OK, first of all - sorry for the language! I won't try to make any unconvincing excuses, I'll just try to restrain myself in the future. Got carried away and all that. Thanks to Nea for the reposts.
- Disclaimer again: I don't claim to have any absolute truth, no one does, and (because of my youth??) I'm actually rather uncertain about my views, I don't really have any *absolute* convictions, so it actually does make sense to argue with me, in a way. Does this make sense? Never mind...
- redistribution of wealth: I might respond separately to Galen's post on that, but basically, this is about the premises of our system of thinking. I'll have to trail off a bit here, bear with me. I'll just assume that the basic premise here is that social and political systems are there to ensure the greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number, or something along those lines. If not, tell me what your idea of their purpose is, but then I think we really can't get anywhere.
Anyway, I'll just polarise for simplicity: There's the left - communism - and the right - capitalism. I repeat, both want to make people happy, by ensuring a *fair* distribution of material goods, agreed? Capitalism tries to do this by creating a free market where (in theory) everyone gets compensated fairly for their work.
In a perfect capitalist system, everyone has a job matching their abilities, and earns enough to make a good living. If I want more wealth, I make an effort and work harder. I can choose not to work at all, of course - but then I won't get paid and will probably starve to death. My choice.
Under communism, the idea is that everyone gets a fair share of the wealth available - and contributes their fair share of the work neccessary to make that wealth available.
Looking at it like that, it burns down to the same, doesn't it? And guess what, neither system works. We've seen that for communism (I'm not denying that!), and IMO we're seeing it for capitalism now. Why? According to the theory (and, AFAICT!, your thinking), everyone who is poor only has him/herself to blame. Work harder, and you'll get wealth. But obviously that's not true, a lot of poor people *do* work, or simply have no chance to work their way up in society. And the fair compensation is a joke - why should someone who moves around money back and forth make more money than someone who actually creates something useful with his hands? etc. etc. OK, so perhaps stock trading (or whatever) is hard, stressful work and requires impressive skills - but so does, for example, woodworking, repairing cars etc., and if you have your own business in that area, it's also extremely stressful - but you make so much less money.
This is getting too long-winded; I'll cut short by a bit here and try to sum up: Both communism and capitalism are ideals, utopias, and can't be achieved in reality. That's why we have to compromise, somewhere in the middle. I'm for somewhat left of the middle, others might not be. I think the US are definitely too far to the right; I rather like the system in many Scandinavian countries, seems to work well from what I hear. But back to the point: The compromise, IMO, means that we have some degree of free market, where everyone can take care of their own fortunes, but with a degree of socialism in the sense that those who don't do well in the system get some kind of support, i.e. welfare - it's not just your own responsibility. People are different; some people might not be good at dealing with daily life, money, etc. Does this mean we leave them to die in the gutters? Of course not, they can be valuable members of society in the area where they're good. This includes many geeks, some of whom fail miserably in daily life but are brilliant programmers, or artists, who are crazy but produce brilliant works.
As for your point about the incentive to make an effort, that's why I'm saying we should have a mix of free market and social welfare - you'll be able to survive without much effort, but if you want more than that, you'll have to work harder. Some of the fruits of that effort will go off to pay lazy guys who don't work, though - but they might not be that lazy at all, just unfortunate, lacking in certain skills, etc. And the welfare tax you pay will give you the certainty that, if you're hit by a massive stroke of bad luck, the welfare system will be there to cushion your fall, and, if you're willing to make the effort, help you get up again.
It is about compassion, the 'climate' of society - would you prefer one where everyone is on their own, if you mess up it's just your bad luck, if you're successful, you might feel magnanimous and help some poor sods, etc.? Or one where there's a basic atmosphere of compassion, where you know that if something goes wrong, the rest of society will help you, you're not alone?
Of course, people as such aren't particularly compassionate, but I believe a welfare system can create the said atmosphere of compassion. I myself get the impression that, unfortunately, the 'climate' of many west European societies is becoming colder, more purely capitalist - and I don't feel good in this climate. Even if I were at the top, rich and successful, I'd feel much better knowing that only my business depends on always staying ahead of the competition - rather than my life, my whole existence.
I'm not sure all this makes much sense, but it's helped me reflect upon my own opinions an' all, so thank you for that. And I mean this, it's not sarcasm.
So now I've *only* discussed the redistribution of wealth. I'd written some about the other issues, but the message is too long, so I'll leave that out now, and I'm not sure it's worth a separate message. I'm sure I'll be able to use it somewhere else ;-)
Anyway, thanks again for making me think about this stuff. |
