#1063

I think @xylo covered this well further along, but [citation needed] it seems most people on DiS agree that the rich should pay more tax - I certainly do - but that post up there was about the (imho bonkers) argument that rich people right now should voluntarily be paying more tax to the current government rather than donating that surplus wealth to charities.

All such arguments were refined significantly later on though, so no criticism of @Bamnan intended in this post at all.

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#1064

Honestly, the sorts of arguments that have taken place in this thread are fundamentally pointless if you shackle yourself to an idea like wage labour and the fundamental exploitative element behind liberal capitalism. @Bamnan, your sentiment is completely correct ofc, but itā€™s a bit like imagining a utopian town but itā€™s inhabitants live in really nicely decorated prison cells they are unable to leave.

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#1066

Genuine question - in a post capitalist society how do you incentivise someone taking on the years and years of training, not to mention the massive responsibility of being a doctor? Just hope that someone will see it as their calling?

edit/separately - Surely a comfortably liveable, basic universal income with equal opportunities to go higher for those who want to is a more practical thing to aspire to?

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#1067

Hey Bam, just read through todayā€™s posts and I donā€™t really fancy scrolling back up to find the specific post, but you asked something on the lines of

So I shouldnā€™t be skeptical about rich people?

(Apologies if Iā€™ve misrepresented it in paraphrasing - it was about half an hour ago I read it and didnā€™t want to pick up on it if someone else already head so read down).

My short answer here would be no.

I think a skepticism of people in general is good and rich people specifically is more so. But I also think it should remain as skepticism until you know more about the individual than just their financial status or fame.

I know itā€™s not really a helpful answer, but this is the problem with a thread that talks about both individuals and a big group of people. Even the graph above that you found makes clear that while as a group those with high incomes voted Tory, somewhere in the region of 25% of them voted for a party that many would argue are actively against their own interests.

This ties into other things people have mentioned today about the difference between a system that weā€™d ideally like to see and how we think people should behave in the current one - and I accept that your views on that may differ from mine.

Hope the board games are fun x

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#1068

The counter arguments are mostly flaming files of horse shit - my point is that is doesnā€™t really make any difference as to whether you think being wealthy is immoral when youā€™re trying to imagine the most just and fair way to live: the wealth spectrum shouldnā€™t even exist in my opinion.

Havenā€™t read the whole thread though - just talking about wealth as immorality here.

#1070

Donate your money to Theresa May then, no oneā€™s going to stop you.

#1074

Are you talking about me here?

#1075

We had the discussion. As I mentioned previously, everyoneā€™s positions evolved from the points you were quoting. But itā€™s fun to have it again.

#1078

I think I said upthread that his argument was asinineā€¦

Soz, should probably log off at the moment.

#1079

I still think wealthy people shouldnā€™t voluntarily be paying more tax to support Theresa Mayā€™s government instead of giving it to charities.

Without looking back I believe everyone agreed that wasnā€™t a particularly desirable hypothetical, and in fact wasnā€™t what was intended even though it seemed to be the argument made, but youā€™re welcome to make the case for it now.

#1082

Is this thread worth reading? (personal background : I guiltily share ownership of property with a bank while wanting to eliminate unnecessary wealth and have people help one another achive whatever they would be best suited to do)

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#1083

It was (imho) bonkers in the terms it was presented at the time and as I and others understood it because of that presentation. He responded elsewhere to clarify that wasnā€™t exactly what heā€™d intended, which was great.

So no, I didnā€™t say Bamnanā€™s idea was bonkers because he later clarified that wasnā€™t his idea in the first place.

#1084

I agree with most of that, but Iā€™m not sure I believe in a completely flat equality in a post-capitalism society. Capitalism values all the wrong things but I think people who push themselves to help society as a whole - for instance people who go out of their way to help disabled people fulfill their potential - should be rewarded in some way. Maybe Iā€™m cynical but Iā€™m pretty sure if we removed the influence of capitalism some people would still be selfish and not being selfish should be incentivised in some way.

#1087

I donā€™t claim to have an answer here, but two observations.

  1. There are bad doctors out there who got into the job because of the incentives; money and status to name two. This doesnā€™t just apply to doctors obvs.
  2. There is a whole tonne of research about the effectiveness of positive incentives actually having negative effects on satisfaction. And it starts young. In studies with children, positive reinforcement for learning actually reduces the childā€™s desire to learn. Or at least redirects the joy (?) of doing the task for the taskā€™s sake onto the anticipation of the reward. Which does not encourage the person to do a ā€œgood jobā€. And if if a way of gaming the system can be found, it is more likely to be exploited.
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#1089

I sort of agree on one level, like when it comes to gift aid, it seems like that is essentially taking money away from a persons income tax contribution to give it to the cause of their choosing, which can be completely unjustified, like how private schools have charitable status. but I was replying to @Bamnanā€™s argument that people who earn excessive amounts of money should instead pay more tax (amongst other options) rather than give to charity, while I think the system should be changed so they are compelled to pay more tax, until that happens I dont think people voluntarily paying more tax would be work because if it became a widespread thing a conservative government could just use it to offset tax breaks to wealthy people who dont want to pay their fair share, so higher tax needs to be legally compelled for it to ensure higher spending, I guess it could be good if helps change attitudes towards higher tax of the wealthy though.

think in the current situation it depends on what the person chooses to give to, if they give to charities doing important progressive work then I think that would be better than giving it to HMRC, if they are donating to some vanity charity or something that directly benefits then that is bad, think even if the wider issue that charity enables wealthy people more control and influence over where money is spent, that there are still better and worse decisions that can be made within that, and if a wealthy person is giving to decent charities when they dont have to then they are probably good people, and under the current set up it is better than giving it to the government

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#1091

From memory I think others covered in subsequent posts a lot of the what taxation and charity mean in the world right now v. a socialist future and what would need to happen in between to get from one to the other.

Itā€™s really frustrating to miss out on a good debate, and it would have been an even better debate had you been able to participate in it at the time, but Iā€™m really sorry, I donā€™t currently have the energy for us to do the edited highlights of the 500 posts that have happened since the post I made which you were replying to and I also donā€™t think itā€™s fair of me to rehash peopleā€™s arguments as I understood them at the time of that post when many people have since posted clarifications and evolved their positions.

Yes, I still think that in the present day the wealthy giving extra money voluntarily to the current British government instead of giving it to charities is bonkers. I canā€™t see myself changing that opinion but happy to resume that debate another day. Thereā€™s a really, really interesting thread in all of this stuff (ideally under a more accurate title!). And fwiw, that original point I made - although prompted by Bam - was intended as a more generic one having had this debate a number of times in real life too.

#1096

The fact that people get so defensive about the idea of wealth redistribution shows we need to talk about it more imo

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#1099

What is this now

#1101

LeBron James

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#1104

heā€™s saying that having wealth makes you a bad person, and I struggle to see how you can say thatā€™s in any way a ā€œgood faithā€ argument.