No, i have not seen the other comment, and so i am not responding to it. I do think that many people who talk about the poor and what they are or are not getting are simply talking bullshit. I trust Wilkinson's data to have considered the relevant factors, and more egalitarian countries also practice charity, maybe even more so.
We are the wealthiest country in the world. The disparities in income are wider than in any developed country except Singapore (and i wonder about that) and Russia (where the social problems are even greater than they are here)
When Russia changed from "Communism" to "Capitalism" it went quickly from being one of the more egalitarian countries to one the most unequal of the developed countries.This may help account for the resurrection of Russian mobs, internal terrorism, ethnic conflict, and crying out for the "good old days" of Stalin .
We are among the most inegalitarian countries, and are quickly becoming even more unequal. As we search for our own "austerity measures" to ease the debt problem, we are almost certain to affect the poor disproportionately.
As the video made clear, it is the way wealth is shared, not how much there is to share that matters. Terrence Cook theorized three basic theories of distribution: the Aristocrat's way (the poor should restrain their desires),the socialist's way (society should create more wealth and share it equally), the capitalist's way (society should create more wealth and not worry about how it is shared), and the saint's way (everybody, especially the rich, should restrain their desires). I think i have almost always preferred the "saint's" way.
Wilkinson's data shows that both the aristocrat's way and the capitalist's way are destructive of souls.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-11-04 06:11 pm (UTC)We are the wealthiest country in the world. The disparities in income are wider than in any developed country except Singapore (and i wonder about that) and Russia (where the social problems are even greater than they are here)
When Russia changed from "Communism" to "Capitalism" it went quickly from being one of the more egalitarian countries to one the most unequal of the developed countries.This may help account for the resurrection of Russian mobs, internal terrorism, ethnic conflict, and crying out for the "good old days" of Stalin .
We are among the most inegalitarian countries, and are quickly becoming even more unequal. As we search for our own "austerity measures" to ease the debt problem, we are almost certain to affect the poor disproportionately.
As the video made clear, it is the way wealth is shared, not how much there is to share that matters. Terrence Cook theorized three basic theories of distribution: the Aristocrat's way (the poor should restrain their desires),the socialist's way (society should create more wealth and share it equally), the capitalist's way (society should create more wealth and not worry about how it is shared), and the saint's way (everybody, especially the rich, should restrain their desires). I think i have almost always preferred the "saint's" way.
Wilkinson's data shows that both the aristocrat's way and the capitalist's way are destructive of souls.