How Would You Respond?

[Diirez]

I was on facebook and the conservatives that I know posted a Reagan picture with the quote: "The American Dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American Dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should be."

So naturally I had a problem with this and it started a large debate. So how would you respond to the quote and these arguments?:

1. Taxing the rich and giving it to the poor is one of the stupidest things to ever be argued.

2. Conservatives believe in helping those in poverty over the left wing.

3. Socialism has never worked which is why free enterprise works.

4. In America you have the power to become what you want to be. If you are born to a poor family, you can study hard and utilize free education to make a career for yourself.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE]1. Taxing the rich and giving it to the poor is one of the stupidest things to ever be argued.

China.


2. Conservatives believe in helping those in poverty over the left wing.

Argentina.


3. Socialism has never worked which is why free enterprise works.

America.


4. In America you have the power to become what you want to be. If you are born to a poor family, you can study hard and utilize free education to make a career for yourself.

America, specifically African-Americans, Latino-Americans, the very poor, transgender people, anybody labelled a 'red', Native Americans etc.

They generally don't get to become what they want to be. Nor have access to decent education. Nor healthcare.

[Prof. Oblivion]

I would not respond and let them post their views without commenting.

[Tenka]

I'd defriend the bastard. Unless it was my mother or something. Wait, no, I've been meaning to defriend my mother because she doesn't read the messages I send her.

edit: I already took her off my feed. You could try doing that with this individual.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

1. That's not an argument, that's an ad hominem. Simply stating something is stupid is not a real argument.
2. How? Again, it's not really an argument, there's no reasoning behind it. What argument do they have, their principle is literally to "pull yourself up" or in other words "do it yourself, I'm not going to deal with it."
3. What's their criteria for working? Because if they're going to make the argument that the USSR was socialism and wasn't "working" they're going to have a hard time convincing me that people's health, education, standard of living in general did not substantially increase which is usually their criteria. What are they going to say in response, people died? Millions of people die from starvation a year under "free enterprise" yet they still think it works, there is political oppression in free market societies, including America, etc. "Working" for them is full of double standards. Is capitalism working when the homeless are far surpassed in numbers by empty homes? Is capitalism working when 85 people own the same amount of money as more than half the world combined? Of course it's working, working for them(which is probably debatable considering how many conservatives are working class and poor).
4. And in reality, where we all actually live, we're fed that lie working in horrible conditions because they believe this . Every study shows how immobile working class people really are in capitalism even if a few of us get through that gigantic barrier of not owning capital. So you might luck out but you'll still be leaving behind you the whole working class which is a majority of people.

There's a reason it's called the American Dream.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Like this...

http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/america1.jpg

"A picture says a thousand words."

[Marshal of the People]

I would probably respond something like;


I was on facebook and the conservatives that I know posted a Reagan picture with the quote: "The American Dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American Dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should be."

So naturally I had a problem with this and it started a large debate. So how would you respond to the quote and these arguments?:


1. Taxing the rich and giving it to the poor is one of the stupidest things to ever be argued.

Do you have any evidence or reasons to believe this? If you do please present them/it.

Imagine there were, lets say 30 poor villagers who didn't have enough grain to feed themselves and their families from lets say a drought. But there was a rich man who lived not far away who had more than enough grain to feed every man, woman, child and animal in the village.

Now lets say that man was greedy and didn't help the villagers. They would then die. But now lets say the king/queen of the country put a tax on the rich man to make him give some of his grain to the villagers, the poor wouldn't starve and the rich man would still have enough grain left (probably more than enough, but oh well).

Now are you saying that you would rather have poor people starve than have a rich man have a little of his fortune given to them so they can survive?


2. Conservatives believe in helping those in poverty over the left wing.

I am guessing you mean
Conservatives believe in helping those in poverty more than the left wing does., if so I shall continue like so;

First provide some evidence and example for your claim please.

I really don't believe that and if you do you must be mistaken, Conservatism is an exploitive ideology that cares nothing of the poor, they are the kind of people who supported slavery and such.

I can't really argue with you on this because it will just descend into a "no true Scotsman" and neither of us will win.


3. Socialism has never worked which is why free enterprise works.

Please show an example of actual socialism. If you are talking about any of the so called socialist nations (USSR, DPRK, PRC, Cuba, etc.) they werent socialist but state capitalist. But there was a higher living standard in the USSR than there is in Russia today (there definitely was in the 90s).

