Super simple analogy I like to use:
You’re a kid and you go to a badly run daycare with nine other kids. Your parents pay for your stay and the person running it gets a daily shipment of food from that money, let’s say, eleven sandwiches [a convenient but not perfect stand-in for workers generating the resources and value for the bourgeoisie]. He should keep one for himself and give ten to the kids, so everyone gets one sandwich, but instead he keeps six and gives all of you five, so you only get half each which is barely just enough. Now, five more kids join, their parents are also paying the daycare owner, and he now gets sixteen sandwiches per day. But he keeps the difference for himself and still gives you all five. Now you each only get a third of a sandwich, barely even a mouthful and you’re hungry all the time. Do you blame the new kids for also being hungry and eating the food, or do you blame the daycare worker for hoarding all the food in the first place?
That’s because “the rich hoarding cash” isn’t causing income and wealth inequality.
Also, income and wealth inequality is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. Income and wealth equality would be far, far worse than what we have now, even as corrupt as it is.
Effecting income and wealth equality necessitates violating people’s rights to associate freely, trade freely, and own property. That will lead to complete societal collapse, and rather immediately. Nobody would do hard, dirty, or dangerous jobs anymore. We wouldn’t have electricity. We wouldn’t have indoor plumbing. We wouldn’t have medicine.Absolutely braindead take.
I love seeing Christians defend capitalism.
Leviticus 25:35 ‘Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him’
Matthew 19:24 ‘Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.’
Proverbs 31:9 ‘Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.’
2 Corinthians 8:13-14 ‘For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness.’
Luke 3:11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”
Jesus was a brown socialist.
Jesus was not a socialist, and literally nobody who accepts Him as their savior has ever given 1/3 of a shit what color He is.
You know, you’re right. He was much closer to a Communist.
Communism necessitates taking, by force, that which does not belong to you. Jesus was absolutely nothing like a communist.
Communism necessitates taking, by force, that which does not belong to you.
Lord have mercy.
No, it does not.
Read a book.
Books are communist /s
You mean like souls?
Jesus predates Socialist values, they just happen to overlap so many times that it’s colloquial shorthand
The New Testament as a whole espouses a kind of ‘primitive communism’ that has roots in the society of Ancient Israelite tribes. Very social capital, gift economy kind of behavior. I mean, look at the tale of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts.
Jesus was not a socialist
Uh, considering that he was against the accumulation of wealth that is essential to the functioning of a capitalist or protocapitalist society, like the Roman market economy, and clearly also opposed to the control of traditional regional elites, I’m not sure how you can see him as anything other than a socialist? Or more accurately, a primitive communist.
, and literally nobody who accepts Him as their savior has ever given 1/3 of a shit what color He is.
I can give you a long list of Christians, modern and historical, who absolutely give a shit which color he is. Generally they fall pretty heavily on the side of “Of course Jesus was white”
Oh but they didn’t actually accept him as their savior.
No true Christian…
Jesus wasn’t “against the accumulation of wealth,” as you put it, nor “against the control of traditional regional elites” for its own sake. If that’s what you took from it, you aren’t looking, which is expected. Jesus didn’t have a prescription for any particular economic model.
Perhaps you can come up with a list of people who care or cared what color Jesus was, but it’s an extremely short list compared to the list of people who don’t, and so it’s disingenuous to pretend like the average Christian cares.
If you go around America saying “Jesus wasn’t white, FYI,” you’ll get a resounding “I don’t care,” the vast majority of the time.
If you go around Mexico saying “Jesus wasn’t white, FYI,” you’ll get a resounding “I don’t care,” the vast majority of the time.
If you go around China saying “Jesus wasn’t white, FYI,” you’ll get a resounding “I don’t care,” the vast majority of the time.Jesus wasn’t “against the accumulation of wealth,”
You, uh, wanna remind me what’s easier than a rich man getting into heaven?
nor “against the control of traditional regional elites” for its own sake. If that’s what you took from it, you aren’t looking, which is expected.
I can launch into a lecture about the relation of Iudean sects with the Christian Gospels and how the environment of Roman Iudea of that period influenced the writing of both Christ’s views as expressed in the Gospels and Paul’s epistles if you like. I’m looking plenty. I’ve looked plenty.
Jesus didn’t have a prescription for any particular economic model.
… insofar as he wasn’t a polisci philosopher, sure? But the values expressed are pretty unambiguously against the contractual-redistributive method of Iudean elites and against the proto-capitalist accumulation of wealth by Roman elites. This is not abnormal for pre-modern populists, but it is certainly anti-capitalist in the sense that the basic premise that the arguments are founded on are directly and explicitly contrary to the basic ideas of capitalism, due to the fact that such pre-modern populists are generally attempting to address and appeal to an agrarian and deeply communal audience.
