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'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

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Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#131

Post by ZoeZoeBee »

Rapzid wrote: post #75
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…

Only 100 years ago? A lot? It appears the federal government has been involved in public education nearly from the start. Article I Section 8 of the constitution provides impetus; "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;". From the very start the federal government has provided la…

First Land Grants for Public Schools came about with the Morill Act in 1862

https://www.nap.edu/read/4980/chapter/2

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#132

Post by ikeyany »

Jabanga wrote: post #103
ikeyany wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're also welcome to not respond to me if my views bother you. I'm simply expressing my viewpoint. There is nothing in the Constitution about social welfare programs to provide equality of opportunity. It's all about the "general welfare", which had a distinctly non-redistribitive definition in the 18th century. > it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers,…

It's clear you're expressing your viewpoint, just know that they seem to be in line with sociopaths. Pulling the rug out from under others is right in line with what white supremacists believe.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#133

Post by CuriouslyC »

Jabanga wrote: post #109
openasocket wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's truly an investment, we could let the student loan market handle it, since the returns (in increased income) exceed the costs. Student loans? I'm talking about primary and secondary education, not college education. I'm assuming you aren't talking about privatizing those and using students loans to funding things, right?

I'm saying that if funding primary education produces societal returns, that must mean the net increase in earning potential exceeds the cost of the education, and therefore it would be profitable to issue student loans to the poor parents of children who would make good use of that education.

Great, get a child locked into debt slavery from the start. Sounds like a good recipe for violent revolution.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#134

Post by nailer »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #126
nailer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The likelihood that we'll all see the divine light of von Mises and convert this time is extraordinarily low. I disagree with Jabanga but the "market incentive to pay for smart kids to learn" is interesting - I'd say it's also very risky - a poor child's parents don't want to pay for the child's education, they're not smart, they decide to rob people, this isn't good for anyone. But I welcome the discussion and Jab…

>But I welcome the discussion and Jabanga has been polite so far. No, I don't think he has been. His core premise is, "taxation is theft ", that is, providing government services with tax money is morally wrong. From there, he has dragged us all into trying to refute his entirely rationalized ideological structure, which claims descriptively that taxing people and using it to provide services has inferior results to…

Believing in something you find morally wrong is not downright rude. Insisting someone else has no right to their opinion is.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#135

Post by CuriouslyC »

Jabanga wrote: post #77
kefka wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know right? Those poor people's kids don't deserve: Clean water, electricity, a home, education, or any of those "rich people" things. If they did deserve it, they'd have them. Since they dont, they deserve a life of misery, suffering, and edging to destitution. ^^^ If you can understand the above, its the reason why youre on the wrong side of history here. You can couch the discussion as "stealing from the r…

They don't deserve to take someone else's money by force, in order to pay for those things. I don't think opposing forced income redistribution puts me on the side of history.

Every capitalist fortune can be trace to appropriation of shared culture and resources. Nothing is created from nothing. The people cede control of culture and resources so that they might maximize the shared good. Intellectual and physical property rights are a grant by the people. Redistribution of income as a condition of that grant is an agreement, not stealing.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#136

Post by tankenmate »

humanrebar wrote: post #82
thomasmeeks wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a fair point and I know plenty of people like that as well. However, to give another perspective on it. When I think of changing an unequal situation, I look at the situations you described like this: "Did something happen early on in that person's life that just kind of made them give up?" I've known people like that, and although it is _also_ true that they _could_ lift themselves out of that situation, when…

> Did something happen early on in that person's life that just kind of made them give up? That is a retrospective way to address fairness. Another is, "Given where they are, can they start doing better and end up in a better place?" A systemic problem that can (or used to) shove people down economically could be different than a systemic problem that doesn't allow a (reasonable) way to advance once they're at the bo…

Indeed, in the UK a single working parent with one child on the minimum income working between 30 to 40 hours a week has an effective marginal tax rate of 91% (every extra pound earned means 91 pence is transferred to the government via income tax, national insurance, and reduced benefits). No wonder most single parents in the UK don't want to work. And the well off complain about a, before deductions, rate of 40%.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#137

Post by douche »

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'?

