ok, guy, whatever.  you're throwing out generalities without even bothering to quote a source.  your grasp of marxist theory and the history of the soviet union, based on your statements, is obviously null, and your emotional beef with the american education system is intruding on your analysis of places and times where it didn't even exist.  you're not interested in what socialism actually means, you're just interested in creating a bogey, calling it socialism, and beating it to death (you still haven't told me who "they" are).  i am not, nor have i ever tried to argue you into being a marxist, so WHY THE FUCK DO YOU KEEP TALKING TO ME LIKE THAT'S WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO???  i'm only saying, the "socialism" and "neo-marxism" you're so against has NOTHING to do with either marx or socialism.  that has ALWAYS been my point, and NOTHING ELSE.  go get reactionary with someone else, because your opinion doesn't mean dick to me.  just please clean up your terminology if you want to make a cogent argument.

"that's life...that's what the people say...you're ridin' high in april...you get shot down in may..."

I do love it when people on the right try to justify software theft as  if somehow its not stealing , there is no moral and in most countries legal difference  between pirating a piece of software and stealing a physical computer out of someone shop that has such software on both cases are straight theft (criminal matters).

The only real difference is the chances of getting caught, intellectual property is 100% a commodity

Well then try design a complex computer chip, computer board or a complex mechnical system without using expensive CAD software. You think you could do it?

Our company makes concrete objects(electronic boards, parts) which are made from cheap metal and plastic. The real value of our products is the design files and the people that know how to build them. I think you need to raise Marx from the dead to update his theories.

They'll be out of work when no one writes software to run on these computers. Why shouldn't I go down and steal the computers we need as well as the software? What's difference we need both to produce our product.

jesus fucking christ, are you THICK?  I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR SOFTWARE PROBLEMS NOR AM I TRYING TO PROSELYTIZE YOU.  I WOULD JUST LIKE YOU TO BOTHER READING UP ON MARXISM BEFORE YOU BANDY THAT TERM ABOUT LIKE A FUCKING CHEW TOY.

until you can grasp the basic concepts of marxism, we cannot talk about modern problems in a marxist framework, so i won't waste my time with an argument i never even tried to start.  go read up what "means of production" and "commodity" mean to a marxist and then i'll be happy to discuss whether or not intellectual property fits in that framework, but right now you're just looking for me to make some excuse why i want to give half your paycheck to joe blow across the street or some bullshit like that so you can pounce.

I find it interesting that you are doing exactly what your tag line is against.  Yes, it sucks that some people are irresponsible asses.  However, they do not live well.  Even if they have managed some sort of long-term status on welfare or disability, their life in poverty sucks.  You are not going to be able to set up a human run system that entirely keeps these people from obtaining charity.  You have stated that you do believe in temporary assistance for people who need it.  Some of those funds are always going to go to people who don't deserve anything from others.  However, the reason that we have such programs is because the majority of the money does go to help people who do contribute to society when they can.

Yes, it sucks that not everyone can take care of themselves.  That's just part of life and why humans band together.  We often survive based on our connections to each other rather than our individual abilities.  That does benefit humanity as a whole, and will continue to do so.

I would remind you that people start businesses for all kinds of reasons, economics only being a part of it.  Gates liked playing around with technology and would have done so no matter what.  Carnegie liked power and found it in business.  Buffett sees how businesses fit into the overall economy and likes to play with that (think a talent for Monopoly).  Did you not get a sense of accomplishment from your business success?  Did you like the freedoms involved in being your own boss, the challenges in making a business thrive, the ability to provide employment for others, etc.? 

I do think one of the major failures of our current economic structure is no true differentiation between small and large business.  You are correct in looking at ways in which we need to reform the rules for small business.  Just the way small business is defined is ludicrous. (http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/serv_sstd_tablepdf.pdf)

That doesn't mean all business rules should be scrapped, it means we need to change how small business is treated.  What works for the local mom and pop is not going to work for Kraft and vice verse.

We are not created equal and people should be able to benefit from their particular talents.  And since everyone benefits in one way or another from society, they do owe what they can give to society.  However, the pure capitalism that you advocate causes societal imbalances.  A mix of capitalism and socialism (such as Western Europe has) has proven to be the most beneficial system for the most people.  Countries that allow for a more purely capitalist structure end up mired in corruption, violence, and lower quality of life - Russia and Mexico being the 2 that stand out in my mind at the moment.

