favorite hypocritical justification the 1% uses to justify america's staggering inequality

http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-hypocritical-justifications-1-use-justify-americas-staggering-inequality

My favorite not listed above is "did you ever get a job from a poor person?"

Chose 5. Because when they say that one, they actually believe it is true. No hypocrisy is involved, as with the other 4.

"why tax our best people?"

#3 is always a good go-to for libertarians because it's like the Louis Pasteur "destroying active principle" detractors because any criticism you lob at capitalism is only bad because WE DON'T HAVE A PURE FREE MARKET, MANNNNNNNN.

Didn't someone recently and completely seriously refer to "the lower classes" on his way to make a separate point? Point made, rich dude.

I got one of the 'sorry, go to school longer' snobby responses when I posted a defense of poor people and folks on welfare once, cos they always assume you're one of them if you defend them...and then we found out I made more money than he did.

2-4 i don't think many rich people would actually say. 5 is not a very sensitive understanding of how wealth is distributed, but i think it's more arrogant than malicious.

1 is the serious and inevitable problem behind inequality and unrestrained market capitalism in general.

rich people don't need to say 2-4. that's what lobbyists, think tanks, hate radio, FOX etc are for

Just the phrase "entitlements" alone is condescending enough to win, imo.

it's not even "there are No Jobs", just the sheer cynicism of citing employment as the royal road out of poverty

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Yeah I guess that is the lie that sort of drives the other ones, that wealth = productivity. I say honest work is work done for someone's benefit that is largely not your own. On that definition the uber rich who are really only working for themselves are truly the parasites. Without the working class, they would be kings without a kingdom.

otm. I had an argument with some idiot fuckshovel who replied to someone's posting of how shitty minimum wage actually was by retorting "minimum wage was never meant to be a 'living wage', why don't you work harder and get promoted".

it's like, if you're working 40 hours a week, you're earning your keep in society and should be able to live comfortably, even if not lavishly. I don't give a fuck what the job is, as long as it is legal work. it serves a purpose for someone, and thus, you shouldn't be forced to work another part time job on top of that.

I also hate how we wear long work weeks as a badge of honor. Many folks who work 60 hour weeks only do so because a) they're working 3 jobs to get by or B) they're performing the work of two people because someone else got laid off, meanwhile there are millions of folks working zero hours a week who would love to take some of them off their hands.

I feel like that's a very American thing. Europe seems more chilled out about work, gov't mandates vacation time, etc. But yeah socialism/what about the poor capitalists?

Bumping this thread to ask if anyone has read Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. If so, what do you think? It's pretty strange to me that this book is somehow at the top of Amazon's best sellers list. Is the hype for real? Are people really reading it? Or is it just a really effective door stopper?

Haven't read it, but feel like I have, since I've read upteen million blog thinkpieces on it.

just got my copy

http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/to-have-and-have-not

Just got my copy too.

haven't read picketty's book yet (or benjamin kunkel's 'utopia or bust,' which i totally want to), but i have to say it's entertaining as hell when "christian" "conservatives" pretend to care about the poor
http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2014/04/29/special-rules-for-democrats-n1830579/page/full
and i hope picketty et al. keep the heat turned up

the fuck does this even come from

But redistribution doesn't bring prosperity. Look around you. Obama has raised taxes on the rich several times (some taxes are buried in Obamacare). In terms of federal dollars, we spend $7 of every $10 on sending checks to the poor and the middle class.

I have not received my check.

benghazi!

meanwhile, in (what should be) real news ~

http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/05/sen_elizabeth_warren_introduci.html

Peace on earth, and all that shit.

History — from Ancient Rome through the Gilded Age; from the Russian Revolution to the Great Compression of incomes across the West in the middle of the 20th century — suggests that reversing the trend toward greater concentrations of income, in the United States and across the world, might be, in fact, nearly impossible.

That’s the bleak argument of Walter Scheidel, a professor of history at Stanford, whose new book, “The Great Leveler” (Princeton University Press), is due out next month. He goes so far as to state that “only all-out thermonuclear war might fundamentally reset the existing distribution of resources.” If history is anything to go by, he writes, “peaceful policy reform may well prove unequal to the growing challenges ahead.”

Professor Scheidel does not offer a grand unified theory of inequality. But scouring through the historical record, he detects a pattern: From the Stone Age to the present, ever since humankind produced a surplus to hoard, economic development has almost always led to greater inequality. There is one big thing with the power to stop this dynamic, but it’s not pretty: violence.

The big equalizing moments in history may not have always have the same cause, he writes, “but they shared one common root: massive and violent disruptions of the established order.”

...Many social scientists — not to say left-leaning politicians — would like to believe that there are ways to push back: higher minimum wages, perhaps a universal basic income to help curb poverty; sharply higher income tax rates for the rich along with a wealth tax; a weakening of intellectual property rules, curbs on monopolies and coordination of labor standards around the world; maybe a dollop of capital given to each citizen so all can benefit from the high returns on investment.

Dream on. As Professor Scheidel bluntly puts it: “Serious consideration of the means required to mobilize political majorities for implementing any of this advocacy is conspicuous by its absence.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/business/economy/a-dilemma-for-humanity-stark-inequality-or-total-war.html?_r=0

why yes i have noticed "lagging pay"

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/01/business/economy/wages-salaries-job-market.html

@DougHenwood gets it. (The whole piece is very worth reading.) If radicals can say this, people in the progressive policy world ought to be shouting it from the rooftops. https://t.co/WCDgqeT1dt pic.twitter.com/PE38NHcIHo

— JW Mason (@JWMason1) August 1, 2020