Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-66.87.85.222-20170412181021/@comment-26119768-20170420022631

Esquire Mortimer Leclerc, Master Brewer wrote:

Rocket Engineer wrote:

This highlights a central problem with capitalism. Very well, perhaps you have spent a lifetime establishing a fair and honest business that did provide jobs and was generally beneficial to your local community. Then you reaped the deserved benefits of your enterprise. Eventually your children inherit said wealth and the company. These now live from what you have created and lead a parasitical life thereafter, just by being major shareholders in your self-perpetuating company. This is the problem. Not the fact that people, by their own labour, can be successful, but that their kin can live off that success without too being beneficial to their communities, or in fact being harmful. (Now, some of you will claim "This doesn't happen" or "This doesn't have to happen", but it can happen and that is damaging enough)

Furthermore, many businesses that are created are not in any way beneficial to society. What aid is the variety of "higher fashion" designer firms? Who will benefit from trade in the stock markets the most? What of cigarette and tobacco producers? They are "honest" businesses. There is an endless list of such enterprises, successful, but harmful or useless to progress and general welfare.

I also wish to present to you the following story, I believe first invented by an economist: "Two economists were stranded on a desert island. Over the years, the two made millions upon millions of dollars selling their hats to each other."- I shall leave interpretation to the reader.

I do wish to point out that I am not some disadvantaged easterner, ranting against the rich. I was raised in a well-to-do family in central Europe, a very liberal one by that. Point 1: yes, people can live off of their parents money and generally be a lazy good-for-nothing, but that is their right to do so. One of many reasons to become rich is to ensure your children's prosperity, and while that may be carried to the point of absurdity, why should the government take away money which a person has fairly earned? Taxes are one thing, but what you propose is merely redistribution of wealth.

Point 2: why do businesses have to promote progress and general welfare? If  someone can make money doing something, why shouldn't theyx provided it's legal? The vast majority of businesses aren't really needed, but they thrive nonetheless, because there is a market for their commodities. There would be a lot more unemployed people if only businesses which promote progress and general welfare were allowed.

Point 3: I doubt sand dollars are accepted at currency exchanges. "merely redistribution of wealth"

This is very, very wrong in so many ways that I could probably write several pages analyzing all ways in which I disagree. I will try to be short.

Firstly, money taken as taxes is not all redistributed for the sake of the less fortunate. It is expended on socially beneficial public services and institutions- hospitals, the police, the coast guard, infrastructure, public projects and many others, all of which at least somewhat good, but most irreplaceable (altgough it does depend on the country how its budget is spent, some may do so less effectively). It is not simply taken from the rich and handed to the poor, especially in America. I do mit have figures, but I imagine that a miniscule fraction of the budget is expended on unemployment benefits or support for the financially weak.

Furthermore, even for a pure capitalist system (which would be hellish) redistribution of wealth is useful. When the poor are so miraculously poor from exploitation, they would not be able to buy anything. If they have money, they may then continue to buy from their masters, perpetuating th cycle. If you notice, true consumerism only arose when a very large proportion of Americans and Europeans became reasonably wealthy. This has made possible the success of companies such as Apple and Amazon.

Why do buisnesses have to promote progress and social welfare?

Even capitalists recognise the need for a healthy and educated workforce which is as productive as possible. So yes indeed, why not allow cigarette producers to decimate the human populace and halve the productivity of the rest? Because it will not allow for future success, that is a very basic principle.

As to the amount of jobs in parasitical industries, this is indeed a difficult topic. Not one which can be fully adressed in a short reply, but again I shall try. Firstly, it would depend on what percentage of the workforce or GDP depends on the aforementioned industries. If it is high, the government (remember, that useless thing, stealing your money?) may encourage gradual change by subsidizing other industries and hindering the ones it wishes to depart from. If only a small, but still significant amount of people are employed in the parasitical industries, a long term public project would suffice untill the workforce re-adjusts their skills or just finds new employment, similarly to how the Hoover dam helped many during the Great Depression (although it was not perfect-conditions of labour were terrible and the chief engineer was a misanthrope).

I also wanted to ask you to elaborate on point three, I did not understand it. Point 1: what I was trying to say is that your proposed scheme would effectively take the wealth of the rich and spread it around in the government. I'm fine with a reasonable inheritance tax, but to have a upper limit of what you can pass on is what I disagree with.

Point 2: when the government becomes the moral guardian of the people saying that "this is bad for you and this is ok", you have a tyranny. A benevolent tyranny, but nonetheless a tyranny (and some of the worst tyrannies are the benevolent ones). It is people's right to waste money on worthless junk or harmful substances if they so desire, as long as they don't endanger others. They have earned their money and as such should be able to choose what to spend it on. This is where personal responsibility comes in.

Point 2b: if the government (the useful thing that nevertheless must be limited) were to subsidize some industries and discourage others, then it's meddling where it shouldn't be, and has no constitutional right to be. The government getting involved in the economy usually has bad consequences, such as depressions and recessions. For example, the New Deal, the government's attempt to fix a depression, ended up prolonging the recovery time from the depression.

Point 3: a joke based on your story of economists stranded on an island.