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The total income hierarchy is then dominated by very high incomes from capital, especially inherited capital. This is the pattern we see in Ancien Régime France and in Europe during the Belle Époque,

the impression that patrimonial capitalism— which is flourishing in these early years of the twenty-first century— is something new, whereas it is in large part a repetition of the past and characteristic of a low-growth environment like the nineteenth century.

A universal stipend, without means testing or any other qualifier, would be such a literal, blunt form of redistribution that it might become less vulnerable to the traditional pitfalls of corruption and power mongering. At least that is the thinking I have heard expressed in the valley.

I am sk…

We're still analyzing Eric's model and the results it is generating, but a few things can already be said. One is that adding a cost to information does not blow up this type of model. Insurance companies do not go out of business. In fact, there appear to be states in "paid-for" information models…