As always, you have your finger on the pulse. I agree the issues are of class and not of race but I don't agree with resenting the successful. The internet is a perfect example of the power these people do process. Only 10 years ago the liberation of information online was celebrated and held in high esteem. Everyday people could become content makers and get their voices heard. 10 years later the power structure has gone into full authoritarian mode and is censoring ideas they don't like- the majority of the time without even a reason given.
Who has the ability to censor, control, prevent certain ideas from festering, or challenging their market share? Who has the power to influence such people?
It is complicated, your point on Jeff Bezos for example -It is insane for the likes of him and Trump to be richer than most nations while portions of the world are starving, but think about it practically. If you brought in a wage cap for example- if you said any one individual can only earn up to £1B in their life. You will have the likes of Jeff Bezos (give him credit, he's a smart man who is good at what he does) earning £100M per year lets say, producing £1B+ worth of productivity and expect him to work for free once he reaches the wage cap? This kinda system would ensure the most productive intelligent people retire earlier and less productive people would fill in the gapes.
If you remove all incentive productivity collapses. In Communist Russia, they gave possession of the farms to the lower classes who didn't know what they were doing, and millions starved to death. Let us be practical not resentful.
I don't think wage caps are the way to go, but preventing monopolies or international corporations from becoming too big to fail. Close down the central banking system which charges us interest on every note we print, bring housing prices back to normality instead of being artificially high, and rents back down to a reasonable level. I believe these are much better solutions than going after the individual freedoms and liberties that we enjoy in the west.
Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. We have seen how that ends.
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I agree with you
The plutocrats only use race and sex to divide us! Just like they use capitalism and socialism
It's just a hegelian dialectic used to conquer us
Things got bad when people applied darwinian thought to economics. We also abandoned the labor theory of value and now no longer value labor we only value capital.
Soon people are going to break out of the dialectic and seek the 3rd way! Distributism
Suggested reading: Hillaire Belloc "Servile State"
Valid points. I really think classism is related to racism/sexism, so in some areas they have things in common or work in a similar way.
I think we as humans have many problems to deal with, but classism is very high on that list. I can't speak about the rasism poc have to deal with, because I am white. But I come from a lower class household and will most likely remain in it because of various reasons.
I just wish this was more of an serious topic instead of the wealthy trying to make the general public focus on other issues (which won't harm them)
I'm sorry if my English isn't the best, but I think you're right and wish this wasn't so brushed off as 'oh the young just don't want to work and want everything handed to them' or such
its a huge problem, wealth inequality is slowly crippling the world. I work with international aid groups and it can be so depressing to see how the actions of the wealthy can impact the world. Its even worse knowing theirs a small number of wealthy people out there that could basically wipe out poverty and still have the best lifestyle money can buy. People see acquiring wealth as a positive goal in life, its just carving out your own soul.
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Very well said. The division is not about race. It is between the haves and the have nots. I am a white male from the deep south. However, I fit within the lower classes and poor white culture much of my life. Trust me! Poor whites get treated very poorly as well. In some ways, we get treated even worse sometimes. Those society often considers red necks or poor trash white trash are seen as being the lowest of the low. For example, the poor people where I grew up often got treated horribly by law enforcement. Since moderrn powers to be seek to divide us, poor whites are rarely even acknowledged or given a voice. This causes them to side with the wrong people. For example, Donald Trump got elected because so many poor whites voted for him thinking he is on their side. Truthfully, Trump doesn't care about them. However, all they hear is the left talk about racism and women's rights. Obama actually did more for them, but they don't hear it. The left needs to stop ignoring American white males in the lower and working classes and be more more vocal about giving them a voice. This will prevent someone like Trump from getting elected. Life in America is brutal for many poor whites. Martin Luther King once said, " the wealthy whites will use the poor whites to make them richer by manipulating them. This is so true.
I would agree that wealth is more important than race or sex. I would much rather be a rich black woman over a poor white man.
Another inequality that people don't talk about is genetic inequality. People who are born attractive and intelligent have significant advantages over those who don't and will have a much easier time climbing the wealth hierarchy.
Like if I am born attractive and intelligent I honestly wouldn't care what race or sex I am. To me attractiveness and intelligence are far more beneficial than what race/sex you are.Take out the internet and the problem would be solved... no more tech monopolies, no more tech billionaires
Just need a very big EMP to make it happen
If you want to deal with all the -isms for 10-12 million years, nuke the earth then let evolution start over tadpoles to newts and all thatClassism goes quite often hand in hand with racism and/or sexism. It's part of the problem.
