Why us Capitalist should hate the rich more than anything.

It is generally considered a sin of capitalism that we should hate the rich. Most people who hate the rich are often socialist, the very thing that capitalist despise. However just because our enemy holds a view different from ours, they still may be right. A broken clock is still right once a day (Though the red bar still moves so they aren't completely right).

However this is the truth. Most rich people are rich because the government bails on their asses whenever they fuck up. In a truly capitalist society, I society that is for all purposes truly embraces Darwinism. The rich aren't exempt from this harsh reality. Those bastards on wall-street would be licking the streets, though unlike most poor people they deserve all the shit they take.

Actually socialism is actually, in spite of what most people think PRO RICH. They defend businesses that are awful for trying to preserve the jobs of the rich's lackeys. To truly hate the rich, you must be a capitalist.

edited 19th Nov '11 8:49:28 AM by PinkHeartChainsaw

WHAT? WHAT!!!

Free market vs protectionism, right?

Right.

The problem with pure capitalism is that while you might think it fuels competition, that mindset requires equal opportunity to be provided. But it's not like that. The ones that are already richer are more advantageous in the competition.

The role of an economy-regulating government is to restore some equal opportunity back into the society.

@OP: WTF?

To truly hate the rich, you must be socialist: Willing to pry the means of production (and their estates) off the hands of the burgeoisie and give'em to the People.

Yes, capitalism is better than corporatism (pure capitalism doesn't buy stuff for the rich with the common man's money), but not by much. The real change is to go up to the rich and crush them beyond recognition.

That's what I keep saying. So why is no one willing to do so? And don't tell me the military and ploice will get in the way. That didn't stop OWS (Even If I'm strawmanning with that example or not).

Technically, OWS was driven out...

And I think you're overemphasizing on "demolishing the rich". It won't do any good if the system isn't fixed for the better so that new "rich" do not rise as problems.

I don't hate the rich, and you shouldn't. what you should hate is the rich that either abuse, or are catered too by the system. In the twenties, everyone earning over $1million dollars annually paid 70% income tax, under that basically nothing. The "Roaring" twenties. Basically the best economic time this country ever had. I think that alone kills the tricle down theory. The richer you are, the higher the percentage of tax you should pay. We should NOT tax them to death, but a bit higher so that they still enjoy being rich, and the government dosn't have to cut things like veteran's benefits, or infastructure.

edited 19th Nov '11 10:07:37 AM by Joesolo

I really hope you're trolling, because that is some Insane Troll Logic you've got going there.

Well, corporate/warfare-welfarism could be seen as a type of socialism.

edited 19th Nov '11 10:12:31 AM by MRDA1981

Depending on the system, it can be. Especially the ones that are non-democratic.

Way ahead of you, buddy. I hate anyone richer than me on principle.

I hate those people richer than me who I find extremely hard to believe they did enough more than I have to be that much richer.

I'd be OK if this was a world where nurses, soldiers, public school teachers, scientists, engineers, and such could be the rich ones.

edited 19th Nov '11 1:19:33 PM by Jeysie

Capitalism isn't really the problem. Improper regulation thereof by some publicly-controlled democratic institution (AKA the government) is.

I mean, really, the militant socialists that scream "THE WORKERS SHOULD TAKE EVERYTHING" can go die. My parents didn't buy four semi-trucks and go in to hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt so those jackasses could claim the people we hired to drive them—and pay damn well, too, even if it means my parents barely make anything after maintenance and such—get to claim them. If you honestly believe that, then fuck you and get the hell away from me and any sane and civil government, because you're an idiot.

I do concur with USAF.

Capitalism is neutral, but can easily be manipulated. That's why we shouldn't have total state control, but general state intervention so that the manipulation is kept in check.

Capitalism can't really be "corrupt" simply because no one in the government can interfere in the market. Thus only the corporations are corrupt.

^^ And here comes the Armor-Piercing Question, how much intervention becomes too much? Can there be such a thing? Because some argue even complete state control doesn't go far enough.

edited 19th Nov '11 3:29:05 PM by MajorTom

@Tom,

"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."

A beautifully concise guiding principle, that.

And yet every bit of "progressive" legislation in the last 80 years could be inferred as deciding to protect us from ourselves and thus going too far. (A lot of conservative legislation in the same time frame can be argued against in the same way.)

Such as?

Anyway, I don't really know that one can place all the blame on the rich for everything. Take tax breaks and such nonsense. Is it bad that they use them? Yes. But given that we let those tax breaks get signed into law in the first place, like the ignorant, apathetic sheeple voters tend to be without immediate disaster to spur them onto action, we can't exactly claim to be faultless.

Rich people aren't evil. Rich people that do evil things are evil. I should think this would be an easy concept, whether one is a die-hard Friedman worshiper or sleeps with a copy of The Communist Manifesto...

Gun restrictions, the Fairness Doctrine, corporate and personal bailouts, hate crimes laws (can be argued one way or the other), laws against self-defense or defense of others, aspects of the Patriot Act, compulsory education laws...

Basically there is a fuckton of things that can be legitimately argued as going far beyond the power and limits of government.

