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Actually, I should have been more specific. I should never have discussed "inequality" - it's a counterproductive buzzword, but it's what we were using. I don'

Actually, I should have been more specific. I should never have discussed "inequality" - it's a counterproductive buzzword, but it's what we were using. I don't care how much money poor people are able to spend. What I actually want is for everyone to be able to eat, sleep in a stable home, spend time with their loved ones, pursue their hobbies and dreams, and participate in their local community/government at their pleasure. To be able to protect their health from preventable disease. All of these to me are human rights, not trophies to earn through work. The second thing I want is to take away wealth from the extremely rich or otherwise divorce their unreasonable hoards of capital from political power. But the latter is extremely difficult to envision. I don't know how it could work robustly. I'd rather just take their money since money = power is the game they want to play.

btilly 3y ago
At what point does wealth created through human labor become someone else's right? I'm not asking this as a rhetorical question. It is extremely practical. We want the poor to receive houses, food, healthcare treatments, broadband, access to computers, transportation, and so on. All of these are created through human labor. Many were invented fairly recently. Some within my lifetime. At what point does it go from new invention to a human right? And how do we as a society make that happen, and incentivize the continued creation of new inventions? And how do we continue to incentivize the continued labor needed to provide these things? We currently do an admittedly crappy job of it. For example we should be building a ton of housing, and we don't. But what we do have, we mostly do through money. We get people to invent things. To build things. And then we tax some of it, and give to those who have not, and provide some at the bottom. But it seems you want to get rid of wealth at the top. Take away from billionaires, who are far more generous with their money than most of us. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge for example. And you want to provide far, far more to the bottom. Enough that I'd be happy not to work again. As well as countless others. Many variations on your scheme were tried in the 20th century. They feature problems like mass famine, and totalitarian rule by the bureaucrats in charge. What are your proposals to make sure we don't get those bad outcomes again?

btilly 3y ago

At what point does wealth created through human labor become someone else's right? I'm not asking this as a rhetorical question. It is extremely practical. We want the poor to receive houses, food, healthcare treatments, broadband, access to computers, transportation, and so on. All of these are created through human labor. Many were invented fairly recently. Some within my lifetime. At what point does it go from new invention to a human right? And how do we as a society make that happen, and incentivize the continued creation of new inventions? And how do we continue to incentivize the continued labor needed to provide these things? We currently do an admittedly crappy job of it. For example we should be building a ton of housing, and we don't. But what we do have, we mostly do through money. We get people to invent things. To build things. And then we tax some of it, and give to those who have not, and provide some at the bottom. But it seems you want to get rid of wealth at the top. Take away from billionaires, who are far more generous with their money than most of us. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge for example. And you want to provide far, far more to the bottom. Enough that I'd be happy not to work again. As well as countless others. Many variations on your scheme were tried in the 20th century. They feature problems like mass famine, and totalitarian rule by the bureaucrats in charge. What are your proposals to make sure we don't get those bad outcomes again?