The Rich Benefit the Most from Socialism

[Jackalope]

One has to wonder. I understand the libertarian view on none coercion and non initiating of violence. Consider, then, in such a society, the relationship between a simple laborer and a prospective employer. Is this relationship free from coercion? The laborer needs a job more than the employer needs an individual laborer. The nature of the relationship by it's very nature cannot be non coercive. Hence why we have things such as labor regulations and collective bargaining. Yes, there are problems in how they are implemented, but am not convinced that we should be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

[Autumnlicious]

A lot of libertarians I've met argue effectively for the right to let others starve.

[orogenicman]

For the millionth time... Correlation does not imply causation!

Well, yeah, but that does not really cut the mustard when trillions of dollars have been put into programs which sole purpose was to do the exact opposite of what has happened.

Welfare is not intended to make the poor not poor. It is intended to prevent the poor from starving and dying of exposure. It is a last resort, dude.

[Neo-Scholastic]

For the millionth time... Correlation does not imply causation!

You mean like brain states to mental properties?

[Autumnlicious]

Wonderfully on-topic Chad

[Creed of Heresy]

*The Creed of Heresy steps up onto the stage, cracks his neck and knuckles, rolls his shoulders, and begins.*

Get ready for a fucking doozy, everyone. I'm about to blow this shit-skid's argument apart with an atomic bomb.

We are constantly subjected by media and government that the growing welfare state helps the poor, and decreases income disparity. Trillions and trillions of dollars have been put been involuntarily into the welfare state socialist style programs of the government.

Wrong. They were instated by Franklin Fucking Delano Roosevelt with broad support of the Congress AND Senate AND the American people. Involuntarily my fucking ass, you half-baked retard.

The welfare state has grown rapidly throughout recent history in USA. Let's see how well that has worked;



As you can see, the wealth gap has increased dramatically. Keep in mind, the big social programs started in the 70s. Despite the trillions of dollars put into these programs that are supposedly done to achieve the exact opposite of what this graph shows.

Correlation != Causation. You know what is funny, that you conveniently forgot to consider the tax rates and how they dropped sharply in the 60s, but since the 70s on upwards, the tax rates have INCREASED on the lower and middle class...WHILE DROPPING on the upper-middle class on upwards.

Note as well the following:

http://tomwfox.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/...1950-2011/

Notice how during the Clinton Administration, when, as is common knowledge, our government was finally pulling surpluses and improving our economy and wealth disparity issues, the taxes on the rich finally began rising to more appropriate levels, while as other sources show, lowering tax rates on the rich != GDP growth, and GDP growth is ESSENTIAL for reducing wealth disparity, though not the only thing necessary.

Your point rings hollow and dead on arrival already but because I'm not done beating your dead-horse, let's keep humiliating your uninformed libertarian ass [because let's face it, you say anarchy but you mean anarchy for the rich. LIBERTARIANISM, in its purest form (see also: Not the good one)] by putting the intellectual screws to it. I enjoy busting the balls of you corporate-cock-suckers. It feels sooooo gooooood.

Let's look at anothe example, the UK shows a similar pattern, increase government welfare, has correlated with increased income disparity:

Again, correlation != causation. Are you aware that people in the UK are taxed on a shit-ton of things? Things like motor taxes, inheritance taxes, sales taxes [on everything; 20%], things that generally EVERYONE in the country needs. Now, as far as income tax goes?

Well, Wikipedia mentions the following:

In 1971 the top-rate of income tax on earned income was cut to 75%. A surcharge of 15% on investment income kept the top rate on that income at 90%. In 1974 this cut was partly reversed, and the top rate on earned income raised to 83%.

Oh, hey, look, dumbass: On your graph, we see the wealth disparity issue with the rich becoming richer than the middle class starting to dip! HOLY SHIT!! What a coincidence!
Continuing with the quote.

With the investment income surcharge this raised the top rate on investment income to 98%, the highest permanent rate since the war. This applied to incomes over £20,000 (£176,477 as of 2013),[2]. (CREED'S NOTE: PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THE MENTIONED INFLATION RATE! Do not go "those taxes were inhumane! 20,000 back then was 176,477 today) In 1974, as many as 750,000 people were liable to pay the top-rate of income tax.[4] Margaret Thatcher, who favoured indirect taxation, reduced personal income tax rates during the 1980s.[5] In the first budget after her election victory in 1979, the top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%. (Creed's note: Rich get a 23% tax drop, everyone else gets a 3% tax drop. That's totally fair, right?) The basic rate was also cut for three successive budgets - to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987 and to 25% in 1988. (Creed's note: OK that seems a bit more fair, I mean it's a bit closer to-)The top rate of income tax was cut to 40% in the 1988 budget.The investment income surcharge was abolished in 1985.