I would remind you that money is actually an abstract idea that only has value because we all agree it has value.  If everyone agreed tomorrow that greenbacks were worthless they would be (see Zimbabwe).  Obviously, the probability of this happening is low, but if you watch the currency markets you can see swings that are linked to emotions.  I laugh when I watch the currency and commodities markets as so much of the movement is based on hunches.  Yeah, these hunches generally play out, but they invite in emotion rather than just reason and can go seriously wrong.  Money represents community assets.  How do we as a community want these assets to be divided?  The redistribution of wealth that so irritates you reflects community priorities.  People have found that a certain level of wealth redistribution creates a middle class with vested interests in the society and provides calming forces.  You take away the opportunities for the lower classes created from funds taken from the rich and you create an environment in which instability can grow.

EXC, you are a very thick man, and you need to take the gigantic chip off of your shoulder.  What would give you the idea that people don't get anything in return when a central leader or government "redistributes wealth"?

Because I've had a nap and am feeling less cranky, I'm going to try (in vain) to teach you something.  You won't listen, but hopefully some people reading the thread will learn from your stubbornness.

"Wealth redistribution," regardless of the style of form of government being employed -- and for that matter, whether or not societal organization can be anthropologically regarded as "government" -- is the process of alloting resources from pools of excess for public projects that would not be realized otherwise.  In the simplest form of "government" beyond extended family, you have a tribal model known as "Big Man."  There are still a few examples of Big Man tribes here and there in the remotest parts of the world, but they are somewhat tainted by the inclusion of trading practices that were not available to humans when Big Man was the newest greatest thing in politics.

In Big Man societies, wealth doesn't mean exactly the same thing.  Money does not exist, and advanced barter is the way of the world.  Typically, the Big Man is a sort of de facto leader, although he does not technically have "authority."  He is assumed to have what you could call the loudest voice.  He is heard first.  His words are given much weight because he is usually among the wisest and most accomplished men of the tribe.

One of the neatest features of Big Man societies is that many of them, if not most, from whom we've unearthed substantial relics, had a kind of regular "Redistribution Feast" where the Big Man would collect excess resources from every family in the tribe and throw huge cornucopic parties where the Big Man and his family would refrain from indulging, instead allowing regular barterers from other tribes to come and enjoy the bounty, along with all the members of his own tribe.

The benefits of these fetes are many.   First, the Big Man who threw the biggest feast gained a sort of political power.  Though he didn't become a leader in a more advanced sense, it added more weight to his voice, and could sometimes give him more power in negotiating barter rates for his own tribe.  It strengthened his position and voice within his own tribe, but more importantly, it gave his own tribe a focus towards which to work together.  It strengthened community bonds.  This, EXC, is something that you have missed in your diatribes.  You have forgotten that we are all human beings, and no matter how much you think something works on paper, if it doesn't fit human nature, it will not work.  Human beings are social creatures who use reputation, trust, and familiarity to reinforce their own attachment to their communities.

As we move up the ladder of governmental organization, we get Chiefdoms, extended chiefdoms, kingdoms, states, nations, and international conglomerates.  (Let the scholars dicker over sub-divisions and terminology.  The progression is certain.)  At each level, the need for infrastructure, organization, and distribution of resources becomes greater and more complex.  At each level, a simple principle from game theory predicts exactly how these challenges will be overcome.  I've talked about this many times before.  Non-Zero-Sum Systems.  Simply put, the collective effort of many individuals is orders higher than the accumulated effort of independent individuals.

The thing is, as societies become more complex, stratification and specialization become more prominent.  This is inevitable.  Consider a simple fishing village.  Suppose there are a hundred people in a fishing village, and four fishermen, each with a boat, a small crew, and one net can provide all the fish the village need.  One fisherman in twenty five can support a village at this level.  Now, suppose that the population expands inward from the sea and grows to one thousand.  While it may be possible that the fishermen can still supply the population at a 1:25 ratio, there is an added problem.  They cannot do this while at the same time transporting the fish inland to the larger community.  For each fisherman, the village now needs four deliverymen.

There's a catch, though.  A fisherman needs a boat.  Boats take a long time and many resources to build, and maintenance is expensive in time and resources.  A net takes specialized skill in weaving rope.  It takes many, many man hours, and is often damaged while fishing.  Fishing takes specialized knowledge of good fishing areas, the weather, tides, and all sorts of other things that take time to learn.

A deliveryman, on the other hand, needs his two feet and a bag.

