10-16-2016, 06:47 PM
(10-16-2016, 04:48 PM)Mikebert Wrote:(10-15-2016, 05:40 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: I have Ultra Society in my Amazon cart. I'm skeptical of a Turchin analysis of inequality because the inequality curves he cites in his blog don't look anything like the ones that I've seen or like the one you posted. I'll look at reviews of Ages of Discord, though - and I'd be interested in any comments you have on the points I bring up.
Turchin does not consider slavery in his inequality analysis. He uses relative wage (w) defined as median wage divided by GDP as his key measure. GDPpc is a measure of the amount of output per person. Wage is a measure of the fraction of that output that goes to workers.
My analysis uses a more sophisticated relative wage. I adjust my relative wage to account for changes in the number of people in paid employment. That is, I average in zero wages for unpaid workers (slaves) and for the unemployed. Thus, when slaves were freed, 14% of the population became wage workers. What this does is show a spike in inequality around the civil war, that does not show up in Turchin's analysis. Tuchin's analysis shows downward spike in inequality (rising relative wage) in the early 30's because GDPpc (the denominator) collapsed faster than wage (numerator). It's and artifact. My analysis shows a spike in inequality from 1929 to 1932 because bad a the Depression was for rich people, surely it was worse for the ordinary working stiff.
I also attempt to account or government transfer payments (Social Security/Medicare) in my relative wage, by adding the employer contributions to these (and private pensions) to worker compensation. Now accounted for are government transfer programs for the poor (food stamps, Medicaid, EITC, etc). However, I average in an independent measure of the top 1% income share as a second mesure of inequality, which helps account for this.
Thanks. Ignoring slavery would definitely affect things. Slaves did get a small but nonzero ration of food and minimal accomodations, but that presumably wouldn't differ from zero when determining median wage, since they would all have been receiving "wages" below the median.
How does this affect the value of the book? Should it go above Ultra Society on my reading list?