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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

No. I just made the point that the "rich" have voted themselves unhealthy levels of wealth via control of legislators about ten times during this discussion. But never mind that. Let's move on to what you say I said, which is always more important...

First, thanks for the long, thoughtful response.

Yes, when pushed, you acknowledge that the rich use government to serve their self-interest. You don't seem to get that this undercuts the argument (which you described and seem to believe) that the poor should not be allowed to use government to serve their self-interest. The implication here -- and it's a fiction -- is that the rich use their control over the government in a neutral, selfless way that the poor would corrupt. "We can't let the poor into the club -- they'll eat all the pie." That pie is getting eaten already, and what we're talking about is who gets to eat it, not whether there will be any left.

You don't. Neither do I. I don't think even the ordinary people understand their views, or have articulated them beyond vague anger and frustration, as most of them are uninformed, incurious, and narrow minded.

That's bullshit. There's a lot of irrationality among rich and poor alike, but ordinary people are not that hard to figure out. They want ordinary things, like jobs and schools and roads and healthcare and a local sportsball team that wins more than average.

Alas, we have a two-party system that often lacks good solutions to hard problems. The Republicans are so committed to cutting taxes that they cannot offer solutions to problems which involve spending money, which is most of them. The Democrats often lack the courage of their convictions, and often struggle to propose solutions that will make a difference to ordinary people. Also, the nature of our government makes it hard to get things done, and people get frustrated with that.

What would the alternative be? A system which allowed one party to take property from another?

There is no alternative. What you just described is a transfer. My point is what you are attributing to democracy (transfers) is not an attribute of democracy per se, but an attribute of all government. The earliest civilizations in what is now Iraq involved a lot of poor farmers and a small ruling class that grew rich taking a share of what the farmers grew. Plus ca change, plus le meme chose.

I think the present system is stagnant, and characterized best as rentier capitalism. It's predatory in many regards, and it is creating an old English class system, which ultimately stifles both culture and innovation. I think we both agree it should be turned upside down and some of the accumulated wealth spread to others who'd spend it more wisely. We just differ on how that should be done.

I don't think it needs to be turned upside down. I think our government is pretty excellent, in a world historical sense. Most of the time, it succeeds in resolving disputes between people without violence or oppression. (Cue Adder.) Also, it does pretty well (in a comparative sense) at enabling innovation. How many dominant European (or Japanese, or Chinese) tech companies do you see? But I do think it needs to be reformed. A government that was fairer and more egalitarian would be even better at these things. The problem, of course, is that some people are threatened by these things and want to block them (#maga).

You seem to wish the state to administer transfers.

No. What I have been saying is that the state inevitably administers transfers. As surely as night follows day, the state will do things that involve transfers. When it collects money to build a road or a school, the effects are not spread evenly. What we can hope is that the transfers are integral to state activity that fosters innovation and growth, and are not just rent-seeking (what you are concerned about with rentier capitalism). I do not think any transfer is good per se. I also do not think that pointing out that a government action involves a transfer is necessarily a reason to reject it.

I wish the state to mandate transfers in the form of universal income, and not engage in any administration beyond that. Everybody gets a check every month. After that, you're on your own.

It's an interesting suggestion, but that's not what you think, because there are many other things the government does that you like, like national defense, primary education, building roads, regulating financial markets, and fighting infectious diseases. Et cetera. I think some kind of universal income is a good idea, but it is not a panacea.

You could read it that way. But I am quite comfortable stating the following: "If you allow people, rich or poor, to vote themselves transfers or benefits from the system, without vigilant restriction, you set a state on a course to bankruptcy, without exception."

You are significantly changing your tune, while pretending to be reading from the same music. Even so, what you are saying is still nonsense. Just to make this more concrete, late-18th century France and England were both monarchies in which the government served the interests of a relatively small number of people who exploited everyone else. France went bankrupt, and more, and England did not, and slowly expanded the franchise.

Incorrect. The rich clearly cannot be trusted to manage our economic policies. Nor can the upper middle class, or even the middle class. They will almost always vote their own narrow self interests.

The cure for the rich making a mess of the economy is not allowing the poor to vote themselves a huge pile of new or enhanced transfers. The cure is to stop the rich from doing so.

Dude, I am responding to your argument that the poor cannot be allowed to have a voice in government that will let them advance their own interests. My point is, if they don't, everyone else will exploit them. How do you "stop the rich" other than by letting others share government power? Noblesse oblige was tried, and it didn't work. A nice theory, but the rich found too much upside in exploiting everyone else.

I would have bailed out the lower and middle classes and put all the failing banks into receivership. The argument, "We had to save the banks with the bailout!" always struck me as bullshit. We could have saved them with the bailout while also taking them over directly, as we did AIG. We could have prioritized homeowners over investors.

Agreed. (I think you're saying, we could save the banks without saving their investors.)

You realize this is all much easier if the govt did 50% less than it currently does? Cut the govt services (including most notably defense) and administration and you'll lower people's taxes. If a guy sees a $5000 decrease in taxes because we cut a variety of items (state and fed), he's a hell of a lot less likely to whine about the tax that pays for schools.

This is such nonsense. The government is spending that money because, for the most part, people want it spent. I personally don't believe that we need to spend as much on defense as we do. But no one gets elected to Congress on a platform of radically cutting defense spending. No one.

Inequality is like oil. We aren't going to stop burning oil until climate change becomes so severe we have no choice but to stop. We aren't going to do anything to fix this new gilded age in which we live until something like a French Revolution is afoot.

I disagree. Compare what happened under Obama and what is happening under Trump. The differences are real. Healthcare reform (for example) made a real difference to people. Having a black President made a real difference to people. In both directions -- Trump got elected, at least in part, because so many people were threatened by both. IMO, Trump is not going to reverse the long-term trend that the government is more egalitarian and more representative, though he's doing his worst.

I actually am not against a more truly representative govt. I just don't think it's possible. Sure, we could see a progressive wave that causes the poor to have a greater say. But it'll be fixes at the margins. It'll do little more than placate and keep the poor under control. The system always reverts to the default setting: Doing what the moneyed want it to do.

I think you are truly schizophrenic on this issue, and that often leads you to climb to such a high altitude that you can say things like "The system always reverts to the default setting: Doing what the moneyed want it to do." so that you can avoid reconciling the contradictions.

When people who "already have the power" abuse it, they inevitably go too far and the system corrects. (Things often turn out badly for them, btw...) I'd love to see a sensible fix like universal income. But it's never going to happen. So I say, leave the Antoinettes to learn the difference between pigs and hogs.

You might say, there'll be no such upheaval. Maybe. Maybe not. But when that sort of stuff does happen, it's always a surprise. Like bankruptcy. Slow, slow, slow... then all of the sudden, fucked.

Come back to Earth, Sebby. You've climbed so high here that we're losing your signal -- it's just all incoherent.