The battle cry of the far-left Democratic Socialists includes closing the wealth gap. Of course, many tyrants riled up the masses with such talk. However, social justice includes many more facets than simple wealth. Great thinkers like Zuckerberg and Obama support a universal basic income. Of course, there is also free education, free health care, and so much more that could be done for free if we just became enlightened.
Equality may be considered a human right soon. Imagine all our kids marching around in uniforms like the Hitler Youth. Boys and girls the same, because enlightened mines are gender neutral. Merit could be completely eliminated because sameness will be the new shrine. We could all be equal in that there is no opportunity for anybody but the ruling class. Or, could we eliminate the ruling class as well?
On the other hand, that is taking well intentioned objectives to an extreme. Let us examine a more moderate approach to equality and social justice. Let us stipulate there should be no billionaires while people starve and live on the streets. We can redistribute concentrated wealth through taxation and government so that all people have human dignity.
Forget the concept of incentive leading to innovation. Facebook would allow free adds with Twitter and Google. Amazon could reduce margins because profit is a hallmark of inequality. Imagine the price of Amazon when Bezos announced no future earnings. Talk about reducing the wealth gap overnight.
That may happen right after the government provides free water. Ridiculous as that may seem, because water is not a human right, nor is electricity, or the internet.
Ok that type of social revolution may still be out of reach, as not all are equally enlightened. But so many of us believe they are enlightened. Especially on the left of the spectrum. Let’s just take the proportion of the enlightened that voted for Hillary versus the deplorable Trump voters. We can include many billionaires in the enlightened group. Zuckerberg, Gates, Buffet, Bezos and other billionaires. Billionaires because they own companies that have generated great wealth by profiting off the hard-working people of the planet. They made money from their businesses. Much of their wealth is held in company stock. You know hard working people have 401k’s that are crumbs compared to the wealth of those elite billionaires.
Imagine then a realistic way for the enlightened to shrink the wealth gap and leave the deplorables to their own devices. Not only realistic, but democratic at the same time. This will change the world as we know it, and destroy the wealth gap without any legislation. All we need, is for all the enlightened people that vote for the left and support the ideas of Bernie, to stop shopping at any store owned by a billionaire. In addition, they could divest themselves form all forms of investment in publicly traded companies operated by a billionaire.
If they do not change their behavior in shopping and investing then they really do not mind the wealth gap at all, do they? There you have it Democratic Socialists, you have the power in your hands to sell your stocks and watch the billionaires lose money. Zuckerberg lost 19 billion yesterday. Do it for justice.
1 man with a billion dollars / 7 billion people = 14 cents per person. Will they accept a check?
but they have many leftist billionaires with much more than 1 billion,
closing the wealth gap? are you friggin kidding me? it’s exploding the other way. and the people that are pushing the hardest for it to continue to explode is a bunch of “have nots” and lower middle class folks.
closing the wealth gap. don’t make me laugh.
What “we” need to work on is the closing of the effort gap. An education is free, paid for by their fellow Americans and an individual’s personal responsibility is to get an A. When we can fix that, the rest will take care of itself.
“Effort gap”
OK, I’m gonna borrow this phrase now and then. It succinctly describes a major problem. Thank you. The root cause may be deeper, cultural, psychological, environmental, whatever… but the part under an individual’s control is his effort.
This may come as a surprise to you but a lot of poor people work very hard.
This is a conceit among the wealthy. They always think they are wealthy because they’re smarter and harder working.
which means CEOs are giving WAY more EFFORT than people here…
“Since 1978, and adjusted for inflation, American workers have seen an 11.2 percent increase in compensation. During that same period, CEO’s have seen a 937 percent increase in earnings. That salary growth is even 70 percent faster than the rise in the stock market”
This is very true.
Yeah like boot strapping is totally a new premise. It’s a code word for boot strapping. You guys are all for it until you are not
Then they probably made some bad choices along the way. Didn’t pursue an education, a number of babies they couldn’t afford yet, etc.
come on man. those people who work at McDonalds in the morning and Subway in the afternoon aren’t working hard. the real hard workers are us who post on this board from our phones at our jobs all day. THAT is EFFORT!!
The double shifts, the minimum wage, the third shift at hospitals and drive troughs. “Those for good for nothings lazy people”
Yeah those nurses being on the lower wage end truly made some bad choices. You guys are a joke
Teachers, whose pay has been falling for a long time now, have famously made bad choices.
Boot strapping is an ugly concept only for libs. Boot strapping is a personal defense against the progressive liberal technique of stripping away a man’s initiative to work by making him addicted and dependent free stuff. The free stuff is paid for with… a vote.
If too many people pull themselves up by the bootstraps, votes for progressive liberals are at risk.
Ever watched paternity court for example? Some people with 10 kids with 10 with 10 different women or women with numerous kids and married to no one.
High school drop outs when pell grants are easily available to the poor.
Those are bad decisions whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
No boot strapping is a dirty word because you guys don’t understand that it is based on the false premise that everyone starts on equal footing
Teacher pay isn’t that bad. I have a daughter who teaches.
Those are bad decisions. Not all those who work hard jobs for less money do so because of too many children. That’s ludicrous. Again nurses, teachers, admin staff all make less money with more hours