There's nothing wrong if one person makes more money than another, but everyone needs to pay their fair share to make our society work. I feel that many extremely rich people pay relatively low amounts of taxes.
If at least there would be a minimum social security, it would be better. I think this is quite well in most European countries and Canada as well, but in the USA this isn't really a thing. I understand the cultural differences. But too often poor people can't even afford to go to the hospital when they need to, or it's extremely expensive. People need sometimes multiple jobs in order to make enough money for a normal live. That doesn't help either.No, it isn't exactly an issue. Some people just perform betters than others and in order to stop that, you need to punish success. The very thing that lifted ALL our lifes living standards up. Just compare our living standard right now to 100-150 years ago.
The real problem is that wealth naturally transfers from the bottom to the top, because a) the ones at the top often performed better for various reasons, b) having wealth helps you create more wealth and c) wealth means influence and thus you can influence the environment to your favour.
Unfortunately we have NO solution to this wealth-transfer. It happens in all different political and economic systems and all the measurements we have taken (such as progressive taxes) did more harm than good. Some of the most intelligent people simply can't figure this one out.I've said for a long time that America is a plutocratic oligarchy. Somehow we assume the rich become that way by merit, while nobody else does. How do companies become huge? What are the ethics behind growing a company.
In my experience, I was with a company that stole money from me in unpaid overtime, while bragging of record profits.If you're a black millionaire, you will always have more privilege and advantages than a homeless white guy. If you're a trans woman who grew up with rich parents, then your life struggles will be incomparable to that of a straight Christian who grew up in the ghetto.
I guess people just don't like to talk about it because your class, wealth and income are technically things you can voluntarily change with some effort while your ethnicity, gender or sexuality are not.If I had to be class “equal” to everyone I’d start killing for power. Perhaps why poverty stricken places are so dangerous - power struggles at the lowest levels. They all share the same dreary appearance, existence, and lack of innovation. Since this is not the case, I am quite passive and content. I don’t have class envy. However, everyone being the same would fuck with my senses. I have been to those places where everything is painted gray and the people are all equally dreary both domestic and abroad. No thanks...
Wealth inequality will destroy us eventually. It involves sexism and racism.
The decision of the US Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) escalated wealth inequality.
At some point the game changes drastically, maybe you see clues of it already:Well the thing is they are sort of related. Racists and sexists lost their cultural war and as such became limited in their way to express their discrimination so they started trying to find indirect ways of doing it. Hence try put all the people you do not like into another group and discriminate against that instead.
There are many form of oppression and they all interlock and pile themselves onto another. For you personally classism might be the worst thing while a poor black man might feel even more oppressed by racism than by poverty. We all have our own, very personal, very complex problems. We should not forget however that we aren't the golden standard of how other people perceive oppression. If we want to achieve a truly equal society we have to acknowledge that fact and fight every system that keeps ourselves and other people down.
both are tied into socioeconomics and social immobility which is why most left leaning thinkers consider all of them together as social injustice rather than playing a game of pick one
Not at the moment. Racial cleavages in society seem to be more at the forefront of political debate recently, especially in the midst of the BLM protests. Also, some people might argue that class and racial divides are not mutually exclusive. You could make the argument that society pushes certain races into certain classes due to pernicious societal structures. This is where the term systemic racism comes from.
It has nothing to do with being white. If you were in your own country like I am with no white or black discrimination, you would still be poor because corrupt bureaucrats would be fleecing your country
Yeah, especially with just how.. bad wealth disparity is right now.
I agree on the "isms" point too. Divide and conquer.I wish I knew what privilege is. Try being an single, white guy with no kids, I get no hand outs, tax breaks, nothing. All I can do is straps on my work boots and work.
I doubt it because lets be honest how many times do We interact with a billionaires? I have never met one in real life and probably never will because they hang out in their own circle. I have met millionaires before and other than a great work ethic they are generally just normal people and believe it or not You would never know they were rich if You met them in real life.
i think so, everyone is so caught up is race or man vs women or whatever to worry about the real problem of rich vs poor
Yes but most people are too stupid to realize that.
Wealth isn't a pie. Someone having wealth does not take anything out of your pocket.
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