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

[Vosem]

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

[Vosem]

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.)

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

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. It must be the government's priority that society as a whole becomes wealthier, not one section of society at the expense of others.

The sad thing is not that these people hold these views. The sad thing is that the US political system, as it is constructed, allows this tiny minority of douchebags to effectively hold all the political power at the expense of the vast majority.

Let's just keep in mind 1% of the US as a whole is 3 million people, so keep that in mind when you look at the right column of the chart (both when you look at the % who agree and the % who don't). I don't know what their definition of 'affluent' is, so I can't testify for the left column.

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.

[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?

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.)

Oh, you were attacking a caricature of people.  Gotcha.

Few liberals want a "revolutionary left-wing movement," at least if by that you mean what I think you mean.

Oh, no, the American left is much more moderate than that. But the same basic idea of people who cheer on their own misfortune applies.

[Vosem]

This thread is already a nightmare, but let say that a lot of these policies are feel good, but ultimately would not be good ideas in practice. I think a lot of wealthy people earned it through hard work and intelligence (not all of them, obviously), and they see that. Not that I'm saying the general public isn't, but I think a lot of people are drawn to the feel good.

You're right that parts of this could be measuring greater cynicism, utilitarianism, or understanding of the practical limits of the US government as currently constituted rather than lesser compassion as such, but I really don't know that one can in good faith disagree with principles like 'Government should provide a decent standard of living for the unemployed' (qua principles, obviously, rather than in instances of specific policy proposals) unless ones think that the state's duty to ensure the relative safety of its citizens doesn't extend to any sort of proactive measures at all.

Well, that was a statement that only 50% of the general public as a whole agreed with, so whatever the reason as a whole was, it's clearly not just the rich who stand fast to it. The wording of the phrase has no disambiguation and implies (or, sounds like it implies to certain people) someone should be allowed to not seek employment and merely live off the government. I would find it interesting if the questions were more specific ('government should provide small temporary unemployment benefits to people actively searching for employment') what the results would be.

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?

Ou're goal is indeed to lower inequality, but part a) of your formulation isn't so much an intentional aspect of that as a side-effect that w'e don't find much cause to care about, since in the case of the current American power elite there is nothing that any sane human being could possibly need or want to do with that amount of money. Additionally the money isn't really 'the'irs' in a full sense (although it's obviously partially 'the'irs', otherwise the concept of money is useless), since the'y owe a debt to the society that allowed them to make it in the first place.

Which is why there are reasonable taxes, certainly. But owing someone a debt isn't the same thing as allowing someone to literally steal your things to give them to someone else. And whether or not you personally believe there's nothing reasonable to be done with such money, you shouldn't have the right to hoist your own morality onto other people.

Oh, no, the American left is much more moderate than that. But the same basic idea of people who cheer on their own misfortune applies.

You're the sort of person who, if Buddhist, would be an unreconstructed Theravadin arhat who sneered at bodhisattvas for having too many attachments. Coming from somebody studying Japanese religion, that isn't a compliment.

I don't have very much knowledge of non-Abrahamic modern-day religions (except for some of Hinduism), and a quick cursory Wikipedia-ing isn't clearing up my confusion, so I'll take your word for it that that isn't a compliment.

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.

Are... are you talking about the 1%?

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

[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.

[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.

[Vosem]

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

С этой идеи нелегко спорить

x Vosem