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Unread 05-11-2011, 12:54 AM   #2 (permalink)
DJ FC
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It may always be the case that 20% eat more pie than the rest. Whether 80% is reasonable or not is to be debated.

The capitalist argument is this:

Currently we have an Apple Pie with 10 Apples.

The wealthy 20% are eating 8 of these apples. But at the same time they are kicking some major ass to make that Apple Pie grow. In 10 years or so the Apple Pie should be 100 apples. The poor 80% now have 20 apples instead of 2.

More likely, however, is that the poor get something like 60 of the Apples and the wealthy get 40. But instead of just having a 100 apple pie, the hard workers have now invented a blueberry pie. And this blueberry pie is so highly prized that 1 of them is worth 10 100 apple pies. Just because it's new and revolutionary.

You see: In a system which rewards the creation of wealth you may always have dis equality, but you will have a bigger pie to split. In the 2nd scenario you see how technology and valuation are not straight forward. How do you value resources? Basic resources like food, shelter, water, etc. are largely completely available for the entire world now (with some very serious exceptions, of course), and so they are valued lower. The wealthy consume "resources" like viagra and end-of-life care which on paper are vastly more costly.

The communists built their entire system on the belief that it wasn't right for 20% to consume 80%, and they did shift consumption to a much more fair level: but their pie never got bigger.

And finally: yes, philanthropy and capitalism go hand-in-hand. True capitalists believe that a government shouldn't mandate charity, but that individuals should definitely help the less fortunate in the most efficient manner and as they see fit.


The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
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