Wealth & Income Inequality
- Thread starter Eboue
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I have no idea by who you refer to as 'captialists'. The people who vote are normal people who lives lives similar to yours and mine. They have the welfare of their family and themselves as a priority when they vote similar to you and me. It's not coroprations like exxon who decide on next government but people like you and me. As we see from Trump, there are people whose livelihood and their kids welfare depends on fossil fuels and mining who are suffering now whilst you and fellow liberals are happy to brush them under the carpet in name of 'greater good'. Did the gove, Tump or Obama do anything to make their lives better? Are they unfortunate footnotes in march towards liberal future?
Really? When the ruling all powerful party is called "Communist Party of China?" They may have their own variation of communism, but it essentially an derivation of the old communist principles. Govt has neat absolute power over all corporations.
Again, you seem to have a idealistic agenda of future ignoring reality. The world has not progressed this far purely due to idealism. Govt raising taxes for cancer cure is acceptable, but not for paying of poor masses who lost their jobs due to economic downturn and/or curtailing of non-environmental friendly job markets?
An idealistic goal forgetting reality is a mirage doomed to fail.
Yeah I don't think anyone argues for equality of outcome. It's used as a strawman to dismiss more nuanced arguments.
Indeed and it's becoming very annoying.
There will always be poor and rich and even mega rich. It’s human condition to reach for the best that you can get. What’s essential though, is that all, independent of income, have access to the same level of education. Not like in certain countries, where the best schools are ridiculously expensive. In fact, I think we here in Denmark have it figured out pretty well. Education is free and we also have what’s called SU which translates to the governments educational support. Every person over the age of 18 who studies whatever recieves around 800 euro a month. It goes a long way to help those whose parents wouldn’t be able to help them through uni or something else.
I discussed this with American conservatives a while ago. Their main-counterargument was "Why should I pay for someone else's education?".
And that, in a nutshell, is where we Danes are different from Americans. Almost all my friends are conservatives by Danish standards, and none of them have ever contemplated the idea that education, or healthcare for that matter, should be dependent on your income. In fact, I don't recall a Danish politician ever saying anything of the sorts. He/she'd probably be hounded through the streets if they did. I suppose it's some twisted interpretation of the American "freedom" ideal.
I genuinely can't wrap my head around thinking that some are less fortunate, but that's just too bad.
Seriously? You should read the context before nitpicking random stuff.
Why did you make that point re the name of the party if you wouldn't think that's relevant?
There is no context needed. You took the name of the party as evidence for what they are, i.e. Communists. And doing so despite there being no instrinsic connection between a.) declaring something as X and b.) X actually having those characteristics. Additionally a large number of analogous situations show that making that connection couldn't be more useless, as I showed with North Korea.
Point I was making was that the wealth and inequality problems are not specific to a capitalistic economy and China communist party was given as an example. Whether they are communist by your definition or socialist by anyone else definition is irrelevant and doesn't change the point made.
@berbatrick
Props for bringing these issues into the discussion recently (without having to agree with everything in detail).
I'd like to say something about this article from a few days ago:
Props for bringing these issues into the discussion recently (without having to agree with everything in detail).
I'd like to say something about this article from a few days ago:
I spoiler it, as it isn't exactly the topic of this thread.
First of all, I think the issue of economic coercion and limited individual agency is worked out well in that article. The same goes for the potentially fatal consequences of this constellation. My reservation is that the (in itself far from implausible) prediction of capitalism's insufficient capacity for enforcing necessary environmental regulations is based on economic coercion only.
To draw a historic analogy: 19th century communism has predicted capitalism's demise based on economic logic - unfettered concentration of capital, worsening of the workers' economic situation and intensification of class antagonisms until the working classes are practically driven into revolt due to their miserable and ever-declining situation.
But those predictions didn't calculate enough with the relative agency of the political sphere, its ability to change crucial cornerstones of the system in order to stabilize it. In the end, Western capitalist societies managed to overcome these systemic hazards with measures like anti-trust laws and the integration of their working classes through reduced exploitation and modest participation on wealth and political decisions. (Making them partly benefit from the exploitation of much of the rest of the world, of course.) So capitalism managed to secure the conditions of its own survival against its self-destructive tendencies by means of political regulation of economic matters.
