Do you belong to the richest 1%? Chances are you do.

[Dirichlet]

As a german myself, I have to say the differences in economic power and living quality that quickly arose over the division, can be certainly attributed to "who" took over, but not directly to their respective economic systems.

The Russians were much more hostile towards the defeated population (having come from the east and liberating all those KZ's along the way as the fact that they were invaded directly it's very understandable) than the Americans. In addition, they never actually had the money and spare food that the US was able to send to help. You could claim that they had less to offer was because of Communism, but IMO it had more do with the war.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I was reading through this thread and thought about my experiences in Venezuela...

People in Venezuela obviously don't make as much as in US, but even though the living expenses are quite high, the simple fact that they don't get taxed nearly as much and the fact they don't conserve money for a 'future retirement' or for houses that cost well over 300 grand

Houses here almost always cost over 300 grand. I think the house I'm in now costs that much, and it has a hole in the roof.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I said 300k because you could always move to the suburbs.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@fishjie
Yes East Germany did a lot worse than West Germany in many areas and was a failure in many ways. But it proves your claims about the nature of implemented Communism in a state to be an excessive hyperbole.

On the rest of your post: I like some of your views, I dislike others, but I think we differentiate in one major way:
You seem to view it as sufficient if people have the general possibility to improve their economic lot (by "hard work" as you say, which IMO is quit idealized as a term but it got some relevance nevertheless) and when this possibility is increased by universal health care and education and private initiatives.
I view this as important and beneficial to the society as a whole, too, but don't see a reason to not also pay attention to how hard that still actually is and how people actually succeed and why that is so. Meaning to also take into account what system actually awaits those people becoming economic active. And it is my opinion that if we do so, we arrive at a point where universal education and universal health care are not sufficient to adequately address this situation with the best possible benefit for society as a whole in mind.
To be less complicated: You seems to view it as sufficient that people have the very basic means to meet the system. I say we must also take a look at the system itself and how it actually interacts with the people.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I said 300k because you could always move to the suburbs.

This is in the suburbs. Houses are more expensive closer to the city.
This is a 300k home for some people. 1 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom, 576 square feet.

 

[GamezRule]

I don't!

 

[Princeps]

This is like saying "oh, you have pneunomia? Bohoo, the other guy has cancer." Just because some people are worse off, doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to solve our own problems, i.e. inequality in the rich countries.

 

[amadeus]

I agree, you should try to solve your own problems.

 

[TheLastOne36]

This is in the suburbs. Houses are more expensive closer to the city.
This is a 300k home for some people. 1 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom, 576 square feet.

Damn, didn't know it got this bad.

I remember when I was younger, houses in my (rather well-off) Torontonian neighborhood went for 400-500k usually, and they were 3-4 bedroom houses... I haven't ever really looked at house prices today..

 

[Angst]

I don't belong.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Oh, WW2?
Well, while we are "foaming at the mouth", let's recall that capitalist democracies had the ability to REBUILD W. Germany, while E. Germany was EXPLOITED by the non-explotarian communists of the CCCP.

And let us remember the mutual agreement to disarm and dismantle Germany following the war, something which only the country that had suffered four years of brutal invasion and genocide actually carried through. And let us also remember who started re-arming Germany first, who allowed the occupied territories to become a new state first, in order to get a leg up on the opposition? Who put ex-Nazis in charge of a country they had just been tried for turning in a warmongering extermination machine?

Oh, right, that was the West. It was the USSR who followed through on its duty to destroy the capacity of Germany to wage war again, who excised its due for all the industry destroyed by their perpetrated war, who removed the Nazis from power forever, and who protected those now-vulnerable peoples from the peonism that always results from America "rebuilding" a country it has destroyed. Quelle horreur!

Great point there.

I know what happened in E. Germany before the Russians took over... mass exodus away from Russia, mass bombings of civilian refugees, mass rapes, etc.

The biggest pity is the USA didn't beat Russia to Berlin. I know many Americans would have given their lives to protect the freedoms of those East Germans.

I regret that you didn't live back then, to be given the opportunity. I would never stand in the way of a noble paladin charging into oblivion to Defend The Faith.

 

[lovett]

I am surprised so many people have missed the real normative force of this fact. It does not justify inequality within western nations. Rather, it shows that if this inequality is unjust then so is international inequality. If it is unjust that 1% of Americans should possess 20% of America's wealth (or whatever) it is unjust that 1% of humanity should possess an equivalent as much or more of Humanities' wealth.

This does not mean we should think Western inequality acceptable or defensible. What it means is that the moral judgement that apply to rich Americans also apply to average Americans. If we think the top 1% of Americans should re-distribute their wealth to the poorer 99% then, ceteris paribus*, we should believe that the average American should also re-distribute their wealth to the poorer 99% of humanity.

This follows simply from the idea that moral judgement are universalisable. If I make a moral judgement about what would be right in a certain situation I must make the same judgement in all situations of that kind; I must be prepared to make a universal judgement. I cannot judge that a starving man ought not steal food if I would not be prepared to say that I ought not steal food were I starving. I cannot judge that drink driving is always wrong and then judge it acceptable that I drink drive when convenient. Similarly, I cannot judge that the richest 1% of the population should redistribute their wealth (on plain egalitarian grounds) if I was not prepared to judge that, were I to be in the richest 1% of the population, I should redistribute my wealth.

