The Fascist Dilemma

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Being "poor" or what i would refer to as a class position is an accident of birth. So yes i'd rather redistribute wealth than set up hurdles for people to overcome so they can be seen as "deserving" of the wealth that they are entitled to in the first place. Your opinion that the reason that people are poor is because "they don't have their priorities straight" is abject nonsense. Some f*****g p**** rich boy might not have his priorities straight but he is not punished harshly in life for it as he has his fathers wealth to fall back on. It's a question of wealth and money, pure and simple.

The right always falls back on the demonstrably false Just World Hypothesis. It's a convenient rationalization mechanism allowing them to place undue blame on the underdog.

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n2/justworld.html

The fact that so many people fall for it just shows that few people have true empathy.

Read my post again, I didn't say all poor people don't have their financial priorities straight. I said social programs don't help those that don't. Not having your priorities straight will keep you poor, it isn't the reason you're poor in the first place. And no one should be entitled to money at the expense of someone else's hard work. The exception to this is a safety net which is for the worst of the worst off.

It's a question of poverty, and there is no simple answer. The fact that you're trying to simplify such a complex problem is plain ignorant. Throwing money at em is a knee jerk reaction that doesn't solve anything. It will not teach em fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, or any type of skill pertaining to the workplace. But anyways since we're on the topic of social programs what type of social programs do you support the most for em?

@marshall: Do you know what the culture of poverty is? Cuz I know what the just world fallacy is and there's a difference between rationalization motivated by a knee jerk reaction and drawing a clear cause and effect through analysis.

Throwing money at the problem of poverty solves a lot as it is a sure fire and direct way of making people less poverty stricken. Why do you want only want morality codas attached to public policy when it affects the most destitute? How about having morality codas attached to policies that effect the rich? "You must pay a decent share of tax in order to solve the deficit crisis otherwise we will have to gut services for the most poorest. " That would be a good morality coda to frame our rich polices. It might even teach them fiscal responsibility.

Services i support that directly affect poor people:

Universal healthcare
Welfare (both for those who are incapacitated and those who are unable to find work due to structural unemployment)
Public Libraries
Police
Properly funded public education

On top of that and most importantly. I'd legalize and regulate drugs to put dealers out of business and rescue addicts from a life spent in jail.

Basically as many services as i could fund with my new social democratic priorities as leader.

That appears to be scarily accurate. People believe in a natural meritocracy despite all evidence to the contrary. You just have to keep hoping that politics will soon take a turn to the left again after the last thirty years of rightward drift.

Again. More Just World Fallacy BS. The people who work the hardest don't necessary end up being the winners. Accumulated wealth is not necessarily earned wealth. People with obsticles might have to work 10 times harder with 90% less reward than those without obsticles. They also might have to suffer 100 times more just trying to survive.


And the conservative knee-jerk reaction is to take away opportunities. You really believe you will make people work harder by making their prospects even more grim?


Where is your careful analysis? Also, you must show that this "culture of poverty" applies to every single person who lives in poverty. That no responsible person ever remains in poverty. Anything less just proves you are making a rationalization for injustice in the case of those responsible people who are in poverty through no fault of their own.

No, a welfare state doesn't have to have a guarantee of full employment. A welfare state does do a better job of providing for the material needs of the poor (the unemployed in Finland are probably not starving, and they can go see a physician when they need medical care), and according to your numbers, the welfare state's economy is performing basically on par with a more heavily capitalistic economy. The main objection that is often leveled against the welfare state is that it diminishes economic efficiency, but if their unemployment problems are no worse than ours, there doesn't seem to be much evidence for that claim.


Point is, America is not a meritocracy. Some people do not get the opportunities others have. Some people have wealth and power handed to them on a silver platter, others never have a chance.


OK? I've never claimed it was. However, significant barriers to class mobility do exist, and in the meantime the gap between the classes is growing wider so that people who (for whatever reason) do not cross the barriers to rising in social class are getting relatively worse off.


