How We Agreed to Take Money From the Poor and Give to the Rich

[Hygro]

We can't. You're implicitly operating from the assumption that what you agree to work for is what you deserve to earn. Others argue the value of your work is your wages plus all profit that is directly a result of your contribution to the production process. Others still say the correctly deserved amount is an equal portion.

There's no sea floor, no anchor. Theres people, work, stuff, and however we decide that all gets negotiated. In this case, that's money as it currently exists.

 

[civver_764]

We can't. You're implicitly operating from the assumption that what you agree to work for is what you deserve to earn.

I'm also arguing that you operate from this assumption as well, otherwise your behavior with the money you earn would be different. Western society by and large operates on this assumption, would you disagree? So to change this assumption only when talking about welfare and talking about it in terms of entitlement and poor people not getting their fair share seems contradictory, no?

 

[metalhead]

Others still will argue that things like raising children are tasks which deserve compensation, in part because people of means will pay other people to do this for them. "Work" itself is an arbitrary construct, and even the most basic work of raising children, for example, is compensated very inequitably and in most cases not at all. Society has stepped in and decided that perhaps there ought to be a bare minimum of financial assistance provided for people who do the work of raising children, and even that pittance is decried by many with racist tropes like "welfare queen."

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So to change this assumption only when talking about welfare and talking about it in terms of entitlement and poor people not getting their fair share seems contradictory, no?

It would, if that's what he were doing. But since it isn't, why do you ask? Maybe if you stated whatever it is that your position actually is we could figure out where the actual disagreement here is.

 

[Ryika]

How about grateful to be alive?

I'm sure they are. It's not like the upper class had anything to do with that though.

Grateful to be given assistance?

Grateful to have free housing?

Well again, why would they be grateful of that? It's not like most rich people "earned" their position, and it's not like most poor people are poor because they simply didn't "earn" that position. It's because we live in a society where wealth creates more wealth, and one person was born into an elevated position and one person was not.

There's nothing to be grateful about here.

If a homeless person receives money from a passerby, they are usually extremely grateful. Do you think this is wrong of them?

Is it wrong? No. Should they have to be grateful on a moral level? No, not at all.
They still "have to" be grateful, or at least fake being grateful, because that will make these people return.

Of course your argument is somewhat sickening when you think about what you're doing here. You're using the fact that people who are in a much worse situation than the average person on welfare are grateful when people give them money against people who are just a tad higher in society. The homeless person shouldn't HAVE TO BE grateful, because he should not be sitting on the street in the first place.

Your narrative about rich people trying to keep poor people down is akin to a conspiracy theory. What's your evidence for this being the case?

I'm not saying they're actively and deliberately doing it as a conspiratory against the poor, but yeah, that's most certainly how our system works out. In America in particular, the welfare state is mostly an institution to keep the poor calm, but poor, prime evidence for that is the terrible state of schools in poor districts. Were uplifting people an actual goal, those would be the places where you'd have to invest.

 

[civver_764]

It would, if that's what he were doing. But since it isn't, why do you ask? Maybe if you stated whatever it is that your position actually is we could figure out where the actual disagreement here is.

My position is simply that poor people should be grateful, rather than entitled. Rather than hating the rich, be grateful for the assistance that you receive. Hate breeds hate, gratitude breeds a compassionate society. Don't be jealous of successful people, aim to be successful yourself. Don't demand free money, ask for it. These are all morals that we hold in our day-to-day interactions with people, and I do not see why these should not be extended to the societal level. This seems to be a fundamental contradiction in our beliefs as a culture.

Others still will argue that things like raising children are tasks which deserve compensation, in part because people of means will pay other people to do this for them. "Work" itself is an arbitrary construct, and even the most basic work of raising children, for example, is compensated very inequitably and in most cases not at all. Society has stepped in and decided that perhaps there ought to be a bare minimum of financial assistance provided for people who do the work of raising children, and even that pittance is decried by many with racist tropes like "welfare queen."