Your claim is also a logical error. Just because A doesn’t work does not mean B works, or C, or D, etc.


4. In America you have the power to become what you want to be. If you are born to a poor family, you can study hard and utilize free education to make a career for yourself.

No, no, no!

That is so wrong it has genuinely made me upset and angry.

The vast majority of poor people in America stay poor there whole life and so do their children, and their children, etc.

In order to at least stand a chance in America you need to go to university (and still that is no guarantee you will suceed, there are many Americans with degrees doing low skilled minimum wage work simply because there aren't enough jobs available) and it is ridiculously expensive there. No poor person can afford that nor will a person without university qualifications get a decent paying job.


Sorry to the OP if I didn't answer this properly, I probably wouldn't call myself a skilled debater.

[radiocaroline]

if capitalists make their money off the back of the hard labour of the poorer classes, why is it rendered completely stupid if they are taxed in order to help those who make money for them.. the poor have no choice but to work to make money for companies, with no guarantee of long term housing or adequate nutrition and these taxes are not always implemented directly to help the poor financially as they are poured into state services like healthcare and education which benefit all sections of society, not just the poor.

A concept that Conservatives never seem to understand is that social mobility between classes is relatively non-existent. We are all told to better ourselves, to become completely self reliant, but often the only step up the ladder we are offered is to become an even more relentlessly exploited worker as we are given high responsibility jobs (which grossly exceed that of the middle professionals above us) for little more than we are offered at the very bottom of the chain.

The idea of meritocracy is a conservative myth. If you have the financial and social capital, you can work wherever you want and progression in middle class jobs where many structural job titles are completely fabricated is obviously going to be an easy process if you put the work in. At the bottom of the ladder however, it is a completely different story.

The only reason that it is stupid is due to the pretense of greed which is inherent in all Conservative thinkers.

[Comrade Jacob]

I'd respond by saying nothing. Sometimes silence speaks louder than words. He may realize how daft he sounds.

[Derendscools]

Id talk and get mad maybe?

[MarxSchmarx]

I'd go after the sacred cow here ``Equality of opportunity'' that underlies any capitalist rhetoric, even that of left-of-centerers.

Equality of opportunity is a terrible idea. Your response needs to be personal and concrete. Here is how I will go about it.

Let's suppose you have two siblings born of the same set of parents, identical upbringing, same schools, even same sex and roughly same age group. So in a very real sense they have had "equality of opportunity". but one has inherited one gene that makes them slightly better at crunching numbers. Let's pretend they both took a competitive exam to enter a banker-training program, and due to this gene one brother just made the cut, the other didn't.

Through no fault of their own, the brother who didn't get in misses out on a career in high finance and an extraordinarily lucrative career, although they both aspired to work in this field. Now, I ask, in what sense is this just? How is winning the "genetic lottery" any different, really, from having one born into a family of feudal lords versus a family of feudal serfs? Even if it's not this extreme, you can readily imagine there is enough "natural" variability among people in their genes to have very different outcomes.


Meaningful equality of opportunity should mean that EFFORT, not dumb luck, genetic or social, makes the difference. True, effort can never be the final arbiter. Blind people probably shouldn't drive school buses, at least not under current levels of technology. But there is no way that capitalism can function in any serious sense if it rewarded effort. A person can toil away all the live long day to make mudcakes, vaccuum tubes and marxist scholarship and no one will buy any of it.

Whereas the cases where effort would be insufficient would be few and far between under socialism (e.g., blind people won't be allowed to have a career as a school bus driver).

Bring God into this, as your Facebook colleague does, and the answer is really, not much. "God intended" Eleanor of Acquitaine to be born into a life of relative ease, whilst Ivan the serf "was intended by God" to toil under the hot sun and give the fruits to Eleanor.

I think all the systemic issues mentioned so far are useful when deailng with social democrat/liberal types. Those people really are concerned with equality of opportunity, but I think the focus on improving conditions of upbringing slightly miss the point. However, having said that, the kind of person who posts a picture of Ronald Reagan is not going to care, really, about the plight of social groups or non-governmental systemic problems.

[flobee1kenobi]

Now are you saying that you would rather have poor people starve than have a rich man have a little of his fortune given to them so they can survive?
Yes


Have them give ONE example of how trickledown economics helped to raise workers pay and not just ceo pay!

