This has been the era of globalisation, the apogee of capitalism: open markets across borders. The interesting thing about this is where the benefit has gone.

Developing countries have seen rapid growth in this period, especially China, India, south east asia, parts of south America. A lot of people in those countries have moved out of subsistence agriculture in to jobs (low-paid by Western standards) where they are now supplying Western consumers.

However, in Western countries, wages for those in the middle and lower middle of the distributions have flatlined. They are now facing competition from overseas labour - either through direct competition when they migrate to Western countries, or even if they don't, through competition with foreign workers through offshoring.

In Western countries there have been huge gains for those at the top end of the wealth distribution, while those in the middle and lower parts have struggled.

Hence the political rejection of capitalism and free markets: Trump, Brexit. Even the Conservative party now has rejected free-market capitalism. Their approach now would horrify Thatcher - rapid rises to minimum wage, wanting to be free from state aid controls so they can use taxpayers' money to subsidise struggling industries, capping energy prices. Northern rail and South Western look likely to be taken under public management.

Who is making the argument for free-market capitalism? The EU do, broadly, other than even there they are restrained by some interest groups (southern European farmers) and so have some protectionist policies.

Assuming we’re sticking with capitalism, i’d go with more progressive taxation vs what we have now rather than capping wages.

The distinction i’d make between Messi (and maybe Danilo, don’t know much about him), and a lot of CEOs, is that he’s walked a path that 1. You have to be exceptional to reach that destination and 2. Is almost equally open to everybody... well, men at least.

The question for me isn’t so much how you measure/quantify the value of work, but [uwho[/u does it. I do see a case for leaving it to an [uefficient[/u market. CEO pay is likely the way it is in part because of the role CEOs have in determining it.

Are you saying the standard of living in the UK and Europe hasn't moved on in the last 30 years? Perhaps the benefits are not just how much you earn it is about how much things cost in comparison or what you get at no individual cost. Improvements in health care increase life expectancy and quality - perhaps some of the benefits have disappeared into drug development which costs billions. Infrastructure is better, we have better roads, we have new technology this all costs huge amounts of development money. Perhaps this is where the levelling off is really happening? Whether you earn minimum wage or millions - the M1 is the M1 - your internet is as good. The drugs you take for your heart condition are identical etc. This is where Capitalism really wins out.

I think your point about Messi is true - if you are exceptional you will make it to the highest level no matter where you come from and there are plenty of examples of that.

CEO's don't start as CEO's someone appoints them and decides what they have to pay usually non-exec directors who understand the market and what they are looking for.

This is probably a semantic point, but are you claiming roads, the internet and healthcare for capitalism?

If the future turns out to be a post-scarcity technological idyll (something like Iain M. Banks Culture with benevolent AIs rather than the Skynet version), then it'll all be moot because money won't matter. And if it goes the other way it'll be moot because our few dozen surviving descendants will be being hunted relentless 8-foot-tall cyborgs.

It is true that the relatively poor live better than the relatively rich of past decades/centuries, in many ways.

To be honest, I don't think much of this discussion is about capitalism vs something else. It is more whether our capitalist system is working as it should or is it distorted and inefficient? Obviously, inevitably, it is the latter to some extent - nobody expects perfection. But in some areas it feels like we're at the 'hang on a minute, WTF?' stage, and that is eliciting political re-alignments. Not all of them efficiently directed, imo, but a lot of people of had enough... of something or other.

In some fields, I think that is much truer than others. The social and practical barriers to becoming a top footballer are low - it is about talent that can be assessed fairly simply. On the other hand, at the top level, like a lot of very, very highly paid work, the societal value seems pretty limited. The market may not make those sorts of judgements, but that doesn't mean we can't judge the market system as lacking, by human standards, for that.

What people are maybe concerned about more is that if you are unexceptional you can do very well just by coming from the right place - there are plenty of examples of that too. Equally, there's a lot of talent wasted because hard-working, gifted people can't overcome irrational barriers in the market.