Within the context of "protection from others, not yourself":

• Debatable.
• See, I hear about this "Fairness Doctrine" all the time, but I'm not really sure what it is. I guess I'll find out later.
• Eh, theoretically they are still protecting us from the failures of others, so within this context it's still correct. It's not economically responsible, potentially, but that's a different thing entirely.
• Hate crime laws are idiotic (every violent crime is a hate crime), but then again, the American law system in general is stupid.
• Yes.
• The Patriot Act... a "progressive" piece of legislation...? Are you shitting me?
• Yes, but I would argue that it's in the public interest for everyone to be educated...

Well duh.

/derail.

There's all kinds of things we should be doing (raising the top tax bracket rates, bringing back old government regulation that works, streamlining and strengthening what we do have when appropriate, eliminating lobbying and limiting campaign contributions, etc.) to make the government properly representative of all 312 million Americans, and not just the ones with a lot of disposable income to throw at the politicians. However, once again, we do enable the rich to do that, by not taking a stand, so it's hard to complain if when it comes time to actually make reforms you balk because "well gawrsh, that would require a government that could do stuff."

edited 19th Nov '11 4:15:58 PM by USAF713

Now, I don't know about hate, but the general idea is pretty fair, I think - those certain rich people, who have exploited the (exploitable) system to get or stay where they are, are of weak moral character. But if they haven't broken the law, what can we do? Well, some say extra-legal punishment, but frankly, that's preposterous. The solution is to cut our losses and change the laws that allowed such things in the first place.

The OWS (and related) protests in particular seem to focus on the ills of the corporations - buying political sway and taking bail-out money, primarily. But the root of the problem seems to be with those in government that are allowing such lobbying and handing out of money to corporations in the first place. Whereas we should have no expectation for private individuals to be paragons of virtue (although it certainly would be nice), government in general should be held to a higher standard of competence and incorruptibility (of course, the government is made of people, and, people being very often incompetent and corruptible, well, you see where I'm going...). If the system is being exploited, the real problem to be solved lies not with the people exploiting it, but with the very fact that it can be exploited.

Indeed, it is central to a healthy capitalism that economic entities are to support themselves. Government assistance for corporations runs directly counter to this. The other concern here is the corporate lobbying that allows such things - that must be put to an end, and along with it, all sorts of special-interest lobbying - union lobbying, religious lobbying, environmental lobbying, etc., those, too, must be ended. One man, one vote, at the very least, can be the argument for this, although there are more that might do for certain types.

Most people who hate the rich in Western society are capitalist, but of a variety that would go to some length beyond what has been done to supervise the competition. To them, it makes sense to hate the individuals among the rich who have made their wealth by abusing the system and their excessive power to influence politicians and the political discourse with the resources that they can afford.

Not strictly true. Major bailouts are a relatively recent phenomenon (to the extent that we've seen in the last couple of years), and it used to be that if you had all your eggs in one basket, you really could be ruined, no matter how many eggs you had. I haven't seen any statistics that suggest that a majority of the wealthiest individuals in any country are wealthy as a result of government bail-outs.

Competition in which only those best suited for the currently prevailing circumstances survive? Well, yeah, an idea like that is present in the foundations of capitalism, but I would strongly recommend that you (and anyone else who might read this) avoid generalising Darwin's idea regarding the mechanism by which organisms evolve to other fields when there are better ways to express the same idea.

Darwin himself said that if man was to model a society on what we see in nature, it would make a horrible society. A more natural evolution of societies is taking place (and has been since the dawn of societies,) but in this case, the competing items are particular ideas or sometimes details that individually form only a part of a society.

Yes, I'm talking about memes, such as "justice should treat everyone equally" or "society must take care of those who aren't capable of taking care of themselves." These are general (to varying degrees) kinds of ideas that spread (in evolutionary terms, replicate) and undergo gradual or sometimes drastic changes (mutate,) the spread, survival and prevalence of which is based on their inherent properties in relation to the society in which they exist or into which they're being introduced.

The evolution of society is the evolution and introduction of memes and their competition, and the most prevalent memes will prevail whether or not they are actually good for the society in a moral or any other irrelevant (to evolution) sense. The benefits that the memes bring are only important (again, for evolution) in the extent to which they affect the survival and evolution of that meme.

But there are (fortunately, if you ask me,) memes (such as the scientific method, rationalism, and the idea that education is both a right and a duty) that are capable of defending us against the ones (such as anti-intellectualism) that would in the absence of those pre-existing memes surely take an important and destructive role in the society in which they would exist.

When we evaluate our society, instead of thinking about Darwinian terms (which is what I did just now, albeit with the twist of introducing meme theory and some value judgements based on memes to which I'm host,) we should evaluate the ideas that we get based on the principles that we hold to be important. What we get is a society that is very, very different from the rest of nature. People often bring up Darwin in a discussion regarding society or morals, when even a very brief time spent thinking about the implications of it would prove that what is desirable is very far from what is natural.

What I'm trying to say is, if you're thinking about Darwin, you've got to look at the mechanics involved in that type of scenario, and properly place the emphasis on the replicating and mutating unit (gene or meme) instead of the host (individual.) That way, you get what evolution as a scientific theory is supposed to do: explain phenomena, not decide what is desirable.

This seems entirely based on the notion that corporate bailouts are a purely socialist idea (if it were so, the corporations would be held and directed by the state from the moment of acquisition instead of allowed back into the stock market.) Since that is not the case, the rest of this line of thought can be abandoned.