51–60 of 196 posts
Is there an inherent problem with income inequality? Would you rather live in: * World 1, where everybody has x, except one person has 100x * World 2, where everybody has .5x and is thus totally equal (I realize assets and income are not equal, but I think the point stands)
So looks like the 80s is when things start going south (increased income inequality) so I looked up who was president during that time, then looked at their wiki page to see their economic policy and found this gem of a quote: "Soon after taking office, Reagan began implementing sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reduction to sp…
It was sold to the middle class as "Trickle down economics". Basically, if you make the rich richer, your pie gets bigger too. Sadly, people bought that line.
Economics, as the expression of human beings exchanging with each other, accepts neither.
Is there an inherent problem with income inequality? Would you rather live in: * World 1, where everybody has x, except one person has 100x * World 2, where everybody has .5x and is thus totally equal (I realize assets and income are not equal, but I think the point stands)
It is interesting, though, that your idea of what's grokable is so far from reality
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still amazed at how effectively we have collectively shunned thought along these lines by turning the founding father of the relevant branch of economical philosophy into a real life he-who-shall-not-be-named. Anyone who wants to talk about these problems either has to either re-invent the wheel or mention the unmentionable name and doom themselves to immediate dismissal as a kook.
Probably because the implementations tried have failed so badly. If people distanced themselves from the hammer and sickle, communism could possibly be given another chance but in the meantime it looks like people showing that icon either don't know about history or they have explained it away quite callously.
Implementations of Leninism did, sure, but (deliberate mislabeling aside), I'm not sure what that has to do with Marc, since Leninism rejected the preconditions Marx laid out and altered the approach to address the changed preconditions.
Leninism is farther from Marxism than the near-universal abandonment of the system Marx named “capitalism” for modern mixed economies (which, to be sure, is still pretty far from Marxism), so if you are going to blame Marx at all for the failure of the former, you have to credit him at least as much for the success of the latter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who are you talking about?
Karl Marx. And I see the point the parent is making, although that's probably more of an issue in the USA than in Europe for instance. And I do agree that it's a shame because the writings of Marx are extremely interesting and deserve to be studied and discussed even if you don't believe in socialism and communism, it's really about economy in general first and foremost. Dismissing this important ground-breaking work…
So there -- not only the phrase makes perfect sense if you do read Gramsci like I have, it's been uttered by Marxist professors somewhere in the world sometime this century.
This is a very US - centric view. With globalization I think a different picture emerges. Increasing global trade has hurt US (and Other Western) working classes with de-industrialization, where many more people foreign countries have been lifted out of poverty.
What's the best solution to this - if wealthy and high-income individuals get more power via political lobbying, they can then gain more wealth and higher incomes, gaining even more lobbying power. They can also flood the media with advertising money and propagandist messaging to convince voters to care more about less impactful issues. It feels like an endless cycle to me. Other than war or complete societal upheava…
> Other than war or complete societal upheaval, what can actually be done to solve the problem? A wealth (not income) tax.
The font is terrible, but this is the shortest explanation of it that I could find easily:
http://faculty.seattlecentral.edu/jhubert/wiltchamberlainarg...
What's the best solution to this - if wealthy and high-income individuals get more power via political lobbying, they can then gain more wealth and higher incomes, gaining even more lobbying power. They can also flood the media with advertising money and propagandist messaging to convince voters to care more about less impactful issues. It feels like an endless cycle to me. Other than war or complete societal upheava…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who are you talking about?
Karl Marx. And I see the point the parent is making, although that's probably more of an issue in the USA than in Europe for instance. And I do agree that it's a shame because the writings of Marx are extremely interesting and deserve to be studied and discussed even if you don't believe in socialism and communism, it's really about economy in general first and foremost. Dismissing this important ground-breaking work…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who are you talking about?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_Brothers e: Oh shit I just realized who I'm replying to. Serious answer time. Socialism will be a disruptive new paradigm for start-ups and other businesses where (following the idea of a meritocracy) workers, and not stuffy old capitalists, each own an equal number of shares at their place of work. And even more innovative in structure than Zappos and Valve, it allows for capital i…