Wikipedia: Tax Cuts
This is a wiki quote on zero sum in economics:
There are no references, but then it is self-evident, at least in the basic situations in the underlined portion. The bold phrase is particularly apropos because even though we can show all this till we’re blue in the face, as long as there is wealth envy to be manipulated, it will continue.
cutting taxes doesn’t create anything.
Let’s say you’re an old rich guy with employees, and your taxes are cut so you have more money than usual, you can either keep that money for yourself or reinvest it in your business.
There is no guarantee that it will be used to create new jobs. Factor in the fact that U.S markets are in decline, instead of investing in America and helping the economy, most companies will invest elsewhere.
If America is not profitable for the major companies, they will leave, which is not good for the economy.
we’ve been losing jobs, the best thing a tax cut can do is cork the bleeding temporarily.
And then there’s the fact that these taxes don;t get invested in infrastructure by the government, so though we might have more rolls of toilet paper or wall mart jobs the government will simply receive less taxes, which will prolong our current debt.
If rich people have more money they are less stingy, that’s the best argument i can get out of your post…
Nobody thought to force the banks to invest the bailout money in america, and nobody will force tax cut revenues to be invested in america.
As I mentioned on the other site, PK, I disagree with that view of Marx. Yes, he professed that his approach was purely economic, or rather “materialist”, but I think that’s a stretch when you take his output as a whole. Marxism, from the beginning, was a political ideology and a political economy. Economics was the “base”, sure, but conceptions such as the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and the “withering away of the state” are political ideals, whether Marx believed it or not.
Secondly, socialism does not reduce to Marxism, no matter how much he and his disciples wished it to be the case. I’m not convinced that Marxism has become entirely irrelevant, but I certainly think it’s high time for socialists to step out from behind his shadow.
It’s still a distribution, or a division of a whole, and it relies upon particular constructs of ‘better off’ and ‘worse off’ that affect the gaps in size between the pieces but don’t change the size of the whole. And you still have to figure in what it takes to keep a robust investor class motivated without losing the balance.
Also, IMO to compare medieval times to now is probably not of much value, because since then there’s been mass education, industrialization (including of the food supply), modernization of sanitation and medical systems leading to population growth that wouldn’t have been possible then…and such events have depended to some extent upon unexhausted supplies of natural resources and a growth rate in population that can be sustained. We don’t live in such a world anymore.
All I’m saying is that an economy – and you can micro or macro it, the basic principle doesn’t change – consists of a finite amount of production, resources, income, and wealth during any particular period of time. To the extent that a certain percentage of these things are providing benefit to a smaller percentage of owners or recipients then you have possession on one side if a scale and lack on the other. We can’t both eat the same slice of the pie; if you get it, I go without it. And baking a bigger pie doesn’t change the overall percentage distribution if the few just get bigger and bigger slices and the rest of us have to split what’s left. Not to mention that the additional ingredients used to bake the bigger pie are not available to be used to make something else (opportunity cost).
The point as I see it is that, after accepting that scarcity underlies the beast, we need to determine how it’s both fair and rational to divide the pie. Obviously there are those who have the ability and are willing to take the risk to invest in production and innovation, so we want them to have access to the necessary capital to do that. But we also recognize that there are risks in terms of societal stability if the relatively few investors keep getting so much of the pie that too many of the rest are going without. And there are those who will only consume (elderly, disabled, etc.) and we have to figure them into the equation unless and until we’re willing to kill them, or let them starve or be exposed to the elements until they die. And in the middle are those who are willing to contribute in the production process (and to the enrichment of the ownership class and the care of the infirm) if they can be guaranteed an equitable slice for their efforts.
As I see it, we’re not only somewhat out of balance re the above economic pie distribution (which has a lot to do IMO with dumbassed regulatory decisions made by those who signed onto the political myth that ‘no government is good government’), but also approaching a global reality check in terms of sustainability versus unbridled growth when it comes to our economic choices. Such a reality is pretty unnerving to contemplate, because it’s likely to result is massive social upheaval somewhere along the road. After all, economic markets only work because everyone agrees to participate in them as either producers or consumers (and, to a lesser degree, taxpayers). And the wealthy don’t just give up what they have without being forced to, or at least I can’t think of any time when it’s worked that way.
