Posted on 11/03/2015 1:58:51 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
We've been a fed a myth about heroic individuals -- and that allows the 1 percent to prosper at everyone's expense.
Americans have been deceived by the notion that individual desires preempt the needs of society; by the Ayn-Rand/Reagan/Thatcher aversion to government regulation; by the distorted image of 'freedom' as winner-take-all capitalism; by the assurance that the benefits of greed will spread downwards to everyone.
Our current capitalist-driven inequalities will only be rectified when people realize that a strong community makes successful individuals, not the other way around.
These are a few of the ways we would benefit with a social democracy:
1. The Super-Rich Wouldn't Make Our Decisions for Us
Decisions about higher education should be made by all of us, with public tax dollars allocated in a democratic fashion. But our tax dollars have gone away. The Reagan-era "government is the problem" attitude led to dramatic tax cuts and a resulting decline in government funding for public universities. Instead of paying for all the societal benefits heaped upon them, billionaires keep getting richer-just 14 individuals making more than the entire federal education budget two years in a row.
As a result, as noted by Larry Wittner, "campus administrators, faced with declining income, are increasingly inclined to accept funding from wealthy individuals and corporations that are reshaping higher education to serve their interests." The Koch brothers have spent millions funding universities and stipulating the kind of education that should be provided.
We're left with philanthropy instead of democracy. The philanthropists, not we the people, are beginning to make these vital decisions. Said Charles Koch: "I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington."
Education is not the only area where we're losing control. Bill Gates' contribution of $2 billion toward alternative energy solutions is admirable, but energy decisions should be made by society as a whole, with tax money, through our (well-chosen) representatives, and with the complementary support of private investors. Gates himself admits, "DARPA money is very well spent, and the basic-science money is very well spent. The government....should get about four times as much money as they do."
2. We Wouldn't Spend So Much Money on Security for Rich People
Nationally, we spend over $1 trillion per year on defense. Not just the half-trillion Pentagon budget, but another half-trillion for veterans affairs, homeland security, "contingency operations," and a variety of other miscellaneous military 'necessities.'
But that's not enough for the relative few at the top of our outrageously unequal society. The richest Americans build private fortresses to protect themselves from the rest of us, as they scoff at the notion of a 1950s-like progressive tax structure that would provide infrastructure funding for all of us.
3. We Wouldn't Give All the Credit for a Tech Product to One Person
In the extreme capitalist mind, Steve Jobs started with boxes of silicon and wires in a garage and fashioned the first iPhone. The reality is explained by Mariana Mazzucato: "Everything you can do with an iPhone was government-funded. From the Internet that allows you to surf the Web, to GPS that lets you use Google Maps, to touchscreen display and even the SIRI voice activated system-all of these things were funded by Uncle Sam through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), NASA, the Navy, and even the CIA."
That's true of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and every pharmaceutical CEO. They may be brilliant leaders, and they certainly deserve compensation for their roles, but the main accomplishment of each was to assemble the parts provided by years of public research.
4. Public Sentiment Would Prevail Over the Demands of Lobbyists
Society's needs are often ignored in our individual-oriented capitalist system. Over 90 percent favor laws on clean air and water, but Congress has proposed to weaken them. Over 90 percent want background checks for gun purchases, but the NRA constantly bullies over 200 million Americans.
5. Our Jobs Wouldn't Be Held Hostage in Tax Havens
The great majority of Americans-including many millionaires-want to end overseas tax loopholes for corporations. But Fortune 500 companies ignore the rights of the public. They owe more than $600 billion in taxes on their tax haven hoardings.
That's a job for all 8 million unemployed Americans, at the nation's median salary of $36,000. For two years.
But our greedy super-capitalist system allows much of society to be deprived of opportunities to work.
A Social Democracy
Social-oriented economic systems are not incompatible with small business entrepreneurship. In a social democracy, similar to those in Scandinavian countries, with elements of both capitalism and socialism intact, the worst abuses of a winner-take-all corporate-ruled system are avoided. The result is a land of opportunity. As Harvey J. Kaye put it, with supporting references to Thomas Paine, FDR, Martin Luther King, and Bernie Sanders, "Social democracy is 100 percent American."
Like Cruz reminded us, author is a Menshevik - ultimately a democratic centralist (majority rule, rights of the minority be damned) with Russia the prime example of how well that turns out (and Bernie is already condoning long lines for limited products).
It is selfish to want to steal other peoples money.
The most moral arguments for capitalism come from Ayn Rand.
“Free market selfishness” capialism! is thier fuel, with out it thier cause dies and so do they
Yes. Good point. Who are they going to rob once they have spent all the capitalists’ money?
Jan 2015:
“In Venezuela, a plunge in oil prices, the country’s main export, has turned a goods shortage problem into an unmitigated national disaster, but the tragedy seems lost on the country’s food minister, Yvan Jose Bello Rojas.