...Fair. ._. So! Investment income tax abolished. Top rate dropped 43%. Basic rate for everyone else dropped a grand total of 8%. Yeah. And oh, look. Your graph shows that during these tax cuts for the rich, the wealth gap gets wider, and wider, and wider... Then the taxes stop getting cut and the wealth disparity does keep growing, but not quite as fast...

But then...

Subsequent governments reduced the basic rate further, down to its present level of 20% in 2007.Since 1976 (when it stood at 35%) the basic rate has been reduced by 15 percentage points. [b]However, this reduction has been largely offset by increases in national insurance contributions and value added tax.[/quote]

Ah, OK...see, the National Insurance Tax basically pays for your government benefits. It was instated in 1911. It changed mostly in 1948. It hasn't really changed much in rates worth noting to any real extent or payouts either. And then there's the "value added tax." That is, of course, that sales tax earlier mentioned. Anyway.

In 2010 a new top rate of 50% was introduced on income over £150,000. In the 2012 budget this rate was cut to 45%.

Yeah, 10% was just too much of a raise in taxes on those poor rich fucks.

This should not be surprising, but the more violent and coercive a society becomes, a vacuum of power and wealth is created, naturally.

Dismissing this without any address because this is conjecture and bullshit.

People wanting to use the violence of the state to solve complex social problems are actually doing the opposite of helping solve the problems they claim to want to end.

What are you even fucking talking about now. ._.

Like the 'war on drugs' has cost billions and billions of dollars, yet recreational drug use has not changed, but increased slightly. You can come up with any scenario, and you will find governments turn anything they touch into shit. Making whatever problem they claim to want to solve, much, much worse.

The War on Drugs began because of lobbying by William Randolph Hearst (A notorious liar who pushed his lies everywhere using the free market via sensationalist bullshit, and he was also known as a raging hypocrite who would basically publish whatever shit someone wanted him to as long as they paid him. He openly criticized several businessmen in public and then, come to find out, he was making huge business deals with them, not to mention he had some serious holdings in timber industries.

Andrew Mellon, who was the wealthiest man in the country AND the secretary of the treasury [what's that? Rich people in positions of grand power? And the laws being pushed by such members are self-serving? MUST BE THE GOVERNMENT'S FAULT AND NOT THE FUCKING INFLUENCE OF MONEY...fucking idiot] also had a very large and successful lumber company, and they ALSO had holding in DuPont, and had business ties to them...and DuPont had just developed nylon, and what was it trying to replace? Hemp. Mari-fuckin-juana. And finally, the guy in charge of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Jacob Anslinger? Well, funny thing, the FBN was part of the...wait for it...U.S. TREASURY DEPARTMENT, HEADED BY THE WEALTHIEST MAN IN AMERICA WHO HAD A GIANT LUMBER COMPANY THAT WAS BEING THREATENED BY THE INCREASINGLY-DOCUMENTED BENEFITS OF HEMP OVER TIMBER IN PRODUCTION.. And the guy who pressed for it was obviously appointed by the Treasurer himself, so.

So yeah, the War on Drugs. Funny thing is the thing it prosecutes the most is marijuana possession. The echoes of the past... And who can we thank? A bunch of rich fucking fat cat ultacapitalistic cunts.

Take for example the largest governments with virtually no freedom to trade, like Venezuala and North Korea. The leaders live a life of wealth, Hugo Chavez is estimated to be a billionaire while the regular citizens have to stand in line for toilet roll. Kim Jong Un, also estimated to be a billionaire, a long with other high up officials, while other people starve to death.

Congratulations. You are now comparing totalitarian dictatorships that resemble socialism in absolutely no way whatsoever except for, at best, mere claim by the leaders of such systems to be socialists. Nice strawman fallacy. "Dictators are bad, so therefore socialism is bad!"

[quoteI feel poor people are constantly entrapped by seductive socialist rhetoric, government welfare is literally a trap for the poor, and all these rich people championing government interference are incredibly sadistic or incredibly ignorant to the facts.[/quote]

I feel rich people are so up their own asses on their own good fortune and so secure in the knowledge that they have the upper hand on us because they can lobby the fuck out of our politicians to enforce their will upon the rest of us. Also, rich people championing government interference? *looks at the recent spate of deregulations, calls for social security to be privatized along with medicaid and medicare, disturbingly increasing calls for corporate-sponsored education systems and prison systems* Uh...right.