“A rising tide does lift all boats.” While I agree that Capitalism can lift people out of poverty, this does not make Capitalism worthwhile. Slaves, so I have read were better off in 1830 than 1730, but still slavery is not a good thing. Just like there were most likely good slave owners that do not mean the system was. I don’t see much difference from selling to renting myself.
“No there’s only one, power”. I agree with this, all forms of power need to be justified and if they can’t be, need to be gotten rid of. You say rightly that when a government has power bad things will happen but you don’t seem to think that big business, which has more power than governments, is a bad thing. Business, owns the media now, does anyone really think we get real news, or news, which sells the advertisements next to them? If people are not informed about what goes on in the world, how can democracy happen?
Sure, we supposedly have power over business through buying shares or their products. But many people cannot afford shares and those that could can never buy enough to affect an AGM. Same with buying products, rich people can influence what business does more as they can afford more. Meaning that the rich now have more power than the poor over that which affects their life. This means the rich are getting more than one vote. Only way around this is to form unions.
Socialism can also afford to take more risks, like in the US; I have read that RnD is being bank rolled by the government. When an invention is profitable, business takes over. I guess NASA will be sold when business can make money from space travel. I second what Peter Kropotkin said too, that co-operation is the basis for human society. Even if this co-operation is selfish, people are better off co-operating. Meaning that more people can spread the risk, while many people can get their share of the success or limit their failure.
It seems to me that people are freer by participating in decisions that affect their work and getting a fair share of the profits from the business they are in. Meaning all profits made by a business go to the workers, who automatically become the shareholders. While other industries make no profit, like health care and water.
I’m with Mark. I think Capitalism has co-opted ‘freedom’, and I reject that claim. Most people are freer in some form of socialist system.
I think we should address the notion of ‘earning’ too, because it’s a claim that’s often made in support of capitalism. Supposedly, capitalism is somehow morally superior because it lets people keep what they’ve ‘earned’, and to take that away from them is unfair. But a person isn’t entirely responsible for his success or failure; numerous things beyond ones control affect how well or how poorly a person does. Society has developed infrastructure that people use to get ahead; they are given language and culture, both forms of capital that one starts out with; they are given schooling, food, healthcare, etc. before they’re old enough to have earned anything. As Peter has mentioned, the wealthiest people in the world are predominantly wealthy by birth (and I don’t know for sure, but I would bet dollars to dimes that few if any come from below the poverty line at birth). Society is very ascriptive, passing on social status from parents to children.
All this calls into question how much a person has ‘earned’ the wealth they have. And if someone hasn’t earned all of their wealth, part of that wealth can be taken without any trespass.
Capitalist perspective: My desire is power and my will is to create an enterprise that will realise my ambition; an ambition to build something from nothing. I shall press for every advantage and ruthlessly squash any who are vulnerable; the weak exist to be preyed upon. It is their … function. I am not by nature philanthropic, however I do lead by example.
Only some can rise above the rabble …
Socialist perspective: My desire is equality, that no one shall be dominated nor dominate another “unduly”; in the interests of this premise all shall instead be dominated by the impersonal, inhuman force of the state. All shall huddle together as one herd, in the interests of self-protection. I am philanthropic by nature, in that I give to those who lack and are weak, in the form of financial and legal dependency upon the mechanisms of the state, and take from those who are not; these latter being my professed enemy. As they are a huge threat to me.
All are equal before the state …
I’m not taking sides in this.
It seems to me that it is a difference between Nietzsche’s classic master morality vs. slave morality.
Do I want to join either party?
Further, I notice parallels in nature; some species drift towards forming herd groups, like sheep or antelopes, while others form smaller, predatory groups like wolves or lions. There are some who even predate while alone, like the leopard.
I wonder sometimes will even humans eventually diverge in this manner …
Meh.
apaosha: Capitalist perspective: My desire is power and my will is to create an enterprise that will realise my ambition; an ambition to build something from nothing. I shall press for every advantage and ruthlessly squash any who are vulnerable; the weak exist to be preyed upon. It is their … function. I am not by nature philanthropic, however I do lead by example.
Only some can rise above the rabble …
K: in a real sense, this is the capitalist psychology. The individual reigns under capitalism.
