I just want to point out several things about this graph and the whole commentary about capitalism.    Well, first the Capitalism thing, actually.  I know you didn't say it, but I just wanted to say that the United States isn't all that Capitalist.  In fact, I have heard that pure Capitalism isn't the best thing for a market anyway.  Okay, now that's out of the way, now onto the graph itself.

This graph,  I kind of am wondering how exactly this "Better-life Index" is using as measurement.  According to the website, it includes more than just GPD numbers (which is a good thing if you really want to fairly compare how well people are living).  However, it begs the question on HOW are these things being quantified?  I think that even with the adjustments made to that graph, there must no doubt be a skew in favor to the United States.

How is the " accumulation of wealth" a problem and who determines when it is "excess"? In fact, I view it as a good thing. People are more affluent (all people, the rich and the poor) than they were 100 years ago, and people 100 years ago were more affluent than people 200 years ago. Poverty has decreased from 80% of the world's population to only 20% of the world's population, almost entirely erased in first world countries. These are all good things, and they are all because greater efficiency in production caused by free-markets. Things that were scarce 200 years ago, are nowhere near scarce today. That is the only way egalitarianism can happen, if scarcity is reduced, and the only way scarcity can be reduced is from production, and it just so happens that production is most efficienty (naturally) performed through a system that is not equal, but that's rightly so because there is even scarcity in people who can perform certain functions that are necessary to production. An egalitarian distribution means a less productive society, and consequently an overall worse off society. I'd rather have income inequality if it means that the poor live better than in a society much more equal, with a worse off poor. 

The United States might be the most inequal first-world country, but poor still live just as good lives as the poor of other more equal countries, if not better. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/06/01/astonishing-numbers-americas-poor-still-live-better-than-most-of-the-rest-of-humanity/

My point was that inequality =/> poor people live badly, and so what is the issue if there are people so much more rich than the poor in their country compared to another country? Who cares if they have so much money? Why should there be a limit on how much wealth somebody can accumulate? '

As for you question regarding the graph:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/05/daily-chart-17?Fsrc=scn%2Fgp%2Fwl%2Fdc%2Fbetterlifeindex

"SIZING up countries by GDP has long been criticised for placing too much emphasis on things that are measured monetarily. Over the past three years, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has released an alternative called the "Better-Life Index". It tracks around 24 indicators in 11 categories. Some are easily quantifiable, like jobs (which includes unemployment and income), while others are more woolly, like civic engagement and community. Ever diplomatic, the OECD does not provide a score for countries, though you can see their rankings here. The Economist has crunched the numbers for 10 indicators for which the OECD provide data to place countries in a range of how the best off and least well-off in society fare, measured as the top and bottom 10% of the population by income and education. It conforms to stereotype. The better-off Americans enjoy the best lives, but the country has the widest inequality. In fact, for all the fancy metrics, the Better-Life Index does not look too different from classic GDP rankings."

How is the accumulation of wealth a problem? Ever heard the saying the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer? This is the problem, why is wealth being limited to the families of those who were wealthy 50-300 years ago? When companies use the lowest bidder to make their products, this creates a separation between the rich, middle class, and poor. This is a problem because this mean to be rich, you only need to be born into a rich family, which is an issue because it means that hard working people don't get their due rewards. Wealth without work is after all one of the 7 deadly sins according to Gandi (Greed is another according to the Bible).

Who determines when it's excess? Politicians. Corporate taxes are designed to keep excessive wealth down, putting money earned by big comapnies into roads and education. Problem is, Politicians tend to be well off, Mitt Romney for instance makes millions of dollars off oil companies, and he was running for president. Do you think people are going to pass taxes which cut away at their income?

So many flaws with the Capitalistic system.

Everything else you described can be thanked to technology, not to capitalism. Less people are poor now because the cost of luxuries has reduced. Owning a Mustang in the 70's meant buying a new car every 3 years (due to poor reliability), where as now a similarly priced mustang (with prices mathced with inflation) last 10-15 years, and has considerably more power. A/C prices have dropped to the point everyone can afford an A/C. Computers have dropped in price to the point that everyone can have one too, etc, etc.

Also BTW using that graph, Russia is for more Capitalist then USA....and it's near the bottom. Kinda helps my arguement more then yours....