And, a trap? Right! Of course! They're trapping me, I knew it! *becomes Average Joe* I knew losing my job because the company needed to pad its quarterly reports and decided to outsource my department to India or Venezuela or China or Indonesia and being dropped into unemployment with all my education and experience being in a field that is being outsourced to cheap wave-slavery in third world nations and thus meaning that getting a job that pays close to what I need it to is all a part of the grand government socialism scheme that is designed to make it so that I HAVE to be on unemployment for a few months while I hustle to find another job, and that I HAVE to be on foodstamps if that doesn't give me enough time and as such I lose my house and have no money and are working for shit pay now, because if I don't, I would starve, which is what they want! They want me to starve for a bit not because the soulless corporate machine is pinching its pennies as hard as it can to pay for executives to sit around in board meetings all day to received multi-hundred-million-dollar-bonus checks and huge dividends on their stock portfolios but because it's a TRAP! They WANT me to not work from the age of 65 onwards when I just want to live the last decade or so in relaxation in peace and enjoying it while it lasts! They want me trapped in that state of relaxation and security, because otherwise I'd have to work my old, creaking bones off and spend the last few decades of my life being broken in half by a bunch of ingrateful snide shitheads in Armani suits who sit at their desk and do such strenuous bullshit like file paperwork and determine schedules and examine "productivity reports" at a fucking desk all day! Because THAT is how it SHOULD be! THAT is the non-sadistic route! And if I am old and incapable of work and I break a bone or get sick, they want me to become trapped in a system where I can get greatly discounted or free medical coverage as opposed to having to spend what little I have, if anything!

THOSE BASTARDS!! THOSE EVIL, SOCIALIST, BASTARDS!!

This is all to predictable, using violence to achieve something will achieve the opposite. We all understand this at a local level, like if you want a woman to have sex with you, the very worst thing you can do is to rape her. Or if you want someone to trade with you, the very worst thing you can do is to steal from him. Why do we not get this on an a larger economic level?

Aaand we're back to the violence thing. Socialism != violence, and in fact socialism in the sense you're talking about with social safety nets to prevent the most downtrodden, unfortunate, sick, and elderly of society from being tossed into the gutter and left to fucking die of starvation, exposure, and illness actually DISCOURAGES violence, because people who are in such desperate situations turn to desperate measures to survive. Because, then, violence is the ONLY solution they have left. Charity does not exist everywhere, and while charity organizations often set up in the most desperate parts of the country, you cannot expect them to shoulder the financial burden on the level that the US Federal Government does, not for very long, anyway.

Your points are bunk, moot, devoid of point, based on conjecture and assumption. They rely on attempts to show that they correlated ROUGHLY with a time period wherein wealth disparity began to be a problem, when it was the tax levels that had originally kept the wealth gap rather fairly close that come up as FAR CLOSER, to exact bi-yearly timeframes CONSTANTLY that show to be FAR more damning the culprits than your half-baked, unfounded, baseless vague allusions to social security nets that have kept millions of people from being tossed into the garbage disposal instead being "instigators of violence," which is a non-sequitur to your post to begin with, violence having fuck-all to do with this.

If you are hungry, and dying of starvation, you have a right to ask the restaurant owner to please feed you. If he's a soulless shitstain who refuses? Then yeah, you have a right to rob him of his food because he's a fucking piece of shit subhuman inconsiderate man who would become an accomplice to your death by starvation because of his stingy endless fucking greed!

You fucking TWIT.

---

For the millionth time... Correlation does not imply causation!

You mean like brain states to mental properties?

Non-sequitur, also non-sensical.

---

My system, if you could call it that, is simply a free market, where everyone is subject to the same rules and laws as everyone else. Non aggression principles, respect for property rights.

Who will enforce those rules and laws? The mob? Because you can always count on mob justice to be calm, calculated, cold, and unbiased, right?

And why would I respect the property of someone else just because I should? I know theft is wrong. But if I have nothing and you have everything, and I ask for something to help me out and you ask me to pay and I state that the reason I am asking for something is because I havenothing then one of two things happen.

1: You give me something knowing I cannot pay for it, to help me out, without guarantee I could even pay you back at a later date, with no hope that I could because, again, I have nothing but what you've given me. Welcome to socialism, comrade.

2: You tell me no, that all you have is all yours, you earned it, and if I have nothing that you want, then tough shit for me, it's not your problem. I am now in a desperate situation. I have asked nicely. I have no other means but violence. So I attack you and beat the shit out of you and take a whole bunch of your shit because I have no other alternatives. I leave you broken and paralyzed. You are unable to move, unable to work. You need help. But you have no way of working. You have to give everything up slowly but surely to be cared for. Eventually you are left with nothing, and you die of lack of care because nobody else is going to help you at total guaranteed loss because this is the True Free Market that everyone lives by that is so wonderful. You suffer and die for your selfishness because you were presented with a quandary; a principle of that socialism thing you rail against, or being a selfish dickhole who is now forcing a desperate man to resort to violence.

