Technically, if we’re hijacked we’re not passengers - we’re hostages.
Sounds about right, though.
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Please, note that you are jumping to conclusions.
My observation using one of the canon of the Mittelstand is in answer to a questioning done by gracchus.
The homo-economicus is a theoretical model that does not correspond to reality.
Yes the markets follow their own laws, that we can find some similarities with nature.
The human beeing in general is irrational, emotion driven and stupid (he believes that he is always right, even when he knows he is not). When spoken on land development they yell for the preservation of nature, when spoken on conservation, they scream for their building rights,the right to drive a SUV in the city or their need parking space at the office. See the vandalization of National Parks last month.
Before redistributing wealth, we have to educate, change the behavior of the society towards the use of money. It is not an objective, but a consequence of good work and habits. Only after education we can speak about redistribution. Lets wait for the reports on the minimum income program that just ended in Finland.
In some ways we have to introduce the “law of Jante” to all countries ( the concepts of it, because is mainly behavioral description, in some way satirical, of the Scandinavian social norms). We have to stop sugarcoating reality, and be direct and honest towards each other, even if it hurts.
The wealth gap between the rich and the poor isn’t at a historic high because the bottom 99% of humanity is stupider than ever or because the top 1% is smarter than ever.
The growing wealth gap has absolutely nothing to do with merit or intelligence. It is the result of structural problems creating a feedback loop ensuring that the richest members of society have the most impact on shaping policy, and the result of that policy is to make those people even richer.
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Conclusions drawn on your constant use of the markets as the core metric of human welfare.
No they don’t. They are brought into reality by the legal system put in place by nation-states.
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So, the politicians sold their soul and betrayed the people that elected them.
There are markets in “non nation-states”, war zones. The market is like water it flows to places of least resistance.
That’s trade, which is not always of a capitalist nature. There are a number of types of trade that do not depend on the raising of capital, the private ownership of the means of production, or on a cash economy. I’d suggest that it’s far more likely for those things to exist in the type of trade that happens in a war zone. Barter is probably employed more often in cases where the state breaks down.
It’s still happening BETWEEN people, so it’s not a “natural” thing, but a social relationship between people. It only happens when people are part of the equation. Bears and mountain lions have no concept of a market place.
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The system is currently set up in such a way that it’s nearly impossible to even get a shot at elected office without the backing of moneyed interests. And the amount of money needed to win elections ensures that even the purest-of-heart politicians spend more time meeting with lobbyists than with common people. Even the messages politicians and voters hear in the media inevitably reflect the values of the moneyed interests who control that media.
The problem isn’t always about politicians being “bought off” by rich folks in the sense of traditional bribes or corruption; it’s that the nature of the system means that rich peoples’ voices are the ones that politicians are most likely to hear.
When unlimited and largely unregulated campaign spending is a Constitutionally protected form of free speech it means that billionaires are going to be the ones determining the topics of conversation.
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Indeed, just a few supreme court decisions have pushed the US onto the path to becoming a plutocracy. And it’s honestly terrifying, American ideas tend to spread.
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There is no “first” in public policy. You do everything at the same time, like everybody else.
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The point wasn’t this very real Swedish individual’s gender, but that being a physician is one of the few real vocations that people make serious sacrifices for. I’ve met a lot of docs in my life and all of them, including those who were very concerned about money, saw it is as more than “just a job.” The vast majority of them had wanted to be doctors since they were children, and paid a lot more in educational and opportunity costs than most other professions, coding included.
To give an example, I once knew a doctor who was an outspoken opponent of socialised medicine. His main concern wasn’t about money, but a worry that the state would have more say in how he practised medicine. While I disagreed with him, I respected where he was coming from – as a doctor rather than as a businessman.
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I was making “suppositions” based on what you said above. Nothing far-fetched about that, and nothing to do with providing products and services to customers or buying them from suppliers.
It looks like I’m not the only one in this topic who you claim is “jumping to conclusions” about what you’re saying based on, y’know, what you’re saying, so I’ll generously assume you have difficulty with both reading comprehension and written expression and stop wasting my time with you in this topic.
Please do not engage me further in this topic.
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The increase of the efficiency of each unit of currency paid as tax should always a target of a government, there is no need for a new law for it.
Was Michael Bloomberg a bad mayor?
The question is not whether or not there have been any billionaires who made competent civil servants. The question is whether we should be willing to hand so much control of our society to such a tiny subset of incredibly wealthy people.
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I don’t see how this is relevant to the topic at hand.
You know you don’t have to reply to everything you see, right?
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I’d disagree. I think the reason for the growth in Ultra High Worth individuals is mostly technology. Most such individuals seem to come through the creation of companies that are almost unimaginably large or dominant with speeds literally impossible decades ago without government granted monopolies. Larger companies created quickly, especially technology-based companies, translates out to to wealthier owners.
I think this concentration of wealth is an entirely natural outcome of a society that embraces technological change in the same way I believe that Global Warming is a natural outcome of a developed society using resources to maximize the welfare of its members. Neither require a narrative of evil, rapacious individuals to lead to unacceptable outcomes.
However, let’s make no mistake - an excessive concentration of wealth is bad for society in many, many ways and we need to mitigate the dangerous aspects of those natural outcomes through a variety of social and legislative means.
But we’re better off not creating movie villains (even when the villains actually exist) as we act to make those vital changes. Powerful as outrage is as a motivator, we are all at our most manipulable when we’re motivated by anger, and there are no shortage of people ready to manipulate the angry, whether it be from the left or the right.
Gracchus has it right - we all all want to believe in a “Just World” that doesn’t exist. If we need to confiscate most of the wealth from a group of individuals, we need only justify it by knowing this is for the betterment of society. We don’t have to make them villains in order to “justify” our taking.
Just to make clear, gender wasn’t my point, just my personal example.
Again, I’ll push back. Many professions make serious sacrifices in terms of costs, both opportunity and real. Doctors, I would say, have a much higher certainty of decent remuneration that other professions with similar opportunity costs.
We attach more emotional importance to doctors because we’re vulnerable when we need them, not because they save lives. After all, the average air traffic controller has more lives depending on them each day, and we don’t ennoble them. In the end, they’re just jobs.
Wanting to be a doctor from a young age is great, and wonderful for those who make it. But realistically, especially for a profession with as limited enrollment as doctor’s college, I am certain that prizing “views being a doctor as more than just a job” ends up equivalent to “is not first or second generation Asian” in exactly the same way as “views being a programmer as more than just a job” ended up excluding large numbers of women from people who truly felt they were simply trying to hire the best.
(And honestly, over the decades, I’d trust professionalism rather than passion to keep people doing a good job - passion tends to burn out.)
What can I say, I’m a disgusting human being.
But I don’t see how creating a licensing schedule that prevented any competition to one’s product scales to being terribly smart about things.
So Bill G thinks a global extractive economy’s a good thing. That’s genius. I mean, to someone who doesn’t know any better.
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While it’s true that many “new money” billionaires owe their fortunes to the tech industry the overall trend behind the growing wealth gap applies just as much to the super-rich people whose families made their fortunes long before the internet took off. Look at the Waltons, the Kochs, Warren Buffett, etc.
The growing wealth gap between the richest and the poorest isn’t just about Bezos and Zuckerberg.
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I’m glad someone is paying attention to the important issues that have far reaching impact for us & future generations. Thank you.
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