"It’s Time for Major Wealth Redistribution — Yes, I Mean It."

[ZiprHead]

https://scheerpost.com/2021/02/25/lee-camp-its-time-for-major-wealth-redistribution-yes-i-mean-it/?fbclid=IwAR0Nhp409geZPIB16OATQzdEAmPBklxFfsfCTH1FnH4DjG95Vy0f0ae0B7M

Anyway, we desperately need wealth redistribution. And before anyone starts yelling something about Joseph Stalin, here’s the part that’s going to blow your mind — in the United States we’ve already had wealth redistribution for decades.

Fifty trillion dollars has been redistributed from the poorest Americans to the top one percent over the past several decades. That’s right, a new study shows the richest people in the world have stolen trillions from average Americans. To put this in easier to access terms — you know how mad you get when someone takes the last donut? Well, imagine that multiplied by 50 trillion. (Quick reminder: If you make $40,000 a year, it would take you 1.25 Billion years to make $50 trillion.)

The new study reveals, “…that the cumulative tab for our four-decade-long experiment in radical inequality has grown to over $47 trillion from 1975 through 2018. At a recent pace of about $2.5 trillion a year, that number we estimate crossed the $50 trillion mark by early 2020.”

And to be clear, this money has been stolen from nearly every American. Had income distribution and buying power remained the same as it was from the end of World War II to 1975, ” . . . the aggregate annual income of Americans earning below the 90th percentile would have been $2.5 trillion higher in the year 2018 alone. That is … enough to pay every single working American in the bottom nine deciles an additional $1,144 a month. Every month. Every single year.”

 

[DBT]

Not an attractive notion for some TFT posters. Just wait for the howls of protest and denial.

 

[Derec]

How is this alleged "study" showing that trillions were stolen? Theft has a particular meaning. It doesn't simply mean that money changed hands.

Let me quote more of this ridiculous article:

Enough of the pussy-footing. It’s time to demand true, full-on wealth redistribution. It’s time to say to the billionaires, “We’re taking your shit, and we’re giving it back to the society you stole it from. We’re taking your cars and your marble statues of your own ass and your boats that park inside your other boats and your emerald bathtubs filled with naked man servants and your inbred cross eyed ugly-ass dogs! . . . But you can keep your children. We don’t want those sociopaths in training. But other than that, we’re taking your stuff because this level of inequality is what most rational economists call ‘fucking nuts’.”

Stopped reading after this, as it is giving me Dr. Zhivago vibes.



By the way, the author is one  Lee Camp, identified on his wiki page as a "standup comedian" working for "Russia Today".
Trump is being accused of being a Russian asset without any evidence, but here Zipr is posting ramblings of an actual Russian asset.

 

[SLD]

How is this alleged "study" showing that trillions were stolen? Theft has a particular meaning. It doesn't simply mean that money changed hands.

Let me quote more of this ridiculous article:

Enough of the pussy-footing. It’s time to demand true, full-on wealth redistribution. It’s time to say to the billionaires, “We’re taking your shit, and we’re giving it back to the society you stole it from. We’re taking your cars and your marble statues of your own ass and your boats that park inside your other boats and your emerald bathtubs filled with naked man servants and your inbred cross eyed ugly-ass dogs! . . . But you can keep your children. We don’t want those sociopaths in training. But other than that, we’re taking your stuff because this level of inequality is what most rational economists call ‘fucking nuts’.”

Stopped reading after this, as it is giving me Dr. Zhivago vibes.

View attachment 32076

By the way, the author is one  Lee Camp, identified on his wiki page as a "standup comedian" working for "Russia Today".
Trump is being accused of being a Russian asset without any evidence, but here Zipr is posting ramblings of an actual Russian asset.

Oh jeez. Why is the only alternative to today’s unregulated capitalistic violence, Bolshevism? Give me a fucking break. We’re we fucking commies in 1956? Do you think Eisenhower, a Republican President, was a Bolshevik? Seriously, are you that obtuse?

