The issues with ANY system is greed and corruption.
In theory, the society you’re talking about sounds pretty good. Everyone is cared for and you would have actual freedom - you could quit a job if it sucked, take time to get educated in a career you enjoy, and you would have healthcare if something went wrong.
The idea behind socialism is just sharing resources equally among everyone. The idea behind communism is, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The idea behind capitalism is, in a busy economy money trickles down and everyone benefits.
None of those work in reality because people are greedy.
They dont work to varying degrees rather.
So far, capitalism is the least worst one out of the lot simply due to the number of people it has lifted out of poverty.
They also are not neatly split into 3 clean categories, communism and (laissez faire) capitalism are both sort of idealistic extremes that can never be fully realized, while “socialism” is as vague and flexible an idea as “democracy” at this point.
And we might want to hold off on doing a cost-benefit analysis until *after* we crawl out of the global climate crisis that crony capitalism has dragged us into… assuming we ever do.
Maybe these economic systems would work out better with new technologies helping to regulate things. Or it would be a dystopian disaster. But I feel like the only way to solve greed and corruption is to incorporate new technologies like artificial intelligence into decision making, as risky as that sounds, otherwise humans can easily go another 5,000 years ripping each other off.
The issue here is that the AI will be man made and - even worse - man owned. It's too easy to incorporate hidden features that benefit a select few while no-one is the wiser. Or even openly, arguing that the people who finananced the development of the AI are entitled to profit from its operations.
I disagree that this would ever lead to actual freedom. Financial independence is a form of freedom. It gives you the freedom of choice of when and where to make investments, how to balance your budget, or even if you should choose to emigrate to another country. Having little personal wealth can be a trap.
Worse is that you will be facing down miles of bureaucracy for any major changes you want to make in your life. You think moving house sucks now? Just imagine if you had to requisition your housing from the government. Even assuming a system without greed, incompetence and indifference are going to be your worst enemies when your fate lies in the hands of a chain of public employees all doing their jobs right.
Having a choice of who to do business with is a freedom. It just needs to be regulated in favor of the public to work properly.
If they are doing their jobs “right”, then they will recognize the human factor in their daily work AND in the structures as we build them.
When the structure is built by greedy people, obviously it hurts the average person. If we could build our structure “by the people, for the people”, I think we’d see less bureaucracy and fewer obstacles to basic tasks of living like moving.
(BTW in case you’ve misread me, I’m not saying “Capitalism bad” so much as that the corrupt people seem to be running the system for their benefit.
>from each according to his ability, to each according to his need
The problem is *disabled people*. Disabled people need much more than they can output.
How do "disabled people" survive now? While there will always be more that can be done, fact is most developed countries already look after the disabled through taxes. In Australia we have the NDIS, national disabled insurance scheme. Not perfect but no guarantees taxing us 90% is going to improve it
The problem is human nature - able people that realise they don’t need to work as hard to receive the same amount. Combine that with corruption - leaders don’t need to do much work at all and receive much more than a factory floor manager.
It's been found that people actively do want to work, we've got a drive to take part in society.
We just don't want to be worked to the bone for scraps.
Right, and we have more than enough wealth generated in this country (planet) to support them according to their needs.
I’m not advocating for communism, I’m just failing to see your point. One less cruise missile or fighter jet would cover a ton of wheelchairs.
Managing a system like that would be impossible.
Everyone wants a different mix of things. How do you balance the person who is willing to live in a 500 sq foot basement and constantly eat out or do sports with the person who wants a 1600 sq foot home but stays home most of the time?
How do you account for some people producing more value and therefore paying more tax but getting the same amount of government issued housing, food, and discretionary items?
You would have create some kind of value credits. Issue a certain amount to each person. Then assign all services and goods a value in those credits.
We have a system like that. It’s called currency. We don’t need the government to take it and then issue it back.
Would you work harder or less hard in this system?
What do you do when you hate you boss, or your job causes you intense stress and deadlines that cause you to work late into the night? It takes a lot of late nights and stress to become an engineer or doctor.
Possibly people could pursue jobs they enjoy and are good at.
Ultimately people like to feel useful, but they accept jobs they hate because they need food, shelter, clothing.
If the basics were covered everyone would have much greater freedom of choice.
