There should be no rich as long as there are poor?

Well, I agree with you, Rosslyn. I don't think it's proper or possible or safe to go about trying to level everything out. People, for whatever reason, tend toward different situations in life. I don't see what's wrong with this--I don't think the fact that a society has class or economic differences necessarally means its oppressive towards the lower classes. And look what happened when the socialists tried to wipe out economic differences. Everybody became equal--equally poor!

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Haha that's an excellent point you made there, I can't help but laugh - no offence to any socialist supporters x_x

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no offence to any socialist supporters x_x

Many people who believe in socialism think that they will get something out of the system...........from someone else.

Remember, a bank president can wash a floor, but a janitor cannot run a bank. If you take the incentive away from the people who produce, and give it to people who don't, the people who accomplish a lot in this world lose their incentive to produce. Then the world devolves to a lower level, and everyone suffers, except those with political "pull". Check out the history of the Soviet Union.

I have never been envious of rich people, who have earned their money honestly. I need them, much more than they need me. They make MY life better.

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I see this topic is starting to drift off track, but I like the way where it's going x_x

Yes I'm doing Stalin's Russia at the moment, and it is truly horrifying. I must say, I personally think communism and socialism and all that extreme-equality thing is too naive - we as humans are NOT that good and pure and kind - selfishness IS a part of us, and unless you are an complete idiot you won't be willing to give your possessions away, 'specially when you earned it the hard way. You gotta admit it - It's not fair being fair in the communist concept. If you know what I mean.

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Rosslyn wrote:

There should be no rich people as long as there are poverty in the world.

"Marge, I agree with you -- in theory. In theory, communism works. In theroy." ~ Homer Simpson

That is not fair to the people who worked very hard to obtain financial security. I know that a lot of people abuse the system, having more money then they could ever need, but there are also those hard-working citizens who live the American dream: Getting a good paying job and becoming rich.

Sure, it would be nice to have a place where there were no poor people, but punishing the rich just because there are poor people in the world does not make sense to me at all.

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Since poverty's usually defined as relative to the average, poverty and wealth are much like siamese twins - cant have one without the other. I mean, how could you have rich people without having poverty? Compared to those rich people, others again would always be poor.

Then again, in re: to marsh:

marsh_of_mists wrote:

And look what happened when the socialists tried to wipe out economic differences. Everybody became equal--equally poor!

This is true for the communists - cause I'm assuming you're referring to the Soviet Union etc - but socialists in democracies around the world have done a pretty good job in ensuring some measure of decent living standards for the lower classes, and yes, those countries afforded that through a measure of income redistribution, progressive taxes and the like. Through deciding, ultimately, that wealth afforded us the chance to tackle poverty - and that there was a moral call to do so.

Some difference in income distribution is necessary to maintain incentive, for sure - I dont think much anyone is still proposing The Same Wage For All. But the difference in wealth between the top 10% and the bottom 10% has not remained some kind of stable healthy measure throughout the capitalist era. It is now a literal multiple of what it was just thirty years ago. Was the Western economy or science stymied in the fifties or sixties by lack of incentive? If not, what would be wrong with returning to the kind of difference, the kind of scale, we had back then?

Phoenix32890 wrote:

Many people who believe in socialism think that they will get something out of the system...........from someone else.

And then there are the people - rich and poor alike - who of course understand why bankers need to earn more than janitors - twice as much, ten times as much - but who don't quite understand why he would have to earn 1,000 times as much - or think it's right. Its the way the market economy functions, yes, I understand - though I would add that social- and christian-democratic-ruled countries in Western Europe, or say Canada or New-Zealand, are as affluent as they ever were in history as well, despite having a considerably more significant tradition of income redistribution than America. But "right"? Top managers now earn twice as much as they did just ten years ago; do they work twice as hard? Do they need twice the incentive they required ten years ago?

