics as desirable places to live and their Gini coefficient hovers around 0.3, while places with very high inequality, like Brazil and South Africa, tend to be poor and violent.

Nordic countries are made of homogeneous populations whose ancestors somewhat uniquely developed prosocial long term planning preferences to survive harsh winters thanks to natural selection.

Nordic equality is as natural as the inequality we see everywhere else.

> Nordic countries are made of homogeneous populations

Once upon a time, it was so. Today, not so much. If that's a good or a bad thing, it's an entirely different can of worms. I think diversity in the Nordics is beautiful, but Japan has managed without it and they have great artisans.

In the Nordics, in addition to long barbaric winters, having long barbaric Middle Ages helps foster social discipline. See what beloved King Vasa of Sweden did to peasants that weren't happy with their Gini coefficient:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalecarlian_rebellions

I think it has more to do with boat culture, when you are on the same boat you all die the same if it sinks no matter the ranks.

> Nordic countries are made of homogeneous populations

Something like 25%-32% of Sweden is non-ethnic Swedish.

Maybe once upon a time they were homogeneous, but they are probably one of the most heterogeneous countries (outside of the New World countries, which are an entirely different category), though I'd wager most of Western Europe is catching up (see: UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Spain).

Resource inequality and thus wealth inequality is rather bad because one person is generally unable to allocate resources efficiently after a certain point of excess. Resource inequality leads to inefficient resource allocation.

It's easy to see that with an unbounded amount of wealth, a single actor can keep a market irrational for an unbounded amount of time. Even with realistic (finite) amounts of wealth, this actor can keep a market irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

In general, markets can only work when people are averse to the loss of money, thereby introducing a feedback mechanism. And people are only averse to the loss of money when that has material consequences for their well-being. For the ultra-wealthy today, the marginal value of every additional dollar (or million dollars) is essentially zero, so the self-balancing properties of markets are prevented from doing their job properly, namely the efficient allocation of resources.

Your statement is a general misunderstanding of how markets work. The role of the market is not to be self balanced but to facilitate trade. Markets are voluntary exchanges between individuals and organizations. Markets work because people are ultimately the best at deciding their needs and wants during a specific time.

No, it's not strictly voluntary, because the existence of a market sets a price for a product, and materially differing from that price either puts you at a disadvantage (deprives you of voluntary trading partners) or creates opportunities for arbitrage (disadvantaging those who would otherwise voluntarily trade exclusively with you). And if your competitor has a massive pre-existing wealth advantage, they'll happily eat the loss and undercut you until you're out of business. This produces worse outcomes in the long run.

>Resource inequality leads to inefficient resource allocation.

Why don't we follow evolutionary laws and let nature and competition tackle resource allocation?

Same reason people prefer neural networks over genetic algorithms, evolution is slow.

Because of the intermingling of law and wealth. If you don’t intermediate, then justice becomes the will of the wealthiest, and the market stagnates. The only way that evolution works is if it is the highest and only law, so we would be warring individuals killing each other for resources on the daily.

As soon as you add social organization, you disrupt evolution inside that social unit: it then becomes one social unit vs others…. We’ve already been down that road, and now we live in large, relatively stable social units we call nations.

Anything inside a social unit is subject to the monopoly of coercion that the unit possesses over its members. Evolution is short-circuited by the presence of external existential forces.

Making evolution work inside a social unit is equivalent to dissolving it.

What does that look like, practically, considering how many rich people were born into an abundance of resources? Their survival is not a measure of fitness.

I feel like people who espouse this sort of view often wildly over estimate their chance of not ending up with a pointy stick through an important organ.

We don't do that because we don't like seeing women and children get their brains beaten out with a large rock over a rabbit haunch that the bigger ape wanted.

I’m constantly amazed at the socialist argument that forcibly taking the labor of some people to benefit other people is considered “efficient”

Also...

The idea that wealth hoarding inherently leads to inequality is flawed. If by “wealth” you mean capital, then unused capital doesn't distort markets or hinder wealth creation. If you're referring to wealth hoarding in the form of monopolies, it's important to note that monopolies tend to fail in truly free markets. Without innovation, they can't sustain themselves—unless they rely on government coercion to maintain control.

