Others (of a more utilitarian leaning) wonder whether redistribution will 'kill the engine of prosperity'. The USA has overtaken Britain in per capita GDP by growing 1% (point) faster per year for 100 years, and many believe that redistribution reduces growth.
What part of this is "absolutely ridiculous"?
[1] http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/rbannis1/AIH19th/Sumner.For...
Seriously, America is the country where paid sickness leaves or maternity leaves are not guaranteed.
America is the country where waiters are expected to make the most of their living income from tips and not from their salary.
America is the country where local governments have outlawed people from collecting rainwater while giving exclusive contracts to rich corporations to collect ground water or pollute it by dumping fracking waste into or near it.
America is the country where the police can rob normal people from their money without probable cause (civil asset forfeiture) and the majority will rally behind said policemen because "blue lives matter".
America is the country where home owners aren't free to plant vegetables in from of their own houses, on their own property and you call that country "the land of the free".
America is the country that goes to war to make corporations and shareholders richer and you all call it "bringing them liberation and democracy" while America's legislators, judges, sheriffs and government officials can be bought by Political Action Committees and "unions", sometimes for as little as access to garden parties, golf clubs, tickets for sports events in VIP boxes and other trinkets.
Do you think those laws are to protect the people, or corporations like Walmart, Costco, Nestle, Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil and others?
Still absolutely ridiculous.
Here's the thing about the future of humanity: if we want to have a future without perpetual (American-caused) war, we must promote and nurture post-scarcity cultures.
America is the country that spends millions/billions/trillions invading desert countries and does not fund public education
America is the country where politicians have to publish in a register the bribes they take so voters know who they really represent (it is not he voters!)
America is the country that would not regulate derivatives and off market trading
America is not unique in any one of these things. But it is unique in being so rich and so dysfunctional. So smart and creative so cruel and failure prone.
And they have more military than the rest of the world combined, and they are quite will to use it for the indiscriminate slaughter of millions. Sending uniformed psychopaths all over the world to kill and maim was quite risky, so now all those smarts are turning to robots! Killing and maiming by remote control. Evil.
My hope? The USA elects a Tea Party slate of candidates and goes isolationist.
They can keep Elon Musk if they put their seven (or is it nine?) carrier groups in port and leave them there.
In a word (or two): Fuck Off.
The Tea Party can be motivated to support our continued invasions as long as it fits in their framework or is promoted by their figureheads, just like any other party.
There's too much money to be made in fucking up the world.
What right does someone have to reap the benefits of society and not give back? What right does someone have to accumulate wealth from a system based on hundreds of years of driving people from their land and means of existence (enclosure), violence (anti-labor/union action), political misgiving (anti-labor laws), collusion and still not contribute?
Stratification to this extent wasn't possible without stripping people of their ability to bargain with capital for a share of profits from increased productivity. It wasn't possible without whittling the system down to the point where the wealthy pay a fraction of the taxes they did or could compared to other classes and to the point where raising their taxes is political suicide.
> Others (of a more utilitarian leaning) wonder whether redistribution will 'kill the engine of prosperity'. The USA has overtaken Britain in per capita GDP by growing 1% (point) faster per year for 100 years, and many believe that redistribution reduces growth.
Evidence for this? Countries with a strong social safety net sure don't seem have killed their engines of prosperity.
The question implies that there is a natural or divine law, not made by A, B or C, that says what is and isn't B's money in the first place.
What if the people (i.e A, B and C) are a radically meritocratic bunch and they define B's property as everything that can be ascribed to B's individual effort, not to the country B was born in, not to the social group B was born into and not to pure chance?
Based on this meritocratic definition, some of what ends up in the B's possession at some point is not legally B's property and must be redistributed.