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On November 30 2017 16:06 mozoku wrote:
It's worth noting that, even despite all of the news about wealth inequality and poverty, the bottom 10% in America today is fabulously wealthy compared to the bottom 10% 100 years ago. And the median American income is a roughly top 1% income earner worldwide. Hence the focus on growth.
Yeah, 100 years ago, coal miners had just finished fighting a small war against the mine owners for basic rights, and the South had replaced outright slavery with less obvious slavery called convict leasing. So sure, the most destitute Americans are better off than that, but "better than bad" is not equivalent to "good."
EDIT: Also, the homeless population is estimated at around 0.155% of the US population. A bit over half a million people. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/16/homeless-count-population-america-shelters-people
According to that attempt at testing the accuracy of the counting, it could easily be three times as many homeless people as are counted. To the best of my understanding, a lot of the unoccupied homes have been unoccupied for many years and a decent chunk of them were foreclosed in the 2008 crash.
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Norway28646 Posts
On November 30 2017 14:22 xDaunt wrote:
Let’s just put the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy aside for a moment and ask the following: why is wealth inequality, in and of itself, a bad thing?
We're all idealizing the meritocracy, right? From that perspective, the primary problem with wealth inequality is that it is intergenerational. As the capital of your parents can certainly be observed to directly influence your own capital, wealth inequality is in conflict with the idea of a meritocracy, as being born by wealthy parents is no accomplishment. I've posted before how, principally (thus ignoring how politically unfeasible it is and some predictable negative consequences), I could be on board with vastly lowered income taxes and 100% estate tax.
Like, I'm not generally a fan of 'take money from the rich and give to the poor', but I'm a huge fan of 'take money from the rich and spend it on infrastructure, especially public education, to give the poor a more equal footing'. Taxation as a means of redistribution is not the ideal - but the gross difference in value of skillsets (capitalism does not give an accurate portrayal of how much one mans labor is worth to society nor how difficult it is) and the difference in ability to cultivate skillsets that make you rich depending on your upbringing necessitates it.
That said, the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy also need to be factored in politically. (goal of politics is to create a society that benefits its people as well as it possibly can, right?) Social trust and cohesion are important values. These are hurt by excessive imbalance in wealth. Nobody minds the doctor making twice as much as the store clerk, but when people get more than 100 times as much as others, especially when others struggle with having enough money to live dignified lives, that is (correctly, imo) perceived as a wasteful allocation of money because the added societal utility from 3x to 103x normal income or wealth is vastly inferior to the societal utility of bringing 500 people from 0.8x to 1x. It also fosters the creation of parallel societies, and being 'poor' hurts people's ability to be positive societal influences. If everyone is above the baseline, it's not that big of a deal that some people are way above the baseline, but there is a baseline of income/wealth required to be the best version of yourself that you can be, and as many people find themselves below that baseline, correcting this is good.
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On November 30 2017 16:14 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2017 16:06 mozoku wrote:
It's worth noting that, even despite all of the news about wealth inequality and poverty, the bottom 10% in America today is fabulously wealthy compared to the bottom 10% 100 years ago. And the median American income is a roughly top 1% income earner worldwide. Hence the focus on growth. Yeah, 100 years ago, coal miners had just finished fighting a small war against the mine owners for basic rights, and the South had replaced outright slavery with less obvious slavery called convict leasing. So sure, the most destitute Americans are better off than that, but "better than bad" is not equivalent to "good."
I feel like the constant battles, up to and including actually fighting and killing on the streets in order to attempt to extract those gains from the capital class is completely ignored in these fanciful historical recountings.
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On November 30 2017 16:21 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2017 16:14 Kyadytim wrote:On November 30 2017 16:06 mozoku wrote:
It's worth noting that, even despite all of the news about wealth inequality and poverty, the bottom 10% in America today is fabulously wealthy compared to the bottom 10% 100 years ago. And the median American income is a roughly top 1% income earner worldwide. Hence the focus on growth. Yeah, 100 years ago, coal miners had just finished fighting a small war against the mine owners for basic rights, and the South had replaced outright slavery with less obvious slavery called convict leasing. So sure, the most destitute Americans are better off than that, but "better than bad" is not equivalent to "good." I feel like the constant battles, up to and including actually fighting and killing on the streets in order to attempt to extract those gains from the capital class is completely ignored in these fanciful historical recountings.