Everyone paying their share would be a flat tax, not the current top-heavy and over-complicated system where nearly half of Americans don't pay any income taxes, and the rest prop up a multi-billion dollar industry of leeches, trying to minimize the amount that they have to pay out.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#138

Post by kefka »

Jabanga wrote: post #122
kefka wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're internalizing "take someone else's money by force". This really goes back to Americans being temporarily embarrassed capitalists, regardless their real financial livelihood. And working-class thinks that we're talking about them when it comes to "We're gonna take their money" - We are, some. But we're also going to provide a baseline for everyone no matter what. > I don't think opposing forced income redis…

>This is a matter of "How does the government serve the citizenry". By taking other people's income? I don't think that's fair. >Because people who are rich did not do so themselves in a little bubble. Their successes rest in part on all of us. That doesn't seem like a scientific way to determine how much one owes another person. In my opinion it's not consistent with the principle of justice. It's a very sweeping ge…

> By taking other people's income? I don't think that's fair.

But you don't ask that when they extract peoples' money on the upswing. Only when I express that "socialism for losses and privatization for profits" do you have any problem with fairness.

> That doesn't seem like a scientific way to determine how much one owes another person. In my opinion it's not consistent with the principle of justice. It's a very sweeping generalization.

You want scientific and fair? We the people should own the proceeds from public lands. And that should be used to bolster lowering costs on food, electricity, water, and other resources.

Instead, our government is making "Deals" like selling whole trees for $3 to a wood cutter. Trees are usually in the range from $1000-$50000 , yet some private entity benefits on public's socialism.

Or we have eminent domain so some company can build something. Doesn't matter if it's not for public works. Again, socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor.

> How would they be standing on our backs in the absence of forcible redistribution?

Well, you seem to be an Ancap type, given your economic theory. Well, they'd just pay people to serve as a private militia to protect them. Like Somalia. Because people with pitchforks would come out, and take care of this and properly distribute.

Yeah, people can be richer than others... But there's a point that fairness surpasses when you have 1 person (or company) that owns an impressive amount of goods. We only look no further than environmental, societal, local, and government destruction due to extreme clout.

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#139

Post by openasocket »

Jabanga wrote: post #120
openasocket wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for education and fertility rates, this is not guaranteed to last That is not a valid retort. You can't just take a bunch of data points and discard all of them because "evolution has a way". I'm not extrapolating based on this data: these studies show that improving access to education in a wide variety of regions and cultures decreases fertility. These are completely valid statistics and research demonstrating…

Evolution is a well understood phenomenon. It's reasonable to extrapolate its long term effect, especially when very high levels of government spending on education is such a recent phenomenon.

You have a hypothesis, but do you have evidence supporting your conclusion? A study suggesting that increased access to education, or welfare in general, increases the birth rate among the poor? Maybe an example of a species which, upon a decrease in difficulty raising offspring (I'd accept a decrease in infant mortality as an example), started to produce more offspring than normal?

Re: 'Fight Inequality' Is a Poor Rallying Cry

#140

Post by Rapzid »

ZoeZoeBee wrote: post #131
Rapzid wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 100 years ago? A lot? It appears the federal government has been involved in public education nearly from the start. Article I Section 8 of the constitution provides impetus; "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;". From the very start the federal government has provided la…

First Land Grants for Public Schools came about with the Morill Act in 1862 https://www.nap.edu/read/4980/chapter/2

Perhaps for the sole purpose of schools(I don't know). However, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Ordinance_of_1785

I'm not sure what arguing over the minutia even accomplishes. I feel like I'm chasing a goal post all over my Friday afternoon. Government support for schooling has been provided by every level of the US government stack(municipal, county, state, federal) since WAY BACK, even to colonial times, to varying degrees. Public access to and public funding of education has increased along the way, yes.

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