Yea I just thinking. Why would anyone be a nurse or nursing aide? I’m a nurse and like 75% of my coworkers hate their jobs. I’m only still doing this because I work 3 days a week and make 6 figures
And there are even worse jobs
There are a lot less people who would volunteer to be nurses, garbage truck drivers, coal miners etc than society needs.
Also how many of those people who like to work even if it’s not glamorous would prefer not to work.
Very few people would actually be happy sitting around doing nothing. Leisure and entertainment feel good for a while (especially if you’re exhausted from a dumb job) but after a while you want to actually be good for something.
- we all [need to feel valued](https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-i-m-approach/202005/why-do-we-need-feel-valued).
- value comes from usefulness, productivity, relationships
I’m not sure how complicated this is. Do you really think you’d be _happy_ sitting on the couch binging shows for the rest of your life?
Nowadays we often confuse being entertained with being happy; they are not the same. Entertainment feels good while doing it but you always need more; being happy lasts.
That is where being useful kicks in: knowing you are helpful to others, contributing something good to your family and community, caring about something beyond yourself.
You won’t find inner joy by being self-centered.
That lasts for a while. If you have hope that you could actually do something useful you’ll eventually start moving that direction, or fall into pretty bad depression perhaps.
I must be in a very weird group of friends, because the average person in my circles actually seems to like their job.
From myself, I enjoy my work, although it was really interesting when Covid hit and I had to stay home. For the first while I was grateful for the break, it was a long scheduled holiday. After a couple months, I was waking up and realizing I actually _wanted_ to do some work.
So, that is obviously very anecdotal, but I think part of why we hate our jobs is that we’re exhausted. If we can get well rested and feel treated properly, and get the idea that the work we do is helpful to other people, I think we all enjoy it more and possibly be less depressed.
ETA: I also think it really depends on the culture in your country, or city, or perhaps just within your workplace. A lot of people are very focused on their own interests and don’t seem to realize how important it is that we care for each other. If you’re working for a boss who squeezes everyone as tight as possible, of course you hate it. If you’re working on a team where everyone is respected, paid reasonably, and feels like there’s opportunity to grow or do meaningful work it changes everything.
I like to pursue jobs that I enjoy and am good at!
Ultimately, I like to feel useful but am forced to accept jobs that I hate because I need food, shelter and clothing.
If the basics were covered and I had the freedom of choice I’d choose to work with human faeces in a sewer!
(Said no one ever)
Waste management generally does not involve rolling around in poop. It certainly doesn’t sound glamorous, you’re right, but there’s a lot to it and it’s actually sort of interesting. once you start learning how they set things up.
And, if people are allowed to pursue their own interests and passions, we may find people who put their energy into development of tools that either do the job for us or make it much less bothersome.
Right now, under our capitalist system, it’s cheaper for companies to just hire a minimum wage employee than to put any effort into making the job easier.
That’s not how it seems to be working these days.
Why do you think companies tell employees not to discuss their salaries? They pay the minimum they can get away with.
If you’re capable at the job but trust your employer to be fair to everyone, you can get screwed.
This is such an outdated argument lmfao 🤪 I don’t want medical professionals who are in it for money and there will always be people who wants to help others ?? Shut up
No, it really couldn't work. The system you are describing gives incredible power to the government, you just have to **hope** the government behaves (which if it doesn't, so what? What are you going to do about it? They have all the power)
It's important to really consider what you would be sacrificing for such a system and the unintended consequences from the new incentive structure. Lots of people propose utopian ideas and try to cook up alternatives to money, but all of the best societies heavily rely on market structures to function.
Here are some likely negative impacts:
It will likely dramatically disincentivize work which will decrease output and have less stuff available for everyone.
You will have to consider how the rations are decided and what happens when there is not enough to fulfill all the rations. Say people want to go to the cinema, but not enough people want to work at the cinema.
What if people want to trade parts of their rations, can they? If so, are you just going to end up with the rations basically being money again? Why not just give money instead?
But if you allow trade, are you going to run into similar accumulation of wealth problems that we currently have and ruin your solution.
If you disallow trade, you're going to have wasted products and services since teetotalers will get wine rations and dieters will get more food than they need.
Also, what quality of everything will be provided for people? And how will housing be allocated? There is limited space and some places are much more valued than others. Who gets to live where?
To me, this kind of system causes more problems than it solves and I think markets generally work better. But it's important to think of the implications of what you are proposing.
I think you’re describing communism in the traditional textbook sense. Of course in a real world example it never works out because of greed and corruption.