Government coercion is the primary force that inhibits both wealth creation and healthy competition. Overregulated markets and protectionist policies stifle innovation and prevent new players from entering the market. The most corrupt governments and corporations benefit from these systems because they reinforce existing power structures and shield them from competition.

> I’m constantly amazed at the socialist argument that forcibly taking the labor of some people to benefit other people is considered “efficient”

That is also the stance of the capitalists. Have you heard of welfare? Now, have you heard about a successful capitalist society without some form of welfare?

the reason for this is simple.

1. "truly free markets" don't and can't exist.

In the absence of a strong government to create rules, companies and individuals will fill the power vacuum (e.g. the east India company). "free markets" are just as much of a fantasy as "Communist utopia".

2. Redistribution is less inefficient than the alternative

Without sufficiently redistributave policy, the alternatives arise. The French revolution and various communist revolutions throughout the world over the 20th century are the alternative to a populace that thinks inequality is too high.

Its well covered in scholarly literature that inequality reduce growth, health and social mobility, and increase violent crime. The naturalness of is meaningless, pneumonia is natural too.

The link between inequality and crime is a maybe: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X2...

“To address this puzzle, I conducted a meta-analysis based on 1,341 estimates drawn from 43 studies in economics journals. The findings indicate a statistically significant but economically insignificant true effect of inequality on crime, ranging between 0.007 and 0.123 using UWLS FAT-PET and advanced methods. In essence, if there is an impact of inequality on crime, it is, at best, minimal.”

I'm not invoking the naturalistic fallacy, I'm saying that without external intervention economies will tend towards a non-uniform distribution of wealth. If you really desired to have everyone have the same amount of wealth you'd have to continually redistribute it, at some cost.

I don't know what exact scholarly literature you're referring to, but I'd guess that they're talking about local properties, i.e. starting from where we are increasing inequality would decrease growth etc.

On the other hand we know from history that technological and social innovation comes for production surpluses and specialisation allowing innovation. Taxing subsistence farmers to pay scientists and philosophers is cruel, but it seems to be how societal progress comes about. If you accept that (hopefully anodyne) premise then you'll agree that starting from relative wealth equality we can (long term) increase growth and social mobility and overall wellbeing by increasing inequality.

Inevitability and naturalness are not valid arguments for anything, unless you think naturalness has intrinsic value. You probably don't, because then you'd be against most things humans do these days. Diseases are inevitable and natural, yet you don't see anyone rational using those facts as arguments against cures.

You also seem to assume that inequality has benefits (rain is good), but we haven't really had a truly equal society since we started farming. The attempts at communism were just as if not more unequal as anything we have today. We don't know what it would be like, we just assume and we just believe the ones benefiting from inequality when they tell us how everything would fall apart if we tried to pursue such a thing.

Any amount of inequality can be used as leverage to gain more power and increase inequality, so there's no way to have any natural equilibrium of inequality. People who have the most power will always seek more and be in the best position to get it. We need true equality to have an equilibrium.

I appreciate your points, and you correctly assume that I'm not treating naturality as an intrinsic good.

You may already appreciate this point, but I think that even without having a modern example of a truly equal society we can reason about what it might be like. Specifically I believe that it's been well argued (though I don't have a reference to hand) that wealth equality is an unstable equilibrium. It should follow from the tendency of inequality exacerbate itself, as you mention.

Of course you can make a the equilibrium stable with a sufficient restoring force, but I haven't been convinced that such a thing is possible. I would be glad to hear ideas on that though (maybe income/wealth tax with negative rates below the average and then a sharp increase?).

My belief is that our inability to make good decisions collectively is what causes inequality to arise. Large groups of people don't have any way of making decisions beyond very simple ones with obvious answers. Because of this the group must give decision-making power to a smaller group, and the rise of inequality begins.

Before we can create an equal society without forcing it in some way, we need to figure out a system of decision-making that doesn't have to centralize power and can produce high quality decisions. Throughout history this has been impossible, but I think now with current technology it could be done if we put enough effort into it. A decision-making process in which anyone can participate, and which somehow makes sure participants have the required knowledge to make good decisions (or gathers all knowledge from participants and can figure out the good, relevant parts of it).

Well yes, I do assume inequality is bad. In what situations / with what values is inequality a good thing?