Employing that observation on the topic of that article: If capitalism grinds on, which is the most likely future scenario, it faces a similarly great challenge to override basic systemic coercion by means of political intervention. It's probably even harder this time, as it can't be done in a national framework, but only through wholesale global cooperation. Which is one of the things capitalism is exceptionally bad at.
Bar an unlikely systemic change, we'll have to wait and see if governments manage to do it against the odds this time as well. I don't know if it's possible at all. Even if so, I deem it almost as unlikely as Fong does, and for the same reasons - but I wouldn't rule it out completely on grounds of historical experience. Clutching at straws, basically.
To draw a historic analogy: 19th century communism has predicted capitalism's demise based on economic logic - unfettered concentration of capital, worsening of the workers' economic situation and intensification of class antagonisms until the working classes are practically driven into revolt due to their miserable and ever-declining situation.
But those predictions didn't calculate enough with the relative agency of the political sphere, its ability to change crucial cornerstones of the system in order to stabilize it. In the end, Western capitalist societies managed to overcome these systemic hazards with measures like anti-trust laws and the integration of their working classes through reduced exploitation and modest participation on wealth and political decisions. (Making them partly benefit from the exploitation of much of the rest of the world, of course.) So capitalism managed to secure the conditions of its own survival against its self-destructive tendencies by means of political regulation of economic matters.
Employing that observation on the topic of that article: If capitalism grinds on, which is the most likely future scenario, it faces a similarly great challenge to override basic systemic coercion by means of political intervention. It's probably even harder this time, as it can't be done in a national framework, but only through wholesale global cooperation. Which is one of the things capitalism is exceptionally bad at.
Bar an unlikely systemic change, we'll have to wait and see if governments manage to do it against the odds this time as well. I don't know if it's possible at all. Even if so, I deem it almost as unlikely as Fong does, and for the same reasons - but I wouldn't rule it out completely on grounds of historical experience. Clutching at straws, basically.
Thats kind of a dumb position imo, very shortsighted. They should pay for it because it creates more wealth and they along with everyone else benefit from an educated population. Even if they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves its still in their own interest
I agree with most of the other stuff, but China is anything but communist nowadays, it probably has more in common with a fascist economy.
Eboue’s disdain for United’s «MBA suits» suddenly makes more sense reading this thread
Except, ideas are more valuable than labor. When someone comes up with an idea, and executes that idea, they rightfully own the fruits of that idea. An idea can change the world, for the good, or the bad, but some guy working a 9-5 laboring isn't changing shit, isn't valuable outside of his/her immediate friends/family.
Justify the idea of one person, that could change the world for the better, being given to the masses to profit from. Justify it. The person who created the idea, deserves the lion-share of the spoils. Period. You want to argue about a corporation that just acquires things other people have created, and then keep their earnings up by firing people and pushing wages down? Sure. That's robbery and immoral. Some guy invents a source of cold fusion, why the hell shouldn't that guy become a billionaire?
Do you feel ideas are more valuable than capital as well?
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because there shouldnt be billionaires while there are homeless and starving people. its impossible for you to see things from my perspective because you are convinced that the current system is the best one. fair enough. i thought that for years. but if you truly want to understand our arguments, consider that our current system is a series of laws and regulations that enable monopolies and the continual flow of money to fewer and fewer people. a system that allows people who have good ideas to live a comfortable life but also provides a minimum standard of living for all people is no less legitimate. its just different. antitrust legislations and tax rates arent set out by natural law. moses didnt bring them down from mount sinai. government is a constant fight over scarce resources. in the past few decades that fight has been won by neoliberal capitalists. but for centuries that fight was won by feudalists or absolute monarchists and so on. so the question isnt really about practicality or what is empirically right, its a question of what kind of society we want to live in. people arent entitled to a billion dollars for a good idea now anymore than they were in the 8th century. we've just set up our system that way currently. we can change the system.
Then you must think China is a democracy too
You should ask them if they pay property tax.
I don't think too many people deny that. The question is to what extent those ideas are more valuable than labour - Bezos, Zuckerberg can all develop their ideas and become rich. I have no problem with that. What I do have a contention with is whether it's morally acceptable for them to have the accumulated wealth of millions and millions of people, when many of those people are in dire financial straits. You could reduce the wealth of both of them by half and they'd still quite literally be the richer than just about all of humanity. Applying slightly more pressure to them to distribute their wealth isn't stopping them from becoming rich due to their ideas - it's just ensuring the comfort of those who help their ideas become reality and who live in the society they've made their money from.