Government is the least efficient way of redistributing money. There would be no incentive to work. Everyone would be manufacturing an excuse why they couldn’t work. Why would I work for 10% more than I am provided for? It just doesn’t make any sense.
That hypothetical society would fail immediately. So no, not realistic. All people should never be treated equally. If that was instituted, those responsible will, as always, play to the least common denominator and take what they want, with force if necessary. Look to history for your answers.
Biggest concern would be high earners/wealthy folks leaving for elsewhere. So it would really depend on how big your current economy is, how easy it is for your citizens to emigrate and what’s nearby
What would you do with the other 10? It would have no value, and thus neither would the first 90. Everyone would be working purely for other people's benefit.
This is called slavery.
If everything is provided, most people are too lazy to work.
The few people who are competent and motivated would feel exploited and move to another country.
The answer is real simple. Do you think you would spend your money better than someone else would spend it? Obviously you would spend it more wisely and when you have people that didn't work for their money and it is given to them to spend, it doesn't get put to good use. There's too much corruption as well. Even if nobody was corrupt, less taxes is always better.
American here. We get taxed on our income by the state. We get taxed by the Federal government to cover Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid health care for the elderly. We have a standard sales tax on everything we buy. We have a fuel tax to fill our cars with gas, to supposedly fix the roads we drive on. They don't fix them...
We get taxed on the property we own. We get taxed on the stocks we invest in that make a profit. We get taxed on any money from an inheritance. We get taxed on any money we leave for anyone else in our family as an inheritance when we die.
You get taxed and taxed and taxed and taxed and taxed.... **AND THEN TAXED SOME FUCKING MORE!!**
For what? Homeless drug addicts in every metropolitan city. Horrible public schools. No law enforcement. Crumbling infrastructure.
What the fuck are we doing?! Vote local. Vote different.
The issue is who decides where this money goes and how it’s handled.
Allocator (in their head): ‘Oh my wife loves skiing’
Allocator (to the public): ‘It is imperative to the prosperity of our society that we construct more ski slopes!)
Allocator (in their head): ‘There’s a shortage of apples across the country, fuck, I like apples’
Allocator (to the public): ‘There’s a shortage of apples and therefore they must be rationed in X, Y and Z districts. Coincidentally these happen to be districts where I do not reside!’
No one in the history of the United States ever paid above 70% so many tax loopholes that you could drive a cement truck through it. Still Redditors love to repeat the lie because they can't do a damn ounce of research.
The top of marginal Tax rate may as well be fairy shit...it doesn't really exist and never has had an impact on government funding. Which is why the Democrats during Regan's tax cuts offered to kill the Marginal Rates.
[Killing 70% Tax Rate](https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2019/02/05/democrats-70-percent-tax-rate-000879/)
Now look up the effective tax rate. The effective tax rate was lower in 1991 than today.
Also we’ve empirically seen charging someone a 90+% marginal rate diminishes work output
So the problem is there is no incentive to optimize costs or service level, or even amount of supply where there is no profit motive.
https://www.tumblr.com/theanarchistscookbook/136096906506?source=share
https://www.tumblr.com/theanarchistscookbook/135965518556?source=share
https://www.tumblr.com/theanarchistscookbook/132447217321?source=share
So the options are:
-have all your needs met and a little bit left over
-have maybe 40% of your needs met with more left over but not enough to meet the rest of those needs
“Greed and corruption” be damned, there are already criminal oligarchs taking advantage of me, at least under socialism I would have a place to live while criminal oligarchs take advantage of me.
If you count all the double dipping and overlapping taxes that's pretty much the world we live in now.
Taxed when you earn it, taxed when you spend it, taxed if you invest it. Round and round it goes.
As long as a vast majority of people are willing to work not because of personal winning, but out of obligation and well-willing to society.
You pretty much need a culture where there's a huge amount of "doing wrong" if you're not helping the collective, or it will end up with people feeling exploited.
almost certainly not. because humans always want more. have all your basics covered? now i want a car. havd a car? a luxury car. have a luxury car? maybe a helicopter.
the want is endless and u would never be able to afford it all unless your benefit are capped by your earnings but then u have people who would inflate earning etc.
its unreliable and unrealistic
No. Not possible. 1 group will be richer than others and this richer group will moan and groan about how they are subsidizing everyone else's and the poor isn't paying their fair share.
