An American Birthright

[Tommy]

The ongoing discussion about entitlements and universal health care reminds me of the philosopy preached by Karl Marx in the 1800s. His socialist views continue to be discussed here.

The major line of thinking here goes beyond just socialistic. It's Communistic. In socialism, the state owns everything, while in Communism the people own everything. So Doug's friend seems to be more of a Communist rather than a Socialist.

Yes

[Will O'B]

I would agree that something has to be done to make the division of wealth among corporate workers a bit more equitable (e.g., a CEO should not get $300,000 bonuses after laying off 10% of his workforce).

The company I worked for about 15 years ago gave the CEO a one million dollar pay raise and a bonus including stock options that amounted to almost an additional half-million dollars. This made him the highest paid CEO in the city of Chicago for that year. At that same time, the company put a freeze on salaries of all pay grades below that of an assistant vice-president. The justification for the salary freeze was because corporate profits were not as high as someone would have liked. The justification for the CEO's extravagant pay increase was because he "worked hard and deserved it." (I kid you not. That is exactly what the corporate news letter said.) The implication was that the grunts who did the routine day-to-day work of the company had nothing to do with the still decent profit that the company made that year.

Will O'

[Doug_Tipple]

Here is a link to a brief autobiography of my friend, Al Andersen. You can draw your own conclusion about what label you want to use to describe his views.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org ... tobio.html

There are a couple of quirky aspect to what he is saying, but it still sounds very much like Communism to me. So that's my conclusion There are some differences, though. Does he have a label for himself, Doug?

Since I moved back to Indiana 8 years ago to be close to my aging parents (now both deceased), I haven't been in contact with Al and only have had information about his work from Quaker newsletters. I am not sure what words he would use to best describe his views. It isn't very easy to do, because every word that you could use, such as "communism", is loaded with various meanings. For myself, I might say that I am a democratic communitarian socialist, but I'm sure that there are readers who are waiting to pounce on that one. Go ahead and pounce, if you will, but do so in the spirit of goodwill. I share Al's concern for the poor people of this planet now and in the future. It is plain to see that there is a growing imbalance in the distribution of wealth in this country and around the world. The real question is whether we have the intelligence and courage to do anything about it, or not?

[BillChin]

I share Al's concern for the poor people of this planet now and in the future. It is plain to see that there is a growing imbalance in the distribution of wealth in this country and around the world. The real question is whether we have the intelligence and courage to do anything about it, or not?

I share the concern too. However, in my opinion, handing out money for nothing for perpetuity is among the worst things, the most corrosive things that can be done to address the problem. Sure it looks good in the short term and feels good for a month, a year, maybe even five years. Again, if a social experiment could be done, in my opinion, giving every adult American $20k a year every year, would have negative long term consequences and have little long term impact on wealth or income distribution.

[Jack]

I share Al's concern for the poor people of this planet now and in the future. It is plain to see that there is a growing imbalance in the distribution of wealth in this country and around the world. The real question is whether we have the intelligence and courage to do anything about it, or not?

I share the concern too. However, in my opinion, handing out money for nothing for perpetuity is among the worst things, the most corrosive things that can be done to address the problem. Sure it looks good in the short term and feels good for a month, a year, maybe even five years. Again, if a social experiment could be done, in my opinion, giving every adult American $20k a year every year, would have negative long term consequences and have little long term impact on wealth or income distribution.

I strongly disagree.

[Tyler]

tack on 20k to everyone's income and what will you have?
The rich are also 20k per year richer, so all you've accomplished is to grossly overinflate the dollar

[Jack]

tack on 20k to everyone's income and what will you have?
The rich are also 20k per year richer, so all you've accomplished is to grossly overinflate the dollar

The government I invisioned would not allow anybody to make over said amount of money per year. Taxes would be extremely high on the rich and extremely low (or nonexistant) on the poor, to create a more equal financial enviroment.

[Tyler]

tack on 20k to everyone's income and what will you have?
The rich are also 20k per year richer, so all you've accomplished is to grossly overinflate the dollar

The government I invisioned would not allow anybody to make over said amount of money per year. Taxes would be extremely high on the rich and extremely low (or nonexistant) on the poor, to create a more equal financial enviroment.

What incentive would there be, then, to work hard and become successful?
if people have an income limit to begin with, how would you raise the trax on the rich?

[Jack]

tack on 20k to everyone's income and what will you have?
The rich are also 20k per year richer, so all you've accomplished is to grossly overinflate the dollar

The government I invisioned would not allow anybody to make over said amount of money per year. Taxes would be extremely high on the rich and extremely low (or nonexistant) on the poor, to create a more equal financial enviroment.

What incentive would there be, then, to work hard and become successful?

The personal success? Money isn't (or shouldn't be) the only reason people do well.

[Tyler]

The government I invisioned would not allow anybody to make over said amount of money per year. Taxes would be extremely high on the rich and extremely low (or nonexistant) on the poor, to create a more equal financial enviroment.

What incentive would there be, then, to work hard and become successful?