You lose either way. And you know what? I won't call your thing a "system." I will call it "a self-defeating pipe dream," as it truly is.

[Autumnlicious]

No no no Creed, you don't understand.

Nobody is poor - they're just temporarily embarrassed millionaires and simply choose to not be successful.

All those rich folks really are the hardest working people in the world - they are constantly tired from working 24/7, barely keeping food and home all while balancing off professional obligations and family.

/s

[Creed of Heresy]

*chokes on his soda* XD

[Darth]

...collective bargaining. Yes, there are problems in how they are implemented, but am not convinced that we should be throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Who said anything about throwing out the baby with the bathwater, collective bargaining is still welcome under libertarianism, the problem with the US state and federal laws as I understand them is that they either mandate or prohibit certain forms, when really it should be between the negotiating parties, whatever they contract with each other to do, that's what it is. Right to work laws as they currently stand, although maybe preferred as the lesser or two evils by some, are not the libertarian solution. here's a cato link detailing some libertarian critisisms of the current situation from quite a few libertarians (and no Min, I don't care about how much you hate those Koch suckers) http://www.cato.org/blog/libertarians-right-work-laws. If anything libertarians are proposing changing how it's implemented/regulated and not throwing out the baby, as you suggest.

Welfare is not intended to make the poor not poor. It is intended to prevent the poor from starving and dying of exposure. It is a last resort, dude.

It's the war on poverty, intended to end poverty (if you believe the leftist politicians' rhetoric that is ), not the war on starvation.

It's more than food+shelter (though you can argue that that's unintended still). I've been eligible for it in Aus (yah for being a student) whilst neither starving, being short of shelter, or even in a situation where I had to work, but still I was eligible for $9,000 Aus a year. Also how high is it? is it higher than a minimum wage job in all states? Can you still argue it's a last resort if it's going to give people more money than a min wage job (even higher cause there's no having to travel)?

Wrong. They were instated by Franklin Fucking Delano Roosevelt with broad support of the Congress AND Senate AND the American people. Involuntarily my fucking ass, you half-baked retard.

That's the nature of democracy, the decision and consequences are involuntary for up to 50% of the population. That's before we even get into the rigged two party systems where you have to vote for the lesser of two evils and so on (although Koolay as an An-Cap might have an interesting argument I've seen regarding consent and democracy). Point is, it's involuntary for some, unless you think everybody consented to the Iraq war and the NSA nonsense.

top rate was reduced from 83% to 60% and the basic rate from 33% to 30%. (Creed's note: Rich get a 23% tax drop, everyone else gets a 3% tax drop. That's totally fair, right?) The basic rate was also cut for three successive budgets - to 29% in the 1986 budget, 27% in 1987 and to 25% in 1988. (Creed's note: OK that seems a bit more fair, I mean it's a bit closer to-)The top rate of income tax was cut to 40% in the 1988 budget.The investment income surcharge was abolished in 1985.

Yes it's total fair for the rich, if they were as you say paying 80% tax, to get a 23% cut while other people get 3%. You can't raise taxes to 80%, and then throw a fit when right leaning politicians reduce that to a mere 60% (well you can, you're free to do so, but you look ridiculous). It was fucking 80%, they're undoing leftist nut jobbery at that point, not giving the rich a blowjob. What would happen if the right followed your advice? Starting with a flat tax of 30% if we assume the left brings in tax hikes on the rich and that the two sides are constantly swapping in terms of who has control:
The left would get in, maybe raise taxes on the rich up to 50%. The right comes back in, reduces everybody's tax by 10% to make creed happy, so now the rich pay 40, middle incomers pay 20. The left gets back in +20% on the rich again, 60/20. right: 50/10. left: 70/10. Right: 60/0. The left targets the rich (who aren't on their side) for tax hikes. If the right countered by giving everybody equal tax cuts when they got in power then the left would still win. They would still get their hyper progressive taxation system. If the left raises taxes on the rich by 20%, then that's what the right is going to have to cut it by, at least. The system that Maggie left:

...Fair. ._. So! Investment income tax abolished. Top rate dropped 43%. Basic rate for everyone else dropped a grand total of 8%. Yeah. And oh, look. Your graph shows that during these tax cuts for the rich, the wealth gap gets wider, and wider, and wider... Then the taxes stop getting cut and the wealth disparity does keep growing, but not quite as fast...