Across society we want as many people as possible to contribute as much value as possible (and most people, by definition, are not exceptional). A problem I think we have is that too many aren't incentivized to give their best, because they've worked out there's not much point other than altruism, and there's a smaller number for whom there is no need because their success is baked in.



Yeah, their mate, and the favour will no doubt be reciprocated.



Look, I think this comes down to a difference in perception. You think these guys are the best of the best, because otherwise they wouldn't be at the top, so QED. I think a fair proportion of them are... mediocrities who have benefited from a broken system, would be harsh... but nothing special, and easily interchangeable with other competent people. There's the odd visionary I'm sure, there's much more opacity than with football. You can see in real-time why a football team is successful and who is contributing what. And under-performing players are dropped.

The oversight of executive pay by non-executive directors and large shareholders, doesn't seem to work to me, from the little I've seen and read. And, intuitively, it doesn't seem like it should.

I agree with much of your first point - we don't invest and challenge our people - the ridiculous idea that someone shouldn't progress because they are too valuable in their current role happens all the time. We prefer someone else to do the hard lifting for us and we get the finished article - especially for overseas. It is no wonder we don't get the best out of our people. Staff turnover is so expensive.

Whilst I would agree with you will always get some CEO's that are less than brilliant that shouldn't hold be the remunerations of those that are - the sky should be limit on their earnings potential. A good CEO is cheap - like a good sales person.

I broadly agree. And even when I talk about more progressive taxation, I'm not advocating punitive, self-defeating levels.

The key thing is that the market is as open as possible to talent.

And then, a point you've raised a couple of times, how is 'good' judged? Share price seems logical, because the shareholders are the owners and it is easily measured. But then what is a sensible time frame? In some ways, it'd be most just to judge executives over periods longer than some of their tenures, but that isn't practical. So maybe a buy-back to immediately boost the share price appeals more than medium-term investment that would be more valuable. Or maybe the shareholders themselves don't plan on sticking around that long and would prefer the quicker buck.

If we could give an AI a list of priorities for delivering corporate success, I wonder how much they would differ from those of a human CEO?

Given that the AI is programmed by humans and takes human inputs I would suggest quite similar. For me and my business people are what make the difference and those hundreds of daily human interactions are what separate top businesses from average ones. This is even more key the higher up the ladder you go.

If we assume the share price is a predictor of future growth then I would agree but there are many high quality CEO's working in unfashionable industries that don't get the interest of say tech firms. For me its the robustness of the business to withstand set backs, will its cashflows enable it keep going when the market might go against it? Does the business have an appropriate structure, is it well invested etc there are many ways you can judge the performance of a CEO.

I don’t mean a programmable robot, but a genuine (currently hypothetical) sentient AI, free from human desires - including the desire for personal status and remuneration.

Your priorities - positive human interactions, robustness, appropriately structured - all seem nice and sensible. What is interesting to me is what is missing from the list that often seem to be among the non-brochure/prospectus version of corporate priorities.

so, no sense of self, achievement, desire, ambition?

a very sterile world, and not really an example of evolution. But then evolution is subjective.

Quote ="IR80"so, no sense of self, achievement, desire, ambition? a very sterile world, and not really an example of evolution. But then evolution is subjective.'" You don't think selflessness and equanimity are useful qualities for optimal performance of this role? The danger, I reckon, is when somebody tells it save the environment and it starts exterminating us. Hopefully it'll be smart enough to read between the lines, and investor relations would still know to put an optimistic spin on information and it'll ensure that HR is aware that it is there to protect the company first and employees second. I'm thinking of something like the Minds in the Culture series of novels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture While made-up, they are interesting and entertaining. Does a post-scarcity future, managed by hyperintelligent AIs, appeal hypothetically? Or would the lack of economic competition and status make it feel sterile, d'you reckon?

