Socialism/Marxism and balance.

[pErvinalia]

No, you don't understand. Yes, that money gets spent in the economy, but taking it from the person who earned it and giving it to a welfare leech doesn't improve or increase anything over letting the earner spend it himself on what he wants.

Yes it does, as I have already explained. Rich people spend more of their money on imported luxuries and useless rent seeking investments. I agree they spend more in the sharemarket and that provides investment funds for some business, but once again, without demand, there is no need for business. You must have demand first.

Well, first of all, if your country isn't a producer of luxuries that's inevitable, and second, your statement "useless rent seeking investments" is right out of the Communist Manifesto and is a classic Marxist ideological statement.

It's straight out of Adam Smith, you dope!

Rent-seeking is labor just like any other labor.

Rent seeking isn't real labour. It's what Adam Smith called "unproductive labour". It's just speculation.

And what does demand have to do with justifying the taking of property (money) or labor from one person and giving it to another?

Don't move the goal posts. You claimed there is no difference who spends the money. I showed you how there is a difference.

My rationalisation is, as it has always been, that rich people have it easier due to their money and position in society (a lot of it unearned) and therefore need to repay what society has given them in the way of this easier access to markets and services.

And how has society "given" them anything at all?

By providing a system where it's easier to make money when you start from a position of privilege.

And why do they owe a debt of labor or property to society because their lives are "easier" than someone else's?

Because they have disproportionately benefited from society. So they need to disproportionately give back to society.

Surely even you can see that the modern state serves corporations over the individual?

Non sequitur. If, arguendo, this is the case, what does that have to do with taking money from one person to give to another? What has the payer done to deserve having his money taken and what has the recipient done to deserve to have it?

Society and capitalism are rigged, Seth. The people who advantage from that rigging are being asked to account for that.

Be a banker and rob the nation through immoral financial practices and you get a government handout and a raise.

That's a political and judicial issue isn't it? Banks and bankers who violate the law should go to jail. If they don't that's a moral wrong.

That's exactly what I am saying. Our current societies are rigged and immoral.

Rich people disproportionately benefit from society and then they have the fucking temerity to squirrel their money away offshore to avoid paying taxes. THAT is robbery.

Non sequitur. That's not what's at the bar. What's at the bar is the root question of how you justify one person taking money from another person against that person's will in order to serve the interests of the taker?

Of course it's not a non-sequitur. It's the very point. The rich benefit the most from society and they morally defraud society the most. That is the justification of taking some from them to redisperse it amongst those it was taken from.

This is the precise point at which you customarily turn to invective and derail the debate, presumably because you have no valid rational or moral answer to that fundamental question.

No, this is the point, when you start lying like the lying liar you are, that I turn to tearing you a new arsehole.

Care to give it a go this time?

Care to suck my fungal infected ball sack?

And....derail!

Ipse dixit quod erat demonstrandum.

[/quote]

And... troll!

Ipse dixit quod erat demonstrandum.

Sucks to be you I guess, Seth.

[Seth]

No, you don't understand. Yes, that money gets spent in the economy, but taking it from the person who earned it and giving it to a welfare leech doesn't improve or increase anything over letting the earner spend it himself on what he wants.

Yes it does, as I have already explained. Rich people spend more of their money on imported luxuries and useless rent seeking investments. I agree they spend more in the sharemarket and that provides investment funds for some business, but once again, without demand, there is no need for business. You must have demand first.

Well, first of all, if your country isn't a producer of luxuries that's inevitable, and second, your statement "useless rent seeking investments" is right out of the Communist Manifesto and is a classic Marxist ideological statement.

It's straight out of Adam Smith, you dope!

It's also straight out of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.

Rent-seeking is labor just like any other labor.

Rent seeking isn't real labour. It's what Adam Smith called "unproductive labour". It's just speculation.

