Unbelievable column on "class warfare"

[Monkeyleg]

This column was printed in my local paper today. I noticed the writer's .edu email extension, which wasn't at all surprising. As Orwell once said, "There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them."

He begins his article by disavowing violence as a means for achieving class equality, but doesn't entirely rule it out. How nice.

I found this paragraph particularly interesting, and for more than one reason.

In America, we should be able to resurrect the idea that while some of the rich got that way by being smarter and more industrious than the rest of us, to a large degree American wealth depends on two things: (1) an abundance of natural resources that are theoretically the birthright of the entire nation rather than individuals and (2) an educated, creative, and hardworking populace, many of whom — firefighters, soldiers, nurses, teachers — have decided not to make the acquisition of wealth their life’s work.

One interesting aspect of that statement is that it's only recently I've heard the arguments repeated again and again that the rich owe the rest of us because the rest of us are "letting them" use our country's resources, and that the rest of us are doing jobs that help make the lives of the rich possible. This article is the first time I can recall someone saying that those who are not rich are so by choice, as though the choice of a safe 9-5 job is an altruistic gesture that makes it possible for others to be wealthy. I think even Orwell would be outraged by such an idea.

These new excuses for going after more money from the wealthy are far beyond those of just a few years ago. Then it was a question of fairness, and of compassion for those less fortunate (even if such compassion is extracted at the point of a gun). Now, the wealthy owe the rest of us because we allowed them to become wealthy. We allowed them to utilize resources while we politely declined. We selflessly worked in factories and drove trucks so that they could work endless hours creating businesses that would employ factory workers and truck drivers.

It's only a stone's throw now from "the rich owe us" to "we're taking their stuff by force".

If this wasn't real, it would be farcical.

[Perd Hapley]

This article is the first time I can recall someone saying that those who are not rich are so by choice, as though the choice of a safe 9-5 job is an altruistic gesture that makes it possible for others to be wealthy.

Reminds me of a speech by Michelle Obama.

Also, it reminds me of myself. I am so utterly brilliant and blindingly competent that I could make brazilians of dollars as a cut-throat capitalist. Yet I choose a subsistence-wage job that allows me to serve others. 

[griz]

I can almost see somebody believing the idea that everybody deserves the same amount of everything.  I don't believe it's workable at all as many attempts at communisum have proved, but I can see some one believing it.  What I don't understand is saying you are too noble to work for or even desire above average wealth, but somebody who did work for it should give you some of it.  If you believe that wealth isn't worth working for, why do you want it at all?  It seems a flawed argument to me.

[AJ Dual]

I really have to take what's going on with a grain of salt, and look back HARD at the unrest of the 1930's, and the 1960's and early 70's to know "we've been through this before" to calm down a bit and not worry that my odds of having to use deadly force on some of my fellow Americans isn't going up by the day...

[Monkeyleg]

I can almost see somebody believing the idea that everybody deserves the same amount of everything.  I don't believe it's workable at all as many attempts at communisum have proved, but I can see some one believing it.

I think communism showed that it worked for those who ran the system and had more than everyone else. In the name of fairness, of course.

AJ, I don't think that socialism was as mainstream in the 30's or 60's as it is now. Even in the counterculture of the 60's, the socialists and communists were pretty much fringe elements. Someone with Barack Obama's beliefs couldn't occupy the White House or probably even a senate seat back then.

[longeyes]

Interesting to see that the Self-Esteem movement is working even better than planned.

[Perd Hapley]

Most stunningly, the wealthy have convinced many of the rest of us that they are in a rarified class by themselves and that the economic health of our country depends on their being left alone to go their own way.

I wonder if we can get beyond the myth of the rich as members of a privileged class with a special right to their status beyond the mere fact of their wealth. Artists and writers have always known better. Ernest Hemingway identified (supposedly) the only distinction between the wealthy and the rest of us by pointing out, “Yes, they have more money.”

And the British writer, George Orwell, after a sojourn among the downtrodden in Paris and London said, “The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else, and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit.”

We may be seeing a new twist on the latest twist. In the past month or so, the President and other leftist mouth-pieces have been smuggling in the suggestion that the wealthy are not "contributing," or are "contributing" (being taxed) less than other people. As Joe Biden said two or three years ago, they need to start having "skin in the game." If they simply claimed that the rich are magically exempt from taxation, the lie would be obvious; so it is planted subtly in the mind. 

The new twist here is that the right is accused of making class distinctions. Obviously, the opposite is the case.

