Capitalism Vs Democracy World Wide Wealth Tax Needed

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/books/who-owns-the-future-by-jaron-lanier.html

BOOKS OF THE TIMES
Fighting Words Against Big Data
‘Who Owns the Future?’ by Jaron Lanier

Who Owns the Future?” reiterates some ideas in Mr. Lanier’s first book: that Web businesses exploit a peasant class, that users of social media may not realize how entrapped they are, that a thriving middle class is essential to keeping the Internet sustainable. When “ordinary people ‘share,’ while elite network presences generate unprecedented fortunes,” even that elite will eventually be undermined......

The premise is that technology is devaluing the work of people until there will be only the capitalist owners of information technology and an underclass that can't earn a living. I included it here because I see this technology as the big driver behind income inequity and the loss of the middle class. It seems to me that wealth distribution is the only way to maintain a healthy consumer market; it's going to be that or a total stagnation.

 

The ultimate culmination of pure capitalism would just be one super mega corporation.

I agree though. There needs to be a serious disincentive to become ultra wealthy. Ultra wealthy end up living outside the rules and boundaries of the law.

Once that occurs, the only real option for the oppressed is violence.

 

No doubt capitalism is designed to create inequality, I don't know that a world wide tax is the answer though. No question the tax rates should return to the levels that created the middle class in the 50's and 60's.

 

And the ultimate dream of leftists is a 100 % tax rate.

 

Glynch, if your goal is to act like a bad Tea Party parody of what liberals are actually like, it's working.

 

That's actually pretty spot-on

 

What?

 

Case in point:

http://slant.investorplace.com/2013/05/want-to-fix-the-deficit-how-about-a-100-tax-rate/

 

I have to attack this idea from the left.

If we have a worldwide progressive income tax, that means we have a world wide government with enough power to enforce that income tax. That would be bad thing, and would be even more endangering of democracy than capitalism is.

Capitalism does inherently lead to inequality, and it is also leading to instability, human suffering, and even inefficiency and dangerous environmental/ sustainability issues.

But, there are other ways to overcome it besides massive increases in world wide power structures. Power structures, even those created with the needs of humanity and idealism in mind, always lead to corruption and abuse as people eat each other alive in order to gain and keep control of that power.

As I said, there are other ways. Namely, anarchistic ways. Not Communism, with its centralization, but communalism, in which autonomous and liberated communities own the property they jointly use for their everyday lives. Instead of laws and men with guns to enforce those laws, people need to be freed from private property and capitalism to freely associate with each other.

 

Another r****ded liberal idea. Whats next world wide food stamps?

 

free market capitalism is inherently anti-monopolistic.

Too bad competing is the last thing rich people want to do.

Instead they use the government to vote themselves bailouts and outlaw their competition.

But lets blame that on the free market capitalist system we don't have.

 

Yes...because free market capitalism has never tried to control the government................................................

 

Pure free market capitalism is the unicorn, have you seen those lately?

 

I don't blame the free market capitalism we don't have, I blame the corporate capitalism we do have.

And a change to a free market capitalism would not work either, because, as you mention, the rich capitalists don't want competition, so they would immediately turn any such system into one where the government was involved and manipulating things to their advantage once again -- international wars fought on their behalf and all.

Anarchism allows for the freedom you desire, without massive capitalists using their wealth to quickly re-establish centralization and tyranny. People do not need private property to show initiative or to experience liberty -- quite the contrary.

 

The US already gives world wide food stamps.

 

The freedom of slavery and starvation. As anyone's who taken a poly sci 101 class can tell you, man had perfect freedom once upon a time, before there was civilization. He gave it up for a reason. The benefits of empire and civilization do not manifest themselves if man believes that he is superior to the civilization which came before him, and which will exist long after his bones are dust.

 

With this statement, you have proven you don't understand the views of "leftists" in any way.

 

We need an equitable tax system in the United States requiring the wealthy to pay far more taxes than they do today, with rates closer to what we saw during the boom years of the 1960's, and campaign finance laws that require open disclosure of contributions from any source, along with restrictions on corporate contributions to candidates. In order to get that past the current radical Supreme Court, we need those laws passed by Congress, something that requires a Democratic majority, or a big change in the leadership of the GOP towards moderate conservatism. I'm fine with a more moderate conservative Republican Party, if it gets these reforms passed. What we do NOT need is a world government passing global taxes that would lead to not "simply" individual countries corrupted by out of control corporate political influence in the democracies, and unchecked oligarchies controlling fake "elections," like those in Russia and China, but rather a corrupted, unchecked "world government" with the power to levy taxes all over the globe.

How can anyone honestly believe that a "world taxing authority" wouldn't be bought and operated by a small group of global corporations and oligarchs? We would trade the problem we have today in the United States for an even bigger problem on a global scale, in my humble liberal opinion. How about we fix our own house, get it in order, and set an example for the world of a democracy that can't be purchased by a few, to the detriment of the many?

 

People said similar things about Democracy back when monarchy was the rule. Anarchy is not people living in squalor and in the streets. During the Spanish Civil war, the areas organized in an anarchistic manner actually increased agricultural and manufacturing production, while at the same time increasing access to health care and education for the peasants and workers -- all during the duress of war.