Both he and Marx are utterly wrong. It's only "unproductive" in the sense that the owner of the capital isn't grubbing in the dirt with a hoe or hammering on an anvil, but economically it's just as productive as anything else. In order to seek rent you need to have created that which you are seeking to rent to someone else, like an apartment building. Investing one's money in building an apartment building is anything but "unproductive labor," it employs hundreds of workers and generates wealth for every person and company in the supply chain. After that, it generates wealth for everyone in the supply and maintenance supply chain, and for the managers, and the lawn care people, and the swimming pool cleaners.

And, since it's obviously necessary to mention this given your dearth reasoning ability, it benefits the renters, who have a place to live and a place to put all their acquired goods they need to furnish their flat, all of which are made by someone, somewhere, as a creation of wealth.

The reward to the capital owner who financed the building is the profit from the rents he gets from the occupants.

If he gets no reward for investing (and risking) his capital in the project, why would he bother to have an apartment building built? He wouldn't, and all those myriad of people who would otherwise construct, maintain, supply and occupy the building, to the benefit of the economy, would be jobless, incomeless and homeless.

Marx's entire philosophy of capital rests on this slender reed of rent-seeking being unproductive and therefore illegitimate "labor."

Remove that reed, as I have done, and his entire philosophy collapses in a heap of its own weight.

And what does demand have to do with justifying the taking of property (money) or labor from one person and giving it to another?

Don't move the goal posts. You claimed there is no difference who spends the money. I showed you how there is a difference.

That's not what I said at all. The difference is that under redistributionism the person who earned the money doesn't get to spend it, somebody else he doesn't even know does. That's a huge difference. As far as the absolute economic impact of the earner spending it versus a welfare leech spending it, it's exactly the same. The issue is moral, not economic in the short-term sense. The long term effect of redistributionism is, of course, corrosion of the motive for productively laboring in the first place, which ultimately destroys the economy as the productive class balks at being slaves to the dependent class.

My rationalisation is, as it has always been, that rich people have it easier due to their money and position in society (a lot of it unearned) and therefore need to repay what society has given them in the way of this easier access to markets and services.

And how has society "given" them anything at all?

By providing a system where it's easier to make money when you start from a position of privilege.

Egalitarian socialist nonsense. The market works the same for everyone, regardless of their starting position. That some people start with more than others is not a function of the market, it's a function of fate. Your premise fails on the assumption that because life is unfair it's morally acceptable to rob the rich. Being rich (or getting rich) is not a crime against the poor, it's just a fact of life. Being rich does not therefore justify the forcible seizure and redistribution of that wealth for the benefit of others. Your argument assumes falsely that everyone is somehow entitled to start out in the same economic condition as everyone else.

The fact is that the free-market playing field is perfectly level for all. However, getting on the team may take one person more work than another, but that's just how life is. It's not fair, but the wealthy are not responsible for life being unfair and therefore don't owe anybody anything merely for starting out wealthy.

And why do they owe a debt of labor or property to society because their lives are "easier" than someone else's?

Because they have disproportionately benefited from society. So they need to disproportionately give back to society.

Nope. They benefit from society exactly the same as any other person dollar for dollar. That they have more dollars to start with does not mean that they are taking disproportionate advantage of the market.

Life is not fair. Get used to it.

Surely even you can see that the modern state serves corporations over the individual?

Non sequitur. If, arguendo, this is the case, what does that have to do with taking money from one person to give to another? What has the payer done to deserve having his money taken and what has the recipient done to deserve to have it?

Society and capitalism are rigged, Seth. The people who advantage from that rigging are being asked to account for that.

If they did the "rigging" then perhaps they bear some culpability for fraudulent activities. If they are merely taking advantage of what is available to them, they owe nobody anything merely because some people don't start out wealthy. What you're suggesting is like saying that because one football team is better at playing football than every other team it must be burdened with a handicap so that the contest is "fair" for the lesser teams.

Again, egalitarian socialist claptrap and nonsense.

Be a banker and rob the nation through immoral financial practices and you get a government handout and a raise.

