# Do conservatives genuinely not understand the liberal position on wealth? (Fox News oped) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 27, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337 "2019-08-27T21:21:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/61 "2019-08-28T19:57:07Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Let’s just start with the obvious: nobody at fox news cares about understanding the liberal position unless they can use that understanding to better attack it. It continues to be a right-wing propaganda network. They will not give democrats a fair shake on anything, because their job is to support the right wing. Any analysis they have on left-wing positions is going to necessarily be in bad faith, because _everything they write is in bad faith_. I mean, look at this fucking bullshit: > > Anyone who could read this line without having their bullshit detector go off is the kind of person who loses their savings to 419 scams and _ **fucking deserves it** _. > > Anyone still reading after this fucking whopper should hit up a neurologist, as they may qualify as legally braindead and therefore no longer need to pay taxes. > > So yeah, blatant, obvious bad-faith bullshit; this is a question we should never have to ask about Fox News. Obama is, fundamentally, a capitalist. A capitalist who made some pushes towards progressive ideology, but fundamentally someone who believes in capitalism, believes in wealth, believes in the ethics of people becoming unreasonably wealthy - just look at him becoming unreasonably wealthy. Any claim that he’s somehow a “socialist” or that, as the article states, spent time “demonizing everyone else’s success”, is akin to claims that he went on an apology tour - whoever you’re talking to is _at best_ dumber than a sack of pig shit and at worst a lying sack of pig shit (no points for guessing which this Fox News opinion writer is), and neither is worth engaging with on any level unless you’re somehow sentimentally attached to them, and even then only to give yourself a damn good reason to no longer be sentimentally attached to them. > > That said… I don’t agree with “the liberal position” on wealth. I don’t think there is a coherent position at play here, and I don’t think the position laid out in the OP is particularly convincing. > > You can buy a really nice home for a million dollars. Like, a _really_ nice home. Nicer than most millenials will probably ever manage to afford. For 15 times that, you could buy a really nice home _and_ draw countless people out of poverty. It’s the same fundamental problem was with Bezos’s billions - [it’s basically just immoral to be rich](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/its-basically-just-immoral-to-be-rich). Every dollar Obama spent on a McMansion in a posh neighborhood is a dollar that wasn’t spent saving someone’s life. It’s very nearly the same problem as with [Bernie Sanders being a millionaire](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/04/why-bernie-sanders-should-give-his-millions-away), except Obama was never (and never pretended to be) a socialist, despite the insane ravings of the bad-faith right-wing crowd. That’s not how dollars work. You realize it’s not a lack of currency that is to blame for how productivity and resources are allocated? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/62 "2019-08-28T20:08:34Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Obama is clearly hypocritical, he recently said in a speech "There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips you can take.” You may have misunderstood him. He said “you”, not “I”. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/63 "2019-08-28T20:20:32Z")
Suppose I invest a million dollars into starting a business, providing the entirety of its capital. But I don’t otherwise lift a finger. The business isn’t my idea and I don’t perform the labor or any management role. What should be my return? What proportion should go to labor? What proportion to whoever had the idea for the business? Those are the actually relevant questions in this thread, since the proportion of return to investment capital is almost the entire ballgame on wealth and the politics of wealth. I see three principled positions in American political life: (1) Lefty: we should answer those questions in terms of moral desert, and capitalists don’t deserve a significant return on investment. (2) Liberal: we should answer those questions empirically by asking how much return each of the players needs to get in order to maximize the size of the economic pie without creating a level of inequality that damages society more than the cost of a smaller economic pie. (3) Conservative/libertarian: we don’t need to answer those questions collectively. because people decide it voluntarily. I am a liberal because I don’t think there’s any especially persuasive way to get at what each of the people involved morally deserves and because conservatives/libertarians miss the fact that the voluntary arrangements are highly influenced by the choices we collectively make about our laws and our society. So we do eventually have to take a position on the question, one way or another. They just tend to take the position, by default or otherwise, that the people with the most wealth should set the rules and then let those rules play out in predictable ways. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/64 "2019-08-28T20:39:05Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Then that argument relies on looking at raw numbers, rather than percentages. Each person pays the same percentage of their income in taxes, but not the same amount. I think we agree on that; the issue is whether this is fair. I think we’re talking about two different things- what I’m trying to say is that while a person making 100k in taxable income and a person making 20k in taxable income are taxed identically on their first 20k, in overall tax percentage, that person making 100k is taxed roughly 18% of their income overall, while the person making 20k is taxed roughly 11% of their income. The 100k person is in the 24% tax bracket, meaning that the part of his income above and beyond $84,200 is taxed at 24%. Meanwhile the 20k person is in the 12% tax bracket, meaning that the part of his income above $9700 is taxed at 12%. What you’re trying to say is that if you compare Daddy Warbucks and a person making $10/hr, they’re going to be taxed identically on the same amount of taxable income- i.e. their tax brackets are the same. Which is true. But that doesn’t mean they pay the same overall percentage in taxes… not by a long chalk. > **[Tax Brackets (Federal Income Tax Rates) 2000 through 2023 and 2024](http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_brackets.htm)** > > Tax brackets: where they apply, how to calculate them. > [@Moriarty](#): > > Since the thread is about very wealthy people, I think your focus is too narrow. We aren’t talking about people who make $500 a year; we are talking about people earnings tens of millions. And when you get to that point, your wealth is nearly always the product of other people’s labor (as others have noted, even individual athletes and celebrities need other people to do their jobs in order for them to make their income) - thus, you are very reliant on the society that has ensured that those people are educated, healthy, and well adjusted before they come to you for work, on the streets, roads, and broadband that lets you do business, the laws and enforcement mechanisms that make your deals enforceable, et al. This is a dependency far above that of an individual who is earning a working wage while employed by another. That’s just as true of me today (not rich in any way), as it is for someone who’s fantastically rich. All that stuff benefits me- I need streets, broadband and law enforcement just as much as a rich guy. And just as much as a poor person as well- are you trying to say that we (the not-super-rich) don’t need roads as much as say… Mark Cuban? Or that broadband is more integral to T. Boone Pickens’ life than mine? > [@Moriarty](#): > > (And, more fundamentally, I disagree that you did not get any benefit from the taxes used to fund education while you went to a private school or attended a public university; education directly ties into being able to earn a living, which directly ties into abiding by laws and customs; you walked down the street and didn’t get robbed? Maybe your (parents) taxes towards education played a role). What I was saying is that the money my parents paid in school tax when I was in high school did NOT go to pay for my education. I didn’t derive any direct benefit from it. But everyone derives the SAME benefit from it when you get to these nebulous indirect benefits- unless your stuff catches fire, everyone derives the same benefit from the fire department being funded. Same for police- the dividends of law and order are mostly equal- my neighbors don’t somehow benefit more or less proportionately from it based on whatever difference there are in our incomes. It’s like saying that bigger plants benefit more or less than smaller plants from rainfall, which is untrue. What you can say is that when rainfall is adequate for both, there’s no difference, and when it’s inadequate, there’s no difference. Even when it’s adequate for one and not the other, it’s not like somehow the plant that needs more water is deriving less benefit from the same amount of water. It just needs more water. And the plant with adequate water isn’t deriving more benefit- it just needs less. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/65 "2019-08-28T21:05:09Z")
> [@bump](#): > > What you’re trying to say is that if you compare Daddy Warbucks and a person making $10/hr, they’re going to be taxed identically on the same amount of taxable income- i.e. their tax brackets are the same. Which is true. But that doesn’t mean they pay the same overall percentage in taxes… not by a long chalk. Okay, so why is “overall percentage of income paid as tax” the meaningful figure of comparison here? Why is that a better number to focus on than what **Moriarty** is focusing on (total percentage by tax bracket) or what certain dishonest hacks would prefer we focus on (total amount in dollars) or what I would prefer we focus on (total percentage by marginal utility of each dollar)? Beyond the obvious fact that my preferred solution is completely unworkable in practice, anyways. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/66 "2019-08-28T21:17:06Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Is my math here wrong, or is it accurate to say that it’s actually pretty damn easy to turn $10 mil into $11 mil in 5 years? 2% compounding interest would do that. You can even open a money market account at American Express or Discover bank that will pay you slightly more than 2%. So yes. The math works for turning $1,000 into $1,100, or even $10,000 into $11,000. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/67 "2019-08-28T21:21:06Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Okay, so why is “overall percentage of income paid as tax” the meaningful figure of comparison here? Why is that a better number to focus on than what **Moriarty** is focusing on (total percentage by tax bracket) or what certain dishonest hacks would prefer we focus on (total amount in dollars) or what I would prefer we focus on (total percentage by marginal utility of each dollar)? Beyond the obvious fact that my preferred solution is completely unworkable in practice, anyways. 😃 I’m just pointing out that his statement “Each person pays the same percentage of their income in taxes, but not the same amount.” is flat out wrong. Someone making 100k doesn’t pay the same overall percentage- if they did, it would be a flat tax. But the brackets apply equally- I pay the same tax (10%) on my first 9700 dollars of taxable income that Lebron James does, as well as the guy making sandwiches at the Subway across the street. But none of us pay the SAME percentage overall in taxes- Lebron probably pays somewhere fairly close to 37%, I pay somewhere in the 15-18% overall amount, and the guy at Subway probably pays somewhere between 10% and 12% overall. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/68 "2019-08-28T21:22:39Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Thanks. If accurate, then this means any idiot who inherits $10 million can pretty easily live a very comfortable lifestyle without doing any work at all. In my experience, there are indeed a significant number of trust-fund babies who live comfortable lives while doing very little that’s productive for society. Does it make a difference if instead of inheriting $10 million that the individual earned and saved his $10 million through work, acting, playing basketball, singing in a band, and then they stuck it an low risk investment vehicle and earned approx. $200k + per year on the interest? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/69 "2019-08-28T21:25:07Z")