Is still progressive, 40/25. Just not as much as it was before. If the highest tax is 80% of course that rate is going to see a disproportionately higher cut. But as you say VAT and NI bring that 25% back up to near 40, so it's a hyper high 40% flat tax essentially (assuming the rich aren't also paying VAT, making it progressive again). Show me a libertarian arguing for THAT, we don't want anybody paying that much. If the libertarians come into power where somebody is paying 80%, yeah, that person is going to see a huge drop in taxes, because they saw a huge rise in them to get there in the first place. deal.

Yeah, 10% was just too much of a raise in taxes on those poor rich fucks.

10% is almost an extra month of the year having to work for other people not of your choosing for no compensation. Yes 10% is too high.

What are you even fucking talking about now. ._.

Unintended consequences I'm guessing...

So yeah, the War on Drugs. Funny thing is the thing it prosecutes the most is marijuana possession. The echoes of the past... And who can we thank? A bunch of rich fucking fat cat ultacapitalistic cunts.

Ultracapitalist? Now you're just intentionally misrepresenting Koolay's position it seems.

Aaand we're back to the violence thing. Socialism != violence

Government: Give me your money
Koolay: nah
Government: ok then, enjoy prison, and if you resist arrest, bam bam bam, he he he
Creed: hurp durp how is that violent?

How is it not?
There is a vast difference between voluntarily donating your time or money to somebody, and having it forcibly taken by bureaucrats.

Charity does not exist everywhere, and while charity organizations often set up in the most desperate parts of the country, you cannot expect them to shoulder the financial burden on the level that the US Federal Government does, not for very long, anyway.

Not if people are paying, or afraid that they'll soon have to pay, rates like 80%, no. And if the government is already doing it...

If you are hungry, and dying of starvation, you have a right to ask the restaurant owner to please feed you. If he's a soulless shitstain who refuses? Then yeah, you have a right to rob him of his food because he's a fucking piece of shit subhuman inconsiderate man who would become an accomplice to your death by starvation because of his stingy endless fucking greed!

Just enslave him, that'll work, he's now subhuman so no moral issues. He has to work for you for free, problem solved, no?

1: You give me something knowing I cannot pay for it, to help me out, without guarantee I could even pay you back at a later date, with no hope that I could because, again, I have nothing but what you've given me. Welcome to socialism, comrade.

Welcome to not understanding the difference between voluntary charity and socialism, comrade. Hint, libertarian's aren't against voluntary charity (without getting into objectivism..., which even then is misrepresented)

You tell me no, that all you have is all yours, you earned it, and if I have nothing that you want, then tough shit for me, it's not your problem. I am now in a desperate situation. I have asked nicely. I have no other means but violence. So I attack you and beat the shit out of you and take a whole bunch of your shit because I have no other alternatives. I leave you broken and paralyzed.

Maybe he pegged you as a violent entitled asshole, who if refused help would get more violent and take more than he required. I'll not ever be helping you now after having read that, worst thing I've read in a while. And you're only asking nicely as a courtesy before violently taking his stuff, why bother? Just start taking it and then get violent if he tries to stop you brah, save some time, there's lots of looting to be done and only so many hours in the day to do it in.

Eventually you are left with nothing, and you die of lack of care because nobody else is going to help you at total guaranteed loss because this is the True Free Market that everyone lives by that is so wonderful. You suffer and die for your selfishness because you were presented with a quandary; a principle of that socialism thing you rail against, or being a selfish dickhole who is now forcing a desperate man to resort to violence.

Again, this assumes he doesn't have insurance, family, charities (who might be more inclined to help quadriplegic shopkeepers who are paralysed due to being victims of assault rather than the looting marauders who think taking peoples shit, and paralyzing them if they refuse is a good idea). And again, voluntary charity =/= socialism, I doubt Koolay has any issues with voluntary charity, seems to be what he's advocating for brah.
Also, you didn't leave Koolay unable to communicate, congratulations, now the mob you mocked is coming after you.




Quite frankly this whole debate is ridiculous, income disparity is not in and of itself an issue. Who gives a flying fuck if some guy or gal gets richer because everybody else chose to give that person some of their income for some new product they devised that everybody voluntarily purchased because they decided that it gave them greater value in their life than the cash they previously had. Voluntary trade happened, income disparity rose, yet everybody is better off for it. I'm disappointed in this one Koolay.

[Creed of Heresy]

Also to cite my source about the rising taxes on the lower and middle classes and lowering of taxes on the upper class.

http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci120...ackets.pdf