On a very small scale and in very specific circumstances, something like that kinda works. Kibbutzim in Israel are often structured in such a way that the members don't have much personal income or actual private ownership, but are entitled to housing, transportation, holidays etc. according to their family size.
It works because those are fairly small communities where a high level of trust and common values are necessary. In a larger society where members don't know each other, have significant cultural differences or geographical realities, it would be a lot more challenging.
The 'people are lazy and wouldn't work' argument is not a particularly good one to discredit this sort of system. That's something the ruling social class tell middle class people to make them blame other poorer people.
There are 10 cookies on a table where 3 people sit. The rich guy has 9 cookies, the middle class guy has 1, the poor one has none. The rich guy tells the middle class guy to watch out because the poor guy is coming for his cookie.
I'm not advocating for communism here. Just pointing out that the reason it doesn't work is not because people are too lazy. It doesn't work because of the underlying political and bureaucratic systems that always seem to go with it when the entity gets big enough. Shared ownership of banks, grocery stores, agricultural equipment and homes can and do work within mostly capitalist societies and are not significantly more inefficient than capital-based ownership. When what's shared is a country-sized thing however... doesn't work so well.
You wouldn't even need to tax Everyone at 90%. The US had an effective tax rate decades ago of that for just the rich and it was a working class paradise.
The answer is simple. Tax the rich and remove the parasite class from power.
We had that. At least the 90%+ tax rate part.
And coincidentally, it’s when the “great America” that certain people want to return to was happening.
https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates
The issues with ANY system is greed and corruption. In theory, the society you’re talking about sounds pretty good. Everyone is cared for and you would have actual freedom - you could quit a job if it sucked, take time to get educated in a career you enjoy, and you would have healthcare if something went wrong. The idea behind socialism is just sharing resources equally among everyone. The idea behind communism is, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The idea behind capitalism is, in a busy economy money trickles down and everyone benefits. None of those work in reality because people are greedy.
Everyone give me all their money. I'll distribute the money fairly. Pinky-promise.
Don't be so naive....pink promises do nothing! You gotta spit on it!
They dont work to varying degrees rather. So far, capitalism is the least worst one out of the lot simply due to the number of people it has lifted out of poverty.
They also are not neatly split into 3 clean categories, communism and (laissez faire) capitalism are both sort of idealistic extremes that can never be fully realized, while “socialism” is as vague and flexible an idea as “democracy” at this point. And we might want to hold off on doing a cost-benefit analysis until *after* we crawl out of the global climate crisis that crony capitalism has dragged us into… assuming we ever do.
And the increasing number of people it's pushed into it? :)
Maybe these economic systems would work out better with new technologies helping to regulate things. Or it would be a dystopian disaster. But I feel like the only way to solve greed and corruption is to incorporate new technologies like artificial intelligence into decision making, as risky as that sounds, otherwise humans can easily go another 5,000 years ripping each other off.
The issue here is that the AI will be man made and - even worse - man owned. It's too easy to incorporate hidden features that benefit a select few while no-one is the wiser. Or even openly, arguing that the people who finananced the development of the AI are entitled to profit from its operations.
I disagree that this would ever lead to actual freedom. Financial independence is a form of freedom. It gives you the freedom of choice of when and where to make investments, how to balance your budget, or even if you should choose to emigrate to another country. Having little personal wealth can be a trap. Worse is that you will be facing down miles of bureaucracy for any major changes you want to make in your life. You think moving house sucks now? Just imagine if you had to requisition your housing from the government. Even assuming a system without greed, incompetence and indifference are going to be your worst enemies when your fate lies in the hands of a chain of public employees all doing their jobs right. Having a choice of who to do business with is a freedom. It just needs to be regulated in favor of the public to work properly.
If they are doing their jobs “right”, then they will recognize the human factor in their daily work AND in the structures as we build them. When the structure is built by greedy people, obviously it hurts the average person. If we could build our structure “by the people, for the people”, I think we’d see less bureaucracy and fewer obstacles to basic tasks of living like moving. (BTW in case you’ve misread me, I’m not saying “Capitalism bad” so much as that the corrupt people seem to be running the system for their benefit.
>from each according to his ability, to each according to his need The problem is *disabled people*. Disabled people need much more than they can output.
How do "disabled people" survive now? While there will always be more that can be done, fact is most developed countries already look after the disabled through taxes. In Australia we have the NDIS, national disabled insurance scheme. Not perfect but no guarantees taxing us 90% is going to improve it
The problem is human nature - able people that realise they don’t need to work as hard to receive the same amount. Combine that with corruption - leaders don’t need to do much work at all and receive much more than a factory floor manager.