[Sinister Intents]

I'd be the person to respond by initially ignoring them. I generally don't really use facebook, as per the arguments:
1. Socialists don't seek to tax anyone, they seek to eliminate taxation because it is simply theft, and your money get's used for stupid reasons. Politicians use tax payer money frivolousy, and tax payer money goes to supporting war and other things as well. Also socialism has nothing to do with redistribution, socialists want to eliminate the state, class based society so that a producing class is no longer suppressed and exploited, and eliminate money so as the create a society predicated on a gift economy and mutual aid.
2. If anything I've noticed conservatives are patriotic about hating the poor, you can thank Ronny Raygun for that. Reagan made it patriotic to hate the poor. I'd also bring up how conservatives are victim blamers such as my sister exclaiming that she would tell a homeless man or women to get a job and to stop being so fucking lazy. There are also conservatives I've talked to who claim being homeless is completely their choice because they fucked up and they deserve to be poor and homeless.
3. Lol, I'd show that socialism hasn't existed and give evidence as to why the Soviet Union and other so called socialist nations, were state capitalist and often suppressed real socialists. I'd make good use of Emma Goldman's There is no (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia)
communism in Russia. (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia)
4. The work hard and you'll make it far argument pisses me the fuck off. I work very fucking hard and I've made it absolutely no fucking where. I'm in the absolute same fucking place I was since I was eight. If working hard got you any where in capitalism we would all have made it somewhere. Those that make it somewhere are the people that manipulate and rip people off, They're the people who already have money, and have money handed to them. I own a fucking business, and if anything I'm more poor that I've started out.

[DOOM]

How can a god intend, that someone needs to be poor, and that ohers are able to take baths in their money?
This quote is so mindblowingly stupid, I can't even write a proper answer.
Fuck Reagan

[Loony Le Fist]

Ok, this is a serious bump. But I'll bite.



1. Taxing the rich and giving it to the poor is one of the stupidest things to ever be argued.


I guess the IMF (http://www.businessinsider.com/imf-paper-redistribution-2014-2), kings of neoliberalism must be wrong then. Apparently they think taxing the rich is good.

But lets put all that aside. Forget all that neoliberalism junk. Socialism isn't about taxing people, it's about empowering people. The extension of democracy to every aspect that affects people. After all, we all spend the majority of our lives at work. So democracy should be a principle there too. We are about worker empowerment and ownership. Not about taxation.



2. Conservatives believe in helping those in poverty over the left wing.


No. They believe that left-wingers want to give handouts to the poor. What we want to do is empower the working class by making democracy ubiquitous.



3. Socialism has never worked which is why free enterprise works.


We've never seen a true decentralized democratic socialist state. Free enterprise is merely the substitution of a fully decentralized direct democracy with private microtyrannies that are completely unaccountable. Without a fully democratic decentralized socialist state, the state simply becomes the security force for those in power to bully everyone else. All we have to do is look around and see how money has corrupted politics.



4. In America you have the power to become what you want to be. If you are born to a poor family, you can study hard and utilize free education to make a career for yourself.

The numbers don't bear this out. Social mobility is at all time low. See the following map.


http://cdn.theatlantic.com/newsroom/img/posts/Screen%20Shot%202014-01-23%20at%206.27.03%20PM.png


Income inequality and lack of social services is directly correlated to a lack of social mobility. In countries that have better social safety nets we observe much better social mobility.

Just some things that spring to mind. Eviscerating right-wing automatons is a hobby of mine. I wish I would have seen this post sooner.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Reagan slang that rock boy.

[Loony Le Fist]

Reagan slang that rock boy.

Nothing like facilitating the slangin rock in Watts to help terrorists in Colombia.

[Rafiq]

During the years of the Roman Republic, slaves possessed the ability to accumulate a sum of money which they could then use to buy their own freedom, which their masters would lawfully be obliged to grant. And yet - this did not change the character of Roman society - as a slave society. Even if we assume everyone has the equal opportunity to "make it", which is far from the truth, the mere existence of poverty as a mass social phemonea de-legitimizes this, all these abstractions about "what they can choose to do", well, there are 400 million Americans, why don't they (the great bulk) make the 'right' choices? What factors influence the choices they make, and why the fuck are they completely identical? Choice does not exist in a vacuum, the magnitude of which we are able to make choice is determined by the social relations we are born into, the same ones you claim give everyone the equal opportunity. So where is the equal opportunity of choice?

