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I think such a policy should be pursued since the negative impact of such inequality on society is impossible to measure, but it seems like today's inequality is affecting societies cohesion and ability to function.
I think the bigger problem is the barriers in place to stop certain people from getting a real chance at becoming rich. Those are more important to look at than the actual inequality.
Progressivism has no basic tenets, because it is a chimera.
From what I understand, Americans for awhile are ideological services and operational liberals. In other words, Americans like spouting rhetoric about socialism and big government, but then end up supporting it because they know deep in their hearts that even an inefficient welfare state can provide better services than any "free market" would.
Glad to see Americans are finally understanding the contradiction. Hopefully as OWS grows more and more violent, the progressives will realize the inequality inherent in the system.
I question this poll since there have been polls like this in the past that have used different wording and only got around 45% in favour.. Language changes everything.
We should be actively shrinking wealth inequality, because wealth inequality has a profound weakening effect on the nation's economy. Ideally, all people should be paid an exactly equal amount of wage. This would (in theory) maximize aggregate consumption. And since this is a demand economy (mostly) the wage differential should be brought to nearly zero, in order to accomplish this ideal of a strong economy.
But since some workers may resent their pay being absolutely equal to a lesser-talented worker, some wage differential would be necessary.
money is to politics as fertilizer is to garden weeds.
Then I wonder how the Republicans get so many voters?
You'd figure that they at least understand where they stand on the American spectrum.
"It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends."
- Karl Marx
Many of them may be small-business owners. Remember, an owner is going to extract as much as he can from his workers, while paying as little as he can. That is what Capitalists are all about. Being that there are thousands of small businesses, who also have friends and family to vote like they do, it might explain the large numbers of Republican voters. Also, Republicans tend to vote one issue, usually anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-immigration, anti-union, pro-gun, pro business...
More recently, they have added anti-tax, anti-environment, anti-welfare, anti-unemployment compensation, anti-Social Security/Medicare, anti-education, and even anti-war veteran! They send soldiers off to risk their lives fighting a war to protect their capitalist interests, and then shit on them when they return home from battle (IF they aren't killed in battle, that is)
Yes, it is fair to say the American Republicans are a huge Anti-American Organized Crime Ring.
money is to politics as fertilizer is to garden weeds.
Let me know when they vote the anti-progressive idiots out of office.
This poll means nothing to me, really.
I don't think they went to every household and interviewed people about this. This is why I don't buy polls.
You don't need to with the magic of Statistics
I'm on some sickle-hammer shit
Collective Bruce Banner shit
FKA: #FF0000, AKA Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath
I'm certain that they didn't.
Proper statistics don't require you to test the whole population.
“How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” Charles Bukowski, Factotum
"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining... We demand this fraud be stopped." MLK
-fka Redbrother
The majority of the American populace suffers from false consciousness and Stockholm Syndrome, whether they are a democrat or a tea bagger. I know, cause I see it every fucking day.
Americans agree with the cornerstone of progressive politics. The problem is that they don't always agree on the progressive policies that are needed to accomplish that goal.
Maybe take off your tinfoil hat and you might not see it as often.The majority of the American populace suffers from false consciousness and Stockholm Syndrome, whether they are a democrat or a tea bagger. I know, cause I see it every fucking day.
Actually, I think it's the other way around. Americans love their social security benefits, but like to rant about socialism and government spending.
^^This. And perhaps even more importantly, they are paradoxical in that they want all the social services under the sun, but want to pay as little taxes as possible. Most of them cannot grasp this concept: You cannot have it both ways. We have a rather weak political culture here in America, in general most of us are apathetic when it comes to politics. The average American can name a gazillion sports statistics or knows all the winners from Dancing with the Stars, but half of them can't name the 3 branches of government or its functions. Some don't even know who the VP is, like are you shitting me? Perhaps we need to turn the TV's off a bit, and start reading some books and worry more about important things (politics and economics), and less so about trivial things (who's going to win the next American Idol).
Last edited by Marxaveli; 15th November 2011 at 05:18.
Says the restricted, rose-colored glasses wearing, delusional status-quo loving reactionary.
Last edited by Marxaveli; 15th November 2011 at 05:36.
Libertarians dislike large chunks of the status-quo.Says the restricted, rose-colored glasses wearing, delusional status-quo loving reactionary.
The problem is that you can't just vote someone out, you have to elect a different pro-business politician. One of the most liberal mayors in the US, Oakland's Jean Quan openly stated support of the Occupation movement while at the same time organizing violent repression of the movement.
Well a large chunk of eligible voters don't vote and there's always the massive prison population which is unable to vote and in many places it's harder to vote if you rent or move around a lot. But for people who do vote, they have two choices of people to elect and no qualitative difference in the policies they will peruse. Bush and Obama is a great example, both talk a lot about ending Iraq's occupation while still pushing US imperialism, both bailed out the banks despite supposedly being opposites according to American official politics. Because of this often people just "vote against" rather than actually voting for things. Recently, Republicans have tended to rally people based on cynicism and pessimism while Democracts have been running on fear of right-wing extremism in power. Because of US propaganda and 30 years of retreat for worker's movements and social struggles, there are a lot of cynical and pessimistic people in the US who don't believe things can be different and so they support the Republicans and a "better them than me" anti-solidarity sort of politics.
