God help those children.
All it takes is a second to stop and realize that wealth is created, not taken. If it was all really taken, then where in the heck did we take it from? (I mean we as in the whole world.) The world is immensely more wealthy than it was a thousand years ago, and all that wealth was created by the hard work of all those generations. Surely all the wealth creation done by startups is evidence of that.
I think this is generally an economic misunderstanding that a lot of people have. To them, it's "Every dollar Bill Gates has is a dollar less for everyone else, so that is unfair." In fact, PG made this argument much better than I can, here: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html
That said, I did really enjoy how these teachers approached the art of teaching children. Challenging the children to examine and modify their own worldviews seems infinitely more effective than preaching to them about 'the right way.'
And I'm in Kansas City too... Weird.
I'm confused. Are you arguing that resources in the "real world" are not finite? So we'll never run out of indium, oil, fresh water, fertile soil, etc? Because if you are, that's a fascinating viewpoint, and almost completely at odds with reality.
"Surely all the wealth creation done by startups is evidence of that."
Maybe, maybe not. A lot of the "wealth" created by startups exists nowhere but on paper.
As for you second point, don't confuse money with wealth. Most startups have liquidation value (dollar value) only on paper, because there is no one to buy them, but the product they create represents wealth to someone, even if it's only one customer. If the startup doesn't create enough wealth for enough people, it will probably die, in which case it won't be creating new wealth anymore, but their product made someone's life better, even if only for a short time.
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/02/a-tribute-to-ju.h...
You might think that a class-based capitalist society is the best option available, but that's a far cry from claiming that it is just and non-oppressive. The simple fact is that the statistically most likely way to be a rich person is to be born into a rich family. No one is saying that it's the only way, but if you want to lay odds its the way to bet. That's just? It plays havoc with the idea of a meritocracy.
The lesson that I understood that the kids were learning is that what you happen to have started out with doesn't give you inalienable rights. In other words, be sensitive to the fact that you got where you are _at least partially_ by luck. The rest is just figuring out what it means to be sensitive in this way.
There is another important lesson that I think the teachers missed (about how to handle the disenfranchisement that the Lego-less kids felt), but that's another story.
Just because you weren't born into money doesn't mean you can't get there. That's the beauty of the free market, you have the OPPORTUNITY to succeed and get ahead.
If everyone and everything is the same, then why even bother doing anything better or trying?
Socialism scares me to no end because it is way easier to scream for support and get it than it is to actually make something out of yourself.
I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to have to live in a world that is built for the LCD.
Of course you can 'get there'. But that doesn't make it 'fair'. If someone has to work for 0 hours for 100% chance of success and I have to work for 2000 hours for 0.01%, that isn't just. Horatio Alger stories are, frankly, rare and far between.
The basic problem is that the outlook that a person should take on life is that they are the master of their own destiny and that they can make it on the strength of their own power. When I say "should" I just mean, that is the viewpoint of the world that makes them have the best chance of achieving success. It's a psychological trick that gives people courage, and helps them to recognize opportunities. That's a very short form of what I meant when I said that there was another lesson that the teachers missed out on.
What is frustrating to me is that people take an outlook ("I am the master of my own destiny") and apply it to the world as though it were _true_. So it is common to hear people look down on the poor by saying variants of "if only they weren't so lazy they could make something of themselves". This ignores the fact that different people have different oportunities and that those oportunities are not of their own making.
In any case, have a good day.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-09-22-forbes-list_x.htm
Whenever someone wants to attack capitalism, they always seem to attack people born into wealthy families. That has nothing to do with capitalism. Nothing whatsoever.
In fact, one of the GREATEST CHANGES to take place with the industrial revolution was the reduction in the prevailance of nepotism due to the importance of technical and managerial skills, rather than clannishness. Clannishness, family preferences, primogeniture, cousin marriages, etc, are all necessary to maintain feudalism, not capitalism.
If you really hate capitalism, go straight to the real alternative: Command economy. This is where some brain dead bureaucrat decides who gets wealth based upon adherance to political orthodoxy--which is essentially what the teachers did in the end. Works great with fixed resources like toys. Doesn't work so great when the fields need tilling.
[1] EDIT: Should be several higher. They only wrote "WalMart inheritence" once.
What about the people who aren't on the list? There are a lot more of them, and they're still multimillionaires. We have no information about them, nor do we have any information from which we can derive conclusions from.
As far as the top billionaires, it is true that many of them were extremely fortunate in life and had some money from birth. Only around 30 of them made their billions that way, the others worked to turn their millions into billions, which still takes a great deal of work (and pure luck).
