We're hoping that someday.......
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Curious George
Veteran Member
I imagine any poor person would gladly hand you their "little in taxes" and "benefits" for your wages and benefits.
To bemoan that somehow the poor have it better is bullocks.
To not realize that wealth is created from the work of others in most instances is ignorance.
To think of taxes as your money is idealistic.
Taxes may pay the captain, the wealthy may have commissioned the ship, but it is the labor which created the ship and keeps it afloat.
Were it not for government programs and the services to the poor (both public and private) this country would have faile and you would have no business upon which to collect income.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
The only thing you forgot to mention is that it's actually more expensive to be poor.
Well, of course they would.
It's so much easier to have someone hand one money.
I agree with you.
But no one is saying they have it better.
Perhaps you're thinking of how some here have proposed confiscatory taxation though.
I've addressed the fact that in that case being poor would become relatively more attractive.
Most of our wealth is created by the ingenuity & work of a few very productive people.
Ordinary workers play their role, but their labor is greatly leveraged by technology & the direction of the few.
Consider how much food a common farmer could grow just a couple centuries ago.....he could feed his family plus a little more.
Now, with GPS guided tractors, glyphosate resistant crops, automated harvesters, & modern trucks, he produces many times more than that.
Our wealth exists because a few people invented those technologies, & started businesses to provide them.
This small group of people is at least as important as the much greater number of workers who labor under them.
Taxes are taken from me while it was still my money.
To think of my money as belonging to government is just as idealistic.
I prefer my ideals to those of a rapacious, wasteful & deadly government.
This is always the rationale for the less successful elements always wanting a tax increase to provide them with more largess.
They value their own contribution (no matter how small), but they have no thanx for the entrepreneurs, the inventors, or managers.
Laborers don't take the initiate or risk.
They don't invent the technologies.
They just punch a time clock for a wage instead of starting their own business.
But they sure feel entitled to a big share of others' work.
It doesn't work that way.
All money given to & spent on the poor is taken from taxpayers.
These taxpayers get only a portion of their money back when their money is spent.
The poor just aren't needed.
The real reason we have these programs is because people vote for them.
And with a majority of voters being on the dole, this will only increase.
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I'm not sure which specific technologies you're referring to, but most technologies originated with government spending in one form or another, whether through military, NASA, or spoils of war (such as technologies gained from Germany after the World Wars). Most of the research is done through government-supported universities. Most of the wealth in this country was in its land and resources, which were obtained by government through less than honorable means - and then given to the private sector. The farmers you mentioned wouldn't even have that land if it wasn't for the government. Government regulations also made farming profitable, and the government saved their bacon during the Great Depression. The government has used law enforcement to protect private business from strike rioters. The government has used the military and covert intelligence agencies to manipulate foreign governments for the benefit of US businesses.
So, as I see it, the private sector still owes the US government big time. The wealthy have taken far more from this country than they've put back, and they've done so on the backs of the working classes and caused impoverishment on a global scale (which also leads to government militarism). The wealthy are the ones who caused all these people to be poor, so they have to accept their moral obligation to pay for it.
The private sector entirely financed government activities which you credit.
But most of our technology originated from private sources, eg, electric lighting, heat engines, electronics, cars, airplanes, plumbing.
(Gov even stands in the way of some advances, eg, medical research. Theocratic influences impose many restrictions.)
There's a widespread Obamanistic belief that government is the fount of all wealth & productivity because private enterprise thrives when there is an orderly legal environment.
But this shouldn't mean that government deserves sole credit, & therefore an always bigger piece of the pie.
The "You didn't build that" philosophy is the illusion used to justify ever greater taking from people who produce wealth.
It's a false feedback loop....the more government takes, the more credit they give government.
There's no limit to this demand except for carrying it too far, & ultimately crashing into the reality that full blown socialism always fails.
In many cases, the private sector was directing those government activities and benefiting from it, so it's only fair that they finance it. However, the working classes were the ones who actually did the work of building it, and government's job is also to protect the human rights of the working classes. The wealthy classes ostensibly disagree with this principle, believing that they have the right to treat the "little people" however they please and resent governmental interference which compels them to ensure decent pay and working conditions. Moreover, the wealthy classes demonstrate the belief that they consider the working class to be superfluous and deficient, therefore deserving of exploitation and scorn. But this is an erroneous belief; the wealthy classes owe far more to the working classes than they're willing to admit, and this is where they lose credibility.
I'm not saying that government deserves sole credit, but the opposite view of "you didn't build that" is the illusion that the wealthy built it all by themselves. This is absolutely false. The wealthy say that business creates jobs, insinuating that they do so purely out of the goodness of their hearts, some kind of selfless act to the country that we should all bow down and kiss their feet. All these "leeches" and "lazy bums" that they heap scorn upon should thank their lucky stars if some capitalist deigns to give them employment. This is the capitalists' depiction of "reality" that they would have us believe, but it's utter BS. Obama was right. You did NOT build that.
Socialism is the only way to get this country out of this mess. It may seem inconvenient to wealthy capitalists, but they should be willing to sacrifice their own luxury and comfort for the greater good of national survival. They've taken quite a bit from America these past centuries, so now it is time for them to give back. It is their moral obligation.
Where has socialism ever worked out well?
N Korea?
USSR?
Capitalists have given us all that we enjoy.
It's time for government to give back....in the form of taking less.
The unproductive class who live off taxpayer largess have a moral obligation to support themselves.
Parenthetical aside.....
This has been a really fun rant.
