Wealth inequality is the new normal

[Dan D]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Wealth inequality has always existed - so how is it the "new" normal?

If anything, the only "new" thing is that the forces of government are becoming more and more active in the process of "redistribution". Until it all falls down. Even then - its hardly "new" - just ask the Roman Empire. Oh wait - you can't...

That is waffle.

[CaptainHaplo]

It is leavened dough cooked between two plates in a distinctive pattern?
How so?

Or is there another meaning of the word I am not familiar with?

r is there another meaning of the word I am not familiar with?

Babbling without meaning.
Making as much sense as barking at the moon.
Saying words, yet with nothing to say.
Blathering nonsense.

Would you like more meanings of the word?

[Wolferz]

[nikimcbee]

That is waffle.

[Catfish]

What exactly is new on "unequal wealth distribution" ?

This has been existent since the existence of mankind, and the big herd letting do some egomaniacs what they want.

Pyramids and cathedrals - how would that have been created, without rich men sponsoring that, and thousands of poor and underpaid building it ?


But you are right, until 2000 there was at least an official pretense to do something to improve the situation for everyone.

But not anymore. This has gone down the drain after capitalism embraced the former soviet union around 1990.

[Skybird]

There have to be inequalities, else the economy would not have any motor to drive by. Uneven distribution is what keeps the goings going.

There is an interesting fact from social psychology. It fits so very well in contemporary discussions that claim to be about social "injustice" (how inflationary they abuse this word...), but are about envy.

If you have a group of people and make it that some of them have an increase in their material profits/benefits, and if their increase in profits is the reason for the profits of all others also raising, but not by the same level and degree for all people,

and when you next compare that situation with this situation:

where you have an equal raise in profits/benefits for all and everybody, but that raise being smaller than the raise the people would have had in the situation before,

and if you then evaluate the what people think about it by interviewing them, then social psychology already in the I think late 60s showed that people prefer scenario 2. People prefer to have smaller personal raises in income or profits, if they see there is nobody who has a higher net win then they have themselves. They prefer that to scenario 1, where they would have had higher personal profits, but seeing others getting even more.

In other words, most people prefer to be equal in having less, than to see distribution inequality even if even the smallest net gain for somebody would be higher and thus despite the inequality in distribution nevertheless all would still benefit more. What do we learn? People primnary motivation for deciding whether they agree with scenario 1 or 2, is not the perpsecxtiove to maximise their own possible netto gain, but their primary motivation is envy: nobody should have anything more than they have themselves, even if that means that they would have less than in scenario 1.

ENVY it is about, nothing else.

Biologists have reported repeatedly to have observed some behavior in chimpanzees being motivated by what apparently was envy as well. At least I randomly stumbled over such reports in some internet news three or four times in the past couple of years. However, they also reported they saw othe rbahvior patterns that seem to idnicate that chimps can learn the benefit of more altruistric, group-oriented behavior. Some birds, especially ravens and some others who are known to be very intelligent, also were reported to have shown group coordinated and altruistic behaviour of social give-and-take.

I am since long time a defender of the thesis that masses of people are not driven by higher, complex, noble motivations, but by primjtive instincts and basic motvations laying at the biological root of our existence. These basic motives get dressed in civilizational shine and glamour sometimes, but when the going gets tough, you see the thin layer of civilizational paint flaking off all too fast.

That has been shown in experimental settings already in the late 60s or early 70s, as I said. But it should be obvious that the general discussion today about "social justice" bases on the same psychological mechanism. Thus I said earlier, and repeatedly: in capitalism people are unevenly rich, in socialism people are all equal in poverty. And let'S face it, no other power in man's history has driven more people to raise their material income basis and has raised the wealth of civilizations more, and has fought poverty and misery more efficiently, than capitalism. What the critics now would fire in arguments speaking against that claim, in the end is - often valid! - criticism not of capitalism, but the abuse and distortion of capitalism mainly in the form of monopoly, often caused by the kind of regulation and state control and planned economy that they now want to see implemented even more drastically than it already is. And despite this massive harassment, capitalism still managed to have done more for the increase of general wealth, than any other ideology, religion, policy, whatever - that potent this capitalism is. The socialist economical experiments and ideas of planned economies there have been in the past 150 years - all have failed and collapsed. In the end, the idea of paper money and all the BS caused by it, also is nothing else but the incarnation of this idea, to have a planned, state-regulated economy.