To the inland people, the deliveryman hauling fish is functionally no different than the fisherman.  He delivers fish.  Yet, in terms of resources, the deliveryman's work is far less valuable than a fisherman.  If a fisherman is lost at sea with his boat and nets, the whole village will suffer until a new boat is built by someone with the resources to do so and the knowledge necessary.  Since a large part of the community lives inland, the number of people who can do so is proportionally much smaller than it would have been when the village had a hundred people.  Proportionally speaking, the absence of a fisherman makes the presence of a fisherman more valuable!

A deliveryman, on the other hand, is easily replacable.  Should a brown bear get a nice meal from a passing deliveryman and his wares, any old teenager with good lungs and strong legs will do as a replacement, so long as he can follow simple travelling directions.  No particular harm to the village.  More notably, no particular reason to compensate the deliveryman as generously for his work as the fisherman for his.

Even when money is not present, there are rewards for being a fisherman.  In most societies we've unearthed, the men with the most prestigious skills tended to have more wives than others.  Wives are resources.  (Sorry, women.  It's not PC, but it's true in this context.)  Even though fisherman may not be getting "paid" more "money" to fish, they are reaping societal rewards in the form of resources and opportunities.

You can imagine a young deliveryboy's ego collapsing when a young tribe girl informs him that maybe one day if he gets his own boat, she will consider becoming one of his wives.

No money needed, EXC, and society has stratified itself, leaving the poor and the rich -- from nothing more than the natural phenomenon of humans making more humans.  Population growth.  Perfectly natural.  Now, consider the alternatives.  Suppose that through some miracle of human comprehension, the villages had decided to artificially change the way things worked.  Instead of fishermen getting preferential treatment, more wives, bigger portions of the catch for their own family, and a fast track to Chief status, they get exactly the same as everyone else.  A delivery boy gets just as much as a fisherman.  Why, then, would anyone become a fisherman?

It's tempting to say that "for the good of the group," some people would "sacrifice" and become fisherman.  This, however, would turn the tables on human nature.  It would make the thing that required the most knowledge, resources, and skills proportionally less valuable than the thing that required the least.  It would be LEFTIE PINKO COMMUNISM!!!

EXC, if you have not read "The Selfish Gene," then you must.  You are laboring under many false assumptions that stem from the idea of Group Selectionism.  Group selection DOES NOT AND CANNOT EVER OCCUR.  IT IS A MYTH.  Anytime you find yourself thinking that someone should just suck it up and sacrifice for the good of the many, you are dangerously close to falling victim to the GS fallacy, as I like to think of it.

Yes, people will sometimes do things that benefit the group, else we would not have society.  The thing is, IN ALL CASES, this behavior can be expressed as a best case scenario for the individual -- not the group.  Going back to the delivery boy, we can see this in action.  All things being equal, the delivery boy would much rather be a fisherman than a delivery boy, but he has no resources of his own with which to make a boat, and he doesn't know how to tie knots or weave rope.  Though he is but one of a dozen or so delivery boys, he is devoted to his task, and goes out of his way to try to make friends with all the fishermen.  He sits around them in his spare time, watching them make and repair nets.  Eventually, because of the age difference and random chance, a fisherman somewhere is going to die.  Perhaps there will be a gap in production large enough for him to fill.  It's certainly not guaranteed.  Every delivery boy doesn't get to be a fisherman.  However, it's the only shot they have.  For their own selfish reasons, it's better for them to bide their time, waiting in the wings, for the shot to be a fisherman later.  This is individual motivation.  It is NOT "sacrificing for the group."

A good parallel exists in nature.  Certain species of birds (some grouse do this, if memory serves) earn mating rights by securing nesting sites.  In other words, no female will mate with a male unless the male controls a nesting site.  There are usually more males than sites, so many males go mateless.  A curious thing happens, though.  We would expect selfish individuals to continue to try to take a nesting site away from somebody.  After all, if they don't mate this season, it's highly likely they will die before passing on their own genes.  We should expect that they would keep fighting until their own death if necessary, to secure a nest.

This is not what happens.  They accept their fate, and live out their days on the outskirts of town, so to speak, not bothering anyone.  People like you, EXC, who believe in sacrifice for the good of the many would be suspicious that group selection was involved.  These grouse are laying down their own genetic lives for the good of those who already have nests.  Unfortunately, this is empirically and mathematically dead wrong.  Every once in a while, a fox comes prancing out of the woods.  What makes an easier target for a fox?  Is it a grouse with nothing to protect who will simply run for the trees?  No, indeed!  It is the grouse who vigorously protects his territory!  Foxes are more likely to kill grouse with a nest than those without.  When this happens, a new fight breaks out between the "homeless" grouse for who will get to sit on the nest next!

