Capitalism Guarantees Rising Inequality

[RandomVariable]

Should we choose socialism and give the country to the poor or choose capitalism and give the country to the rich?

 

[Contumacious]

Um, just move to Cuba or China where they don't have Capitalism.

The biggest threat to capitalism is capitalism.

Horseshit. China and Russia are moving towards more capitalism and freedom because they are realizing that socialism, marxism, leninism, and maoism are not working. Their economies are booming while ours is stagnating.

We are trying to repeat what caused their economies to fail

i.e. we are stupid.

Bullshit.

China and Russia are moving towards mercantilism.

.

 

[francoHFW]

This started in the early 80's in the USA and the UK because that's when pander to the rich voodoo tax rates started under Reagan and Thatcher. They've stayed basically the same in those most savage capitalist countries. That's what needs to change, and it's now started, thank god. O-care also helps. At the moment in the US, the bottom fifth pays 16 per cent in ALL taxes and fees, and the top 2 percent at least triples their wealth while the rest and the country go to hell. Vote DEM, stupid.

 

[georgephillip]

Do you find the following content untruthful?

"We live in a world rife with inequality of wealth, income, power and influence. It is the underlying cause of deep-seated social tensions, community divisions and a range of poisons that cause terrible suffering to millions of people.

"The disparity between the wealthy minority and the billions living in suffocating poverty is greater than it has ever been.

"Worldwide it is estimated that the wealthiest 10 per cent owns 85 per cent of global household wealth.

"According to Wikipedia, 'As of May 2005, the three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 47 countries with the last GDP', and 'The richest 2 per cent of the world population own more than 51 per cent of the global assets'.

Is Wikipedia another commie propaganda site?

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

You say:
"Worldwide it is estimated that the wealthiest 10 per cent owns 85 per cent of global household wealth."
This is because they work harder and smarter than the rest of us. Ask any republican. And if these wealthy people end up owning 99.9% of everything eventually? Then they still deserve it because they work harder and smarter now stop being so jealous.

That's right and follow human nature its not your money so go earn it by having your government get out of the way. Andyou too might get rich

The private fortunes that capitalism produces are always a result of government privatizing profit and socializing cost. Do you detect a vestige of human nature in that arrangement? Think back to the collapse of 2008 if you're still in denial about how capitalism needs government to "get out of the way".

BTW, as it ever occurred to you that getting rich might be the problem?

 

[RandomVariable]

The biggest threat to capitalism is capitalism.

Horseshit. China and Russia are moving towards more capitalism and freedom because they are realizing that socialism, marxism, leninism, and maoism are not working. Their economies are booming while ours is stagnating.

We are trying to repeat what caused their economies to fail

i.e. we are stupid.

Bullshit.

China and Russia are moving towards mercantilism.

.

I found this paragraph from your referenced article an excellent assessment of capitalism and the state.

A vital question is who is likely to get control of the state? As the
articles by Florence Babb on Peru and Barbara Lessinger on India
make clear, it is the wealthy merchants, or "capitalists," who are often
in a position to use their wealth to gain control of the state. But it is
here that the distinction between capitalism as an economic system
and the actions of the so-called "capitalists" is fundamental. The
"capitalists" have little interest in free trade, as such; their goal is to
make money. In fact, it is because the never-ending threat of compe-
tition on the free market renders their position perpetually insecure
that the "capitalists" strive to control the state. Put differently, far
from the market being an institution of power on a par with the state,
as the Marxists believe, the only reason the "capitalists" seek to
control the state is precisely because the vaunted notion of "market
power" or "economic domination" simply does not exist on the unham-
pered market. Thus, it is only through control of the state that the
"capitalists" are able to control access to the market, thereby institu-
tionalizing their economic positions.

*David Osterfeld is professor of political science at Saint Joseph's College.
The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1991): 107-114
ISSN 0889-3047

 

[francoHFW]

Socialism these days, btw hater dupes, is basically well regulated capitalism with a good safety net. Without that, you get a banana republic that works for just 1 per cent...

 

[deltex1]

Cut the crap. Human beings/human activity creates inequality. Some are smarter than others. Some work harder than others. Some make better choices. Some are selfish. Some are greedy. Some are lazy. Some are stupid. Some are lucky...some not. Inequality is. That is why the nuns told me to concentrate on saving my soul...so as to be happy with God in heaven...and not to fret over who has what. Pax vobiscum.

 

[georgephillip]

When America was a truly free market capitalist nation, it generated the largest middle class and the greatest generation of wealth ever seen in all of world history.

