spread the wealth, more like make everybody poor

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Some certainly, but some are also those who would pay more if what they advocated were followed up on in practice.

Er, being willing to run into a burning building to benefit someone else is common? I'm not willing to do it.

This is simply begging the question. I am not confident that many paid extraordinary sums to run corporations necessarily have extraordinarily rare skills or expertise. Until I am confident that is the case, pointing out that lower paid persons are utilising less than rare skills in their profession is a moot point in my mind.
Even still, I've met people who can sing as well as Britney Spears, they are willing to go into the profession of singing, they have failed to earn as much as Britney. What Britney Spears does is not exceptionally rare (plenty of people can sing while looking good in skimpy outfits), but she's paid better than the average heart surgeon. I'm quite confident there is at least one heart surgeon in the world who can carry a tune while looking good in skimpy clothes. I am far from confident that Britney Spears could successfully pull off heart-surgery.
However you slice and dice it, others who do not receive the same benefits as Britney, could perform as she performs given the opportunity. I am not confident the same is not true of many corporate executives. It is very probably true that some are exceptional performers, but I honestly suspect that the greater bulk are not.

Further, the fact remains that for whatever reason, some people benefit much more from the system as it functions, and it's not in the least bit unfair to cost things on a user-benefits basis. If you benefit more from structures such as law, the police, monetary systems, social agreements to protect your property (rather than a case by case might is right policy for instance) then why do you not expect to pay more for this greater level of benefit?

You might look at teaching someone else's children to read as a cost to you, but do you think the kind of possible productivity that stems from this practice is irrelevant to productivity that makes enormous earnings possible?

Do you not understand the relationship between law and order and people feeling content with their social and economic rewards and productivity as a whole? The kind of stability necessary in a social group to ensure productive potential is converted to actuality requires some limitation on disparity best and most cost effectively achieved by setting a floor (on the lowest levels). If it takes X amount of dollars to ensure this and these dollars simply cannot be had from those falling below that necessary floor, where-else but from the top should the dollars come?

The rich have more (so pragmatically can pay more) and benefit more from the social/political structure they are supporting.

It is true that some people merit more money, and it's true that anytime you allow merit to earn reward, some people will also be rewarded without merit, some may even be denied the reward they do merit. I think the greater evil is eliminating all merited reward, so necessarily we should allow disparity of income and tolerate some less than ideal outcomes as a result. But we also need to ensure that merit remains by and large rewarded, while non-merit by and large remains unrewarded. We also need to limit disparity to ensure pragmatically that the greater bulk of persons participating in a social/economic/political entity are motivated to participate productively. Actually the latter requires both that there be some disparity, and that the disparity be limited.

One way of achieving some limitations on disparity without removing merit reward, is where some people struggle to achieve subsistence and basic needs, while others have more than they could ever personally consume, that the amount paid to uphold the system delivering these varied benefits, will vary correlated to how much one is benefiting and how much one can pay.

To Awesomelyglorious and ruveyn.

Thank you for your comments.

I am a supporter of the Star Trek TNG philosophy that working for the betterement of humanity must some day become a higher ideal than the accumulation of personal wealth.

This would probably be seen by the economists as a retrograde step.

I spent some time in a village in Niugini from 1971 to 1973, somewhat removed from the cities. And I do acknowledge that it may be different there now. But back then, there was no currency, and there was no barter. There was no need for either. The villagers all worked to help one another and to support their community. If someone could grow pineapples, they did so, and supplied the village. Someone who could fish did likewise, as did the canoe builder, etc. And no-one kept a tally as to who owed what to whom. That concept was totally foreign to them.

When a couple got married, the whole village got together and built them a house. No rent, no mortgage, no repayments.

No money ... and no poverty. And yet we call that primitive???????

I see no reason why modern society could not work along the same lines ... but I cannot see, for the life of me, how to make the transition from capitalism.

We have already seen that it cannot be imposed on people by governments ... otherwise communism would have been successful. It probably won't happen until enough people catch the vision.

Alright, let me then start looking at it.

In a small village, there are a number of differences compared to a large society:
1) Less variations in goods, there are pineapples, fish, but not a huge amount of product diversity, and when I refer to "product diversity" I mean a *lot* of things, if a person works to create something I am calling that a product.
2) Less people to coordinate, a modern community is comprised of hundreds of thousands of people, it would be difficult to have a "house-building session" pop up from this.
3) Less of a shared culture, in a smaller community, a greater shared culture is almost a necessity, but in a large city there are a number of cultural variations brought in by varying religions, levels of devotion in those religions, general interests, employment groups, political groups, impacts of migration, etc.

