True, it did occur, but that wasn’t the poor bringing about revolution. It was the bourgeoisie, the middle class, dissatisfied with the “Ancienne Regime” who started it, and they weren’t poor.
In answer to clairobscur and Maeglin -
Assume that the wealthy did nothing whatever to earn their money. Very strict inheritance laws prevent any kind of social mobility, so the bottom 90% have no chance whatever to move into the top.
There is, however, no inflation. Taxes are paid entirely by the wealthy, and are sufficient to maintain an infrastructure available to all at acceptable levels.
What I am getting at is, is the existence of a gap what is immoral, even if the impact on the non-rich is minimal?
Regards,
Shodan
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with some people having more money,even a great deal more money, than others. But there is something inherently wrong with the concept of some people having a great deal of money while others cannot get their basic needs met.
Having enough food and shelter and clothing to live is not a luxury, it is a basic need. A culture that does not see to it that everyone has at least basic needs met is a culture that cannot and will not be stable.
We should ensure that every single person has enough food, a reasonable degree of shelter–i.e. a decent abode and not a cardboard box, and proper clothing, whether or not they work, just because those things are the RIGHTS of all human beings, and should not be regarded as luxuries one must EARN.
Any wealth created over an above this level would rightly belong to those who have worked for it. But to imply that one must earn a basic level of subsistence is not only arrogant, it is inhumane.
Perhaps not all, but most extremely wealthy people became that way, not because they themselves work really hard, but because they have other people working very hard FOR THEM. This being the case, doesn’t it seem to follow that if you have someone giving you all of their working hours, that you have a moral obligation to pay them a living wage no matter what the nature of their work? To say that if one doesn’t like the wages, just go do something else is naive. We all have to work somewhere since hunting and gathering as a career choice has become somewhat obsolete. Or should you be morally obligated to pay only the bare minimum the market will bear no matter how impoverished this leaves your workforce? Grapes of Wrath anyone? In fact I shall go a step further and say this obligation ought to be a legal one as well. To say that this approach kills the golden goose that employs everyone is naive as well. Without the ability of the great unwashed masses to be CONSUMERS, the whole thing crashes down as well. (GREAT DEPRESSION).
It’s NOT a whole other debate, “buckaroo.” I wasn’t replying specifically to the OP in that post, but to Monster104, who said:
This issue is exactly what i addressed in my post. Monster’s position appears to be that any gap between the rich and the poor is acceptable as long as the means of maintaining that gap are within the law. That is Monster’s ethical position, and one that he/she is quite entitled to take. While i might have worded my example better, the point i was trying to make was that sometimes laws are made which some (not all) people might consider inequitable or unfair, and that in my opinion simple legality shouldn’t necessarily be the final arbiter in an ethical debate. Ask people on either side of the abortion debate, or the gun control debate, whether they derive their ethical positions from the simple issue of legality, and i’m pretty sure you’ll get a resounding ‘no’ from virtually all respondents. And an ethical debate, not a legal one, is exactly what Muad’Dib offered up in the OP, if you would bother to read it. I’ll keep my words out of someone else’s mouth if you’ll keep your foot out of yours.
Shodan’s questions have merit, and while i don’t really agree with Calliope that
i do agree with his/her emphasis on at least ensuring a “basic level of subsistence.” For me the first priority would be to ensure that everyone, especially in a country as rich as the United States, had what could reasonably be considered the bare necessities of life - food, clothing, shelter. Once this was done, we could work on bringing them above this rather spartan minimum, thus doing at least a little to lessen the gap between rich and poor.
clairobscur asked:
and in a prior post, said:
This idea of equal chance is, i’m afraid, a pipe dream. It amazes me in western democracies, especially in places like the US and Australia, how persistent is the myth that everyone has equal opportunity to get to the top. As soon as you accept inequality of outcomes in a society, then by definition you accept inequality of opportunity, because the offspring of the wealthy always have a leg up. Now, if you feel this OK, and may people do, then fine. But if you are one of those people, be honest and say so, rather than parrotting some guff about everyone having the same chance to get to the top.
clairobscur also wrote:
I’m not quite sure that i understand this quest for “efficiency.” At what level does your goal of efficiency outweigh issues of equity or social justice? For example, say a small, hypothetical society produced a total income of $1 billion, 95% of which went to three people, leaving the rest to live on the verge of starvation. And a neighboring, equally small, hypothetical society produced a total income of $800 million, but distributed it such a way that everyone had all the necessities and some luxuries (whatever they may be). IMHO, the extra efficiency of society 1 would be less important than the greater equality of society 2. Now, you may differ, but i would be interest to hear exactly why you feel that “efficiency” per se is such an important goal. I’m sorry, clairobscur, if i seem to be jumping on you. Actually, i agreed with much of what you said in your first post.