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Conservatives will know the true meaning of Communism when they are forced to listen to Lady Gaga's music in the gulags.

 

[Derec]

Oh jeez. Why is the only alternative to today’s unregulated capitalistic violence, Bolshevism? Give me a fucking break. We’re we fucking commies in 1956? Do you think Eisenhower, a Republican President, was a Bolshevik? Seriously, are you that obtuse?

1. Today's capitalism, including in the US, is far from "unregulated". And what's this nonsense about "violence"? Are you escalating on crass hyperbole from the Camp? "Theft", now "violence" ... give it a rest!
2. No, it is obviously not the only alternative. But Camp's ramblings about government taking away people's stuff because it is "a better arrangement" do remind me of Comrade Yelkin and Comrade Kaprugina.
3. What does 1956 have to do with anything?

 

[Bomb#20]

It's not a new study; Camp is linking the same Time Magazine article Elixir linked to here five months ago.

https://talkfreethought.org/showthr...ans-Have-Taken-50-Trillion-From-the-Bottom-90

We beat this topic to death back then. Camp, Hanauer and Rolf are lying about what the Rand study shows. Their economic argument amounts to "When customers collectively choose to give fifty trillion dollars worth of their business to my outgroup instead of paying all that money to my ingroup, that's my outgroup stealing from my ingroup."

 

[Swammerdami]

... That’s right, a new study shows the richest people in the world have stolen trillions from average Americans....
And to be clear, this money has been stolen from nearly every American....

I'll repeat what I said in a similar recent thread. Why the perverse need to speak of "stealing"? In a recent movie Mark Wahlberg made more money than his co-stars. Did he "steal" from them? Toyota Corporation has a lot more wealth than I have, yet they didn't sell me my pick-up for free; I had to pay for it. Did they steal from me? A lot of wealth transfer is associated with actual theft (Wasn't it Julius Caesar who wrote "I came; I saw; I stole" ?) but it is counter-productive to frame wealth and income inequality as a morality play. For one thing it gives right-wingers a (valid!) reason to argue against reform.

We want (or should want) to reduce (not eliminate) income inequality because it would have social, economic and humanitarian benefits, but not because the poor are somehow more "moral" than the rich.

We should support progressive changes to the tax code NOT to punish the "evil rich," but to improve society. And some level of inequality is good! We just need to steer toward a more moderate level, away from the excesses of this new Gilded Age.

Progressive reforms should be directed. Inherited wealth is a better target for taxation than entrepreneurial wealth. And the income of Wall St. traders is a better target than the income of top surgeons and entertainers. NOT because Wall St. traders are "evil", but simply because their activities do not benefit society.

Hope this helps.

 

[DBT]

There is a vast difference in power, position and leverage between movie and sports stars, etc, and and an ordinary worker who has virtually none, which leaves him open to exploitation and minimum pay. Is exploitation a form of stealing? Is paying a worker less than their market value and input into company profit just because you are legally able, a form of theft?

 

[Harry Bosch]

How is this alleged "study" showing that trillions were stolen? Theft has a particular meaning. It doesn't simply mean that money changed hands.

Let me quote more of this ridiculous article:

Enough of the pussy-footing. It’s time to demand true, full-on wealth redistribution. It’s time to say to the billionaires, “We’re taking your shit, and we’re giving it back to the society you stole it from. We’re taking your cars and your marble statues of your own ass and your boats that park inside your other boats and your emerald bathtubs filled with naked man servants and your inbred cross eyed ugly-ass dogs! . . . But you can keep your children. We don’t want those sociopaths in training. But other than that, we’re taking your stuff because this level of inequality is what most rational economists call ‘fucking nuts’.”

Stopped reading after this, as it is giving me Dr. Zhivago vibes.