So, even though the system you propose makes perfect sense for a village, it makes less sense for a more complex economic system, and makes no sense for the current system. It has been accepted by most economists that without output coordination done by the price system, the economy breaks down, and the simple rule of "share everything with everyone" does not account for problems brought forward by different preferences and limited resources. As well, the large amounts of inputs also need a price system to best assess, something will have to coordinate what these people do, and it will either be prices or a government bureaucracy, as it is unlikely that 300,000 people will figure out how to do these things themselves in an efficient manner(inefficient manners being possible I suppose). Finally, if the culture is *not* shared, then the problems become even larger, as transaction costs become a *lot* higher for coordinating this activity. The reason for devices such as money, and the legal system are to reduce transaction costs, and it is hard to see a means to abolish both and still function effectively.

As for the matter of "primitivity", I would imagine that a major concern for this would be the product diversity of that society, as it likely lacks advanced technological capabilities.

In any case, I would argue that the 3 problems I put forward make a lot of proposals impossibilities, I could be missing something though, but I think a number of people could agree that these problems are very significant.

^^^

What you are telling me about is only a difference in scale.

I still believe it is possible, although not probable in the short term. Should a person who builds spaceships be entitled to more or less than someone who grows pineapples?

I always thought aspies had a better ability to visualise things on a global scale than typpies.

In any case, everything that was ever made to happen first started out as a concept in someone's mind. We must start working together for the betterment of humanity, or we will destroy ourselves and our planet.

The difference between losing a cup full of blood and bleeding to death is only a difference in the scale of blood lost, but a significant difference that certainly matters in most contexts.

Umm.... yes, and a *very very* problematic one, as scale matters a lot. I mean, quantum mechanics, and relativity are separated from Newtonian mechanics by a matter of scale.


Well... people believe all sorts of things, but I don't see any reasonable means to get to this end.

As for spaceship builders vs pineapple growers, well, "should" is a moral question, and not all people agree with these matters, however, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that the optimal level of spaceship builders and optimal level of pineapple growers along with optimal qualities in both groups, might entail some economic inequality between the groups, given variations in human talent, and our ability to supply certain goods vs the demand we have for certain goods, along with the problems of the fields such as the difficulty or smell or risk or social view of it. This isn't to say that it *must* be impossible, but do I find it likely? No.


Perhaps aspies on average do, but the changes in the economic system necessary seem extreme and hard to see as possible within the context of current economic theory. The current economic theory could be wrong, or there might be a way to get the variables aligned *just* right for this to happen, but that seems a matter of dreams rather than realistic notions.

Well, yes, and a lot of things that were never made to happen as well.

What you call capitalism is a system where the means of production are privately owned and operated either by individuals or voluntary associations of individuals (i.e. business firms and co-operatives). The alternative is to put the ownership, operation and management of services and production in the hands of the government or some central authority which entails coercion and imposition on rights.

What you have described above is generosity. Capitalism does not preclude generosity and cordial willingness to give a hand to a neighbor. Long before government programs, socialism and communism there were people helping people.

I am chronic volunteer. I do recording of books for the blind and the dyslexic. I work on a volunteer basis. I am not paid for my efforts. So why do I do it? I am a geezer and someday I might become blind. I do what I do, so I will not be ashamed to ask for help if I should need it. I also donate platelets about twenty times a year for which I am not paid. Why do I do it. I believe in karma. Someday I might need blood. I give blood so I will not be ashamed to receive blood. It is the simple principle of trade. I do for you. You do for me. We both win.

ruveyn

Which brings me back to my original point. If we all helped each other, and thus humanity as a whole, on a voluntary basis, what need would we have of money?

Well, there's a finite amount of stuff out there; to be able to allocate this finite amount of stuff among billions of possible uses and people, you need a mechanism to send market signals otherwise people will consume and spend it hopelessly out of touch with reality. Money is really just a neat way of packaging and communicating the scarcity problem. It isn't going to go away just because you got rid of the way we deal with it; it's just going to become a b***h to cope with (see barter).

Agreed, hower such systems already exist. I spent much of my life in the military. Consider a very large army ... China's perhaps. Internally, resources are not converted back and forth to monetary units. They exist as resources, and are transported and allocated as such. Uniforms, food, water, housing, medical services, vehicles, etc. Simply apply the principles of a military force's internal resource management system on a worldwide scale.

A reasonable sized computer could easily handle the allocations carried out by hundreds, if not thousands of quartermasters' clerks beavering away at their desks.