To play the devil's advocate, one could argue you are attempting to subvert the natural order of things. Try making an argument for your case rather than shifting the burden.

edit: I'm saying don't just assume it. Otherwise I can simply assume the counterposition.

OP asserted that equality amongst humans is not necessarily a good thing. I am not trying to argue otherwise - not yet, at least - I am asking them to expand upon and clarify the claim as to understand better.

Because I do assume equality to be a good thing; if that is an incorrect assumption I would like to know.

Fair enough. I do think that "equality is good" is the claim that would need to be justified if this were a formal debate, but I can give some more details on what I think.

Roughly, my feeling is that perfect equality is unstable, or at least enforcing it would cost a lot more than allowing for (limited) inequality. I don't think that perfectly free markets are desirable (or efficient) but I think that how do distribute resources in a way that maintains equality while also keeping the median wellbeing high (relative to other systems) is a huge ask.

It's a good thing this isn't a formal debate then, because neither I nor the paper claim equality is good nor am I debating the assertion otherwise.

Thank you for the clarification, your position makes more sense now. It sounds like you're not saying there's something inherently bad about equality, but rather that the practical cost of enforcing absolute equality top-down makes it actually a net negative in well-being for the population of a state?

(I can't help but point out that if there's someone with the power to enforce it, things are very far from equal - but I'm guessing you mean 'equality' more in a monetary / real goods sense)

You correctly describe my position, but I'd add that I don't yet see that perfect equality would be more desirable than some small amount of inequality.

Even behind the veil of ignorance I can imagine that, say, a society with a small amount of inequality would have higher average wealth and that most people would be happy with such a system even if, say, 10% of people were worse off than under perfect equality.

(For balance, maybe you could have a "crabs in a barrel" style of enforcement where all of the equal society members equally ensure that nobody becomes richer or poorer than anyone else. See e.g. this old story https://granta.com/the-black-sheep/ )

Yes. Massive inequality is bad.

Income inequality is perforce a problem from a socialist worldview. So yes, for the sort of people who abhor capitalism, all income inequality (and class inequality) is bad.

Inequality is somehow a consequence of the nature. People and animals have each different traits. One is faster when running, another is cleverly ambushing prey.

Trying to artificially reduce inequalities as in communism didn't yield good results as everything was reduced to the lowest common denominator.

Let's see some concrete examples rather than bringing up communism as a general idea and claiming that it reduces inequality and that it is a bad thing. There's no substance provided for the argument you've made.

I can't help but add a massive facepalm ... downvote me, I don't care.

In the first two maps, there seems to be little difference between income per capita and income inequality: the regions with greater per capita income also show greater inequality. Is this because some people always end up at zero no matter the region, so that increasing per capita income from X (lower) to Y (higher) stretches the ranges of income from zero to Y and thus increases disparity?

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Roman elites were more like mafia bosses from "The Godfather" than princes. They typically started their day by hearing the petitions of those who were dependent on them. Roman elites were expected to compete with one another to produce public works, give handouts, and put on extravagant games. They were expected to serve in a sequence of public, military, and religious offices. Failure to do so could get their whole family drummed out of elite circles.

Roman elites made themselves wealthy through service to the empire, but they were expected to use that wealth to serve the public. Individuals who exploited the system to an extreme degree to amass wealth (e.g. Marcus Licinius Crassus) could tarnish their reputation. However, even Crassus died in military service trying (very dumbly) to attain the military glory that was expected of roman elites.

In the modern world, pretty much all responsibilities that the Roman elite served now rest on governments. Billionaires are free to amass obscene wealth with almost no social responsibility. There is no expectation, for example, that a billionaire should provide welfare or build a stadium out of his own pocket and provide free entertainment to the masses. Today's system works only if the rich pay their taxes and governments regulate them to prevent excesses on the level Crassus was famous for.

The rich in many countries are no longer paying much in the way of taxes and are subverting government power to free themselves of regulations. In the case of some countries, the rich are even seizing the reigns of power and undermining fundamental state institutions.

It's a recipe for revolution.

I think there is a bit of a false equivalence going on - Roman elites held immense power with far fewer human rights constraints compared to modern wealthy individuals. No, I do not accept hyperbolic wailing of the "being a wagie is literal slavery" sort.