That's a political and judicial issue isn't it? Banks and bankers who violate the law should go to jail. If they don't that's a moral wrong.

That's exactly what I am saying. Our current societies are rigged and immoral.

That may be the case, but that doesn't mean that those who are wealthy are responsible for how it became that way and are therefore obligated to surrender their property to someone who has no right to it.

Rich people disproportionately benefit from society and then they have the fucking temerity to squirrel their money away offshore to avoid paying taxes. THAT is robbery.

Non sequitur. That's not what's at the bar. What's at the bar is the root question of how you justify one person taking money from another person against that person's will in order to serve the interests of the taker?

Of course it's not a non-sequitur. It's the very point. The rich benefit the most from society and they morally defraud society the most. That is the justification of taking some from them to redisperse it amongst those it was taken from.

Marxist propaganda. It is insufficient simply to claim that because one person benefits "more" than another from the way society works that this imposes a moral obligation on that person to surrender his property to those who benefit "less" than he. It's not as if the individual has committed any crime that makes his gain illegitimate. All he does is to do what every other person is empowered to do, which is to use his wealth wisely to create more wealth rather than frittering it away on crack and bling.

Life is not a zero-sum game where the advancement of one means the oppression of another. That's pure Marxist bullshit.

[pErvinalia]

No, you don't understand. Yes, that money gets spent in the economy, but taking it from the person who earned it and giving it to a welfare leech doesn't improve or increase anything over letting the earner spend it himself on what he wants.

Yes it does, as I have already explained. Rich people spend more of their money on imported luxuries and useless rent seeking investments. I agree they spend more in the sharemarket and that provides investment funds for some business, but once again, without demand, there is no need for business. You must have demand first.

Well, first of all, if your country isn't a producer of luxuries that's inevitable, and second, your statement "useless rent seeking investments" is right out of the Communist Manifesto and is a classic Marxist ideological statement.

It's straight out of Adam Smith, you dope!

It's also straight out of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.

Rent-seeking is labor just like any other labor.

Rent seeking isn't real labour. It's what Adam Smith called "unproductive labour". It's just speculation.

Both he and Marx are utterly wrong. It's only "unproductive" in the sense that the owner of the capital isn't grubbing in the dirt with a hoe or hammering on an anvil, but economically it's just as productive as anything else. In order to seek rent you need to have created that which you are seeking to rent to someone else, like an apartment building. Investing one's money in building an apartment building is anything but "unproductive labor," it employs hundreds of workers and generates wealth for every person and company in the supply chain. After that, it generates wealth for everyone in the supply and maintenance supply chain, and for the managers, and the lawn care people, and the swimming pool cleaners.

And, since it's obviously necessary to mention this given your dearth reasoning ability, it benefits the renters, who have a place to live and a place to put all their acquired goods they need to furnish their flat, all of which are made by someone, somewhere, as a creation of wealth.

The reward to the capital owner who financed the building is the profit from the rents he gets from the occupants.

If he gets no reward for investing (and risking) his capital in the project, why would he bother to have an apartment building built? He wouldn't, and all those myriad of people who would otherwise construct, maintain, supply and occupy the building, to the benefit of the economy, would be jobless, incomeless and homeless.

Marx's entire philosophy of capital rests on this slender reed of rent-seeking being unproductive and therefore illegitimate "labor."

Remove that reed, as I have done, and his entire philosophy collapses in a heap of its own weight.

Smith is a Marxist too, I suppose? All's well and good in Sethworld.

And what does demand have to do with justifying the taking of property (money) or labor from one person and giving it to another?

Don't move the goal posts. You claimed there is no difference who spends the money. I showed you how there is a difference.

That's not what I said at all.

Umm, yes it is: "Yes, that money gets spent in the economy, but taking it from the person who earned it and giving it to a welfare leech doesn't improve or increase anything over letting the earner spend it himself on what he wants."

As far as the absolute economic impact of the earner spending it versus a welfare leech spending it, it's exactly the same.

