4 ms·

> Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are Thats unnecessarily reductive and dismissiv

by kentm 7y ago

> Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are Thats unnecessarily reductive and dismissive of peoples' beliefs. Probably more along the lines of: 1) The rich have the system gamed in their favor and thus its only fair that they pay more into the system that secures their wealth. 2) There are direly needed services that need to be funded and the rich can afford the pain more than the poor. Wealth itself has a marginal utility.

jandrese 7y ago
More importantly, capitalism itself tends to concentrate wealth at the top. People can use money to make more money without having to personally produce goods or offer services. This leads to a positive feedback loop where the available wealth concentrates in the hands of people who have lots of wealth. Left unchecked it leads to feudalism and eventually collapses on itself. This is one of the major jobs of a government in a capitalist system: to keep injecting wealth at the bottom of the pyramid to prevent the collapse. It's arguable that the government has been shirking its duty in this regard since the 80s, and our increasing wealth gap is a symptom of a systematic failure. The longer we let this continue the more painful the solution will have to be in the end. And it's already pretty bad--we have multiple billionaires in the US. A billionaire has the same problem that plagued Communist countries, a person with that much personal wealth can't spend it quickly enough without basically becoming their own company, so the money becomes trapped and slows the economy bit by bit. We are in the situation now where people can start their own personal orbital rocket companies and still not spend their money fast enough to keep it in the economy.

4 ms·

> Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are Thats unnecessarily reductive and dismissiv

by kentm 7y ago

jandrese 7y ago
More importantly, capitalism itself tends to concentrate wealth at the top. People can use money to make more money without having to personally produce goods or offer services. This leads to a positive feedback loop where the available wealth concentrates in the hands of people who have lots of wealth. Left unchecked it leads to feudalism and eventually collapses on itself. This is one of the major jobs of a government in a capitalist system: to keep injecting wealth at the bottom of the pyramid to prevent the collapse. It's arguable that the government has been shirking its duty in this regard since the 80s, and our increasing wealth gap is a symptom of a systematic failure. The longer we let this continue the more painful the solution will have to be in the end. And it's already pretty bad--we have multiple billionaires in the US. A billionaire has the same problem that plagued Communist countries, a person with that much personal wealth can't spend it quickly enough without basically becoming their own company, so the money becomes trapped and slows the economy bit by bit. We are in the situation now where people can start their own personal orbital rocket companies and still not spend their money fast enough to keep it in the economy.