Is it a crime to amass a lot of riches?

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by haribol, Apr 24, 2012.

  1. haribol

    haribol New Member

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    I often want to rip up the very pillar of civilization and the values resting on it. There were some voices thundered in Occupy Wall Street. The earth is a common possession and inherently everyone born here has ownership over it or has a distinct share of it. Nobody is born to die of famine and starvation. The earth is big enough and its resources are abundant to feed one and all and yet most are deprived and impoverished and only a few shrewd people are having control over the bounties of the mother earth.

    Money is in fact a means or medium of payment, a sort of exchange system invented to ease up the intricacies of exchange or transactions in society. Money is a payment for your sale of the good you have that can benefit the other, the good being both physical and intellectual.

    But today things have gone topsy-turvy. People are overly paid, more than what they deserved or than what they have sold or exchanged. Their goods have been overrated. There has been a great break in the system. I am not an economist. However I think there are fault lines in the system.

    Through this flaw in the mechanics of money in society most resources are concentrated in a few hands. Suppose if you have a lot of money or if you are a broker or a big earner you will be able to purchase more and with your lots of money you can own more goods and can create a form of scarcity or too much money in circulation unmatched by appropriate economic activities is likely to lead to a state of stagflation, the kind that happened / is happening in Greece or in the PIIGs during the euro zone recession.

    Capitalism has failed and if not must fail and the redistribution of resources must be underway. Financial institutions / investment banks though preliminarily set up to create easy credit to stimulate economic activities have failed and their concentration has been mainly on mobilizing or triggering money supplies only, not supplementing economic activities.
     
  2. Anders Hoveland

    Anders Hoveland Banned

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    Only if those riches are land, and there is not enough desirable land for everyone else.
     
  3. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    It isn't a crime to amass wealth. It is, however, a great source of jealousy.
     
  4. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    Who will you trust to redistribute the wealth? If they have the power to take everything from the wealthy, what makes you think they will redistribute it?

    But, lets assume they redistribute the money. Who, gets what portion? Evenly distribute the money? Do those that need more, get more?

    How do you keep the wealth from becoming wealthy again?
     
  5. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Capitalism hasn't failed. We do have a class ridden society but that's part of capitalism and its use of inefficient hierarchy. Is inequality a bad? No. Do we have a problem with intergenerational inequalities that hinder economic activity? More certainly. Redistribution would be needed, for example, to ensure self-employment is maximised as a genuine choiice
     
  6. Maximatic

    Maximatic Well-Known Member

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    To say Capitalism has failed and now we must replace it with some system is like saying humans have failed and now we must establish a system run by a few humans.
     
  7. TBryant

    TBryant Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    In times of need those who have the most must sacrifice the most for their own well being and survival. It is not economics it is common sense. If those possessing more do not need help from others they will not sacrifice. If there is abundance and only a few command it slavery is a natural state of being for the powerless. Slaves do not rise up unless they are in danger of death or they believe they have greater power than their masters. There are exceptions, study Spartacus.
     
  8. KSigMason

    KSigMason Banned at Members Request Past Donor

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    No, it's not wrong to a classical liberal or libertarian. Egalitarians though would (*)(*)(*)(*)(*).
     
  9. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Granny says it is...

    ... if ya don't spread it around...

    ... an' get it by outsourcin' peoples' jobs...

    ... an' don't pay yer fair share o' taxes.
     
  10. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    Why the greed? Why the boundless greed?

    I wonder how often personal change is achieved through influence as appose to choice and determination. Can we tap into our individual will and simply choose not to drag ourselves around the same destructive track? And if so, as one consciousness, can we tap into a collective will to the same end? I would like to think so, on the contrary to some of the white coats, the science geeks, media freaks and banking pigs who obsess over human behaviour, I wish to believe in free will and I claim that right. I rebuke most theology linking us to cattle, no matter what Derren Brown or Stalin can display. If there is no free will one must assume that we are doomed, because the machine won’t stop, the impersonal forces driving us towards oblivion that Aldous Huxley and so many others have described in the past are unstoppable without the collective shift towards free will, to this choice not to “keep calm and carry on”. To wit - “No… no we will not keep calm, we the 99% would like to take some kind of a stand (say what you like about the preponderance), we concede that you – the 1% - hold the cards, and we no little to nothing about all the brain work you do. The reports, the confidential information, the files burnt on the furnace in Animal Farm, the truths the public simply couldn’t handle… and how the money and power is kept in the hands of the few lizards for reasons that could only be insidious - prescient in it’s ruthless accumulation". But it doesn't take away from the animals potential if they realised their own strength.

