Do we need rich people and poor people?

It would impossible to NOT have rich and poor. We all have different abilities and talents, and for that matter, different mental abilities.

You might be able to narrow the gap between rich and poor, but it could never close.

You might want to read Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. It was written in 1888 but addresses some of your concerns. It is so old you can download it for free legally.

The idea of equal opportunity is to give everyone a fair chance to pursue their dreams and desires to accomplish whatever they are able to. It is not about equal outcomes. Some folks will set their objectives low and be content, others will not be happy regardless of how big their bank account is.

Our society benefits when all citizens have an opportunity to succeed to the best of their abilities. But an individual will determine what success means to them, and that will naturally create class strata.

I think there is a healthy strata and there is an unhealthy separation of wealth. An unhealthy separation is a symptom of societal problems. Things are not healthy now…

Walmart CEO’s Pay Jumps 14.1 Percent To $20.7 Million

Walmart Store Holding Thanksgiving Food Drive For Its Own Workers

We love guns. Time to use them.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Excellent point.
@johnpowell That’s darkly ironic.

I don’t think we “need” poor people. I think all people who work full time should be earning above the poverty line. A very large middle class is the best system in my opinion.

Not particularly, but we decidedly do NOT need any of the schemes humans have come up with to date for equalizing the wealth among all people. Our problem now is that the gulf between the very, very rich and everyone else has gotten way to great in the last 3 decades. It is now even worse in the USA that at its worst point in our past, just before the Great Depression. And it is growing wider at an accelerating pace. That’s a formula to put all the wealth of the nation in the hands of a few hundred people, and leave all others in poverty working as wage slaves for the very wealthy. That’s the very definition of a banana republic, and our current path is taking us there.

There is a class of people who definitely do NOT want to rub shoulders with the “lower class”. They are happy to have them serve them, but never be friends with them, and there is a group of people who want an upper class to serve. It will always happen, regardless of how hard you try to make it equal. It has even happened in communist countries from the beginning. It’s part of human nature.

@snowberry Can you elaborate on the human nature part of it, what do you mean?

@LDRSHIP Even the communist party in China has an upper class. The leadership still wears the same clothes, but they are finely tailored, and are made of quality cloth. This is true in North Korea as well, and you can certainly see it in other countries around the world, Communist or not.

I used to run a cleaning business. Some of my clients were my friends, and we socialized with each other. Other clients clearly saw me as “the help” and wanted me to “know my place”.

During the 2002 Winter Olympics, I was a private maid for a family from Monaco. When I first met them, they insisted “We are just like everyone else, and went on to illustrate how ‘normal’ they were.” But the truth is that they were not royalty, but they clearly wanted to be. They were furious when the authorities refused to let them bring in their private helicopter, and they brought two of their servants from Monaco to serve them, with the pretense of it being a “vacation” for them. The servants told me it was no vacation at all, because if anything, their duties were greater than they were at home!

As their live in housekeeper, I was expected to be on call 24 hours a day, which I expected. While we were still negotiating price, I had asked them to explain exactly what they wanted me to do for them, but they did not. I found out that their expectations were far above what I was able to deliver. Had I known everything they wanted me to do, I would have hired at least one more person to help me. Among the many duties, they expected me to iron all their underwear and hand wash a large portion of their clothes (which could easily have been done in the gentle cycle of a washer), as well as wash all the clothes of their servants, and many more things like this.

I did not last long, because they were very disrespectful to me, so I quit. I later learned that they went through 15 more maids before the Games were over.

As some above have indicated, we do not need a situation where a very few on the top have incomes comparable to the GDP of some entire nations, while some of the people who work for them have incomes that require them to get public assistance. Something is really out of whack. Throw in the high rate of incarceration, the high rate of infant mortality, crumbling infrastructure, intrusive government surveillance and comparatively low levels of educational achievement and you have a society that is crying out for reform

I can’t imagine a world where no one does the low income jobs. These are essential for the functioning of society. That isn’t an argument for treating these workers badly, quite the reverse and low income should never be so low you cannot live on it.

