Let's Debate Inequality

[Kfox]

I think inequality can be combated by getting rid of government entirely.

You seem to see inequality as a bad thing, I see it as something that has been good; at least in my country.

 

[an anarchist]

You seem to see inequality as a bad thing, I see it as something that has been good; at least in my country.

Okay, lemme rephrase.

I believe quality of life can improve for all in the absence of a government. The rich would get richer, and the poor would get richer.

 

[sayak83]

Buying the competitor's companies, lobbying for laws that benefit me and screw the competitors, being better at tax evasion, making better advertisements, paying very low wages to my employees or even making use of slave labor, reducing the durability/quality of a product in a hidden manner to reduce the price, destroying the environment whenever it is convenient ($$$), violating labor laws or circumventing them.... And so on... are all practices that make a product sell more, and they all either involve the product not being any better at all or harming the community.

Yet, products have become better over time...quite obviously. Everything from cars, TVs, bulbs, ACs, shoes have much better quality and efficiency than anything on offer in 1990s. Do you deny this?

 

[Koldo]

How is it different?

Not having the complete freedom to risk your paycheck.

The CEO is supposed to know the best way to get the company to make a profit. A typical line worker is not going to know this, and his employment should not be based on him knowing this.

Not every worker is a typical worker. But more importantly, when the workers are more involved other factors, beyond profit, are going to be taken into consideration more often.

Then the CEO gets fired for having bad ideas. The line worker does not.

Therefore...?

The same people should be making the decisions regardless of if they are difficult or easy.

Why?

 

[anotherneil]

Why would inequality be a problem? The only "problem" with inequality is that it can create envy by those who have less in those who have more than them. This isn't something we really need to worry about solving. Having less than someone else is not in itself what's harmful or destructive, and it's rather ridiculous to make a big fuss over it.

This envy is exploited by politicians who are Democrats, socialists, etc. with appeal to emotion in order to get more votes.

Then, when these politicians get into office, they kneecap the economy (whether wittingly or unwittingly) in such a way that results in a loss in jobs, causes a surge in crime, poverty, corruption, and a broadening in the contrast between rich and poor - then they run again on a platform of blaming the other political party & promising to fix it by continuing with the same policy that may then start to cause other problems, like inflation.

There are real problems in this world that need to get attention and be prioritized over petty, frivolous, sulking over something harmless, such as things that are harmful and destruction to society, like crime, poverty, war, corruption, abject hunger, lack of shelter, and access to basic necessities.

The solution to mitigating this envy "problem" is to advise those who have less to ignore the fact that there are some who have more than them, focus on making the best out of what they do have, and to work on bettering themselves; they can better themselves by improving their skills to make more money, get a promotion, or by spending less money, doing away with things they don't or no longer need or want, etc.

 

[Kfox]

And you need to understand that most people are not out to get all they can. Most are ok with having enough of what they need and letting the rest go to those who need it. You may not be one of the them, but the are the norm. We don't want or like fighting and struggling against each other for our survival. Yet that is the capitalist mindset. And they force it on everyone else.

How are they forcing it on everyone else?

Maybe they should consider letting their kids make their own way. Like everyone else. And WITH everyone else.

That should be for them to decide, not the government. Even the poor wants to leave something for their children. Your ideas take away from the incentive to succeed which helps the economy grow.

Two (or more) companies trying to serve the same need instead of one. It wastes twice the energy and resources while pitting innovators against each other

Energy and resources are not wasted unless one company sells everything, and the other company sells nothing; (then there company that sells nothing has wasted energy and resources) but in the real world, both companies sell their products; albeit one company sells more than the other; and when this happens, the customer gets to choose which company survives forcing the companies to sell their products with the highest quality with the lowest prices possible. This is a good thing for the customer
Under your ideas, you have one company responsible for the entire market, allowing them to sell crappy products at the highest possible price, and the customer has no recourse. This is a very bad thing for the customer

instead of enabling them to cooperate to achieve the goal.

Capitalism does not prevent 2 companies from joining together to achieve such a goal.

And that's just for starters. Then let's throw in the fact that they make their own omployees compete so they can keep wages down.