Mathematically, the grouse are more likely to mate if they do not fight.  If they wait their turn, there are no guarantees, but the chance that they will mate is higher than if they weaken themselves so badly with fights that they cannot defend their nest once they have it.

EXC, you need to get a firm grasp on this concept.  People do things because it's in their best advantage, not because it's in society's best advantage.  We do a great job of believing that we are above all that and that we create societies for the greater good, but it's just not true.  The only societies in which people do behave in ways that benefit everyone are those societies in which it is to their benefit materially or positionally to do so!

Ok, now back to wealth redistribution.  Remember the delivery boy?  He's got a problem.  It's to his best advantage to bide his time and learn the trade before trying to become a fisherman, but there are no guarantees that he will ever become one.  There are far more delivery boys than fishermen, and it will always be so.  The odds are that he'll never be one, but biding his time is the best option.  There's a bigger problem for him.  Why does he want to be a fisherman?  More wives.  Fast track to chiefdom.  Resources.

Suppose the fisherman toils away fishing all year, and as a benefit, the villagers chip in and build him one of the nicest wigwams in town.  They do this because they don't have a boat, and it's to their advantage to be nice to the fisherman because maybe he'll notice how much work they did and throw them another fish from time to time as a way of saying thanks.  Will they do the same for the delivery boy?

Of course they won't.  Delivery boys are a dime a dozen.  Perhaps, the delivery boy will work some of his own trade magic, though.  He will slip a couple of extra fish to certain families in exchange for future favors, and will probably be rewarded.  Unfortunately, the size of these rewards will be small because of the ready availability of delivery boys, and the fact that all of them are currying favor in their own ways.  Again, if a delivery boy gets pissed and quits, no big deal.  Someone else wants the job, and is willing to do it for what it's worth.

You can imagine this translating into a higher society with money.  The delivery boy doesn't get to charge double for the fish he just bought.  He charges a small delivery charge, maybe ten percent.  If he charged something far in excess of its value, another delivery boy would simply come in and charge less -- still making a profit.  This is simple competition.  The inherent value of the resource dictates the price.

Ok... finally, then, how does this come back around to resource redistribution.  Very simply, some resources are far more valuable to a society than others, but as society becomes bigger and more complex, the number of resources increases dramatically, as does the methods of distribution and acquisition.  Instead of direct markets, where the producer sells directly to the consumer, you get tons and tons of middle men.  This is because it's impossible to have a society as complex as ours, with as many technologies, with all "villages" being self sufficient.  McDonalds is far more efficient at making billions of hamburgers than a hundred thousand independent burger joints.

I mentioned in another post that people don't let babies die.  We can talk about that now.  In a family-based society where the core family was entirely dependent on itself for its well being, babies would die when their parents could not produce enough resources to keep them alive.  This system would work pretty well if there was modern birth control.  Parents could simply learn from their first mistake and try not to make any more babies.  (Assuming the whole family didn't die from the efforts to save the baby that drained the resources too much!)  Unfortunately, for there to be modern birth control, there would need to be a condom maker, and condoms take plastic makers, machine makers, lube makers, spermicide makers, and laborers to run all the machines.  Families aren't big enough to have their own condom factories.

Society is necessary for condom factories to exist.  Once you have a society, you have a serious problem.  Suppose that Bob and Joy have six babies, and they can only afford five.  They live right next to Dick and Jane, who have three babies, but can afford five.  Bob and Joy realize that Dick and Jane can give them enough money to raise their child, but it's unfair to ask them to do so.  Even so, they really, really, want their baby to live.  They go to Dick and Jane and ask for help.  Seems perfectly reasonable, right?  For the good of the group, Dick and Jane ought to help.

On an individual basis, this might happen, especially if, as neighbors, Dick, Jane, Bob, and Joy, are all friends.  However, what if, in a given town, there are a hundred families with one too many babies and only ten with enough money to support two extra babies?  Here's where non-zero-sum systems come into play.  Instead of the ten families giving all of their extra resources to the hundred families with extra babies, they can each chip in twenty percent of their extra resources, and that's enough to run an orphanage!

(This is, of course, how public welfare started, you know!)

Now, from the selfish point of view of the well to do families, this is better than directly helping everyone that needs help.  Remember the fishermen and delivery boys?  There are always more delivery boys than fishermen, but everybody fucks and make babies.  There will always be fewer haves than have nots -- UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE A PINKO LEFTIE COMMUNIST!!!!!!