Quote ="IR80"so, no sense of self, achievement, desire, ambition? a very sterile world, and not really an example of evolution. But then evolution is subjective.'" You don't think selflessness and equanimity are useful qualities for optimal performance of this role? The danger, I reckon, is when somebody tells it save the environment and it starts exterminating us. Hopefully it'll be smart enough to read between the lines, and investor relations would still know to put an optimistic spin on information and it'll ensure that HR is aware that it is there to protect the company first and employees second. I'm thinking of something like the Minds in the Culture series of novels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture While made-up, they are interesting and entertaining. Does a post-scarcity future, managed by hyperintelligent AIs, appeal hypothetically? Or would the lack of economic competition and status make it feel sterile, d'you reckon?

Quote ="Mild Rover"You don't think selflessness and equanimity are useful qualities for optimal performance of this role? The danger, I reckon, is when somebody tells it save the environment and it starts exterminating us. Hopefully it'll be smart enough to read between the lines, and investor relations would still know to put an optimistic spin on information and it'll ensure that HR is aware that it is there to protect the company first and employees second. I'm thinking of something like the Minds in the Culture series of novels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture While made-up, they are interesting and entertaining. Does a post-scarcity future, managed by hyperintelligent AIs, appeal hypothetically? Or would the lack of economic competition and status make it feel sterile, d'you reckon?'" AI pipe dreams and fantasy, not a future we are likely to see, nor one I want.

Quote ="Mild Rover"You don't think selflessness and equanimity are useful qualities for optimal performance of this role? The danger, I reckon, is when somebody tells it save the environment and it starts exterminating us. Hopefully it'll be smart enough to read between the lines, and investor relations would still know to put an optimistic spin on information and it'll ensure that HR is aware that it is there to protect the company first and employees second. I'm thinking of something like the Minds in the Culture series of novels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture While made-up, they are interesting and entertaining. Does a post-scarcity future, managed by hyperintelligent AIs, appeal hypothetically? Or would the lack of economic competition and status make it feel sterile, d'you reckon?'" AI pipe dreams and fantasy, not a future we are likely to see, nor one I want.

What sort of future do you envision and want?

One where survival of the fittest prevails, the best person for a job doing the job, pretty much as things are now.

Somewhere between Running Man and Rococop?

Nope, but we don't live in a society anything like that.

It's only a matter of time...

I never had you down as such a Panglossian optimist.

I am far from Naive, and if I thought for one second you had ever read any Voltaire I would be amazed.

I’ve read Candide. Slim volume, and a lightness of tone easy for my tiny mind to process.

You read it?

Yes, a while ago now. I also tried Chaucer at roughly the same time, very difficult to read. I don't read anywhere near as much as I used to, but I don't travel as much nowadays.

I don't share your view that AI is the future, ultimately AI (in its current form) is simply an extension of the individual(s) that program it.

We’re a way off sentient AI, I agree.

But machine learning means we’re beyond stuff just being programmed by people.

People often think first about the impact of driverless vehicles, and the impact that’ll have on people who drive for a living, for example. But a fair proportion of share trading is done by algorithms now. Their use as virtual assistants is widespread and they decide what videos YouTube recommends for you. One day in the not too distant they might be prescribing you medicines or providing adaptive, interactive tuition. They’re moving from processing data to interpreting and summarising it, which is the main part of my work.

But they must be interpreting/summarising based on something programmed?

So, my very, very basic lay person understanding is that machine learning doesn’t require programming, but instead a training set.

So when we were asked to prove we were not a bot when accessing a website, by selecting all the squares containing a road sign, we were helping to create a training set for a self-driving car. Presumably there are now algorithms that can recognise road signs, thanks to our efforts, so that security feature for weeding out bots has become redundant.

The training sets are used to test automatically generated, pretty much random algorithms. Millions of them. And most of them are rubbish. But if you pick the best 1%... well, they’ll still be rubbish. But if you use them as the basis to generate millions more and pick the best 1% of them, survival of the fittest style, and so on, and so on... you get there.

So I guess the human input is in creating the environment and providing the nutrients (the training set), but the algorithm evolves more than being programmed. For the latest game machine learning for Chess and Go, I think the machine created its own training set. Rather than being fed loads of games from top human players, and learning to mimic them super efficiently, it started from scratch playing against itself.