1) slavery and ownership of lives: they could literally own slaves. No matter how much anyone will want to twist "working for corporate" as slavery, there is simply no comparison to such direct dominion.

2) magisterial power: consuls and praetors could even sentence people to death with barely any resistance. You're welcome to find me an example in the first world.

3) land and resource control: we are in an era where the masses have a much larger share of land and resource ownership compared to then (e.g: latifundia).

4) judicial immunity: yeah, we all know the legal system isn't perfect but you don't have the same extreme levels of abuse you had back then unless again, you appeal to corrupt 3rd world countries.

5) military command: I don't see the billionaires in the first world with their own personal armies.

1, 2 and 4 are comparable to modern North Korea or Nazi Germany. The third, sort of, but with exceptions.

3, it depends, and 5 is really rare nowadays. The closest I can think of is the Wagner Group and the Akhmat Chechen units in Russia, and Wagner showed quite clearly why this privilege is dangerous to the rulers.

As an example of 2), Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...

Or Nora al-Awlaki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Nawar_al-Awlaki

Do you consider the state of Israel "first world"?

> You're welcome to find me an example in the first world.

You can get a one way ticket to a supermax in El Salvador even if you have the protection of the supreme court.

Noblesse oblige is the name for this concept: that traditionally, the wealthy were socially obligated to "give back".

This kind of "social obligation to share within the group" behaviour is seen all over the Animal kingdom too, not only in humans. The difficulty comes in scale and abstraction as we see today.

“ There is no expectation, for example, that a billionaire should provide welfare or build a stadium out of his own pocket and provide free entertainment to the masses”

It’s the other way now. The taxpayers are paying for stadiums so the billionaires can charge a ton of money for entertainment

> Roman elites made themselves wealthy through service to the empire, but they were expected to use that wealth to serve the public

Roman elites made their big bucks through governorships (corruption) and campaign (conquest).

> There is no expectation, for example, that a billionaire should provide welfare or build a stadium out of his own pocket and provide free entertainment to the masses

Philanthropy is absolutely an expectation, though I agree the noblesse oblige8 has decayed.

> rich in many countries are no longer paying much in the way of taxes*

Relatively, yes. In aggregate, the rich pay the lion’s share of taxes in the West.

> It's a recipe for revolution

To the extent we are, it’s towards an imperial transition where the elites take a greater share.

> Relatively, yes. In aggregate, the rich pay the lion’s share of taxes in the West.

Depends on your definition of rich, your definition of "lion's share" and where in the west.

In the UK 18% of government revenue comes from national insurance - which is an income tax only on earned income, and charged at a higher rate on people in lower tax bands.

Another 17% is from VAT. Yes, rich people will buy more stuff subject to VAT, but a much lower proportion of their incomes, and it falls a lot as incomes go up. I would guess it pretty much plateaus for the super-rich.

About 4% comes from council tax, which is per household with an adjustment for the value of the property you live in, and a that adjustment if far from proportionate and there is a maximum level that is far below the typical value of the residences of the rich. There is a penalty for owning multiple houses for personal use. Again, would plateau at some point.

About another 5% comes from fuel and tobacco alcohol duties. Rich people might have bigger cars, but they are also more likely to have EVs, and they do not drink more alcohol AFAIK and are less likely to smoke.

Only 23% comes from income tax which is the only clearly progressive tax - and that becomes less clear when you leave for exemptions and the greater ability of the rich to avoid it.

It would take a detailed analysis to figure this out.

Sources:

https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/where-does-go...

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

> Yes, rich people will buy more stuff subject to VAT, but a much lower proportion of their incomes, and it falls a lot as incomes go up.

Doubt. Rich people usually have holding corporations or trust funds that can buy their yacht, and employ a wide range of tax evasion techniques carried out by an army of specialist lawyers and accountants to minimise tax impact to the absolute minimum.

They play a different game than you or me, but on the same playing field.

I think you agree with me?

To clarify, rich people will spend more on the things subject to VAT than the rest of us. They will spend a lot more on entertainment, maintaining houses, cars and fuel, luxury consumables etc.

However, a much higher proportion of their spending will be able to escape VAT because they can evade VAT (and income tax) to a much grater extent.

Yes, I think so too. I guess I just didn't get the tax evasion aspect in relation to VAT.