Imagine a world where no one does the low income jobs… and suddenly they become quite valuable, don’t they?

There are different ways to build wealth. They can be inclusive (widely shared) or extractive (concentrate in the hands of those who do the extracting).

I recommend:

Winner Take All Politics

and Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

As others here have stated, there will be varying degrees of affluence in even the most equitable of societies. The current situation, however is clearly intolerable. Ours is now a country where the only possible way for wealth to amass at the top at current rates is at the direct and visible expense of the non rich. We are living in a genuine plutocracy, complete with a ruling class that for all practical purposes, owns the government, and is enriching itself through the disguised but undeniable impoverishment of what remains of the middle class.

This is really just a symptom of the actual problem. We let power structures grow without bound (Gov’t and corporate) and they are doing what they do best…serving their own interests. This is of course at the expense of the 99.5%. I have no problem with a high level exec making a lot more than the entry level custodian. There must be a reward system in place to ensure that people are reaching their potential. The extremes between the two are outrageous and in no way reflect productive output.

We definitely need rich people, because they’re ‘job creators’. Poor people are useless though, because none of them work and all they do is have babies that rich people have to pay for.

I have often wondered why the jobs that were least wanted were paid the lowest wages. If supply and demand were the determining factor in the value of things, the least desirable work should bring the highest wage.

Unfortunately, no existing system of economics (Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, or any mix of these) can achieve an optimized society. In such a society the working-poor would have sufficient income for their families to live with adequate food, shelter, clothing and education. Sadly, this is far from today’s reality.

There will always be a portion of any population that is unable to produce value to their society equal to their minimal needs. The very young and old, the mentally and/or physically infirm, those without sufficient skills and the very few who are unmotivated to be a contributing part of their community will always be dependent upon the largess of the rest of society. They are the poor who will always be with us.

I know nothing about economics. Feel free to ridicule.

It seems to me that any system that requires rich and poor for “balance” is immoral and has no business existing. Traditional slavery also provided balance.

The gap between the rich and poor is where we should focus. If hard-working families are struggling to survive while others are struggling to figure out what to do with all of their excess money, we have a problem.

I don’t have a huge problem with a gap – but that gap needs to be tiny. We don’t have equal opportunity, so we need to focus on equal outcome. So, I’m for massive wealth redistribution that would result in shrinking of that gap.

I’m not for redistribution at all. May as well start a revolution, give all the drunks free drinks… We need our financial, work and educational systems to drive the gaps. Finding a system with balance and limits would over time bring us to a healthy state. Redistribution would be the biggest mistake we could make. We’ll always need safety nets for those who cannot provide for themselves but we don’t need to enable those who just won’t. America could have had this but we failed to set limits, we lost proper checks and balances. We let public opinion on things get polluted by divisive politics that distracts us from having real discussions about the state of things.

I am one who has enjoyed being very well off and now am struggling again in this economic collapse. I was one who was always very generous with friends, family and strangers alike. If more people felt compelled to spread around their good fortune this world would be a much better place. I like to think I am “needed” rich or poor because I give in whatever manner I am able in the moment.

One area of wealth that pisses me off to no end is the sports industry. Really, these monkey brained behemoths making millions for tossing around a ball. Gimme a break, pathetic.

The thing that puzzles me when folks say they are against proposals advocating the redistribution of wealth, is the failure to appreciate that wealth has been flowing uphill at the direct expense of those below, and its been doing so for decades. Moreover, the process is noticeably accelerating. Wealth is being redistributed at an alarming rate. It is trickling UP and ONLY UP. Clearly, the game is fixed, and the problem is systemic. As the money piles up at the top, certain mindsets must be established if the fleecing is to continue. Thus we are chided for our “delusional” expectations to live “beyond our means”. Not only can “we” not afford a safety net, but now it appears that the entire public sector is little more than a profligate and wasteful extravagance. Whether my suppositions are valid or not, the prospect of islands of obscene wealth amidst a heavily armed population with its standard of living headed toward the basement is worthy of some thought.