No it's not, as has been explained to you. Why are you wilfully ignorant?

The issue is moral, not economic in the short-term sense. The long term effect of redistributionism is, of course, corrosion of the motive for productively laboring in the first place, which ultimately destroys the economy as the productive class balks at being slaves to the dependent class.

Except that the vast majority of productive labour is performed by the working and middle classes. Hence why it doesn't disappear when you tax the rich appropriately.

My rationalisation is, as it has always been, that rich people have it easier due to their money and position in society (a lot of it unearned) and therefore need to repay what society has given them in the way of this easier access to markets and services.

And how has society "given" them anything at all?

By providing a system where it's easier to make money when you start from a position of privilege.

Egalitarian socialist nonsense. The market works the same for everyone, regardless of their starting position.

Absolute bullshit, and this is why I don't debate with you anymore. You can't even accept the simplest of facts. If I have $1 million and you have $10, who do you think can make $10,000 the quickest and easiest??? If you don't agree that it's the person with $1million, then you are either full of shit or an idiot of spectacular proportions.

That some people start with more than others is not a function of the market, it's a function of fate. Your premise fails on the assumption that because life is unfair it's morally acceptable to rob the rich.

That's just an outright lie. I haven't said anything of the sort. I've made it clear what my justification is time after time after time on these forums. You only have strawmen in your mind on virtually every topic you debate. What's funny is that you apparently have no idea your head is full of strawmen. You actually think you know more about other people than they know about themselves.

Being rich (or getting rich) is not a crime against the poor, it's just a fact of life.

Stop strawmanning. I never said it was a crime. And just because it's a "fact of life", doesn't mean that we can't seek to redress an unfair imbalance.

Being rich does not therefore justify the forcible seizure and redistribution of that wealth for the benefit of others. Your argument assumes falsely that everyone is somehow entitled to start out in the same economic condition as everyone else.

More strawmen. You pretty much have every major logical fallacy sewn up in your posts here on this forum.

The fact is that the free-market playing field is perfectly level for all. However, getting on the team may take one person more work than another, but that's just how life is.

Naturalistic fallacy.

And why do they owe a debt of labor or property to society because their lives are "easier" than someone else's?

Because they have disproportionately benefited from society. So they need to disproportionately give back to society.

Nope. They benefit from society exactly the same as any other person dollar for dollar. That they have more dollars to start with does not mean that they are taking disproportionate advantage of the market.

It means they can increase their wealth easier than others. Why should some people have it easier in life than others, through no work or fault of their own?

Life is not fair. Get used to it.

Debating with fallacies is fallacious. Get used to it.

Surely even you can see that the modern state serves corporations over the individual?

Non sequitur. If, arguendo, this is the case, what does that have to do with taking money from one person to give to another? What has the payer done to deserve having his money taken and what has the recipient done to deserve to have it?

Society and capitalism are rigged, Seth. The people who advantage from that rigging are being asked to account for that.

If they did the "rigging" then perhaps they bear some culpability for fraudulent activities. If they are merely taking advantage of what is available to them, they owe nobody anything merely because some people don't start out wealthy. What you're suggesting is like saying that because one football team is better at playing football than every other team it must be burdened with a handicap so that the contest is "fair" for the lesser teams.

Again, egalitarian socialist claptrap and nonsense.

What a crap analogy. Society isn't a competition for the fun of it.

Be a banker and rob the nation through immoral financial practices and you get a government handout and a raise.

That's a political and judicial issue isn't it? Banks and bankers who violate the law should go to jail. If they don't that's a moral wrong.

That's exactly what I am saying. Our current societies are rigged and immoral.

That may be the case, but that doesn't mean that those who are wealthy are responsible for how it became that way and are therefore obligated to surrender their property to someone who has no right to it.

So you think it's a coincidence that the more powerful in society ended up with society favouring them more and more? You really are a fucking crack up.