View attachment 32076

By the way, the author is one  Lee Camp, identified on his wiki page as a "standup comedian" working for "Russia Today".
Trump is being accused of being a Russian asset without any evidence, but here Zipr is posting ramblings of an actual Russian asset.

Oh jeez. Why is the only alternative to today’s unregulated capitalistic violence, Bolshevism? Give me a fucking break. We’re we fucking commies in 1956? Do you think Eisenhower, a Republican President, was a Bolshevik? Seriously, are you that obtuse?

Clearly you've never started a company in the US if you believe that that the economy today is unregulated!

 

[Harry Bosch]

There is a vast difference in power, position and leverage between movie and sports stars, etc, and and an ordinary worker who has virtually none, which leaves him open to exploitation and minimum pay. Is exploitation a form of stealing? Is paying a worker less than their market value and input into company profit just because you are legally able, a form of theft?

You might be confused about profit. Profit is essentially sales - expenses. Expenses includes workers salaries (and owner's salary) among other expenses. So, unless a worker has some ownership in the company (which is far more common that you probably think), nothing is being stolen if the worker doesn't receive any profit.

 

[Gospel]

There is a vast difference in power, position and leverage between movie and sports stars, etc, and and an ordinary worker who has virtually none, which leaves him open to exploitation and minimum pay. Is exploitation a form of stealing? Is paying a worker less than their market value and input into company profit just because you are legally able, a form of theft?

You might be confused about profit. Profit is essentially sales - expenses. Expenses includes workers salaries (and owner's salary) among other expenses. So, unless a worker has some ownership in the company (which is far more common that you probably think), nothing is being stolen if the worker doesn't receive any profit.

Wait what? The question was about the expense side and whether said company would be considered a thief if said company kept payroll expenses artificially low (which is legal granted they aren't paying below minimum wage). You can say, "REEEEE! The market will fix itself as people flock to better paying jobs, which is true for some and not possible for others. But that doesn't answer the question whether or not it's theft to pick some arbitrary number below market value as pay for a position because you can (save money). So I'll answer the question. No it is not theft, as the law determines what is theft and there is no law against paying someone for a job below its market price (granted it's not below minimum wage).

 

[DBT]

I agree. But the twist may lie in the condition: "how the Law defines it."

 

[Jarhyn]

There is a vast difference in power, position and leverage between movie and sports stars, etc, and and an ordinary worker who has virtually none, which leaves him open to exploitation and minimum pay. Is exploitation a form of stealing? Is paying a worker less than their market value and input into company profit just because you are legally able, a form of theft?

You might be confused about profit. Profit is essentially sales - expenses. Expenses includes workers salaries (and owner's salary) among other expenses. So, unless a worker has some ownership in the company (which is far more common that you probably think), nothing is being stolen if the worker doesn't receive any profit.

Wait what? The question was about the expense side and whether said company would be considered a thief if said company kept payroll expenses artificially low (which is legal granted they aren't paying below minimum wage). You can say, "REEEEE! The market will fix itself as people flock to better paying jobs, which is true for some and not possible for others. But that doesn't answer the question whether or not it's theft to pick some arbitrary number below market value as pay for a position because you can (save money). So I'll answer the question. No it is not theft, as the law determines what is theft and there is no law against paying someone for a job below its market price (granted it's not below minimum wage).

The question is more one of philosophical merit: it as to whether it is "legally" theft, but whether it is ethically a theft.

These are very different questions. The law can define theft any particular way. It can legally define "theft" as "peeing in someone's rosebushes". The law, while important in many cases, does not speak to the language of the OP, which is a language of ethical considerations.

Fundamentally, a theft is where someone uses the means they have to take something that someone else does not consent to give them.

We already know that leverage destroys the quality of consent: you have not consented to have sex, for instance, if you submit to the act at gunpoint.

This generalizes to a "a person cannot consent to any thing when they are being leveraged", though it softens out, given the need for some manner of loosening, to "a person has not consented when leverage exceeds the amount of leverage they declare as ethical to apply through word or deed."