@stanleybmanly The criminals who are rigging and taking advantage of the system need to be brought to justice. There are plenty of “madoffs” out there who can be put behind bars. Until we stop letting them get away with ripping us off nothing is going to change. Stealing the wealth through redistribution from those who earned it fair and square and giving it to those who did not is a bad idea. Like it or not nobody is entitled to wealth, it needs to be earned but fairly. Working 50+ hours a week at two or three part-time minimum wage jobs with no benefits is not fair. Thanks A.C.A. for that, real progress there.

Our dispute is about the definition of “earned it fair and square.” From my perspective the rich are effectively “stealing the wealth through redistribution from those who earned it fair and square” They have accomplished this by shifting the playing field in such a fashion that they are in effect the guaranteed winners in the casino of America NO MATTER WHAT. In fact in order to pile up wealth in bad times as well as good it is ABSOLUTELY necessary that everyone else take a beating. Thus wages stagnate or fall in the face of record profits. Public services are cut or curtailed as trillions of dollars are shuttled offshore to avoid the tax burden which falls on the guy who punches a time clock. Capital gains taxes are skewed such that the man living from a trust fund pays less than the guy breaking his back digging ditches. The inequities are virtually endless and the cumulative effect is that the rich get richer regardless of the damage to the country or the society which inhabits it.

@stanleybmanly so what do you propose is the solution? I don’t think we are really in disagreement here, we may just draw the lines differently. I too think the gap is obscene but I think things like NAFTA, too broke to fail, eased financial regulations (derivatives…) and gov’t generally beating on small business has erased the middle class. This has given those with the upper hand free reign over the rest of us. This is the effect of eroding our checks and balances. We have allowed the very wealthy at the top to make all of the calls in both Gov’t and in business. Wall street and Washington have effectively merged leaving main street to fend for itself.

There was a time when an adult could provide sufficient income to support a family, leaving another adult at home to parent the family’s children during the day. Later, relying on schools to care for their children during the daytime, both parents sought employment so that the family could improve their standard of living. Now most families are required to provide more than a hundred hours of labor just to survive.

Small businesses that support local communities cannot compete with the economic power of large corporations and are being forced to close resulting in rising unemployment and the reduction of services provided by towns and small cities. States are directing revenues away from rural areas to their metropolises.

Where is the balance?

No one seems to be working to eliminate either one. What would be nice if the rich would help the poor more.

Bill and Linda Gates have started a billionaire’s club who have signed a pledge to give most of their money to charity.

As of July 2013, 113 billionaire individuals and couples and one family group have signed the pledge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge

@ARE_you_kidding_me The key to a solution lies in people becoming aware of just what’s going on. Whenever I start this rant, the immediate reaction from manly smart educated people is “There’s Stan again. He really hates the rich.” Nothing could be further from the truth. To my mind, the rich are acting EXACTLY as they are supposed to act. Resenting the rich for demanding more is like hating lions for devouring zebras. The problem is that people rarely consider (or notice) the facts surrounding them. You can pick up a daily newspaper with three stories on the front page. Story 1) 5% of the population now controls 60% of the wealth. Story 2) State and municipal governments are broke. Story 3) Jobs are stagnant and actual wages are declining. Millions of people will read these stories or hear them on the evening news, and not one person in a thousand will stop to consider that the 3 stories might be related. The typical reaction to story 1) Hey, they worked for it, and I have the same shot if I apply myself . Story 2) teachers and firemen are overpaid. Story 3) The economy is tough. Things will get better.___ If people can be made to understand that the inertia of money has been relentlessly engineering our system to function such that the rich ALWAYS get richer regardless of any and ALL consequences, we will be off to a start, and it will be the second greatest crisis in the history of the country. Because even in our pretend democracy, there remains a chance that numbers might trump wealth.

