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I don't think a second American revolution is unlikely; I think it's inevitable if conditions don't change. I don't think it'll happen today, but eventually it

I don't think a second American revolution is unlikely; I think it's inevitable if conditions don't change. I don't think it'll happen today, but eventually it will. Your historical examples are spot-on; every civilization in history that survives long enough eventually has all of its wealth and power vested in the hands of a small elite, and then there is a revolution that destroyed the civilization. The only long-term survivors seem to be the civilizations with strong gifting economies, or where the overall civilization is so poor that there's very little difference in wealth between the poorest member and the ruler. Those who oppose Income Redistribution seem to think all of their wealth is going to be taken away. Very few advocates actually want that. I think most of the issues of wealth inequality could be solved if the wealthy were just a little less wealthy, and got richer a little more slowly, than they currently do. They'd still be quite wealthy, and probably wouldn't even notice the difference as far as their lifestyle and security. But everyone else would feel a lot more secure and have more opportunities, and that's what will prevent the revolution.

grb423 10y ago
I hear much concern, not necessarily from you, about the effects on productivity of taking. Do you fear any effects on people's psyche, self-esteem for instance, of giving? Beloved FDR, in his state 1935 SOTU address said "To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit." http://www.albany.edu/faculty/gz580/his101/su35fdr.html http://www.albany.edu/faculty/gz580/his101/su35fdr.html I worry that hundreds if not thousands of years of various types of market economics has ingrained much into our humanity, and that progressive notions like UBI and redistribution will have deleterious unintended consequences.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  UBI assumes a sort-of Star Trek utopianism whereby production is severely decoupled from labor input. It depends on whether we're pointed at "replicators" ( or some assemblage reinventing them ) and how far we get there, how fast. And some who advocate for it are just Levellers.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > UBI assumes a sort-of Star Trek utopianism whereby production is severely decoupled from labor input. No, it doesn't. A mature (sufficient to live reasonably comfortably on its own) UBI probably needs a significant revolution in productivity to be sustainable, but UBI does not rely on production being decoupled from labor input (in fact, one of the arguments for it is that, compared to status quo systems and other alternatives to them that have been proposed, it provides better capacity for worker retraining and realignment of labor to meet changing needs.)
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      I thought "sort-of" was enough weasel to imply "significant revolution in productivity." :) See what you've done? Now I'm thinking about how you could construct a feasibility model :) In my case, probably "badly." Hell, get all the status-seeking crap outta work and you'll probably have better results. Yeah, right :)
- DougWebb 10y ago
  There's a certain pride in being able to provide for yourself and your family without depending on the charity of others. That's very ingrained in middle-class US society, and back in FDR's day that pride was strong among farmers, poor immigrants, and most others barely managing to scrape by through the Great Depression. Those are the folks I believe FDR was talking about in your quote. But below them are poorer people, desperate people, people who are still struggling to provide for themselves but are loosing ground because the odds are against them. (eg: everything is more expensive when you're poor, opportunities pass you by, etc.) In my opinion, the goal of income redistribution should be to lift these people up enough so that their struggle to hang on is changed into a slow climb towards independence. They don't need riches for that, they just need a fair playing field and enough wealth to stay in the game. No one in this group, I believe, would be hurt by the assistance. Now, there is a group even further down the ladder, who have given up the struggle, and who couldn't care for themselves even with adequate wealth. These are the people that opponents of various income redistribution proposals use as the examples of "freeloaders" who will "take all our wealth" to get a "free ride". It's disingenuous to highlight this group while ignoring the group I described above, but I do have to agree that this group would not be helped by income redistribution. This group needs a better version of the social safety net that we already have in place: shelters with free meals, medical care, drug addiction treatment rather than incarceration, education. These people need help learning to become productive members of society before they can benefit from directly sharing in the wealth of society and move on to helping to produce that wealth.

grb423 10y ago

I hear much concern, not necessarily from you, about the effects on productivity of taking. Do you fear any effects on people's psyche, self-esteem for instance, of giving? Beloved FDR, in his state 1935 SOTU address said "To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit." http://www.albany.edu/faculty/gz580/his101/su35fdr.html http://www.albany.edu/faculty/gz580/his101/su35fdr.html I worry that hundreds if not thousands of years of various types of market economics has ingrained much into our humanity, and that progressive notions like UBI and redistribution will have deleterious unintended consequences.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
UBI assumes a sort-of Star Trek utopianism whereby production is severely decoupled from labor input. It depends on whether we're pointed at "replicators" ( or some assemblage reinventing them ) and how far we get there, how fast. And some who advocate for it are just Levellers.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > UBI assumes a sort-of Star Trek utopianism whereby production is severely decoupled from labor input. No, it doesn't. A mature (sufficient to live reasonably comfortably on its own) UBI probably needs a significant revolution in productivity to be sustainable, but UBI does not rely on production being decoupled from labor input (in fact, one of the arguments for it is that, compared to status quo systems and other alternatives to them that have been proposed, it provides better capacity for worker retraining and realignment of labor to meet changing needs.)
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    I thought "sort-of" was enough weasel to imply "significant revolution in productivity." :) See what you've done? Now I'm thinking about how you could construct a feasibility model :) In my case, probably "badly." Hell, get all the status-seeking crap outta work and you'll probably have better results. Yeah, right :)
DougWebb 10y ago
There's a certain pride in being able to provide for yourself and your family without depending on the charity of others. That's very ingrained in middle-class US society, and back in FDR's day that pride was strong among farmers, poor immigrants, and most others barely managing to scrape by through the Great Depression. Those are the folks I believe FDR was talking about in your quote. But below them are poorer people, desperate people, people who are still struggling to provide for themselves but are loosing ground because the odds are against them. (eg: everything is more expensive when you're poor, opportunities pass you by, etc.) In my opinion, the goal of income redistribution should be to lift these people up enough so that their struggle to hang on is changed into a slow climb towards independence. They don't need riches for that, they just need a fair playing field and enough wealth to stay in the game. No one in this group, I believe, would be hurt by the assistance. Now, there is a group even further down the ladder, who have given up the struggle, and who couldn't care for themselves even with adequate wealth. These are the people that opponents of various income redistribution proposals use as the examples of "freeloaders" who will "take all our wealth" to get a "free ride". It's disingenuous to highlight this group while ignoring the group I described above, but I do have to agree that this group would not be helped by income redistribution. This group needs a better version of the social safety net that we already have in place: shelters with free meals, medical care, drug addiction treatment rather than incarceration, education. These people need help learning to become productive members of society before they can benefit from directly sharing in the wealth of society and move on to helping to produce that wealth.