Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Our Constitution

Now, for the rest of your post
Tom Brosz — (archived)

You make a very good point about things operating on a small scale that don't work on a big one. But if we need to run the United States, we have to concentrate on large-scale solutions.

The perception that corporations run everything may have more to do with your own work background than anything else. I haven't worked for a corporation, or for that matter, a company I have not helped found, for about 20 years. Neither have most of my friends, although they consult on occassion. One does have choices.

I'm not sure we have that much wider a range of wealth distribution nowadays than we ever had. If you look at the tycoons of the 1800s, and compare them to the rank-and-file workers back then (fifty cents a day wages?), is the spread 20 to 1? Or thousands to one?

What I think has made the income spread look unbalanced nowadays is the fact that there are MANY millionaires today, compared to years ago. What percentage of the population is very rich in 2003, compared to 1850?

And frankly, I still don't think it's a real issue. People all across the board are much better off now than they were years ago, even in my own lifetime. When I was a kid, only wealthy families had more than one car, or more than one TV. There are a lot of things that were signs of wealth back then that are expected as a routine part of a normal life by modern people.

Pure laissez-faire capitalism would last about a day until runaway imbalances produce oligarchy.

This is an article of liberal faith, and inarguable on that basis. If the capitalist system had, as it should, a government forbidden from interfering in normal commerce, it would be difficult to maintain an oligarchy or monopoly. Look at your history. Were the famous abusive monopolies maintained by performance on the market, or by government decrees, special favors, and laws protecting them from competition?

As for what direction we are going, we definitely need to be turning in the other direction from socialism. And I'm not holding my breath for Democrats to do that.

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