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'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

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Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#91

Post by Jabanga »

openasocket wrote: post #84
Jabanga wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How redistributive were public schools 100 years ago, when they were almost exclusively paid for by local taxes within communities where people had very similar levels of income, and when education spending as a share of GDP was miniscule compared to today? I would argue that the harm of redistribution has historically been more than counterbalanced by the accelerating rate of technological innovation, but that the l…

Subsidizing education is absolutely not redistribution of wealth! It is an investment. Giving a child a good education increases that child's lifelong income, some of which is taken as tax, which can mean putting money into education can result in a profit over time. This is especially true when you consider that giving a child a good education decreases their likelihood of having to live on welfare or unemployment.…

It is a component of child-rearing. Forcing people to pay for the education of other people is redistributive.

If it's truly an investment, we could let the student loan market handle it, since the returns (in increased income) exceed the costs.

As for social benefits, I believe the negative effect of encouraging people to have children when they're not capable of personally supporting them, and of reducing the incentive to be productive, outweighs the positive ones.

Before the era of government education, the level of education in society was improving steadily. I don't see history suggesting that society, left to voluntary relationships and income distribution, enters into a downward spiral.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#92

Post by dewyatt »

eric_b wrote: post #6

Midway down the author mentions a study that showed most Americans object to "unfairness" rather than "inequality". I've found this to be the case for me personally. If someone tries hard, works diligently, and makes smart decisions, but are still living in poverty, I want to help them. No hardworking, disciplined, motivated person should live in poverty, or have trouble making ends meet, in my opinion. Unfortunately…

I think blaming this on impulse control is self-serving.

I expect those with lower incomes tend to feel more oppressed and unhappy. They work hard every week but it's always paycheck to paycheck, and they always feel beholden to their employer. They don't have the financial freedom to _really_ control their lives in any significant way.

So perhaps they compensate by seeking fulfillment and distraction with netflix and video games. There has to be some outlet for all of their frustration, some way of mitigating that feeling of helplessness.

I live with a guy that has worked at Walmart for 13 years. He comes home absolutely exhausted. I don't know how he keeps going, but I have to think that indulging in movie theater visits and other forms of entertainment/distraction may actually be vital to maintaining his mental health.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#93

Post by eli_gottlieb »

aaronchall wrote: post #80
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-anecdote: my wife has a Master's degree and works 60 hours a week, trying to transition from biotech to teaching. She has to cobble together multiple jobs, some of which are in the "low-wage sectors". She works 60 hours a week because, well, budgets have been cut to school districts. She'll be earning $16k/year next year as a teaching fellow, albeit earning her education Master's while doing it. We have a fri…

Your wife is being paid to go to school and she'll make better money as a teacher when she completes? Brilliant, welcome to the middle class. If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice), you can get a roommate, a beater car, and still have a fun life. That's not exploitation, that's her choice. If she wants the responsibility of providing for a family, she should probably take on…

>If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice),

As a matter of fact, her old employer never gave her full-year hours, so she had to deal with a basically minimum-wage income of ~$15k/year. She finally found a new foodservice position in her area (where she can afford the housing costs in mere driving distance to work) that will convert her to full-time this year, so she's making a bit of a move up. She's also been attending community college to become a paralegal, but that takes time when you're working and also dealing with personal issues.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#94

Post by lacker »

chrismealy wrote: post #8

The author has been on the payroll of the Koch brothers for most of his career.

Not really. The author has been a professor at George Mason for most of his career, and it's quite a stretch to refer to the whole faculty of George Mason as "on the payroll of the Koch brothers".

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#95

Post by seasharp »

aaronchall wrote: post #80
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-anecdote: my wife has a Master's degree and works 60 hours a week, trying to transition from biotech to teaching. She has to cobble together multiple jobs, some of which are in the "low-wage sectors". She works 60 hours a week because, well, budgets have been cut to school districts. She'll be earning $16k/year next year as a teaching fellow, albeit earning her education Master's while doing it. We have a fri…

Your wife is being paid to go to school and she'll make better money as a teacher when she completes? Brilliant, welcome to the middle class. If you're unambitious and living on 20k a year (like your friend in foodservice), you can get a roommate, a beater car, and still have a fun life. That's not exploitation, that's her choice. If she wants the responsibility of providing for a family, she should probably take on…

And she'll never be able to support a family, dying young or putting stress on social programs as she ages with no support network.

