Who said we didn't? What I'm saying is we should all be able to live comfortably, not have 90% of the worlds wealth controlled by only 2% of the population leaving millions in poverty. I don't consider someone better on the basis of wealth, perhaps we agree on that much. However I do not like to see people suffer unnecessarily. I love the use of the word 'only' in reference to 400k, especially after the phrase 'don't get paid shit'.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I'd love to see how phrases like 'who is better?' and 'better is subjective' are in contradiction. I suspect you don't know yourself though. In capitalism yes, there will always be poor because it's a requirement. Many of the so called poor in the US are not really that poor at all. If a system of equal distribution was successfully implemented then poverty would no longer exist, rich and poor would no longer exist. I think it's perfectly apparent, lets cover it simply, poor people die more frequently of malnutrition and disease(particularly outside of the US), among other things. These same people are required to exist for capitalism to function. You benefit from this by being higher up the capitalist chain. If there is no chain, there is no poor, unfortunately the rich wouldn't desire this as they lose their benefits in life. This coming from you? Don't make me laugh.
Flawed logic, already covered. Already covered. In equality some go up, some go down. The ones above the line hate this of course as they lose their riches. Isn't allowing everyone in the world an equal chance at life and being able to survive worth making these few people suffer without their multiple houses, exotic holidays etc? Cite why it would be inefficient. If person B is starving because he doesn't make enough to live on due to the system, unlike person A who is fine then there is already oppression.
Agreed, we're naturally a selfish species who doesn't care about helping others so long as we and our immediate associates are fine. Essentially what happens miles away is 'not my problem' as they say, even if they are unwittingly a party to causing it. Sad but true. I think it was more that those in charge didn't actually follow their own ideals, they wanted a bigger piece of the pie than others, essentially and simplistically they were actually capitalist, while making everyone else a part of communism. Interesting point of view. I think the trick is not to have a dictator as they naturally prescribe to capitalism.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I heard he had a garden. Here is a picture of it: http://www.basschutte.nl/mt/images/guerilla_gardening_vb.jpg
I wasn't aware that it was. Care to back that up with stats? Nobody does. The problem is your proposed solution is actually worse than the maladies you correctly identify in capitalism. History shows this. He's the leader of the world, in a sense. 400K ain't a lot, given the responsibilities. My larger point, is that politicians don't make a lot of money from their salaries. This is easy to see from even the most cursory glances at their established salaries, which you seem totally unaware of. Most politicians make much less than your average doctor or lawyer. It's not as if they get in it for the money... Huh? In any system there will always be poor. Show me an economic system where there isn't poor. Communism? That's a laugh. Communism made more people poor than any other economic system since Feudalism in most of the places it was tried... I agree. And as I recently pointed out, Jimmy Carter made this point in a speech I was at and got laughed at, but I agreed with him, and so did the laughing crowd after he described his campaign to bring latrines to Africa... Sounds great on paper, but it will never work. Nor should it. If someone has more value to society, they should be rewarded thusly. Garbage collectors don't have the same value as scientists who cure Cancer... You underestimate the rich. The Third World has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years. Poverty is being eliminated everywhere. Yet the rich are still with us, as they always will be. You can't get rid of them.
You can greatly reduce the gap between their income and wealth and the average person's. That has been done, in many places including right here in the US after WWII until around 1980 - a time that looks like it's going to be remembered as the Golden Age of America. Garbage collectors have more value to American society than Sam Walton's children. So do scientists who don't cure cancer. If you want a market system to reward value to society, even approximately, much government care in the setup and interference in the workings will be involved. Childcare will never pay what it's worth to society, in a carelessly set up market, for example.