[HankB]

. . . the wealthy owe the rest of us because we allowed them to become wealthy. We allowed them to utilize resources while we politely declined. We selflessly worked in factories and drove trucks so that they could work endless hours creating businesses that would employ factory workers and truck drivers . . .

Bill Gates is rich because I bought Windows software for my PC. So in all "fairness" he ought to pay me a couple of grand for my help.

Hmmm . . . this could work . . . all I need to do is see whatever I bought from ANY company, find out who the top guy is, and demand a chunk of his wealth; isn't that how it's supposed to work?

This has possibilities . . . the only question is, can I line my own pockets FASTER than the system collapses . . .

[TechMan]

Bill Gates is rich because I bought Windows software for my PC. So in all "fairness" he ought to pay me a couple of grand for my help.

Hmmm . . . this could work . . . all I need to do is see whatever I bought from ANY company, find out who the top guy is, and demand a chunk of his wealth; isn't that how it's supposed to work?

This has possibilities . . . the only question is, can I line my own pockets FASTER than the system collapses . . .

So after you get your money, I will demand my money from you, since you got rich off of Bill Gates, who got rich off of me and other people.

[MechAg94]

Interesting to see that the Self-Esteem movement is working even better than planned.

I don't think it is self esteem or stupidity, but pure arrogance at work with that guy.  What sort of ego/arrogance does it take to assume you would be like Warren Buffet if you became a full time investor? 

[Tallpine]

the rest of us are "letting them" use our country's resources

Those resources aren't worth too much until someone digs them out of the ground, or otherwise utilizes them.

It's not like I can just go out in the yard, drive a piece of pipe into the ground, and start catching oil in buckets. 

(actually, I almost could do that - since there is an oil pipeline about a quarter mile from our house  )

[longeyes]

This isn't even politics, it's pediatric psychopathology.  Envy, spite, and malignant self-esteem walking around in the streets.  Symptomatic of a massive cultural FAIL that will require something close to an exorcism to set right.

[AJ Dual]

I think communism showed that it worked for those who ran the system and had more than everyone else. In the name of fairness, of course.

AJ, I don't think that socialism was as mainstream in the 30's or 60's as it is now. Even in the counterculture of the 60's, the socialists and communists were pretty much fringe elements. Someone with Barack Obama's beliefs couldn't occupy the White House or probably even a senate seat back then.

Well, I suppose you're a little young to remember FDR... 

[Monkeyleg]

Andrew, you're a little young to remember the 60's.

I think Obama is more of a socialist at heart than was FDR, but FDR was more politically astute at getting legislation passed. Still, if you look at Obamacare, nationalizing two of the three big automakers (as well as other businesses in other sectors), his bypassing congress to use czars to implement environmental and other policies, Obama's not scoring too badly by comparison (or too well, depending upon your point of view).

[Brad Johnson]

Reminds me of a speech by Michelle Obama.

Also, it reminds me of myself. I am so utterly brilliant and blindingly competent that I could make brazilians of dollars

Why would you want to use dollars to make brazilians when you can go to Brazil and pick out one already made?

Brad

[De Selby]

Obama might as well be Ron paul compared to FDR - of course, FDR gave birth to the modern us economy.  That's conveniently left out when people recite the meme that WWII brougt us out of the depression - not quite.  FDR's takeover of the economy in the name of national security is what modernized industry.

I find it interesting that class warfare against the poor happens routinely on this board without controversy, eg, with the welfare master video that we just discussed.  But when it gets turned on the biggest welfare recipients (and this wall street and rich people in general in the us are - very few will have portfolios unaided by obama and bush's corporate welfare) it's suddenly outrageous.

How about instead of worrying about whether they earned the right to sell resources, we just ask them to pay back with interest every public dollar they've received under welfare programs.  The amounts would be plenty.

[TommyGunn]

Obama might as well be Ron paul compared to FDR - of course, FDR gave birth to the modern us economy.  That's conveniently left out when people recite the meme that WWII brougt us out of the depression - not quite.  FDR's takeover of the economy in the name of national security is what modernized industry.........

Basically it's true, though.  OTOH I think the "Great Depression" was more than just one specific 11 year long event.
There were signs of recovery(ies) at different times during the 30s.  The Smoot-Hawley Tariff did one in by causing a trade war that caused trade to suffer by 50%.
The unemployment rate, as high as 25% when FDR took office, was way down by 1937 ..... when yet again the bottom fell out of the economy.
The most telling judgement on the effectiveness of FDR's economic policies was FDR himself; in 1940 (the unemployment rate being now maybe about 15%) he himself considered his policies a failure and that nearly caused him to decide not to run for office again.  He did so, though, but not by running on his economic policies; he glommed on to "isolationism" as a campaign theme.  
During WW2 he managed to stimulate the economy in a more realistic & practical way, a pretty easy thing to do, since there actually was a sudden upsurge in demand for war material.
There are some who say even WW2 didn't really end the depression.  However, I'll leave that for another time.