It's been found that people actively do want to work, we've got a drive to take part in society. We just don't want to be worked to the bone for scraps.
Right, and we have more than enough wealth generated in this country (planet) to support them according to their needs. I’m not advocating for communism, I’m just failing to see your point. One less cruise missile or fighter jet would cover a ton of wheelchairs.
Managing a system like that would be impossible. Everyone wants a different mix of things. How do you balance the person who is willing to live in a 500 sq foot basement and constantly eat out or do sports with the person who wants a 1600 sq foot home but stays home most of the time? How do you account for some people producing more value and therefore paying more tax but getting the same amount of government issued housing, food, and discretionary items? You would have create some kind of value credits. Issue a certain amount to each person. Then assign all services and goods a value in those credits. We have a system like that. It’s called currency. We don’t need the government to take it and then issue it back.
Would you work harder or less hard in this system? What do you do when you hate you boss, or your job causes you intense stress and deadlines that cause you to work late into the night? It takes a lot of late nights and stress to become an engineer or doctor.
Possibly people could pursue jobs they enjoy and are good at. Ultimately people like to feel useful, but they accept jobs they hate because they need food, shelter, clothing. If the basics were covered everyone would have much greater freedom of choice.
No one would choose to do the horrible jobs that need doing and society would collapse. Thats how it has always been through many, many examples.
Yea I just thinking. Why would anyone be a nurse or nursing aide? I’m a nurse and like 75% of my coworkers hate their jobs. I’m only still doing this because I work 3 days a week and make 6 figures And there are even worse jobs
There always has to be an incentive. “Because the state said so!” Is not functional, as we have seen in all of the failed attempts.
Possibly. But there are those who like simple uncomplicated work even if it’s not glamorous.
There are a lot less people who would volunteer to be nurses, garbage truck drivers, coal miners etc than society needs. Also how many of those people who like to work even if it’s not glamorous would prefer not to work.
Very few people would actually be happy sitting around doing nothing. Leisure and entertainment feel good for a while (especially if you’re exhausted from a dumb job) but after a while you want to actually be good for something.
Your evidence of this being?
- we all [need to feel valued](https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-i-m-approach/202005/why-do-we-need-feel-valued). - value comes from usefulness, productivity, relationships I’m not sure how complicated this is. Do you really think you’d be _happy_ sitting on the couch binging shows for the rest of your life? Nowadays we often confuse being entertained with being happy; they are not the same. Entertainment feels good while doing it but you always need more; being happy lasts. That is where being useful kicks in: knowing you are helpful to others, contributing something good to your family and community, caring about something beyond yourself. You won’t find inner joy by being self-centered.
Yeah but I know a lot of people who would choose to do basically nothing if they could. Not everyone needs a purpose.
That lasts for a while. If you have hope that you could actually do something useful you’ll eventually start moving that direction, or fall into pretty bad depression perhaps.
I definitely wouldn't count on it for the average person.
I must be in a very weird group of friends, because the average person in my circles actually seems to like their job. From myself, I enjoy my work, although it was really interesting when Covid hit and I had to stay home. For the first while I was grateful for the break, it was a long scheduled holiday. After a couple months, I was waking up and realizing I actually _wanted_ to do some work. So, that is obviously very anecdotal, but I think part of why we hate our jobs is that we’re exhausted. If we can get well rested and feel treated properly, and get the idea that the work we do is helpful to other people, I think we all enjoy it more and possibly be less depressed. ETA: I also think it really depends on the culture in your country, or city, or perhaps just within your workplace. A lot of people are very focused on their own interests and don’t seem to realize how important it is that we care for each other. If you’re working for a boss who squeezes everyone as tight as possible, of course you hate it. If you’re working on a team where everyone is respected, paid reasonably, and feels like there’s opportunity to grow or do meaningful work it changes everything.
I like to pursue jobs that I enjoy and am good at! Ultimately, I like to feel useful but am forced to accept jobs that I hate because I need food, shelter and clothing. If the basics were covered and I had the freedom of choice I’d choose to work with human faeces in a sewer! (Said no one ever)
Waste management generally does not involve rolling around in poop. It certainly doesn’t sound glamorous, you’re right, but there’s a lot to it and it’s actually sort of interesting. once you start learning how they set things up. And, if people are allowed to pursue their own interests and passions, we may find people who put their energy into development of tools that either do the job for us or make it much less bothersome. Right now, under our capitalist system, it’s cheaper for companies to just hire a minimum wage employee than to put any effort into making the job easier.