I was a little out, it's 90% wealth controlled by top 10% of people, or over 50% of wealth controlled by 2%. Google it, plenty of studies. It makes sense though, there must be a couple billion people on less than 10k a year, whereas anyone famous has a few million each. The communist systems implemented so far have been controlled by dictators interested in their own wealth and well-being. Being overrun with corruption is hardly an accurate depiction of the system don't you think? Last time I checked he was the leader of one nation. He might think he's the leader of the world but the vast majority don't even like him. It seems to me being paid more for his 'responsibilities' as you put it contradicts the idea that it's not actually about the money, and any one of them could give it away. They also get a lot of expenses paid. Not to mention they were one of a number of examples for a group of peoples who get paid far too much for what they do, certainly where I'm from the politicians live the life of luxury, even the local ones being paid more than doctors. That's what I thought. The places where it was tried were already poor, and that's because the worlds wealth isn't shared in the first place! Not to mention the corrupt people in charge and it's no different to anywhere else, the point is it could work theoretically if people decided not to be so selfish. Thankyou for proving my point though. Not being greatly knowledgeable about the man it's hard to comment on. I'm glad someone important tried to make a difference, there are many with billions who do not need that kind of cash, when others really do. When the garbage piles up on the streets and disease spreads around killing off those scientists and many others I suspect it would be seen differently. Or of course you could just do it yourselves, but then it'd detract away from your own work. I'm sure there are many people we could consider to have lesser value, mechanics, without whom your transport wouldn't function, which would result in many being unable to travel to work. Tradesmen are often considered lesser to businessmen, the very people who pay for their services when things go wrong. As I said, society requires many different people to function. If we're going to be utopian I'd say everyone should be rich, but realisitcally a happy medium where everyone is comfortable would be nice, and there's little reason why it shouldn't be possible, except selfishness. No matter how far we may have come there is still so much more to do, the disparity between rich and poor continues to grow, and as I said before it's the way capitalism must function.
Let's say, for argument's sake, that I grant the above information. My initial response would be, so what? Expanding on my point, I would argue that it's not end result that's important, but the legitimacy of the system underpinning it. In this case, what I'm saying is that capitalism is a mobile system in which wealth isn't savagely controlled by a static elite. The elite are dynamic: Rockerfeller, Gates and so on and so forth. These men made their wealth. They weren't born into it like Fuedal lords. And so yes, the vast majority of the world will never be millionaires, but is that a reason to scrap a system that lets a family produce children that achieve more than the previous generation did? In other words, there will always be elites, the least we can hope for is a system in which elitism is open and available to those with the skills to make themselves an elitist. I agree, and there's little on the horizon that shows it will ever be any different. People don't want communism. It has to be imposed on them by a strong man. I don't see this changing in the future, unless, like Marx, you think humanity is gradually creeping toward a communistic society. But it's the only depiction we have. No others exist. Arguing in favor of communism, at this point in history, is akin to arguing that you think the person who designed several disasterous automobiles, ones that failed to function and killed thousands, should be given just one more chance to try making a car. After it all, it isn't that his past designs were bad, it's just the cars just weren't put together accordingly. Or the people who drove them, drove them wrong. You see where this is going? Meanwhile, there are other cars with other designs that have much better records... So what? Doesn't matter. Whether you or anyone else likes it, if the US sneezes the rest of the world still gets a cold... For most, it's not the money. Again, this is what I have argued. It's about the power and influence. For a select few, the desire to serve. You're just plain wrong. The president and Congress are the exception to the rule. Heck, most political offices, especially at the local level, are part-time. The Mayor of my town makes less than 100K. The commission chair, part-time, makes 20K. Get your head out of your ass and take the time to go and look at the salaries of elected officials. Most are meager. The problem is people are selfish. People are corrupt. People don't like to share. You can wail and moan all you like about the joyful fairness of communism, but that doesn't change the fact that people don't want it and that it doesn't work. So you offer hyperbole as evidence that garbagemen should be paid more. The same thing can be fruitlessly applied to any profession, and thusly, proves very little. And I agreed. Where we differ is on compensation.
You are crediting capitalism with the beneficial effects of socialist curbs on its consequences. The Rockefellers and a few others did not move aside quietly and release their increasing stranglehold on the US economy because upstart entrepreneurs elbowed them aside. Their growing feudal power, the inevitable result of laissez faire capitalism, was broken by governmental action in the form of anti-trust law, labor law, curbs on the rights of ownership and employer status, marginal income tax rates approaching 90%, and so forth. Since the beginning of the abandonment of that approach to handling the inevitable arbitrary concentrations of wealth and power that capitalism creates, social mobility in the US has declined again, and is now below the rates in the more advanced and socialistic European countries. The US is stratifying into classes, more and more rigidly. Of the top richest Americans, half were children of Sam Walton last I looked. You do not have to advocate scrapping capitalism to see trouble coming, in such circumstances.
I don't know that I would call them socialist curbs. Is all government regulation of the economy socialistic? Being that I am about halfway through Theodore Rex, I am well aware of this. The accumulation of goods and the standard of living for Americans has been increasing regardless of what strata one assigns their income level to. One will never entirely be able to do away with families preserving wealth. The Bush's, for example, supposedly can trace their ancestors all the way back to the large landowner in Virginia who married Pochantas (I forget his name). What's key is the mobility I mentioned. The richest American is Bill Gates, a self-made man. The richest woman is Oprah, a self-made black woman who literally came from nothing. Bill Clinton, whose background could cynically be described as "trailer trash," became president. Where else in the world does this sort of thing happen?
It's not about everyone being millionaires, it's about not exploiting people by requiring that they be poor. You overlook the fact that no matter a persons skills, not everyone gets an opportunity. Simply put the people that benefit from the current system don't want a change, others would be grateful if it improved their quality of life, something I suspect covers the majority of the world(although the part deemed least important). We're back to that subjective phrase 'better' again. Not to mention how flawed your analogy is, everything requires experimentation and work, if we were a species who gave up when things didn't go right we'd still be living in the stone age. I'm arguing in favour of why it is inherently better than capitalism, because that 'better record' you speak of is built on maintaining poverty, whereas if/when a successful communist system is developed it will have a basis on equality. Of course this would have to come from a self-sufficient nation because the major power of the world requires capitalism, and is hardly going to step aside and allow communism to develop. The same could be said of many countries I'm sure, that still doesn't make him a 'world leader'. Then explain the need for so much money. As I said, where I'm from this doesn't apply, perhaps you should accept there is a world outside the US as it seems to be all you're concerned with. Although I'm still concerned you think that 'less than 100k' or 'part-time 20k' is poor money. I'm fully aware of what people are like, and the day when people stop being so self-centered is a day I welcome. Also see above about people's wants and the difference between doesn't work and can't work. Who said paid more? That would be advocating capitalism, wishful thinking from you really. Very much so, I think the garbageman is as much a part of society as everyone else, perhaps with the exception of celine dion, who also happens to have earned quite a lot of money, from singing of all things. How the entertainment industry is the highest earning sector is baffling.
The interesting thing, Counte, is how quickly those who inherit their wealth drop from the top of the list. In fact, the Waltons are no longer in the top ten (all of whom are SELF MADE): While several of them were certainly born into modest wealth (Gates, Buffett, Dell, and Page), none of them inherited their billions (the Koches were there with their father growing the company), while four of them were born into poor families (indeed, Adelson, Ellison, Brin, Kerkorian were born to dirt poor immigrant parents). Of the top fifty, more than half are self made billionaires, which says a lot both about the list and the USA. ~String
Those statistics are old: Buffett is worth more than Gates at the moment. But your point is correct. No silver spoons like Che had.
Back to Che, it seems to me that I grew up with romantic notions of pirates and Jesse James and other outlaws of the wild west as "cool." As it turns out, Jesse James was a virulently racist criminal terrorist...yet still some part of me is willing to ignore the facts to hold onto the romantic image of him I had from my youth. I understand that that image is essentially fictional, of course, but I have it nonetheless. I don't think this is all that strange as the "Robin Hood" archetype has survived for a long time despite its similarly fictional basis. Similarly, I see that as the way we reconcile the often overblown reverence for the Founding Fathers and their ideals, with the actual traits of the individual men, all of whom had foibles that are discomfiting when you first learn of them, like racism and sexism shared by many of the Founding Fathers or the belief of some of them (most notably Jefferson) that Christianity as practiced in the tradition of Paul the Apostle (which it has to be unless you reject certain books of the Bible) is a corrupt religion. Many people are willing to mentally carve out certain biographical facts in order to hew to the ideals of a person, or to an idealized view of that person. Che's legacy may be undergoing a similar process. Some people attracted to the idealism he and they share may be ignoring (or ignorant of) his actual deeds, and that is creating an "heroic" image of his that doesn't stand up to a harsh scrutiny. I do not believe there has ever been a real-world hero whose heroic image, if subjected to harsh scrutiny, would survive.