You could put forward these points, among countless others, and it would make no difference. If politics was a matter of debate, the world would belong to us Marxists. Remain silent, let them spout their dribble. In time the real struggle will shed the lights of truth upon the world, through victory. In time, our cause will be our divine providence, the very act of struggle will legitimize us.

[Rafiq]

The words they espouse are valid, truthful even. They are valid insofar as they reflect a real class interest, their class interests. We are not on the same side, we are not utilitarians, we do not want what is 'best' for society or even humanity, we seek the conquest of the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is a class war, not a debate between those with uniform interests.

[Derendscools]

The words they espouse are valid, truthful even. They are valid insofar as they reflect a real class interest, their class interests. We are not on the same side, we are not utilitarians, we do not want what is 'best' for society or even humanity, we seek the conquest of the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is a class war, not a debate between those with uniform interests.

No wonder no one likes us.

[BIXX]

No wonder no one likes us.


So you wanna buddy up with the bourgeoisie in the hopes that they'll be nice to us? Yeah no, fuck that.

[Sinister Intents]

So you wanna buddy up with the bourgeoisie in the hopes that they'll be nice to us? Yeah no, fuck that.

My sister argues that it's stupid for me to hate the bourgeoisie, and that they're on our side, and that they don't exploit and suppress us, I gave evidence, but she declined it as garbage. She insists I shouldn't be 'jealous' of there wealth and power, and condemned my talk of the proletariat rising up and over throwing them.

I own a fucking business and do a lot of work for very wealthy people, some are ok... but the majority are fucking smug assholes, so yeah fuck the bourgeoisie, I will not be their friend, I will not be nice to them. The bourgeoisie deserves to be taken out and destroyed.

[Diirez]

My sister argues that it's stupid for me to hate the bourgeoisie, and that they're on our side, and that they don't exploit and suppress us, I gave evidence, but she declined it as garbage. She insists I shouldn't be 'jealous' of there wealth and power, and condemned my talk of the proletariat rising up and over throwing them.

I own a fucking business and do a lot of work for very wealthy people, some are ok... but the majority are fucking smug assholes, so yeah fuck the bourgeoisie, I will not be their friend, I will not be nice to them. The bourgeoisie deserves to be taken out and destroyed.
I hope we overthrow the bourgeoisie soon and have a successful revolution so the world can see that it works.

[Sinister Intents]

I hope we overthrow the bourgeoisie soon and have a successful revolution so the world can see that it works.

Likewise, I'm attempting to raise class consciousness of people at college, people actually listen to my politics, at a business college I might add. I've met one teabagger who is arguing with me a lot, and my essay shut him the fuck up. Sorry if I derailed a bit, not my intention, just thought this was relevant...

[Derendscools]

So you wanna buddy up with the bourgeoisie in the hopes that they'll be nice to us? Yeah no, fuck that.

As I imagine most people are against us, workers and exploiters included, so...

The words they espouse are valid, truthful even. They are valid insofar as they reflect a real class interest, their class interests. We are not on the same side, we are not utilitarians, we do not want what is 'best' for society or even humanity, we seek the conquest of the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is a class war, not a debate between those with uniform interests.
how does this attract to any living human?

[Sinister Intents]

As I imagine most people are against us, workers and exploiters included, so...

This is why we must raise class consciousness, we must awaken the exploited and oppressed proletariat, so that we can rise up and oppress and crush the bourgeois minority. Once the bourgeoisie is gone their will be any classes in society, no one will be exploited or suppressed any longer. With this the state will wither away and die, and thus society will become stateless.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

how does this attract to any living human?

Does not matter. The revolution is not a popularity contest in this abstract sense.

[Derendscools]

Does not matter. The revolution is not a popularity contest in this abstract sense.

Like the vanguard?

[tachosomoza]

No wonder no one likes us.

The bourgeois don't like "us" or any other workers anyways. Means to an end and nothing more.

We don't need them to like us, we need to purge, ban, destroy, vote out and overthrow them and their ideas by any means necessary.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

I would say point out to them that taxing the rich isn't socialism lol. It's just a slow start that barely does anything. Don't get me wrong, obviously we should tax the fuck out of the rich in working within the context of this system. But, taxes isn't socialism.

[Derendscools]

The bourgeois don't like "us" or any other workers anyways. Means to an end and nothing more.

We don't need them to like us, we need to purge, ban, destroy, vote out and overthrow them and their ideas by any means necessary.

Because fuck the workers, fuck humanity, i get it now, thanks. The bourgeois aren't the only ones who dislike us, they'll probably see and say "This communism stuff is fucking dark".