So, if you DON'T WANT TO BE A PINKO LEFTIE COMMUNIST!!!!!! you have to deal with the fact that there will always be more haves than have nots, and if you don't want to run Child Protective Services all by yourself, you need to pay somebody to do it.  There's NO PROFIT in Child Protective services.  That's why it's run by the government.  The government needs money to do it.  That's why it taxes you.

In short, the same non-zero-sum systems that make society work make welfare work.

Ok... one last thing.  Fishing is risky.  It's costly.  It also produces much, much more than one family can eat.  Why would anyone become a fisherman?  Because it's more valuable to him than being a delivery boy.  If the value of being a fisherman is taken away, the incentive to produce for other people is also taken away.  Instead of catching enough for the whole village, he can spend an hour a day on the dock catching enough for his own family, and then have leisure time on the side.

If everybody does just what he needs, what do you have?  No society.  Why do you have society?  Because of the benefit of non-zero-sum math.  The catalyst, though, is not the good to the society.  It's the good to the individual!

Now, EXC, think about this very, very carefully.  THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A SOCIETY THAT DID NOT REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH.  That's because societies naturally stratify, and some jobs are naturally worth more than others.  IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE A PINKO LEFTIE COMMUNIST, YOU MUST ADMIT THAT THIS IS THE WAY THINGS ARE.    If you do not redistribute wealth, BABIES WILL DIE.  If you do not want babies to die, you must admit that it is up to society to keep them from dying, not individuals.  If it is up to society, then it must be paid for by TAKING SOME MONEY FROM THOSE WHO HAVE EXTRA and giving it either directly to the people who need it, or to an intermediary organization that distributes it according to need.  Because of the law of non-zero-sum systems, it is BETTER FOR YOU TO PAY FOR WELFARE THAN HAVE IT BE IN THE HANDS OF INDIVIDUALS!

(Cue EXC spouting the same shit, demonstrating again that he has little understanding of economics or human nature)

It boils down to what works and what doesn't work. Perhaps you think it unfair that gas $4 gallon they poor would be healther if it was cheaper, so the oil companies should be mandated to only sell it away at $1/gallon. Sorry but you'll have no gas.

This where this whole irrationality begins. Humans have a concept that the goal of universe should be 'fair' toward everyone. So we invent religions where God will be fair to you if your fair to him. Invent imaginary economic systems where wealth can supposedly come from nothing, where government can just mandate that poverty go away. The world is what it is, we should view it objectively and base our decions what to do based not on what is fair or moral, but what works and what doesn't work.

The only ethic we need to teach is view the world objectively. Discover how it works and work within that framework to design systems that meet our individual and common goals.

I disagree that we can teach most children ethics or morals in schools. As early as third grade I had a strong "F*ck my teachers" attitude. I realize now that I should have been nicer to them, but until college I despised most of them. Oddly I was also a straight 'A' student. My school tried to institute a DARE anti-drug program in third grade and I would endlessly mock the program to the director himself, and other students would join in deriding the program. I think that most children ignore social conditioning attempts in school. If the anti-drug program taught me anything, it is that children blow off school instruction. By high school kids were bragging about how much weed they smoked.

That being said, I think that parents hold all of the responsibility teaching their children ethics. If I ever have children, I will make sure they conform to my ethical standards; even if that means telling them that their teachers are wrong.

sounds like me too.  i used to give my teachers straight hell and i was voted most likely to succeed.  and the funny part is, most teachers would just smile or laugh at my blatant disrespect because they knew i was smarter than them and so they were a little scared of me (that's not a paean to how smart i am but rather an accurate view of how stupid my teachers were).  that's why i distrust humanities in school in general, particularly literature, music, art, and creative writing, since these subjects are so subjective and talent-based (even tastes in literature require some predisposition toward it), and many times the teachers don't know any more about it than the students.  i always respected my practical teachers the most: sciences, mathematics, technical studies, and my russian language teacher.

I feel the same way. I really could not agree more. Perhaps that is the reason that I am attending UCI's engineering program rather than the humanities. My roommate is a social ecology major. I can't imagine the kind of bullsh*t he has to put up with in his classes. I want to learn something that gives practical and tangible results for my work.

I can't edit my post anymore, but the last quote is my response.  I am not saying that is is undoable, just that many kids will ignore it. Just like we ignored the anti-drug program. How about this: if an American school system has an ethics program and there are noticeable improvements in the students, then I will support it. But my personal (and highly biased) experience makes me think that most students will blow it off. But for that matter there is a general discipline problem in schools that must be addressed. Perhaps if students held a basic respect for their teachers then they would absorb such ethics lessons.

