The argument that government is the problem is specious; The Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark) as well as others of like mind (the Netherlands, for example), have high levels of government control and a great deal of redistribution, resulting in far, far less inequality than in America, which prides itself of how much it has reduced the role of government compared to European Socialist countries like those listed above. At the far extreme are countries without functioning governments, like Somalia, where you have enormous inequality. So inequality is not created BY too much government; it is created by too LITTLE government. Simply put, in the USA, there are low controls on minimum wage, on work conditions, on welfare payments, and on taxation on the ultra-rich. This all yields LOW levels of redistribution, and allows employers to easily exploit their workforce.
The only possible way in which "freedom" (in the conservative sense of the word) would truly reward the best is to tax all inheritance at 100% and ideally, to switch babies at random between parents at birth. That way, each person who enters the world has a statistically similar change of success (although the difference in foster parent assignment would still make a big difference).
In reality, in modern America, one's station in life is largely dictated by the lottery of one's birth. Your chance at decent nutrition (essential for a healthy mind and body), at access to good schools, to good clothes, to good teeth, to good connections, and to good seed capital, all depend on your parents. Trump is Trump because he was given a million bucks to gamble with by his parents. Where would he be if he was born black in a slum? Possibly a gang leader or in prison.
For most of your 6,000 years, democratic government was not available. You had complete freedom - where there were no rules on what you could or could not achieve. For most, that was a life of appalling poverty, for the lucky few, it was born lucky. We finally developed meaningful democracy, and after WWII, some degree of social justice and sharing of the wealth as a birthright. This led to a huge expansion in living standards in all countries that adopted this and that were not under the thumbs of foreign influence. Then in the 1980's, we adopted Reaganism/Thatcherism, and for the past 40 years, we have seen huge increases in wealth for the few and economic stagnation for everyone else - despite now having both parents working, and huge numbers of machines working for us. By all accounts, if the benefits of mechanization and science were shared with all, we'd ALL be living like kings. Instead, the few are living beyond the dreams of emperors, and the vast majority of people living in countries in the first world are living in economic stagnation. As for those living in the third world...
Among those first world countries that DO engage in economic redistribution, most people lead happy and engaged lives, and income inequality is low.
I am indeed looking to myself and my COMMUNITY for answers. The problem is the few who look out only for themselves. The tiny few. The few for whom $10 billion is not enough, they need to cut wages even further on those who create their wealth.
RE: What is freedom in the 21st century?
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What is freedom in the 21st century?
Again, if you consider entitlement to a certain percentage of income/resources to be freedom, then your argument is airtight, in those regions, which are very much the exemption. And let's not forget that for all the redistribution that occurs, most people in those regions lose half or more of their income to taxes in order to have it 'redistributed'. But then the question becomes how is that freedom when you aren't free to keep what you earn?
How much of another man's resources or income is YOURS? That's not freedom. That's slavery. Whether it is slavery to each other or to the state or to a bank, it's slavery because you don't even own your labor. Hell, you don't even own your body, even in those regions.
Your assertion that redistribution somehow equates to freedom is less than specious, it's flawed from the get.
I'll hit on another point you made, for most of the history of government, democracy wasn't available. Sure it was. It's known as mob rule. At least, in terms of today's democracy. The idea that the 'majority' decision is somehow principled, moral or ethical and that the minority should be dismissed and forced to abide by the majority's decision. That's mob rule, literally.
Furthermore, any cursory study into sociology will tell you that the largest group is the most likely to be unethical, immoral and unprincipled. So, thankfully, democracy is relatively new and so it hasn't had time to become even worse... though it is trying.
Democracy is what killed Socrates. It was also abandoned by the initial adoptors of it(Greece), if it wasn't all but abolished by interested parties such as Caesar, Mao, Stalin, et cetera.
Democracy has had several centuries to prove itself to be a way of freeing people from their masters and yet, somehow, we are more theirs than ever. What's more is that we are WILLING to be theirs, so long as they give us some trivial choice that we likely don't really have(see North Korea for the most honest reality behind democracy).
Furthermore, I am not positing that the state, in and of itself, is, in fact, the CAUSE of our troubles, but rather a severe symptom only making the problems worse. The cause of our problems is that people want to be taken care of. They don't want to be self reliant. They want to pretend that they aren't responsible for their actions, they just want to follow orders and obey laws so they are absolved of any responsibiilty for their decisions. They want to be infantalized and they use the state to achieve that. It's basic human nature, we don't want to grow up and have to answer to ourselves because we are our worst critics at the end of the day. We want external validation of how special and entitled and deserving we are.
You can talk all day about redistribution, but even your shining examples of redistribution still put most of the money in the hands of the few through taxation and subsidization. I know little of economics and even I know redistribution of wealth ain't fucking free.
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" it's slavery because you don't even own your labor."
You are referring to Capitalism. In the days before capitalism, a blacksmith or a weaver owned his own tools and the profit he made was his own. The land was for use by all, and those who worked hard to use it, profited most.
Then the common lands were stolen from the people by the few, who fenced it off for their own exclusive use, and since then, others must pay rents to those who stole (enclosed) the land - and their descendants and those who bought the rights from them.
Around the same time, the bankers started building factories for the newly dispossessed - so now the blacksmith was working, not in his own forge, but as a common laborer in a factory owned by the bank (the "Capital" in "Capitalism").
Now, the worker is NOT entitled to the products of his own labor - they belong perforce to his employer, who them pays the worker what he feels like, keeping quite a lot back for himself.
We live in a society of redistribution where the land and resources have been distributed to the few, and where the value created by the many has been redistributed to the owners of capital.
Capital they manufacture out of thin air by making an entry in a ledger book.
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" the largest group is the most likely to be unethical, immoral and unprincipled."
What nonsense. Except that there is safety in numbers - its safer to riot when there are more of you. But Hitler was one person, who was very much unethical, immoral and unprincipled. So are "bankers", the "1%" and others.
The idea that a smaller tribe is more moral than a larger tribe is just nonsense.
What this boils down to is whether society should be ruled by an elite fraction or whether it should be ruled by everyone. If the elite are truly enlightened, then sure, let the elite rule. But if the elite are the Nazis, or the Plutocrats, or another group of psychopaths, then its better to let the majority govern.
Ultimately, the answer is to educate the majority so that they are enlightened enough to rule themselves. It is a tricky question, no doubt, but dictatorship is not a panacea.
Trusting people is ultimately the only way forward - but mechanisms must be put into place so that people are given the tools they need to govern themselves. Democratically.
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"The cause of our problems is that people want to be taken care of. They don't want to be self reliant."
Of your 100 closest friends and relatives, for what percentage is this true?
Almost everyone I know - their greatest fear is growing old so that they will no longer be able to take care of themselves, but will be reliant on being taken care of by others.
Maybe you live in a weird subset of humanity.
What most people want, is to be able to contribute to others, in whatever way they are best suited to contribute - and in turn, to be taken care of in ways that they are ill-suited to provide for themselves.
Children, it is true, dont want to have to work for food, because they are weak and small. But whenever they can do something for their parents - look at the smile on their faces!
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