I don’t think there is any reason to think that those are the choices we will actually end up with. Those are just the choices being presented. I believe there are are other choices available that don’t involve me having to trust a band of thieves that have done nothing but show me they can’t be trusted at every opportunity, but they don’t want to present those choices because they would result in them having a lower concentration of wealth and power.
For example, in the USA where I am from, we once had a hybrid capitalist model with a graduated taxation system that essentially limited the maximum individual wealth by taxing all earnings over a certain amount at near 100%, making it functionally impossible to accumulate much more wealth than that. This resulted in wealthy individuals and businesses reinvesting their excess profits in themselves, their people, and their communities because they would not get to keep those profits anyway. That then created one of the most robust economies and largest per-capita middle classes in the planet’s history.
This is something that we already know for a fact will work because we have already tested it, and it is but one of probably thousands of possible economic models not being presented to the public.
Reimplementing that system or many of the other ones that don’t involve giving the thieves all the money and trusting them to divvy it up fairly are less likely to go wrong. We then need to make sure they are more resistant to being dismantled than previous systems were, so they don’t get destroyed like those were.
And that worked extremely well exclusively for white men in that great society you mentioned. It leaves out “lessers” living in that society. The ones who struggled to scrape by because their homes were redlined and valueless and they just took down your neighborhood to build another toll road.
The fact is that perfect time was only perfect for those in the chosen class. Boo.
The people that were societally oppressed in the USA during the middle class boom were in their bad situation due to other societal ills, not the taxation structure.
I’m not saying that the entirety of US policy was good then. Clearly there were many societal ills, including widespread gender and racial discrimination in housing and hiring, terrible literacy rates and targeted violence against ethnic minorities in the rural south that persist to this day, and religious bigotry was widely accepted. The economic structure, though, successfully allowed for personal wealth while limiting it, and created an undeniably huge middle class. The fact that many citizens didn’t get to participate in it was due to those other non-economic social problems freezing them out.
Also, mid-20th century USA is a single example of a system that was brought up to illustrate the point that there were more than the false dichotomy of choices presented. Surely there are way more ideas out there than status quo or status quo + UBI.
UBI has no precedent for working, and I, some rando online, have already identified a potentially disastrous problem that undermines it that I’ve never heard any convincing solutions for.
I love gaming out problems and solutions, but it is important not to fall in love with our ideas. Getting upset when holes are poked in them or ignoring these weaknesses aren’t going to prevent our opponents from exploiting them. If a plan has intractable problems, there is no shame in making new plans that may avoid those problems.
Well if my choices are
A) live in a tyrannical oligarchy where a few powerful people hold all the power and don’t value me at all
Or
B) live in a tyrannical oligarchy where a few powerful people hold all the power and don’t value me at all but I have money for food…
Man that’s a tough choice. I’ll go with B
I don’t think there is any reason to think that those are the choices we will actually end up with. Those are just the choices being presented. I believe there are are other choices available that don’t involve me having to trust a band of thieves that have done nothing but show me they can’t be trusted at every opportunity, but they don’t want to present those choices because they would result in them having a lower concentration of wealth and power.
For example, in the USA where I am from, we once had a hybrid capitalist model with a graduated taxation system that essentially limited the maximum individual wealth by taxing all earnings over a certain amount at near 100%, making it functionally impossible to accumulate much more wealth than that. This resulted in wealthy individuals and businesses reinvesting their excess profits in themselves, their people, and their communities because they would not get to keep those profits anyway. That then created one of the most robust economies and largest per-capita middle classes in the planet’s history.
This is something that we already know for a fact will work because we have already tested it, and it is but one of probably thousands of possible economic models not being presented to the public.
Reimplementing that system or many of the other ones that don’t involve giving the thieves all the money and trusting them to divvy it up fairly are less likely to go wrong. We then need to make sure they are more resistant to being dismantled than previous systems were, so they don’t get destroyed like those were.
And that worked extremely well exclusively for white men in that great society you mentioned. It leaves out “lessers” living in that society. The ones who struggled to scrape by because their homes were redlined and valueless and they just took down your neighborhood to build another toll road.
The fact is that perfect time was only perfect for those in the chosen class. Boo.
I think we can do better than that.
Go read “the power broker” good book.
The people that were societally oppressed in the USA during the middle class boom were in their bad situation due to other societal ills, not the taxation structure.
I’m not saying that the entirety of US policy was good then. Clearly there were many societal ills, including widespread gender and racial discrimination in housing and hiring, terrible literacy rates and targeted violence against ethnic minorities in the rural south that persist to this day, and religious bigotry was widely accepted. The economic structure, though, successfully allowed for personal wealth while limiting it, and created an undeniably huge middle class. The fact that many citizens didn’t get to participate in it was due to those other non-economic social problems freezing them out.
Also, mid-20th century USA is a single example of a system that was brought up to illustrate the point that there were more than the false dichotomy of choices presented. Surely there are way more ideas out there than status quo or status quo + UBI.
UBI has no precedent for working, and I, some rando online, have already identified a potentially disastrous problem that undermines it that I’ve never heard any convincing solutions for.
I love gaming out problems and solutions, but it is important not to fall in love with our ideas. Getting upset when holes are poked in them or ignoring these weaknesses aren’t going to prevent our opponents from exploiting them. If a plan has intractable problems, there is no shame in making new plans that may avoid those problems.