That ignores the understanding problem of power struggle for resources between those that have a lot and those that don't. It assumes all actors have intentions for the "common good". The system is the way it is because it works for someone, it just seems broken to you because you are not the beneficiary..
Do you really not understand? Powerful people are making tons of money at the expense of everyone else. Isn't that how the system is designed? What's confusing about it?
We are talking at cross purposes. The system directs wealth to rentiers, they are non-productive. The rich are the non-productive. The system does not allocate resources correctly, it's totally flawed.
The concentration of the vast majority of wealth in the hands of a small number of people is obviously an unbalanced and unjust system that can't continue to work.
Because they are a very small number of people with a massively outsized amount of power. Allowing them to possess the amount of wealth they do is, by its very nature, unbalancing and damaging to the entire system.
That's a clearly defective model from a game theoretical point of view. A certain rich person can do very little to preserve the stability of the society, so their actions would be concentrated on things that give them direct benefits, that may or may not help society. It's essentially an externality problem, everybody is marginally hurt by say pollution, but some have local gains that far outweigh the costs, motivating them to pollute, bribe politicians and regulators, skirt taxes and so on, leaving other rich or poor people to support the welfare of the society. When the scales tip in favor of the freeriders, you have a failed state that no rich profiteer could have prevented, working individually.
> wealth accumulation and redistribution are largely controlled by individuals or private entities
Private entities don't "control redistribution" - they spend money. "Redistribution" implies a parental "you all get the same pocket money" approach, instead of "I'll spend money on things I value, and receive it based on what others value".
There is no "collective way" - even with a government, it's relatively few people (voted in, not having proven their effectiveness by selling something lots of people value) making the decisions.
Charities, where people choose to help others, are a great option. There's no need to reduce the need for them. They also aren't "redistributing".
Having said all that, the government takes almost half your cash before you get it, and taxes you when you spend it as well, and taxes imports you buy as well, and taxes the fuel needed to move goods around, and the businesses you buy from in multiple ways, and if you're paid a salary your business also pays taxes on you as you're an employee. This is a pretty "we'll take your stuff" system already. The answer may not be to give them more stuff.
It feels like a tautology. Of course people with power are going to concentrate it and nudge things to ever greater heights in their favor. To attempt to stop it you need other people with power to do something, at which point they will want to do the same.
The only 'solution' is for everyone to be equally poor, because wealth will never be distributed evenly. Those that generate wealth will not stand to lose it, and they have the options to make sure it doesn't happen.
I think you can question the efficiency and ethics of a system where wealth accumulation and redistribution are largely controlled by individuals or private entities, instead of being managed in a more collective or systematic way that might address social issues more directly or equitably.
Should wealthy individuals that have often accumulated wealth at the detriment of others be the power that decides which causes are worthy of support, based on their personal preferences?
It seems it could be better to develop a system where resources might be distributed in a more equitable or communal manner from the outset, reducing the need for later redistribution through individualized philanthropy and ideologies like effective altruism.
It doesn't have to. The point isn't a perfect society, the point is to prevent resource hoarding and the accumulation of totalitarian power. When we allow wealth to accumulate we are also allowing power to accumulate.
Because structurally one cannot do the first without doing the latter. If I have 100bn, my leverage over the people who help generated that is disproportionate.
I can set up a self perpetuating lobby to government to make laws that make generations stuck in a cyclical system of poverty. Thus it's easier to exploit and make more money. Rinse. Repeat.
By better maintaining a relatively tight "artificial fairness" it prevents the system from falling into one of the two extremes - everyone poor and struggling and one extremely powerful elite and the serfs.
Then I think you need to talk in specifics, not general statements. When you compare our systems with the 'default' of having no system (i.e. anarcho-capitalism), it seems rentiers (i.e. owners of capital/land) are directed even more resources. So if you blame the system, you kinda have to be specific in what aspects you're blaming and how they could be improved.
It's also not necessarily bad that some wealth is directed to rentiers, if otherwise the wealthy would have no incentive to use their wealth productively.
I can't agree. The simplicity of the statment is key and understandable by all. I don't see how any reasonable person can say "it's okay for the top 10 richest people in the world own more wealth than 3.1 billion least wealthy humans". That is just ludicrous to me and shows the system is way out of balance. I'm no communist but holy shit.
You can say that the owner would not have been able to create the wealth without the system. And if you've seen enough of the world, you know that this is fair. But when the wealth is taken from the owner, it does not go to the system. It goes to the politicians, who redistribute it to other individuals who did not create the wealth. That's the rub.
That their wealth and power doesn't place them above the law.
Except it always has and I don't see why that would change as long as there is scarcity in some form.
What it comes down to is cost/benefit of enforcing "fairness" or "equity." If someone has a lot of resources and they are using them to employ people or otherwise keep institutions that people rely on running - even if they are in the long term toxic institutions - there is momentum to not disturb that system in order to shield the people downstream from layoffs and disorder etc...
This is actually our democratic system in action, where the lawmakers and enforcers are put in place by voters, who respond to jobs, social investment and stability in their regions. Even if the people who are the mechanisms for those benefits are assholes and crooks, on par as long as there is relative stability and growth it is better to keep their actions from disrupting the ecosystem.
Arguably it will eventually be too corrupt to stand and crumble, but if the way that capital and goods are allocated is through a private consumer-producer mechanism with state power applied to maintain or promote this system, this is the inevitable result.
In the end, the majority of people aren't so dedicated to the value of fairness/equality that they are willing to risk their livelihoods on it.
Your saying that I do doesn't make it so. You should read more carefully. Look at is absolutely as simple as this: the interests of the rich and the nonrich are systematically at odds, yet only one of these groups have any great power to see to it that their interests are served. A society so structured is unjust, fragile, and generally suboptimal. Such societies lend themselves to demogougery and collapse. One needbt even resort to claims of moral and ethical failure on the part of those who have power to conclude this thing, and yet it is also true that power and wealth have deletrious effects on a number of features of that which we might call virtue, including empathy.
Problem is people have differing and conflicting axioms. "Hands off what's not yours" does not converse well with "spread the wealth, by force if necessary".
Well no, every system requires people with power to be generally good. No system survives with only bad actors. You’re incorrectly assuming a generous billionaire isn’t a feature of capitalism / democracy.
Here's an honest question: assuming that wealth is getting transferred from one party to another in any system you choose, why is this less desirable than another configuration?
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