Umm... the military is not to any extent similar to a civilian economy that I'd want to live in, and the parts that might be similar would likely depend upon the market in order for their actual functioning.

The real fact of the matter is that these systems do not exist, and cannot exist based upon current technology on a theoretical level due to the complexity of the tasks that *actually* have to be done in the economy. I mean.... the support of the economics field of the price system isn't naive, it isn't as if there was no USSR to try to create a state supported bureaucratic system, there was, and that system failed. Part of this failure might be ascribed to the political basis, but a lot of it was a failure to get the economic fundamentals right in a manner to support a working society, and so far, we have not seen a working form of socialism. (If someone points out the Nordic countries, I will kindly say that that person does not know what they are talking about, to call those social democratic countries "socialist" and that a lot of confused terminology must be boggling their thoughts, and tell them from a comparative economics standpoint, these economies are mixed, and are often better at using markets than the more mainstream European countries)

This is why such people will usually give to private charities rather than sending extra money in to the government.


Many more ARE willing AND ABLE to do it than are willing and able to be the CEO of a large company, or even the owner of a small company. Most people will choose the security of a steady job than put a lot of their own resources on the line to build a business. And people aren't just put into positions of power in private industry without having a proven track record. Those that are, the companies generally fail.



What you call begging the question I call an economic reality.


Spears and her ilk may not be the best singers in the world, but those behind them, their promoters, managers, handlers, coaches, etc. ARE some of the best in the world! The finished product you see in those entertainers is the result of huge behind the scenes effort that the public rarely glimpses.


Got any evidence? Or is this based on pure emotional supposition based on second or third hand filtered knowledge? Having worked in private industry and known many corporate executives, I have seen first hand that the days of a corporate bigwig leaning back in his chair in a corner office lighting a cigar with a dollar bill are long since gone.



Yes, it is extremely unfair and immoral to do so. I am where I am now because of years and years of hard work, risks, and sacrifice. I ran into a friend I graduated from high school with who works in a record store. He spent his whole life taking it easy, partying, working jobs that take little or no effort, and now the disparity in our incomes is completely fair.


The rich already do. They buy bigger houses, so they pay a greater amount in property taxes. They earn more, so they pay not only more money but a larger percentage of their income to maintain said structures.


My dad was a teacher and my sister and brother in laws are teachers. I work in Information Technology. I make more than them because I have more ability and expertise than them. They also have far more job security and free time than I do, so that is a huge trade-off. Teaching is a position that requires less expertise and ability than working in IT. I also pay more taxes, which supports the infrastructure which pays teachers.


Yes, I do, however people need to take responsibility for themselves and better their situation. In America, we can do that. Yet many people who aren't content do NOTHING to better their situation, or have made so many bad decisions in their lives that they aren't in a position to better themselves at the present time, and instead just demand that we who have made sacrifices, good decisions, and work hard give more and more of what we earned so they don't have to.


And that is generally from where they DO come, both in the form of higher tax rates AND in providing jobs for those at the bottom! To take more and more and more from those people means they will have less to provide jobs to others. For example: I have someone who cuts my grass. The Democrats are saying they are going to raise my taxes. Therefore, I will cut my own grass, as will many others, and the man who used to feed his family by cutting my grass will be out of luck.


And they do, in more ways than through government. See my grass cutting example above.


From each according to his need from each according to his means is Marxism. It has been tried over and over again and it simply doesn't work. Having spent time in the former Soviet Union, I saw first hand the results. Human nature takes over, and a VAST majority of people will do as little as possible, since working harder and bettering yourself won't produce a good return on investment. Why work hard for 40 hours a week to live at a certain standard when doing nothing or next to nothing will only lower your standard of living ever so slightly? This is human nature. It will always win.

What kind of a home are you from? Working-class? Middle-class? Upper-class?

I'm asking becausae you don't seem to have much regard for the poor.

Actually, not much can really be said from the comments. I mean, Jimbeaux is making a moral claim, and Pandabear's quote failed to show a logical connection to increased poverty based upon Bush tax cuts, particularly given that the tax cut did go to more groups than the rich, but the cuts to the rich just resulted in the largest revenue losses.

I think the Bush/Republican agenda is to concentrate the wealth and make a few rich and many poor. Not sure that Obama's plan will really go that far in the opposite direction: 1) Obama is a moderate, and 2) Obama has already said that he is inclined to leave the Bush tax cuts in place.

how is taking tax money from poor people and spending it on healthcare and food for people making everybody poor?

agree with me NOW! actually i'm probably wrong and just dont have good logic