5 ms·

> Can't we just make the economy more fair by... No. When people say they want fairness, they are being disingenuous. They want a lot of the fair that benefit

> Can't we just make the economy more fair by... No. When people say they want fairness, they are being disingenuous. They want a lot of the fair that benefits them and a little bit of the fair that makes their life worse. That's not what fair means. Would you want fair if it made your life a lot worse? The only honest answer is no :) Thus, we have what we have.

satvikpendem 4y ago
One interesting point regarding this is, ask anyone in the first world whether they want the same fairness as those not in the first world, ie if we added up all of the wages of everyone on the planet and redistributed them equally, the first worlder would be much much poorer than where they started off. Of course, I do support bringing up the average wages in each country overall, which is precisely what capitalism has been doing for the past century of industrialized progress.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > if we added up all of the wages of everyone on the planet and redistributed them equally, the first worlder would be much much poorer than where they started off This point of 'most people only want what benefits them' is very shallow. You've set up the question for failure. You limited comparison to income, and to income just among labour class. If you actually setup the question correctly, you might find the results to be different. Are we going to re-destribute capital gains? Most people in developed world earn zero from capital gains. Are we going to re-distribute ownership of assets, shares, and land? Most people in developed world own zero land. Many have net worth of roughly zero. Are we going to re-distribute taxation? Taxes in the first world are paid almost entirely by the middle class. What about right to pollute, currently wealthy individuals have unlimited right to pollute, some take helicopter rides and jets to cut travel time by <1 hour or to avoid traffic. > what capitalism has been doing for the past century Capitalism has been dumping toxic waste from the west in developing nations, like used electronic and plastics. It has brought Opium addiction to China, British American Tabacco is selling to children in South America right now, Nestle has admitted to slavery in Thailand. Western companies have bribed local officials, and hired death squads to kill local union leaders and environmental activists. The leading countries to rise in the last 30 years, China and Singapore, have active, competent and interventionist governments.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    Sure, let's redistribute those too. > Capitalism has been dumping toxic waste from the west in developing nations, like used electronic and plastics Well, I did talk about wages rising, specifically, and not environmental waste. But it really is true that developed countries now want many developing countries to stop their environmental damage right as they are industrializing, meanwhile discounting their own environmental damage in the centuries prior. The truth is that industrialization requires some sort of short term environmental damage (as long as we use fossil fuels still) but thankfully, many nations are using renewables, including the China you talk about. China's (and indeed most others') rise has only been through after adopting capitalist principles, look at their growth until the 80s, and then from the 80s to today. I don't agree that we should have non-interventionist capitalism, but I won't deny that capitalism has been the single greatest driver of prosperity in human history, even with all of its faults.
  - automatic6131 4y ago
    >active, competent and interventionist governments >China oh boy, do you have some reading to do
  - badpun 4y ago
    > The leading countries to rise in the last 30 years, China and Singapore, have active, competent and interventionist governments. Can't wait for the China do collapse under its own mismanagement and the memes like the above can finally die off.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      I've been hearing this about both China and EU for the past 20 years. It seens you'll be waiting a while.
      - helij 4y ago
        I've been hearing this about US, EU, China and a few other places from different people depending which part I was visiting in the world since I know about myself.

satvikpendem 4y ago

One interesting point regarding this is, ask anyone in the first world whether they want the same fairness as those not in the first world, ie if we added up all of the wages of everyone on the planet and redistributed them equally, the first worlder would be much much poorer than where they started off. Of course, I do support bringing up the average wages in each country overall, which is precisely what capitalism has been doing for the past century of industrialized progress.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> if we added up all of the wages of everyone on the planet and redistributed them equally, the first worlder would be much much poorer than where they started off This point of 'most people only want what benefits them' is very shallow. You've set up the question for failure. You limited comparison to income, and to income just among labour class. If you actually setup the question correctly, you might find the results to be different. Are we going to re-destribute capital gains? Most people in developed world earn zero from capital gains. Are we going to re-distribute ownership of assets, shares, and land? Most people in developed world own zero land. Many have net worth of roughly zero. Are we going to re-distribute taxation? Taxes in the first world are paid almost entirely by the middle class. What about right to pollute, currently wealthy individuals have unlimited right to pollute, some take helicopter rides and jets to cut travel time by <1 hour or to avoid traffic. > what capitalism has been doing for the past century Capitalism has been dumping toxic waste from the west in developing nations, like used electronic and plastics. It has brought Opium addiction to China, British American Tabacco is selling to children in South America right now, Nestle has admitted to slavery in Thailand. Western companies have bribed local officials, and hired death squads to kill local union leaders and environmental activists. The leading countries to rise in the last 30 years, China and Singapore, have active, competent and interventionist governments.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Sure, let's redistribute those too. > Capitalism has been dumping toxic waste from the west in developing nations, like used electronic and plastics Well, I did talk about wages rising, specifically, and not environmental waste. But it really is true that developed countries now want many developing countries to stop their environmental damage right as they are industrializing, meanwhile discounting their own environmental damage in the centuries prior. The truth is that industrialization requires some sort of short term environmental damage (as long as we use fossil fuels still) but thankfully, many nations are using renewables, including the China you talk about. China's (and indeed most others') rise has only been through after adopting capitalist principles, look at their growth until the 80s, and then from the 80s to today. I don't agree that we should have non-interventionist capitalism, but I won't deny that capitalism has been the single greatest driver of prosperity in human history, even with all of its faults.
- automatic6131 4y ago
  >active, competent and interventionist governments >China oh boy, do you have some reading to do
- badpun 4y ago
  > The leading countries to rise in the last 30 years, China and Singapore, have active, competent and interventionist governments. Can't wait for the China do collapse under its own mismanagement and the memes like the above can finally die off.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    I've been hearing this about both China and EU for the past 20 years. It seens you'll be waiting a while.
    - helij 4y ago
      I've been hearing this about US, EU, China and a few other places from different people depending which part I was visiting in the world since I know about myself.