Then after 30 years of these low skill folks dying off without having kids everyone will be pooping their pants about millions of immigrants moving in to prop up our economy that we uprooted and wondering where the economic power of the west is headed.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#96

Post by ikeyany »

Jabanga wrote: post #88
eastWestMath wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus fucking christ dude, it's not about giving parents the opportunity to see their children be successful. It's about giving children the chance to be successful.

That's a great ideal to strive toward, but I don't see the case for forcing everyone to adopt that ideal.

You know, you're welcome to live in one of the hellhole countries that don't care about promoting the general welfare. We have that "ideal" literally written in the constitution.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#97

Post by tuukkah »

eric_b wrote: post #69
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So farmers have spent thousands of years of civilization valiantly striving to out-ubermensch each-other, and the rest of us just never heard about it? Shepherds? Priests? Scientists? Artists and writers? Shit, how have I missed the evolutionary war of all against all going on all around me? There are so many gene-rivals I could have stabbed in back-alleys! Or does evolution maybe allow for successful strategies towa…

Oh please, you're propping up a strawman. You don't need to be an "ubermensch" to survive, and that's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying you can't expect to be lazy and make bad choices and also expect to have as much as someone who works hard and makes smart choices. That was my point regarding evolutionary history and nature. Farmers that worked hard and planned ahead did better than those who did nothing. Thos…

"our society is set up for certain kind of people to succeed - but don't be mad when it doesn't work out great for you."

Here's the mistake in your thinking as a society can be set up to be fair or unfair. However, a society can be changed and does change. It's fine to be mad at unfairness, it's fine to fight unfairness via societal changes.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#98

Post by Jabanga »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #89
Jabanga wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's very constructive. The parent comment said [X] should be the rallying cry. I said in my opinion it shouldn't, and I gave my rationale. By all means bring out your chestnuts. I welcome a rigorous discussion, instead of blind conformity to mainstream political mores.

No, you don't welcome a rigorous discussion. You want to repeat discussions we've already had, in which you were not persuaded to others' points of view, and you didn't persuade them either. The likelihood that we'll all see the divine light of von Mises and convert this time is extraordinarily low. Stop trying.

I'm expressing my views. It's not constructive to tell people with minority viewpoints to stop expressing them.

I did nothing more than what the parent comment did.

I also don't think we're in a position to judge the full impact of our words on others, so I don't accept your assessment that no minds were changed by the previous discussions.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#99

Post by ashark »

eastWestMath wrote: post #44
Jabanga wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally disagree that this should be the rallying cry. Why should someone who invests nothing in their own children get to see their children have equal opportunities to the children of another person who invests everything into their children? Why should a person who has 10 children get to see each one have the same amount of opportunity as each one of the children of someone who has 2 children, assuming equal…

Jesus fucking christ dude, it's not about giving parents the opportunity to see their children be successful. It's about giving children the chance to be successful.

Don't bother responding. As soon as you catch a whiff of "taxation is theft" in a thread on the Internet you can be pretty sure you're communicating with someone who's solved government, coordination problems generally, and ethics from first principles (or, rather, read those who have, or been convinced in discussion with those who have read those who have). The only way to open them up to the possibility that some other conclusions might be valid would be to show them where weakly-justified axioms and non sequitur reasoning occur way back at the beginning of their understanding, which they missed the first time, and considering their (likely) psychological investment in the edifice atop those sands you're gonna have a rough time of it. You can try "but things seem to work pretty OK not doing what you're talking about" with specific examples, but they'll insist they'd work better still their way, and besides, your way is evil because (remember?) they solved ethics, et c., et c. This is a horse that's beaten endlessly online, to no purpose.

You may as well go punch a stone wall for a while instead.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#100

Post by Jabanga »

ikeyany wrote: post #90
Jabanga wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any basis for that. Substantial taxes could very well reduce how much one can invest into their own children. I also don't see how other countries doing it is a justification.

Do you really consider everyone paying their share to be 'substantial taxes'?

It depends what their share is.
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