Egalitarianism And Equality

[Angelo-Von-Drez]

How hopeless our society is in achieving Egalitarianism and Equality. It is so sad. Almost all of the basics of our consumeristic world are based on anti-egalitarian movements.

Eg.

Interest Rates - The rich get MORE money in their bank account.

Buying in Bulk - The rich get MORE product and MORE value. There is no logic behind making these things cheaper, honestly. The amount of wrapping and packaging and the amount of time and effort it takes to transport it does not come into it. They are seriously charging a lot less for no reason. Overly so.

Buy one get one free - Again, the rich get MORE product and MORE value. See above.

Isn't this sad?

[Delta]

Really, most of that stuff is just advertising, you don't always get more value for less money. If you go to a place like Sam's Club, or Costco, people think that they are getting a better deal, but in reality they are often paying the same amount of money per unit as you would by buying smaller quantities at other stores (ones that don't charge you membership at that). Buy one, get one frees usually occur for small items that almost everyone can afford. Plus they often jack up the price for the single item to partly compensate for the free item. You don't usually get "one free" when buying many expensive, luxury items.

Our world is certainly designed for the wealthy to dominate everything, but the last two examples you mentioned wouldn't trouble me all that much.

[Angelo-Von-Drez]

I beg to differ. Even the smallest of things that we take for granted, when assessed closely are actually REALLY REALLY against equality.

We should be fighting the supermarkets and the window shops first, before we tackle anything large.

[Shadowlegion]

I think these concepts can be used to perpetuate wealth but not to exclude others from having it, in fact the opposite. Buying wholesale can build wealth as well as perpetuating it.

Let me try and remember my economics.

You buy something wholesale that the manufacturer makes for 5 cents per unit. they charge you 50 cents per unit to go towards matinence and the other factors, plus a profit. You can turn around and sell said units for a dollar. Someone gets a product, the manufacturer gets money, the seller makes money. I'm not sure what your concept of wealthy is, but it doesnt take much to buy anything wholesale.

With interest in banks, they compensate you for using your money. its not like they put it in the vault and sprinkle more money on it weekly.

buy one get one free is a marketting gimmick, based in the wholesale thing. all it does is prove that they can sell two for the price of one and still make a profit.

You may think these things are unfair but I think there's more obvious and common discriminations.

[Angelo-Von-Drez]

Of course there are plenty of more obvious things... I'm just trying to point out the less obvious things to prove the point of the fact that we are literally surrounded by all this shit.

Also, by perpetuating wealth and making the rich richer... evidently you are making the poor poorer in comparison. When the bar is lifted the people down below must jump higher to reach it.

We should be seriously punishing the rich, not encouraging them.

[Shadowlegion]

Originally posted by Angelo-Von-Drez@Jul 11 2006, 01:43 PM
Of course there are plenty of more obvious things... I'm just trying to point out the less obvious things to prove the point of the fact that we are literally surrounded by all this shit.

Also, by perpetuating wealth and making the rich richer... evidently you are making the poor poorer in comparison. When the bar is lifted the people down below must jump higher to reach it.

We should be seriously punishing the rich, not encouraging them.

well actually in the capitalist utopia that is outlined by the ideals, the poor would be benefiting from it also, meaning the wealth would be at least parallel in growth. It's a failure to simply educate the poor as how to even handle finances that contributes to huge numbers of the financial problems of the lower and middle classes, and facilitates a great deal of their exploitation. Cut-throat U.S. Capitalism obviously has inequities beyond this.

The term "punishing the rich" sums up the ideology (or should I say fallacy) of class warfare, which is even older than capitalism's exploitations itself. instead of fucking people over directly you decide you'll lie to them and then fuck them over, because as long as there's someone in charge of distributing labour and products they'll be distributing it unequally. See hugo chavez, or any icon of class warfare, and how much they actually improved the lives of all. They only shifted the wealth into other areas and made it difficult for the people with wealth as opposed to helping those without it, never following even the basic ideas of their own bullshit. I normally don't call anything an absolute lie, but class warfare is at best as delusional as the "american dream." People throughout history have treated people differently from other people, before the dollar, and before nobility and wealth. Obviously people should all be treated with the same respect and be given the same entitlements and opportunities, but the voices of class warfare benefit most from keeping people poor. I doubt hugo chavez could stay in office based on anything else, so why would he actually solve any problems?

[hoopla]

They only shifted the wealth into other areas and made it difficult for the people with wealth as opposed to helping those without it

Yeah, like, exactly what every reformist wants to do.
I have no idea how "punishing the rich" totally sums up "lying to the poor" though. Bit of a moralist, maybe?
Then maybe you ought to think about what rights would make up a just society. I would like to think that you would agree that no-one could possibly have the right to own 100 billion dollars. Maybe a good example, after all.