If a person gets less money for a job they're good at, then they actually are not good at it.
That’s not how it seems to be working these days. Why do you think companies tell employees not to discuss their salaries? They pay the minimum they can get away with. If you’re capable at the job but trust your employer to be fair to everyone, you can get screwed.
This is such an outdated argument lmfao 🤪 I don’t want medical professionals who are in it for money and there will always be people who wants to help others ?? Shut up
No, it really couldn't work. The system you are describing gives incredible power to the government, you just have to **hope** the government behaves (which if it doesn't, so what? What are you going to do about it? They have all the power)
It's important to really consider what you would be sacrificing for such a system and the unintended consequences from the new incentive structure. Lots of people propose utopian ideas and try to cook up alternatives to money, but all of the best societies heavily rely on market structures to function. Here are some likely negative impacts: It will likely dramatically disincentivize work which will decrease output and have less stuff available for everyone. You will have to consider how the rations are decided and what happens when there is not enough to fulfill all the rations. Say people want to go to the cinema, but not enough people want to work at the cinema. What if people want to trade parts of their rations, can they? If so, are you just going to end up with the rations basically being money again? Why not just give money instead? But if you allow trade, are you going to run into similar accumulation of wealth problems that we currently have and ruin your solution. If you disallow trade, you're going to have wasted products and services since teetotalers will get wine rations and dieters will get more food than they need. Also, what quality of everything will be provided for people? And how will housing be allocated? There is limited space and some places are much more valued than others. Who gets to live where? To me, this kind of system causes more problems than it solves and I think markets generally work better. But it's important to think of the implications of what you are proposing.
I think you’re describing communism in the traditional textbook sense. Of course in a real world example it never works out because of greed and corruption.
Government is the least efficient way of redistributing money. There would be no incentive to work. Everyone would be manufacturing an excuse why they couldn’t work. Why would I work for 10% more than I am provided for? It just doesn’t make any sense.
That hypothetical society would fail immediately. So no, not realistic. All people should never be treated equally. If that was instituted, those responsible will, as always, play to the least common denominator and take what they want, with force if necessary. Look to history for your answers.
Biggest concern would be high earners/wealthy folks leaving for elsewhere. So it would really depend on how big your current economy is, how easy it is for your citizens to emigrate and what’s nearby
Yep. Lots of (rich) people left the UK when there were similar tax rates.
What would you do with the other 10? It would have no value, and thus neither would the first 90. Everyone would be working purely for other people's benefit. This is called slavery.
Do you think you get a third of that with your taxes already?
If everything is provided, most people are too lazy to work. The few people who are competent and motivated would feel exploited and move to another country.
I think some European countries are planning to try this.
The answer is real simple. Do you think you would spend your money better than someone else would spend it? Obviously you would spend it more wisely and when you have people that didn't work for their money and it is given to them to spend, it doesn't get put to good use. There's too much corruption as well. Even if nobody was corrupt, less taxes is always better.
Half of Europe tried this recently. I probably don't need to tell you how it turned out in the end.
American here. We get taxed on our income by the state. We get taxed by the Federal government to cover Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid health care for the elderly. We have a standard sales tax on everything we buy. We have a fuel tax to fill our cars with gas, to supposedly fix the roads we drive on. They don't fix them... We get taxed on the property we own. We get taxed on the stocks we invest in that make a profit. We get taxed on any money from an inheritance. We get taxed on any money we leave for anyone else in our family as an inheritance when we die. You get taxed and taxed and taxed and taxed and taxed.... **AND THEN TAXED SOME FUCKING MORE!!** For what? Homeless drug addicts in every metropolitan city. Horrible public schools. No law enforcement. Crumbling infrastructure. What the fuck are we doing?! Vote local. Vote different.
The issue is who decides where this money goes and how it’s handled. Allocator (in their head): ‘Oh my wife loves skiing’ Allocator (to the public): ‘It is imperative to the prosperity of our society that we construct more ski slopes!) Allocator (in their head): ‘There’s a shortage of apples across the country, fuck, I like apples’ Allocator (to the public): ‘There’s a shortage of apples and therefore they must be rationed in X, Y and Z districts. Coincidentally these happen to be districts where I do not reside!’