I know, morals have no place in the market. But they do in morality. You shall not squander when others are in want; socialism has deep roots in Christian tradition. Socialists and christians alike have traditionally insisted that our policies should be guided by morals as well as by the pure laws of economy - since, after all, they are the expression of our values, of what we consider right in life. We shouldnt want to poke sticks in a machine that runs smoothly; but we're not mere onlookers at the machine's thump either. In the end, we collectively decide how much we consider each persons' work is worth. Right now, we do so through the mechanisms of the market economy: how much are you willing to pay for the product the other person makes? But if we observe that, when this mechanism goes unchecked, it tends to escalate the disparity ever further, it is, ultimately, wholly up to us to decide whether we think thats right or not; whether we think the result is still a fair reflection of appreciation of hard work and invested education, or something that's spun far beyond that through the self-escalating dynamics of market mechanisms.

Its not a zero-sum game. The dollar you pay to the working poor is not simply a dollar you take away from the rich man. When's the last ten-year span in which the rich got poorer? No. The machine - the market economy - creates extra wealth - thanks to the work we all perform in it. It also tends to channel the yields disproportionately to the top x percent. Why would it be wrong to decide - OK, we like how the machine runs - but we also want to live in a society where that extra wealth is used to ensure that, at least, noone needs to live in need? Where the way the extra wealth comes down is a little more reflective of the work we perform, where a teacher or nurse, their work rewarded little by the machine when left by itself, is rewarded just like an account manager is?

Adjustments can be made without risking it all. Compare the US with other Western countries and you'll realise that you can, to some degree, have your cake and eat it too. Sure, each economy has its problems: Germany has unemployment, Holland too many people on illness benefits. But still we each collectively enjoy a prosperity that our parents' generation, 30 years ago, let alone our grandparents', 60 years ago, still only dreamt of. Apparently, it doesnt actually kill incentive or economic health to add a measure of morality into economic politics.

To brush aside the entire notion, finally, through reference to what happened when the most extreme of zealots carried it through to its ultimate consequence is a bit of a straw man. I cant think of much anything thats good when you carry it through to its ultimate consequence. Thats never invalidated the proposed benefit of implementing a measure of it in any other case.

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This "extra wealth" you speak of is the very basis of economic progress and innovation. It is the motive and the means. To seize it and dole it out in tiny sums after its been worked over by the beauracrats is a foolish prospect.

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but socialists in democracies around the world have done a pretty good job in ensuring some measure of decent living standards for the lower classes

Yes, BUT those same countries tend to have a lower average standard of living than we do. Take France, for instance. The average Parisian lives in a home smaller than the average American welfare case. Although we still have folks we consider to be poor, in comparison to other countries, our "poor" are very well off.

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Many people who believe in socialism think that they will get something out of the system...........from someone else.

Remember, a bank president can wash a floor, but a janitor cannot run a bank. If you take the incentive away from the people who produce, and give it to people who don't, the people who accomplish a lot in this world lose their incentive to produce. Then the world devolves to a lower level, and everyone suffers, except those with political "pull". Check out the history of the Soviet Union.

Soviet Union was a communist dictatorship. Mainstream socialism I believe, is quite different from communism.

I think that what you're implying is not entirely true. Most countries now include some form of government intervention in the economy. A purely "Laisse Faire" system does not always work out. I think that a combination of socialist and capitalist system is what works.

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Idaho wrote:

Yes, BUT those same countries tend to have a lower average standard of living than we do. Take France, for instance. The average Parisian lives in a home smaller than the average American welfare case. Although we still have folks we consider to be poor, in comparison to other countries, our "poor" are very well off.

You base your conclusion that even the American poor are better off than the French by comparing how big a flat one can afford in Paris? Eh, whats the apartment rent per square meter in Manhattan lately?

That's not a very convincing argument; each of us could come up with a part-expense that's cheaper in the other country. Take the costs of health care and insurance. There: "even the poor in France are very well off in comparison with what the average New Yorker pays for health care and health insurance." Doesnt prove much either.

Look, I'm sure Americans are still wealthier than the French or the Dutch. I was saying that, despite (compared to America) significant measures of income solidarity, the French or the Germans are still quite spectacularly better off than in any previous historical era - significantly better even compared to just twenty years ago. Thats something all too quickly forgotten in the whining about how it's not better yet still - about this year's "disappointing" growth of just 1% or 2%. Apparently, the degree of intervention in "the very basis of economic progress and innovation" hasn't served to kill off the economy's capacity to create wealth - we're still immensely better off than most other countries in the world. Which was literally enough my point:

nimh wrote:

Its the way the market economy functions, yes, I understand - though I would add that social- and christian-democratic-ruled countries in Western Europe, or say Canada or New-Zealand, are as affluent as they ever were in history as well, despite having a considerably more significant tradition of income redistribution than America. [..]

