Are Democracy and economic equality fundamentally incompatible?

[Michael-5]

sc94597 said:

Michael-5 said:

I don't relate communism and socialism. Communists claim they are socialist when they are corrupt. True socialism has people of different worth earn different, I guess "rewards levels"?

Marx stated that communism can only be reached through the transition of capitalism to socialism and then to communism. Most socialists today are marxists. Therefore a relation exists, whether you like it or not. 

As for economic equality, if there are two people with one working significantly more then the other, how is it equal that they get paid the same? What you're referring to as economic equality is communism, not socialism.

It's still economic equality. In fact, it's the ONLY definition of economic equality. It's not fair, but its still equal. EQUAL means they have the same economic power. 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

"a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional betweencapitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communism

a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

For passing on money to children, that's the issue most people who have money didn't work for it. One guy hundreds of years ago settles in USA/Canada earlier then most, and hoarded as much land and cheap labour as he could, and gave that money to his distant grandchildren over time. Who's to say we can't give excess money to our distant relatives? Well I'm saying it now, hoarding money is bad for the economy, and I wish we taxed Inheritance extensively. If you worked hard and made a lot of money, yes you should be allowed to give a lot of it to your children, but there should be laws on money (aka power) abuse.

Now you're changing your opinion on this. Before you said, "The big difference is that in a socialistic society, you can't pass on your "value" to your next of kin, when you die it does with you" So now it is alright, as long as somebody worked for it? Alright, how do we determine whether or not they worked for it? Who determines that? The collective or the individual? If the first, then it is indeed contradictory to economic freedom. Just as a collective deciding whether gays should have rights or not is contradictory to social freedom. 

As for Free-Market Trade, there are many forms of socialism which allow a free-market trade. Having a socialist economy does not mean a ban on free market trade. Any Self-Managed Socialist Economy such as market, cooperative or socialist market socialism openly welcomes free-market trade.

Socialism means that the means of production is owned collectively. That means the individual is outright denied the right to own the means of production, privately. THAT IS NOT A FREE MARKET. Regulations on human economic activity is NOT A FREE MARKET. 

Again, even in your definition of socialism, nowhere does it say it's not a free-market economy.

It's not my definition, it's the Miriam-Webster's, Stanford's, and Oxford's dictionaries definitions. We don't pick and choose what these words mean, they have a meaning independent of our beliefs. State socialism is contradictory to a free-market. Provide an example of a free-market economy that can also be called socialist. 

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That said, I still think Capitalism is the best system, but it's far from perfect. I'm very left wing, I think everything should be taxed, and taxes should grow exponentially with income (so at a certain point, very little extra income you earn can be kept).

How is that morally justifiable? Like you said, it is "earned." 

That's fine if a relationship between socialism and communism exist, but when I mentioned.......what are we even arguing about now anyway.

Look all I'm saying is the accumulation of wealth is a bad thing. It's a big flaw in the capitalistic economy, and one of the pro's of socialism. I'm not saying let's flip our economy over and switch systems, I was only saying that Capitalism is flawed, like every economic system.

I still think Capitilism can promote economic equality, but like you (i think) I'm not a communist. If you work harder, you deserve more, simple. What's economically equal IMO (maybe there is a definition that states something else) is people getting paid proportionatly to what they deserve. People born rich don't deserve to be rewarded more, and hence with a pure form of Capitalism (one that doesn't have taxation on the rich), you can't obtain true economic equality.

I'm fine with people earning money and wishing to give it to their children, that is after all why they spent so much time working. However I disagree with the children being able to recieve the money without taxation. They didn't work for the money, they didn't earn it, so why are they rewarded? I didn't change my opinion, I still think the children should be taxed on recieving the money.

As for your definition of economic equality, again what you quoted is irrelevant. Here is a definition I found, which supports my arguement 

Economic equality refers to a situation where the economy in which the apportionment of resources or goods among the people is considered fair. This can be inform of citizens having a basic and equal minimum of income and also increased funds with a commitment for redistribution.

Thus, people who work more, earn more, and that's equal. Does this coincide with democracy? Of course it does! People elect political leaders in order to pass lass baised off public interests. The problem is, to run for counsel you need a lot of money, so the laws which are passed now tend to favour the rich (Mitt Romney was a prime example, he wanted to pass laws to make him richer).