Wow, lots of stuff to answer here. Thanks to everyone for being polite – too often, everyone flames the dissident view, so that the majority ends up talking to each other about what an idiot the dissident is, rather than having a real exchange of views with the dissident. I'm impressed that hasn't happened to this discussion.
Oh, well, on to points!
Ordo and Shin-Tao both talked about the value of work as an anti-poverty policy. I agree; jobs must be (and
should be) the number-one anti-poverty mechanism. But I disagree that jobs should be the
only anti-poverty program, because it won't work, for three reasons.
First reason: Not everyone can or should work. Children, the elderly, and the severely mentally handicapped or disturbed might be unable to hold down jobs, for example. Elder poverty in the USA was enormous before Social Security (nowadays, of course - and to a great degree
because of Social Security - elderly people, and especially elderly men, are the least poor segment of society).
Second reason: Our economy is based on maintaining unemployment at certain levels (somewhere between 4% and 6%), and the US government will actively work to increase unemployment if it ever drops "too low." This isn't some sort of secret conspiracy - Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve (arguably the most powerful person in the US), says so quite openly in speeches. (They do this not to be malicious, but to control inflation and stabilize bond prices).
But since the government actively manipulates the economy to keep about 1 out of every 20 Americans in the work force unemployed, I think the government takes on a moral responsibility to provide significant antipoverty programs beyond telling people to get a job.
Third reason: Many people work full-time and are still below the poverty line. To me, there's something profoundly immoral about that state of affairs – any American who works hard forty hours a week should bring in enough to keep herself and a child or two above the poverty line.
By the way, there's more we could do to fight poverty beyond the jobs-or-welfare model. In Sweden (especially before the 1980s), the government worked extensively at finding jobs for people; training, interviews, more training, and if they couldn't find a job for someone where he lived they found a job for him elsewhere and paid his moving costs. Their reward for this active approach was the lowest unemployment rate in history, for years and years...
Ordo wrote:
Truth is truth no matter how old and no matter how tired you are of hearing it.
Yes, but what you were saying wasn't true; it's a right-wing cliche. The fact is, both in the US and abroad, many anti-poverty programs have been measurably successful in reducing poverty.
The best anwser for the rest of the problems you mention is more simple than the wasteful and complex programs you endorse!
The main anti-poverty program I currently endorse is Social Security for those who cannot work, and a significantly expanded Earned Income Tax Credit for those who can work. The EITC is neither wasteful nor complex.
By now you should be comparing me to one of the infamous socialists of all from Germany, accusing me of wanting to starve children, putting veterans out on the street and denying medical care to the senior citizens.
When you're finished talking to that there straw man, come back to earth and we can keep on debating, okay?
Instead, you only accuse me of supporting poverty and wanting to destroy our roads and highways! tsk tsk!
Of course, I never accused you of any of those things - please try not to put words in my mouth in the future.
I assume that you (like me and like everyone else here) would like to see the US have a strong infrastructure (including highways) and as little poverty as possible in a free and democratic constitutional republic. We are disagreeing on the best ways to accomplish those goals - but I think we agree that the goals are worthwhile.
Herodotus: Thank you! It's nice to hear.
Munro, pre-civil war America was hardly a collective society, to pick an obvious example. Racism was rife in the States through at least the first few decades of the 20th century, when collectivism was at its lowest. South Africa during apartheid wasn't very socialist, for that matter. Nor are Sweden, Denmark and France (relatively socialist) currently more racist than Austrailia (relatively capitalist), in my admittedly limited experience.
In short, I don't think the evidence supports a causal connection between "collectivism," in the sense of socialism-in-a-mixed-market-society, and racism.
Jedi, I find it cheering to see how much we agree on! Kosovo, Somolia, and a dislike of the so-called "two" party system (more like the left and right wings of a single party).
But since I'm a debate-style person, I'll just respond to the places where there's some disagreement.
Jedi wrote:
I don't want them to be pollsters, either. What I suggest is merely that our reps take us more seriously. It seems to me that too many of them vote for certain initiatives to "help us" even when we don't need help, and tell them so.
Actually, I think most reps take the voters pretty seriously - they have to, if only because they're concerned with re-election. Plus, most legislators would honestly rather make good law than bad. But the two-party system severely restricts who can get elected, plus a congressman's idea of what help is needed - and what constituents as a whole want - may be different from yours or mine.
Aha! There's the rub- I'm not against public spending for public works like roads, fire brigades, police, etc. I am against society at large forcing me to be charitable.
And someone else might be against society at large forcing them to pay for police, or for tanks, or for funding drug research, or for Veteran's benefits, and so on and so forth. Out of the thousands of things government pays for, it's natural that not everyone agrees with each one. But I think the best way for me to reduce or eliminate taxes spent on (say) welfare isn't for me to have the option of not paying taxes. Instead, I want the ability to democratically change how tax money is spent - either through electing different legislators or, in some states, through referendums.