And in any case, no one said they are responsible for it (even though it's obvious they are). It's about reality. They gain disproportionately from it, so there is a moral justification to say that they should pay for what they gain unfairly.

Rich people disproportionately benefit from society and then they have the fucking temerity to squirrel their money away offshore to avoid paying taxes. THAT is robbery.

Non sequitur. That's not what's at the bar. What's at the bar is the root question of how you justify one person taking money from another person against that person's will in order to serve the interests of the taker?

Of course it's not a non-sequitur. It's the very point. The rich benefit the most from society and they morally defraud society the most. That is the justification of taking some from them to redisperse it amongst those it was taken from.

Marxist propaganda. It is insufficient simply to claim that because one person benefits "more" than another from the way society works that this imposes a moral obligation on that person to surrender his property to those who benefit "less" than he. It's not as if the individual has committed any crime that makes his gain illegitimate. All he does is to do what every other person is empowered to do, which is to use his wealth wisely to create more wealth rather than frittering it away on crack and bling.

Life is not a zero-sum game where the advancement of one means the oppression of another. That's pure Marxist bullshit.

That doesn't even address what I said. It's just more Marxist boogeyman ranting from you.

[Blind groper]

Couple of points

1. How do you use money to improve the economy, and hence enrich society?

You can use the money to reinvest in productive enterprise. Or you can spend the money to keep it moving, and that way stimulate economic activity.

The rich can reinvest. Or we can give money to the poor, who will spend it very promptly and thus get the economy moving.

The worst thing you can do is sit on that money, which inhibits the economy. The poor never just sit on their money. The rich rather frequently do. This means taking tax money from the rich and giving it to the poor is actually good for the economy.

2. From the viewpoint of improving overall benefits to as many people as possible, taxing the rich and giving to the poor is achieving the goal.

This is shown by numerous international surveys which show that Norway, Sweden, Iceland and nations like them have the highest levels of life satisfaction and happiness.

The Libertarian "principles" often quoted here do not translate into improved human welfare except for the tiny minority who are rich.

[piscator]

Jesus fucking christ.

[cronus]

Jesus fucking christ.

You can only really understand the continued existence of religion when it is contrasted with unrestrained political idealogical babble.

[Seth]

As far as the absolute economic impact of the earner spending it versus a welfare leech spending it, it's exactly the same.

No it's not, as has been explained to you. Why are you wilfully ignorant?

I'm not, you are. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar, and whoever spends it gets a dollar's worth of goods, be it the earner or the welfare recipient. The only difference is that the earner earned the dollar whereas the welfare recipient stole it from the earner.

The issue is moral, not economic in the short-term sense. The long term effect of redistributionism is, of course, corrosion of the motive for productively laboring in the first place, which ultimately destroys the economy as the productive class balks at being slaves to the dependent class.

Except that the vast majority of productive labour is performed by the working and middle classes. Hence why it doesn't disappear when you tax the rich appropriately.

False tautological statement. Just because you don't think that investing is "productive labor" doesn't mean it isn't.

My rationalisation is, as it has always been, that rich people have it easier due to their money and position in society (a lot of it unearned) and therefore need to repay what society has given them in the way of this easier access to markets and services.

And how has society "given" them anything at all?

By providing a system where it's easier to make money when you start from a position of privilege.

Egalitarian socialist nonsense. The market works the same for everyone, regardless of their starting position.

Absolute bullshit, and this is why I don't debate with you anymore. You can't even accept the simplest of facts. If I have $1 million and you have $10, who do you think can make $10,000 the quickest and easiest??? If you don't agree that it's the person with $1million, then you are either full of shit or an idiot of spectacular proportions.

It's not important who can earn $10,000 the quickest. Time is not the appropriate metric. One dollar invested in a compound interest account, or invested in a business, earns X dollars in dividends or interest no matter who owns the dollar. The market performs exactly the same for each person. That a millionaire might be able to earn more in a given amount of time does not speak to the functions of the market, it only speaks to your notion that it's not "fair" that the millionaire can make $10,000 in a shorter time than the guy who has $10. But the millionaire who invests $10 and the non-millionaire who invests $10 both get exactly the same return on that investment when they invest it in the same instrument. The millionaire doesn't get more return on investment per dollar invested than anyone else does, so the market is entirely fair and equal to everyone.

