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And thus we see how the wealthy are able to control our society. A rich man performs an act of generosity to wipe out the student debt of an entire college cla
by mikeash 7y ago
And thus we see how the wealthy are able to control our society.
A rich man performs an act of generosity to wipe out the student debt of an entire college class, and you complain. What do you complain about?
Do you complain about how students are being burdened with massive debts before they even begin their careers?
Do you complain that university education is becoming ever more necessary while simultaneously becoming ever more unaffordable?
Do you complain that a skilled chemical engineer gave up his career and turned to moving little green pieces of paper around to make his fortune, because society rewards certain types of paper pushing orders of magnitude more than it rewards inventiveness, skill, and hard work?
Do you complain that the billionaire who made this gift pays a lower tax rate on his income than these students will pay on their part of the gift?
Do you complain that, while a few hundred graduates got an incredible gift, a million other students around the country will graduate this spring with a huge amount of debt and no billionaire to pay it off for them?
No, you complain about the fact that some of these students won't benefit from this gift because they were fortunate enough not to have any debt to pay off. Never mind the systematic problems that led to this situation, never mind that a few hundred people got an incredible gift and the only person who lost anything was a billionaire giving up a negligible fraction of his wealth. The important thing is that some of the peasants are getting more than the others, and they must be destroyed!
- sabujp 7y agoi was following you until you started talking about destroying peasants
- p1necone 7y agoI think that bit was tongue in cheek.
- lefstathiou 7y agoBurn them! Burn them at the stakes!!! ;)
- Despegar 7y agoThis isn't very complicated to solve: redistribute more of the wealth. MMTers say that isn't even necessary, but it is to fix inequality.
- joelrunyon 7y agoQuestion I've never seen anyone actually answer: Why is inequality inherently a bad thing if the "floor" for everyone is continually being raised?
- feydaykyn 7y agoResearchs show that inequalities have a very negative impact on group cohesion. I'll look up the relevant researchs if you want.
- mac01021 7y agoRough/vague answers I've been given: - our democracy is not perfect, and allowing someone to become too wealthy affords them too much power, effectively disenfranchinsing the masses. - Even if the floor is raising, its still too low and it would be better to squeeze those on the high side of the inequality in order to raise the floor even further. - the social cohesion thing from the other comment.
- joelrunyon 7y agoHow high does the floor need to be raised?
- zanny 7y agoBecause wealth is power. Wealth is influence. If you control the means of production you have a disproportionately large voice not in government but in society. Not everyone has Jeff Bezos' pen that can in one fell swoop dramatically alter the livelihoods of millions or bring cities and counties to their knees grovelling at his feet. Irrespective of total overall wealth, the distribution of wealth is an indicator of who decides the future of the society in which that wealth exists. Today, 90% of Americans have as much wealth as the 1% at the top, which means 1% of people wield half of the influence of money in society, and money has an obscenely powerful influence on society. Its why we get tax cuts and deficits. Why we don't have socialized medicine. Why our labor protections are lacking, why workers get so little mandatory paid time off. Its why stress is up, why working hours are up, why debt is up. Why housing is more expensive - the poor don't use housing as an investment the way the rich do, in the absence of floods of capital floating around for the exclusive purposes of making more money there is a much smaller market for domineering real estate markets so much that you buy out the local government to prevent building to drive up your property values.
- cortesoft 7y agoI don’t think people are complaining so much as I think they are pointing out why charity is not a good way to solve these sorts of social problems. Charity is random and arbitrary, and does not fairly address problems by actual need. Yet, many people still argue that charity should be our social safety net, and we don’t need to fund programs that help people.
- JackFr 7y ago> Do you complain that a skilled chemical engineer gave up his career and turned to moving little green pieces of paper around to make his fortune, because society rewards certain types of paper pushing orders of magnitude more than it rewards inventiveness, skill, and hard work? The 'moving little green pieces of paper around' is called allocating capital, and it's as important a driver of productivity in the economy as chemical engineering. He was highly rewarded because he used capital effectively.
- mikeash 7y agoIf it’s “as important” then why does it carry orders of magnitude more rewards?