How do you think that extremely wealthy people become that way? Do you think that they are all born rich? Most people who I know who are rich worked hard to get that way. They started their own companies or worked very hard in school to get high paying careers or worked their way up the ladder. How about all those “dot-com millionares” who worked 100 weeks from 1996-2001 in hopes of hitting the big stock option jackpot? You are just seeing the end result of their labors. It completely asanine to believe that the only wealthy people in this country are fat-cat CEOs smoking a cigar with their feet propped up on a pile of $$$ sacks full of money and gold coins.
There will always be income disparity because some pople are lazy and stupid while others are smart and ambitious and we want to reward the positive traits. I think that everyone should have the opportunity rise as far as their ambition and ability can take them. I don’t think we should simply pay people more just to be nice.
The problem is that where do you draw the line? What is a living wage? Most people agree that we shouldn’t have people starving in the streets. But what about a working class family that maybe can’t afford a TV set? or how about a lawyer who hasn’t made partner yet but wants that BMW to improve his professional image?
How much responssbility does a company have to support the lifestyle of thier employees?
I agree with most of your post, and am a great fan of Grapes of Wrath. I particularly agree that a minimum wage should be legislated that is also a living wage.
The problem is with your last sentence. Unfortunately it seems that, despite the 1930s Depression, indications are that it is not really necessary to have “the great unwashed masses” as consumers in order to keep things ticking along. In fact, the increasing number of luxury goods, gated communities, etc., combined with the increasing numbers of working and non-working poor, and the collapse of the middle, seem to indicate that some people are happy for the economy to rely on a relatively small number of very wealthy consumers, rather than a large number of less wealthy ones. Those who can’t fulfill their consumer role are simply ignored, and decreases in taxes mean that the wealthy don’t even have to accept any responsibility for the poor in the form of the (ever-shrinking) welfare state. It is acceptance of this trend that allows so many people to drone on about “economic miracles” etc. when the number of poor and destitute is on the rise.
msmith537 wrote:
Well, if you can’t distinguish between these three options…i’m not quite sure what to say.
It very easy to say “Most people agree that we shouldn’t have people starving in the streets,” but the key difference lies in what to actually do about it. Some argue that those people should be helped in order to allow them to attain a reasonable standard of living. Others believe that the starving should simply stay out of sight or be locked up. Where do you stand on the issue? Simply saying that you don’t want to see starving people on the streets is not a great indication of humanitarian concern unless you actually care what happens to those people.
Mighty Maximo:
“Working hard” isn’t the only thing required to get you out of the poor house. True, sometimes it’ll suffice, and many hard-working people can Forrest Gump their way into a good lifestyle. However, I can be the hardest working damn fry cook that Micky D’s has ever seen, but if I never try to become anything other than a fry cook, I’m not going to be kicking back with the Rockefellers any time soon.
Success also requires, not surprisingly, a drive to succeed. Anybody of average intelligence and ability, or even sub-average intelligence and ability, can work through college, get a degree, and get a job that will allow for a comfortable, though maybe not cushy, lifestyle. Certainly, there are factors that can make it more difficult, but very few that make it impossible. Born to poverty? You may have to work full-time while taking night classes over the course of many years to get that degree. Or take out government loans. Not the brightest bulb in the sconce? Well, you may have to linger in school a little longer, and work extra hard to pass those classes. Granted, if your address is currently The Gutter Behind the Safeway, getting out of the ghetto may transcend difficult into “nigh impossible” territory, but the homeless are a very small subset of the potential working class, and they are a separate, though not unrelated, issue. Similarly, those with Down Syndrome are in for a rough time, as well. Similarly, if I lose my tongue in a freak fishing accident that gives me the sort of amnesia featured in “Memento”, my career opportunities are pretty limited. Point is, we can’t make sure that everyone is taken care of, we can only try to minimize poverty, within the boundaries defined by morality. (read: mugging Bill Gates for his $50B and distributing it to the needy is not an option)
Shodan:
I see nothing wrong with your fictional nation, though I’m sure anyone familiar with me here could’ve guessed that. And when I say “nothing wrong”, I’m of course referring to the morality, not the practicality, as I think we all know what happens to a society when everybody has their salary predefined.