Uh, fanciful historical recounting? I literally meant a small war. In the battle of Blair Mountain, for example, the mine owners went as far as deploying bombers against the miners.
The whole wikipedia article on the Coal Wars is really interesting reading, as are all of the articles on individual battles and see also articles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars
But yeah, going back to that whole "It's just jealousy," spiel, those two really remind me of caricatures of French nobility insisting that nothing was really wrong and it was just some minor discontentment among the peasants right up until the guillotine started doing its work.
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On November 30 2017 16:28 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2017 16:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 30 2017 16:14 Kyadytim wrote:On November 30 2017 16:06 mozoku wrote:
It's worth noting that, even despite all of the news about wealth inequality and poverty, the bottom 10% in America today is fabulously wealthy compared to the bottom 10% 100 years ago. And the median American income is a roughly top 1% income earner worldwide. Hence the focus on growth. Yeah, 100 years ago, coal miners had just finished fighting a small war against the mine owners for basic rights, and the South had replaced outright slavery with less obvious slavery called convict leasing. So sure, the most destitute Americans are better off than that, but "better than bad" is not equivalent to "good." I feel like the constant battles, up to and including actually fighting and killing on the streets in order to attempt to extract those gains from the capital class is completely ignored in these fanciful historical recountings. Uh, fanciful historical recounting? I literally meant a small war. In the battle of Blair Mountain, for example, the mine owners went as far as deploying bombers against the miners. The whole wikipedia article on the Coal Wars is really interesting reading, as are all of the articles on individual battles and see also articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_WarsBut yeah, going back to that whole "It's just jealousy," spiel, those two really remind me of caricatures of French nobility insisting that nothing was really wrong and it was just some minor discontentment among the peasants right up until the guillotine started doing its work.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was referencing the post you were responding to with the "fanciful" part. Meaning people like to talk about the "lifting all boats" or whatever without mentioning that they had to be scared/threatened/forced into it. It's not as if the billionaire class wouldn't mainstream outright slavery again if they thought it wouldn't result in their heads being prematurely separated from their bodies.
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On November 30 2017 14:22 xDaunt wrote:
Let’s just put the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy aside for a moment and ask the following: why is wealth inequality, in and of itself, a bad thing?
It can result in massive political instability, and consequently extremism (though I'm sure that's a positive for you). Also, the more unequal a country the more it's poorer citizens suffer from pathologies such as alcoholism, drug abuse, crime, health issues, mental health issues, suicide and so on. There is a reason countries measure poverty relatively and not absolutely.
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On November 30 2017 16:35 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2017 16:28 Kyadytim wrote:On November 30 2017 16:21 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 30 2017 16:14 Kyadytim wrote:On November 30 2017 16:06 mozoku wrote:
It's worth noting that, even despite all of the news about wealth inequality and poverty, the bottom 10% in America today is fabulously wealthy compared to the bottom 10% 100 years ago. And the median American income is a roughly top 1% income earner worldwide. Hence the focus on growth. Yeah, 100 years ago, coal miners had just finished fighting a small war against the mine owners for basic rights, and the South had replaced outright slavery with less obvious slavery called convict leasing. So sure, the most destitute Americans are better off than that, but "better than bad" is not equivalent to "good." I feel like the constant battles, up to and including actually fighting and killing on the streets in order to attempt to extract those gains from the capital class is completely ignored in these fanciful historical recountings. Uh, fanciful historical recounting? I literally meant a small war. In the battle of Blair Mountain, for example, the mine owners went as far as deploying bombers against the miners. The whole wikipedia article on the Coal Wars is really interesting reading, as are all of the articles on individual battles and see also articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_WarsBut yeah, going back to that whole "It's just jealousy," spiel, those two really remind me of caricatures of French nobility insisting that nothing was really wrong and it was just some minor discontentment among the peasants right up until the guillotine started doing its work. Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was referencing the post you were responding to with the "fanciful" part. Meaning people like to talk about the "lifting all boats" or whatever without mentioning that they had to be scared/threatened/forced into it. It's not as if the billionaire class wouldn't mainstream outright slavery again if they thought it wouldn't result in their heads being prematurely separated from their bodies.
