5 ms·

"Essentially the wealthy would be deciding at which threshold upward human progress gets to stop..." No, that's not what that would mean. It means the produce

"Essentially the wealthy would be deciding at which threshold upward human progress gets to stop..." No, that's not what that would mean. It means the producers of society get to determine at what point they wish to stop providing government mandated subsidies through either taxation or deficit spending to the non-producers or those who produce far less value. There should be absolutely nothing wrong with people deciding that they do not wish to handover any more of their wealth. If your opinion is that the "system" is the culprit and these people are being squashed by bad laws, policies, etc., the proper recourse is not to legally rob others to help those people - the solution is to fix the bad laws and policies that may benefit the rich unfairly. Underlying your claim appears to be some baseline assumption that the poor have some sort of legitimate claim on the productivity of other citizens. I strongly disagree with this assumption. I personally do not believe that anyone has a right to the fruits of my labor. The government, however, says otherwise and demands that I fork over non-trivial amounts of money to other people - individuals, to be clear, not public goods. I'm fine with the idea of taxation to provide for public goods like roads, military, etc. The modern poor in developed nations (and especially the US) have a standard of living that exceeds what the average family experienced in most of the 20th century. This concept of poor is obviously relative and it is the Keeping Up With The Jones' mentality that drives this nonsense of ever-increasing handouts. There was a great video I saw once by a guy who used to be homeless and on welfare. He said that when he was on welfare he was never grateful for anything he received because he was just mad others had more. He gave the analogy of imagining that your boss came over and said you did such a fantastic job you are getting 100k for a bonus. You're ecstatic and grateful. Then you find out that everyone else in your office got 200k bonuses. You immediately turn to anger and resentment, despite the fact that you are now 100k wealthier. Helping thy neighbor is great. But legally mandating it is a terrible idea and has been terrible in practice.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I think you're misusing the word "producers" when you mean "people who disingenuously accumulated wealth on the backs of the labor product of others they exploited."
- turc1656 8y ago
  No. I definitely don't mean that. The vast majority of producers (myself included, and most likely you as well) create value for society. I know that I don't disingenuously accumulate wealth or exploit anyone. But I am a producer. This is the case for most people. There's only a small minority of very wealthy people who exploit the labor of others. And as I mentioned in my prior comment, the appropriate solution is to fix the law to prevent the exploitation, not to take from all of the producers to pay for those exploited. And that is also assuming that exploitation is the only reason someone would find themselves poor. And it is definitely not the only reason.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    As a first-world software developer, I definitely do disingenuously accumulate wealth as a side effect of all sorts of world-wide labor exploits, particularly if I work at a large US corp with far-reaching political influence. For example, the value of that equity bonus I think I "earned" might only have been as high as it was because my company found some loophole to avoid taxes that it sincerely should have been paying for the sake of unequivocal civic responsibility. Just because good-natured "regular" people participate in the broader system of exploitation does not mean that they are earning what they get, not at all, myself included. I benefit from huge luck. Luck about when and where I was born, luck about education opportunities, luck of genetics. In addition I benefit from direct effects and side effects of government spending, publicly funded university research, basic infrastructure, and all manner of support staff. The cumulative "product" I make is not my own. It's a function mostly of just how lucky I am, and also significantly a function of the whole Lorentzian field of infrastructure/productivity/opportunity/civility that I'm enveloped in because of a whole bunch of people doing jobs that they are deeply underpaid for.
    - turc1656 8y ago
      Luck is a factor, but usually a small one. I certainly do not agree that it's a major component. But let's say for the sake of discussion, that it is. Just because life isn't fair doesn't mean someone else should be able to vote themselves money from your wallet or command a portion of your labor.
grasshopperpurp 8y ago
>There should be absolutely nothing wrong with people deciding that they do not wish to handover any more of their wealth. If your opinion is that the "system" is the culprit and these people are being squashed by bad laws, policies, etc., the proper recourse is not to legally rob others to help those people - the solution is to fix the bad laws and policies that may benefit the rich unfairly. How do we fix bad laws when the wealthy are paying good money for those bad laws? >Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. But not everyone in the 99.9 percent gave up a slice. Only those in the bottom 90 percent did. At their peak, in the mid-1980s, people in this group held 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. Three decades later that had fallen 12 points—exactly as much as the wealth of the 0.1 percent rose. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-bir... http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/without-the-right-policies-automation-risks-the-transfer-of-income-from-labour-to-capital/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/without-the-right-p... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/amazon-mechanical-turk/551192/?single_page=true https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/amazon-...
- philwelch 8y ago
  > Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. Economics is not a zero-sum game.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- turc1656 8y ago
  "How do we fix bad laws when the wealthy are paying good money for those bad laws?" The wealthy only account for a small percentage of the overall population. It is very easy to change the law if and only if people care enough to do so. But they don't. Because that involves work like protesting, writing to representatives, organizing community events, and maybe recalling mayors of congressional reps with votes of no confidence. They'd rather pretend to be outraged on Twitter, so that they don't have to actually do anything and instead watch Dance Moms or binge watch Netflix. The fix is simple conceptually, but it is society's collective refusal to demand that laws be changed or for existing laws that are being broken to be enforced. If society really, truly wanted to fix the whole "paying good money for those bad laws" issue, it could do so relatively easily. But it's much easier for people to pretend it's not that big of a problem since things are relatively stable and people have what they need for the most part. Why rock the boat, right? The problem isn't just the wealthy - it's all of us in our refusal to demand the law be enforced, as-written, without exceptions given based on wealth or size of the company/organization. Why was Wells Fargo, for example, allowed to just pay a fine for millions of fake accounts that were created which ripped people off? Those are clear cut felonies. If I opened a small, local bank and did that I'd be rotting in Federal prison right now, guaranteed. The only reason the employees that engaged in this and/or the Wells Fargo executives are not in jail is because society didn't demand the DoJ do it's damn job and indict them at the individual level. Hell, society at large didn't even withdraw their funds in bulk. Why would any retail customer hold deposits with an institution like that when this is a proven, admitted fraud, and was well-publicized? That's the real question. And it's the heart of the matter. And that's just one outrageous scam upon the people that comes to mind. There are many more.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