[Sinister Intents]

Because fuck the workers, fuck humanity, i get it now, thanks. The bourgeois aren't the only ones who dislike us, they'll probably see and say "This communism stuff is fucking dark".

That's not the impression a person at a business college got when he read my essay. i made a communist out of someone yesterday! My essay included the idea of the DotP and he said that it makes sense and seems good, not bad, and not what he learned in school. I don't remember everything he said because we had a very long political discussion, and it feels good to have awakened someone.

[Derendscools]

That's not the impression a person at a business college got when he read my essay. i made a communist out of someone yesterday! My essay included the idea of the DotP and he said that it makes sense and seems good, not bad, and not what he learned in school. I don't remember everything he said because we had a very long political discussion, and it feels good to have awakened someone.

Did you use weird terms, or talk about conquest?

[Sinister Intents]

Did you use weird terms, or talk about conquest?

I wrote an essay on Cognitive Dissonance and Politics. It had to do with my cognitive dissonance between Marxism and Anarchism. Conquest? Wierd terms?

[tachosomoza]

Because fuck the workers, fuck humanity, i get it now, thanks.

Fuck the bourgeoisie, their class collaborationist stooges/puppets, and all would stand in the way of a revolt of the class conscious proletariat.

[Derendscools]

I wrote an essay on Cognitive Dissonance and Politics. It had to do with my cognitive dissonance between Marxism and Anarchism. Conquest? Wierd terms?

I'm referring to this, although im pretty sure hes about to speak, im frightened!

The words they espouse are valid, truthful even. They are valid insofar as they reflect a real class interest, their class interests. We are not on the same side, we are not utilitarians, we do not want what is 'best' for society or even humanity, we seek the conquest of the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is a class war, not a debate between those with uniform interests.

[Sinister Intents]

I'm referring to this, although im pretty sure hes about to speak, im frightened!

What's wrong with what Rafiq said?

[Rafiq]

A darkness that looms in the hearts of all the Earth's damned. Our cause will invoke fear only in those who we seek to fight. When the trumpet of our war is sounded, the fires that rage within the worker will no longer be quelled by the veil of the enemy. The cause of the future will not be so tranquil as a petty series of demonstrations, it will not be so meek as to give room for dissent. The Communists must destroy their own humanity and become instruments of pure struggle, they must become warriors of a new world. So long as we remain humans, we remain within the same binding as our enemies, the police, the bourgeoisie, the reactionaries of the world. There is no room for humanism in our cause, what we define as human is an instrument of capital, we will lay waste to our roots and our precious sense of self worth as humans.

The Communists of the 20th century were riddled with humanism, the Stalinists were tainted by the ideology of the enemy, liberalism. We would not repeat the same mistake. Our cause will be a mythic one, that encompasses all areas of life and all corners of the Earth.

[Derendscools]

we do not want what is 'best' for society or even humanity
That^^^^

[Sinister Intents]

That^^^^

That's not saying anything negative....

[Derendscools]

A darkness that looms in the hearts of all the Earth's damned. Our cause will invoke fear only in those who we seek to fight. When the trumpet of our war is sounded, the fires that rage within the worker will no longer be quelled by the veil of the enemy. The cause of the future will not be so tranquil as a petty series of demonstrations, it will not be so meek as to give room for dissent. The Communists must destroy their own humanity and become instruments of pure struggle, they must become warriors of a new world. So long as we remain humans, we remain within the same binding as our enemies, the police, the bourgeoisie, the reactionaries of the world. There is no room for humanism in our cause, what we define as human is an instrument of capital, we will lay waste to our roots and our precious sense of self worth as humans.

The Communists of the 20th century were riddled with humanism, the Stalinists were tainted by the ideology of the enemy, liberalism. We would not repeat the same mistake. Our cause will be a mythic one, that encompasses all areas of life and all corners of the Earth.
Thats some prophetic stuff my friend.

[TheEmancipator]

Rafiq has won the Internet.

[Comrade Dracula]

we do not want what is 'best' for society or even humanity
That^^^^

And yet, that is the part I find to be fundamentally correct.

Communists - for our purposes class conscious proletarians engaging in class struggle - indeed desire what is best neither for society nor for humanity because society (in its various incarnations) is the effective, functional existence of humanity in its totality.
Put less abstractly, our society is indeed a class society and humanity is indeed separated by a class divide - to want what is "best" for it - if this is taken in the sense of objective (i.e. ruling class) interests, rather than some abstract ideological concept - would be to take every action to preserve it - i.e. class collaborationism and reformism. The point, however, is to replace it with a new society via the means of a revolution.