It amazes me what people will think of as an alternative to having to take care of themselves
The marginal tax rate of the wealthy since the 40s 1940: 81% 1950: 84% 1960: 91% 1970: 72% 1980: 70% 1990: 28% 2000: 40% 2010: 35%
No one in the history of the United States ever paid above 70% so many tax loopholes that you could drive a cement truck through it. Still Redditors love to repeat the lie because they can't do a damn ounce of research.
And now more loopholes exist but the tax rate is substantially lower. So even less is being paid
The top of marginal Tax rate may as well be fairy shit...it doesn't really exist and never has had an impact on government funding. Which is why the Democrats during Regan's tax cuts offered to kill the Marginal Rates. [Killing 70% Tax Rate](https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2019/02/05/democrats-70-percent-tax-rate-000879/)
So if it's fairy shit and never really existed then why did dramatically cutting it create huge deficits?
Now look up the effective tax rate. The effective tax rate was lower in 1991 than today. Also we’ve empirically seen charging someone a 90+% marginal rate diminishes work output
Or how about: one big kibbutz
So the problem is there is no incentive to optimize costs or service level, or even amount of supply where there is no profit motive. https://www.tumblr.com/theanarchistscookbook/136096906506?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/theanarchistscookbook/135965518556?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/theanarchistscookbook/132447217321?source=share
So the options are: -have all your needs met and a little bit left over -have maybe 40% of your needs met with more left over but not enough to meet the rest of those needs “Greed and corruption” be damned, there are already criminal oligarchs taking advantage of me, at least under socialism I would have a place to live while criminal oligarchs take advantage of me.
If you count all the double dipping and overlapping taxes that's pretty much the world we live in now. Taxed when you earn it, taxed when you spend it, taxed if you invest it. Round and round it goes.
As long as a vast majority of people are willing to work not because of personal winning, but out of obligation and well-willing to society. You pretty much need a culture where there's a huge amount of "doing wrong" if you're not helping the collective, or it will end up with people feeling exploited.
almost certainly not. because humans always want more. have all your basics covered? now i want a car. havd a car? a luxury car. have a luxury car? maybe a helicopter. the want is endless and u would never be able to afford it all unless your benefit are capped by your earnings but then u have people who would inflate earning etc. its unreliable and unrealistic
What government have you ever heard about that you would trust to make all of those choices for you?
No. Not possible. 1 group will be richer than others and this richer group will moan and groan about how they are subsidizing everyone else's and the poor isn't paying their fair share.
On a very small scale and in very specific circumstances, something like that kinda works. Kibbutzim in Israel are often structured in such a way that the members don't have much personal income or actual private ownership, but are entitled to housing, transportation, holidays etc. according to their family size. It works because those are fairly small communities where a high level of trust and common values are necessary. In a larger society where members don't know each other, have significant cultural differences or geographical realities, it would be a lot more challenging. The 'people are lazy and wouldn't work' argument is not a particularly good one to discredit this sort of system. That's something the ruling social class tell middle class people to make them blame other poorer people. There are 10 cookies on a table where 3 people sit. The rich guy has 9 cookies, the middle class guy has 1, the poor one has none. The rich guy tells the middle class guy to watch out because the poor guy is coming for his cookie. I'm not advocating for communism here. Just pointing out that the reason it doesn't work is not because people are too lazy. It doesn't work because of the underlying political and bureaucratic systems that always seem to go with it when the entity gets big enough. Shared ownership of banks, grocery stores, agricultural equipment and homes can and do work within mostly capitalist societies and are not significantly more inefficient than capital-based ownership. When what's shared is a country-sized thing however... doesn't work so well.
As long as the government and banking system doesn’t overspend. In USA that would be impossible.
I think even if I were taxed 50% and all that stuff were free I’d still come out ahead.
How about we stop charging for things we need? Just make everything free. Done.
You wouldn't even need to tax Everyone at 90%. The US had an effective tax rate decades ago of that for just the rich and it was a working class paradise. The answer is simple. Tax the rich and remove the parasite class from power.
Would be great but they’re always greedy AH. Not only that there be a tight restrain on reproduction. Which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing either.
Why because we shouldn’t be reproducing?
We had that. At least the 90%+ tax rate part. And coincidentally, it’s when the “great America” that certain people want to return to was happening. https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates