Does a wealth disparity even matter?

[ReaderSushi]

As liberals, we often worry about the ever worsening state of economic opportunity and equality but does it really matter if the basic needs of life could be met? If education, health-care, housing, and food/drink were available to all then I am off the opinion that unequal wealth distribution becomes irrelevant. Anyone else agree with that?

A paranoid fear of socialism is so deeply ingrained into American culture because of the Cold War it might not be possible to change en mass. Maybe we should approach this in bits and pieces. What if we could convince people that certain sectors should operate under a non-profit model, health-care especially.

[Wilms]

1. My assumption is yes and no.

If the basic needs were really met it wouldn't matter.

But if the basic needs were really met would there be an ever worsening state of economic opportunity and equality?

And I think there is now a majority thinking that health care should be universal. (Not that politicians will want to take notice.)

[TheBaldyMan]

2. if you think that a minimum wage is a good idea

is a maximum wage a bad one?

Personally speaking I agree with J.K. Galbraith on this matter. Price controls work if they are two ended i.e. there must be a minimum and maximum price. Similarly wage restraint systems must have maxima and minima.

It is an almost universaly accepted guage of social fairness. Societies that have a less extreme ratio between upper and lower deciles of income tend to be healthier, better educated and happier (believe it or not).

It depends on what kind of a society you want.

[Boojatta]

16. Wage and Price Controls (Will not mention Nixon. Will not mention Nixon.)

Price controls work if they are two ended i.e. there must be a minimum and maximum price. Similarly wage restraint systems must have maxima and minima.

What does it mean for price controls to be "working"?

When you refer to "wage restraint systems" are you referring to a restriction on wage per hour, a restriction on wage income, or a combination of the two? Your statement below explicitly refers to income.

Societies that have a less extreme ratio between upper and lower deciles of income tend to be healthier, better educated and happier (believe it or not).

[aquart]

3. Well, there's gutless and gutless.

Which gutless is this?

Bits and pieces is what we've got. It's called BROKEN.

Time to make things whole.

Get Healthcare Off the Back of Business. Make America Competitive Again. All Europeans have guaranteed healthcare. All Canadians. It's cheaper to insure all of us than some of us. And It Lets Our Businesses Grow.

[ReaderSushi]

6. I meant baby steps...

...when I said bits a pieces. You cannot deny that the American as a whole are not fond of change. Pick a major issue, concentrate our energies on it. And I fully agree with your sentiments on healthcare.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. In real terms, yes.

You can't afford a place to live, a reasonable diet, heat.

You have to move out of your hometown because you can't afford the property taxes.

You can't afford to save money for your kid to go to college or for your retirement.

In Calvinist terms, people look down at you because if you don't have wealth, you must be flawed morally.

You can't sleep at night because of the bills that you can't pay.

Enough or should I continue?

You WOULD have had enough money if the redistribution of wealth through tax cuts, outsourcing of jobs, corporate cuts in salaries and benefits, etc. had not happened. YOUR money has been taken away and given to the top one percent of the wealth-holders in this country, and they aren't going to give it back to your without a fight.

[Sammy Pepys]

5. Tough to say

Ultimately, the disparity that matters is the disparity between your income and your liabilities.

[Warpy]

7. Wealth disparity and democracy can't coexist

because, sad to say, wealth wants to run things, wealth buys power, and wealth ends up running things to its benefit and creates the greatest amount of misery for the greatest amount of people in its pursuit of more wealth and more power.

Just look at what the destruction of the progressive tax system has done to this country. Check out what's been happening in the last several election cycles. Is this democracy?

I'd prefer poorer rich people and a more democratic country. I guess that makes me a communist in the eyes of a lot of posters here, but there it is.

[yella_dawg]

8. Sure it matters

The American lower middle class (if not the poor) now live as well or better than royalty of a thousand years ago. Better diet, better health care (even if it's just over-the-counter), better housing, you name it. The key is perception. The poor would have no grounds for the perception of "downtrodden and abused" if the rich lived on the same street and in similar conditions. It's the constant stress of others benefiting from "your hard work" that causes the social strain.

In human affairs, perception is almost always dominant.

[Hope springs eternal]

9. False

Sorry, but royality was not hurting by any means at any time. The mainstream Romans had quite a nice life. People had housing, food and human warmth. Maybe not of the same quality, but enough.


Poverty is poverty, it still casues the same stressors as it did 1,000 years ago.

[fasttense]

10. Hmm, not sure if history backs you up.

Better diet? Notice that the poor (or lower middle class as you like to call them) are usually fatter. Why? because they can't afford the fresh vegetables (a can of green beans are much cheaper than frozen), the time for exercise, the low fat high protein meals (dark meat chicken is cheaper than white meat, fresh or frozen fish and seafood is more expensive than ground beef) To add insult to injury, the staple of the lower middle class, high fat ground beef, maybe infected with mad cow disease. At least royalty in the past had unpolluted fresh vegetables and fruit if they chose to eat them. They had easy access to unpolluted fish and fresh meat. They were not likely to get all those awful diseases related to obesity.

Better health care? Well not seeing a doctor until your condition becomes life threatening is not much better than being bled to rid you of "bad blood". You will eventually recover from both, but you will get worse before you get better. True they can cure TB, at least some strains, but in the meantime, how many friends and family have caught it because you didn't see a doctor? At least royalty whisked away the infected person to an island resort or comfortable asylum.

Better housing? As royalty you had people to clean your dishes, house and laundry, not to mention people to take your urine and feces away. Some Roman homes even had indoor plumbing. The working poor rarely get the time to clean for themselves. They usually end up waiting for their day off to clean and in the meantime germs are spread, viruses await, infection lingers. Royalty had big spacious homes while todays poor live in small cramped spaces usually surrounded by pollutants such as lead paint and gas exhaust. If you can't afford your heating and cooling bills, you do without. Royalty had a fireplace in each room kept stoked by indentured servants or slaves. They rarely needed to be cold for long. And when it got stifling hot, they went to the mountains, for a swim at a pond, lake or beach resort. They simply relaxed and took it easy.

The poor and lower middle class of today live much better than the poor or lower middle class of previous eras, but in no way do they live like the royals and rich of that era. I guess we should be glad that our poor and lower middle class no longer have to eat just potatoes at every meal or go hungry during springtime until the spring crop came in. I suppose it is a blessing that our poor can wear clothes in their homes and don't have to go naked while at home because they can't afford to buy more than one set of clothes. But it seems like such a measly improvement when compared to the rich of today.

[SupplySideLiberal]

14. You make a lot of great points

and I agree with most of what you said. I have a different take on food, though. Whole legumes and grains are very, very cheap. Some of the best vegetables are, too (eg collard greens). I think poor people in the US, like rich people, eat poorly for cultural reasons, and, to a great extent, for business reasons. White flour, sugar, and processed fats, in all their permutations, are pushed on all of us by government subsidized agribusinesses and food processing corporations. Prices for milk are kept high by government mandate.

I think if the congress persons filling their campaign coffers with corporate cash cared about nutrition for the poor, they could set up free soup kitchens with nourishing foods everywhere for a fraction of what is wasted on subsidies, price supports, and tariffs for the politically connected.

[BlueEyedSon]

11. Personal wealth should be capped at 100 million. Just lop off the rest

as a tax. No loopholes.

[Boojatta]

17. When you say "lop off the rest as a tax" it sounds as though you are

talking about a maximum income of $100 million. However, you wrote "personal wealth should be capped at 100 million."

Are you actually proposing a marginal tax rate of 100% for people who have assets worth $100 million? As a first step, would you require all assets to be assigned a dollar value even if the owner doesn't wish to sell them? Wouldn't it be necessary to actually sell assets to actually determine their market value?

How did you arrive at the number 100 million?

Do you believe that people who have a personal wealth of $100 million or more have some method for increasing their personal wealth without providing any economic benefit to people who transact business with them?

Are you motivated by concern about the economic well-being of people who engage in business transactions with the very wealthy?

[bemildred]

12. Do you see a lot of rich people giving their money away?

I'm sure the rich think it matters, otherwise would they work so hard to keep it in place?

[DaveJ]

13. Yes theoretically and No realistically

Sure, if our basic needs were met AND we had the opportunity to pursue a better life for ourselves either through intellectual pursuit or material gain within reason. The problem is that the super wealthy never apply reasonable limits to their material lust. Their mansions, cars, vacations, etc., comsume hundreds or thousands of years of man hours to maintain. Until someday robots replace humans in every aspect of work, the wealthy will always take advantage of the masses, and even then, the wealthy will still find ways of trodding on the masses in order to satisfy their egos and affirm their superiority over us.

[Nikia]

15. I am not sure, but it could it could make things better

Working class people have a certain money anxiety. They are always afraid that they won't be able to pay all their bills, afraid that they will get sick and won't be able to work for a while, afraid that some unplanned expense will come up. They are afraid of being evicted from rentals or losing their homes. They are afriad that their car will die and they cannot afford another one. They are afraid that their utilities will be shut off. They are afraid that they will be denied medical treatment if they get sick.
One of my friends proposed that we should offer full government aid to all Americans: free governemnt housing, free health care, free utilities, free public transportation, free higher education, and a certain amount of food free also. If a person wanted more, they could get more by working, but they would never have to fear that they wouldn't have the necessities for any reason. It would never be taken away from them as they made more money. They could choose to switch over to better private housing as they felt able or spend more in groceries whenever they chose.
This plan would certainly help a lot of people. One of the problems of wealth disparity is that the basics do become too expensive for the poor.