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Originally Posted by uh-oh
to answer your first question, not really. when looking at our "poor" and our "wealthy" overall its how it always was, if not BETTER, for the poor today. if you are looking at strictly numbers than sure the gap is widening because there are more 0's to throw around, but money doesn't equal contentment/happiness etc. modern technology and everything else affords the poor luxuries that the poor from other generations couldn't fathom, in terms of everything from food/housing to entertainment etc.
and to the second part i think a persons wealth, in a perfect world is dictated by their worth. jeff bezos should be paid ridiculous amounts of money for creating services that people want to take advantage of and use that makes their lives better. but no single person is dictating his worth, the masses dictate it because they fund him by using his services. with the same logic the single mother who works for amazon making "only" 15 dollars an hour, is only worth 15 dollars an hour. that is the job she sought out and accepted. if she is worth more, she will work towards bettering herself and building a career where she can make more.
basically i don't believe in a government entity taking money from any citizen because they believe another citizen needs it.
i also don't believe in the minimum wage though, and don't believe the government should dictate what anyone pays their employees.
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I agree that "poor" in today's America is nothing like "poor" in other places and times. But that's because there is some semblance of a government funded social safety net to provide for those basic needs like food and housing. So you do have government taking money from some citizens via taxes to give to other citizens as welfare. Is your contention that this should be abolished, or that the level it's at now is about right and we shouldn't change it?
I agree that people with brilliant ideas should absolutely make a fuck ton of money for them. That kind of incentive is what drives innovation and progress. I'm not sure if you were still talking about your idealised world or real life with the poor person accepting the lower paid job but having the option to build a higher paying career if they chose it. I don't agree that that's practically possible for the majority of people at the bottom under the current system.
Which is why I really like the UBI. It's rampant capitalism with all the benefits that attracts, but with a non-zero floor which gives people a more realistic shot at social mobility. The welfare system as it stands disincentivises people from trying to do better for themselves and is an inefficient beauracratic nightmare to administer. UBI does better on both of those fronts.