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meatcleaver -> RE: The sting of poverty (4/14/2008 2:53:13 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Real_Trouble
quote:
ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
Yep, redistribution. The only intelligent way for the poor to get out of poverty is to demand redistribution and if it doesn't happen, take the law into their own hands, then those people with something to lose will want to compromise and redistribute at least some of their wealth and keep some. It is how we have got to where we are today. If there had been no violence or threat of violence the aristocracy and the ruling classes would still consider their serfs as lazy retards who can do no better than work on their land. Today we have the capitalists and many people who should know better saying the poor are poor because they refuse to work. If I was poor and was offered a minimum wage to work in a shit job with no prospects I would say no thank you, hand me a molatov cocktail. We have poor because the economic system we have requires poor people, it is the thought that you too can be as poor too that makes many people get up in the morning and waste most of their life doings something they hate doing. Of course, the system allows a couple of people to buck the system, that way they have someone to point to and say, see, you can be successful, they did it. Of course, they never mention that if everyone became successful middleclass professionals there would be no one to shovel shit for a minimum wage so we shouldn't believe the shit capitalists tell us.
There is a dramatic difference between redistributing hereditary wealth (which I am for) and earned wealth (which I am against).
If I did nothing more than inherit a few hundred million dollars, say (to put things on par with past aristocracy), then I agree, locking that wealth up solely through heredity is not a good manuever. I am for even more aggressive estate taxes than we currently have, in fact, to prevent this very situation from occurring.
However, if someone develops cold fusion, and then all the profits are taken from them and redistributed to the rest of the United States, I am going to be extremely displeased! That person did the work, why should they not have the reward? Sure, their kids don't deserve to be fantastically wealthy just by being lucky enough to be that person's kids, but people should be rewarded for their just contributions.
As to the poor? Yes, there should be poor people. I'm sorry if not everyone likes that, but to quote a professor I once had, "not everyone can be a rocket scientist". Not all humans are equal; some people contribute more, and some people contribute less.
The bottom line that if someone is poor, uneducated, and has made foolish life decisions (such as having multiple kids early, digging into major debt through their own spending, etc) despite being offered the same opportunity as everyone else, that's their own problem. The rest of the world is not here to subsidize idiociy. Go to school, or learn a trade skill. Develop something other than manual labor, make responsible financial decisions, don't commit crimes, etc. It is possible, and we should do a better job of making it possible, but there are those who will fail even when handed everything on a silver platter. I know a few.
My final point is this, though: all systems that have tried to equalize income distribution so far have failed, and often spectacularly. They consistently produce major corruption, lack of incentives, lack of progress, and equality for many... meaning that everyone is equally poor and destitute.
Hereditary wealth is not only supported by capitalist governments but aided and abetted by them too, I suspect that most wealth held by the rich is inherited. Very few of the rich are first generation rich so what is the difference between wealth inherited by someone whode parents were aristocratic and those whose parents were wealthy bankers? None of course.
The point is that people can earn fortunes because they are allowed to earn fortunes by society so they owe society something in return. As for your fascistic proffessor who sounds as if he bought his creditation rather than studied for it, on the whole rocket scientists don't get rich, pop stars, sportsmen and morally corrupt businessmen and politicians tend to get rich. Wealth has nothing to do with anyone's contribution to society or the human race as a whole.
If someone is poor and uneducated and has a lot of kids, it is usually because of inequality in society which is why the more social democratic countries have a better mean standard of health and education and less social problems than the more capitalistic nations like the US and the UK. As for the poor having too many kids, for social reasons that are too complex to go into here, that is a normal outcome of poverty which is why a more egalitarian world is what is needed to start reducing human population, rather than a concentration of wealth in countries that have proved successful at exploitation and plundering other people's wealth.
Oh and most people who do the work don't get the reward in our society, those that are able to exploit the work are the ones that usually get the reward.
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