A: Socialist perspective: My desire is equality, that no one shall be dominated nor dominate another “unduly”; in the interests of this premise all shall instead be dominated by the impersonal, inhuman force of the state. All shall huddle together as one herd, in the interests of self-protection. I am philanthropic by nature, in that I give to those who lack and are weak, in the form of financial and legal dependency upon the mechanisms of the state, and take from those who are not; these latter being my professed enemy. As they are a huge threat to me.
K: Yes and no. socialism is more interested in the group and the species instead of the individual. but to think the end all, be all is the state is
simply not true. There can a strong level of group democracy within a socialism if the system is designed that way.
People against socialism try to create a scenario that doesn’t exist socialism. One complaint is that people will lose their freedom, their voice,
under socialism. That is not true and in fact I would suggest we would gain both in freedom and our voice under socialism.
The simple reason for that is under capitalism the prime driver is this drive for profit. Socialism is about people instead of profit,
we would put people ahead of profit. Think of it this way, Just as political, we expanded political and voting rights from the one to the few
to the many to everyone. We must travel the same path economically. The is the real call of marx. to create an economic democracy.
A: All are equal before the state …
K: and everyone should be equal before the state.
A: I’m not taking sides in this.
It seems to me that it is a difference between Nietzsche’s classic master morality vs. slave morality.
Do I want to join either party?
Further, I notice parallels in nature; some species drift towards forming herd groups, like sheep or antelopes, while others form smaller, predatory groups like wolves or lions. There are some who even predate while alone, like the leopard.
I wonder sometimes will even humans eventually diverge in this manner …
K: You already have taken sides, you just don’t know it yet.
Kropotkin
I have taken sides … and don’t know it?
This from someone who has himself taken sides; agreed with my -perceived- negative impression of capitalism while responding to my -perceived- negative impression of socialism with a “nuh-uh!” response.
All I will say is that there are instincts in humankind which drive one sort to dominate others through an individualist approach and another to dominate through being the hand and intrument of an abstract, absolute force - such as god or the state.
But both concepts could equally be twisted into a form of protectionism also …
Kropotkin, you say that the state is not the be all and end all of everything to you, yet you then say that everyone “should be equal before the state.”
You do not see the contradiction in this?
Is there not just a teeny-weeny possibility that you are afraid of the possibly negative, towards you, interests of your fellow man and wish to limit and control these potentials through the insertion of an absolute, overarching authority such as, in this instance, the state?
But in the interests of fairness, let me say this also; I do not like the idea of wealth and power being denied me when it is in the hands of others - capitalists.
I want it for myself. I am honestly self-centred and self-serving. My morality serves my interests and no more.
If I am to be ashamed because you accuse me of taking a particular side, the I am afraid that I shall dissappoint you.
The interests of the masses are not my interests. Money, the lever of power to the impotent, is not in my interests.
Conceivably, if I wished to cultivate sympathy towards me in others, I would pose as representing them and their interests; in giving to them and with co-operating in their desires. I would pity and tolerate and perform the long et cetera of petty vitues.
This, I think, is what is conventionally referred to as a “good” man. “Good” here being the consensus meaning.
A socialist is a “good” man.
A “bad” man is he who pursues his interests with disregard for the intersts of others. Again; conventionally.
A capitalist is a “bad” man, by this reasoning, and yours.
But, he who desires political power, which shall he choose to be?
Either. They are both vehicles of ambition. So, the question is; do you pretend to be a saviour or do you dominate through elitism, power and ability? Because you are right, it is about people - and only people.
But then, I could also defend selfishness, and make it holy and virtuous, and condemn your “happiness of the greatest number” as cowardly and degenerate.
This is why I don’t take sides …
K: I have taken sides … and don’t know it?
AP:This from someone who has himself taken sides; agreed with my -perceived- negative impression of capitalism while responding to my -perceived- negative impression of socialism with a “nuh-uh!” response.
K: actually, reread my post, carefully and you will see, I said, yes and no to the socialism part. For the most part, I agree with your
psychology of people. I made no comment negative or positive about your post. I simply amplified on it.
AP: All I will say is that there are instincts in humankind which drive one sort to dominate others through an individualist approach and another to dominate through being the hand and intrument of an abstract, absolute force - such as god or the state.
