disestablishmentarian
disestablishmentarian
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Panopticon thinks it's autistic to question that money to a homeless person is greater than money to Bill Gates in terms of marginal utility. But really, its not so clear.
Say you give $100 to each. The poor person spends it on food, crack, SA membership, or whatever you imagine they would. This is even putting aside the fertility subsidizing effect of welfare. The rich person however already has crack so they would spend it on a luxury item- say, a nice vase for their house. The luxury item provides no less marginal utility, furthermore, it will last a lot longer and can be enjoyed by other people. Food only provides pleasure for a minute, while the luxury good can last decades, will show up in porn movies Bill Gates rents his mansion out for, and when Bill Gates passes on, it can be appreciated by future generations touring his home.
Looking at it a different way, imagine how awful it would be if leftism actually worked and everyone was equal. That would be boring as shit, there would be no rich, no poor, no Great Gatsby, no real mansions or Ferrari street races or yachts, no MTV Cribs, and a huge part of human culture resulting from inequality would just cease to exist. Clearly there is an optimal amount of inequality and it is above zero. Everyone being the same in wealth would be terribly boring if it actually happened.
In short, you can't just assume that diminishing marginal utility holds in any particular real world circumstance, because the rich and poor often consume the same goods, or when the rich consume luxury goods, they're better quality, last longer, and have a cultural value that can be enjoyed by other people.
And you can even turn the tables and point out instances where leftism is autistic and insensitive. The communist countries "solved" homelessness by forcing families to accept random people into their home. The same effect happens in capitalist countries, but its done voluntarily through roomshares in the like. A leftist will say that the former is better because it spreads the wealth and is an excuse for the government to interfere in private life. But if it achieves the same result, any sensible person realizes the capitalist solution is better in this circumstance because its voluntary rather than coercive.
tl;dr poors spend all their money on crack and booze anyway
Say you give $100 to each. The poor person spends it on food, crack, SA membership, or whatever you imagine they would. This is even putting aside the fertility subsidizing effect of welfare. The rich person however already has crack so they would spend it on a luxury item- say, a nice vase for their house. The luxury item provides no less marginal utility, furthermore, it will last a lot longer and can be enjoyed by other people. Food only provides pleasure for a minute, while the luxury good can last decades, will show up in porn movies Bill Gates rents his mansion out for, and when Bill Gates passes on, it can be appreciated by future generations touring his home.
Looking at it a different way, imagine how awful it would be if leftism actually worked and everyone was equal. That would be boring as shit, there would be no rich, no poor, no Great Gatsby, no real mansions or Ferrari street races or yachts, no MTV Cribs, and a huge part of human culture resulting from inequality would just cease to exist. Clearly there is an optimal amount of inequality and it is above zero. Everyone being the same in wealth would be terribly boring if it actually happened.
In short, you can't just assume that diminishing marginal utility holds in any particular real world circumstance, because the rich and poor often consume the same goods, or when the rich consume luxury goods, they're better quality, last longer, and have a cultural value that can be enjoyed by other people.
And you can even turn the tables and point out instances where leftism is autistic and insensitive. The communist countries "solved" homelessness by forcing families to accept random people into their home. The same effect happens in capitalist countries, but its done voluntarily through roomshares in the like. A leftist will say that the former is better because it spreads the wealth and is an excuse for the government to interfere in private life. But if it achieves the same result, any sensible person realizes the capitalist solution is better in this circumstance because its voluntary rather than coercive.
tl;dr poors spend all their money on crack and booze anyway
Edited by disestablishmentarian ()
Panopticon
Panopticon
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you got rhythm, but you got no soul
disestablishmentarian
disestablishmentarian
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Anarchocapitalism == max social justice. Property will be determined by the willingness of individuals to risk themselves to steal or defend it. QED
gyrofry
gyrofry
Kurdt
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it's autistic to question that money to a homeless person is greater than money to Bill Gates in terms of marginal utility
disestablishmentarian
disestablishmentarian
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Which one has greater marginal utility. A $1 million statue at the Hamptons, or 100,000 fried chicken meals for proles? There's no answer, you can't explain that using utilitarianism.
disestablishmentarian
disestablishmentarian
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Let's do more graph mortal kombat.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3677
CBPP, which is normally a great source like Brookings or the Urban Institute, made this graph. Their point is that 90% of the money from social programs is distributed to those in need in a socially just manner. But that's not what they have shown.
First off, social security is regressive, so including it in the argument doesn't advance the case for wealth redistribution. Secondly, everyone knows disability is a massive fraud and most of the people on it are able to work. Thirdly, their definition of "working household" is broad, including any household that worked for 1,500 hours over the past year. That's 15 hours per week if two people live in the home. The article also doesn't address how welfare increases the incentive to have children.
Incidentally they also spend some time mentioning the massive fail and regressivity of the tax-expenditure side, which is money paid to capitalists directly from the government.
If you want to have some idea of applicants over time you can see how more people suddenly become disabled when unemployment goes up, which is pretty bizarre.
http://www.offthechartsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/6-29-13di.jpg
And here's a bizarre article from Motherjones saying that the safety net doesn't work so... we need more of it I guess.
http://www.motherjones.com/authors/aj-vicens?page=1
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3677
CBPP, which is normally a great source like Brookings or the Urban Institute, made this graph. Their point is that 90% of the money from social programs is distributed to those in need in a socially just manner. But that's not what they have shown.
First off, social security is regressive, so including it in the argument doesn't advance the case for wealth redistribution. Secondly, everyone knows disability is a massive fraud and most of the people on it are able to work. Thirdly, their definition of "working household" is broad, including any household that worked for 1,500 hours over the past year. That's 15 hours per week if two people live in the home. The article also doesn't address how welfare increases the incentive to have children.
Incidentally they also spend some time mentioning the massive fail and regressivity of the tax-expenditure side, which is money paid to capitalists directly from the government.
If you want to have some idea of applicants over time you can see how more people suddenly become disabled when unemployment goes up, which is pretty bizarre.
http://www.offthechartsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/6-29-13di.jpg
And here's a bizarre article from Motherjones saying that the safety net doesn't work so... we need more of it I guess.
http://www.motherjones.com/authors/aj-vicens?page=1
Edited by disestablishmentarian ()
disestablishmentarian
disestablishmentarian
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Now that I think of it... did welfare reform kill grunge?
dipshit420
dipshit420
political car tune
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its meth and heroin now you philistine
Superabound
Superabound
Not Your S.H.I.E.L.D.
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disestablishmentarian posted:Which one has greater marginal utility. A $1 million statue at the Hamptons, or 100,000 fried chicken meals for proles? There's no answer, you can't explain that using utilitarianism.
a $1 million dollar statue made of fried chicken would have the greatest marginal utility of all. Edible Art is IN
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disestablishmentarian
disestablishmentarian
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Leftists are generally evil insofar as they get unemployable degrees and expect to survive by taking other people's things. But I still want to hear your answer.
Complete equality would be terrible. It would be awful if everyone owned the exact same car, exact same house, exact same everything. Even leftists probably acknowledge this and want diversity in what people own and have. What they don't realize is that diversity is a form of inequality, and "different but equal" is a contradiction.
Another contradiction of leftism is, "if you're concerned about wealth inequality, why not physical attractiveness inequality or ability inequality?" The Chomsky response to this is, the latter is a valuable, enduring part of human culture while the former is not. But that's just his opinion, and it doesn't resolve the contradiction. You can turn the argument around without losing any validity. And there isn't a clear distinction between personal property and personal traits; you can use money to gain ability and you can even use ability as money to exchange for other things. If you argue against wealth inequality then you need to argue against all other forms of inequality to be consistent.
Leftism defeats itself, not because of conditional contradictions like those that supposedly exist under capitalism, but because of real logical contradictions that prevent the idea from even being possible to implement.
Complete equality would be terrible. It would be awful if everyone owned the exact same car, exact same house, exact same everything. Even leftists probably acknowledge this and want diversity in what people own and have. What they don't realize is that diversity is a form of inequality, and "different but equal" is a contradiction.
Another contradiction of leftism is, "if you're concerned about wealth inequality, why not physical attractiveness inequality or ability inequality?" The Chomsky response to this is, the latter is a valuable, enduring part of human culture while the former is not. But that's just his opinion, and it doesn't resolve the contradiction. You can turn the argument around without losing any validity. And there isn't a clear distinction between personal property and personal traits; you can use money to gain ability and you can even use ability as money to exchange for other things. If you argue against wealth inequality then you need to argue against all other forms of inequality to be consistent.
Leftism defeats itself, not because of conditional contradictions like those that supposedly exist under capitalism, but because of real logical contradictions that prevent the idea from even being possible to implement.
Edited by disestablishmentarian ()
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disestablishmentarian
disestablishmentarian
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Did welfare reform kill grunge?