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Forums - Politics Discussion - Are Democracy and economic equality fundamentally incompatible?

 

Are Democracy and economic equality fundamentally incompatible?

Yes 43 40.57%
 
No 40 37.74%
 
Its Grey. 22 20.75%
 
Total:105

It depends how you define incompatable.

Democracy and wealth equality totally could work.

However to that, general socialization would have to be different.

There were a number of communist communes that seemed to work for a short period of time and were democratic... because the people there more or less self selected a population in which that would work.

 

If people and culture was slolwy changed over time to be more collectivist, it totally could work.  Of course that's unlikely to happen, as populism generally leads to drastic moves which set back collectivist culture, as drastic moves end up being seen as an attack by other portions of the population. 



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BMaker11 said:
I don't think economic equality is achievable, period, in a capitalistic society. The largest thing I took from my senior Econ class (don't make fun of it! I did go on to go to Purdue) was that in order for there to be rich people, there must be poor people.

I've heard conservative pundits say "see, they think that if I make $100, that's $100 they can't get. But in actuality, we want to increase the amount of money for everyone". But that can't ever happen. Money is finite. There has to be, and will be, a difference in income in people. Because consumers control prices. Even if we all made the same amount of money, if I want an item more than the next guy, I'll pay more, meaning the supplier will have more money than he "should". That simple concept will eventually make a gap in income.

Not to mention that the moment everyone starts making even remotely similar wages across the board, there will be screams of socialism, and people will fall back on "why would I go through years of training to become a doctor when I can just work at McDonald's?"

Dude.  If that was the biggest thing you took from your senior econ class... you took nothing from your senior econ class... because I gurantee you they didn't teach you that.

 

Nobody thinks that money and wealth is finite.  Not even the most diehard Hayekians who want money tied to a gold standard.



Since some people are

- smarter
- better with money
- grow up with different cultural outlooks towards money
- more talented
- more industrious
- more driven and ambitious
- of more value to the economy
- spend money more wisely
- etc.

than others, I think the society in which everyone has the same amount of capital is an artificial one that is just entirely unrealistic.

For instance, I deserve much more money than most of you because of some of the above reasons :P



It's funny you look at things this way, because in South America the general feeling is that democracy could lead to a dictatorship of the majority, which in turn could lead to some for of artificial distribution of income. That's the very core of populism, and the natural consequence of the majority of people belonging to the low or middle class.

Even right-wing populism is related to some form of income distribution,  unless power is in the hands of hardcore technocrats who favor major companies.



 

 

 

 

 

haxxiy said:

It's funny you look at things this way, because in South America the general feeling is that democracy could lead to a dictatorship of the majority, which in turn could lead to some for of artificial distribution of income. That's the very core of populism, and the natural consequence of the majority of people belonging to the low or middle class.

Even right-wing populism is related to some form of income distribution,  unless power is in the hands of hardcore technocrats who favor major companies.

While that works short term, in the long term you usually end up with polticians who use their confiscatory powers to fatten up his allies until he can gain enough power to take over dictatorship style.

Like Mugabe for example, or Castro... or really any great "redistributive" politician who gained power.

Hugo Chavez actually being a pretty decent example in south america... he never got to the point of dictatorship, but his redistirbution found it's way in his allies pockets quite often.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/9993238/Venezuela-the-wealth-of-Chavez-family-exposed.html


Do give him credit though in that he at least redistributed some money to the people he said he would.

 

Even a backlash against inequality often finds it's way creating inequality.  It's sad but true.   Even if you had direct voting on every issue, you'd find the smart and Charismatic tricking others into voting for things that specifically enriched them.

 

A change in culture is all that will change inequality, otherwise there will always be people on the top.

 

Let alone, that even if you pay people the same there will be economic inequality, pay my friend and I the same and i'll be richer then him in a year because he'll spend most of it on frivelous stuff that's gone after a day.



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Kasz216 said:

It depends how you define incompatable.

Democracy and wealth equality totally could work.

However to that, general socialization would have to be different.

There were a number of communist communes that seemed to work for a short period of time and were democratic... because the people there more or less self selected a population in which that would work.

 

If people and culture was slolwy changed over time to be more collectivist, it totally could work.  Of course that's unlikely to happen, as populism generally leads to drastic moves which set back collectivist culture, as drastic moves end up being seen as an attack by other portions of the population. 


I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but the term "wealth" can mean different things to different people.  "Wealth" does not have to be an economic term.  It is mostly in the "modern" world that wealth is determined solely by economics.

As for the question at hand: I think the answers given definitely depend on what you think of human nature to begin with.  If you think that humans are naturally greedy, a democracy will never have economic equality.  Of course, there is the problem that democracy is pretty loosely defined.  



PDF said:
Kasz216 said:

It depends how you define incompatable.

Democracy and wealth equality totally could work.