I think you're misusing the word "producers" when you mean "people who disingenuously accumulated wealth on the backs of the labor product of others they exploited."

turc1656 8y ago
No. I definitely don't mean that. The vast majority of producers (myself included, and most likely you as well) create value for society. I know that I don't disingenuously accumulate wealth or exploit anyone. But I am a producer. This is the case for most people. There's only a small minority of very wealthy people who exploit the labor of others. And as I mentioned in my prior comment, the appropriate solution is to fix the law to prevent the exploitation, not to take from all of the producers to pay for those exploited. And that is also assuming that exploitation is the only reason someone would find themselves poor. And it is definitely not the only reason.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  As a first-world software developer, I definitely do disingenuously accumulate wealth as a side effect of all sorts of world-wide labor exploits, particularly if I work at a large US corp with far-reaching political influence. For example, the value of that equity bonus I think I "earned" might only have been as high as it was because my company found some loophole to avoid taxes that it sincerely should have been paying for the sake of unequivocal civic responsibility. Just because good-natured "regular" people participate in the broader system of exploitation does not mean that they are earning what they get, not at all, myself included. I benefit from huge luck. Luck about when and where I was born, luck about education opportunities, luck of genetics. In addition I benefit from direct effects and side effects of government spending, publicly funded university research, basic infrastructure, and all manner of support staff. The cumulative "product" I make is not my own. It's a function mostly of just how lucky I am, and also significantly a function of the whole Lorentzian field of infrastructure/productivity/opportunity/civility that I'm enveloped in because of a whole bunch of people doing jobs that they are deeply underpaid for.
  - turc1656 8y ago
    Luck is a factor, but usually a small one. I certainly do not agree that it's a major component. But let's say for the sake of discussion, that it is. Just because life isn't fair doesn't mean someone else should be able to vote themselves money from your wallet or command a portion of your labor.

grasshopperpurp 8y ago

>There should be absolutely nothing wrong with people deciding that they do not wish to handover any more of their wealth. If your opinion is that the "system" is the culprit and these people are being squashed by bad laws, policies, etc., the proper recourse is not to legally rob others to help those people - the solution is to fix the bad laws and policies that may benefit the rich unfairly. How do we fix bad laws when the wealthy are paying good money for those bad laws? >Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. But not everyone in the 99.9 percent gave up a slice. Only those in the bottom 90 percent did. At their peak, in the mid-1980s, people in this group held 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. Three decades later that had fallen 12 points—exactly as much as the wealth of the 0.1 percent rose. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-bir... http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/without-the-right-policies-automation-risks-the-transfer-of-income-from-labour-to-capital/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/without-the-right-p... https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/amazon-mechanical-turk/551192/?single_page=true https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/amazon-...

philwelch 8y ago
> Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. Economics is not a zero-sum game.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
turc1656 8y ago
"How do we fix bad laws when the wealthy are paying good money for those bad laws?" The wealthy only account for a small percentage of the overall population. It is very easy to change the law if and only if people care enough to do so. But they don't. Because that involves work like protesting, writing to representatives, organizing community events, and maybe recalling mayors of congressional reps with votes of no confidence. They'd rather pretend to be outraged on Twitter, so that they don't have to actually do anything and instead watch Dance Moms or binge watch Netflix. The fix is simple conceptually, but it is society's collective refusal to demand that laws be changed or for existing laws that are being broken to be enforced. If society really, truly wanted to fix the whole "paying good money for those bad laws" issue, it could do so relatively easily. But it's much easier for people to pretend it's not that big of a problem since things are relatively stable and people have what they need for the most part. Why rock the boat, right? The problem isn't just the wealthy - it's all of us in our refusal to demand the law be enforced, as-written, without exceptions given based on wealth or size of the company/organization. Why was Wells Fargo, for example, allowed to just pay a fine for millions of fake accounts that were created which ripped people off? Those are clear cut felonies. If I opened a small, local bank and did that I'd be rotting in Federal prison right now, guaranteed. The only reason the employees that engaged in this and/or the Wells Fargo executives are not in jail is because society didn't demand the DoJ do it's damn job and indict them at the individual level. Hell, society at large didn't even withdraw their funds in bulk. Why would any retail customer hold deposits with an institution like that when this is a proven, admitted fraud, and was well-publicized? That's the real question. And it's the heart of the matter. And that's just one outrageous scam upon the people that comes to mind. There are many more.