Study finds wealthy Americans have different idea of what makes a just society

[Vosem]

The government should not take from some, with the goal of lowering their standard of living to give to others, even if the goal is to heighten their standard of living.

'The goal of lowering their standard of living'? What is wrong with you? This is like the time the otherwise very wise John Irving said that rich people in Vermont were a persecuted class.

If you're goal is to lower economic inequality, then you have two goals:
a) To make one part of society poorer.
b) To make another part of society richer.

Unless that isn't the goal?

Are you certain your a conservative?  Generally speaking conservatives don't express economics as a zero-sum game.  When it comes to lowering tax rates on the rich, eliminating business regulations such as those promoting a clean environment or safe working conditions, free trade to enable products to imported from countries with legal sweatshops, and a whole host of other conservative economic nostrums the constant refrains have been that a rising tide will lift all boats and that the benefits government grants the rich will tickle down to the poor.  Its unusual for an economic conservative to so openly express disdain for the poor schmucks are needed as votes by the robber barons.

Where did I say that such politics would hurt the poor, or that should be a specific goal of governmental policy? I'm merely saying that it is not the role of government to make some people poorer and others richer. I do think the goal of government is to make everyone richer, mostly through the techniques described in your post (though I do think providing for a clean environment, ensuring the air is breathable and the water potable, is part of a government's job). I'm not sure you quite understand the point I'm trying to make.

Am I certain I'm a conservative? No, I'm too far left on certain issues to win a modern-day primary in the Republican Party. Perhaps I'm not.

Did you expect differently? I always wonder about zhivagos who support policies that result in the government literally stealing their things.

No, they are merely returing them to rightful owners, the workers, you need to understand that all wealth and capital are illegitimate.

Why would the workers be the rightful owners? I can say 'crocodiles are hollow', but that doesn't make it true.

Not just the 1%, but yes. Basic property protections do and should apply to the 1% as well.

Can you provide empirical evidence of the rich in this country having their standards of living lowered by anything you're warning us of? Are you aware of what this country was like in the fifties?

We're discussing hypothetical actions taken in the future, not real ones taken in the past. In the fifties this country was much more economically equal than it is today, yes. Taxes have been lowered but government regulations have gotten more intense. 'Do you know what this country used to be like' can be an argument for a great many things.

The standard of living of the average person has certainly increased since the 1950s.

Think about this, Vosem. What exactly would you do with, say, 3 billion dollars?

Me, personally? I hate spending money. I'd take maybe 2 million, buy a nice house somewhere with nice weather, travel a lot, and the let the rest accrue interest/invest it somewhere. When I die, most of it would go to my relatives, with a substantial chunk going to various causes I believe in, mostly probably various scientific, especially medical research efforts. Occasionally I might donate to a politician I believe in, but I think I'd be keeping this to a minimum.

After a certain point, unless you're buying 12 yachts a day, you're effectively sitting on money, or using your money to invest and earn more money which you will sit on and/or use to make still more money. When so much money is sitting in the coffers of a few hundred people instead of being more evenly spread throughout the economy, it's detrimental to society as a whole.

I agree with you theoretically that the money is more useful to poor people, but I still think as a person anybody have the right to decide what is done with money which belongs to them, which either they earned (the most common variant in the US) myself, or which the person who earned decided should belong to them. The government should indeed tax them to some extent, and some of this should go towards ensuring poor people don't just drop dead on the street, but I don't think a government really has the authority to say, "I'm sorry, someone else deserves this money more than you do."

Did you expect differently? I always wonder about zhivagos who support policies that result in the government literally stealing their things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion

Hahaha compassion is just a word poor people throw around because they don't understand the concept of profit! Fool...

When emotion is allowed to overrule reason, everyone suffers.

Not everyone and not always, at least not as much or as often as when greed is allowed to overrule reason.

A drive to make money -- to profit -- results in innovation and over the long run helps everybody; the producer, who makes money, and the consumer, who gets to have a better product.

Did you expect differently? I always wonder about zhivagos who support policies that result in the government literally stealing their things.

...

What?

From Boris Pasternak's novel, Dr. Zhivago. The title character supported revolutionary left-wing movements who completely destroyed his style of life once they entered power. (There's a lot more to the novel than that; it won Mr. Pasternak a Nobel Prize in Literature; but it's part of the irony of the work.)

Imperial Russia was a great place to live -- so long as one was filthy rich. Otherwise it was a Hell.

There were certainly many issues with Imperial Russia, but unless you were a part of an ethnic minority in that country (like my ancestors were), the change in government made your life immediately, severely worse.

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Such would have precluded the abolition of slavery because the abolition of slavery would have impaired the ability of extant elites to enrich themselves on the unpaid toil of their 'property'.