Then...things changed decades ago when America turned away from capitalism and followed the path of collectivism...which has resulted in drops in income and wealth for most Americans, to say nothing of lost liberty. Yet, there are those who condemn capitalism for this decline, when in fact, the decline is the result of the opposite of capitalism.

When has America ever been a truly free market capitalist nation? Got some dates?

We were very close to a truly free market capitalist nation for about the first one hundred years. But, as the central government grew and was allowed to pick winners and losers, this all changed. It really changed in a big way with the asshole Wilson, who imposed the Federal Reserve and the income tax resulting in the omnipresent huge tyrannical central government we suffer under today.

Do you consider tariffs a sign of free market capitalism?

"The Tariff of 1828 was a protective tariff passed by the Congress of the United States on May 19, 1828, designed to protect industry in the northern United States.

"It was labeled the Tariff of Abominations by its southern detractors because of the effects it had on the antebellum Southern economy.

"The major goal of the tariff was to protect industries in the northern United States (which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods) by putting a tax on them.

"The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the US made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South.[1]

"The reaction in the South, particularly in South Carolina, would lead to the Nullification Crisis that began in late 1832.[2]

"The tariff marked the high point of US tariffs. It was approached, but not exceeded, by the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.[3]"

Tariff of Abominations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

This started in the early 80's in the USA and the UK because that's when pander to the rich voodoo tax rates started under Reagan and Thatcher. They've stayed basically the same in those most savage capitalist countries. That's what needs to change, and it's now started, thank god. O-care also helps. At the moment in the US, the bottom fifth pays 16 per cent in ALL taxes and fees, and the top 2 percent at least triples their wealth while the rest and the country go to hell. Vote DEM, stupid.

At the moment in the US, the bottom fifth pays 16 per cent in ALL taxes and fees,

Show me.

 

[georgephillip]

It works for about 1% - 10% of the population.

The other 90% pay the taxes and fight the wars that capitalism can't exist without.

In the US, the top 10% paid over 70% of the income taxes collected in 2010.
A heck of a lot more than the 90% paid.

What percentage of US workers earn enough to be required to pay income taxes?
The total percentage of income paid in taxes of all kinds is much greater for the 90%.

You're full of it. No possible way you could back that nonsense up.

so is the total percentage of US blood wasted on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

What a flagrant red herring. I oppose the wars, but what an irrelevant point to the discussion.

"Roughly half of Americans who pay no Federal income tax do so because they simply don't earn enough money.

"The other half doesn't pay taxes because of special provisions in the tax code that benefit certain taxpayers, notably the elderly and working families with children.

"For example, the tax code excludes a portion of Social Security income and gives larger standard deductions and tax credits to the elderly.

"And many working families with children qualify for both the child credit and the earned income tax credit.

"Together, the elderly and working families with children account for 74 percent of all nontaxable households that aren't excluded by income level alone [source: Williams].

"So who are the 49 percent of Americans who don't pay income taxes?

"The vast majority are the lowest income households, the elderly and young working families with children."

HowStuffWorks "Is it true that only 53 percent of Americans pay income tax?"

Arms sales and oil sales are the two biggest money makers on the planet.
Can you connect those dots in the New Middle East?

 

[bripat9643]

When has America ever been a truly free market capitalist nation? Got some dates?

We were very close to a truly free market capitalist nation for about the first one hundred years. But, as the central government grew and was allowed to pick winners and losers, this all changed. It really changed in a big way with the asshole Wilson, who imposed the Federal Reserve and the income tax resulting in the omnipresent huge tyrannical central government we suffer under today.

Do you consider tariffs a sign of free market capitalism?

"The Tariff of 1828 was a protective tariff passed by the Congress of the United States on May 19, 1828, designed to protect industry in the northern United States.

"It was labeled the Tariff of Abominations by its southern detractors because of the effects it had on the antebellum Southern economy.

"The major goal of the tariff was to protect industries in the northern United States (which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods) by putting a tax on them.

"The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the US made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South.[1]

"The reaction in the South, particularly in South Carolina, would lead to the Nullification Crisis that began in late 1832.[2]

"The tariff marked the high point of US tariffs. It was approached, but not exceeded, by the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.[3]"

Tariff of Abominations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You think one tariff means it was socialist?

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

Seeing how much of modern technology wouldn't exist if not for capitalism and freedom of thought. I'll just have to say that life would be utter hell without capitalism.

When has pure socialism been successful? The human economy works like a engine...You need input and out put. Socialism is only good at output....

How are you defining "input" and "output"?
Modern technology stems from human labor and much of the research that has made it possible comes from public and not private capital.

Try telling that to those creative entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs.

 

[P@triot]

Human nature.

