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Thanks, John Galt! /s Seriously, we can ignore the biases in your assumptions about where wealth is created; you're really talking about the fact of inherent p

Thanks, John Galt! /s Seriously, we can ignore the biases in your assumptions about where wealth is created; you're really talking about the fact of inherent pitfalls and destabilizing aspects of democracy itself. There's far more than this example. And that's why all practical advocates for democracy do not advocate it without qualifications.

moduspol 9y ago
What qualification do you feel like would handle the situation I described, where more and more people are voting to determine how much income they get from fewer and fewer people? And don't forget: That increasing majority of people has no day job, so they'll be far better suited for political involvement, unions, rallies, etc. This is a little beyond platitudes about democracy as a concept. Democracy can certainly work, but you can't just bolster and magnify one of its key flaws through policy and shrug off the dangers.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  Unchecked, unqualified democracy with poor structure is basically tyranny of the majority. There's a ton of ways the majority can completely abuse the minority, whether that's genocide or slavery or whatever. The only way to make democracy work is to include checks and balances against tyranny of the majority. The premise that there can be a situation where a small number of people are productive and the rest just get hand-outs is, in principle, a real issue and concern. I don't have any magic solutions that necessarily avoid abuse in that case. However, we can at least be comforted for now by the fact that there's an enormous amount of work remaining for most people to do (and thus an incentive for all of us to support policies in which that work gets done), and it currently remains the case that most value in society is generated by poorer folks being exploited and most wealthy people are capturing far more value than they create. So, your concern, while totally valid in principle, is completely backwards from the current situation (but YES, we don't want to just flip the situation so it's unjust the opposite way!)
  - moduspol 9y ago
    You're mixing up "perceived fairness" and reality. The top 20% of earners pay 84% of income tax [1], yet can cast only 20% of the votes. It is not the case that there's this huge regressive system in place. In fact, the opposite is true. It's very much been trending toward the tyranny of the majority--there just currently aren't a whole lot of other good options for English-speaking wealthy people. That doesn't mean there never will be, or that by letting voters more directly decide how much to take, the circumstances won't become worse much faster. The fact that the wealthy make more than the working class is irrelevant in reality--only in perceived fairness. Nobody will be better off if they leave. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-income-tax-1428674384 https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-inc...
    - quadrangle 9y ago
      > The top 20% of earners pay 84% of income tax [1], yet can cast only 20% of the votes. So you favor explicitly connecting wealth and political power? That's not democracy in any sense. All democracy trends toward tyranny of the majority and thus needs measures to counteract that (such as requiring supermajorities for some things, having constitutions that are hard to change, having power split among branches of gov. and lots more). Fairness? UBI and wealth distribution aren't just about fairness either. They are about maximizing health and happiness overall. Is it fair for me to have to pay for the treatment of homeless drug addicts? What matters is that I want to live in a world where they get treated, not a world where I live with the consequences of having them around on the streets. We need a sustainable and long-term way to deal with social issues like this (and many many other things). Sure, fairness is nice too, but it's more of a factor in sustaining a healthy society than an end in itself. Judging fairness is extremely hard, hugely subjective. We'll never achieve ultimate fairness, life just isn't fair. We can increase it, but it's not the only factor to consider (and it's one of the least objective). Anyway, the top 20% of wealth holders in this society do not create all the value. The distribution of "earnings" is NOT correlated to positive impact on society. A notable portion of that top 20% are people involved in stupid financial scheming like high-speed trading. They only take value from the rest of us and do nothing positive at all. Any discussion about what's "fair" in political power and taxation and wealth has to be based on trying to get at who is actually doing valuable work, not on whoever happens to capture the most wealth. I'm sure you're one of those people who recognizes regulatory-capture and other forms of corruption. Those lobbyists/politicians in a corrupt revolving door Washington system are in that top 20% you're talking about. If you change your whole framing to think about which work is actually good for the world, you can then have a discussion that is valid and talk about the problems with democracy (which are, as I've agreed, real concerns). I hope you can recognize the lack of correlation between wealth-capture and value-creation. Otherwise, you're just falling into the Just World Fallacy.