But the poor aren't getting poorer, they're also getting richer. Just not as quickly as the rich are. How would you have technology without a market that pushes for it? Why did the cost of luxuries reduce? Because of greater production, why was there greater production? Because of free-markets and prices based on supply and demand. There is a reason why socialist countries like China and Russia had to open "special economic zones" in order to sustain production. Russia ranks 139 on the economic index.

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/russia

http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

It's not more capitalist than most of the world, let alone the U.S (which is at 10.) But your point was that greater inequality leads to the poor being worst off, which isn't true. That was my point. 

Is English *your* first language? The term "as a general rule" is a well-known term. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/general

Go down to the "Phrases" section, where you will find "as a general rule", with the provided definition being "in most cases" (as in the sentence "As a general rule vegetable oils are better for you than animal fats"). This is the standard use of the term "as a general rule", and one which people who speak English should be well-acquainted. The exact sentence I used was "What I'm talking about is a society where those who contribute more get more money as a general rule".

Few things about this: I wasn't trying to be rude like you were.  I was legitimately asking you this one.  I asked the question on if you knew English due to the fact that afterwards, you specified general rule as a "typical result."  That still isn't what it means.  I do see where you're coming from with this, though.  When I first replied to you on this, I was referring to the fact that this, either way, will need to come down to an actual "rule" (directly or indirectly).  That changed upon your further response, because I then thought you thought it meant something else.

Nobody refers to England's legal system as being "based on general rule"

I didn't say they said that, I was saying that the way it works can be described as one.  It may be sort of a stretch, as it is obviously more complex than that.

- indeed, a search of the internet for the terms "general rule" and "legal system" simultaneously produces only examples where the aforementioned meaning ("in most cases") is used. The term "general rule" is used, as a general rule, to refer to something that applies most of the time, but for which there are exceptions.

Meanwhile, you explicitly said that I was asking for a completely free market (which was completely false), and now you defend yourself by saying that you never said I said it - no, you implied that it was the underlying idea, which was also completely false.

No, what I was saying in my original response was it seemed like you were saying it without realizing it.  I wasn't outright making the claim by using the qualifiers.  Although, I think I see what happened.  I may have misinterpreted what your original post said.  I did, indeed, think that the differences between economic equality definitions was what you were trying to assert.

"Prisoner's Dilemma" isn't an IR term, it's a game theory term - as in, Mathematics. It comes up in economics, in IR, in actual games, in social interactions, etc. And it's not about trust, it's about rational decision-making, when involving multiple people, producing sub-optimal results. Each person is making the rational decision to betray, because irrespective of what the other person does, betrayal will produce a better result for that person... but because both make the rational decision, they both betray, producing a worse result for each of them than if both had cooperated. It is the difference between an optimal result for the group and the Nash Equilibrium, which occurs when each person acts rationally.

This part (especially the bolded) is my bad.  I concede to this.  I said it was an IR term, but actually the IR term I was thinking of was cooperation theory.  The "Prisoner's Dilemma" was used IN it, and I was wrong here.

The classic version would say that, if both betray, each gets 2 years in prison. If one betrays, the betrayor goes free while the betrayed gets 3 years in prison. If both cooperate, they both get just 1 year in prison. If Prisoner B betrays, then it is better for Prisoner A to betray, because they'll get only 2 years in prison, rather than 3. If Prisoner B cooperates, then it is better for Prisoner A to betray, because they'll go free rather than getting 1 year in prison. As a result, it doesn't matter what Prisoner B does, Prisoner A is better off betraying, and betrayal is the rational thing to do. The exact same reasoning applies for Prisoner B, since it's a symmetric situation. And so, both betray and get 2 years in prison, when if they had both cooperated, they would get just 1 year in prison each - a clearly superior result for each.

Have a look, for instance, here. It's an article in the Library of Economics and Liberty, all about Prisoner's Dilemma in the context of economics.

And you still seem to think that this is about having a law or official restriction to produce the desired result. The whole idea is that you construct the "playing field" itself to make people choose the desired result when acting rationally. Kind of like, for instance, how governments usually offer tax deductions for charitable contributions - it's a way to encourage people to give to charity, without forcing anybody to do it.