Well, daycare is a huge industry. Getting paid to raise your own child is definitely outside of the realms of normal supply and demand though. Would you give me money to help raise my child? I'd appreciate it if you did, but I certainly wouldn't have that expectation of you.

I'm sure they are. It's not like the upper class had anything to do with that though.

Well if someone pays for your health care they kind of did. If someone funds medical research that also helps.

Well again, why would they be grateful of that?

Because they could very well have not received those things? If your friend buys you a house, you would express gratitude, even if they were richer than you.

Is it wrong? No. Should they have to be grateful on a moral level? No, not at all.
They still "have to" be grateful, or at least fake being grateful, because that will make these people return.

I think this an unfortunate view to have. If I was homeless I would definitely feel genuinely grateful for any assistance I received.

Of course your argument is somewhat sickening when you think about what you're doing here. You're using the fact that people who are in a much worse situation than the average person on welfare are grateful when people give them money against people who are just a tad higher in society. The homeless person shouldn't HAVE TO BE grateful, because he should not be sitting on the street in the first place.

I don't see how it's sickening, I think it is useful advice to be grateful. That applies for ANY person, rich or poor. Gratitude is a virtue, is it not? People who are grateful are happier.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

My position is simply that poor people should be grateful, rather than entitled. Rather than hating the rich, be grateful for the assistance that you receive. Hate breeds hate, gratitude breeds a compassionate society.

Cool. So what is your position on rich people then? Don't they have a whole lot more to be grateful for? So how come when many of them openly scorn people who are needy and demand that they grovel or die that isn't a problem? How come when their every action is to maintain their better position rather than help balance the inequities that they never earned in the first place you are all in for them?

That's what Hygro is driving at. We are all trapped in a system that perpetuates the inequities. The people on the wrong end aren't likely to have the power to change that system, other than by just breaking it. So the people on the benefiting end either need to succumb to appeals, or enjoy the ride until the system gets broken...their choice.

 

[Lexicus]

My position is simply that poor people should be grateful, rather than entitled. Rather than hating the rich, be grateful for the assistance that you receive. Hate breeds hate, gratitude breeds a compassionate society. Don't be jealous of successful people, aim to be successful yourself. Don't demand free money, ask for it. These are all morals that we hold in our day-to-day interactions with people, and I do not see why these should not be extended to the societal level. This seems to be a fundamental contradiction in our beliefs as a culture.

"Slaves should be grateful they're fed and clothed by their masters! They shouldn't demand freedom or feel entitled to it, at best they should ask for it politely....once in a while."

 

[civver_764]

Cool. So what is your position on rich people then? Don't they have a whole lot more to be grateful for? So how come when many of them openly scorn people who are needy and demand that they grovel or die that isn't a problem? How come when their every action is to maintain their better position rather than help balance the inequities that they never earned in the first place you are all in for them?

Rich people don't typically "demand" anything. To be clear, I have nothing but contempt for corporate subsidies and the like. But outside of that, if they are receiving their money because people voluntarily gave it to them then what's wrong with that? I don't know how much money you make Tim, but what are you doing to balance the inequities? How do you feel about the money you earn?

But to answer your question, yes rich people have many things to be grateful for. And I think most of them would agree with that, and if not that's really unfortunate for them because it probably means they are not very happy.

"Slaves should be grateful they're fed and clothed by their masters! They shouldn't demand freedom or feel entitled to it, at best they should ask for it politely....once in a while."

That's fundamentally different because slaves are kept in their position by threat of force.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That's fundamentally different because slaves are kept in their position by threat of force.

Where is this fundamental difference?

I've taken all this land. If you want food you will have to work the land for me, and I'll pay you with some of the food that you produce, while keeping most of it for myself. If it isn't threat of force that keeps people from saying eff you to this "deal" and just using a bit of the land to grow food for themselves, what is it?

 

[civver_764]

Where is this fundamental difference?

I've taken all this land. If you want food you will have to work the land for me, and I'll pay you with some of the food that you produce, while keeping most of it for myself. If it isn't threat of force that keeps people from saying eff you to this "deal" and just using a bit of the land to grow food for themselves, what is it?

