Wealth inequality is fair.

Originally posted by Quincy
This is a really interesting point of view, I'm curious about reading more about the difference between real capitalism and what we've got going on now

There are many issues. For example, the US productivity has gone down and there are a lot more zombie companies. These companies are being sustained by low interest rates and a Fed backstopped debt market. This is unproductive, and all the excess liquidity is driving up assets (Stock, RE etc) which are predominantly investment vehicles of the wealthy.

That’s not capitalism. That sounds like something the USSR would do. I understand keeping the markers functioning is important but when did we become so afraid of loss? Crashing markers are like a forest fire. It’s necessary to free up private capital for more productive allegation.

America was just fine without the government hand holding the investor class, I’m not sure how this was sold to the public.

Countries like Sweden, Switzerland etc are ironically more free. The Scandinavian socialist experiment was disastrous in the 60s and they quickly learned.

Government should do for the people what they can’t do for themselves. That means military and EMS, regulation, worker rights,antitrust enforcement, social services etc.

Originally posted by Scribble
Great. Doesn't mean it's going to last.

It's weighted toward exponential corruption and marginalisation, and so will eventually crack like any other model.
'Real Capitalism has never been tried', essentially. Capitalists use the same rhetoric as communists in this regard. Free-Market Capitalism would work if everyone was selfless, humble and generous, just as (anarcho) communism would work is everyone was selfless, humble and generous.

As it is, we have a corrupt society, leaning every more towards corruption. But, y'know, what can you do with people? They simply don't work.
UBI is very much becoming a clear direction to take, but people freak out and wail "it's communism!!" as if capitalism isn't already ****ing over most of us more and more each day. UBI is completely compatible with a free market system, for sure.

But I'm concerned that UBI combined with the corporate-capitalism we have now, combined with a burgeoning techno-industrial revolution, will leave a lot of people disenfranchised, marginalised, bereft of work, meaning, and any sense of hope for living.

I agree you have to be careful about making sure people aren't feeling marginalized. I don't know if that would require a change societal in culture where one's worth is only associated with a job. It may also require more I'm not sure.

Originally posted by Scribble
Great. Doesn't mean it's going to last.

It's weighted toward exponential corruption and marginalisation, and so will eventually crack like any other model.

'Real Capitalism has never been tried', essentially. Capitalists use the same rhetoric as communists in this regard. Free-Market Capitalism would work if everyone was selfless, humble and generous, just as (anarcho) communism would work is everyone was selfless, humble and generous.

As it is, we have a corrupt society, leaning every more towards corruption. But, y'know, what can you do with people? They simply don't work.
UBI is very much becoming a clear direction to take, but people freak out and wail "it's communism!!" as if capitalism isn't already ****ing over most of us more and more each day. UBI is completely compatible with a free market system, for sure.

But I'm concerned that UBI combined with the corporate-capitalism we have now, combined with a burgeoning techno-industrial revolution, will leave a lot of people disenfranchised, marginalised, bereft of work, meaning, and any sense of hope for living.

You just described human nature. What system solves for that? And how is it weighted towards that when it’s done more for uplifting the poor than anyone thought possible at an unprecedented rate?

This isn’t the socialist typical argument, which falls apart when you realize 72 (I believe so) countries have tried socialism in the last 100 years and 71 have failed. We have capitalism working in many countries with less income inequality.

I was not against UBI until the recent Covid intervention. The impact it has here on some many people I know in Canada (We essentially had UBI for a few months) convinced me it was bad.

I read Andrew Yangs book, the best promoter for UBI in North American history. I understand all it’s merits, and it could work if Andrew Yang was President maybe, and had both houses but otherwise more harm than good.

Originally posted by Newjak
I think you hit the nail on the head with your description of real capitalism.

I agree you have to be careful about making sure people aren't feeling marginalized. I don't know if that would require a change societal in culture where one's worth is only associated with a job. It may also require more I'm not sure.