However to that, general socialization would have to be different.

There were a number of communist communes that seemed to work for a short period of time and were democratic... because the people there more or less self selected a population in which that would work.

 

If people and culture was slolwy changed over time to be more collectivist, it totally could work.  Of course that's unlikely to happen, as populism generally leads to drastic moves which set back collectivist culture, as drastic moves end up being seen as an attack by other portions of the population. 


At the root of the question I mean: Incapable of existing together.   I am fine if you expand the thought and don't think so black and white though.  Making a case for likely hood for equality or inequality

 

People saying economic equality is not possible is not really answering the question.  I do not mean 100% equality, just whether democracy could work to make the world more economic equal or if that will never happen because they cannot really co exist for whatever reason.  Or it could happen but is unlikely for what ever reason

Well, the way you're putting it makes it subjective to the current status of the world (it seems).  To that, I say that it's possible and likely.  Democracies can certainly lead to more prosperity in the world and thus making other states more equal to each other.  In that sense, an economic equality can be gained (to a very limited degree).  It's also possible that the gap between the poor and rich in a poor authoritarian society to lessen if they become democratic.  

The real problem with this question is that it has become too subjective and vague.  Democracy can mean many things, and the United States itself is loosely considered a democracy (as a means to try to prevent tyranny of the majority and other democracy related issues).  This kind of question becomes really hard to answer because of it. 



Please clarify the definition of "Economic Equality".

If you mean "Everyone has the same economic capability", then that would be communism, and is not really compatible with Democracy.

If you mean "Everyone has access to the same potential for economic success", then I'd say that it's entirely compatible, and if the system is set up correctly, it will be the necessary outcome. But no democracy has been set up correctly, yet.

The key difference between the former and latter cases has to do with the difference between rewarding harder (or smarter, or more important, or more beneficial) work and treating everyone as equal independent of their contribution. Both are different from what we have right now, which is where economic capability is tied to parents' economic capability, social circumstances, etc. A kid in a poor family has far less chance to succeed than a kid in a rich family if both kids have the same skills, dedication, etc.



Aielyn said:
Please clarify the definition of "Economic Equality".

If you mean "Everyone has the same economic capability", then that would be communism, and is not really compatible with Democracy.

If you mean "Everyone has access to the same potential for economic success", then I'd say that it's entirely compatible, and if the system is set up correctly, it will be the necessary outcome. But no democracy has been set up correctly, yet.

The key difference between the former and latter cases has to do with the difference between rewarding harder (or smarter, or more important, or more beneficial) work and treating everyone as equal independent of their contribution. Both are different from what we have right now, which is where economic capability is tied to parents' economic capability, social circumstances, etc. A kid in a poor family has far less chance to succeed than a kid in a rich family if both kids have the same skills, dedication, etc.


How would one manage to make an economy and society where something like that would exist, though?  The amount of resources you would need would be high, and a type of authoritarian society (maybe even totalitarian) would be needed to create conditions for this kind of society, which is inherently non-democractic.  Also, who would determine what is actually more valuable between harder or smarter work, if both are equally beneficial?  There are many questions on how you would make this kind of "democracy" work.  There is also a question of the politics themselves, as they can have many indirect consequences on the economy and the "economic equality" of the state.



Kasz216 said:
BMaker11 said:
I don't think economic equality is achievable, period, in a capitalistic society. The largest thing I took from my senior Econ class (don't make fun of it! I did go on to go to Purdue) was that in order for there to be rich people, there must be poor people.

I've heard conservative pundits say "see, they think that if I make $100, that's $100 they can't get. But in actuality, we want to increase the amount of money for everyone". But that can't ever happen. Money is finite. There has to be, and will be, a difference in income in people. Because consumers control prices. Even if we all made the same amount of money, if I want an item more than the next guy, I'll pay more, meaning the supplier will have more money than he "should". That simple concept will eventually make a gap in income.

Not to mention that the moment everyone starts making even remotely similar wages across the board, there will be screams of socialism, and people will fall back on "why would I go through years of training to become a doctor when I can just work at McDonald's?"

Dude.  If that was the biggest thing you took from your senior econ class... you took nothing from your senior econ class... because I gurantee you they didn't teach you that.

 

Nobody thinks that money and wealth is finite.  Not even the most diehard Hayekians who want money tied to a gold standard.

That was literally a sentence that came out of my teacher's mouth. I took other things from the class, like supply and demand vs quantity supplied and quantity demanded, multipliers, the Keynesian economic model, and more. Based on concepts of basic economics, I learned a lot. But that one statement had the most impact.

If nobody think that money and wealth is finite, then that means people think money and wealth is infinite, and that's just false. There's only so many resources, so much labor, so many goods, etc. in the world at any given time. Technically you could make money "infinite" if you just kept printing it, but then the money would lose all value