The personal success? Money isn't (or shouldn't be) the only reason people do well.

You'll find that money is an enourmous reason to want to do well...
Take me for example...I work very hard for what I make, I always have. I don't work for the sake of sitting back and saying to myself, "Gee, look at all I was able to get done." I really find no motivation in that at all...I work my 18 hour days so that I can keep a roof over the head of my daughter and food in her stomach...I need money to do that.
You could say that money is a very big motivator for me.

[BillChin]

This is only tangentially related to Doug's topic, but the story comes to mind. An author visited an school to talk to high school students. The author brought copies of his latest book on values and philosophy of life to hand out to all the students thinking what a great gift he was giving them. The author imagined that the students would read the books, learn and take the high minded lessons to heart and apply them to their own lives. Instead, many of the books were treated like many freebies. They were tossed around, many left in the room, very, very few if any were actually read and used for their highest value.

Mr. Tipple makes flutes and other instruments. If a box of flutes were brought to a school and given free to average students (not music students per se), I'd wager a similar result. Some of the boys would take them up and us them as swords, some would be tossed around the room, a very, very few would be used in the manner they were intended. Very, very few would achieve their highest good.

What is my point? If you give them all free money, the money will be treated with the same lack of respect the free books, and hypothetical free flutes have been. The money will not be used in the manner it was intended. The corrossive effect of giving free money will stay with them for a lifetime. In my opinion, it will actually be a negative event. If I could take two classrooms of random 18 year old students from the same school and one gets the free money, and the other does not, I'd wager on average, that in 20 years, the class that had to work for their money will be far happier, and probably wealthier than the class that got the free ride.

[BillChin]

tack on 20k to everyone's income and what will you have?
The rich are also 20k per year richer, so all you've accomplished is to grossly overinflate the dollar

The government I invisioned would not allow anybody to make over said amount of money per year. Taxes would be extremely high on the rich and extremely low (or nonexistant) on the poor, to create a more equal financial enviroment.

I've gone over this before, but the rich do not get rich on income, they get rich by ownership. The exceptions are entertainers such as movie stars and pro athletes. In America, ownership is primarily real estate and equity in businesses. Unless you want to get into the business of regulating ownership of private property, limiting income will not have a huge impact on wealth disparities.

If you are in favor of banning private property (the old Communist ideal of property as theft), even that does not guarantee equity. In old style Communists states the life styles of some high level officials would put that of some pro athletes and CEOs to shame. It's been tried--it didn't work. I have no reason to believe that Mr. Anderson or you or anyone else on Chiff has a better implementation, or better safeguards against human nature.

[jGilder]

The major line of thinking here goes beyond just socialistic. It's Communistic. In socialism, the state owns everything, while in Communism the people own everything. So Doug's friend seems to be more of a Communist rather than a Socialist.

Someone better think of something else quick because capitalism isn't working all that well.

[Jerry Freeman]

I don't think handing out money would work, but I believe there's a significant kernal of truth in what Doug's talking about.

I think a good education, from kindergarten through postgraduate college, should be available to all. As it stands now, most local school systems are funded by property taxes, so schools in poor neighborhoods (low property values, low property tax revenues) are automatically poorly funded and students who attend them automatically get less chance of a good education. That certainly isn't the children's fault.

Universal access to daycare for working parents or parents in school could help a lot. Universal access to decent healthcare would be a good thing, IMO. And I'm sure that there are other benefits that could help people live a decent life and have a better chance at their own success, and wouldn't amount to just throwing money at the problems with little chance of making a real difference.

This doesn't automatically mean "free for everyone." There could be some kind of sliding scale based on ability to pay.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Doug_Tipple]

What is my point? If you give them all free money, the money will be treated with the same lack of respect the free books, and hypothetical free flutes have been. The money will not be used in the manner it was intended. The corrossive effect of giving free money will stay with them for a lifetime. In my opinion, it will actually be a negative event. If I could take two classrooms of random 18 year old students from the same school and one gets the free money, and the other does not, I'd wager on average, that in 20 years, the class that had to work for their money will be far happier, and probably wealthier than the class that got the free ride.

Bill, it isn't necessarily going to be paper money that the people should receive as a condition of their birthright, as owners of the natural resources and inherited intellectual resources of this country. Citizens should at the very least receive equivalent goods and services, such as health care, education allowances, etc.

The little scenario in the classroom that was mentioned reminds me of my teaching experience in a town in the mountains of Arizona. It was a desirable location, so naturally there were many fairly wealthy people in the community. On the last day of school my first year of teaching I was shocked to see what happened. Many of the students merely opened their lockers and threw all of their textbooks into the trash dumpster. These were books that their parents had purchased. They could have been sold and used next year. The janitor and I had to go through the dumpster to remove the textbooks, mainly because it just wasn't right to let these books be thrown away like that.

An earlier reference was made to Karl Marx. In his Communist Manifesto he wrote, " Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose by your chains. You have a world to win." Walmart workers around the world are attempting to do just that, because they understand that unless they do unite and organize, they have no hope to improve their miserable working situation.