That some people start with more than others is not a function of the market, it's a function of fate. Your premise fails on the assumption that because life is unfair it's morally acceptable to rob the rich.

That's just an outright lie. I haven't said anything of the sort. I've made it clear what my justification is time after time after time on these forums. You only have strawmen in your mind on virtually every topic you debate. What's funny is that you apparently have no idea your head is full of strawmen. You actually think you know more about other people than they know about themselves.

Right, your justification is that rich people have more money and therefore they owe some of it to poor people. That's not a justification, it's a rationalization.

If we presume arguendo for the moment that rich people do owe some sort of debt to society merely because they are rich, why do the poor deserve to benefit from payment of that debt? If it is "society" that created this putative "benefit" for rich people, then should not the return on that "investment" go to "society" as opposed to the dependent class alone?

You again avoid the root issue which I have stated time and time again. One person has some money, another person wants some money. Why should the person with the money be forced to give it to the person who doesn't have that money? You refuse to address that question, and I suspect you refuse because if you respond rationally the rest of your argument falls apart. If stealing from one person to benefit another person is morally wrong, then stealing from 20 million people to benefit any number of other people is still morally wrong.

Being rich (or getting rich) is not a crime against the poor, it's just a fact of life.

Stop strawmanning. I never said it was a crime. And just because it's a "fact of life", doesn't mean that we can't seek to redress an unfair imbalance.

You haven't supported your claim that the balance is "unfair." You've merely asserted it without backing up your assertion with any cogent argument.

And it being rich is not a crime, then how do you justify seizing what belongs to a rich person and giving it to a poor person?

As I said, your entire argument is based in the Marxist dialectic. Marxism says that seizing the wealth of the rich is justified because it's "unfair" that the proletarian masses have been left out of the enjoyment of that wealth.

Just because there is an imbalance in wealth does not mean that it is either unfair or that it must be redressed at all, much less by simply stealing one person's wealth and giving it to another.

Being rich does not therefore justify the forcible seizure and redistribution of that wealth for the benefit of others. Your argument assumes falsely that everyone is somehow entitled to start out in the same economic condition as everyone else.

More strawmen. You pretty much have every major logical fallacy sewn up in your posts here on this forum.

Non responsive evasion.

The fact is that the free-market playing field is perfectly level for all. However, getting on the team may take one person more work than another, but that's just how life is.

Naturalistic fallacy.

Non sequitur.

And why do they owe a debt of labor or property to society because their lives are "easier" than someone else's?

Because they have disproportionately benefited from society. So they need to disproportionately give back to society.

Nope. They benefit from society exactly the same as any other person dollar for dollar. That they have more dollars to start with does not mean that they are taking disproportionate advantage of the market.

It means they can increase their wealth easier than others.

So what?

Why should some people have it easier in life than others, through no work or fault of their own?

Why shouldn't they?

Surely even you can see that the modern state serves corporations over the individual?

Non sequitur. If, arguendo, this is the case, what does that have to do with taking money from one person to give to another? What has the payer done to deserve having his money taken and what has the recipient done to deserve to have it?

Society and capitalism are rigged, Seth. The people who advantage from that rigging are being asked to account for that.

If they did the "rigging" then perhaps they bear some culpability for fraudulent activities. If they are merely taking advantage of what is available to them, they owe nobody anything merely because some people don't start out wealthy. What you're suggesting is like saying that because one football team is better at playing football than every other team it must be burdened with a handicap so that the contest is "fair" for the lesser teams.

Again, egalitarian socialist claptrap and nonsense.

What a crap analogy. Society isn't a competition for the fun of it.

Evasive non sequitur. It's called "reasoning by analogy."

