A reminder that in a democracy, it's probably best to make sure the gold is widely shared. Lest the poorly educated masses of people without access to the gold vote to kill the goose.
A reminder that in a democracy, it's probably best to make sure the gold is widely shared. Lest the poorly educated masses of people without access to the gold vote to kill the goose.
They could have voted socialist at any point in time. Americans could have had healthcare, 36 hour work week and a pension system.
That is the tragedy of the American empire- instead of improving the lives of its citizens all the money went to tax cuts.
Could we have though? Last I checked neither majir party has seriously persued this. So how are the american people to vote for it?
Yes. If you are genuinely unaware and not just asking a rhetorical question, yes socialized medicine is a major goal of the progressive left. We came close in 2010 but the votes in congress weren't quite there. The only reason major parties don't pursue it is because progressivism doesn't have the votes. You can definitely vote for it though especially if you participate in primaries.
So is democracy not real? I find it funny that when things do right it's because of our superior system of people choosing their leaders, and when things go wrong it's because people don't have any choice.
Democracy is a spectrum and the US system is but one poor flawed example.
Despite the founders being anti-party politics and wanting a spectrum of representatives each representing a block of the broader population and hammering out consensual deals that most can live with, the US has devolved into a two party system in which neither party especially represents 50% of the population despite both butting up against the median of actual voters.
This is the doom spiral of iterative FPTP and Hotelling's 'law'.
Other democracies have many parties, larger parties mixed with smaller parties, greater voter engagement, various forms of proportional voting systems (there are several), etc.
US democracy is just one example of many global democracies.
> They could have voted socialist at any point in time.
> Lest the poorly educated masses of people
Impossible since that would mean extreme left wing radical socialism. And communism.
Unless there could be a less black and white option in the middle?
Like a bit more taxes on the wealthiest, a bit more social safety nets for the neediest?
Yeah obviously.
I am not from USA, but maybe you'll need to figure this out on state level? Country level seems rather blocked at the moment.
Can't do it, individual states can't print money and freedom of movement means the free rider problem will pop up quickly.
> can't print money
But can they raise taxes?
> freedom of movement
EU also has freedom of movement, but vastly different social security systems.
Language is of course an extra barrier, but how much people will move is overrated. And maybe you could restrict supposed benefits to people who have lived there in a few years.
Obviously IANAL, but i am thinking - seems like you generally hate your government no matter who it is, so maybe states should be a bit more independent.
> But can they raise taxes?
Sure, but the math doesn't work out. Vermont and California have both tried in various forms.
> EU also has freedom of movement, blah blah blah
They also coordinated the laws between the member countries. That's exactly what the federal government would need to do in this case, very good! The EU system doesn't work particularly well either, because it's loosely confederated. The US government has far more ability to coordinate the States.
Sarcasm detector has to be pretty high to catch this one ;)
But you've touched on the problem: any attempt to reform is immediately cast as "communism" (also without really understanding communism and equating it with soviet authoritarianism, but that's another topic).
Yeah, cultural difference.
Coming from Europe I think the sarcasm was pretty obvious. More like "duh".
Sigh.
Unfortunately, your implications are spot on.
We, the people, are our own worst enemies.
You have to attribute some blame to the elite who run an ongoing propaganda campaign for voters to work against their own interests.
Really? Is that your honest take? It's either late stage unfettered capitalism, regulatory capture and oligarchy OR communism?
Edit: I forgot theocracy.
Yeah, sarcasm does not work on internet, I know. I tried to paraphrase the ruler in chief.
Ah, thank you. I was so terribly disappointed to see that take on here.
I think the comment was tongue-in-cheek.
Inequality isn't the cause of our problems in the US. It's basically the same as it was in the 90s https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA
Inequality in general is a complaint that is most often heard from people making 6 figures complaining about billionaires, but you don't actually hear it from the "poorly educated masses of people without access to the gold" as you put it.
You can quote statistics to show that "inequality is the same", but that's obviously not the case. To wit, Bill Gates became the richest person in the '90s with wealth of $13 billion. There are now 10 people with more than $100 billion each. Meanwhile inflation since 1990 has been only 2.5x.
The richest individuals have an order of magnitude more wealth, and you can't say this is inconsequential when the richest person in the world (net worth $300b+) is actively leading the effort to dismantle US government institutions.
Yes, your anecdote about one person out of 300 million has convinced me that the statistics compiled by the Federal Reserve about the entire population are clearly incorrect.
Perception is politics.
I disagree. Inequality is very much at the root of our problems.
But killing the golden goose will not help solve the inequality, but only make it worse by making it even more expensive and difficult to get into universities with top research programs.
Gini coefficient may be the most commonly used statistic but it is not sensitive to current conditions in the US (https://www.investopedia.com/news/measuring-inequality-forge...). The palma ratio does indeed show increasing inequality since the 90s (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/palma-ratio-s90s40-ratio?...). Also wealth inequality is another place to be looking, especially if you're familiar with Piketty's body of work which points at it specifically (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wealth-distribution-in-amer...).
You know what they say about lies and statistics.
‘An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.’
Plutarch