Adjustments can be made without risking it all. Compare the US with other Western countries and you'll realise that you can, to some degree, have your cake and eat it too. Sure, each economy has its problems: Germany has unemployment, Holland too many people on illness benefits. But still we each collectively enjoy a prosperity that our parents' generation, 30 years ago, let alone our grandparents', 60 years ago, still only dreamt of. Apparently, it doesnt actually kill incentive or economic health to add a measure of morality into economic politics.

So the point here at most can be that apparently, you can perfectly become one of the wealthier countries in the world - and wealthier than you ever were - even with the costs associated with some income redistribution / governmental role in the system; but perhaps only if you insist on becoming the very wealthiest of all, you might need to forego on that. Well, that's a "sacrifice" I'm perfectly willing to make, especially if it means ensuring that a single working-class mother can afford housing and health care without needing to take three jobs at a time (do click that link).

This is reflected in the official numbers, because I found something a little more solid to go on than rent prices in the capital city: GDP Comparisons Based on Purchasing Power Parities. This is how it works:

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PPPs are currency conversion rates that enable international volume comparisons of GDP by taking into account the differences in price levels between countries. To do so, prices of a basket of comparable and representative goods and services are compared across countries. The basket included some 3 000 items and covered the entire range of final goods and services (consumption goods and services, government services, equipment goods and construction projects) which make up GDP.

Often, income or GDP levels across countries are compared by converting national data into a common currency using exchange rates. However, exchange rates only partly reflect relative prices of goods that are domestically consumed and invested - many other factors such as interest rates and capital flows shape exchange rates, witness their frequent and large swings. This is different with PPPs that directly reflect relative prices of consumer and investment goods in different countries.

Consider for example per capita GDP for Switzerland relative to the OECD average: when based on exchange rates, income per person would appear to exceed those of United States. However, when PPPs are used, Switzerland per capita GDP turns out to be lower than that of the United States. This is because the price level is higher in Switzerland than in the United States.

The numbers show pretty much what I expected. The United States are, indeed, the richest - or almost, outdone marginally by that historically Socialdemocratic bulwark, Norway - but those other countries I referenced are clearly among the wealthier as well. (And note - these are the data over 2002 - before the dollar started falling against the euro, which must relatively have made the purchasing power of a euro wage increase compared to that of a dollar wage).

Note also the lack of any difference in people's purchasing power between the UK of Thatcher and Blair and the historical representative of the welfare state, Sweden.

Table for Real GDP per head

Selected output:
144 - Norway
142 - United States
129 - Ireland
118 - Netherlands
116 - Canada
113 - United Kingdom
111 - Sweden
109 - France
107 - Japan
105 - Germany
91 - Spain
89 - Israel
75 - Greece
73 - Slovenia
72 - Korea
65 - Czech Republic
56 - Hungary
44 - Poland
37 - Mexico
32 - Russia
26 - Turkey
24 - Macedonia

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I feel like I need to justify what I mean by poor and rich. So here's an example:

the world at the moment can be seen like this: one rich guy with 100 dollars and one poor guy with no dollars.

An ideal world, with no rich and no poor, is one guy with 50 dollars, and another with 50 dollars.

Of course, the poor guy's 50 dollars would have came from the originally rich guy.

So that's what I mean. Regardless of whether the rich guy gained his money the right way or not.

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Rosslyn wrote:

Of course, the poor guy's 50 dollars would have came from the originally rich guy.

I think that's too simplistic, it's not a zero-sum game. It's not like there's a finite amount of money in the world that can only be divided up so many different ways.

We're all getting richer and richer here in the west, many people have stocks or properties that sleepingly increase in value. Saving is a good thing and should be encouraged of course. But the result of the steady, long-term rise in house prices, stocks etc means that the folks who were already more wealthy get ever richer quite automatically - nothing to do with "getting the wages for how you work", as we say ("loon naar werken").