moduspol 9y ago

What qualification do you feel like would handle the situation I described, where more and more people are voting to determine how much income they get from fewer and fewer people? And don't forget: That increasing majority of people has no day job, so they'll be far better suited for political involvement, unions, rallies, etc. This is a little beyond platitudes about democracy as a concept. Democracy can certainly work, but you can't just bolster and magnify one of its key flaws through policy and shrug off the dangers.

quadrangle 9y ago
Unchecked, unqualified democracy with poor structure is basically tyranny of the majority. There's a ton of ways the majority can completely abuse the minority, whether that's genocide or slavery or whatever. The only way to make democracy work is to include checks and balances against tyranny of the majority. The premise that there can be a situation where a small number of people are productive and the rest just get hand-outs is, in principle, a real issue and concern. I don't have any magic solutions that necessarily avoid abuse in that case. However, we can at least be comforted for now by the fact that there's an enormous amount of work remaining for most people to do (and thus an incentive for all of us to support policies in which that work gets done), and it currently remains the case that most value in society is generated by poorer folks being exploited and most wealthy people are capturing far more value than they create. So, your concern, while totally valid in principle, is completely backwards from the current situation (but YES, we don't want to just flip the situation so it's unjust the opposite way!)
- moduspol 9y ago
  You're mixing up "perceived fairness" and reality. The top 20% of earners pay 84% of income tax [1], yet can cast only 20% of the votes. It is not the case that there's this huge regressive system in place. In fact, the opposite is true. It's very much been trending toward the tyranny of the majority--there just currently aren't a whole lot of other good options for English-speaking wealthy people. That doesn't mean there never will be, or that by letting voters more directly decide how much to take, the circumstances won't become worse much faster. The fact that the wealthy make more than the working class is irrelevant in reality--only in perceived fairness. Nobody will be better off if they leave. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-income-tax-1428674384 https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-earners-pay-84-of-inc...
  - quadrangle 9y ago
    > The top 20% of earners pay 84% of income tax [1], yet can cast only 20% of the votes. So you favor explicitly connecting wealth and political power? That's not democracy in any sense. All democracy trends toward tyranny of the majority and thus needs measures to counteract that (such as requiring supermajorities for some things, having constitutions that are hard to change, having power split among branches of gov. and lots more). Fairness? UBI and wealth distribution aren't just about fairness either. They are about maximizing health and happiness overall. Is it fair for me to have to pay for the treatment of homeless drug addicts? What matters is that I want to live in a world where they get treated, not a world where I live with the consequences of having them around on the streets. We need a sustainable and long-term way to deal with social issues like this (and many many other things). Sure, fairness is nice too, but it's more of a factor in sustaining a healthy society than an end in itself. Judging fairness is extremely hard, hugely subjective. We'll never achieve ultimate fairness, life just isn't fair. We can increase it, but it's not the only factor to consider (and it's one of the least objective). Anyway, the top 20% of wealth holders in this society do not create all the value. The distribution of "earnings" is NOT correlated to positive impact on society. A notable portion of that top 20% are people involved in stupid financial scheming like high-speed trading. They only take value from the rest of us and do nothing positive at all. Any discussion about what's "fair" in political power and taxation and wealth has to be based on trying to get at who is actually doing valuable work, not on whoever happens to capture the most wealth. I'm sure you're one of those people who recognizes regulatory-capture and other forms of corruption. Those lobbyists/politicians in a corrupt revolving door Washington system are in that top 20% you're talking about. If you change your whole framing to think about which work is actually good for the world, you can then have a discussion that is valid and talk about the problems with democracy (which are, as I've agreed, real concerns). I hope you can recognize the lack of correlation between wealth-capture and value-creation. Otherwise, you're just falling into the Just World Fallacy.