@H2O MAN,
H2O MAN wrote:parados wrote:You didn't overstate it a bit?
Okie.. did you or did you not say that Obama wants everyone to have equal wealth?
Obama's idea of spreading the wealth around does not conjure up images of everyone having equal wealth.
Obama's plan is to make everyone but liberal progressive democrat rulers equally poor and dependent on big government.
Correct, H2OMAN. If I understand what happens in communist countries, such as the old Soviet Union or Cuba, of course the stated utopian vision of Marxism is to achieve more equalized wealth, such as in "To each according to their need and to each according to their ability," but the utopian vision never occurs in a perfectly mathematical conclusion of equal outcomes. As you have correctly stated, the ruling class ends up being a different set of people, those being government bureaucrats, rulers, and party power brokers, instead of those that work hard and manage their own resources well in an open free market society that allows personal freedom and responsibility.
Another point is obvious here, when I said liberals desire equal outcomes, anyone with common sense knows that this is a general policy of "more equal outcomes" rather than a perfectly equal mathematical outcome of wealth down to exact dollars and cents. It is not surprising that folks like parados would argue the point by niggling over superfluous detail rather than seeing the overall point, which is obviously accurate.
I think the principle tenet of Marxism or communism is what I stated above, "To each according to their need and to each according to their ability," which is in fact one of the arguments in favor of a progressive tax system. cicerone imposter has been in fact just one of many to make that argument here that since rich people are more able to pay more taxes, then they should be paying more, in fact much more than they already are. I would not suggest that the amount of wealth redistribution accomplished by the tax system would ultimately make all citizens equally wealthy, but it does in fact move it toward that direction and if taken to the logical extreme, it might be able to achieve something close to it.
So in regard to George's statement that I overstated it, perhaps I did regarding how it usually happens, but I do not think I overstated it in terms of their intent. Their intent never materializes into actual results, because the ideology is deeply flawed and unworkable. I would argue however that by the time that scenario was achieved, it would be more like equal and universal poverty instead of equal and universal wealth, as leftists seem to think might happen. Of course there is the exception as H2OMAN has pointed out, the ruling governing class typically live far better than average citizens.