> Depends on your definition of rich, your definition of "lion's share" and where in the west

Not really, it just requires pointing out that the rates you’re using to compare the modern West and Ancient Rome are much, much higher in every case for the latter.

> In the UK

I’ll admit I don’t know British figures well, so you may have a point. (As a small country, it has e.g. non-dom issues the EU, China and America do not.)

In the U.S., about half of taxes are paid by the top 1%. That’s not commensurate with our power or privilege. But it’s also not nothing.

Relatively, yes. In aggregate, the rich pay the lion’s share of taxes in the West.

Your comment defeats the point you are trying to make. When talking about paying fair share or paying enough in taxes it’s the relative part that matters; not the aggregate.

OP didn’t say fair, they said the rich “don’t pay much.” In America, the rich pay like half the Treasury’s till. It should be more. But that’s a separate question.

The meaning of “don’t pay much” in common usage on this topic means relativley speaking.

> Philanthropy is absolutely an expectation, though I agree the noblesse oblige8 has decayed.

Arguably nobless oblige has been embedded in the legal system. The expectation is there and expressed in the tax code. The philosophical process was the elites sat down, codified their obligations and called it "our taxes".

Ironically, big chunks of beloch's post is pointing out that billionaires have a huge amount of social responsibility under the modern system. They are expected to provide welfare and build stadiums. Just not administer the process.

They aren’t building the stadiums when those stadiums are paid for with public money that they contribute relatively less to.

IIRC Major American universities get a lot of money from successful alumni. Isn't this an equivalent of the old fashioned Roman games and bread?

Today, we are collectively less into gladiators and more into colleges.

"The rich in many countries are no longer paying much in the way of taxes"

The taxation levels in OECD countries are way higher than whatever any Roman emperor could dream of, and the top 1 per cent usually pays ~ 30 per cent of the total income tax revenue.

> Sounds like our elites should put some limits on themselves

America's 1% owns around a third of its assets [1]. We'd have to more than double that rate to approach ancient Rome.

We have problems with income inequality and political stability in the West. They are probably not informed by this comparison.

[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-the-1s-share-of-...

Given different bases (inevitable), it's easier to compare the Gini coeffs directly (though maybe no less misleading because of scale distortions)

From TFA:

The Roman Empire scored 0.46 and Han China scored 0.48. ... currently the Gini coefficient for the U.S. is 0.41.

It’s comparing social positions in ancient societies, including one where a grain dole was the revolutionary social service, with income today. TFA isn’t the original source.

Your link gives the Gini for US : 0.413

TFA states “the researchers used a social table, which categorizes people by social position along with associated incomes” to estimate Roman and Han Gini coëfficients. The Gini being calculated for that era isn’t meant to be compared to the modern metric because it’s a different measure; the researchers were careful in couching this in a way the article is not.

Aha I see source of the misunderstanding

the original paper's IER is absolutely meant to be compared across eras. (It tries to correct for the distortions of Gini I mentioned above)

Tiny bit of bad faith, IER for US is ~0.41(!), much less extractive than Han or Rome. IER is not covered by visualcapitalist.com which hints that they are not a totally good faith source as well..

Could. Beware of trying to read modern political topics in ancient history. It is a trend that never goes out of fashion, but complicates understanding of really distant times and polities.

Both Han China and the Roman Empire were fairly long-lived entities. The US hasn't even made it yet to half of Han China's lifespan, and maybe an eighth of the Roman state lifespan (too many people don't realize that Byzantium was a Roman state).

Deriving lessons from their longevity is tricky, though. The structure of the economy changed profoundly in the meantime. For example, in absence of engines, every old empire would require a large body of non-free labour to even exist.

Literacy and easier sharing of information is yet another thing that happened in the meantime. For example, country-wide rebellions are feasible, even though not necessarily more successful. If Spartacus could broadcast his message all over the Empire, his revolt could have ended up very differently.

We take it for granted that continent-wide politics is basically synchronous. That wasn't the case when it took months to reach the outskirts of the realm. An eager outpost commander could start a war without the metropolis even knowing, much less condoning his action.

Empire start declining when empire interest payment on its debt start exceeding its military budget

> Empire start declining when empire interest payment on its debt start exceeding its military budget

Not relevant to the ancient Romans or Han.

Interest payment to who?