Why Capitalists feel Capitalism is best for all.

[fmc83]

TheRealMafoo said:

@fmc83

1. You said:
"Here starts the problem: You assume, that they'll all be happy about a wage reduce and are not interested to make more money."

I didn't completely follow you there. that's the opposite of my point. Can you explain in a different way?

Hm, I'll try: If they are paid the same and the surplus of the restaurant gets down, they get paid less. The question is: will they accept less money or not? My shot was: No, they wouldn't. If four out of the five managers wanted more money, they wouldn't accept the fifth to be lazy. They would put some good pressure on him and they would work harder. But the problem with this is (and the reason why the communist models tried out didn't work): no matter how hard you would've worked there you wouldn't get less or more money. Always the same amount, so no sense in working hard. But I was saying, that your example could work in a more socialist society with still motivating elements.

 

2. You said"
"So how can you prevent that? Taxes. The more you earn, the more you pay."

I agree, but I think if you want to do that and protect your liberties, you make a flat tax. If I make 10 times more then you, I pay 10 times more in taxes. Most tax dollars when spent on salaries, go to lower income workers. If that income is being collected more from the rich with a flat tax, your doing what you want to do, just at a lower rate then you might like. What you gain for the lower rate, is equality, which I think is worth the loss.

A better way to state it however, is I don't think government has the right to increase it, even if they thought it was better. That's what our constitution was there to protect. It's not now being followed (it hasn't for some time).

 

Well you probably know much more about your constitution that I, as a foreigner, know, but wasn't the whole point of it to prevent foreign nations of getting your taxes and that the constitutional fathers had no problem to pay taxes if they would benefit from them again?

About the flat tax: We had a huge political discussion in Germany about that before the last election, and I still haven't totally made up my mind about that. (It funwise nearly costed the conservatives the election and the social democrats nearly caught up because of this) but I reckon atm, that this leads to an even bigger difference between people, because the richest become even faster even richer than they are now, but as I said, if this problem is solved, I might become a fan of it.

 

3. You said:
"And naturally they don't want to loose it and wouldn't 7 $ not even be better? So they start to build hurdles: Education, social circles etc. You doubt that?"

I do not doubt that the natural order of man is to take everything he can get away with. That's why our liberties are so important. laws in this country should protect all people from those that wish to harm them. That can be done though regulation of companies to keep the rich from taking advantage of the poor. In the beginning, we took great advantage of minorities, and women. Today, from a legal standpoint, it's over. You can not legally deny a black, or woman a job, a vote, a place to live, or access to education. These are laws he had to put into place to better protect people from greed.

The problem is, no one is protecting the rich from the poor today. Today, every program that is passed to support the poor that is completely expected to be paid for by the rich is an example of the problem that you point out. Greed has made the rich an easy target. Government is suposed to protect people from that type of behavior, not perpectuate it.

Well, the richest don't need as much protection as the poor, because the richest won't die of hunger and won't start to attack everybody else in desperation. As well they are protected, otherwise, how the hell could they get rich, if they wouldn't have any protection. And sorry, in the US the taxation for the richest was way more lowered then the taxes for the middle class in the last years. But basically not the richest (which could afford it), but the middle class pays the most taxes.

 

Sorry about my late reply on this, I've been quite busy the last couple of days and this thread went on^^