To put Che's situation in perspective, an internal snapshot of the political power he was fighting as it continues to justify his political hostility: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0605-01.htm 2005 overview of the basic situation. Historical perspective: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html Note that the accumulation of disproportionate wealth was made more difficult after the lessons of the Depression, and only recently have such fortunes become frequently attainable once again in the US. Something else to note there: GDP is a very misleading number - it increasingly includes things like planned (or unplanned - see Minnesota bridges) obsolescence, military gear designed to blow up and destroy things, and other features that would normally be accounted as debits, not credits, or costs, not benefits. The wealth of the wealthy includes no such features, so a comparison with GDP begs serious questions. In 2006: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_The-400-Richest-Americans_land.html/ http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/invest/forbes/P61243.asp Family fortunes abound in these lists. The Kochs inherited the wealth that put them on this list. And "self made" includes two mob-linked casino busismen - are we comparing the ethics, morality, and just desserts of Mob-linked figures with Che Guevara's undoubted hard work and self-sacrifice ? Do we compare the billionaire heirs of a founder of the John Birch Society with Guevara's personal risk and effort in the service of his political beliefs ? Note that the Mob connected guys represent almost the entire group of "came up from poverty" entries - the rest were born into "modest wealth" as it's called. Brin's parents, Russian professors of mathematics coming to university positions in the US, were hardly "dirt poor immigrants" , for example. The more interesting thing about that shuffle on top is that it didn't involve a drop in anyone's wealth - the list of the top 25 here shows (the letter "U" ) that every one of them saw an increase in their wealth over the past year. The median American has seen a decline in their net wealth recently, and is running out of options for dealing with a consistent thirty year decline in wages. Meanwhile, three families of inherited wealth (the Walton, Koch, and Mars fortunes) make up more than a third of the upper tier of wealth in America. In 2007, the top 25 http://www.usatoday.com/money/2007-09-20-forbes-list_N.htm Outside of a couple of Mob-connected operators, not too many rags to riches stories in this list. Ground floor computer guys from comfortable homes and good educations, inheritance, crime, - and Warren Buffet. 1 William Gates III U Microsoft 2 Warren Buffett U Berkshire Hathaway 3 Sheldon Adelson U casinos, hotels 4 Lawrence Ellison U Oracle 5 Sergey Brin U Google 5 Larry Page U Google 7 Kirk Kerkorian U investments, casinos 8 Michael Dell U Dell 9 Charles Koch U oil, commodities 9 David Koch U oil, commodities 11 Paul Allen U Microsoft, investments 12 Christy Walton U Wal-Mart inheritance 12 Jim Walton U Wal-Mart 12 S Robson Walton U Wal-Mart 15 Alice Walton U Wal-Mart 16 Steven Ballmer U Microsoft 17 Abigail Johnson U Fidelity 18 Carl Icahn U leveraged buyouts 19 Forrest Mars Jr U candy, pet food 19 Jacqueline Mars U candy, pet food 19 John Mars U candy, pet food 19 Jack Taylor U Enterprise Rent-A-Car 23 Donald Bren U real estate 24 Anne Cox Chambers U Cox Enterprises 25 Michael Bloomberg U Bloomberg So who is Che inferior to, from a heroic perspective: Warren Buffet ? That's one.
It is amazing how the Right Wing only became aware of thuggery in Cuba, for example, when certain industries were nationalized. Perhaps if right wingers actually gave a shit about abuse Baptista might have had more problems, rather than, well, support. All the people screaming in Florida and Washington about Castro and Che never really gave a shit about what the fascist they overthrew did. Why? Because the fascist was pro-corporate, pro rich. Sure, lefties gloss over the atrocities of their heroes. At least, many of them do. And righties never give a shit about atrocities unless it will somehow affect their wallets or the wallets of people who control the media. Che did good things and Che did bad things. Woopie shit. You never would have complained about Baptista. Or about what happened to Allende. Or about how US corporations influenced democracy and the lives of South American citizens. And so on. Your complaint is about the left handed guy in the mirror. You are a part of the problem.