Basically, it was trying to reject the notion of class as even applying to American society.



Sure. But the existence of barriers to moving between social classes is still a problem. There is a certain minimum level of equal opportunity needed before resourcefulness, effort, and intelligence become useful.


I still think education is extremely important. It is, at least, one necessary component of a larger program. You have emphasized the problem of the culture of poverty and the values endemic to the ghetto; having grown up in a relatively privileged environment I will take your word for it. Perhaps one goal of improved education will be to inculcate values more conducive to making one's way in life.


Not necessarily. If you visit some rural parts of the country, the homes there are relatively large (compared to what anyone in a major city like London would live in) but they are basically run-down shacks. My small 2-bedroom apartment that I share with a classmate provides a much more comfortable life than many of the larger houses you would see in rural America. The only reason the rural poor in America have a lot of living space is because property values are basically nil where they live.


Debates can be had over the long-term efficacy of giving a fish or teaching to fish. But today, people are hungry, and they would really like that fish. If you don't give them the fish today, they might not be able to live until they have mastered fishing.

Ah, scruples question! I love these!

I've got another one: What if the tea partiers seized power via Diebold, ban technology invented later than 1789, re-institute star chamber court, test both of the coasts for witchcraft (which if you're accused you drown if your innocent, burn at the stake if you aren't), light Joy Behar's arse on fire just to watch her run around the stage while making Michael Moore wear a giant banana suit BUT - they offer not only full employment but free copies of the next Phil Collins cd to be released. Wud ya vote for em?

No way I hate Phil Collins!

Ok...what if they stacked on Jesus-signed bibles?

Okay, that is pretty swell. Perhaps including some of Rev. Peter Popoff's miracle springwater will seal the deal for me

The masses generally just go with the flow. Look at the USA. In the 1940s and 50s it was a self-consciously White, Christian country, and the masses (I think it's fair to assume) were content with that. A minority of political, media and academic elites set about transforming the country, and two generations later the American masses are proudly proclaiming their commitment to diversity, multiculturalism and all the rest of it. And if the elites changed direction, and if it were possible without too much disruption to prosperity and comfort to recreate the character and social mores of 1950s America within two generations in some region of the United States, then the masses who found themselves living in such a region two generations from now would probably just take it in their stride.

By the same token, it's quite likely that the modern masses could be induced to buy into fascism within two generations. I'm sure they could be persuaded to give up the charade of voting in exchange for increased economic security. Compulsory military service might prove a harder sell to a society that has not known it for years, but only just.

Of course, most people prefer to think of themselves as principled actors rather than products of their era.

Fascism never produced economic security. It is a variant of the Command Economy that is bound to be less productive than a more capitalist economy. So all those people will have guaranteed jobs with very little to buy. It happened in Stalinist Russia which was Red Fascism at work. Everyone had a job and then they stood in line for the few and shoddy goods available.

ruveyn

I don't buy this simplistic propaganda. National Socialist Germany in its six years of peace was one of the economic success stories of the 20th century. In the 21st century the closest to a fascist economy we have is probably Japan. As far as I can see, fascism allows and encourages free enterprise as long as it does not harm the long term interests of the national community. Providing some degree of free enterprise is allowed, then a healthy national community with a sense of purpose is likely going to be more economically productive than an atomised mass of individualists, large numbers of whom dream of being pop stars, sports stars and/or lottery winners.

By contrast, to the extreme neoliberal capitalist, the health of national communities is of no importance, since national communities are simply a barrier to the globalisation of power and to turning the whole world into one big dumbed-down marketplace.

Fascist storm economy topic

Yeah, nazism loaded their coffers and war chests on the backs of their Jewish citizenry, and continued to plunder even their gold teeth and corpses in the extermination economy of the death camps.

Room in the bunker topic

Like the 400 seats in paradise awaiting the faithful Mormons, or the 700 or so virgins awaiting (male?) homicidal terrorists! Not quite a parallel.

I can see AG huddling with the vermin and mud spattered fascist fools, and plotting a takeover.