> [@bump](#): > > What I was saying is that the money my parents paid in school tax when I was in high school did NOT go to pay for my education. I didn’t derive any direct benefit from it. If you buy theater tickets and then decide not to go, do you blame the theater? And childless people pay the same school tax without even the possibility of direct benefit. So your parents had it good. > [@](#): > > But everyone derives the SAME benefit from it when you get to these nebulous indirect benefits- unless your stuff catches fire, everyone derives the same benefit from the fire department being funded. Same for police- the dividends of law and order are mostly equal- my neighbors don’t somehow benefit more or less proportionately from it based on whatever difference there are in our incomes. It’s like saying that bigger plants benefit more or less than smaller plants from rainfall, which is untrue. What you can say is that when rainfall is adequate for both, there’s no difference, and when it’s inadequate, there’s no difference. Even when it’s adequate for one and not the other, it’s not like somehow the plant that needs more water is deriving less benefit from the same amount of water. It just needs more water. And the plant with adequate water isn’t deriving more benefit- it just needs less. The person with the million dollar house the fire department saved is seeing twice the benefit as the person with the $500 K house. As **Budget Player Cadet** mentioned, brackets should be based on marginal utility, or pain. Do you object to all people feeling more or less the same pain from their tax burden? If not, taxes on the upper brackets should be a lot higher. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/70 "2019-08-28T21:30:33Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Here’s what bothers me about this article in particular and the Republican’s portrayal of what Democrat’s believe about the rich and wealthy in general. It seems to me the Republican’s portray the Democrat’s as wanting to punish those that are successful. The problem is that those who make there charge seem to conflate two different classes of people. > > The way I see it there are rich people who earned their money through their own labor, and then there are the wealthy who made their money off of other people’s labor. Republicans seem to believe (or at least publicly claim) that Democrats want to punish those in the former group. My belief is that Republicans care primarily about people in the latter group, and use their platform, such as the above article, to try to confuse the public. > > Here is how I differentiate the groups. The rich have made their money mostly off their own work. The reason why they earned so much is because their skills are in high demand, are very rare, or of a nature where they can be offered to billions of people. These are mostly people in the entertainment industry such as actors (Robert Downey Jr., Will Smith, George Clooney) singers (Taylor Swift, Mick Jagger, Madonna), authors (Stephen King), athletes (Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Lebron James) and so on. The reason they are rich is because modern technology allows them to provide their services to billions of people, not because they benefit from the labor of thousands of low wage workers. There are also a few such as the doctors who serve those other rich folks (Dr. James Andrews) and high priced lawyers that also serve the other rich / wealthy folds (Mark Geragos). > > The wealthy, by contrast, are the people who are executives at or own large businesses and make their money off the labor of the employees of those businesses. People like the Walton family, the Koch brothers, and so on. Republicans seem to think the Liberal position on wealth is that businesses and wealthy people are inherently parasitic and thus deserve to have their wealth redistributed to people who “need” it more. But for some reason, wealthy Hollywood types seem to get a pass. I don’t see anything in your OP that contradicts that. Personally, I don’t think there is anything about being able to knock a baseball out of Fenway Park or compellingly tell a story about some plucky girl trying to decide which douchebag is “the one” is inherently more worthy of wealth than running a multi-billion dollar company that employs thousands. of course, the point is not for Conservatives to convince Liberals or Liberals to convince Conservatives of their positions. It’s to convince moderate independents and undecideds that the other side is full of corrupt idiots. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/71 "2019-08-28T21:53:09Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Does it make a difference if instead of inheriting $10 million that the individual earned and saved his $10 million through work, acting, playing basketball, singing in a band, and then they stuck it an low risk investment vehicle and earned approx. $200k + per year on the interest? Not for this particular point of contention, which was whether it was possible for people born lucky to stay rich without doing anything particularly intelligent or productive. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/72 "2019-08-28T22:15:40Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Suppose I invest a million dollars into starting a business, providing the entirety of its capital. But I don’t otherwise lift a finger. The business isn’t my idea and I don’t perform the labor or any management role. What should be my return? What proportion should go to labor? What proportion to whoever had the idea for the business? Those are the actually relevant questions in this thread, since the proportion of return to investment capital is almost the entire ballgame on wealth and the politics of wealth. > > I see three principled positions in American political life: > > (1) Lefty: we should answer those questions in terms of moral desert, and capitalists don’t deserve a significant return on investment. > > (2) Liberal: we should answer those questions empirically by asking how much return each of the players needs to get in order to maximize the size of the economic pie without creating a level of inequality that damages society more than the cost of a smaller economic pie. > > (3) Conservative/libertarian: we don’t need to answer those questions collectively. because people decide it voluntarily. > > I am a liberal because I don’t think there’s any especially persuasive way to get at what each of the people involved morally deserves and because conservatives/libertarians miss the fact that the voluntary arrangements are highly influenced by the choices we collectively make about our laws and our society. So we do eventually have to take a position on the question, one way or another. They just tend to take the position, by default or otherwise, that the people with the most wealth should set the rules and then let those rules play out in predictable ways. The problem with scenario number 2 is that the economy isn’t a system that can be solved to determine what is actually optimal. Furthermore, politicians who run on and advocate positions that resonate with so-called liberalism as you describe it don’t necessarily mean what they say. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/73 "2019-08-28T22:40:37Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m just pointing out that his statement “Each person pays the same percentage of their income in taxes, but not the same amount.” is flat out wrong. Fair enough. I’ll concede my error. But, it’s only a difference in percentages in the aggregate; we are all subject to the same tax brackets, just some of us don’t have anything but a zero in the top ones. That’s equal treatment, in my opinion, not “punishment” directed towards the richest wage earners. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2019, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/74 "2019-08-28T22:51:16Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > The problem with scenario number 2 is that the economy isn’t a system that can be solved to determine what is actually optimal. Cannot be solved, no. But can be improved with evidence, which makes it preferable to the alternatives (among other reasons). ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2019, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/75 "2019-08-29T00:42:25Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Cannot be solved, no. But can be improved with evidence, which makes it preferable to the alternatives (among other reasons). So what should someone earn for a unit of labor? What is the appropriate rate of return on investment? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2019, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/76 "2019-08-29T00:50:56Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > So what should someone earn for a unit of labor? What is the appropriate rate of return on investment? More and less, respectively, than average current levels. Happy to help! ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2019, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/77 "2019-08-29T02:31:26Z")
> [@bump](#): > > All that stuff benefits me- I need streets, broadband and law enforcement just as much as a rich guy. And just as much as a poor person as well- are you trying to say that we (the not-super-rich) don’t need roads as much as say… Mark Cuban? Or that broadband is more integral to T. Boone Pickens’ life than mine? I wanted to return to this. What I am saying is that people like Mark Cuban and T. Boone Pickens have more to lose if the infrastructure like roads or broadband fell apart. If America couldn’t ensure the integrity of its markets, these people stand to lose BILLIONS of dollars. So, yes, they should be more obligated to ensure that the system is funded than somebody with significantly less wealth. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2019, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/78 "2019-08-29T02:54:45Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > It is hypocritical to criticize people for building a big house instead of giving the money to charity and then buying a big house instead of giving the money to charity. He didn’t say that. He said (paraphrasing) that, at some point, you’re house is big enough. That implies buying a really big house. I think you could fairly fault Obama if he was constantly buying a bigger and bigger home, or if he wasn’t involved in philanthropy. But he definitely didn’t say that people shouldn’t buy a big house. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2019, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/79 "2019-08-29T03:26:42Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > More and less, respectively, than average current levels. Happy to help! That’s pretty funny and thanks for the help. However, the question is actually quite serious. It’s the difference between the philosophy that leads to central planning and the philosophy that leads to the free market. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2019, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/80 "2019-08-29T03:46:33Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > However, the question is actually quite serious. It’s the difference between the philosophy that leads to central planning and the philosophy that leads to the free market. Ironically, the only way a free market can exist (which I agree is a good thing) is if you have some central planning. Because businessmen like Bill Gates, John Rockefeller, Sam Walton, and Al Capone all agree: competition is bad for business. Capitalists do not welcome a free market. Their ideal is a monopoly where they are the only seller. So if a free market is going to exist, it’s not going to happen due to the actions of capitalists. It’s going to happen because there is a strong authority that exists outside of the market itself which maintains the existence of a free market and prevents capitalists from achieving their ideal state of monopoly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337.md?page=5)