To make it fair for everyone, it would have to be impossible to pay no taxes whatsoever, so that you are putting in for the roads and such, but you can still have total control over 100% of your income.
But to me, reducing poverty fits into that "and such" category – it’s a public good. If the city of Portland (for instance) funded the building of five new Single Room Occupancy buildings (SROs), that would significantly reduce homelessness here. That wouldn't benefit just me - it would benefit everyone who works in or walks through the Portland, because cities with fewer homeless are much more pleasant and livable.
That's just one example, but similar cases could be made for Social Security, food stamps, welfare, public schools, and so on. These things are a boon to society as a whole, and allowing you to opt out of paying for them is allowing you to reap benefits from the tax dollars
I pay without paying anything yourself. How is that fair?
Regarding average welfare participants buying brand new Cadillac’s and eating nothing but steak and lobster, I'll believe it when I see some empirical evidence from a reputable source. Certainly, that hasn’t been my experience, either as an observer or as a user of welfare.
When I was on food stamps, I might buy two $2 steaks and spend the remaining $107 on proper food - but you can bet that the person at the register, if she mentioned me to friends, told them about the steaks I bought but not the bulk rice. And many of the people who waited for hours with me at the welfare office came and left the same way I did - by bus. (Maybe they left the Caddy at home that day).
I'm not sure how the NEA came up - I'm sure I didn't bring it up. I could make lots of pro-NEA arguments, but perhaps we should save that for another thread?
That's why I said there should be no taxes at all on necessities- food, clothing, shelter, medication, etc. Someone who's poor tends to spend most of their money on those things, and not so much on frivolities (like DVD players or flashy jewelry).
But I'm pretty sure this is the case already in most states that have sales tax, yet researchers generally agree that even so the poor end up spending a greater percent of their income on taxes than the rich (that's been my impression, anyhow). That's because the rich spend a much higher proportion of their income on non-taxable items like savings accounts, bonds, extra homes, stocks, and so forth.
If sufficient numbers of people refused to fund gov't idiocy and elected representatives who wouldn't be such fisal numbskulls, I'd say that's fairly meaningful.
I know someone who illegally deducts the percentage of the US budget that goes to the military from her taxes each year, and just sends in what's left. So far, she hasn't been arrested - either she's poor enough anyhow so the IRS figures she's not worth the trouble, or maybe they don't want to give her a trial because they don't want her to publicize the idea.
In any case, I do agree that if enough people refused to pay taxes, that would make a difference - but I don't think it'll happen. The fact is, most people
like luxeries; we like cable TV, CD player, up-to-date computers, massages, restaurants, playstations, movies and so on. God knows I'm not willing to give up buying books and comics. I don't imagine that any major movement for change based on self-deprivation will ever go far in America.
Thanks for your post - I really enjoyed it.
David wrote:
Amp makes some good points here -- more good points than I usually see from people attempting to argue that socialism actually has some net benefits.
Thanks for the compliment - I liked your post, too.
While I agree that _theoretically_ there could be a mixed economy that didn't infringe too much on personal freedom, in practice, the government that has the authority to redistribute citizens' wealth isn't content to stop there, but feels an irresistible urge to manage personal rights as well. The perfect example is the U.S., right now probably the most successful example of a mixed economy, but also a country in which there is a strenuous effort to redefine all the rights recognized in the very document that established our system of government.
Good argument. Nonetheless, I disagree with it, for three reasons.
First, I don't agree that the US is currently the best example of a mixed-market economy. As mixed-markets go, ours is very strongly skewed towards the capitalist side; nearly all first-world economies have more "socialist" in their mix than we do.
Second, I don't agree that the US is the most successful mixed-market economy, unless you define "successful" as meaning "biggest." By many common economic measures - growth of GDP per capita, rate of productivity growth, and poverty rates, for instance - the US is not the head of the pack. We're certainly successful, but it's far from clear that we're doing better than everyone else overall.
Third, the US has actually been steadily
reducing the amount of socialism in its mix since the 1970s - we've steadily reduced welfare payments in real dollars, for instance, and many major industries have been and continue to be privatized and/or deregulated. So if you're right about that connection, then the strenuous effort to redefine the rights should have peaked around 1973 and gone down ever since.
To tell you the truth, I'm not sure there's
ever been a period in American history in which the meaning of the bill of rights and constitution hasn't been undergoing redefinition. It's a little bit like the perennial complaint that "kids are no damn good these days" - every generation has the illusion of being the first generation to think that, but in fact they all do.
Summer session of college started today (meaning I’m officially a senior), so I'm not sure how well I'll be able to keep up with TFL. I'll try to, though.
--Amp
[This message has been edited by Ampersand (edited June 19, 2000).]
