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We haven't had real economic growth in the US since the 70's when deindustrialization first began. If you discount by the real estate market's return instead of

We haven't had real economic growth in the US since the 70's when deindustrialization first began. If you discount by the real estate market's return instead of CPI you have negative or flat real growth. CPI includes a lot of goods that are long run deflationary like TVs, food, and cars. I'd point you to China for an example of what "rising tide lifts all boats" actually looks like. And to add to that - it matters a lot what kind of growth is driving GDP increases. If you're just powering growth by increasing immigration (aka working population) that's not increasing per-capita GDP. > Growth is also looking like a very unsustainable way to support civilization. Again, depends what kind of growth you're talking about. > "grow the pie to share it" Wealth redistribution has never worked in history. In every case where it has occurred there has been a flight of capital leading to underinvestment and poverty, or war.

dgb23 5y ago
> Wealth redistribution has never worked in history. In every case where it has occurred there has been a flight of capital leading to underinvestment and poverty, or war. What do you classify as wealth redistribution?
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"Wealth redistribution has never worked in history." Are you sure about that? Do we still have kings and barons owning entire states as personal property?
- e4e78a06 5y ago
  Maybe not, but we have no better a system than ancient Rome where votes were bought by wealthy politicians from the upper class. But even if you limit examination to recent history: - apartheid South Africa land redistributions led to "most of the farms [failing]" [1] - Great Leap Forward in China confiscated huge amounts of wealth from landowners, gave it to the government and peasants, and caused massive famine - "There is no wealth to distribute" in Venezuela [2] - USSR literally killed millions by forcing individual farmers to work in large scale collective farms - socialist reforms in other Latin American states coincided with periods of economic stagnation I will also leave you with this link [3] to a breakdown of Swedish government tax revenues. You'll see the majority comes from taxes on labor and products (VAT) rather than taxes on capital and corporate revenue. So even in so-called democratic socialist states there is not a lot of wealth redistribution happening. [1]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-21-la-fg-south-africa-farms-20101121-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-21-la-fg-so... [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/7/8/there-is-no-wealth-to-distribute-venezuela-poverty-rate-surges https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/7/8/there-is-no-wealt... [3]: https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-sweden.pdf https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-swede...

dgb23 5y ago

> Wealth redistribution has never worked in history. In every case where it has occurred there has been a flight of capital leading to underinvestment and poverty, or war. What do you classify as wealth redistribution?

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"Wealth redistribution has never worked in history." Are you sure about that? Do we still have kings and barons owning entire states as personal property?

e4e78a06 5y ago
Maybe not, but we have no better a system than ancient Rome where votes were bought by wealthy politicians from the upper class. But even if you limit examination to recent history: - apartheid South Africa land redistributions led to "most of the farms [failing]" [1] - Great Leap Forward in China confiscated huge amounts of wealth from landowners, gave it to the government and peasants, and caused massive famine - "There is no wealth to distribute" in Venezuela [2] - USSR literally killed millions by forcing individual farmers to work in large scale collective farms - socialist reforms in other Latin American states coincided with periods of economic stagnation I will also leave you with this link [3] to a breakdown of Swedish government tax revenues. You'll see the majority comes from taxes on labor and products (VAT) rather than taxes on capital and corporate revenue. So even in so-called democratic socialist states there is not a lot of wealth redistribution happening. [1]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-21-la-fg-south-africa-farms-20101121-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-21-la-fg-so... [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/7/8/there-is-no-wealth-to-distribute-venezuela-poverty-rate-surges https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/7/8/there-is-no-wealt... [3]: https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-sweden.pdf https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-swede...