I see where you're coming from. I think there is a lot to admire in cultures that are able to treat land as a shared resource. I don't think we know how to do that as Westerners though, and so property rights are our best solution thus far. Consider that in the absence of property rights, the poor person's situation would be even worse since they would be subject to the whims of anybody who wanted to come take their food.

 

[Ryika]

Well if someone pays for your health care they kind of did. If someone funds medical research that also helps.

People wouldn't be able to pay of other people's healthcare or fund medical research were it not for society that has been built on the labor of the poor in the first place. Again, you're phrasing this as if rich people were somehow the saviors of society because they (most of them) were born with money to spend on those things, but they did not "produce" that wealth, that's not how society works.

That wealth was produced by labor of others. So saying: "Hey, that person is using the money created by society to help you, aren't you grateful?!" is utterly nonsensical. You can say that about people who have actually created something beautiful and become rich that way, then continued to actually use a part of that wealth for good things, but that's a tiny fraction of the rich people.

Because they could very well have not received those things? If your friend buys you a house, you would express gratitude, even if they were richer than you.

I think this an unfortunate view to have. If I was homeless I would definitely feel genuinely grateful for any assistance I received.

I don't see how it's sickening, I think it is useful advice to be grateful. That applies for ANY person, rich or poor. Gratitude is a virtue, is it not? People who are grateful are happier.

I'll combine these three into one response, because they all have the same flaw in my opinion: You're dragging everything down to the personal level, almost as if you are aware that your argument doesn't work on its own, because interpersonal relationships change the dynamics of the whole situation.

If I had a rich friend who was just born into the position of wealth, and that person would give me a house, then yeah, I would be very grateful. But at the same time, the person didn't actually do anything to get that money to give me that house, so what am I even grateful for? That the person thinks I'm a person close enough to them that they overcome some of their inherent selfishness and give me a peace of the cake that they got when they were born. THAT is what I am grateful for, just as the homeless person is grateful for the fact that the person didn't just walk past them.

But if you really think about it on a broader level, that rich person should probably be working on giving as many people as they can a piece of the cake instead of sitting on it and giving a piece to their closest friends every now and then, should they not? We don't think about it that way because they're our friend, but on a societal level, you can look at it for what it is, greed at the expense of others.

 

[metalhead]

Well, daycare is a huge industry. Getting paid to raise your own child is definitely outside of the realms of normal supply and demand though. Would you give me money to help raise my child? I'd appreciate it if you did, but I certainly wouldn't have that expectation of you.

Supply and demand isn't the issue. This merely illustrates that what is considered "work" is completely arbitrary. A nanny is (usually) paid a living wage for raising a child from birth to school age, sometimes a lot longer. A daycare worker is paid less than a nanny to care for more children. Parents aren't paid at all for raising their own children. Other relatives called to raise children aren't paid for doing so. Foster parents are paid for taking in kids, but not much more than covers expenses.

You're way too caught up in the rather silly game of trying to parse people's feelings. What difference is it to you if someone feels "entitled" as opposed to "grateful?" The question should be - does a person have inherent value to society, such that giving them money is a productive use? I'd argue that yes, every person has inherent economic value as a consumer (has inherent value otherwise as well, but I'm limiting this purely to economics for the purposes of this discussion), every person that you give money to will use it to create economic activity. A parent has economic value in contributing replacement humans to society. Similarly, economy demands that parents be given the freedom to optimally divide their time between conventional work activities and raising children, because then they will best serve society's needs.

If you make enough money that you are free to decide how to optimally divide your time between work and parenting, then you don't need my money, or anyone else's. The point of the safety net needn't be looked at through the lens of creating entitlement, and not just because that's insulting and totally mis-characterizes the typical circumstances of those forced to seek assistance in order to feed themselves or their family. There are plenty of other reasons why society should prioritize spending and policy to help the less fortunate. First and foremost, it's difficult to say we're a country that protects liberty when our society is constructed in such a way that "liberty" necessitates a baseline level of economic security that isn't provided to most people. Second, there are real positive returns to be gained from such expenditures. Society as a whole benefits far more from policy that favors giving currency to people who will spend it, versus people who will save or invest it.