What this fact reveals is that it turns out many average Americans are in the top 1% of the world's population with respect to income (and, probably, wealth). Given that the top 1% are obligated to re-distribute (some of) their wealth to the poorer 99% (which they are) many average Americans are obligated to do the exact same thing. They are in the same relation to the rest of the world as the super-rich are to them. If they wish to make moral judgments about the super rich, they must apply those same judgments to their own lives. There is no morally significant difference between the two cases.

This does not reduce the moral obligation those super-rich are under one iota, nor justify their failure to meet them. But it shows that the average American is also subject to significant moral obligation which they fail to meet. Not that this impugns the demands of egalitarians; the soundness of a moral demand or argument does not depend on the moral character of the person who utters it. What it does, hopefully, do is encourage the average American to do their utmost to increase the well-being of the global poor. This is not something that happens at the moment.

*Of course, all else is not be equal. It might be more costly to re-distribute across national borders then within national borders. If that is the case, the demands on the average American are less stringent then those on the super-rich American. However, it seems exceedingly implausible to contend that this surplus cost utterly abrogates the obligations of the average American.

 

[GoodGame]

Sad to say nope. I'm guessing I'm in the top 10% though.


Is that adjusted for Cost of Living though? If you spend half of your annual salary on rent to the landmasters, does it really matter?

 

[kochman]

And let us remember the mutual agreement to disarm and dismantle Germany following the war, something which only the country that had suffered four years of brutal invasion and genocide actually carried through. And let us also remember who started re-arming Germany first, who allowed the occupied territories to become a new state first, in order to get a leg up on the opposition? Who put ex-Nazis in charge of a country they had just been tried for turning in a warmongering extermination machine?

Oh, right, that was the West. It was the USSR who followed through on its duty to destroy the capacity of Germany to wage war again, who excised its due for all the industry destroyed by their perpetrated war, who removed the Nazis from power forever, and who protected those now-vulnerable peoples from the peonism that always results from America "rebuilding" a country it has destroyed. Quelle horreur!

It is unceasingly hilarious how you demonize the west and love the CCCP...
It has zero basis in reality, of course...
You are literally suggesting that the CCCP was just, and the Allies (western) were the bad guys?!?
Have you ever talked to German people in your life?!?!!?!? Or just read about it in some communist rags?

Genocide... oh, you mean how the Russians bombed the ice that German civilians were fleeing from them over?
Or, how about the mass rape from the Russians?
You are actually suggesting that the exploitation of E. Germany by the Russians was for the good of all?! That is complete and utter insanity.
I find it hard to believe that people can even imagine up this sort of selective, revisionist nonsense... but, to each his own.
No one else believes you...

Ask Germans where they would rather have been...
Oh, the already answered that question, for decades, as people were DYING to escape E. Germany... how many people died fleeing into the glorious E. Germany from the wicked W. Germany??? How many walls did W. Germany build?

 

[Traitorfish]

Well that's what I was saying. They all started off fighting the good fight for the proletariat. But as soon as the bourgeois were owned, these guys threw away all their previous beliefs so they could live as gods amongst the peons. All they did was become the new oppressors.

Yeah, the leftcoms are about eighty years ahead of you on this, and even the Trots have cobbled together some halfway cohesive equivalents. Nothing new here for those who've cared to investigate.

What Marx proposed can never be a reality. That's why communism is a horrible idea. People will believe in it, organize, revolt, have a violent revolution, only to find things are even WORSE than before. History has proven this. Mao truly did care for the plight of the chinese peasant when he was a young revolutionary fighting the good fight.

Are you actually trying to make an argument here, or this just stream of conciousness? Because I don't really follow you at all. No one sentence seems to have anything to do with any other.

 

[GhostWriter16]

It only takes $34,000 a year, after taxes, to be among the richest 1% in the world. That's for each person living under the same roof, including children. (So a family of four, for example, needs to make $136,000.)

This, from the article, does reduce the amount of top-1 percenters in the US a bit if applied. Its still a lot, but not quite as many.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I forgot to post a response to that in my last post, but shall do so now:

life sucked... the West prospered... people were practically slaves, totally abused by the all powerful state...

Except for "the West prospered", most people who actually lived in the GDR wouldn't agree with this "assessment" at all.

 

[kochman]

Source?
Mine is well documented... and the number of graves of potential refugees is one of my sources...

 

[Terxpahseyton]

My source is two decades of living experience in East Germany and being born into a family which actually lived in the GDR. And I can honestly assure you that most former citizens of the GDR wouldn't know weather to laugh or to gaze in disbelief on how you seem to view life in the GDR.
Your "well documented sources" seem to be small peaces of a big puzzle you conflate to represent the entirety of the puzzle. This kind of inductive reasoning is very troublesome, as your false conclusions prove.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@lovett
It seems to me that your premise is wrong: Which is that wealth inequality within a nation is a matter of morality in itself when it comes to how it is handled in public. If that were the case, wouldn't we need to individually stigmatize everyone who is not at the wealth bottom of society? After all, he or she does not seem to care about their moral obligation to distribute wealth to the unequal. Obviously, that is not the case at all. In fact, individual responsibility is not a significant topic of the issue of wealth inequality. It is rather treated as an issue of the system.
Because of that, I think it is more in line with how we publicly handle wealth inequality if we treat it not as a moral aim in its own right, but as a tool to achieve a different moral value: That of the common good of a nation. Then, wealth inequality is only bad in so far as it threatens the common good of a nation, not universally.

Now you may have a different moral point of view, but I don't think it is valid to apply this view on society as a whole and then criticize society for its inconsistency (one may even be tempted to use the word-which-shall-not-be-named (but I'll name anyway): strawman )