For my last post this is what I meant to do, sorry about the repost everone:

Not if the kid lacks basic respect for you and derides you constantly in front of his peers. Also not if you have to watch over 34 other kids simultaneously, some of which are obedient and some of which can't wait for you to slip up so they can laugh at you to your face. In hindsight I should have been nicer to my teachers, but we loved to slur them in class at the time. Those teachers did not even have the will needed to maintain basic control over us, much less impart important ethical lessons. I want kids to learn such lessons, I just doubt the average teacher is competent enough to deliver them.

Do you have a comprehension problem?  Let me make this as simple as possible for you.  Wealth redistribution benefits THE ENTIRE SOCIETY by allowing more to be done through collective effort than could be done by individual effort.  Do you not understand that the rich are affected by the poor?  We all live in the same country, and the fortunes of any group affect the fortunes of every other group.

EXC, you are being exceptionally dense.  Again, repeated for you several times so that maybe it'll get through:

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HUMAN SOCIETY ABOVE THE LEVEL OF EXTENDED FAMILY THAT DID NOT HAVE WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HUMAN SOCIETY ABOVE THE LEVEL OF EXTENDED FAMILY THAT DID NOT HAVE WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HUMAN SOCIETY ABOVE THE LEVEL OF EXTENDED FAMILY THAT DID NOT HAVE WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HUMAN SOCIETY ABOVE THE LEVEL OF EXTENDED FAMILY THAT DID NOT HAVE WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HUMAN SOCIETY ABOVE THE LEVEL OF EXTENDED FAMILY THAT DID NOT HAVE WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HUMAN SOCIETY ABOVE THE LEVEL OF EXTENDED FAMILY THAT DID NOT HAVE WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HUMAN SOCIETY ABOVE THE LEVEL OF EXTENDED FAMILY THAT DID NOT HAVE WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION.

Do you comprehend this?  Does the significance of this sink in?  IT IS FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE A SOCIETY ABOVE THE LEVEL OF EXTENDED FAMILY WITHOUT SOME FORM OF WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION.

This is very, very fucking simple.  There is no example where the people or members of any species give up their own wealth and get nothing in return.  Nowhere.  In all of life on earth.  Including humanity.  That's because people get something back for their redistributed wealth.  No matter what the system.

Right, EXC.  Mafia bosses spread their wealth around the community, even though they're taking more than their "fair" share.  Politicians pass favorable legislation for their best contributors.  Money goes in, services go out.  It's commerce.  I'm proud of you for recognizing basic trade.

No shit.

NO EXC.  The government in the U.S. today gives a lot of things back to the citizens.  It just does so very inefficiently and with a lot of deception and corruption.  If it reaches a point where the government takes so much that businesses cannot stay open, the system will collapse and practices will have to change.  So what?

What do you mean?  You make generalizations so large that you're effectively not saying anything at all.  Do you mean that for Bill Gates to make money, your kid needs to have a good public school education?  Horse shit.  Do you mean that for an average person to be able to become wealthy, he needs to be well educated?  Horse shit.  Good education is obviously better than poor education.  I'm a big fan of educating people.  Hell, I'm even trying to educate you.  You've got to stop taking generalities that could mean almost anything and making sweeping pronouncements about incredibly complex systems.

What the fuck?  What excess wealth?  You mean excess tax revenues?  We're running at a deficit, big guy.

Or, do you mean you want to TAX THE WEALTHY to provide FREE education for the very poor?  Isn't that WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION?

And by the way, what the hell do you mean that if we educate the contributors, they will become contributors?

Honey, I wasn't having sex with the maid.  I was just doing the horizontal mambo.

No shit.

Please stop using all or nothing language.  The system today is highly inefficient because it doesn't reliably and efficiently redistribute wealth the the optimum benefit of most members of society.  It is bottlenecked so that small segments of society are benefiting more than large segments.

Honestly, I feel like I should just stop talking to you now.  I'm glad you can see the brainwashing done by religion, but if you can't see the same thing in your own politics, you've got some growth to do before you can truly call yourself a rational person.

Everyone?  The rest of society?  What does this mean?  Does this mean that you ought to have bigger paychecks if welfare works?  Does it mean that only if absolutely everyone on welfare fits exact criteria that you decide will it be viable?