A change in societal outlook and economic structure could possibly change that — fewer working hours, more rewarding work — but that change is hard to come by. I don't think it's possible in a global-oriented world. Currently, the elites of global society are essentially emperors, carried on the breaking backs of the underclasses, and the greed of those elites is too great to be sustained by anything but extreme work hours for meagre pay.

I think we'd need to revert to smaller cultures, so as to create local working environments that didn't require people to slave away in breakneck Amazon workhouses for £10 an hour. Satisfaction and wellbeing would come from having the free time to spend with family & friends, work on personal projects, and the knowledge that you are benefiting your local community.

Originally posted by Newjak
That is false statement to say government got us here. There is historical context to show capitalism always tends to go towards hi levels of income inequality until something comes into reset the status quo. Often times in American history this has been the U.S. government doing the much needed reset.

I noticed you mentioned that capitalism is the best mechanism we have to stop poverty. I don't completely agree or disagree with that statement. Ultimately a number of factors go into what allows individuals to come out of poverty.

For instance a lot of people like to cite China's rising income to show the greatness of capitalism. Yet most of those income increases have stagnated and still fall under the international poverty metrics and cost of living metrics.

Even in the U.S. income inequality is ballooning as more and more Americans go into poverty. The interesting thing is the biggest increases in income inequality tend to come from when Republicans control the government. Which is interesting because those are the times that capitalism is supposed to be set free.

The analogy I can come up with is that capitalism is like a fire. It can be very useful but if it's not controlled or reigned in it can cause even more damage then the problems it was solving.

How can you not agree? That’s an indisputable fact. It’s like arguing gravity is not real. Do you need data sources? I don’t want to be annoying, but there’s a book on my table called Factfulness that is hundreds of pages of data showing improvement.

On China: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/wages

The growth looks exponentional if you zoom all the way out. China has wealth inequality but 850 million people were raised out of poverty in 30 years. It’s basically magic. Adopting free market policies.

But all that aside, how does UBI solve the problems created by wealth inequality? UBI solves a few problems but how is wealthy inequality addressed by this? You want to address poverty levels I take it, that might be helpful, but it doesn’t change the accumulation of wealth by the top 1%.

Wealth inequality is driven or felt most by rising asset prices mostly (Hello government), rising cost of education (Hello government) and housing costs (Hello government). UBI doesn’t fix this.

Originally posted by Rage.Of.Olympus
You just described human nature. What system solves for that? And how is it weighted towards that when it’s done more for uplifting the poor than anyone thought possible at an unprecedented rate?

This isn’t the socialist typical argument, which falls apart when you realize 72 (I believe so) countries have tried socialism in the last 100 years and 71 have failed. We have capitalism working in many countries with less income inequality.

I was not against UBI until the recent Covid intervention. The impact it has here on some many people I know in Canada (We essentially had UBI for a few months) convinced me it was bad.

I read Andrew Yangs book, the best promoter for UBI in North American history. I understand all it’s merits, and it could work if Andrew Yang was President maybe, and had both houses but otherwise more harm than good.

In countries with freshly-developing economies, i.e. new to the global capitalist model, the overall quality of life is raising. In countries already mired in the lobbying, bureaucracy and corruption of corporate-capitalism, quality of life is dropping. As I said in my above post, people are working 60 hours a week and barely cracking even. Capitalism is not sustainable. Whether it is ideologically 'good' or not is beside the point. It simply won't last forever, and looks to already be cracking in the west.

What about the COVID circumstances convinced you that UBI was a bad idea? I don't know much about the Canadian system, I have to say.

UBI is just a bandaid to crony capitalism.

Originally posted by Newjak
Yet it's proven multiple times in history that when there is a large income inequality gap it shows that the system is unfair and broken where the wealthy abuse their wealth power to get more wealth until the economy collapses around them.

@newjack

I can’t edit my post, but basically my argument boils down to why is more government beneficial when it’s what got us into every major problem?

This is a very complicated subject and really hard to talk about without linking to research or being in person. UBI sounds good on paper, but I’m instinctively against it. There are like a laundry list of other issues to address that sets America up for its more free capitalist roots that would solve these problems in five years. UBI is like an IV drip for a cancer patient.