But when you have multiple companies creating the same product, employees can choose between companies based on who pays the highest wage. This is a good thing for employees. Your idea of one company responsible for the entire market prevents employees from pitting multiple companies against each other to see who can pay the highest wage. This is a bad thing for employees.

And since maximum profits are the ultimate goal, quality, necessity, and the effect on the community and environment are all tossed aside. The capitalists would sell us rat poison and children's cereal if they could get a big enough profit for it and avoid prison.

It's not only wasteful, it socially toxic.

The same goes for socialism; that’s why there are no 100% capitalist counties; because you need laws in place to prevent stuff like this from happening

 

[sayak83]

Socialism would achieve that goal FAR better than capitalist greed.

Because it's the socially responsible thing to do. Capitalists and their sicophants can't understand this, because it's socially responsible and socially minded. While capitalism is selfish and competitive.

Can you show any study in psychology for this belief of yours?
Here is an article showing unambiguously that competition eliminates less productive firms and cause an increase in productivity for surviving firms.
Google Scholar

 

[Kfox]

Because wealth is not limitless. The more one has, the less someone else has. And therefor the more power the one has over the well being of the other.

And please don't spew the capitalist lie, now, about how the wealthy are "creating their wealth" instead of capturing it from everyone else.

Humm...... So if I understand you correctly, you are under the impression wealth is actually "captured" instead of created, and there is a limited amount of wealth out there to capture? If this is your view, how much wealth is out there to capture? 200 Trillion? A Gagillion? What's the number?

 

[sayak83]

Why would inequality be a problem? The only "problem" with inequality is that it can create envy by those who have less in those who have more than them. This isn't something we really need to worry about solving. Having less than someone else is not in itself what's harmful or destructive, and it's rather ridiculous to make a big fuss over it.

This envy is exploited by politicians who are Democrats, socialists, etc. with appeal to emotion in order to get more votes.

Then, when these politicians get into office, they kneecap the economy (whether wittingly or unwittingly) in such a way that results in a loss in jobs, causes a surge in crime, poverty, corruption, and a broadening in the contrast between rich and poor - then they run again on a platform of blaming the other political party & promising to fix it by continuing with the same policy that may then start to cause other problems, like inflation.

There are real problems in this world that need to get attention and be prioritized over petty, frivolous, sulking over something harmless, such as things that are harmful and destruction to society, like crime, poverty, war, corruption, abject hunger, lack of shelter, and access to basic necessities.

The solution to mitigating this envy "problem" is to advise those who have less to ignore the fact that there are some who have more than them, focus on making the best out of what they do have, and to work on bettering themselves; they can better themselves by improving their skills to make more money, get a promotion, or by spending less money, doing away with things they don't or no longer need or want, etc.

Problems with inequality is concentration of power in the hands of the wealthy. They can, and do, buy politicians and ensure that their interests are served....vitiating the role of the govt.
Second is misallocation of resources. A rich person may prefer to spend money on luxury goods, diverting resources from essential goods and services. We can call it the pyramid problem. Egyptians spend labor and resource to build useless pyramids rather than investing that same resource or labor in more socially useful goals...because the richest guy wants it.

 

[Koldo]

Yet, products have become better over time...quite obviously. Everything from cars, TVs, bulbs, ACs, shoes have much better quality and efficiency than anything on offer in 1990s. Do you deny this?

Depends on what you are talking about. They, for example, tend to be less durable. But why do you ask?

 

[Koldo]

There are real problems in this world that need to get attention and be prioritized over petty, frivolous, sulking over something harmless, such as things that are harmful and destruction to society, like crime, poverty, war, corruption, abject hunger, lack of shelter, and access to basic necessities.

Crime, corruption, poverty, abject hunger, lack of shelter and access to basic necessities can all be reduced by taxing the rich and distributing money, goods and services to the poorest.

 

[PureX]

Opponents of capitalism say we need government control of the economy because people are selfish. I say we need capitalism because people are selfish. Capitalism takes this into account and utilizes it. It is the economic system that capitalizes and thrives on human greed.

So by this insane reasoning, we should also encourage rape as a part of dating, because it's a part of the human zeitgeist and it successfully achieves procreation.

