经济与社会科学2018pnas.org
自然与社会中的不平等
Inequality in nature and society
进阶 · 约 45 分钟读完前置知识：幂律/帕累托分布、不平等度量（基尼系数）、制度经济学基础
导读
这篇 PNAS 论文比较自然界与人类社会中的不平等分布，讨论财富不平等的统计规律是否与物理、生物系统中的分布（如幂律/帕累托分布）具有可比性，并据此论证：除非在全球范围内建立有效的财富均衡制度，否则极端财富不平等在全球化世界中难以避免。论文试图把自然科学的分布视角与社会制度的规范性讨论结合起来。
HN 关注点：HN 读者争论的焦点是：不平等究竟是自然规律（帕累托式分布）还是制度选择，以及"均衡制度"本身会不会制造新的不平等。
HN 评论精选
这几条评论里：支持 1 质疑 2 补充 1
补充用 Dworkin 的资源平等理论区分"正当"与"不正当"不平等：结果均等本身不等于公平，关键看成因是否源于个人选择。
（以下节自我去年写的《把数学与道德混为一谈》一文，略有修改但高度相关。）在《什么是平等？第二部分：资源平等》中，Ronald Dworkin 区分了正当的资源不平等与不正当的资源不平等。Dworkin 借用了 Rawls 的思想，斯坦福哲学百科将其要旨概括为："只有当资源的不平等分配源于相关者自身的决定与有意行动时，它才被认为是公平的。"反过来说，救济品、馈赠、贿赂和纯粹的运气都会造成不公平（不正义）的资源不平等。举例来说，国家彩票制造了不平等——而且是制造不正义的资源不平等——因为它是随机的。设计一个让财富总是收敛到均匀分布的社会政策是轻而易举的，但问题在于：除非这种收敛由 Dworkin 所称的"志向敏感"力量驱动，否则该政策虽然看起来公平，实质上极不公平。
dvt查看英文原文
(This is a slightly modified but highly relevant excerpt from a piece I wrote last year: Confusing Math with Morality[1].) In What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources[2], Ronald Dworkin makes a distinction between justified inequality of resources and unjustified inequality of resources. Dworkin borrows from Rawls, but the gist of his sentiment is summarized by SEP[3]: “Unequal distribution of resources is considered fair only when it results from the decisions and intentional actions of those concerned.” Conversely, provisions, gifts, bribes, and pure luck are conducive to an unfair (or unjust) inequality of resources. For example, a state lottery is unequal — and creates an unjust inequality of resources — because it’s random. It’s trivial to come up with a social policy that always converges wealth to a uniform distribution[4], but the problem is that unless this convergence is driven by what Dworkin calls ‘ambition-sensitive’ forces, this social policy is profoundly unfair — even though it might seem to be fair. [1] https://dvt.name/2017/07/10/confusing-math-with-morality/ [2] http://homepage.univie.ac.at/herbert.preiss/files/Dworkin_What%20is%20Equality_Part2_Equality%20of%20Resources.pdf [3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/#EquofRes [4] https://www.gaussianwaves.com/gaussianwaves/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Histogram-of-Uniform-Distribution.jpg
支持不平等有自然的、无法根除的成因（帕累托分布），但腐败、偏见、扭曲激励等可纠正的不公才是政策发力点。
存在一些根本无法一劳永逸解决的不平等的根本成因。帕累托原则及类似机制让我们得以窥见一斑，这在自然界随处可见（恒星系中的质量分布、生态系统中的能量分布等）。话虽如此，也存在大量属于时代错置、不公正的人为不平等成因：腐败、文化/种族偏见、扭曲的市场激励、外部性等等。这才是我们应该投入精力的地方，那里有许多应当做也能做的好事。我们还可以努力普遍抬高人类生活的"地板"，即便这类努力不能消除所有相对不平等。一个完全平等的系统是静态的、不变的、固定死的，不会有活力与生命。带来变化的动态过程不会给系统每个部分相同的结果，并且需要非均匀性才能持续发生——想想宇宙热寂：处处温度相同，就再也不会有任何有意义的变化。但这绝不是不去做我们力所能及且必要的改进的借口。最后，驱动不平等的"自然"动态完全可能目前并不处于理想水平，我们应当采取政策等手段来抵消这些动态、增进平等（更高税收、社会福利项目等）。我认为情况很可能正是如此。
dwaltrip查看英文原文
There are fundamental causes for inequality that can't be fixed once-and-for-all. The Pareto principle and other similar dynamics provide a glimpse into this. We see this everywhere in nature (distribution of mass in a star system, distribution of energy in an ecosystem, etc). That being said, there are significant anachronistic, unjust human causes for inequality. Corruption, cultural/racial bias, skewed market incentives, externalities, etc. That is where we should focus our energy. There is much good that can and should be done there. And we can work to broadly lift the floor of human experience for all, even if such endeavors don't eliminate all relative inequality. A perfectly equal system would be static, unchanging, fixed in place. There would be no vibrance or life. Dynamic