Not so -- such a system wouldn't preclude from declaring that something ('human beings' being an excellent example, and I'm sure more can be thought of) cannot be property and taking it from everyone and the people being payed for their property; nor would it preclude confiscation of property outright during wartime on enemy territory.

Government by wealth is government of thieves because it allows the super-rich to get whatever they want from everyone else.

But not all super-rich are thieves and not all thieves are super-rich. There is certainly some overlap, but you shouldn't demonize a group for a minority contained within it. (Also, 'super-rich' is a very vague term, whose definition changes depending on who you're asking. If you ask someone in eastern Congo, their definition would differ from that of an average American, whose definition would differ further from an American who is well-off).

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Extreme plutocracy denies the opportunity for profitable activity by those not already in the entrenched elite.

But nobody's arguing for that, and neither is that what we have.

[fezzyfestoon]

Did you expect differently? I always wonder about zhivagos who support policies that result in the government literally stealing their things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion

Hahaha compassion is just a word poor people throw around because they don't understand the concept of profit! Fool...

When emotion is allowed to overrule reason, everyone suffers.

Not everyone and not always, at least not as much or as often as when greed is allowed to overrule reason.

A drive to make money -- to profit -- results in innovation and over the long run helps everybody; the producer, who makes money, and the consumer, who gets to have a better product.

Except there's no evidence of that happening anymore. And a desire for profit is not the same as an undying and unchallenged devotion to profit (as well as government subsidization and encouragement of that practice). When you reach that point the consumer loses quality and bargaining power as the company's market share grows. There are plenty of talking points that support greed nicely, none of which are rooted in reason.

[tik 🪀✨]

Hard work and intelligence are not the sole predictors of success in my opinion. Capitalism makes winners and losers in a variety of ways, but is certainly not a meritocracy based system. Greed and cunning, ingenuity and efficiency, emotionless drive towards profit, this is capitalism. Having these traits makes one man rich and another desolate. And each result feeds back in to itself. This fundamental flaw (though you may not see it a such) is what drives the American left to use government to try to soften the blow for capitalism's losers and enable them to get out of the self-perpetuating cycle of poverty - undeserved and all too common, even with the same attributes that let another succeed. The government sustains the system that allows the prosperous to live well, therefore they owe society. That the rich have some special attributes and drive that have let them succeed ignores how capitalism is flawed. That their net worth is theirs and theirs alone is childish.

Taxing is not stealing. I hear this time and again from the right. It sounds so just to claim  all you've earned is yours, because you're just so hard working and intelligent, but really your income and success in capitalism are driven by uncontrollable randomness and feedback first. It's the best system we have, but it needs correcting to be fair, and the government that creates the environment for it to flourish if the best vehicle to correct it. Rightists and the affluent should be grateful for their lot and recognise their debt. But their opinion shouldn't carry any more weight than the general, impoverished public.

[Vosem]

Did you expect differently? I always wonder about zhivagos who support policies that result in the government literally stealing their things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion

Hahaha compassion is just a word poor people throw around because they don't understand the concept of profit! Fool...

When emotion is allowed to overrule reason, everyone suffers.

Not everyone and not always, at least not as much or as often as when greed is allowed to overrule reason.

A drive to make money -- to profit -- results in innovation and over the long run helps everybody; the producer, who makes money, and the consumer, who gets to have a better product.

Except there's no evidence of that happening anymore. And a desire for profit is not the same as an undying and unchallenged devotion to profit. When you reach that point the consumer loses quality and bargaining power as the company's market share grows. There are plenty of talking points that support greed nicely, none of which are rooted in reason.

When a company's products decline in quality, the consumer starts to buy a competitor's products, and the profits are hurt because of the mistake. Competition is the goal of a free market system; I've always said that there should be laws prohibiting monopolies.

Hard work and intelligence are not the sole predictors of success in my opinion. Capitalism makes winners and losers in a variety of ways, but is certainly not a meritocracy based system. Greed and cunning, ingenuity and efficiency, emotionless drive towards profit, this is capitalism. Having these traits makes one man rich and another desolate.

What man has ever become desolate because of his ingenuity and efficiency?

And each result feeds back in to itself. This fundamental flaw (though you may not see it a such) is what drives the American left to use government to try to soften the blow for capitalism's losers and enable them to get out of the self-perpetuating cycle of poverty - undeserved and all too common, even with the same attributes that let another succeed. The government sustains the system that allows the prosperous to live well, therefore they owe society. That the rich have some special attributes and drive that have let them succeed ignores how capitalism is flawed. That their net worth is theirs and theirs alone is childish.