 

[civver_764]

People wouldn't be able to pay of other people's healthcare or fund medical research were it not for society that has been built on the labor of the poor in the first place. Again, you're phrasing this as if rich people were somehow the saviors of society because they (most of them) were born with money to spend on those things, but they did not "produce" that wealth, that's not how society works.

I am not. I think you're reading that into what I'm saying because you are doing precisely the opposite, treating rich people as greedy leeches.

If I'm sick, I can either ask people nicely for help, or I can get mad at them and call them greedy for not helping me. The first option is more likely to get me help, the second is more likely to make that person call me a bum. We see this exact phenomenon at the societal level of debating about whether or not to implement universal health care. I think it's a pretty spot on comparison to make.

I'll combine these three into one response, because they all have the same flaw in my opinion: You're dragging everything down to the personal level, almost as if you are aware that your argument doesn't work on its own, because interpersonal relationships change the dynamics of the whole situation.

That's not the flaw in my argument, that is my argument. You keep saying that there is a difference, but you haven't shown the difference. Prove me wrong. How do they change the dynamics of the situation? Society is only as real as the individual interactions that make it up.

If I had a rich friend who was just born into the position of wealth, and that person would give me a house, then yeah, I would be very grateful. But at the same time, the person didn't actually do anything to get that money to give me that house, so what am I even grateful for? That the person thinks I'm a person close enough to them that they overcome some of their inherent selfishness and give me a peace of the cake that they got when they were born. THAT is what I am grateful for, just as the homeless person is grateful for the fact that the person didn't just walk past them.

But if that same rich person pays for your house through their taxes you aren't grateful. It's the same thing. Why the dissonance?

But if you really think about it on a broader level, that rich person should probably be working on giving as many people as they can a piece of the cake instead of sitting on it and giving a piece to their closest friends every now and then, should they not? We don't think about it that way because they're our friend, but on a societal level, you can look at it for what it is, greed at the expense of others.

Do you really think this way? Is this a standard that you hold yourself to? Do you distribute your wealth to those less fortunate than you? Are you being greedy when you buy yourself nice things that you don't need?

 

[Ryika]

I am not. I think you're reading that into what I'm saying because you are doing precisely the opposite, treating rich people as greedy leeches.

If I'm sick, I can either ask people nicely for help, or I can get mad at them and call them greedy for not helping me. The first option is more likely to get me help, the second is more likely to make that person call me a bum. We see this exact phenomenon at the societal level of debating about whether or not to implement universal health care. I think it's a pretty spot on comparison to make.

Yeah, but when you're sick and have proper healthcare, then you don't have to ask nicely in the first place.

You're again making an argument that basically boils down to: "Be grateful that people

That's not the flaw in my argument, that is my argument. You keep saying that there is a difference, but you haven't shown the difference. Prove me wrong. How do they change the dynamics of the situation? Society is only as real as the individual interactions that make it up.

But if that same rich person pays for your house through their taxes you aren't grateful. It's the same thing. Why the dissonance?

I think I have shown the difference.

But to spell it out more clearly:
I think both are ultimately the same thing, we just think about them differently because there is a person involved, and our relationship with that person complicates the issue.

Think about it like this:
If you see a billionaire give 10 dollars to a homeless person, would you think: "What a great person!"? I certainly wouldn't. I'd think: "What? That's all you do? Couldn't you like... help him get off the streets?"
But if you were the homeless person who is given 10 dollars, would you not still feel thankful?

That's how involvement taints the issue, dragging it to a personal level just makes it more about guilt than the actual situation involved.

Do you really think this way? Is this a standard that you hold yourself to? Do you distribute your wealth to those less fortunate than you? Are you being greedy when you buy yourself nice things that you don't need?