mhendo:
You honestly have issue with the idea that “there is nothing fundamentally wrong with some people having more money,even a great deal more money, than others”? Please explain how it is “fundamentally wrong” for you to have more money than me. Or is it just the “great deal more money” issue that bothers you? In which case, please explain how, even if poverty didn’t exist in the world, the mere existence of Bill Gates’ wealth would still be an affront to humanity.
Jeff
One more thing: To those who keep talking of food, health care, housing, and such as “rights”, I must scoff. I can just see it now… the Declaration of Independence rewritten by latte liberals…
“…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain Inalienable Rights, that among these are Curly Fries, PacificCare, and the Guarantee of Happiness…”
I repeat: scoff, scoff.
Jeff
ElJeff, you truly believe that food, housing and health care are NOT rights? Do you believe they must be earned? The RIGHT to life is indeed given in the Declaration of Independence, and without food, housing and health care, life is pretty damn hard to sustain.
While I said before that anything above a comfortable level of sustenance is indeed a luxury, I don’t get how anyone can honestly say that a person must earn the basics of life. That should be given to each person by virtue of our humanity.
In any case, someone who can live in a 15000 square foot mansion and spend thousands of dollars on a bottle of wine should not rest easy knowing that his fellow man cannot afford a loaf of bread.
Calliope, yes I truly believe that no man has a basic, fundamental right to demand that he can sit on his fat, lazy tush all day and have people provide him with food, housing, and health care. If you want food and lodging, you work for it.
If you believe that food, for example, is a basic right, then you must believe that someone who chooses to not work, and to not earn any money, has the right to demand that I, who works hard every day, provide him with a loaf of bread. For what reason? Because he’s entitled to it? Because he’s earned the fruits of my labor by the mere fact that he’s a human being? With all due respect, bull-fucking-shit.
As to the person in the 15000 square foot mansion, I would say he has the right to sit there in his plush slippers, sup his $500-a-bottle wine from his fine crystal glasses while watching Episode II on his $20,000 home theater system, and feel however he damn well pleases about the homeless man across the street. It may mean he’s an ass, but that doesn’t invalidate the fact that it’s his God-given right, in a much more concrete sense than any person’s “right” to a work-free existence.
Jeff
We managed hundreds of thousands of years without health care. It seems life manages all over the planet just fine without it.
This is an interesting topic.
originally posted by mhendo:
It amazes me, too. First off, I’m not one who likes to bitch and moan about rich folks because I don’t believe all wealth is inherently undeserved. But as soon as I hear someone flippantly attributing poverty to stupidity and laziness and using that as the basis for sucking their teeth at the economic-divide issue, I mentally say “what?” in the voice of Scooby Doo.
I whole-heartedly agree with you here. But the question that remains (but no one seems to be addressing) is what can be done about this inequality of opportunity? As long as even minorly different levels of wealth exist in a society and as long as the tickets to success (education, networking, strong support system, etc) remain the same, how can the offspring of the wealthy not continue to have an advantage over the offspring of the less wealthy? To me it seems as if the only way the playing field can really be even is if the capitalist paradigm is swapped with a communist one. But that comes with its own ugly problems.
I would say it is because in your case wealth is only determined by birth. Ignoring the efficiency aspect (I suspect it would be extremely low in such a system), I see no particular reason why the global available ressources should be shared only (or at least essentially) by a limited group arbitrarily determined. Actually, your hypothetical system is extremely similar to a system of hereditary nobility.
If there is a given amount of wealth, IMO, either it should be shared equally, either it should be attributed according to some more or less objective rule (to the people who contribute the most, for instance). I can’t perceive any reason why some people should arbitrarily be allowed to monopolize the wealth.
—I would say it is because in your case wealth is only determined by birth.—
Height is partially determined by birth too. So is raw intelligence. So is beauty. So is what sort of family you’re born into.
The problem is, just because you don’t deserve what you are born into, doesn’t mean that other people have legitimate claims upon it.
PSSHHHOOOO!!! Crack, crack crack-that is the sound of me crushing the huge Strawman above.
What about the man, who has a disability-who does work hard at a job, but cannot even reasonably afford enough food to feed him AND his family?
Or, okay, if this guy is a lazy SOB-no, perhaps he doesn’t deserve better. BUT…what if he has a wife and children? Do said CHILDREN deserve to starve? I hate to bring up the whole, “think of the children!” argument, but that’s who will suffer the most in this dog eat dog world we’re talking about.
As for a huge gap-I think it depends. If we’re talking about 95 percent of the nation’s wealth owned by 5 percent of the population-you don’t see a problem with that? And the other 95 percent of the population is starving and miserable?
I think that this was the case in a lot of your Third World countries, particularly Latin America. (Oh great, Guin brought up Latin America AGAIN!!!)
But think about it-people anymore aren’t working their asses off to get ahead-they’re working their asses off just to remain where they are-and sometimes, where they are is a cesspool.
Hell, the economy sucks-I’m currently unemployed. And I’m NOT a lazy, stupid bum. I’m a college grad, with retail experience, and a lot of skills and smarts. Yet it seems no one wants to hire me.
I have hideous tooth aches and dental problems, but I have no health insurance-if I get sick-that’s it. I have NO WAY of paying for it. I’m willing to work-but no one is willing to hire me, except for slave wages at crappy jobs like the one I had previously, that was a serious detriment to my own health.
Forgive me for wanting to live and not lose my mind.
please excuse me, but I think I’d better end this-I’m seriously starting to cry, because I’m so freaking scared about what’s to come…
Yeah. I just don’t understand why we don’t give up technology alltogether. After all the same reasoning can be applied to that. Why shouldn’t we all live like savages?
For property rights I don’t see the immoral part of the goverment taking property from one person and giving it to another. Having property is not a right. There is also no right to keeping your property. It is only hurting you in the sense that you have to be more like people with lower incomes.
Hmmm…I’m not sure how I came to appear as priviledging efficiency above everything else. My point is that it’s important to have a larger cake to share. If monetary incentives are needed resulting in reasonnable inequalities, then it’s not really an issue, if people don’t find themselves in a worst situation as a consequence (getting a smaller bit of cake despite the cake being larger).
Actually, I agree with your position. If a society can afford it (obviously), fulfilling the minimal needs of everybody must be the first priority. Past this step, there are two reasons I think are valid for inequality of wealth :
-If it results from a deliberate choices of the individuals : for instance choosing to work less or more, trading leisure time for money.
-If it results in a greater overall efficiency and the creation of wealth, whether this wealth is equally distributed or not being irrelevant, as long as its justly distributed (In this case, by “justly”, I mean to the individuals who actually created this wealth, assuming that we can actually determine who had what part in this creation of wealth) and as long as it doesn’t limit in a significant way the ability of other individuals to create wealth too, nor impoverish them (of course).
In other words, if the original situation is that everybody owns 10 000 $, and we implement some social system :
If the result is that 90% of people still own 10 000 and 10% own 100 000 (due purely to their own activities, not from the direct or indirect exploitation of others), then that’s Ok for me.
If the result is that 90% of people now own only 2 000 and 10% own 100 000 , then that’s not OK.
My take, as I lenghtly explained in another thread is that currently, on a global level, the gap between the rich and the poor is such that there’s no way one could that people begin on an even very remotely equal footing (of course, inside a particular western country, the gap is much reduced) and that wealth is created by wealth much more than by hard work, talent, personnal contribution, etc…and often at the expense of less wealthy people, who don’t receive a fair share corresponding to their actual contribution, nor are in a position to play the game with (at least somewhat) equal chances of winning.
Wealth has nothing to do with rewarding positive traits. Or else, generous, honest, caring, etc…people would be rich. And being ambitious isn’t a particulary positive trait. It’s neutral. It depends what kind of ambition you have and how you manage to achieve your goal
And stating that people who aren’t rich are lazy or stupid is as ludicrous a comment as stating that all wealthy people are just robber barons.