As capitalism is being practiced today, the control of that property and means of production has been steadily shifting to an ever-shrinking portion of the population. Over the last few decades the gap between the rich and poor has grown into a chasm. This is no accident, nor is it an inevitability. It is the result of financial policy and tax codes which reward wealth for the sake of wealth and punish everyone else.
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Thatâs why this concept is called âtrickle down economyâ these days.
I always thought that term sounded like a euphemism for getting pissed on.
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Not in terms of labour or effort you donât.
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In an ideal world perhaps that would be the case. However in the real world itâs never worked that way.
Let me guess â youâre a high school senior who just read âAtlas Shruggedâ? Have you finished âThe Fountainheadâ too?
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If you read one, didnât you just technically read the other at the same time?
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Sadly yes. And whatâs even sadder for me is that reading both of them (during high school) tells me that.
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Itâs only sad if you read all of Galtâs radio speech after reading 300 pages of Darbyâs non-radio speech.
By the time you get to the end of that book youâre already onboard or not and the speech isnât going to change hearts or minds.
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Again, please elucidate how Mr. Romney put in > 1000 times than the average American. Explain how his wife contributed. Explain why a migrant farm worker deserves so much less.
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That would be the âtrickleâ bit.
All in all, a very accurate phrase, is it not?
Anyone in a medical world who is not working out of concern for their patients deserves to lose their license/job. Anyone in teaching who doesnât care about their students should be fired. An engineer working on public projects who doesnât care that human being could live or die by any carelessness should be fired. You should stop reading Ayn Rand and pay more attention to humanity.
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Wow, could she have possibly reworded what that guy was saying in more inaccurate and obtuse way?
At least this Strawman sings:
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I haaaaaaate hate hate hate the âpicking winners and losersâ meme. I hate hate hate that the right wing has tricked the left wing into accepting it and parroting it (inverted).
Government should not pick winners, absolutely.
Government should definitely pick losers, and itâs absurd to think otherwise.
Examples: Government should never try to decide which producer of corn syrup will receive huge taxpayer funded research grants and which auto manufacturer should be exempt from taxation. Such processes will always be corrupted and always have been. Government absolutely should ban murder-for-hire, deceptive advertising, poisonous breakfast cereals, highly polluting industries, etc. etc. etc. because choosing losers is something the market has always done poorly and always will.
By always lumping in âpicking losersâ with âpicking winnersâ the plutocrats are shaping the debate so that they have an inherent advantage. Donât fall for it; reject the meme.
Love Rubenâs comic, of course!
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Spoken exactly like someone who did not bother to comprehend the argument presented. Next time, at least read the comic.
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That would be beautifully recursive. Maybe they could post blog comments deriding their own efforts to unionize.
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Thereâs no way to completely take government out of the âpicking winners & losersâ game without abdicating all responsibility for important things such as infrastructure. Want to build a highway? Youâve just picked cars as âwinnersâ and horses as a âlosers.â Want this or that metropolis to have a steady supply of potable water? City dwellers just became âwinnersâ at the expense of somebody who wanted to irrigate some farm land.
The examples youâve given actually could be entirely supplanted by non-government market activity, and often have been. (And personally I would prefer that governments not use force to steal water from farmers - let the city dwellers buy their water instead.)
Youâre still probably right, though; itâs probably impossible to completely take government out of picking winners - but we should consider this a bad thing, and not something that should be lumped in with picking losers, which is a good thing.
Lumping together the banning of antisocial activities (like rape and murder and pollution) with the promotion of antisocial policies (like corporate welfare) and pretending these are basically two facets of the same thing is just not a good idea. Fight the meme, donât use âpicking losers and winnersâ in political conversations.
Roadways, water lines, sewers and other similar infrastructure are so-called ânatural monopolies.â There arenât going to be a bunch of different competing companies vying to run their own sewer lines or roads to your house, especially once thereâs already one there. Itâs not like you can switch water companies if they decided to triple your rates. The government doesnât have to provide all those services, but it has to keep a short leash on the monopolies that do.
Buried within that statement is the unspoken premise that a farmer has a better legal claim on water source X than a thirsty city dweller doesâeven though I never mentioned which was upstream from the other. Friend, it looks like you just picked a winner and a loser!
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Absolutely the government has to regulate the marketplace. But that doesnât mean we have to have the current system of endless taxpayer handouts to the super-rich⌠which is where government sponsorship of businesses always seems end up.
Apologies for leaping to conclusions on the water rights example - I have my own water sources, and periodically somebody wants the government to take away my water and ship it to various people living well beyond the carrying capacity of their local environment, so I am touchy about that. The so-called âhuman right to waterâ is a call for the total destruction of riparian environments like mine, that require abundant water, in order to temporarily alleviate the sufferings of people who are overpopulating arid areas. But enough whining about that!
The road to my house was built by private industry in 1825 with no government involvement, but the local government maintains it now with tax money. The government didnât pick a winner, the community did, and the government is merely recognizing that choice.