Well... yeah. Given that I'm working a low-paying job, I'm not even in the position that I could distribute large parts of "my wealth", because I don't have much "wealth" to spend on luxury items to begin with. Most of my earnings are spent on maintenance, the only thing that I would call "decadent" that I've bought in the last 5 years or so was a drawing tablet. And maybe parts for my pc that I'm keeping somewhat usable if those count. I do still put a part of my income to the side and give it to charity once a year and have done volunteer work back when I wasn't able to work an actual job, so... yeah, I'd say I'm living up to my own standards.

But that's not even the point, a decadent lifestyle is mostly fine with me, after all, those things still fuel the pockets of people who created that stuff. It's when people use their money for nothing other than playing markets to siphon more wealth on top of what they're already not spending on anything anyway that I have a problem with.

Imagine how different things would look if society could be if people didn't use stacks of money too large to spend as status symbols and instead saw spreading that money around as a good thing.

Once people start doing that, or society actually changes to a system that is built to generate social mobility and changes for everybody I'll agree that people should be grateful, as long as welfare is a tool to keep people poor, I'll remain confident about saying that that's an unreasonable thing to ask people to be grateful for being provided with basic living standards.

 

[civver_764]

Supply and demand isn't the issue. This merely illustrates that what is considered "work" is completely arbitrary. A nanny is (usually) paid a living wage for raising a child from birth to school age, sometimes a lot longer. A daycare worker is paid less than a nanny to care for more children. Parents aren't paid at all for raising their own children. Other relatives called to raise children aren't paid for doing so. Foster parents are paid for taking in kids, but not much more than covers expenses.

What I mean to say is, supply and demand explains pretty much all of this. People raise their children for free because they love their children, and this extends to relatives too. Other people need an extra incentive, and that is precisely why they get paid to do so. I don't see how that's arbitrary.

You're way too caught up in the rather silly game of trying to parse people's feelings. What difference is it to you if someone feels "entitled" as opposed to "grateful?"

I already explained this but basically it's better for them if they feel grateful, and by extension better for society. People behaving virtuously results in a more virtuous society.

The question should be - does a person have inherent value to society, such that giving them money is a productive use? I'd argue that yes, every person has inherent economic value as a consumer (has inherent value otherwise as well, but I'm limiting this purely to economics for the purposes of this discussion), every person that you give money to will use it to create economic activity. A parent has economic value in contributing replacement humans to society. Similarly, economy demands that parents be given the freedom to optimally divide their time between conventional work activities and raising children, because then they will best serve society's needs.

I think if this were the case, rich people would essentially sponsor parents to create more children so they could reap the economic benefits. But you're not telling the whole story. There are many things that people bring which are not valuable. They drain public resources, they litter, they inflate the job market, they commit crimes, they consume natural resources. Honestly, I think the negatives outweigh the positives, especially if we're just incentivizing poor families to bring more children into poverty. There are more than enough biological incentives to create children, why do we need to add economic ones?

Yeah, but when you're sick and have proper healthcare, then you don't have to ask nicely in the first place.

The fact is, there are sick people in this country that are asking for rich people to pay for their health care through taxes. Those are just the facts. Now, do you think they will have a better chance of getting people on board if they call those people "greedy" and try to shame them into submission, or will they have a better chance if they just say "please help me"? Them being grateful does not hurt or diminish them, it helps them. Purely as a matter of practicality for their own situation they should take my advice. As I keep saying, hate breeds hate. I'm just offering suggestions for improving our political dialogue. Acting entitled only hurts them.

I think I have shown the difference.

But to spell it out more clearly:
I think both are ultimately the same thing, we just think about them differently because there is a person involved, and our relationship with that person complicates the issue.

Think about it like this:
If you see a billionaire give 10 dollars to a homeless person, would you think: "What a great person!"? I certainly wouldn't. I'd think: "What? That's all you do? Couldn't you like... help him get off the streets?"

That's a pretty counter productive way to think, imo. You're more likely to discourage them for going anywhere near homeless people with an attitude like that. Nobody likes to be guilt tripped.