Venezuelans can wait in grocery-store lines for days to find products that may not even be on the shelves-this has been the case for over a year. But when a reporter asked Rojas if he ever waits in lines, he said:
“I’ve been in tons of lines. I went to my favorite sports team’s game this weekend, and I had to get in line to get a parking space. I got in line to buy my ticket. And then ... I made a line to get into the stadium. And you know what, I made a line to find my seat. And then you know what,” Bello finished with satisfaction, “I went to go buy an arepa [Venezuelan sandwich] ... and I had to wait in line there, too.”
Reporter Ana Vanessa Herrero then asked him about a woman she’d recently interviewed who was looking for diapers for two days and couldn’t find them.
“She’s exaggerating,” he said, “no one would wait in line for six days for anything,” he added, interrupting the chorus of reporters throwing out anecdotes to the contrary.
Earlier in the seven-minute interview Bello explained the shortage problem was not due to an unbalanced Venezuelan economy manipulated by government price regulation and bloated by government spending, but due to issues with distribution.
“The same people can’t just go and buy the same products every day,” Rojas said matter-of-factly, adding that one person couldn’t possibly buy one gallon of milk per day, for example, even if they had the money to do it. “More than anything [the shortage] is a distribution problem because if any government has done their homework on food, it’s this Bolivaran government.”...
http://www.businessinsider.com/venezuela-food-minister-dismiss-shortages-2015-1
Americans have been deceived by the notion that individual desires preempt the needs of society; by the Ayn-Rand/Reagan/Thatcher aversion to government regulation; by the distorted image of ‘freedom’ as winner-take-all capitalism;
What a crock! The “needs” of society are provided by individuals striving for their individual betterment. When the individual prospers, all of society prospers.
First, since it's an easy target, this guy is a college ‘teacher’. Universities with huge endowments (some over 30 billion dollars) are designated ‘tax free’, while paying administrators, deans, etc. salaries that are often into 7 figures. The communities in which they are located often have significant poverty, but the universities just don't pay taxes. So take the plank out of your own eye first would be a legitimate suggestion.
Second, it's not the ‘super rich’ who make our decisions for us as much as it is the super entitled and the super connected. This includes people like Nancy Pelosi, and Obama, and Harry Reid, and John McCain, and Boehner, and all of those who control what ‘news’ the rest of the populace hears - and what spin will be put on it, and those who decide what to teach at schools and universities - and what spin is put on it.
Third, ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ are just words, and clearly the ranks of the left are overflowing with hypocrisy in their attempts to crown themselves the champions of what these words are supposed to represent. Freedom is also a word, as is ‘wealth’. One could argue that being free to self-determine is the ultimate test of whether ones life is ‘fair’ or not, yet the policies you espouse suppress freedom, and suppress the ability of individuals to benefit from their own efforts.
If you want everyone to be equal, Paul, then give me equal time to speak to your students and rebut your points. Given me equal time to speak on the networks, or CSPAN and in front of Congress as the career politicians have. While you're at it, let's mandate that ‘instructors’ at all universities make the same salary as the university President. To be fair, you can base those salaries on hours worked.
Actually, the biggest hypocrisy of all from those who push the same stale concepts that you are pushing, is that ultimately you are pushing the suppression of the individual, and the suppression of the rights of individual citizens to distinguish their lives and find meaning in their lives in their own way. All the while, you support those individuals in government, and the media, and the entertainment industry who distinguish themselves by their titles, and their ‘soapboxes’ from which they tell the rest of us how to live. Try addressing a President, or Senator, or Congressman by their first name instead of their title. Try calling a judge by their first name instead of ‘your honor’. Their positions are a form of ‘wealth’, and is part of their compensation. The left lives on hierarchy as much or more than anyone else in society, and have no claim whatsoever on ‘fairness’ or ‘equality’.
Try using the definition that ‘equality’ is the equal right of individuals to self-determine. Oh, and please send us your tax return so that we can see just how ‘fair’ individuals like yourself live their lives.
Yes. Thank you. You said in a sentence what I tried to say with many more words.
The man’s head is f’ed up.
bttt
Wow, people actually buy that!?
Being Godless sure does put one in the dark.
Another fartbag who does a far better job demonstrating his ignorance about Ayn Rand and her philosophy than deconstructing it.
Yes but that’s too much work. for the Left it’s all about the socialism and redistribution of (someone else’s) wealth.
very good, thanks for sharing
I believe Obamacare is a great example of the effects of socialism.. Many people have dropped out of the workforce (at 35-yr lows) so they can qualify for Medicaid. The alternative is to get a job and pay sky-high premiums for a plan with high deductibles.
Rand ping. This is an anti-Rand article that pits Bernie Sanders against Rand as the prophet of the future.
The word “idiocy” has a synonym, “Salon”.
NO recognition that some, if not most, of the country’s most prestigious colleges were founded with funding by religious organizations (Princeton, Northwestern, Syracuse) or very wealthy individuals (think Stanford and Duke)
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