I was just randomly browsing the internet and came across a post that said

“Poor people should be sterilized (everywhere)

If you can’t even afford to take care of yourself you shouldn’t be aloud to have kids. In the end it will lower all of our taxes so we don’t have to pay into the entitlement pool because these bums can’t fuck responsibly. This country is a few generations away from bankruptcy because we spend so much money supporting lazy people and their bastard children.”

@LDRSHIP That is hideous. But no worse than Jonathon Swift’s essay A Modest Proposal.

@Coloma What if you had spread around your wealth a little less? Would your own situation be better right now? I am all for helping family and friends, I have done it many times, but when it sacrifices our own financial stability I think sometimes it doesn’t help in the end. Doesn’t help as a total, I am not only talking about not helping ourselves. There has to be a balance I think. Watching out for ourselves and watching for others. I am not assuming anything about how much you gave away, I really just mean in general for all people, not you personally. You mightbjust be talking abut a few hundred here and there, which makes a huge difference for someone who is struggling and little impact on what your specific situation was or is. I just am reminded of Q knowitall asked where she was much more willing to live in very low savings and wanted to help a neighbor (which after hearing her specific situation I agreed she should help, I would) but her overall outlook on saving was extremely different from mine and many other jellies on the Q. Her comfort level regarding savings was very different.

No matter what I agree with many people above that for too long wealth has been going up and more up the wealth latter and things becoming more and more unequal. I just prefer to see wealth “redistributed” through wages rather than taxes. No matter what we will always need social systems in my opinion. Disability, welfare, unemployment, social security, medicare, foodstamps I want all those programs. I just want people to need things like foodstamps and welfare or EIC less often, because their income is good, or was good enough in the past to carry through even if they find themselves unemployed for a while. The flaw in that is I know a lot of people with great salaries who spend it all check to check, so they are poor the second their income reduces or dissapears. They aren’t wealthy no matter how much they make, they live too precariously.

Do we need rich people and poor people? It depends on who “we” are. If we are unrelenting capitalists, then yes—because capitalism relies on poverty. Poverty creates a self-renewing source of cheap labor to exploit. And if poverty starts drying up in one country, those jobs are just outsourced to another. Fear of poverty creates a group of middle managers who are unwilling to speak out on behalf of their exploited workers. And keeping costs down creates a class of wealthy owners who are kept in power by those who vote for them by purchasing whatever is cheapest without concern for how it was brought to the market.

@snowberry A Modest Proposal is satire. The comment @LDRSHIP mentioned was serious. Kind of an important difference.

@Patton I don’t agree that capitalism needs poverty.

@Patton Your argument basically says people will only create business if they can make a huge profit. They will still create business even if they only make a modest profit. I don’t know if you are American, but we were very prosperous when our middle class was large, and we were very proud of it.

@Patton I imagine that many people thought Johnathan Swift’s essay was real too. The Chinese have a long history of forced sterilization that has caused untold agony in the lives of millions. You are promoting the same thing. That sir, is a hideous proposal, but no more hideous or different really, than what Johnathan Swift did in his satire.

@JLeslie No, that’s not what my argument says. My argument says that capitalism exploits the poor and that the middle class supports the exploiters—and makes some of them very wealthy—by valuing low prices over ethical treatment of workers. But nothing about how much profit needs to be expected in order to motivate someone to create a business. So still no rebuttal.

@snowberry I am promoting the same thing? I said that the essay was satire. I didn’t say that I approved of the policy. But you talked about it as if it were not satire, so I mentioned it just in case you didn’t realize. And what do the Chinese have to do with anything?

@Patton Sorry, I didn’t know I had to spell it out. Satire or not, the effect is quite similar. And yes, I KNOW it’s satire. I am glad your idea is not law where I live!

@snowberry How is the effect similar? Any intelligent person reading A Modest Proposal will come away with immense sympathy for the poor. That’s the whole point of the essay. Swift is ridiculing people who treat the poor badly and ignore the ways in which society harms and exploits them. How could you equate that with someone who seriously advocates sterilizing the poor?

