powerlaw distributions Re: [LINK] MEAA tells Creative Commons to get f**ed

[Antony Barry]

On 21 Mar 2005, at 8:12 PM, Deus Ex Machina wrote:

> unless you have a resulting powerlaw distribution you do not have fair
> exchange of value in an economic sense.   you can not prevent a 
> powerlaw
> distribution in a system unless you interefer with every transaction.
> ie prevent all people from exercising freedom of choice.

The latest results seem to make the sitation more complicated. 
Extracted from http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524904.300

> "We are interested in understanding whether there is some kind of 
> social injustice behind this skewed distribution," says Sudhakar 
> Yarlagadda of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) in Kolkata.
>
> ...They found that while the income distribution among the 
> super-wealthy - about 3 per cent of the population - does follow 
> Pareto's law, incomes for the remaining 97 per cent fitted a different 
> curve - one that also describes the spread of energies of atoms in a 
> gas (see Graph).
>
> ...While economists' models traditionally regard humans as rational 
> beings who always make intelligent decisions, econophysicists argue 
> that in large systems the behaviour of each individual is influenced 
> by so many factors that the net result is random, so it makes sense to 
> treat people like atoms in a gas.
>
> ...The atoms assume an exponential distribution of energy when they 
> are in thermal equilibrium, and pushing the gas away from this state 
> takes a lot of energy and it could prove similarly difficult to shift 
> an economy to a different state.
>
> ...Macroeconomist Makoto Nirei at Utah State University in Logan, 
> whose own work will be presented at the conference, is supportive of 
> the physicists' work but he has reservations about how they model the 
> exchange of money.
>
> ...Doyne Farmer, a physicist from the Santa Fe Institute in New 
> Mexico, points out that these models have their place: "Many economic 
> theories don't even come close to producing the wealth distribution we 
> see, and if you can't produce that you're dead in the water."

It seems that "This, along with research data from other countries, 
suggests that there are two economic classes. In one, the rich grow 
richer while in the other the poor stay poor."

Tony

phone : 02 6241 7659 | mailto:me at Tony-Barry.emu.id.au
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