By that measure, if we accept that theft is taking that which someone has not consented to give you, and consent is not valid when excessive leverage is involved, and that I do not consent to low wages given for meaningful work and that I do not consent to high prices asked for goods but have been forced via leverage to each of those circumstances, that money was, by this principle, taken by theft.

The specific names we give these forms of theft whose lack of consent involves leverage, include "blackmail", "extortion", "graft", "fraud", etc.

They still live under the umbrella of "taking something without the consent of the 'owner'".

 

[Harry Bosch]

There is a vast difference in power, position and leverage between movie and sports stars, etc, and and an ordinary worker who has virtually none, which leaves him open to exploitation and minimum pay. Is exploitation a form of stealing? Is paying a worker less than their market value and input into company profit just because you are legally able, a form of theft?

You might be confused about profit. Profit is essentially sales - expenses. Expenses includes workers salaries (and owner's salary) among other expenses. So, unless a worker has some ownership in the company (which is far more common that you probably think), nothing is being stolen if the worker doesn't receive any profit.

Wait what? The question was about the expense side and whether said company would be considered a thief if said company kept payroll expenses artificially low (which is legal granted they aren't paying below minimum wage). You can say, "REEEEE! The market will fix itself as people flock to better paying jobs, which is true for some and not possible for others. But that doesn't answer the question whether or not it's theft to pick some arbitrary number below market value as pay for a position because you can (save money). So I'll answer the question. No it is not theft, as the law determines what is theft and there is no law against paying someone for a job below its market price (granted it's not below minimum wage).

Yes, I think that you're right here. I overreached. However, I do ask who is receiving less than market wages? A market wage is one that an owner is willing to pay; and where the worker is willing to accept.

 

[Axulus]

Did Bill Gates rob people every time they purchased a PC with a copy of Windows in the 90's? Programmers at Microsoft certainly got paid quite well (in fact, they got paid so much that people were protesting the gentrification that resulted to accomodate high numbers of wealthy workers).

Does Jeff Bezos rob me every time I use Amazon to save money and access more variety?

They get wealthy from the large number of customers. Revenue is their main driver of profit. The profit margins for Amazon are razor thin.

I don't get robbed each time I buy something. In fact, I'm made better off. You lose extreme credibility when you call a normal transaction akin to theft or slavery.

 

[DBT]

Did Bill Gates rob people every time they purchased a PC with a copy of Windows in the 90's? Programmers at Microsoft certainly got paid quite well (in fact, they got paid so much that people were protesting the gentrification that resulted to accomodate high numbers of wealthy workers).

Does Jeff Bezos rob me every time I use Amazon to save money and access more variety?

They get wealthy from the large number of customers. Revenue is their main driver of profit. The profit margins for Amazon are razor thin.

I don't get robbed each time I buy something. In fact, I'm made better off. You lose extreme credibility when you call a normal transaction akin to theft or slavery.

The nature of business is to maximize profits and minimize costs. Charge the consumer according to demand, which is not necessarily value, while keeping production cost down. Workers who have little or no leverage (except through collective action and bargaining) are open to cost cutting.

 

[SimpleDon]

It is not a question of Microsoft stealing money from its customers but of corporations making huge profits and not paying the people responsible for the products, its employees, part of the profits. Like everything, this trend started in 1980 when we changed the political economics that governs our economic policies from one that favors the workers to one that favors the owners, the stockholders. The problem with this change is that eventually, the workers notice that they are being screwed over and they start striking-out irrationally and doing things like voting for a completely incompetent President like Donald Trump. And one-half of a million people die because of his incompetence. More people die in one year than the US lost in three and one-half years of World War II.

 

[Trausti]

Instead of tearing down we could try to build up; by limiting immigration to protect American workers from wage deflation and encouraging an American first policy. Ah, whatever. Biden is president. American last.

 

[DBT]

Has anyone suggested 'tearing down?'