College Students Favoring Wealth Distribution Are Asked.....

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As someone sees what everyone and their brother makes, I can say with certainty that pay does not correlate that closely to effort or even to talent. If it was universally agreed that pay was fair, then I might buy this, but pay subject to so many factors that have nothing to do with fair.

I agree and part of my point actually. However, any pay that does come from a job is as a result of the individual exchanging a portion of their life for the pay. Taxes then are somebody telling individuals that a portion of their life must be taken from them and then used for some other purpose. I am not arguing that taxes shouldn't exist, I think they should. Only that money isn't just an abstract "nothing" it is a portion of your life, although not a set value like a dollar is an hour or anything like that.

I just think of it as a part of my pay I was never entitled to anyway. I'm just the middleman between my boss and the government. We could be like Texas and let the businesses pay all the taxes instead of having any personal income tax.

Yes, it is. This has been the subject of right-wing chain e-mails for years.


Random interviews are not an "experiment."


GPA is not analogous to money.


The causes of discrepancies, and the effects of redistribution, are too different here for the analogy to work properly.


Getting a GPA is already very meritocratic- much more so than the economy is. So a college is already egalitarian in that everyone has an equal chance starting out. And almost no one is actually in favor of radical leveling redistribution of financial wealth, so comparing the proposal here with social welfare programs is completely dishonest.

If you want a better analogy in this context, ask students about a proposal to require students with high GPAs to spend time each week tutoring those with lower GPAs.

The vast majority of people get a net benefit from so-called tax n' spend. The Invisible Hand is not God and this idea that whatever It decides in its rigged game is holy writ and that it's a supreme injustice to change this result is the most stupid thing imaginable and wrongheaded and downright evil.

BS, it has nothing to do with not getting it. We all get the idea, but not all us of think it is a fitting analogy. Income isn't as strongly correlated to merit as grades are since your income has social dynamics thrown in the mix. Not that I think all wealth is inherited (at least not past the third generation lol) or comes from stepping on others since I don't like making generalizations but your income depends more on your interactions with others than grades do.

Agreed. With a system that is exclusively merit based, it is clear distribution would not work. But economic models are not entirely merit based like grades are.

The reason many of us support wealth distribution is to ensure merit. The hard working and intelligent are given the opportunity to succeed. Without wealth distribution and socialist programs, there would not be public education (where the smartest and hardest working eventually move onto higher education or apply their knowledge).

And the reason many of us support a socialist health program is that everyone has their down moments. Someone could be extremely hard working, but be laid off, and then develop cancer or be in an accident and die due to lack of proper care.

Ask any of my college friends and they don't want money to be given to lazy, slobs. They want that money to be given to hardworking people who are born in poorer socioeconomic conditions.

But whining about unfairness is for losers, as the right-wing ubermensch says. Noticing that the real world fails to be just is a symptom of the left-winger's self-pity, entitlement complex, and loathing of success. Are you going to justify taking someone else's hard-earned money by gunpoint just because you think the world is unfair? Well cry me a river. MY money is MINE MINE MINE!! !! !! !!1111

Wealth redistribution is not stealing wealth that rightfully belongs to the rich but taking back wealth that rightfully belongs to the poor.

That someone put it in a chain email is also not a disproof.


It is, actually. If you don't like the methodology or something, by all means say so, but it fits what an experiment is.


It is in several respects. It is numerical, it is earned, and it is desired. It's also something that all college students have dealt with directly, whereas money isn't.


This is an interesting analogy. It is also flawed, though, and not completely analogous to taxes + social programs. It's more closely analogous to making everyone do community service than taxes.

If I were to be required to spend time tutoring low GPA students, it would matter greatly to me what kind of low GPA student we're talking about. If it's a slacker who wants someone smart to do their homework for free, I'd find it quite objectionable. If it's someone who works their butt off but doesn't quite get all the concepts all the time, I'd enjoy it.

To redistribute wealth, one must first create wealth. Do the College Boys have the foggiest notion of how to do that?

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 19 Aug 2011, 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Amen! Preach it!

I've had too many students who wanted only the answers to the next exam, and who tried to cause trouble for me when I tried to show them how to determine the answers for themselves.

Give a man a fish, and you've fed him for a day. Try to teach a man to fish, and he'll flay you alive with your best skinning knife for not giving him another fish for free.

Let him starve and you will be safe.

ruveyn

Actually, you are utterly wrong.

In college everyone has an equal chance starting out?

Is life really that different? Last I checked, there is a multitude of white people who are just as disadvantaged as anyone else. In the end, if you prosper, most every time it is the result of your own hard work...not someone handing it to you, not because you were born into the right family or had other privileges.

So, the analogy holds.

This is what is despicable about race politics/class warfare. Oh, it's those evil, evil rich people who have taken what they have at the expense of those who do not.

No. Most people who enjoy wealth worked their asses off for it. Just as you had to work your ass off to get good grades in most of your college classes. That a handful get their wealth dishonestly does not justify a policy that hurts all the people who earned it honestly, but the rhetoric is targeted on one of economics with no regard to the means of how someone acquired their wealth.

It might be dumb luck to own property that has rich oil reserves under it, but if you don't spend the money and take the risk to exploit that resource, you will never make a dime off of it. To say that person is "evil" for being rich because they happen to acquire land that had a rich resource on it is a bogus argument. Opportunity comes to all, but not all opportunity is equal. THAT IS LIFE. SUCK IT UP. You will succeed or fail on how you choose to handle opportunities when they come your way. If you NEVER try, you have no right to demand a share from those who did try and succeeded.

That, and if you learn from those who are successful, you will learn that they usually have more failures and losses than successes. They get rewards because they risk losing what they have for that shot.

I've worked as a math and physics tutor. I know what you are talking about and I still think the analogy is stupid.

You're the one bringing effing race into the debate. Why is it that a right-winger is always the first to bring up race and white resentment in a debate?