But both concepts could equally be twisted into a form of protectionism also …
K: I disagree with your point that “everyone” has instincts to dominate via individualist or abstract, absolute force, god or the state.
There are other motivations that exist in human beings. You would be surprised at what motivates people.
AP: Kropotkin, you say that the state is not the be all and end all of everything to you, yet you then say that everyone “should be equal before the state.”
You do not see the contradiction in this?
Is there not just a teeny-weeny possibility that you are afraid of the possibly negative, towards you, interests of your fellow man and wish to limit and control these potentials through the insertion of an absolute, overarching authority such as, in this instance, the state?
K: This tells me I haven’t done a good job explaining what I mean about socialism. I don’t believe in a absolute, overarching state.
I believe in a democratic political system. I do believe in making the economic system, more in line with our political system.
Capitalism is an economic dictatorship as marx’s says. The economic freedom everybody talks about is really the freedom to
choose between 500 cereals at the grocery store. But the truth is 90%+ of those 500 cereals is owned by 4 companies. That is
the economic dictatorship I am talking about.The 4 are Post, Kellogg, General Mill, and Quaker. That is the the challenge today.
to break down the economic dictatorship that exists and was noticed by marx all those years ago.
AP: But in the interests of fairness, let me say this also; I do not like the idea of wealth and power being denied me when it is in the hands of others - capitalists. I want it for myself. I am honestly self-centred and self-serving. My morality serves my interests and no more.
If I am to be ashamed because you accuse me of taking a particular side, the I am afraid that I shall dissappoint you.
The interests of the masses are not my interests. Money, the lever of power to the impotent, is not in my interests.
K: What if the world didn’t revolve around you? That is the great lesson of age. Without that “great unwashed masses” you don’t exist.
Simple as that. If they go away, you go away.
AP: Conceivably, if I wished to cultivate sympathy towards me in others, I would pose as representing them and their interests; in giving to them and with co-operating in their desires. I would pity and tolerate and perform the long et cetera of petty vitues.
This, I think, is what is conventionally referred to as a “good” man. “Good” here being the consensus meaning.
K: Pity and tolerate. Spoken like a good nietzschean. I know the type, as I once long ago, was one too.
AP: A socialist is a “good” man.
A “bad” man is he who pursues his interests with disregard for the intersts of others. Again; conventionally.
A capitalist is a “bad” man, by this reasoning, and yours.
But, he who desires political power, which shall he choose to be?
Either. They are both vehicles of ambition. So, the question is; do you pretend to be a saviour or do you dominate through elitism, power and ability? Because you are right, it is about people - and only people.
But then, I could also defend selfishness, and make it holy and virtuous, and condemn your “happiness of the greatest number” as cowardly and degenerate.
This is why I don’t take sides …"
K: I am simply making an argument. I am too old to pretend to be a saviour and domination always fails. always.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it does fail. I have learned history.
Many, many years ago, most likely before you were born, I was once called a
megalomaniac who doesn’t want to take over the world. The years have cured me
of my megalomania and I still don’t want to take over the world. Learn the truth
and it shall set you free.
Kropotkin
For my own edification, I’d like to try to summarize the arguments in favor of capitalism/against socialism, as I understand them. I won’t try to argue against them yet, I’m trying to get a good grasp so that I’m rejecting the right thing.
There are a few main lines of argument here, so I’ll group them and summarize.
-Government incompetence:
Government cannot allocate resources as well as private industry, because private industry is incentivized much better. Government spends more money to accomplish the same thing, or does less with the same amount of money. We should therefore minimize government and mazimize the freedom of private industry to allocate resources as supply and demand dictate, because that is the most efficient way.
-Regulation=skewed markets
By regulating the way companies do business, we change the way they are incentivized, and thus they make decisions that aren’t necessarily based on what people value. By deregulating, the market determines prices properly, drawing only from the what people value and the supply available.
-Fairness
People deserve the money they make, and taxing wealthy people more than poor people is unfair because those wealthy people have done something more valuable than poor people (on average). Non-flat tax structures unduly punish the wealthy for working hard, and thus incentivize our most valuable citizens to slack off.