Be a banker and rob the nation through immoral financial practices and you get a government handout and a raise.

That's a political and judicial issue isn't it? Banks and bankers who violate the law should go to jail. If they don't that's a moral wrong.

That's exactly what I am saying. Our current societies are rigged and immoral.

That may be the case, but that doesn't mean that those who are wealthy are responsible for how it became that way and are therefore obligated to surrender their property to someone who has no right to it.

So you think it's a coincidence that the more powerful in society ended up with society favouring them more and more? You really are a fucking crack up.

I made no such claim.

And in any case, no one said they are responsible for it (even though it's obvious they are). It's about reality. They gain disproportionately from it, so there is a moral justification to say that they should pay for what they gain unfairly.

It's only a moral justification to a Marxist. Life's not fair. Get over it.

Rich people disproportionately benefit from society and then they have the fucking temerity to squirrel their money away offshore to avoid paying taxes. THAT is robbery.

Non sequitur. That's not what's at the bar. What's at the bar is the root question of how you justify one person taking money from another person against that person's will in order to serve the interests of the taker?

Of course it's not a non-sequitur. It's the very point. The rich benefit the most from society and they morally defraud society the most. That is the justification of taking some from them to redisperse it amongst those it was taken from.

Marxist propaganda. It is insufficient simply to claim that because one person benefits "more" than another from the way society works that this imposes a moral obligation on that person to surrender his property to those who benefit "less" than he. It's not as if the individual has committed any crime that makes his gain illegitimate. All he does is to do what every other person is empowered to do, which is to use his wealth wisely to create more wealth rather than frittering it away on crack and bling.

Life is not a zero-sum game where the advancement of one means the oppression of another. That's pure Marxist bullshit.

That doesn't even address what I said. It's just more Marxist boogeyman ranting from you.

Non responsive non sequitur.

[Seth]

Couple of points

1. How do you use money to improve the economy, and hence enrich society?

You can use the money to reinvest in productive enterprise. Or you can spend the money to keep it moving, and that way stimulate economic activity.

The rich can reinvest. Or we can give money to the poor, who will spend it very promptly and thus get the economy moving.

The worst thing you can do is sit on that money, which inhibits the economy. The poor never just sit on their money. The rich rather frequently do.

Really? You have some credible evidence supporting this claim? I think you don't. The rich don't get rich or stay rich by sitting on their money, which loses value to inflation every moment that it sits idle.Rich people put their money to work creating wealth by creating businesses, products and services and they stimulate the economy and raise the economic tide for everyone, including the poor, by providing jobs and products.

This means taking tax money from the rich and giving it to the poor is actually good for the economy.

No it's not. It's bad. It doesn't help the poor to become self-sufficient or enter the productive class, it just gives them something for nothing, the net effect of which is to enslave generations of them to ongoing poverty.

But supposing you're right for a moment, while theft may temporarily benefit the recipient of the stolen goods, it impairs the ability of the owner to use that capital to produce wealth. Such theft does nothing at all to improve the overall economy. In fact it does exactly the opposite by, in part, reducing the free-market capitalistic incentive to put capital to work creating wealth. That's precisely why the USSR folded like a house of cards when its economy was stressed by military overspending.

2. From the viewpoint of improving overall benefits to as many people as possible, taxing the rich and giving to the poor is achieving the goal.

"The needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few." Or, as Marx puts it "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

That's the Marxist dialectic in a nutshell, and that exactly what you're touting.

This is shown by numerous international surveys which show that Norway, Sweden, Iceland and nations like them have the highest levels of life satisfaction and happiness.

For whom? Certainly not the people from whom all this welfare money is extracted.

The Libertarian "principles" often quoted here do not translate into improved human welfare except for the tiny minority who are rich.

You only think so because you cannot comprehend the benefits of freedom, liberty and private property.

You commit the same error as rEv. You speak of the benefit to the collective of stealing from the rich, but you fail completely to morally or ethically justify that theft. You try to ignore the harm caused to the owner of the property by "balancing" it against the "happiness" of the collective.