Thanx to all who've participated!
Mixed socialism worked out pretty well in the United States, giving us the greatest economic boom in history after WW2. It would have kept on working well if not for certain right-wing ideologues who engineered the so-called "Reagan Revolution" to screw it all up and send America into receivership.
As long as people work, then those who employ them have a moral obligation to give a fair, living wage. The wealthy leisure classes think they're "productive," but they do not do real work. So, they've been living off a lie, and they have a moral obligation to pay back what they have absconded with. Thieves do not have any right to keep their ill-gotten gains. It's time for them to give back what they have stolen.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Except most people do not want someone to just hand them money.
It also wastes a lot more, consumes much more in the process, and grows much that is going into unhealthy and junk foods than wholesome foods, and what is grown is based on what the market wants, not what people need.
It's the rationale of those who realize there is no such thing as a "self-made man," and without others to rely on, even the likes of Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, and Warren Buffet have nothing and are nothing.
That is the rationale of those who fail to realize how much the laborers gives, all the sacrifice, and all the risks they take that take a toll on their mental and physical well being.
Capitalism cannot function or exist without the poor. It just can't.
As I mentioned earlier, there are a great many ways that all tax payers receive various services.
The real reason we have them is because society suffers without them. Poverty leads to crime and drug abuse. Lack of access to education means there is a lot of wasted potential. If people cannot afford food, without assistance, they will steal it. And obviously private charity is not enough.]
The inventions related to nuclear technology and the space program, the internet, satellites, all came from the government. We could have online discussions had DARPA not found a way to allow scientists to communicate over a great distance, and we wouldn't be able to drink Tang.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Much of Western and Central Europe has successfully blended it into their system.
The problem with that thinking is most people on welfare do work. Very few people are ok with just sitting back and taking in handouts.
And, traditionally, up until recent times, it was a given and understood that we take car of and support each other. There is even evidence that suggests even pre-modern homo sapien humanoids took care of each other.
A mixed economy is practical.
But instead of being a mix of socialism & capitalism, I'd prefer capitalism with a safety net.
This safety net would include workfare, which is arguably socialistic.
But the goal is not to have the state perform economic functions....it's for the good of the recipient.
It fosters a work ethic.
The companies employing the workers wouldn't even exist without the entrepreneurs made wealthy by their own creation.
Their only moral obligation to the workers is to live up to their mutual bargain.
If the worker cannot live on that much, the company has no moral obligation to pay more.
This is all IMO, of course.
Nothing I say is THE TRUTH.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
And those companies do not exist without the workers. It is very much a symbiotic relationship.
Except, without the owners of the companies, people use their own resources to produce what they need, as we were long before private property and capitalism and feudalism.
Whether a majority or not isn't the issue.....a great many people will take a hand-out over work.
The "self made man" had been redefined into a straw man by the more extreme lefties.
It's long been called the "no true self made man fallacy" (which I just made up.)
Tis not about doing something entirely by oneself, without employing workers, without using roads, etc, etc.
Clearly, no one would claim to be "self made" in that fashion.
So to define it that way is to argue against a false definition.
Instead, to be "self made" means to start with relatively little, to take the initiative to put together an enterprise, & become successful at it.
There are many real world examples of this, eg, Westinghouse, Tesla, Edison, Jobs.
Capitalism has the advantage of letting the consumer determine what he needs, instead of some aparatchik in the government.
(A female aparatchik is an "aparatchick".)
I dislike waste too, but I dislike the oppression of a government imposed economy even more.
Capitalism doesn't need the poor at all. They contribute nothing of value.
But if the poor are so necessary, then wouldn't it be wrong to advocate lifting them out of poverty?
Laborers get paid for their work.
If they want more money, they can always work more productively, strive for a betterk profession, or even strike out on their own.
Sure, government has spawned many technologies using taxpayer money.
They're especially profligate regarding weapons technology.
But think of the advances possible if we kept the money home instead of spending it on overseas wars which only increase the danger.
Industry under capitalism has done more good.
Nuclear technology.....there's a mixed bag of results.
Notice that all those wonderful Europistanian countries kept capitalism.
Criminy, you guys are keeping me busy today!
I come in from landscaping to find a whole bunch of alerts for lengthy responses.
It's hard to keep up with'm all.
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The companies would still exist. An entrepreneur is just an organizer of resources - something that governments can do as well.
Sometimes, "mutual bargains" have to be renegotiated. You speak about government having a role of fostering a work ethic, but in many cases, non-workers on welfare get more money and live the same as or even better than people who actually work. So, what kind of work ethic is encouraged if society cares more about those who don't work than about those who work?
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
The thing is, capitalism has made it so many people do not know the difference between a need and a want.
For now. Even where the citizens are better taken care of and better off, their is still unrest over the practices of companies like Nestle. And because Europe isn't exempt from the economic turmoil of capitalism, more and more people will come to want something better. Something more local to better suit local needs, something less wasteful, and something more equitable.
Governments don't do it as well as private individuals.
The really innovative & driven types eschew government work.
Here is the kind of thing which goes on with taxpayer money....
Bill and Hillary Clinton's charities got £50million of British aid cash | Daily Mail Online
Now our pols fleece even Brit taxpayers!
I too see dysfunction in government's taking away benefits at a greater rate than increasing work income.
It's a powerful disincentive to work. I know people who have experienced this personally (single moms).
Benefits under the safety net shouldn't be removed so quickly as wages begin & increase.
Things can be run much better. But change for the better in government is a hit & miss thingie.
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