But whether it was through luck or not (and most people become very rich either through actual hard work or intelligence; and it takes more than luck to invest successfully), these people's efforts made them money. Everything we own we own solely due to the way society works, so I find the claim that society can requisition whatever it wants, from anybody, to be extremely frightening and when that has been the case in real life it has always been oppressive.

Taxing is not stealing.

When you tax with the intent to make one person poorer and another richer, that is stealing from the person who is becoming poorer. But when you tax with the intent to make life better for everyone, that isn't stealing. It isn't as clear-cut as you or 'the right' claim, and saying it is is simplistic.

I hear this time and again from the right. It sounds so just to claim  all you've earned is yours, because you're just so hard working and intelligent, but really your income and success in capitalism are driven by uncontrollable randomness and feedback first. It's the best system we have, but it needs correcting to be fair, and the government that creates the environment for it to flourish if the best vehicle to correct it.

First off, in capitalism, as I've already noted, generally giant fortunes do not grow from uncontrollable randomness. The government has the right to make everybody's lives better, but once you isolate certain sectors of society, you become arbitrary. One could argue it is the government who owes rich people because they pay more taxes than the poor. This hypothetical person would be incorrect arguing this way (underlined, italicized, and bolded so that sentence isn't taken out of context later), because it isn't justifiable to single out a group of people, based on any characteristic -- class or religion or race or whatever. (Except age, since everybody's age changes in a predictable fashion, unlike other characteristics).

Now, at the same time, part of 'maintaining the general welfare', is ensuring that the elderly do not starve and that their health is provided for and that people searching for employment who need food and housing and healthcare can get aid, perhaps cheap loans, from somewhere; perhaps the government. But the government shouldn't hurt one part of society to help another.

Rightists and the affluent should be grateful for their lot and recognise their debt. But their opinion shouldn't carry any more weight than the general, impoverished public.

These sentences contradict themselves. By definition, half of 'the public' is further to the right than the other half; ergo, leftists do not form a majority, which seems to be what you're arguing, because you seem to separate the concepts of 'rightists' and 'public' when the first is a section of the second.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm now starting a petition for Vosem to be made to only post in Russian.

[Vosem]

I'm now starting a petition for Vosem to be made to only post in Russian.

С этой идеи нелегко спорить

x Vosem

[tik 🪀✨]

Vosem, I would write a proper reply to your post, however I am on my phone and that would be a nightmare. Your post deserves it, so I apologise. But just to reply to a few points: A man who should have been wildly successful, had most of the right traits, and never was? That is easy. Tesla, who was a dedicated, prolific genius, was repeatedly screwed over by the less clever inventor but more cunning businessm Edison. Capitalism at its worst. I don't believe i said someone would be desolate because of their ingenuity, but despite it. That's what i meant, anyway.

The randomness I'm referring to is the place you're raised, the income of your parents, the impact of your race, the era you were raised, many things. Some you can change, some you can't. Perhaps with hard work etc you overcome your lot and prosper, but perhaps not. It is out of your control to at least some extent. That can be a bitter pill to swallow.

And you're right about my poor phasing with "the right" vs. society. It should have been more along the lines of the wildly rich vs the rest of society.

I suppose you could argue intent of taxation implies stealing, but to me the argument is just a way to make taxation sound always nefarious. To me it is the well off paying dues to the keeper of the system, and the keeper boosting the opportunities for the downtrodden to find a place in society. That sounds really fanciful and whatever but you get the idea.

[fezzyfestoon]

Except there's no evidence of that happening anymore. And a desire for profit is not the same as an undying and unchallenged devotion to profit. When you reach that point the consumer loses quality and bargaining power as the company's market share grows. There are plenty of talking points that support greed nicely, none of which are rooted in reason.

When a company's products decline in quality, the consumer starts to buy a competitor's products, and the profits are hurt because of the mistake. Competition is the goal of a free market system; I've always said that there should be laws prohibiting monopolies.

Yeah, that's all well and good in a free market, not a market where the companies that can curry the most favor among influential figures are allowed to corner markets, manipulate supplies, abuse market power, and get away with all of it by stacking federal programs of oversight. The executive branch needs to execute the law in order for the market to be free and fair. Markets operate on derivatives and market gambling that manipulates the market into bubbles that cause direct, drastic, and manufactured strain on the people forced into supporting it by a weak job market. A weak job market that rewards offshoring work and reducing business to a purely profit-based operation. They seek lower wages, settle for lesser quality, manufacture false demand, and purchase political support to do it. Competition is impossible when the law isn't applied properly.

[pbrower2a]

Hard work and intelligence are not the sole predictors of success in my opinion. Capitalism makes winners and losers in a variety of ways, but is certainly not a meritocracy based system. Greed and cunning, ingenuity and efficiency, emotionless drive towards profit, this is capitalism. Having these traits makes one man rich and another desolate. And each result feeds back in to itself.