I'm sure that the slave owners of history made the same sort of calculation as a justification for holding their slaves. After all, slave labor allows tobacco growers to sell their products more profitably, thereby producing more disposable income (wealth) that lifts the overall economy of the collective.

So fuck the interests of the slaves, they're just the minority, which (in your philosophy) means they are there to serve the interests of the majority.

The only difference between you and Jim Crow is that your slaves are identified by their bank balance rather than their skin color.

[pErvinalia]

You are wilfully ignorant. It doesn't matter how many times I explain it to you, you keep erecting strawmen and employing idiotic logical fallacies. I'm not wasting any more time on you.

[mistermack]

You are wilfully ignorant. It doesn't matter how many times I explain it to you, you keep erecting strawmen and employing idiotic logical fallacies. I'm not wasting any more time on you.

I'll believe that when I don't see it.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, well I have my moments. I'll still point out his errors and lies. But I'm not going to grant him the respect of actually debating the topic with him. Until next time I get bored and I get sucked in again. I really should learn it's utterly pointless.

[mistermack]

The Soviet Union as an avowed socialist state withered away, and China is communist in name only.

Withered away is a deceptive term. It changed.
We change on a smaller scale every time the governing side loses an election. Nobody withers away.
And the same goes for China. They have winners and losers inside the system.

In the end, what works is the profit motive, giving people an incentive to produce useful stuff, rather than to push and shove the people who have the power, for advancement.
It's finding a way to favour useful work, over non-productive social climbing.

Lose that incentive, and you lose the useful stuff, leading to poverty for the country.
Russia and China didn't die, they just changed, to an incentive-based system.
Although they still have some way to go, and you can certainly go too far.

[Seth]

You are wilfully ignorant. It doesn't matter how many times I explain it to you, you keep erecting strawmen and employing idiotic logical fallacies. I'm not wasting any more time on you.

You're the king of logical fallacies and strawmen rEv.

But, as it's clear you've been intellectually outmatched again and have retreated into invective and evasion, it's probably a good thing for you to retreat in ignominious defeat from the intellectual battlefield.

[Seth]

Yeah, well I have my moments. I'll still point out his errors and lies. But I'm not going to grant him the respect of actually debating the topic with him. Until next time I get bored and I get sucked in again. I really should learn it's utterly pointless.

Given your inability or unwillingness to debate civilly and rationally you really should.

[piscator]

Watching a pair posters who've never run a successful lemonade stand try to debate macroeconomics is like watching them try to play Sibeleus.

A little help:

1. People don't stuff savings in a mattress or bury it behind the smokehouse, they overwhelmingly put it in banks and also loan it to others via mutual funds. Saving is very very good for an economy, as savings are continually spent.

2. Welfare payments are spent quickly in the private sector, and eventually work their way into the hands of those who pay the taxes. They are in no way "Lost" to an economy. Welfare payments spent are vastly better for an economy and a society than an underclass left begging and often being hungry enough to steal.

3. Money is not simply a measure of labor, but also of power and influence. It is much easier to make money when one has extra money than when one has to spend all his money to survive. "Borrow $20k, the bank owns you. Borrow $20m, you own the bank." "It is expensive to be poor, it is cheap to be rich." Any economic theory that does not thoroughly consider these two facts is shit.

4. A rich man who currently pays a lot of taxes is no more enslaved by his choices than a poor man who has to cough up a road toll to leave his property to buy food at the highest price the market will bear in a Libertarian world. If the poor guy can go die in a ditch if he don't like the way things are currently or in some economic ideal, then so can the rich. But history shows that if too many people start dying in ditches, the wealth will be redistributed. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if that shows the strength of the market, or the redistributionary powers of the poor, but the world is greatly more educated and has a lot better communication system than in any other time in history, which, at the end of the day, is not unrelated.

Pie in the sky is pie in the sky.
KthanxBie