-Taxes stifle the economy
Reducing taxes from current levels will increase government revenues, because it will free people to spend, to create, to work harder to keep more money, and thus to pay a smaller percentage of tax on a larger income. In addition to being fairer, this will actually improve government cashflow.
I don’t agree with these positions (or rather, I don’t agree that they add up to a net positive in favor of capitalism), but I may be misunderstanding them, or missing entire classes of arguments. Since that’s a common accusation on both sides of political arguments, it’d be best to rule it out, and to have a complete case before rejecting the political philosophy.
K: I shall rework the sociallism position to unify it.
Kropotkin
My Libertarian Friend
Subject: Great Quote
“You cannot legislate the
poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of
freedom. What one person
receives without working for, another person must work for
without receiving.
The government cannot give to anybody anything that the
government does not
first take from somebody else… When half of the people get
the idea that they
do not have to work because the other half is going to take
care of them, and
when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to
work because somebody
else is going to get what they work for, that my dear
friend, is about the end
of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing
it.”
Me:
In the history of civilization there has never been a level playing field of resource distribution from which to start. That's fine if you are one of the lucky ones with greater wealth. It's not so great if you are one of the unlucky ones with less.
_____________________________________________
Libertarian Friend
True but redistribution is not productive to creation of wealth for anyone and only serves to suppress society as a whole and create more dependency from top to bottom. The welfare system has done nothing to help the poor rise out of the situation they are in. It has only created more dependency and rising lack of drive to do better for themselves.
The way it is now in NY, you can not work and do better than if you work a full time minimum wage job. That does nothing for the poor or for society as a whole. No matter what happens as you say there will be the haves and the have nots. That will not change with any system.
What changes is the number of have nots compared to the haves.
Why strive to better yourself, to make more money, or to expand a business ect if all that is going to happen is you will have to give more to the govt and to those who don’t do anything. Socialism makes no sense in this regard. Society as a whole suffers as a result.
Me
Again, there has never been a society that has not "redistributed." To say redistribution is unproductive is merely to criticize a universal practice of societies. There is more exploitation from bottom to top then there has ever been exploitation from top to bottom. The "welfare system" doesn't consist of merely relief to the poorest, it is the whole system of wealth in a society. Without looking at how the whole system works you can't understand how any part of it works. The people at the top have benefited and are benefiting the most from the system, they owe the most to it. The so-called free market is a creation of the liberal democratic republic. It is an important component of it as far as it goes. But it is not in and of itself an adequate vehicle for distributing social justice.For some, it is more advantageous to stay on welfare than it is to get a job. That’s a flaw with our specific welfare system, not with welfare in general.
And even if the rich were taxed at 50%, this does not deny them the ability for unlimited income potential. And if somebody making $15M a year is complaining because they’ll only get to take home $7.5M, well cry me a freakin’ river. There are people living on $20K a year, there’s no excuse for the uber-wealthy to deny giving to a charitable cause.
Libertarian:
So what is the solution? Take more from the rich that provide jobs to the poor to give to the poor so that they don’t work and so that the rich can provide less jobs? The rich already give more percentage wise back to the system that they benefit from. If they continue to tax the rich more then it becomes counterproductive for everyone. The govt collects less, there are less jobs, less industry, less production, and more dependency. It just does not work and has been proven not to work since this all began.
The govt always collects more in revenues when taxes are lowered and collects less when taxes are raised. It makes no sense to continue to go off a philosophy that has proven to fail and be counter productive. As far as welfare, I know that the corporate guys are to blame for taking money too but the difference is that the poor on welfare do nothing to better themselves or society.At least the corporation provides jobs and pays taxes.
I think it was Ben Franklin that said that we need to make it hard to be poor. This makes a lot of sense. I have been on both ends of the spectrum. I have been hungry living on the street and also have had a nice house and plenty of food on the table. If the govt had provided me with the bare necessities that I needed (food stamps, shelter ect ) then I would have had less incentive to do anything about my situation.I knew that I did not want to live like that forever and knew that I had to do something about it. There was not someone standing there with a free handout. It makes perfect sense to me. Don’t give em anything and they will strive to do better for themselves. If you pay them for being slugs then they will continue to be slugs.