Do you not understand the idea of evolutionarily stable systems?  This is just the biological manifestation of simple math, which is exactly the same in economic systems.  (You do know that an economist discovered game theory, right?)  Haven't I explained the hawks and doves to you?  When you have divergent interests, there is a point of stability at which everyone gets some benefit, but not all possible benefit of their abilities.  That is the most that is possible with relative stability.  Anything more or less, and there will be instability.

America's economy is unstable now because we're not particularly close to such a point.  This doesn't mean that welfare doesn't work.  It means that our particular welfare system is not working particularly well!  You've hit the nail on the head several times, and you're too brainwashed to realize it.  Wealth redistribution works, but we're redistributing wealth very, very inefficiently, and we're wasting a great deal of it.

(Consider the trillions of dollars we've spent to get one dictator hanged.  How much education could you buy for all the poor children if you had the trillions of dollars we spent on Hussein's rope?)

Or, you could reform the system significantly, making government much more transparent, eliminating corporate contributions to political parties, prohibiting political parties from exercising influence over media sources, reforming voting policies, using current science to form public policy instead of religious and political dogma, etc, etc, etc.

There are LOTS of things that can be done.  Good education systems would certainly help. 

So you really do want the paychecks of the rich to be bigger after making sacrifices for the benefit of society?  You're in fairy land.  Think about this very, very carefully.  If I give up some of my wealth, and get all of it back, that's not wealth redistribution.  That's a loan.  The whole point of wealth redistribution is that some people give up money so that other people can get products and services, like education.

Sure, if the standard of living in a country goes up because of wealth redistribution, you can say that the wealthy might benefit financially from it, but the point is that wealth redistribution is giving up some of the overages in one sector to make up for the underages in others.  That's why it's called redistribution.

Because they're human beings, you dipshit.  Didn't I just explain to you that the poor must have hope for something better or it is in their best interest to fight until they're dead?  You don't instill people with hope by saying, "Hey, poor person, sorry your life is a piece of shit, and you have very little to live for.  Listen, I have this plan... why don't you give up the only things you do have?  It would be awesome.  You'd love it."

EXC, didn't I just say that to you?  The point is, the fisherman doesn't give up all the benefit of being a fisherman!  It's one thing for society to say, "Sorry, poor people, but you'll just have to accept what the rich people are willing to give up."  That's fine, so long as it's enough for them to live on and have relatively meaningful lives.  If it isn't, it's in the rich people's best interest to find a way to give them more because PISSED OFF POOR PEOPLE IN LARGE GROUPS ARE VERY, VERY DANGEROUS TO RICH PEOPLE.  Read any history book.

Right.  And I'm against eating, but mastication is great.

I wish I could manage to educate you enough to realize that UNLESS YOU WANT COMMUNISM, YOU HAVE TO HAVE STRATIFIED SOCIETY.  If you have stratified society, you MUST have wealth redistribution.

For fuck's sake.  Please stop listening to Republican radio.  I have never said any such thing, and if you paid attention, you'd realize that I've often been one of the loudest advocates of programs to encourage the poor people to stop breeding so goddamned much!

I'm not saying I want to set up anything.  I'm telling you what will work and what will not work.  You don't stop poor people from making babies by taking things away from them.  You know why a lot of people have babies?  Because they think a baby will add meaning and purpose to their lives.  If you take things away from poor people, and leave them with little or no purpose or meaning, you know what they're going to do?  They're going to try to find ways to have meaning and purpose in life.  It's fucking hard to have a meaningful life when you work sixty hours a week and still can't pay your bills.

Let me spell this out very, very clearly.  The incentive for rich people to give up some of their wealth is that a small percentage of wealth, when used effectively, can help a LOT of people have meaningful lives.  When more people have meaningful lives, they're happier.  When they're happier, they commit less crime, they have fewer unwanted babies, they take less drugs, they buy more things to play with.  In short, society is better for EVERYBODY, including the rich.

I've said over and over that there are points of stability.  Suppose the tax rate at $100k is 25%.  A man making 100k actually makes 75k.  Now, suppose the tax rate for $150k is 28%.  A man making $150k takes home 108k.  That is more actual money, while still paying a higher tax rate.  As long as you structure tax increases so that making more money doesn't actually net less after taxes, there is always incentive for the rich to make more money.  In such a simple example, yes, there will be a nasty range where making a few more dollars will actually drop your income, but if this is well known, the trick is simple.  Arrange your income so that you either make enough over to make it worth it, or don't.  This is a minor hurdle to wealth accumulation, not a roadblock.  Rich people have lots of ways to manipulate their income to their own benefit.