 

[an anarchist]

So by this insane reasoning, we should also encourage rape as a part of dating, because it's a part of the human zeitgeist and it successfully achieves procreation.

That is a disgusting leap of logic.

 

[PureX]

In your view is this a bad thing?

If so, what do you think should replace people’s primary concern for their own family?

Why do you choose the word "replace"? Why can't we simply expand "family" to include "community"? And consider that as goes the well being of the latter, so goes the well-being of the former.

 

[PureX]

That is a disgusting leap of logic.

Is rape any worse than greed? After all, they are based on the exact same ethical premise.

 

[Heyo]

In your view is this a bad thing?

If so, what do you think should replace people’s primary concern for their own family?

Love of one's family is not a problem, indifference to other people's problems is.
We are talking about inequality here. I have suggested a method to reduce inequality.
You (and many others) don't like that method, and you give a lot of reasons why the method should not be used, but none of those reasons is that it doesn't work for the intended purpose - because you don't like the intended purpose.
To anyone with a privilege, equality feels like being robbed.

The economy of the proposal is less interesting than the psychology. As I have hinted at, the reactions are mostly emotional and irrational. And you are an excellent example.

 

[an anarchist]

Is rape any worse than greed?

You equate "greed" to r*pe... Please drop this now.

Perhaps we are understanding greed in different contexts. I'm sure that's it, there's no way you hold such a vile view as you are making it out to be.

Greed in an economic sense means self-serving. Do you have a stockpile of food? Like maybe enough for a week? That's greed. Do you work a job to pay rent? That's greed.

 

[anotherneil]

Problems with inequality is concentration of power in the hands of the wealthy.

This is inherently counteracted by the fact that everyone's vote counts equally (1 vote per person, no matter how rich or poor they are) and the poorer voters, who have it in their interest to vote against such concentration of power in the hands of the wealthy, far outnumber the richest voters - by somewhere in the order of what, 100 to 1? 1,000 to 1? (something like that).

They can, and do, buy politicians and ensure that their interests are served....vitiating the role of the govt.

This is why we shouldn't enable this possibility with government by making it bigger and mixed up in such ways that predomonantly obstructs the economy; this is why the role of govt ought to only be to serve as a referee and is not used as a system that redistributes wealth. If the concentration of power is in the hands of the wealthy, and govt is used as a system that redistributes wealth, then what would be a reasonable expectation from this other than that the wealthy are just going to gear the system to suck more wealth out of those who aren't wealthy for further enriching themselves?

If govt only has referee power and not a system with any wealth redistribution power, then that means that there's nothing there for the wealthy to have power over, to suck more wealth out of those who aren't wealthy, in order to further enrich themselves.

Second is misallocation of resources. A rich person may prefer to spend money on luxury goods, diverting resources from essential goods and services. We can call it the pyramid problem. Egyptians spend labor and resource to build useless pyramids rather than investing that same resource or labor in more socially useful goals...because the richest guy wants it.

I don't know who "we" is, but spending money on any so-called "luxury" goods (or services) not only isn't necessarily a bad thing or a problem, but it creates more jobs for those who aren't wealthy. A wealthy person who distributes their wealth by using it to pay non-wealthy individuals to be their butler, chauffeur, maid, gardener, chef, etc. is doing more to help them than a wealthy person who doesn't hire anyone. When their luxury good is a mansion, all kinds of non-wealthy people were involved directly and indirectly to build that mansion for that wealthy individual. Building a mansion gives more people jobs than building a shack. Same with spending money on a limousine; that means more jobs for non-wealthy people building fancy cars. Spending money on "luxury" goods helps the economy; it gives non-wealthy people jobs.

 

[anotherneil]

Crime, corruption, poverty, abject hunger, lack of shelter and access to basic necessities can all be reduced by taxing the rich and distributing money, goods and services to the poorest.

You're making a claim, here, not an argument. Try defending this claim by making an argument that supports it; in the process of doing this, you may discover that this claim has issues.

 

[an anarchist]

Is rape any worse than greed? After all, they are based on the exact same ethical premise.

I see your edit.

Wtf are you talking about.