fusion economies?

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I know that a lot of us have heard all kinds of arguments for and against aspects of both capitalist economies and socialized economies. Most countries of the West are some type of fusion of both. Currently I think everyone realizes that as the labor market changes and as technology continues to change the rules that we're going to need solutions to keep an active work force as well as keeping a healthy enough bed of consumers for purchasing goods.

Here's one idea that's hit me recently - I haven't read it anywhere, I'm sure many people have thought of this but I'm wondering what many of you would see as the particular pros and cons. The idea is this: we have a widening gap between rich and poor as the rich do what they do best in optimizing their companies and ultimately making money, sadly that often comes in the way these days of job cuts and jobless economic rallies.

The idea would be this - let them keep the benefits of their wealth up to a certain point where they could live at the top of the hill, have what they want, but once they hit a certain amount of private wealth to where they could never begin to spend it, somewhere perhaps between .5 and 1 billion, they'd be taxed at near 100% rate but with full exemption on money that they instead put directly back into their companies, creating new companies in new industries, and ideally creating new jobs which private at a minimum living wages.

The direct pros I could think of - the added jobs, more fuel into the economy, circular growth. The cons - there could be a disconnect between education and jobs built as the relationship could end up somewhat artificial, also if the right people banded together to ill-effect the government for their own gain it would perhaps be easier for them to do so.

I'd imagine there are probably much less crude/basic versions of this kind of idea out there? Its pretty much the idea of taking the tools people have and letting them put to the use of the greater good. IMO at a minimum to have a successful society you need work ethic, you need some type of mock-capitalist structure at minimum, and if there is any kind of redistribution it can't be in the form of handouts, that obviously rots integrity.

Any thoughts/ideas? I know there are some angles where this kind of idea could be seen as incredibly naive on the surface but, giving it some critical analysis of what add-ons it would need might be helpful in really figuring out whether it might be a good idea or whether it has too many critical flaws to be taken seriously.

The rich own the goddamn government, all three branches. Stop kidding yourself they can be controlled.

While this has certain potential for transitory and possibly regulatory movements towards a more humane system I personally can't see it working as an end goal. I'd be happy to go through what you would have when you flesh it out though.

You'd have to restrict the right of free travel, or the mega-rich would just find another place to live.

Have you considered The Abolition of Work?

Last edited by jrjones9933 on 24 May 2011, 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree entirely, Hense one of the MANY reasons why the monetary system has to be outgrown ENTIRELY in order cforhumanity to have any hope at all.

To OP: You are advocating theft. Shame on you.

ruveyn

All thieves seem to hang together on the rights of thievery. The OP is advocating retribution for theft. Fat chance.

The way to get retribution is in a court of law from a party duly convicted on evidence that he stole. He should be forced to make restitution and them pay a penalty on top of that. But making a general rule that all money income above X dollars be confiscated by the State is unjust taking of property. People should be allow to earn as much as they can as long as they do not get what they get by force or fraud.

ruveyn

You have never acknowledged any debt to the society which provided you with the opportunity to gain your wealth, whatever that might be. Society is not a field for the wealthy and powerful to plunder the weak and helpless, it is a joining of humans to provide the best possible life for all concerned and if it is not obvious to you how violently this basic principle has been violated then your vaunted IQ only demonstrates how that measurement of intellect is so basically in error as a measurement of human mentality. For that, at least I am grateful.

Why don't we start by just rolling back the Reagan tax cuts and seeing how that goes?

Two things on that:
1) I don't think they're genuinely out to f$^% everyone and turn into the East India Tea company whipping poor people for cotton or spices. Without lots of middle class consumers or even producers of products they want it means they live in a significantly worse world for themselves.
2) They do something, they do it well, they keep doing it. Its what they do best - doesn't need vicious motive or supremacist thought.



It's the kind of idea that would need to be floated around out there long enough so that everyone's heard of it.

The trouble we're running into - you can improve and keep improving products but when your in a constant race with both Wall Street as well as your competitors for the best margin possible it means that you can Kaizen the whole thing past most people's capabilities, Kaizen most of your jobs right out the window, with enough bench-marking you can have loads of unemployed and a few people left who are constantly drinking Pepto Bismol by the bottle because they're juggling twelve pots and pans all day.

I think the structure of capitalism and lack of handouts is absolutely necessary, just that I think creation of jobs needs to be the most foremost thing that we focus on. A few reasons why I wouldn't even put full faith and credit behind the idea 1) I haven't fully thought it out - that's what this thread is for, 2) The rich may easily never have enough, 3) I sincerely don't want to 'stick' it to them, I think there has to be a way to give them a satisfactory level of power or recognition in place of it but without that I'd really want to put another option in place.


That's definitely one reason why its a bad idea.

I'm just throwing it out there really to see if the dynamic itself or a better version (perhaps drawing the money back in another way) could work similarly.


I clicked on that article and it seemed like they literally meant - at face value - abolish work. Its an absolutely terrible idea. As human beings we only have as much character and integrity as we need. We have to go through certain things and put certain amounts of our own sweat equity in to appreciate anything we have. Without that, you have....well.... the type of kids that I grew up with. They set social hierarchy so that no one with less than $80 jeans is cool, they get drunk as high school juniors or seniors, wrap the Audi their parents bought them around a tree or telephone poll, and consequently their parents buy them a new one - just like they bought everything else they own. People more often than not turn into monumental f-ups when they grow up with entitlement.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 24 May 2011, 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Taxes are not theft.

A recurring theme among people that want free reign to exploit their neighbors.

You don't have to get emotional and get excited about evil to see that the financial community is raping the country because that is their cold blooded profession and it is accepted as legal. If a machine ceases to function properly, you don't have to get mad at the gears, you just improve the damned machine so it works properly. Any imbecile can see the machine isn't working properly.

I think what we're dealing with here is this - the more people with jobs the more people to buy things. The point of my argument in the OP is to see if some abstractly Keynesian ideas could be applied to creating more private sector jobs rather than governmental. Obviously teachers, fire fighters, police, etc., you can get so far with filling those and similar positions until they're saturated. Obviously as well, to create jobs means tracking demand and being very prudent on where private sector jobs are fed extra fuel.

In a way though jobs themselves are the most important thing. The trick is handing Gen Y and...what's after that....Z? I think the one small ray of hope is that as the baby boomers get older they'll be causing geriatric care needs to explode, at the same time though that will be a boom-bust job bubble. I don't know how it'll work as well twenty years from now when all the seniors have retired, ie. just how many jobs it will really create and how much of a market we'll have, people try to say it will create a huge vacuum, we'll see. I just worry about structural needs, no manufacturing, even more automation in foods and what not, really crushing the job market and essentially causing a situation where jobs just aren't quite as needed. Otherwise we'd need something like public or private education - for life - to keep people occupied until retirement.

I only wish it had broken down. I'm afraid the machine continues to function as its designers had intended.