I see this argument going nowhere unless we can agree that everyone who has under $X to start and creates $Y over the course of their lives counts as someone who became successful through capitalism. But I doubt we can agree what the X and Y values should be.
This isn't always, or even usually, true. Millions upon millions are born into this world with _no_ prospects, and _no_ opportunity, and _no_ amount of hard work, inspiration or pure luck will change that. It may be more true in America than elsewhere, but it's certainly not the rule.
And the "free market" is a recipe for monopoly and domination as much as for opportunity. The goal of the players in a free market is the elimination of opportunity for anyone but themselves. The free market does not reward altruism, so there's no incentive not to crush anyone in your way, other than personal decency. Which also doesn't pay. The market we enjoy here is anything but free, for which I'm thankful.
"If everyone and everything is the same, then why even bother doing anything better or trying?"
That's a strawman.
"Socialism scares me to no end because it is way easier to scream for support and get it than it is to actually make something out of yourself."
Out of curiosity, what's your actual experience of socialism?
"I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to have to live in a world that is built for the LCD."
So raise the lowest common denominator. There are multiple paths to that goal, after all.
Certainly I feel for those in underdeveloped or regressive countries and I'm VERY thankful that I am where I am and am able to live as comfortable a life as I am living. But what am I going to do? Frankly there is very little that I can do for people in N. Korea or Zimbabwe. Socialism is not the answer for the problems in the middle east, africa or N. Korea.
And (this is getting longer than I have time for), but how do I raise the LCD? It seems to me that every day the LCD goes down further. I had a conversation today with a buddy about trying to monetize an idea and he said we needed to find a way to make it more lowbrow since stuff like that pays (see hotornot.com in its "close to porn" heyday).
Much of your money is held in custody in some bank, where you put it because you trust they'll give it back to you when you ask for it, not because you think you can strongarm the clerks into returning it to you.
Maybe your car is parked out on the street. Even if you have it in a garage of your own, if some burglars came you may find it more reasonable to let your insurance company or the police take care of it rather than risk your life trying to stop it yourself via violence.
Those mechanisms work because there are rules in place about what is reasonable use of resources and wealth, and those rules could not be stable or widely respected if you couldn't defend they're just in some way.
Like all the land we took from the Indians?
That doesn't scale. Humanity's ability to find natural resources dwarfs the amount of natural resources to be found on earth. It's not hard to 'find' arable land, for example. Any counterclaims would have to be defended in base of some agreeable concept of justice, or failing that, via violence, actual or anticipated. Violence over resources can happen, and happens, irrespective of ideological differences.
You're not talking about evening the score, you're talking about inhibiting people from ever getting ahead again.
The Lego bricks belong to the People! You are a friend of the Lego Revolution, are you not? I suspect you do not like our Cherished Leaders! Western ideas have poisoned you! Do not sit with us during the Snack Time Celebration! Our Great Teachers are watching you!
Also the clear Lego bricks are being collected by the People's Ministry of Security. Only Authorized Friends of the Revolution are allowed to use the clear Legos. To become an Authorized Friend you must donate cookies the People's Party Headquarters next to book shelf. DO NOT donate cookies to Headquarters of the People's Party, they are traitors, spies, and enemies of the Revolution! They must not be allowed to go play during Recess! This is the New Fairness.
Hail to our Great Teachers for teaching us the New Fairness!
- Comrade Jimmy
Good they didn't try Jane Elliot's famous and controversial "Brown eye/Blue eye" exercise in that classroom:
When we played our favorite game - peg ball in elementary school, we didn't think so deep. It was throw the ball against the wall and if you fumbled it/didn't catch it, run to the wall before you got pegged. I think these teachers are really imposing a Brave New World kind of lens on their microcosm of a world. Maybe it's just me I wasn't that self-aware, clued-in at their single-digit age (maybe not even now).
Hence it's a relatively good system :)
There was some study a while ago that said that most people would rather have 1000$ in a society where others have 10$ than have 1 million in a society where everyone is a billionnaire. (I made up the numbers, I didn't look for the actual thing. I'm not sure how they accounted for the "inflation" that such a mythical society would have)
The study should have been phrased: "If you could have only $1,000 worth of stuff but it was 100 times more stuff than everyone else, or $1,000,000 worth of stuff but it was 1000 times less than everyone else, which would you choose?"
I think the majority of people would choose to have $1,000,000 worth of stuff, even if it's the least, which translates to "I would rather be considered 'poor' in a thriving society than be considered 'rich' in an impoverished society."