No problem. I was about 50-50 on which post you were referencing; sorry if I came off as rude because of that.
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Please notice how the last conversation "subtly" went from trickle down works to trickle down is okay because income inequality is okay.
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Let’s just put the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy aside for a moment and ask the following: why is wealth inequality, in and of itself, a bad thing?
I mostly lurk the thread but I thought I would respond.
I think of it as an ethical thing. Being in poverty increases suffering. Redistributing wealth from those that do not need it to those whose suffering would be lessened by receiving services is the moral thing to do.
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On November 30 2017 19:04 Nebuchad wrote:
Please notice how the last conversation "subtly" went from trickle down works to trickle down is okay because income inequality is okay.
You forgot to add:
because people that think there is too much income inequality are just jealous.
Standard right wing talking point bingo.
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On November 30 2017 16:18 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2017 14:22 xDaunt wrote:
Let’s just put the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy aside for a moment and ask the following: why is wealth inequality, in and of itself, a bad thing? We're all idealizing the meritocracy, right? From that perspective, the primary problem with wealth inequality is that it is intergenerational. As the capital of your parents can certainly be observed to directly influence your own capital, wealth inequality is in conflict with the idea of a meritocracy, as being born by wealthy parents is no accomplishment. I've posted before how, principally (thus ignoring how politically unfeasible it is and some predictable negative consequences), I could be on board with vastly lowered income taxes and 100% estate tax. Like, I'm not generally a fan of 'take money from the rich and give to the poor', but I'm a huge fan of 'take money from the rich and spend it on infrastructure, especially public education, to give the poor a more equal footing'. Taxation as a means of redistribution is not the ideal - but the gross difference in value of skillsets (capitalism does not give an accurate portrayal of how much one mans labor is worth to society nor how difficult it is) and the difference in ability to cultivate skillsets that make you rich depending on your upbringing necessitates it. That said, the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy also need to be factored in politically. (goal of politics is to create a society that benefits its people as well as it possibly can, right?) Social trust and cohesion are important values. These are hurt by excessive imbalance in wealth. Nobody minds the doctor making twice as much as the store clerk, but when people get more than 100 times as much as others, especially when others struggle with having enough money to live dignified lives, that is (correctly, imo) perceived as a wasteful allocation of money because the added societal utility from 3x to 103x normal income or wealth is vastly inferior to the societal utility of bringing 500 people from 0.8x to 1x. It also fosters the creation of parallel societies, and being 'poor' hurts people's ability to be positive societal influences. If everyone is above the baseline, it's not that big of a deal that some people are way above the baseline, but there is a baseline of income/wealth required to be the best version of yourself that you can be, and as many people find themselves below that baseline, correcting this is good.
I think xDaunt nailed conservatism there though. I think the difference between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives don’t see pre-existing social structural hierarchy at birth as a problem. Men over women, white over black, rich over poor, that’s all fine, and should even be, if not strengthened, at least preserved.
For me being a liberal means that everyone should be as equal as possible at birth. It will never be the case, but it’s something we tend towards. The fact that a woman, a black dude or a poor kid start life with a gigantic disadvantage and are most likely to “stay at their place” is a problem that deserves to be corrected.
Anyway, that bring said, saying that the grotesque inequalities we observe today are ok is just either delusionnal or simply evil. Wealth is not infinite. You can’t vote Trump because people feel so disfranchised and want at the same time some disgustingly rich people keep siphoning all the wealth created by getting exponentially richer as time goes.
I assume the bottom line is that french comedy line: “the rich are meant to be very rich and poor very poor!”, which really could be the motto of the GOP.
