• SCB@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Wealth disparity is not relevant to this discussion. It doesn’t say anything about where the bottom tier is.

    If we had full UBI, free homes, free food, free healthcare, etc and some small portion of the country were quadrillionaires, we’d have massive wealth disparity and no loss of quality of life.

    Wealth is not zero-sum, and the high and low do not necessarily have anything to do with one another.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s not a take. This is just correct information that you don’t like. There is 0 opinion in the above.

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          You would be delusional enough to believe that.

          It’s okay, I’m going to put you on my ignore list now. You’re not worth arguing with because every post you make is asinine.

          Goodbye.

    • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Bruh, not to shit out an old conservative adage, but that money has to come from somewhere. You’re missing the entire nuances of how the monetary system works, and the whole argument of where the money should come from for these things. A country where wealth disparity is increased because the tax comes from the middle class looks very different from one where it comes from the upper classes and massive corporations.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        A country where wealth disparity is increased because the tax comes from the middle class

        This also has nothing to do with the money disparity.

        Like, I agree with you regarding taxation in broad terms. But the objective reality is the wealth disparity does not have any impact, on its own, on anyone’s individual well-being, the same way me acknowledging that it doesn’t has no bearing on whether or not wealthy people should pay more taxes.

        If we cannot discuss things in a real world framework, were basically just writing fan-fiction of reality. That is a MAGA way to create policy, not a real world methodology.

        • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          The way you’re trying to frame this is magical thinking where wealth disparity within our society doesn’t come with sets of nuanced issues that don’t directly effect the wellbeing of society as a whole. After a certain rate of wealth disparity, for instance, those with the most can directly control those with the least with any number of creative ways that mostly amount to “I have money so I can buy people.”

          From controlling government officials, to controlling individual level situations like law enforcement and judiciary measures so that they can essentially do whatever they want, which is never used for the betterment of others and always to the detriment of the masses. To leave these things out of a conversation about wealth disparity and quality of life is just disingenuous man.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            The way you’re trying to frame this is magical thinking where wealth disparity within our society doesn’t come with sets of nuanced issues that don’t directly effect the wellbeing of society as a whole.

            This isn’t magical thinking, it’s simply understanding that wealth is not zero-sum.

            https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/seven-deadly-economic-sins/wealth-is-positivesum/78D2A23B03BB245AF40C45B5C1F6C9FF

            From controlling government officials, to controlling individual level situations like law enforcement and judiciary measures so that they can essentially do whatever they want, which is never used for the betterment of others and always to the detriment of the masses.

            This is indeed bad, but is a measure of the strength of institutions, not wealth disparity. Wealth doesnt win elections on its own - 2012, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 all featured out-spent candidates who won. Trump famously won despite being outspent handily in 2016

            I’m genuinely flabbergasted that some people perceive this as some sort of hot take and not just acknowledging the reality at play here.

    • zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 months ago

      The rich people who go on TV and say “people don’t want to work for me anymore, that’s why we need to cut benefits” certainly see wealth as zero-sum. They know if we had all those things you listed their business would stop working.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Or they’re lying for their own gain

        Also this is a question of incentives, not wealth. They believe people who get benefits are incentivized not to work. This has been proven soundly false in recent tests of UBI.

            • zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              11 months ago

              They get elected to office to do what exactly? I hear they have the wildest orgies.

              But seriously, politicians serve money to make money. So I don’t see how this dodges the point.

              • SCB@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Politicians serve their constituents - they consistently vote in the way their constituents want, and in the last 6 years the Republican Party has been turned inside out by those constituents.

                It’s impossible to argue otherwise in the face of the very real power people wield, from primarying their representatives to taking over local school boards.