And yes, it is reasonable and realistic for society to regulate the market - we do it already, and the best regulations are highly successful (many regulations are ineffectual and burdensome, but that's a failure of the design of the regulation, not a failure of regulation itself).

Hmm, I wasn't really saying it was unreasonable and unrealistic.  I was thinking it was unrealistic to do it with economic equality without the proper society to go along with it.

As you say, you didn't actually assert that I claimed the 24 hour news cycle was the only cause of corruption... you only implied it, when you made a point to emphasise that corruption existed before the 24 hour news cycle.

I said it like that because you said that 100 years ago people became politicians to actually make a difference.  Now, I will admit that maybe I took the term "making a difference" as positive rather than negative, but it still isn't really true.  People now want to make a difference as well.  Where the priorities lie are different, but what really was so much better about 100 years ago?  We were living under different conditions then, too.

And the 24 hour news cycle most certainly *does* result in corruption that wouldn't otherwise be there. And no, "corruption" doesn't mean the government doing "something it's not supposed to be doing",

I was actually just trying to simplify the definition with this.  What I was saying was that "corruption" on the governmental level means that the government (or people within it) make an action that is out of their power to do (typically under covers, but not exclusively)

  it means, and I quote, "dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery".

And that last part about bribery, I think that applies more now than before.  However, it's "legal" now.  Oh, and I wasn't saying that the 24 hour news cycle does not contribute or result in any corruption, I was saying that it is also a disincentive for corruption as well (I was arguing just as much as it results in corruption).

And you don't seem to comprehend CONTEXT. So I'll have to say it more slowly, I guess... a properly set up democracy won't have massive loopholes. The "correct way" directly implies a specific form of democracy, whereas "properly set up" does not. This isn't a matter of degrees, it's the ACTUAL MEANINGS OF WORDS, and their contexts. You can't just take individual words, like "correct" and "proper" out of the context in which they're used, and still make a sensible interpretation of the situation. You did this exact same thing with "general rule". You can't just separate the words into "general" and "rule", (This was actually what I thought you were saying) and assume that the individual meanings are just put together directly. Our language does NOT work that way - "general rule" is not just a "rule" that is "general", (It can certainly be used this way) just as "baby shower" isn't a "shower" that is "baby". (Not the same kind of example) As for correct vs proper, consider, for example, a person. You might describe a person as "prim and proper". You wouldn't ever say "prim and correct". (Aren't you doing exactly what you were saying I was doing with this example?  The same word can mean different things in context, and really this semantic battle is getting old)>> They're not just degrees, they're entirely different meanings because of the context.(Words themselves can have context, but words are also affected by the context of the sentence.  Maybe I got the context of your sentence wrong considering I may have read your first post wrong, as you said)

You say you asserted that "it isn't compatible unless you have something opposite of a democracy first." Now, other than the fact that you never said that in the discussion with me, there's the problem that you haven't backed up your assertion with anything whatsoever - just attempts to shout down anybody who expresses disagreement.

Well, let's say I was also working with an assumption in mind (more of a realist approach).  I wasn't trying to just assert that anyone who disagrees with me is wrong.  I was asserting also from the stand point of the United States.  There are many social inequalities that simple passive laws wont fix.  A democracy wouldn't allow strong laws that could fix these issues without that lingering doubt that anything will change.  Of course, in the end, we really were talking about different things in the end, weren't we?

Meanwhile, I find it hilarious that you claim that applied mathematics means nothing to economics. (This wasn't what I was saying.  I'll give you an example of what I was trying to say: Someone says they know a lot about Einstein's theories.  They use their background of History to back up that they know what they're talking about.  While you can MAKE a connection there, you need to say more than that to actually give yourself credibility.  This is what I was saying, not that applied math itself means nothing to economics (also, I wasn't referring to economics there; I was referring to the politics behind all of this) You clearly know nothing of the economics that you claim is your field (economics isn't my field, I wasn't talking about economics.  We were arguing about different things, it seems), given that the vast majority of economics is literally applied mathematics. That you don't even know about Prisoner's Dilemma in the context of economics makes me very skeptical that you know anything at all about economics. (Like I mentioned above, I made a mix up) Indeed, economics can be considered a subfield of game theory - which is itself a subfield of mathematics.

But hey, tell me again how knowledge of mathematics and logic isn't helpful when discussing economics.