Well... yeah. Given that I'm working a low-paying job, I'm not even in the position that I could distribute large parts of "my wealth", because I don't have much "wealth" to spend on luxury items to begin with. Most of my earnings are spent on maintenance, the only thing that I would call "decadent" that I've bought in the last 5 years or so was a drawing tablet. And maybe parts for my pc that I'm keeping somewhat usable if those count. I do still put a part of my income to the side and give it to charity once a year and have done volunteer work back when I wasn't able to work an actual job, so... yeah, I'd say I'm living up to my own standards.

C'mon, that's all you can do? Couldn't you like...volunteer some more of your time? What are you doing wasting time on the internet with me, you could be out there helping people right now!

But that's not even the point, a decadent lifestyle is mostly fine with me, after all, those things still fuel the pockets of people who created that stuff. It's when people use their money for nothing other than playing markets to siphon more wealth on top of what they're already not spending on anything anyway that I have a problem with.

I feel like you definitely just shifted the goal posts here. Is your view then that we should only tax those who "play markets"?

 

[Ryika]

The fact is, there are sick people in this country that are asking for rich people to pay for their health care through taxes. Those are just the facts. Now, do you think they will have a better chance of getting people on board if they call those people "greedy" and try to shame them into submission, or will they have a better chance if they just say "please help me"? Them being grateful does not hurt or diminish them, it helps them. Purely as a matter of practicality for their own situation they should take my advice. As I keep saying, hate breeds hate. I'm just offering suggestions for improving our political dialogue. Acting entitled only hurts them.

The there's "hate", then that hate comes from the upper class that is upholding a society that is stacked against the people who are at the bottom.
The people at the bottom have no responsibility to play nice just to make sure they don't upset the people on the top.

If not being thankful means their living conditions get worse, then, well the answer is a good old-fashioned revolution.

That's a pretty counter productive way to think, imo. You're more likely to discourage them for going anywhere near homeless people with an attitude like that. Nobody likes to be guilt tripped.

I don't care if they're encouraged to do that or not. The good thing about democratic(ish) states is that, if they work properly, the few at the top have no say over the many at the bottom, so who cares whether they are encouraged to help people directly, they are forced to help the poor indirectly through taxes anyway.

And if the state doesn't work properly anymore and favors the rich at the expense of the poor, to a level that the poor are no longer willing to take it... well, see above. As much power as the rich have in society, the poor can exist without the rich, but the rich cannot exist without the poor.

C'mon, that's all you can do? Couldn't you like...volunteer some more of your time? What are you doing wasting time on the internet with me, you could be out there helping people right now!

Well that one could have worked if my argument had been that people must be utterly altruistic.

I feel like you definitely just shifted the goal posts here. Is your view then that we should only tax those who "play markets"?

No, we should tax everybody who has excess wealth and those who have the most excess wealth should pay the most. That doesn't prevent people from having a decadent lifestyle, in my ideal society, we should take enough from those "who have" that we can afford to give everybody, including those who "have not" good chances to become what hey want to be. That includes proper housing to start with, free access to good education, affordable healthcare, and good general infrastructure for everybody.

If that's taken care of, then frankly, I don't have a problem with the decadent living standards that the people at the top can still afford, maybe one could even make the argument that it's a good motivator for those who are not up there.

People playing the market is a problem independent from taxation.

 

[civvver]

I don't understand the connection you guys and the author of that article is drawing between the MID and availability of low income assisted housing. In the article they make the suggestion that we should reduce the MID and use the increased taxes for low income housing which is an idea but still doesn't show how the MID takes money from poor people. You have to argue in a round about way that MID artificially increases housing values which makes it harder for poor people to own houses. Ok maybe, but higher housing values also increases property taxes, where does that money go? Really the whole article should just be about how our tax system favors the rich. I don't see a reason to single out mortgages here.

Interest rates are so low right now that hardly anyone benefits from the MID or they benefit very little on its own, but in conjunction with other deductions like property tax, state income tax and charitable contributions, you can get above the standard. For 2016 mortgage interest was my largest deduction at something like 5k, but my itemized deductions as a whole were only about 2k higher than the standard. You take any one of those away and suddenly people have a lot less reason to contribute to charities. Or it just makes it more burdensome for a middle class family to do so. Many people will still donate their old stuff to charity rather than toss it with or without deductions, but a lot of people won't go through that hassle without some monetary incentive.

