Its not about imposing a System. Its about moving in a direction. Progress, we like to call it. YMMV.
And yes, life is unfair. We can accept that, or we can change it. You know my vote. Perfect equality is most likely impossible, as perfect is impossible. We can do a hell of a lot better than we have.
But if you don’t approve of the system, why wouldn’t you want to change it? It’s the system that is producing the outcomes you don’t like.
Well, yes, of course. I am a radical, John, not a revolutionary. I want fundamental change, change that goes to the very root, radix, hence, radical. I hold that in certain desperate circumstances, revolution cannot be avoided, but it offers far too much opportunity for the unscrupulous demagogue. The American Revolution more or less worked, Goddess be praised, but the French and Russian Revolutions were disasters.
I put it to you this way: if the most intelligent and creative society on the planet, the people who made the intertubes and went to the Moon, if we can’t cobble together a more just system, then, and only then! will I admit that it is impossible. Yes, life is unfair, but that is not God’s Will, that is us failing to change it. Simply substituting an arbitrary and capricious Free Market, blessings and peace be upon it, for arbitrary and capricious Fate doesn’t get it. We can do better. Let’s.
Hell, maybe the damned liberals are right, maybe we can tinker and adjust, slowly change a 19th Century steam powered cast iron monstrosity into a solar-powered rainbow extruder. I’m willing to listen. I’m just not willing to give up.
Well, we’re just talking about degrees then. Our society does a shitload of things to mitigate the unfairness of “life”. You just want it to do more. I’m just confused as to why you make it sound like we do nothing.
Alternatively, I could ask you, have we done enough? We can quit now? Remember Tom Joad’s soliloquy at the end of The Grapes of Wrath? Would he be satisfied, would he say, “Yep, good as its gonna get, can rest in peace, now.”?
If these are not our people, then who’s people are they? If not us, who? if not now, when? Its taking a lot longer than we thought, and we could use your help, if you’ve nothing better to do. Plenty of room for another set of broad, manly shoulders, like yours!
(Shameless? Hugh Betcha!..)
I would look to do things differently. Not sure if it would net out to being more or less, but probably less. I’d be interested in eliminating all the welfare we have for the middle class and up, focusing on the ones who actually need it.
I hope I’m allowed to react to this? [response to hijack] Let’s see about these objections you say I handwaved away. Immunisation?My OP itself mentioned immunisation would come under public health, which there is a clear case for socialising. Yet on the 5th page of the debate, you were still bringing it up.
I don’t even know what you mean by ‘efficiency of rolling out programs’. Never came up in the thread as far as I know.
As for herd immunity? I repeatedly mentioned that herd immunity is not achieved through treatment, but through things like quarantine, education, vaccination, and invited correction. I received no response. No handwaving here either, nor any weak anecdotes.
As for me adjusting my question? You don’t seem to be paying any attention(surprise surprise). My post here mentions that my question evolved. And while your characterization of what it evolved to is partially correct, it is incomplete. I also invited a case for socialising “private goods”(goods which benefit only the individual who partakes of them), or for showing that government can provide private goods more efficiently than the market. So I don’t see what your problem is. If you have any desire to continue this conversation, you’re welcome to post in the original thread. If, on the other hand, you desire to hound me through the SDMB, take it to the pit. I’ll be happy to knock down more uninformed spluttering. [/response to hijack]
I’m looking at that shitload right now, and it doesn’t look very appealing. 
Ofcourse we try to do good, but we need more coherence more incentives. Pure economics are without moral. That goes for greed aswel as it does for compassion. We’ve created this system without considering who’s behind the wheel.
And if economics without moral isn’t enough, there’s always economic growth begging for some serious questions. Focussing on this growth year after year, without any thought or care as to where this is leading to, is just downright asking for problems down the road. And we are quite a bit ‘down the road’, if you ask me.
The economy is not the issue here, we are.
The Utopian argument was mentioned. To me it sounded like
‘If we never get to see one first we’ll never know how to get there. And if there was a way, it probably be so dramatic we don’t even want to try. But ofcourse we all want to be there, I’m sure it would be awesome.’
This is the definition of an Utopia, a self fulfilling prophecy. But more ppl are comming to the conclusion that it doesn’t have to stay this way.
When given the choice between ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ most of us will hopefully chose the good, right? Well that’s half the work done! Now if we could only agree on the definition of the good and its practical workings we’re good to go. :smack: Ok, that one is a little harder. But far from impossible.
Back to square one. I think there is an assumption here that the units are equal across the board. In fact, if you made the 50 40 and the 40 35 and distributed them to the lower quintiles, you would get a marked increase in happiness, since a unit unit increase at the bottom cause more good than a 1 unit decrease at the top causes harm. So the calculus is a bit more complicated than you suppose, and it is possible to increase total (not just median) happiness while decreasing the total of the numbers.
Second, while it is certainly true that a 15-15-15-15-15 country is not desirable, it is also not true that the uncontrolled free market maximizes the economy. Perhaps one unit at the bottom causes growth more than one additional unit at the top. Certainly the growth of income at the top has not helped the total economy in the long run. So you’d want to nudge the distribution to maximize growth. You see, in an uncontrolled economy those at the top have power, and they nudge the distribution not to maximize total growth but to maximize their growth, for instance changing a 50-40-30-20-10 economy into a 60-30-20-15-8 one. Why not - they are maximizing their income and while they are not doing it to deliberately hurt the bottom that is what happens.
Not complicated. Just completely arbitrary since you just pulled numbers out of your ass to support your hypothesis.
The fact is, you don’t trading economic “efficiency” for compassion. When you reduce economic efficiency, you reduce the people’s real standard of living. So you would just be doing it for political reasons.
The reality is, severe wealth inequality is as bad for the economy as forced wealth distribution. It may be a symantic argument, but an economy that doesn’t address the needs and wants of most of it’s population isn’t “efficient” at all.
I think you’re somewhat mis-ascribing my motives. I certainly picked “arbitrary” numbers that worked, because the whole point of my question was really: ‘if we could tinker with the economy to get numbers (like these) that worked, should we?’ A perfectly fine answer, which has already been given at least once, is essentially ‘irrelevant, since we can’t.’
I realize that. In fact, my numbers specifically presupposed it. I was asking, in effect: “is it worth reducing the average standard of living in the country, by some amount, if by doing so we could elevate the standard of living of the worst off?” But I’m willing to abandon that question, since many here have demonstrated the folly of it.
I agree with that. In fact, it was observing that the country’s wealth inequality has been spiking these past few decades (i.e. possibly higher average standard of living, but only because the the most well off are extremely better off, while the least well off stagnate or lose ground) that made me ponder the question.