I am not saying that some people really do need some help from society. I am just saying that the system we have now creates poverty, perpetuates poverty, and continues the cycle of dependency. It is only getting worse and the rolls are only getting larger. It is a broken system that the only way to fix it is not to expand but to get rid of it.Dont pay people to have kids. Don’t pay people to decide not to work. Don’t give them free handouts. Reward those who do work and don’t punish people for being more productive by higher taxation. This creates more jobs, more spending, more tax revenue, and in the end a better society for all. Not only the rich benefit but the poor also in that they have more access to jobs and the message is clear that you must do something to help yourself or nobody is going to come to your rescue.
We have created a society that blames everyone else for what they don’t have. It is always somebody elses fault be it the govt, the rich ect. There is no sense of personal responsibility for anything. The system has created that. Everything is subsidized and the handouts are flowing. When people do go to work they realize that it is much easier and sometimes more profitable to not work at all. Who is that good for and what kind of social justice is that? Don’t get me wrong I think the corporate welfare is just as bad as the general welfare system. In my opinion it all has to go. There is no perfect system and there never will be. The problem now is that we are taking a broken system that is on fire and pouring gasoline on it and thinking that people will have it better. There will still always be rich and always be poor. It is the middle class that will be absorbed into the poor category and more of a two class system. Bottomline is more have nots and more govt dependants.
Me:
I don’t have the statistics since we went into the recession but up until then the numbers receiving welfare benefits was getting smaller every year since 1996. Advocating for the rich after the Bush Administration crony capitalism is not an effective polemic strategy. The people receiving welfare benefits are a miniscule problem in this country as compared to the massive corporate corruption that has been rampant since the “Reagan revolution” and especially the last eight years. Centrist counterbalancing is needed.
The tendency to blame others has a long evolutionary past that predates anything like advent of formal government. When you admit we will never have a perfect system you’re preaching to the choir. That’s why I look for pragmatic, piecemeal improvements to the existing system rather than a radical revolutionary style approach. We agree on corporate welfare I think. As far as the middle class becoming poorer, that’s been going on for 30 years. Give Obama a chance to turn, if he fails to turn it around, vote him out in four years and try something else.
Your friend offers two implied premises that I think are false, and that I’ve seen others offer (Paineful Truth in this very thread):
The first is that “The govt always collects more in revenues when taxes are lowered and collects less when taxes are raised”. This is a referrence to the Laffer curve, which PT offered earlier. Your friend’s claim is much stronger than PT’s, though. No economist will support the claim that revenues “always” increase as taxes decreases; the claim is absurd. At a tax rate of 0%, revenue is zero, QED. The more sensible claim, which PT makes but which I still disagree with, is that decreasing taxes from current levels will increase revenue, i.e. we’re on the right hand side of the Laffer curve. It’s certainly not a given, anyway, and it’s sensibly deniable. But besides, how the money is spent is much more important than how much is collected. Which leads me to point two. . .
Two, your friend seems to be running on the assumption that everyone could do better if they just tried harder, that it is a lack of effort that keeps the poor in poverty, and an excess of effort that makes the rich, rich. Peter has mentioned before the percentage of the Rich List that come from old money, and from what I know I have no reason to doubt him: “of the top 20 industrial corporations, 54% of the board members were upper class; of the top 15 banks, 62%. . . of the top 15 insurance companies, 44%. . . of the top 15 transportation companies, 53%. . . of the top 15 utility companies, 53%, and of the top 15 utility corporations, 30%. . . Clearly we find much overrepresentation by the upper class on all these boards of directors when it is noted that the upper class accounts for only about .5% of the population.” “Upper class” here is defined by either 1) having family member belonging to an exclusive social club or attending an exclusive prep school, or 2) being the child of a wealthy father and having attended such a school of belonged to such a club oneself. (Social Stratification and Inequality, Kerbo, citing Domhoff (2002, 2006a)
People in poverty have fewer opportunities, they are taught less about saving and investing, they don’t have the same number of connections that land them cushy jobs, if they graduate from college they do so with thousands of dollars in loans to pay off, leading them to get lower-level jobs because they have less cushion to wait for a good job to come along. They are significantly more risk-averse, because they have less of a community safety net. Wealthy people tend to stay wealthy because they have a thousand tiny advantages that make it easier for them to get an education, get a job, keep their job, and save their money and put it to work. If we want a meritocracy (and I think we can all agree that we do), we need to level out these differences, and make it so that effort does equate to success.