You're jumping all over the damn place.  Nothing happens in a vacuum, EXC.  If you raise minimum wage without taking inflation into account, yes, you can create problems.  However, if minimum wage is not high enough for people to live on, you have a catch 22.  Either you take money from those who make above minimum, and give it to those who don't, or you raise minimum so that the people above it get to keep more of their money.  If inflation is a problem, it's not just because of minimum wage -- hate to break it to you.  There are much larger problems with our economy than what the poorest people are making.  When you have an entire country operating at a deficit for many decades, while growing the economy largely through credit, you've got a pretty big disaster in the making.

Most of my employees make minimum wage.  I can't automate their unskilled work because I can't afford to buy equipment to roll silverware.  My only option is to raise menu prices to account for the difference...

Because $10/hr is within the range at which businesses paying minimum wage could afford to stay in business, and $1000/hr is not.  Do you want to pay $75 for a big mac?  Or, alternatively, would you be willing to put up with a $0.25 per burger increase?  Was that a serious question?

Who's making emotional appeals.  I'm furious at your denseness after I've explained in great detail the scientific reason why what you're saying is absurd.  You're tossing around platitudes about economic systems you clearly don't understand.  Hell, even the marxists are getting on your ass!

For fucks sake, turn off your radio.  Read a goddamned book by a scientist.  You really, really need some basic knowledge about Game theory and human nature before you talk again.

Maybe a little to sweeping, but generally true.  Emphasis on the word "stable."  As I was saying, the benefit to the rich of having their wealth redistributed is that they get to stay rich instead of ending up with their heads on pikes, whether metaphorical or real.  Again, large groups of pissed off poor people are very bad for rich people.

Put simply:

IF you do not enforce equality, society will stratify.

Stratified societies do not tend towards equality.  Rather, the most powerful tend to increase their power.  The poor tend to become poorer.  If stratified society is to continue, the stratification must be limited in such a way as to prevent the poorest from becoming disenfranchised and getting pissed off.  I leave it to politicians to fight over exactly how to limit stratification, but it's a quantifiable thing, and the effectiveness of a society's efforts can be measured.

Anyone care to compare the US income gap to those of Western Europe, and see what kinds of systems work the best?

Curious indeed...

Seems like the rich are not being taxed so heavily that they stop trying to make more money...

jesus fucking christ, this thread really makes me wanna get out and agitate.  wish i could find a branch of the fourth international somewhere near kosice...

I see you as someone who refuses to view the world as it really is and instead base your politics on how you wish it could be. This is the reality you can deny it if you wish. Since we have no god, the laws of nature force us into self-sufficiency mode. You simple can not have large numbers in a society permanently shielded from the laws of survival.

I'm not denying the human need for happiness, understanding, art, music, etc... I've said nothing against freedom of thought. But to think, be happy or anything else one must first have food and shelter. I'm not using efficiecy as the benchmark, I'm using survival. Once people can survive, then if they have liberty they can pursue their own hapiness. Isn't happiness also dependent on the ability to enjoy the fruit's of one's labor? Wealth redistribution just creates a society where everyone must be equal in misery.

We are like cats in that the same laws of nature apply to us both. They are still our evolutionary cousins. The only difference is our larger brains should enable us to understand our world better. Unfortunately, our brains often cause us to see the world as we wish rather than as it is(hence religion, poverty can be eliminated just by passing mandates on employers, or getting rid of private property and corporations).

Life has a foundation, you simply can not put the cart before the horse. The foundation for life must first be survival eg..(food, clothing and shelter). Survival must be first and foremost. In you wish thinking ideology, you just build society as a house of cards. When the hurricanes, earthquakes and financial disruptions occur, it's all blown down. Then people have no other hope but religion.

For complex life forms and societies to sustain themselves, every member must be a contributor at some point. Look at the organs in cells in a human body. Every organ that takes from the blood stream must contribute something back, otherwise it's a cancer. Life between organisms is either a cooperative contract or a war for survival.

The people who believe in wealth redistribution whenever someone is perceived to need something. Do they ever talk about the negative side of minimum wage, mandates for employers, progress income tax? No, they don't want to talk about it. I could be convinced with evidence to support some of these proposals when there is evidence and a reason to believe they would solve problems. Which is why I support some of them short term while someone is being reeducated.

They don't want to look at reality because this wish thinking is their religion.

now i see the pattern.  anyone who disagrees with exc's politics is religious.

kinda like anyone who disagrees with fred phelps's homophobia is going to burn in hell.