Hi newbie!
Is someone paying you to visit popular blogs and post Neoconservative crap like that? I’m wondering what kind of money people who get paid to do that make.
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OK, a couple of obvious flaws in that logic:
- Wealth and income are not strongly correlated to “effort.” Some of the wealthiest people in the country never even had to hold down a job, some of the hardest-working folks out there are dirt poor.
- If the vast majority of wealth (and thus, power) is concentrated in a tiny handful of people, that does diminish everyone else’s ability to control their own destinies. At some point, inequality just turns into plutocracy.
Would you be OK with the idea of a world where most of the resources were controlled by less than 100 ultra-wealthy individuals? Less than 10? What about if one really powerful guy owned as much as everyone else put together?
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Food insecurity prevalence has increased over the last decade or so, along with income inequality.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx#trends
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You must have been out of the country when Mittens was running for president. He’s worth at least 250 million, though it’s likely many many millions are squirrelled away in secret trusts and have been set aside for his kids. But taking him at face value, do you have any evidence that he worked over one thousand times as hard as the average American? (Net worth average about 220k?)
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You know what else is a mortal sin? Avarice.
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Is this supposed to be sarcasm, or can I just skip it?
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My guess is not enough. They should unionize.
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Hey, come on - feudalism was awesome! Who wouldn’t want to be a serf?
(Honestly, at this point I’m surprised the Republicans aren’t applying their rose-colored revisionism to the Middle Ages and talking about how great feudalism was as a way of getting everyone to willingly embrace the new economic order… heck, they probably are and I’m just missing it.)
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And funded/trained them too. Let’s give her due credit. 
Much in the way The French were “just jealous” of their aristocracy…
anyway, obvious trolls is…
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Enough to be filthy rich — if only she worked harder. Post more, Holly! Don’t you want to be rich?
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The trick to making feudalism work is to convince the serfs that if they stick at it long enough they’ll get a castle of their own some day.
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“i thought we were an autonomous collective,”
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In reality we turned out to be an Anarcho-syndicalist commune.
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I never said they were. Nor is effort rewarded for the sake of effort. I said different efforts get different rewards. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Andrew Carnegie, and John Rockefeller were rewarded for their efforts. And less wealthy people have all benefited from inexpensive computers, steel, and petroleum.
A valid concern but a different issue. Would you prevent the creation of wealth because some might be malicious? Equality of opportunity is no guarantee of equal results. What sports have games consistently ending in a tie? That one team wins is not theft from the other team. The Little Red Hen made her own bread. She didn’t rob the others to feed herself.
Minding your own business that it might prosper and benefit your family would be called what, then?
Gross inequality of wealth is PRECISELY the issue we’re discussing. You’re the one who keeps trying to make it about “preventing creation of wealth” and other such nonsense.
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There’s an enormous difference between creating wealth and controlling wealth, and the people who are busy creating wealth have very little control of the wealth that they create. That leads to all sorts of problems. For one thing, the small number of people who control the wealth have an enormous influence over what forms of wealth will be produced in the future, and in what proportion.
In fact, I strongly suspect that, if we had more democratic means of deciding what forms of wealth we produced, we’d find that we’re producing a lot of wealth in forms we don’t really want, and that we’d actually be happier producing less overall.
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Unless part of that more successful person’s reward is diverted to ensuring that they continue to receive rewards out of proportion to their efforts, and that those disadvantaged by these manipulations of law, custom and governance are further disadvantaged. As a class, rich people (especially those who inherit their wealth) tend to be envious of those who work harder than themselves, and will bend heaven and earth to make sure that they will not receive full benefit from their labour, whether they be poor, middle-class or rich.
Capitalism is a system for making a very few people filthy rich by making the majority dirt poor. The aim is not to make society optimally productive, but to make sure that those at the top keep their relative social status. The rewards of labour and creativity are not fairly distributed; the existence of inherited wealth should be sufficient evidence that your worldview is distorted.
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Isn’t that a major cause of salmonella poisoning?
Thanks, Maggie!
[quote=“Nelsie, post:38, topic:16942”]
Capitalism is a system for making a very few people filthy rich by making the majority dirt poor. [/quote]
Capitalism is ownership of property and the means of production - no more, no less. You get out of it what you put into it.
[quote=“Nelsie, post:38, topic:16942”]
The aim is not to make society optimally productive, but to make sure that those at the top keep their relative social status.[/quote]
The aim is to do what you see fit according to your knowledge, skill, and initiative, to your own satisfaction. Society is the consequence of people tending their affairs. How do you make society “optimal?” Compared to what, and at what cost? Who decides?
[quote=“Nelsie, post:38, topic:16942”]
The rewards of labour and creativity are not fairly distributed; the existence of inherited wealth should be sufficient evidence that your worldview is distorted.[/quote]
Distributed by whom? Who is entitled to the fruits of their labors but the laborer themself? Should a parent be forbidden from passing their property to their children, or whomever they chose to receive it, simply because some have more than others?
Life is not a zero-sum game. That creators create benefits all around them. The baker and the brewer do not make their products out of selfless love for their fellow, they want to make a living by selling them to you and others. You, then, benefit by not having to deal with that chore, and have more free time to do as you see fit. And if you so choose, you can make bread and beer for yourself and compete with them as your skills and initiative allow. Their existence does not diminish you.
It is reasonable, however, to ensure by force of law that the marketplace for goods and services is fair between participants, that disputes can be fairly resolved, and be protected from malefactors. So we have law, police, the judiciary, and the military - to establish standards, to enforce them, to resolve disputes, and to repel invaders. So is born Society. Individuals tending their own affairs can act in concert to their mutual benefit without having to resort to imposing collectivist authority on everyone.