The boom of the nineties thus benefited those most who already had the most - not to mention the quite recent tendency, which escalated in the 90s, of exorbitant bonuses and wage increases for the top managers - and quite regardless of their job performance, at that. There's been a string of high-level managers who failed and were then bought off with "golden handshakes" of a level that had been quite unknown here in Holland, up to the point where even right-wing politicians were openly declaring that something had to be done about the blatant self-enrichment.

There's work ethos, which deserves incentives. But the same thing about the market economy that makes it work so well - the continuous increase of wealth through consumption, investment and production - quite automatically increases disparaties in wealth exponentially - what you have, automatically becomes more. The comparison with the fifties or even eighties, when disparities were still so much smaller, is amazing - its like the centrifugal force of the system. So why not increase the tax on profits made from those "sleeping" sources of wealth a little, so we can afford to ensure, say, affordable health care for everyone? Everybody will still get the full wages for their every-day work ... in fact, we should move away from taxing work, towards taxing wealth.

There's nothing wrong with admiring how the machine works, but wanting to intervene if it has unwanted side-effects - in the end, we're in charge in a democracy, we get to decide what kind of country we want to live in. The economy is a tool we should know how to repsonsibly use, but it's still a tool - and it's up to us to decide to use it a little differently if it's not working out quite the way we want it to.

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Phoenix32890 wrote:

Many people who believe in socialism think that they will get something out of the system...........from someone else.

Others, (myself for example), believe that they will lose some of what they have in order to improve society. It is a generalisation unworthy of you to imply that socialism equals greed and envy.

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Remember, a bank president can wash a floor, but a janitor cannot run a bank.

At least if you ask a bank president. I am not a cleaner nor would I ever wish to be, yet knowing people who are there is a variety of techniques and understandings they possess that a bank president will not originally have. They could learn it through experience or training (yes there are degrees in cleaning). Said president may also lack the necessary manual dexterity or be in a wheelchair thus making him only suitable for his job.

It is rank arrogance to say that white collar jobs are superior to blue collar. I say this as a white collar worker myself.

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If you take the incentive away from the people who produce, and give it to people who don't, the people who accomplish a lot in this world lose their incentive to produce.

You know, aside from proffesional pride... or the same force that causes you and I to devote our time and effort to producing posts across the a2k forum... or the things that make people code open source software... or the hero worship that society gives to those who do amazing things... or the reason why people volunteer much of their time to sporting clubs, charity organisations and community projects.

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Then the world devolves to a lower level, and everyone suffers, except those with political "pull". Check out the history of the Soviet Union.

Don't pretend to be stupid. It doesn't suit you at all.

Capitalism has steadily evolved over the last 7,000 years of development and you expect the first civilisation to adopt a new form of resource distribution to be successful immediately? When it converts to the system through a violent revolution without the benefit of time to plan and co-ordinate the conversion? When the leadership becomes subsumed by a dictator with no intention whatsoever of establishing a working socialist country beyond the personal benefit he can obtain from the philosophies of the people?

Surely you don't think that.

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I have never been envious of rich people, who have earned their money honestly. I need them, much more than they need me.

Oh, but on the contrary. They would find their wealth abruptly less abundant without the support of your taxes providing the necessary civil services that exist within your country.

Without wealth-less people the value of their money would disappear instantly (surely you understand enough economics to know that). Without manual workers they would be required to scrub all those floors themselves, (and they wouldn't even know how to do it properly).

On the other hand without them you would lose... nothing. The material resources are still in the ground. The scientific knowledge is held by the scientists. The skilled producers are still everywhere.

All they hold is a lot of pieces of paper. And paper isn't necessary. Except to print more copies of Atlas Shrugged.

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Rosslyn wrote:

An ideal world, with no rich and no poor, is one guy with 50 dollars, and another with 50 dollars.
Of course, the poor guy's 50 dollars would have came from the originally rich guy. .

I think simplifying it to say that rich-person's above the average golden-coins goes to poor-person so they both have equal amounts is what helps reduce wealth redistribution/socialism etc to something that feels unfair and preventative of growth.