What exactly is new on "unequal wealth distribution" ?

You didn't read the piece then?

[STEED]

Wealth inequality is back with a vengeance

It never went away.

[Dan D]

Why tax the income, the work people do? Work does not make you rich.
Remove the taxes on income and substantially increase the inheritence tax instead. Money makes the world go round. Spend your money!

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by Dan D

Why tax the income, the work people do? Work does not make you rich.
Remove the taxes on income and substantially increase the inheritence tax instead. Money makes the world go round. Spend your money!

Why tax anything at an "increased" rate? Why not shrink government? Work can and does make people rich. Yes - work ALONE will not make you rich - but nothing else will make you rich without work except inheritance.

Why not reduce the need for government to tax everything, get out of the way of people who are willing to not only work, but innovate?

Because too many people want no part of work - and instead want government to take from other people to give to them.

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by STEED

It never went away.

That was my point.

[Armistead]

Before income tax there were tariffs and sale taxes. I think the Yanks tried income tax during the CW, but did away with it. Seems withholding taxes came during WW2.

Anyway, doesn't matter, govt will always find away to extort money..

Why tax anything at an "increased" rate?

Good point.
Why should importing brandy attract a bigger tax than importing paper, why is there no tax on importing cocaine?
Food should be taxed at the same rate as a corporate jet and medicine should match the taxes on gambling.

Why not shrink government?

Good question.
Put 4 people in a room and see if you can get them to agree on what should be done away with and what should not be done away with.
If you can get even two of them to agree on the actual details it would be a miracle.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Dan D

Why tax the income, the work people do? Work does not make you rich.
Remove the taxes on income and substantially increase the inheritence tax instead. Money makes the world go round. Spend your money!

A communist's wet dream that is.

Leads to growing expropriation, demotivation to work and dare entrepreneurship, discouraging initiative and making own decisions, since the fruits of one life's work will not be given to the next generation of the family, but will be stolen, so why investing in that model at all? In the end it leads to growing amounts of publicly owned means of production, which means that nobody owns them and so nobody cares for and takes responsibility in maintaining them - but nevertheless thinks he owns it and thus everbody's demands and claims are mounting.

We have seen in the GDR how wonderfully collective property works. Every German should feel ashamed when already ignoring those lessons again, just 25 years later, as if they never have happened. United Germany still pays the bills for the monumental failure of that socialist experiment.

This is just the reason why - if I were a genius inventor or entrepreneur - I would not build my business in Germany or Europe or the West, but would either find another place where the fruits of my decisions and risks and investements and work remain with me - or I would refuse to build that business and leave just empty ground behind me and my life. I would refuse to allow myself getting owned by the plebs. I owe that to myself, to not allow that. To the plebs I owe nothing.

Collective property is never maintained properly, since nobody feels responsible for it, and just voices what he demands to get from it. Its so much easier to spend the money of somebody else. Your own money you are more hesitent to waste like that, and for what is yours you are much more caring, and invest more into its maintenance. That may not be up to the ideological demand of socialists and their dystopic, surreal ideas - but it is how man is ticking and how the market is functioning.

And history has proven the suicidal inferiority of the socialist model over and over and over and over again already. Capitalism is destroyed by its distortions (monopoly, cartel-building, market regulation), and by democratic forms of governments that necessarily lead to the socialist model of state and society. Socialism, no matter how it got implemented, is destroyed by itself.

One thing I admit. It would be extremely helpful, if there would be much, much, much, much smaller societies and population levels only . Regionally as well as globally. We are too many.

Atlas Shrugged has had it all so rightly predicted. It's as if it is the blueprint of the plan by which the West is destroying itself.