For example, stop privatizing gains and publicly sharing the losses for large corporations and the investor class. Start enforcing anti trust policies. Stop backstopping the market with liquidity, raising asset prices and pricing people out of homes or investing. Take the government out of education and use the Norway model instead.

Originally posted by Old Man Whirly!
didn't eon make exactly this thread with a different title a few weeks ago?

Originally posted by Neon1234
No.

That thread was about people freeloading.

I think Capitalism has a close amount of pros and cons.

I think a lot of people forget that, just because one is wealthy, he/she doesn't work hard.

I grew up in a wealthier family. My mother made a 6-figure income, but damn, I can't say I have met anyone yet that worked as hard as she did. I remember her getting stress breakdowns that were generated from her job.

Originally posted by Rage.Of.Olympus
How can you not agree? That’s an indisputable fact. It’s like arguing gravity is not real. Do you need data sources? I don’t want to be annoying, but there’s a book on my table called Factfulness that is hundreds of pages of data showing improvement.

On China: https://tradingeconomics.com/china/wages

The growth looks exponentional if you zoom all the way out. China has wealth inequality but 850 million people were raised out of poverty in 30 years. It’s basically magic. Adopting free market policies.

But all that aside, how does UBI solve the problems created by wealth inequality? UBI solves a few problems but how is wealthy inequality addressed by this? You want to address poverty levels I take it, that might be helpful, but it doesn’t change the accumulation of wealth by the top 1%.

Wealth inequality is driven or felt most by rising asset prices mostly (Hello government), rising cost of education (Hello government) and housing costs (Hello government). UBI doesn’t fix this.

Have you actually looked at the median earnings of the Chinese raised out "poverty".

They still make low incomes and struggle to survive with very little to no growth. In fact the overwhelming amount of wealth is going to the upper level earners much like here in the U.S.

Plus Chinese workers work long hours, have very little benefits, and have poor working conditions.

Actually the rising cost of of education can be traced back to when the government opened up college loans to private loan companies. Which is actually capitalists.

You can also trace high levels of medical cost increases to private insurance companies and rising premiums. :/

But ultimately the biggest culprit is inflation and the natural cost of living increasing over time. Wages have stagnated for the working class of America while the top earners have seen increased wages over the same time period in dramatic fashion. This is another standard marker we see when you see large income inequality.

A UBI isn't the only thing that would be needed to battle large income inequality but having one that covers a living wage guarantees a minimum standard of living that people can't fall below. This would need to be adjusted for inflation over time as well.

@Scribble I don't disagree with your assessment of global elites.

A big myth people have, is that those that are well off, don't work hard.

@RoO

Government has limited capitalism overreach before in the past. Look at the coal miner issues and Union laws that all had to get passed to curb corporate enslavement in the U.S.

Child labor laws, work condition laws, employee benefit laws, laws that protect workers from unjust discrimination.

Like I said government often has been needed to curb corporate greed before in the past.

Just because it doesn't always step doesn't mean it doesn't play an important role.

Originally posted by Neon1234
A big myth people have, is that those that are well off, don't work hard.

Some of the hardest working people I know have worked in low income jobs.

Originally posted by Newjak
A bigger myth people have, is that those that are not well off, don't work hard.

Some of the hardest working people I know have worked in low income jobs.

Originally posted by Newjak
A bigger myth people have, is that those that are not well off, don't work hard.

Some of the hardest working people I know have worked in low income jobs.

The political arena should just stop talking about it. 😬

Originally posted by Newjak
@Scribble I don't disagree with your assessment of global elites.

Originally posted by Newjak
A bigger myth people have, is that those that are not well off, don't work hard.

Some of the hardest working people I know have worked in low income jobs.

Originally posted by Old Man Whirly!
Absolutely.

Originally posted by victreebelvictr
As I said, pros and cons.

The political arena should just stop talking about it. 😬