“From each according to his means, too each according to his needs.”
-Karl Marx
“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you. We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
-Hillary Clinton
[QUOTE=Kel Varnsen - Latex DivisionIs there any difference between these statments or does Hillary Clinton want America to follow the path of Karl Marx?[/QUOTE]
This is a ridiculous topic for a debate, bordering on trolling.
Do you honestly believe that not giving rich people tax breaks, because you believe that the money could be better used for the public good, is the same as Communism? I doubt it.
While we’re at it, that’s “…to each according to his needs”. I guess the latest GOP meme-of-the-week press release isn’t yet available to be cut-and-pasted.
I think the positions of both Marx and Clinton are far more complex than one-line soundbites. We can’t have a serious debate over two people with a lifetime of work to review when the debate’s premise is about five sentances.
“The prevailing chaos (in France during the 1820’s and 1830’s) resulted from the repression of true capacity and excellence among industrialists, artists, and scientists and the haphazard disposition of human energies in accordance with hereditary privileges and antiquated legislation. The principle of the new order would be antithetical: “Each according to his capacity! Each capacity according to its works!” became the Saint-Simonian motto.”
"On the morrow of the July revolution, the Saint-Simonian Fathers issued a proclamation abolishing inheritance and setting forth the new hierarchical principle: “Each will be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to his works.”
Actually, Karl Marx and Hillary Clinton were/are both Fundamentalist Christians who took/take the Bible literally, following the passage in Acts of the Apostles 4: 34 - 35.
According to the Encarta, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, lived 1760-1825 and was active in the French Revolution – so I guess his maxim could date from before the Revolution, and certainly before Marx.
According to this, it comes from the Saint-Simonians, so during the Bourbon Restoration of the early 19th century. I guess you learn something new every day, huh?
All Hillary’s talking about “taking” are some irresponsible tax cuts which never should have been given in the first place and which have hurt the economy. To compare her to Karl Marx is ridiculous.
Having said that, there is nothing wrong with taxing the obscenely wealthy out the wazoo and giving that money to people who actually deserve it (i.e. the working poor) via decent social programs.
Nobody really earns a billion dollars anyway. There is no genuine meritocracy in how individual income shakes out in the real world, and the state’s obligagtion to see to the welfare of the workers far supercedes any false perception of entitlement to super rich parasites, loafers and robber barons.
Does being a radical redistributionist automatically make me a socialist? I am neutral on whether the government should own the means of production. I just think that corporate America has become so predatory and exploitive that the workers are not paid in a manner which is commiserate with their production and that many people become extremely wealthy on the backs of those who do the real work. Taxing those bastards back to the stone age would just be the working class taking back what was stolen from them in the first place, IMO.
[Waiting to get crushed]
Key and brilliant point. CEO = Chief Exploitation Officer. I am about to become CEO of my own company, yet I understand this fully.
It makes me one. I don’t think it’s necessary for the government to own the means of production if its level of control is equivalent to ownership (which it is already in many instances).
I agree. At my own company I plan to play as ethical and nice and good a game as we primates are capable of. The problem with the current system is not so much what happens when the founders of a company are still there; it’s what happens once the shares are sold off and new and perverse incentives are in place.
Sorry, Diogenes, you just proved that the paranormal really does exist: we just agreed 100%. :eek:
Though the form is similar the meaning are quite different. I cannot see that “Each according to his capacity! Each capacity according to its works!” and “From each according to his ability to each according to his needs” are the same at all. Perhaps you could help me understand. Is there some context in which “works” and “needs” are equivilant?
BTW, Diogenes the Cynic and Aeschines, the term you are looking for is fascist. State control without direct state ownership is fascist.
This, however is more communist than not.
I join everyone else in suggesting that the OP’s comparison is silly. I simply wanted to add that taking the idea too far can lead to communism (or facism if you prefer). Notice that Hilary’s comment specifically mentions the “common good”. This could mean giveaways to the poor. It could also refer to defense spending. My point being that the suggestion that tax cuts should be partially repealed is not by itself socialist or communist or any particular “ist” at all.
If Clinton, Mssr.Moore, et al, feel that they are not being taxed enough, the only honest thing for them to do would be to just pay more. Or do they need the gov’t to hold their hands through it all? Or perhaps, just perhaps, they are just pandering to the leftist view that Rich=Bad?
Who knows. But I sure know that Clinton is going to regret having said something so amazingly ignorant when she runs for reelection.
I suspect that you did not actually read the article. She was speaking to a group of people who spent up to $10,000, each, to attend the dinner. She noted that some of the most egregious tax cuts (such as the ones that the fiscally conservative Republicans (McClain, Snowe, and others) have been bashing Bush over) will have to be eliminated. She was hardly telling them that they were bad and there is no mention of the group booing her or grumbling that they were not bad (or even “too” rich).
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