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On November 30 2017 19:08 esla_sol wrote:Show nested quote +Let’s just put the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy aside for a moment and ask the following: why is wealth inequality, in and of itself, a bad thing? I mostly lurk the thread but I thought I would respond. I think of it as an ethical thing. Being in poverty increases suffering. Redistributing wealth from those that do not need it to those whose suffering would be lessened by receiving services is the moral thing to do.
Its funny that the same people keep going on about the need to maintain Western culture through nationalism yet ignore the majority of teachings from the New Testament that encourages the haves to help the have nots. The same people who read the Parable of the Good Samaritan yet refuse to open their doors for asylum seekers because they're illegals and only want to do nothing but ruin American culture and welfare.
I've noticed that the Anglican church is much different that US denominations of Christianity. Far less materialistic, less obsessed with religion itself and more to do with what the book actually teaches. Or at least the Victoria Diocese.
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I'd be fine with the current level of income equality if the death tax was 100% for everyone. Then it would be a shitload less ridiculous.
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On November 30 2017 14:47 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2017 14:31 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 30 2017 14:22 xDaunt wrote:
Let’s just put the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy aside for a moment and ask the following: why is wealth inequality, in and of itself, a bad thing? Perhaps in a world where there wasn't slavery and people starving with little/no access to clean drinking water you might have a point. But pretending that starving people in a world with billionaires isn't directly related to wealth inequality I have little faith there's a reasonable discussion to be had. The starving people happen to predominantly live in shitty countries with shitty social systems that are based on shitty values. Remember what I said earlier about nationalism being a good thing? It’s our defense from becoming like those shitty countries and it’s the method of eliminating their shitty values. Every time one of these poor and ass backwards countries starts to implement classical liberal, capitalist systems, they begin to accumulate wealth and the standard of living for the citizens improves. Take a look at Chile for example. We also have plenty of examples of countries that were doing well with Western systems, subsequently dismantled those systems, and utterly impoverished their people — like Zimbabwe. Do people really believe that these things are purely coincidental?
Equating apartheid with liberal, capitalist systems. Sometimes I really wonder, if you are ignorant or it's deliberate.
I suppose that's what happens when the danglars-xdaunt circlejerk happens and climax with nonsense or support of racism.
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On November 30 2017 14:47 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2017 14:31 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 30 2017 14:22 xDaunt wrote:
Let’s just put the obvious considerations of intrinsic human jealousy aside for a moment and ask the following: why is wealth inequality, in and of itself, a bad thing? Perhaps in a world where there wasn't slavery and people starving with little/no access to clean drinking water you might have a point. But pretending that starving people in a world with billionaires isn't directly related to wealth inequality I have little faith there's a reasonable discussion to be had. The starving people happen to predominantly live in shitty countries with shitty social systems that are based on shitty values. Remember what I said earlier about nationalism being a good thing? It’s our defense from becoming like those shitty countries and it’s the method of eliminating their shitty values. Every time one of these poor and ass backwards countries starts to implement classical liberal, capitalist systems, they begin to accumulate wealth and the standard of living for the citizens improves. Take a look at Chile for example. We also have plenty of examples of countries that were doing well with Western systems, subsequently dismantled those systems, and utterly impoverished their people — like Zimbabwe. Do people really believe that these things are purely coincidental?
Why are you equating Nationalism with liberal capitalism? That sounds like a really weird connection to make to me.
And how does nationalism stop you from becoming a 3e world country?
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All the arguments against wealth inequality boiled down to being poor. Dead poor at that. That seems to be the real problem. Of course that is a two headed giant, in that some of the rich have at least partially something to do with it.
I a.m. with Liquid Drone, use the taxes to educate and to fight of health problems and to give them a chance in equal footing.
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On November 30 2017 12:31 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 30 2017 11:41 zlefin wrote:On November 30 2017 11:14 mozoku wrote:On November 30 2017 10:55 zlefin wrote:On November 30 2017 10:46 mozoku wrote:On November 30 2017 09:05 zlefin wrote:
so, what ratio do you find acceptable? what's the point at which it becomes unacceptable?