Those that don't have it, either didn't have the ambition to go get it, as is the case in the US, as nothing except themselves is preventing them from doing so, OR elsewhere in the world, they live in a culture governed by relativism, which places the subjective in positions of power, that precludes them from exercising their natural right to do so, inevitably misinforming those individuals through fraudulent notions, that they're entitled to subsistent or in the worst case, they can't do for themselves and will only take what is given to them.

Now the simple truth is that just about any nature conservancy will tell you how destructive entitlement subsidies are. Particularly for creatures that can't reason soundly.

It's not truly not even a debatable point.

If human nature isn't a debatable point, what is?

"At the core of every social, political, and economic system is a picture of human nature (to paraphrase 20th-century columnist Walter Lippmann).

"The suppositions we begin with—the ways in which that picture is developed—determine the lives we lead, the institutions we build, and the civilizations we create.

"They are the foundation stone.

"Three Views of Human Nature

"During the 18th century—a period that saw the advent of modern capitalism—there were several different currents of thought about the nature of the human person. Three models were particularly significant.

"One model was that humans, while flawed, are perfectible.

"A second was that we are flawed, and fatally so; we need to accept and build our society around this unpleasant reality.

"A third view was that although human beings are flawed, we are capable of virtuous acts and self-government—that under the right circumstances, human nature can work to the advantage of the whole."

What's your choice?

Human Nature and Capitalism ? The American Magazine

Humans obviously aren't perfectible and they obviously aren't capable of governing themselves. Leastwise, you aren't capable of governing me.

So what does that leave you?

As the great Ronald Reagan said: "If no man among us is capable of governing themselves, who among us is capable of governing others"?

 

[P@triot]

Should we choose socialism and give the country to the poor or choose capitalism and give the country to the rich?

Well since the wealthy has proven their ability to create wealth, navigate the waters, and innovate, while the poor has proven their inability to do all of that, I'd say the choice is painfully obvious.....

 

[ShaklesOfBigGov]

No one has benefitted more from capitalism more than poor people. Their quality of life is a million times better than it used to be.

Bullshit. In the past 30 years the poor saw their incomes stagnating, while the incomes of 1% had increased hundreds percents.

I doubt the poor in the United States really knows what it means to be living in destitute behind those cell phones, cheap computers roaming the internet, and lobster from government food stamps.

Program offers $9.95 Internet to poor RI families - Metro - The Boston Globe

 

[P@triot]

During his CBC show on Monday, “Shark Tank” star and mega-wealthy investor Kevin O’Leary responded to a report that the 85 richest people in the world currently have as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, calling it “fantastic news.”

“This is a great thing because it inspires everybody, gets them motivation to look up to the 1% and say, ‘I want to become one of those people, I’m going to fight hard to get up to the top.’ This is fantastic news and of course I applaud it. What can be wrong with this?” he said of the new report.

Shark Tank Star's Response to News That 85 Richest People Have Same Wealth as Half the World Will Drive the Left Insane

 

[P@triot]

No one has benefitted more from capitalism more than poor people. Their quality of life is a million times better than it used to be.

Bullshit. In the past 30 years the poor saw their incomes stagnating, while the incomes of 1% had increased hundreds percents.

I doubt the poor in the United States really knows what it means to be living in destitute behind those cell phones, cheap computers roaming the internet, and lobster from government food stamps.

Program offers $9.95 Internet to poor RI families - Metro - The Boston Globe

The fact that the "poor" in America have such an ungodly amount of completely frivolous luxuries is glaring evidence that capitalism is flawless and that these asshats whining in this thread are just envious little haters.

 

[P@triot]

Even the Huffington Post realize how stupid you people are....

Lisa Earle McLeod: Why Hating Rich People Is Making You Broke

 

[Publius1787]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

Capitalism does increase income inequality. Before capitalism the 99.9999% was equally dirt poor. Now we have massive income inequality but the standard of living for everyone has dramatically risen.

You may thank capitalism for the following. Who knew that greed could benefit man kind to such an extent? It seems to me that "selfishness" has done more to life people out of poverty than any other virtue.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo]Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Dirk the Daring]

In a capitalistic economy, we have a system that rewards people monetarily for their hard work, their ingenuity, their perservence, etc. And in that system, we STILL have those who are unwilling to work, unwilling to fight for their reward.

Those who subscribe to socialism however believe that when the opportunity for reward is removed from the equation, those who were unwilling to work for their personal benefit will suddenly and incredibly CHOOSE to work not for themselves, but for everyone else. Such a silly notion that could only be dreamed of by someone as ignorant as a liberal. But hey, maybe someday they'll get their wish, and we can continue this debate when we are EQUALLY in line at our local soup kitchen.