There are some interesting facts in this article.
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
What it tells me is that the direction things are going in is encouraging and there is some room for optimism about the world.
It also tells me that not everything that governments and business has been doing is wrong.
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
What it tells me is that the direction things are going in is encouraging and there is some room for optimism about the world.
It also tells me that not everything that governments and business has been doing is wrong.
People are not starving and homeless and in dire straits because someone else took their money! They are distinct and unrelated facts.
are you serious
US currently spends nearly $1,000 billion on Healthcare (medicare and medicaid) and further $910 billion on social security. How much more do your reckon US will need for "provide minimum standard of living for all"? Maybe $500 billion more? Double current spending? Triple it?
If a greater extent of their wealth is given back to the government, then that money can be directly invested in helping poor people, or in tackling some of the circumstances which lead to poverty. It's...not a difficult concept to grasp.
The US don't even currently have universal healthcare! Probably not the best example in that regard.
Stop being naive. Give more funds and it'll probably go to building a wall. Or funding for more aircraft carriers or jet planes!
Since that seems to be the intent, I'm asking how much do you think will it cost to get that in the US? A trillion more?
i just crunched some numbers and it costs whatever you have plus 1 dollar
Well yes, under the current administration. This thread is based on the argument though that more wealth should be redistributed towards important public services which would help to improve lives. Naturally anyone who wants that to happen will want to see a government elected which intends to follow this mandate.
I don't know exactly. What I do know is that the US currently spends an absurd amount on its military that could quite easily be divested elsewhere. And what I also know is that we've seen income inequality surge in recent decades, with some of the world's richest men accumulating the combined wealth of the rest of the country. Again, they could quite easily remain rich even if half of their wealth was divested back into public services.
As I thought, no clue. So happy on distributing others people wealth but have no idea on how to get to where you want to go.
youve already distributed other peoples wealth. youre a banker. you havent created a single bit of wealth since the day you became a banker.
Now we come to the crux of the argument. You need to funnel what you spend to ensure it gets to the public whom it's supposed to serve. $1,000 billion in social security spent at the moment and we still have need...because what you have is not spent wisely. If you have a leaky bucket, adding more water won't help. Are you sure that the $1,900 billion being spent on social security and medicare/aid actually goes to benefit the poor? It's not a small sum by any means for a country with population of 300+ million.
The elephant in the room is tax avoidance. These wealthy individuals and corporations are not contributing what they should be contributing. But it's a global problem because tax havens will always be around.
Tax Avoidance is legal. If you are investing in Insurance or some securities for purpose of avoiding tax, it is tax avoidance. Pretty much most taxpayers do it. Smart thing to do.
Tax evasion is illegal and this is where tax havens come into play. Anyone found evading should be prosecuted and penalized for far more than anything they manage to evade.
That's kinda my point. Tax avoidance shouldn't be legal. Why should anyone be allowed to pay a lower tax rate than the other guy?
I don't understand for life of me why @Edgar Allan Pillow in threads about how current system is broken, always argues on things that are illegal or legal based on the laws of current system.
Bezos paying less (in percentage) taxes than his secretary is totally legal. It also shows how much the system is broken when the richest man in modern history is taxed less than people who work on minimum wages.
But then @Edgar Allan Pillow will argue that this is legal, because the law says so. And if someone replies that the law is so cause ultra-rich people sponsored these types of law (like the latest tax bill), he says that lobbying is legal too. A bit like someone in medieval saying that you know, burning those scientists is legal, cause the inquisitor who is the law says so.
When everyone argues about what is right and wrong, what is moral and amoral, Edgar argues on what is legal and what isn't.
Bezos paying less (in percentage) taxes than his secretary is totally legal. It also shows how much the system is broken when the richest man in modern history is taxed less than people who work on minimum wages.
But then @Edgar Allan Pillow will argue that this is legal, because the law says so. And if someone replies that the law is so cause ultra-rich people sponsored these types of law (like the latest tax bill), he says that lobbying is legal too. A bit like someone in medieval saying that you know, burning those scientists is legal, cause the inquisitor who is the law says so.
When everyone argues about what is right and wrong, what is moral and amoral, Edgar argues on what is legal and what isn't.