And what idea are you talking about? I haven’t promoted any idea or law here. You seem to think I’m advocating something distasteful, but you won’t say what it is. Probably because I haven’t actually advocated anything.

OK, this has potential to get really confusing. So here is @LDRSHIP‘s original comment. I’m not sure if he/she agrees with it or not. But I DO NOT.

“I was just randomly browsing the internet and came across a post that said

‘Poor people should be sterilized (everywhere)

If you can’t even afford to take care of yourself you shouldn’t be aloud to have kids. In the end it will lower all of our taxes so we don’t have to pay into the entitlement pool because these bums can’t fuck responsibly. This country is a few generations away from bankruptcy because we spend so much money supporting lazy people and their bastard children.’”

I also do not agree with the welfare state idea where everyone’s a “baby daddy” to 6 or 8 kids from different women. But sterilizing anyone who is too poor to take care of their own children is as offensive as the Chinese one child policy. One has left a legacy of misery while the other no doubt would if put into law.

This also hits a little close to home for me, because I was once poor enough I’d likely have been a target of that sterilization program. We never went on assistance, but we sure did qualify for it. All of our kids are out on their own now, and doing well.

@snowberry The one child policy in China never made sense to me. I am not sure how much “misery” it caused, except of course that people who wanted more children couldn’t (unless they had money) but I don’t see how it makes sense to even have the policy. It decreases the population in the end, because two adults are only making one baby, and too often people chose to have a boy not a girl.

We had forced and unknowing sterilization in America. I saw a report about it, and I think it was in one of the Carolinas, but probably happened in other states, doctors would sterilize women when they gave birth. Poor women. Black women. They didn’t even know it was done to them. It’s so horrific.

@JLeslie I have read several articles and watched a documentary about it! You’re right about the forced sterilizations in the US. I forgot about that.

In China- forced abortions not causing misery? Oh, you betcha’ it does! What frightens me is that folks here think that it would be a good idea here. I have a better idea! Force sterilizations and abortions on them since they think it’s such a great idea! We’ll kill two birds with one stone- take their DNA out of the gene pool, and give them a taste of their own medicine to boot! (sarcasm intended since some people can’t tell the difference)

Though Wikipedia describes Upworthy to be “a left-wing website” I found this graphic representation of what people believe the distribution of wealth is, what they think it should be, and what it actually is to be revealing.

The most telling graphic that I have found of how skewed U.S. income in this Wikipedia article. About a quarter of the way down is a graph of mean versus median income. Median income is what the guy in the middle of the middle class is making. It is way below mean income. Notice also that mean income keeps rising while median income has remained about flat. The rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting screwed.

@snowberry China isn’t trying to limit the gene pool as far as I know. China from what I understand provides free birth control and people can have more than one baby, they just have to pay a huge fine. I have heard many different figures from $10k to $50k per additional child. It means people with money have the freedom to have more babies, I am not sure what China does if a family cannot pay. I am sure besides the fine they have significant psychological pressure not to have more than one child, I am not discounting that. I am not defending China, I am completely against such a policy. As China modernizes more and more families will likely have fewer children anyway like most western countries.

There are also exceptions to China’s one-child law.

Only about 40% of the country’s population is actually subject to the restriction.

Rural families can have more than one child if their first is a girl or disabled.
Families in which both parents are only children are allowed two children.
Recently it was passed that families where one parent is an only child are allowed two children.
Ethnic minorities are not subject to the restriction.
There are no penalties for birthing multiples.

I’m not saying the forced abortion thing isn’t horrible – it is – but we’re not much better, in that our country leaves those who can least afford to have a child absolutely zero options to avoid having one. The government will pay for your healthcare throughout pregnancy and your childbirth no matter how many thousands of dollars that may cost per pregnancy, but all the gods forbid that we could allow the government to provide a pill a day for about $10 a month.

What we need is equal opportunities and fair trade.