[makattak]

Obama might as well be Ron paul compared to FDR - of course, FDR gave birth to the modern us economy.  That's conveniently left out when people recite the meme that WWII brougt us out of the depression - not quite.  FDR's takeover of the economy in the name of national security is what modernized industry.

I find it interesting that class warfare against the poor happens routinely on this board without controversy, eg, with the welfare master video that we just discussed.  But when it gets turned on the biggest welfare recipients (and this wall street and rich people in general in the us are - very few will have portfolios unaided by obama and bush's corporate welfare) it's suddenly outrageous.

How about instead of worrying about whether they earned the right to sell resources, we just ask them to pay back with interest every public dollar they've received under welfare programs.  The amounts would be plenty.

Load of crap.

Neither FDR nor WWII got us out of the depression. Ending FDR's price controls and other foolishness after the war *(enacted not as part of the war effort, but before) got us out of the depression. FDR dying is more than likely the most important factor in ending the Great Depression.

FDR didn't cause the depression. He just made it Great.

[De Selby]

Ok mak, how do you explain the exponential growth in producing war materiel during...the war?  That's a bizarre claim that defies common sense you made there

[roo_ster]

Ok mak, how do you explain the exponential growth in producing war materiel during...the war?  That's a bizarre claim that defies common sense you made there

Uh, the USA hoovered up nearly every bit of hard currency and gold in the free world during WWII.  Toss into that most every existing bank in the free world extended credit to the Allies.  Slather on top mountains of US debt (pased by Congress) as aid to the Allies.  Almost forgot the war bonds, which diverted folks' income from consumer goods to war material.  Take all that cash and invest it into the war industry of the one place on Earth neither the Japs nor the Krauts could bomb, so it could be supply the Allies with arms.

So, yeah, when you invest every danged cent the free & Allied world could beg, borrow, or steal into the American war industry, you get lotsa growth.  Add into that a great cohort of slaves/conscripts (amounting to 11% of the population and it most productive workers) working for peanuts extracted from the labor force and fed *expletive deleted*it on a shingle in far away lands.  These circumstances are not readily transferable, to say the least.

Do note that right after WWII, we had a nasty recession after the cash spigot was cut off and price controls & rationing removed.  That was necessary to start real growth in the consumer economy. 

[zahc]

What I don't understand is saying you are too noble to work for or even desire above average wealth, but somebody who did work for it should give you some of it.  If you believe that wealth isn't worth working for, why do you want it at all?

Same thing strikes me about the people picketing wall street complaining how "greed is the problem". But the whole reason they are picketing is that they want more money/jobs.

[Perd Hapley]

Ok mak, how do you explain the exponential growth in producing war materiel during...the war?  That's a bizarre claim that defies common sense you made there

Isn't that classic broken window fallacy?

[Regolith]

Isn't that classic broken window fallacy?

Pretty much, yes.

As rooster said, we were the only major industrialized nation that avoided being majorly bombed. That means we got to arm and help rebuild Europe, which meant we raked in the cash. But that was at the expense of the destruction of large portions of Europe, China, Japan, and Russia.

So FDR had nothing to do with it. Even if his polar opposite was in the hot seat at the time, we still would have come out ahead.

[brimic]

Our economy expanded dramatically since WWII despite FDR's policies, not because of them.

[Perd Hapley]

One interesting aspect of that statement is that it's only recently I've heard the arguments repeated again and again that the rich owe the rest of us because the rest of us are "letting them" use our country's resources, and that the rest of us are doing jobs that help make the lives of the rich possible.

Like Elizabeth Warren's recent comments. "But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for..."  Maybe I'm terribly misinformed, but I thought that anyone using roads was paying fuel taxes to fund the roads. So any evil capitalist using the roads is paying for them, and he's almost definitely paying one of us put-upon working stiffs to steer the truck for him, instead of doing it himself. And he likely contributes to health care costs for the driver and his family. And even the money he pays the driver is taxed. So, what's her point? It's not like the wealthy have some special access to the roads. I use them to get to my paying job, so aren't I also benefitting?