processes that bring about change do not provide the same result to all pieces of a system, and require non-uniformity to continue occurring. Think of the heat death of the universe -- everything everywhere is the same temperature, and no interesting changes can ever happen again. But this is certainly no excuse to not make the valuable and necessary improvements that we are capable of doing. Lastly, it is certainly possible that the "natural" dynamics driving inequality are not at ideal levels right now, and that we should enact policy changes or other measures that counteract such dynamics and increase equality (higher taxes, social programs, etc). I think this is likely the case, and support such efforts. Edit: Getting some downvotes. I hope no one think I'm implying regressive action, as I have no desire for that. I'd love to hear people's take on things. My main reason for posting is that I often see discussions that don't recognize what seem to me certain fundamental dynamics. If my understanding is off, please share how. Thanks.
质疑质疑核心结论：财富均衡制度本身会被掌握者俘获，反而催生新的特权阶层（前苏联为例）。
那些本意在于防止不平等的"财富均衡"制度，最终反倒成了不平等的另一个来源。看看前苏联就知道了：他们也有"财富均衡"制度，结果却制造出一个新的特权精英阶层——而这些人正是拥有和运营这些"财富均衡"机构的人。文章断言"除非在全球范围建立有效的财富均衡制度，否则极端财富不平等在全球化世界中不可避免"，这是错的，因为这些制度最终会制造出一层新的不平等。因此文章的前提本应是："财富不平等不可避免"，句号。
Strudelnoggin查看英文原文
The inequality that the "wealth equalizing" institutions are intended to prevent end up becoming another cause of inequality. One only look as far as the former Soviet Union. They had "wealth equalizing" institutions as well which created a new privileged class of elites. Those elites were those who owned and operated the "wealth equalizing" institutions. The article's assertion "extreme wealth inequality is inevitable in a globalizing world unless effective wealth-equalizing institutions are installed on a global scale" is wrong. These institutions would end up creating a new layer of inequality. The article's premise, therefore, should have been: "wealth inequality is inevitable", full stop.
质疑"大多数社会"这种说法无法量化且暗含价值判断；真正的问题是谁有权决定平等程度，以及偶然形成的不平等如何自我正当化。
"大多数社会"是个没有意义的说法。衡量"大多数"是不可能的，而且任何度量标准本身就多少源自价值判断。有些人类社会相当平等，有些则相当不平等。唯一有用的论点是：不平等很容易偶然产生，但事后却被包装成"精英 meritocracy"，从而自我正当化。总之，主要问题是："我们想要何种程度的不平等或平等？"——也就是，对某个能够真正实现其选择的"我们"而言。也许这个"我们"就是精英，即已经身处顶层的那一小撮人。的确，在美国历史的某些时刻，精英们确实认为一定程度的平等有相当的价值，但那似乎早已是过去的事了。也许这个"我们"是更大的群体（选民、"工人阶级"、"愤怒的人"，谁知道呢）。当然，这个更大的群体得有能力做点什么，而不只是不满。
joe_the_user查看英文原文
"Most societies" is a meaningless term. Measuring "most" is impossible and any metric is more or less going to come out of a value judgment to begin with. Some human societies have a lot of equality and some have a lot inequality. The only useful point is that inequality can easily arise by chance but appear as "meritocracy" after the fact, being self justifying. Anyway, the main question is "what level of inequality or equality do we want?" That is, for some value of "we" able to make it's choice come to fruition. Maybe that "we" is the elite, that small number of people at the top already. Indeed, at points in America's history, the elite actually saw considerable value in some level of equality but that seems well in the past. Maybe that we is a larger group (the voters, "the working class", "angry people", who knows). That larger group would need to be able to do something more than be unhappy, of course.
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- 2018Hacker News 讨论帖145 分 · 111 评
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