    Surely with free will and more importantly the overwhelming strength in numbers – we do not need to fight on the reptiles turf to change the direction we are going, to break out of the pen we have been herded into. It has always interested me looking at forms of dissent, the youth are as excited as ever to be part of a potentially global rebellion, to regain faith in the human race – as has been tradition in modern times. There are dark clouds that overshadow this youthful optimism. Such as overpopulation, the virus, the seemingly impossible to articulate argument, at least in a language that the lizards can understand… the inevitable resource war that hangs over the struggles – like a giant tyrannical statue. The dim light ignited by peaceful protest, banners boasting the 99% slogans the Vendetta masks is encouraging regardless of cynical realism. But... and yes there has to be a giant corporate baby-eating BUT... as the 1% look out onto St Paul’s Cathedral, are they concerned? Another peaceful protest? Or, is the reaction as indifferent as a thinking man’s is towards Katie Price’s new TV show. Has anyone seen this by the way? I’ve heard it’s like totally awesome.

    Go to sleep Britain!! You're government is in control! Watch Eastenders... you are free TO DO AS WE TELL YOU!

    The salient point I think, is that human greed and the corruptibility of autocracy pollute the ideas of socialism and communism - the best we can hope for is a more regulated capitalist system.

    End rant.
    (good post btw)
     
  11. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You'd have to assume that somehow the market (and thereforw the invisible hand) is somehow only compatable with capitalism. It isn't. Its obviously consistent with market socialism. Note also that socialist political economy has an advanced understanding of infliuence costs and its also possible to refer to socialism where the economic planning role of government is actually smaller than in liberal democratic capitalism
     
  12. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    I don't think it is the market that falters - the market is an impersonal factor, it's us, the greedy fleshy bits that screw it up. I'm all for socialism, but I can't see it really happening is all. When I say more regulated capitalist system, I kind of mean socialism, I just don't think you'll ever get rid of aspects of capitalism, without some mad war that peaceful protesters don't tend to wage. Socialism is described as the transition period between capitalism and communism. So somewhere in-between those two theories I think is our answer.

    Anyway, global no work day anyone?
     
  13. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You don't have to refer to Marxism when referring to socialism, nor do you have to make any utopian reference to more altruistic behaviour. All you need to do is refer to the ownership and control of the means of production (I.e. Protect worker property rights so they receive the value of their labour). Greed can be welcomed!
     
  14. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    Not nearly on the scale as we have now though, paying workers the value of their labour leaves the nations CEO's out of pocket... hence the fierce opposition from the "bourgeois", or you could say, the go getters if you dared. But yeah wouldn't it be wonderful if the system was a little more generous, here's to that. Meanwhile... people are too greedy. My guess is that neo-voodoo-capitalism (whatever that might be) will be around until we really suck the world dry and devolve into disparate fearful gaggles of post apocalyptic savages ;)

    Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation - Aldous Huxley.
     
  15. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    The issue isn't greed but market concentration and wealth divides. Socialism can welcome greed. The result, however, won't lead to inefficient inequalities as property rights are protected and- at least within market socialism- there is increase firm creation opportunity
     
  16. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    Indeed, but greed absolutely is the issue, otherwise we would all be socialist, without greed there would be no argument. Market concentration and wealth divides are products of greed.
     
  17. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    But, as I said, that doesn't make sense as greed is assumed within market socialism. Indeed, its the mechanism that delivers allocative efficiency
     
  18. JohnConstantine

    JohnConstantine Active Member

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    So... why is capitalism the dominant system?
     
  19. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Because its a highly successful system which is easily maintained, despite its innate inefficiencies, through government interventionism (ensuring economic rents are reproduced). A shift in the paradigm would of course threaten those rents
     
  20. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    If Market Socialism is superior, why doesn't it out perform Capitalism.
     
  21. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    We don't have market socialism. We do know, however, that worker ownership does outperform other ownership structures
     
  22. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    Worker ownership moves decision making closer to the front line, further into Capitalism, away from Market Socialism.
     
  23. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Utter nonsense. Worker ownership is a key aspect of feasible market socialism. Its just not a sufficient condition
     
  24. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    You expect worker owned companies to turn over, or even sell, their business to the state? Why would the employees give up the power they have to some distant bureaucrat?
     
  25. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    The problem is that you don't know what you're talking about (e.g. even if you referred to the socialist calculation debate you would fail to appreciate that Hayekian information problems have been negated by developments in socialist analysis). The state is not involved (except in terms of protecting property rights).
     

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