While one can argue the wealth disparity tension is healthy for keeping the system moving forward, it is clear that there is currently no inherent mechanism to stem the tide of wealth divergence caused by the market economy.(notwithstanding government regulation, which is a construct not inherent to the system, and under constant collapsed arguments as stated above)

There is nothing wrong with wealth accumulation by the hard-working/innovators/job-creators, etc. But the rich seem to have lost the ability/maturity to step away from the feeder, stuck in some sort of feed-forward loop of greed and one-upmanship.

The market economy machine is amoral, and this amorality has infected the machine's champions/beneficiaries

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Without wealth-less people the value of their money would disappear instantly (surely you understand enough economics to know that). Without manual workers they would be required to scrub all those floors themselves, (and they wouldn't even know how to do it properly).

On the other hand without them you would lose... nothing. The material resources are still in the ground. The scientific knowledge is held by the scientists. The skilled producers are still everywhere.

You are correct, until something goes wrong - the widget maker breakes in a way it hasn't broken before, outside forces come in to play that make those widgets no longer necessary etc. If we lived in a static world, what you said would be true. BUT, we live in a very dynamic world. A janitor can quit and be replaced in an hour with a worker who can be equivalent to the one who quit very quickly. A CEO can quit and it can takes months for the new one to have the necessary information to be effective. A CEO has a much greater impact on a company than the janitor. Does that mean the janitorial work isn't necessary? Absolutely not. It simply defines the difference between skills that are easy to aquire and skills that are difficult to aquire.

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As I see it, poverty CAN be seen as relative. I know peasants in Mexico who are considered "rich" by their neighbors because they have two cows , a bunch of pigs and chickens, even though they, like their neighbors, live in dirt floor huts without running water.
In our society I see the poor, not as the "relatively poor"; it goes beyond rank. The poor are those who, in absolute terms, cannot feed and educate their children in a manner set by the standards of our "affluent society." Anyone who cannot attain adequate medical services, who cannot afford to obtain justice through the courts, who cannot afford the medications needed to prevent catastrophic illness, or afford treatment when the illnesses strike them, etc. are the poor. We have too many of them.
I too have no envy of the extremely. As far as I'm concerned they can enjoy their large estates, their yachts, and all the material benefits of their socio-economic class. I bless their advantages. But they should not be able to convert their wealth into political power. They should not be able to buy off politicians; they should not be able to own the mass media and, by that means, propogate their ideologies to the disadvantage of the majority. In other words, it is not the possession of wealth that concerns me. It is the use to which it is put.
I am in favor of capitalism; it is a system that rewards inventiveness and creative imagination. But it must be a regulated capitalism. Unbridled, rapacious, capitalism is a vicious system, in which society is no more than a feeding ground on which the powerful feed upon the weak.

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Anyone who cannot attain adequate medical services

We should distinguish between cannot and does not here. We have lots of folks without insurance that have cable tv, 2 cars, etc.

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But they should not be able to convert their wealth into political power.

I agree, to a point. The problem is, the "poor" are much greater in number and have the power to vote themselves benefits at the expense of the wealthy. A little political clout that comes with wealth acts as a counter-measure.

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So the abuses of power are merely "counter-measures" against the anticipated uses of majority power by the less powerful?
Rolling Eyes

You say that "We should distinguish between cannot and does not here. We have lots of folks without insurance that have cable tv, 2 cars, etc. "
Yes we can and should, but do you really believe that most people who lack insurance can afford it?

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Idaho wrote:

The problem is, the "poor" are much greater in number and have the power to vote themselves benefits at the expense of the wealthy. A little political clout that comes with wealth acts as a counter-measure.

This oversimplifies by assuming that the poor is a monolithic entity with political clout, which is not always true. The poor are mired in their daily toils to survive which precludes them from having the time to have a strategic plan. The "counter-measure" you mention is more like a "preventative-measure", as the wealthy have the wherewithal, time and resource-wise, to make strategic choices with larger impacts, due to the power of their wealth. That they choose this power to the exclusion of who they see as outsider is troublesome.

As also evident from the quote, which points out a fundamental problem thinking of poor and wealthy as adversaries. This mindset then "justifies" the wealthy's preservation tactics, by thinking of their activities as "counter-measures", meanwhile going on offensive against the poor's "poor" choices.

Defense and offence played to win against the "enemy".

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There should be no rich as long as there are poor?

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