I'm absolutely all for capping the deduction, but you have to look at it as a whole against the tax picture, not just in a vacuum of one deduction.

Another thing is you need to look at the history of it. When it was passed mortgage interest rates were sky high so yes I really do think it went a long way towards making home ownership affordable. Today it's kind of laughable and not as needed. So maybe it's just an outdated law that needs and update.

But again, the tax system as a whole greatly favors the rich in the US, this is nothing new, nor is it likely to change any time soon. In before civver 764 links me a chart of what percentage of taxes the rich pay or something. Cus again it's all how you spin it. I get that someone making $12 an hour pays little or nothing in federal income taxes but they also only make 12 dollars an hour. do we really need or want to tax that guy?!

 

[civver_764]

The there's "hate", then that hate comes from the upper class that is upholding a society that is stacked against the people who are at the bottom.
The people at the bottom have no responsibility to play nice just to make sure they don't upset the people on the top.

Everybody has a responsibility for the energy they put out into the world. Hate does no good for anybody. You're assigning too much agency to the rich as if they're doing all this on purpose, as if they don't want poor people to succeed.

You can kill all the rich people but how does that help the poor people?

If not being thankful means their living conditions get worse, then, well the answer is a good old-fashioned revolution.

To flip this around, if being thankful is all it takes to improve your living conditions, then having a revolution seems downright insane.

I don't care if they're encouraged to do that or not. The good thing about democratic(ish) states is that, if they work properly, the few at the top have no say over the many at the bottom, so who cares whether they are encouraged to help people directly, they are forced to help the poor indirectly through taxes anyway.

Yes, you certainly can do that. Another aspect of democratic societies, is that you need to get people on board with your ideas. In America currently, there is a need to get more people on board with universal health care. Shaming these people is not helpful. If it were just the top 1% opposed, then this discussion wouldn't even be taking place.

Well that one could have worked if my argument had been that people must be utterly altruistic.

I simply took the attitude you had for the billionaire and applied it to you. What's the difference?

But again, the tax system as a whole greatly favors the rich in the US, this is nothing new, nor is it likely to change any time soon. In before civver 764 links me a chart of what percentage of taxes the rich pay or something. Cus again it's all how you spin it. I get that someone making $12 an hour pays little or nothing in federal income taxes but they also only make 12 dollars an hour. do we really need or want to tax that guy?!

I think it's more accurate to say that life favors the rich, but our tax system favors the poor.

 

[metalhead]

What I mean to say is, supply and demand explains pretty much all of this. People raise their children for free because they love their children, and this extends to relatives too. Other people need an extra incentive, and that is precisely why they get paid to do so. I don't see how that's arbitrary.

Because it is the exact same thing that is being done. If something has value to society, it has value regardless of the motivation for doing it. If someone loves their job, they don't get their paycheck seized on account of love. So the fact that a person is willing to raise a child or children because of love doesn't make any sense at all as a reason not to compensate someone for raising children.

I think if this were the case, rich people would essentially sponsor parents to create more children so they could reap the economic benefits. But you're not telling the whole story. There are many things that people bring which are not valuable. They drain public resources, they litter, they inflate the job market, they commit crimes, they consume natural resources. Honestly, I think the negatives outweigh the positives, especially if we're just incentivizing poor families to bring more children into poverty. There are more than enough biological incentives to create children, why do we need to add economic ones?

This is extremely silly. Societal benefits don't accumulate to specific people to the point they alone would pay for it. That's why it's societal, and why you socialize the cost.

Also, the potential down sides would similarly need to be mitigated by policy, so that argument is a total non-starter. You don't simply end it at strengthening the social safety net. Reforms to labor laws are integral. Ending poverty, or at least ending extreme poverty, and providing a society where people don't suffer for being poor likewise eliminates the potential issues with bringing kids into poverty.