Are Democracy and economic equality fundamentally incompatible?

[Mr Khan]

Kasz216 said:

 

BMaker11 said:

To compare right now to the past is meaningless, in the little social experiment the OP has brought up. Sure, relative to 20 or 100 years ago, we have more wealth, goods, etc. A lot more people can eat, have shelter, etc. than 100 years ago. But relative to right now, it's still finite. There are "only so many goods" and "only so many resources" right now. Resources will never exceed our wants and needs (scarcity). And because of that, we have to compete for them. And since those resources are limited, at some point, the fact that I was able to obtain said resource results in someone else not being able to obtain it. If I have something (1) and another person doesn't (0), well, 1 does not equal 0. If we aren't equal then we are unequal.

edit: and please don't take this as me wanting there to be perfect economic equality. I don't think we should. It's good to have income inequality. If you work hard, become skilled, and work a difficult job, you should be compensated more than someone mopping floors. Is the income gap in the US large? Yes, and I would like it to shrink because it's ridiculous, but at the same time, we shouldn't all make the same amount of money either. I'm just defending my point that economic equality doesn't exist in capitalism.

Well sure it does.  First off if that is true... it wouldn't make sense to vote down future economic gains for a slight equaling out now.

It's really just a matter if you believe marx's perspective on people or not.

He thought "Most people don't care about how big or small their houses are, only how big or small their neighbors houses are."

Me... I don't feel like that, and i'd like to think most other people don't too...

 

given the choice between living the same  or similar life as someone else, or an uneven life where i'm worse off then them... but still have more stuff....

 

I take the second scenario any day of the week.

One must recall that Marx believed that the old middle class (the Petite Bourgouesie, small shop owners and tradesmen) would be completely eliminated by the capitalist class and that the new middle class as we know them would never emerge. His thought was that capitalist society would be almost entirely the super-rich or the squalid laboring masses, eventually.