(I know it’s only based on a true story, and it’s anecdotal, but Pursuit of Happyness is a good example of the struggle to succeed. The person on whom the movie is based is a genius, without question, and works harder than many, many people, and he still very nearly failed to put those attributes to good use because his options were so limited by circumstance.)
EDIT: inserted info and sources I promised earlier.
Let us reverse this and ask ourselves this, why socialism instead of capitalism?
There are a couple of related issues, income inequality and widespread poverty.
Income inequality is the idea that some people get a lot of income and some
people get very little income. This is measured by the Gini coefficient which is a measure
of statistical dispersion used as a measure of inequality of income distribution.
A low gini coefficient indicates more equal income or wealth distribution, while a high
gini coefficient indicates more unequal distribution. a “0” corresponds to perfect equality
(everyone having the exactly same income) and “1” corresponds to perfect inequality
(where one person has all the income, while everyone else has zero income) This gini is
actually a percentage number, so if is say, 29.1 it is actually 0.291 but for convenience sake
I have simplified this. Both the UN and the Central Intelligence Agency have done studies with
the Gini coefficient which means the numbers are slightly different for each.
So let us look at two countries and see how this works, Austria has a low gini number
29.1 which it has a low income inequality and at the other end of the scale is Bolivia which
has a high number, 60.1. Given what we know about it country, Austria has a higher standard
of living and is a far better place to live in than Bolivia. Given this knowledge we can guess that
western europe has a lower gini number than south america and africa and this is true by the numbers.
France is 32.7
Germany is 28
Denmark is 24.7
Finland is 26.9
So let us look at countries on the other side of the scale
Central African Republic is 61.3
Niger is 50.5
Nigeria is 43.7
Lesotho 63.2
Brazil is 57
Honduras is 53.8
Colombia is 58.6
Argentina is 51.3
So clearly the western industrial countries have a lower gini rate than so called third world countries.
But on might say, so the fuck what?
Both Harvard and Berkeley have done studies that examined income inequality in the United States
and states with higher income inequality have all of the following problems.
Higher death rates, higher rates of homicide, higher rates of violent crime, higher cost for police protection,
higher rates of incarceration, higher rates of unemployment, higher % of people receiving income assistance and food stamps,
more high-school dropouts, less state funds spent per person on education, fewer books per person in the schools,
higher infant mortality rates, higher heart disease, higher cost per person for medical care.
It seems clear that income inequality is real factor in how livable a state or country is.
By the way, Canada has a gini of 32.6, UK has a 36 gini, so following the logic,
Mexico will have a higher gini number than those two and it does, 46.1,
so where is the U.S number according to the UN, the gini is 40.8 and according to the CIA, its 45.
So given the list of countries, where would you rather live in? clearly the answer is someplace with
a lower gini number, thus suggesting that countries with a lower gini number, less income inequality.
Now the second factor is poverty.
according to the “World’s institute for development economic research of the united nations university”
10% of the world’s population owns 85% of its wealth. I actually think its closer to 90% of the wealth.
It also says that 1% of the world’s population owns over 40% of the world’s wealth.
thus roughly 60 million people own over 40% of the world’s wealth and 600 million own
85% of the world’s wealth. thus that 1% have as much wealth as roughly half the world’s population, 3 billion people.
so given those two factors, is capitalism the answer? No. Some other solution is needed and
socialism is the solution because as studies of income inequality shows that there are real human issues
in any state or country that has a serious income inequality problem.
Look to the problems that need to be solved before you offer up capitalism as a solution.
Kropotkin
“socialism vs capitalism” is just another way of saying “servitude vs independence”, “oppression vs freedom”, “selflessness vs self-interest”… in otherwords, and not just figuratively but quite literally, “death vs life”…
3X–
Carleas and Peter have made trenchant, well supported arguments and the best response you can come up with are four bumpersticker suggestions?
if youve read a good deal of my posts throughout ILP, including in this thread, in the thread ‘Socialism’, or particularly my OP and very long and extensive defense of capitalism in ‘To Wonderer’ (on the first page, about 3-4 posts down), you would already know my arguments.