Precisely. A parish priest ordinarily does far more good for his community than a numbers racketeer, yet we well know which one will have more disposable income.  The numbers racketeer does not visit the sick in the hospital, doesn't serve as a bridge between the economic establishment or political machine and the common man, doesn't encourage troubled kids to change their ways, and doesn't encourage learning that might help kids get out of the slum. Nobody enters the Catholic priesthood without knowing the limitations of worldly reward, and nobody starts a numbers racket except for the money to be had.

A healthy society rewards people to do good for others and smites them for doing harm. A good society reward people for creating opportunities and smites them for constricting those opportunities. A sick society, in contrast, rewards people for doing bad things to people and getting away with it. Not surprisingly a sick society degenerates into economic cruelty and political chaos.  

But that said, a healthy market-oriented society rewards people for behaviors that keep the economy running well and creating wealth for people who are not already filthy-rich. Does anyone question that working more hours at the same job, developing rare but desirable skills, maintaining integrity in relationships with others, adapting well to customer needs, conserving scarce resources, putting up with danger and unpleasant conditions, and generally making life satisfying for others merits reward? Of course one expects people who work 45 hours a week in a fast food place to earn more than people who work 25 hours a week in the same place. Of course we expect coal miners and loggers to earn more than receptionists.    

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We do not elect the economic elites. Most are born into it or succeed at bureaucratic gamesmanship as ruthless as any turf struggle in the jungle. The law of the jungle makes tigers what tigers are. But we aren't tigers; we are on a different level of existence than some giant predator who depends upon holding a territory in which he has a chance to catch and eat plenty of prey and that if he loses that territory he starves.

Of course our economic elites owe something to us. Our infrastructure allows their commerce to flow. Our military defends the security of their investments abroad. Our educational system provides their employees. Our courts and prisons exist in part to deter offenses against their property and to enforce contracts. Our economic elites have far more at stake because they own more and grab more. Many have made their fortunes off government contracts, especially for lucrative wars. And those economic elites want us to pay for all that? We never could. But even without the public sector, the economic elites owe us some basic dignity so that we have a stake in doing what is good for humanity as a whole. We need pay that we can live on. We need to feel good about ourselves for doing good.    

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If I were young and all that I could hear from the economic elites was "Suffer for my holy greed!" and I had a conscience I would either emigrate or rebel. Just think of the heritage of about anyone who connects to Russian Jews who emigrated to the US about a century ago. If you don't understand that, then contemplate Fiddler on the Roof, in which any one can observe that Imperial Russia was a horrible place in which to be Jew -- and that it was not such a great place for any Russian worker or peasant, either. We need incentives other than those that reward people for being born into an elite family or -- perhaps worse -- being the nastiest jungle-fighter in an economic order that rewards little else among the common man.

For good reason decent people rightly recognize any institutional injustice as a grave sin. Yes, bad things can happen to good people, but if the common man has no chance at a reasonably good life, then something is terribly wrong with the system.

Taxation is part of the cost of civilization. Civilization has its virtues.  

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The government should not take from some, with the goal of lowering their standard of living to give to others, even if the goal is to heighten their standard of living.

'The goal of lowering their standard of living'? What is wrong with you? This is like the time the otherwise very wise John Irving said that rich people in Vermont were a persecuted class.

If you're goal is to lower economic inequality, then you have two goals:
a) To make one part of society poorer.
b) To make another part of society richer.

Unless that isn't the goal?

Are you certain your a conservative?  Generally speaking conservatives don't express economics as a zero-sum game.  When it comes to lowering tax rates on the rich, eliminating business regulations such as those promoting a clean environment or safe working conditions, free trade to enable products to imported from countries with legal sweatshops, and a whole host of other conservative economic nostrums the constant refrains have been that a rising tide will lift all boats and that the benefits government grants the rich will tickle down to the poor.  Its unusual for an economic conservative to so openly express disdain for the poor schmucks are needed as votes by the robber barons.

Where did I say that such politics would hurt the poor, or that should be a specific goal of governmental policy? I'm merely saying that it is not the role of government to make some people poorer and others richer. I do think the goal of government is to make everyone richer, mostly through the techniques described in your post (though I do think providing for a clean environment, ensuring the air is breathable and the water potable, is part of a government's job). I'm not sure you quite understand the point I'm trying to make.

I understood you quite well. You asserted that it would be impossible to reduce economic inequality without hurting the rich while simultaneously aiding the poor.  If that isn't what you meant, then your ability to express yourself has more flaws than using homophones correctly.