(setting aside the question that most people's ethical views would say it depends on the causation/reasoning/why each person died, which would apply a heavy weighting to each death, either multiplying or dividing its value depending on which way you do it) Low. I'm relatively not much of a nationalist. My point was merely that nationalism isn't inherently evil, and being a nationalist up to a certain extent doesn't mean you're the second coming of Hitler. low is a bit vague, could you estimate to within a factor of 2? we understand your point; ours is taht "nationalism" has a reasonably well understood meaning in political science, as well as in common parlance, and it's generally not what you're referring to, and is quite prone to going well into the evil territory. in part because the people pushing "nationalism" are usually people exploiting xenophobia, bigotry, and generalized fear of the "other" for political advantage. also because the very nature of it tends to increase divisions and lead to problems, as it emphasizes tribalism, and tribalism is generally not something the world is short of. I'm not answering because I'm not confident I can come up with a reasonable answer in five minutes of thought. It's an extremely difficult question. With little thought, I would say less than two for me. I could imagine that I know plenty of people that I wouldn't consider evil that would probably put the number between 10 and 20. I'm not sure how the definition you're referencing is fundamentally different than mine. When you're a bigot, you care less about your non-countrymen, and thus your countrymen:foreigner ratio goes up. If someone is merely exploiting bigots for political gain, they aren't a nationalist but merely selfish and/or morally depraved. They may be publicly holding nationalist political positions though. how is exploiting bigots for political gain much worse than simply being bigoted itself? nationalist sentiment has its psychological roots in xenophobia/othering. thus the people pushing it are either ones who are themselves xenophobic, or are simply politicians exploiting it for political gain. 1:10-20 seems like a pretty high ratio to me, it'd certainly be evil under some moral systems. though i'd imagine such ratios might depend also on which other nationality you're comparing to. at what point would you say the ratio is so high as to become evil? (again setting aside the realities of ethics where it depends alot on the circumstances leading to each death). how familiar are you with the political history of the term? it's hard to explain/identify the differences since they come from a lifetime of education. maybe the wiki on nationalism would help, but it's hard to say. i'm getting sleepy and less focused; maybe noting that nationalism played a significant part in major wars of the past century. while its antonym doesn't do that so much. You're mistaking the cause for the effect, and we're coming full circle. Nationalism is about putting your nation/countrymen above others. Widespread and extreme nationalism tends towards war in a world with scarce resources. I'm well aware of 20th century history. Moderate levels of nationalism (e.g. the average person) are less clearly destructive. On the other hand, there are at least two motivations for being a nationalist. You can A) be a bigot or B) care more about those who are close to you (something akin to loyalty or kinsmanship). The first socially taboo (and rightfully so). The second is socially virtuous in most circles. The default leftist assumption is that all nationalism is the former. Trump's base likely has significant numbers of both. Maybe more A than B, but there's definitely some B in there too. At the very least, you can support Trump's non-racist nationalist stuff (which I don't) under B and not be an evil cretin.
I disagree about mistaking the cause for the effect (probably at least, i'd need to verify which exact thing you were claiming that about)
you say moderate nationalism less clearly destructive; let me ask: is internationalism destructive? if one is choice is possibly destructive, and the other is not destructive, then there would still seem to be a clear choice.
socially virtuous in some circles, dunno about most, i'm not sure how common universalism (or whatever the proper word) is. tribalism is still far more prone to lead to war, things like the kantian imperative would say to avoid it. There's a very important distinction between caring more (which is bound to happen to some degree), and asserting the ethical rightness of so doing in terms of value of human life (which seems more likely to exacerbate the problem).
on the distinction between your 2 cases I would ask: what is the definition of a bigot?
perhaps that is not an assumption, but a question of definition. If a leftist defines nationalism as referring to your case A only, then you'd have no disagreement ove rthem opposing it? the left is a broad group, with many different people holding many different beliefs. and language is complicated, every word has different meanings to each person, and different groups often have different standards of usage and meaning; to some, when they speak of nationalism, they're focusing on the parts that are closer to jingoism.
which things of Trump would you classify as non-racist nationalist?
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I'm kinda curious as to why his Twitter account hasn't been banned yet, as it's clearly in conflict with the ToS (and has been for a while). Oh yeah, I forgot, rules don't apply to that orangutan
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