In summary, communists wish to replace the current society (and by extension, the current humanity at the level of societal subjects) with a new society which benefits a portion of the total human population (i.e. proletariat). The fact that proletariat is in majority is purely coincidental (to the rise of communism as a class movement, not to the motivations of particular communists, mind you).

[Alan OldStudent]

Hello Comrade Diirez,

Before you respond to the person asking these questions, you should ask if you hope to change their mind or influence others who might read your words? I'm assuming the questioner is a rigid ideolog trying to entrap you with a series of "gotchas." Nevertheless, there may be some reading your responses who might be more open to a different point of view. Therefore, I'd try to be as clear as possible and avoid the personal, so as not to make it look like you're picking on the questioner. That's mainly so you don't distract from what you're trying to communicate.

With those caveats, here is how you might respond to those questions:

1. Taxing the rich and giving it to the poor is one of the stupidest things to ever be argued. As others have mentioned, this is an ad hominem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) attack. But I'd refrain from putting it that way. Instead I'd ask this:

Do you think we can measure intelligence by how closely someone agrees with your particular conservative opinion? Is being a conservative a sign of intelligence and being a leftist a sign of stupidity? If you answer "yes," how do you explain that Einstein wrote a famous essay advocating socialism (http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism)? Are you more intelligent than Einstein?

The second question puzzles me a bit.

2. Conservatives believe in helping those in poverty over the left wing.
I'm guessing the questioner is asserting that conservative measures are more effective in helping those in poverty. That's an assertion, not a question. I'd ask for evidence.


3. Socialism has never worked which is why free enterprise works.
Likewise, this is an assertion, but the logic is faulty. If we assume that socialism has never worked, why does that prove free enterprise works? That's like saying "Laetrile doesn't cure cancer, so that proves snake oil and prayer do cure cancer." Ask the questioner why socialism not working proves capitalism works? That's begging the question (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question).

What the questioner probably means by the assertion that "socialism has never worked" is that various social welfare programs have not ended poverty. Ask the questioner if that's what [s]he means. You can then say that social welfare programs try to make the worst aspects of capitalism more bearable but socialists want to abolish capitalism.

The other part of the questioner's statement is that capitalism does work. What does that mean? Who does it work for? It works for the minority, far less than 1%. It does not work for the majority. A realistic look at capitalism shows that it is failing to work in the interest of humanity as a whole.


4. In America you have the power to become what you want to be. If you are born to a poor family, you can study hard and utilize free education to make a career for yourself.
As millions of endebted students will tell you, education is not free above what we call the high-school level in the USA. It's true that a small minority can climb out of poverty by hard work, but that's not possible for the majority. If you put 10 rats in a cage and give enough food for 5 of them, a few rats will get fat. No doubt, they worked hard for that. But the problem is that the rats are in an overcrowded cage and there is only enough food for 5 of them. This is not the most compelling argument possible for an overcrowded rat cage with insufficient food, although a conservative might argue that the struggle builds character by encouraging greediness and violence.

That's why the wealth of the richest 1% of the world's population is 65 times greater than the wealth of the bottom 50%, and 85 people own as much as the bottom 50% of the world's population. (See the recent Oxfam Report (http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-en.pdf) for documentations, page 2 and 3)

These appalling statistics aren't very good evidence that capitalism works.

Regards,

Alan OldStudent
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Gracias a la vida, que me ha dado tanto—Violeta Parra

[Diirez]

Likewise, I'm attempting to raise class consciousness of people at college, people actually listen to my politics, at a business college I might add. I've met one teabagger who is arguing with me a lot, and my essay shut him the fuck up. Sorry if I derailed a bit, not my intention, just thought this was relevant...
I'm surrounded by teabaggers all the time. They're the one's who argue that women shouldn't be paid equally as men, Hitler is an atheist, the Soviet Union and Pol Pot's Cambodia are pure Communism and all these strange ideas. It's rough trying to convert others to Communism.

They're also surprised that I'm a Communist since I'm upper middle class, so I'm basically almost bourgeoisie and so therefore I should be supporting Capitalism apparently. It's this mentality that the teabaggers have, that you don't even have to understand Communism, you just have to fight it.