Perhaps you can come up with a list of people who care or cared what color Jesus was, but it’s an extremely short list compared to the list of people who don’t, and so it’s disingenuous to pretend like the average Christian cares.
You’re fooling yourself, guy. There are a hell of a lot of racists still around, and racists definitely care what color their savior is.
Wealth is a stumbling block for many, and Christ warns of that. That does not set Christ against money, and it doesn’t make the possession of money evil. It doesn’t make money evil.
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According to Megyn Kelly, Jesus was white.
Megyn Kelly is a ding-dong. I don’t know if you noticed this, but she’s a TV “journalist.” Nothing any of them say should be taken seriously.
Oh look, a bullet list of out-of-context Biblical verses being used by an atheist who doesn’t understand what any of them means to dunk on people who he assumes has values that he, himself, does not care about.
Okay, so what’s the context then?
Educate me.
He doesn’t know, he has probably never actually read the Bible.
Please provide context that proves me wrong, then.
And I didn’t assume anything about your values. I literally copied and pasted quotes directly from the Bible. I’m calling out your good old fashioned Christian hypocrisy.
In fact, you’ve made the only assumptions. Somehow, quoting the Bible and supporting socialism makes me an atheist? And you assume atheists have no values, or at least couldn’t possibly share values with Christians.
Do you believe morality comes only from God? If so, where are the radical atheist terrorists? Unholy wars? Secular persecution?
That’s some Milton Friedman grade bullshit right there. Bravo.
No one is suggesting absolute equality except the braindead teenagers. We’re just advocating for less inequality.
You are correct that everyone literally having and making the same amount of income is likely undesirable. But you could do a hell of a lot of motivating of bad jobs, at, say, a 10x max pay differential. But more importantly, remind me, is it the hard, dirty and dangerous jobs that currently make the most money? No. It’s not jobs at all, it’s ownership.
Convincing everyone? Or just trying to convince the susceptible morons?
Do you really think that rich hoard cash? Under mattress?
Do you think they stay rich by spending it?
They stay rich by investing it into stocks, or even into CDs. Nobody holds cash in large amounts. At very least you put it into bank (and bank invests it).
That sounds like a complicated way of saying hoarding.
No. You can hoard resources, and resources would stay without action, without helping anyone. You CAN hoard cash as well. But rich do not do that. Invested money are working in economy.
How does invested money help anyone but other investors?
Nearly all manufacturing and business is created this way. This is what capitalism is. Is the “capital” part of capitalism.
Then it’s weird that it happens that way in countries like Cuba. Or did you not realize they also have manufacturing?
It’s so hard to know where to even start. Say one thing and it’s like you have to go right back to the basics of how money, capitalism and society work. Nuanced conversation is Impossible.
Me, pulling down a chart when anyone asks me a question about modern society: “Okay, to understand this, we have to go back to early market economics of Mesopotamian city-states…”
History repeats itself… Except now we have climate change and nukes.
I have nothing to add (sorry!) but reading “…back to early market economics of Mesopotamian city-states…” had me rolling, thank you.
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It would really fucking help if we stop giving billionaires a god damn microphone. All these news sites and even social media shares. Stop it.
Oh, climate change issue?
Let’s see what “self-made” billionaire CEO of Oilerson Oils, Oily Oilerson, grandchild of another billionaire, has to say.
“With these unprecedented times, we must bond together and move forward, else we move backwards.”
This is exactly the kind of thing a billionaire would say.
And after microphones, they’ve moved on to buying education. Really recommend that you watch this video.
Wait, but what did elon musk say about it? /s
Wait, but what did the kardashians say? /s
Etc etc
The wise words from those smelly old men…
They keep buying the microphones.
cop that, straight casssssh
Dealing with the billionaire problem should be everyone’s top priority
Even the billionaires, really. Less income inequality, more income security.
The French Solution. Worked before.
There’s no solving climate change until we’ve solved billionaires.
Nah, buying a Tesla, a Porsche Taycan or a Volvo XC90 hybrid will solve the climate crisis. Trust me. Some guy on another thread told me.
There’s no “solving” climate change.
I think reining them in is enough. We can habe billionaires in a green economy.
I totally agree that billionaires should not exist, but I think climate change is more important and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.
You can’t reign them in when the reigns are for purchase You can’t prevent them from purchasing the reigns because when the price tag is big enough, everything is for sale You can’t stop them from purchasing reigns altogether because they’ll go to a different market who can, then force the market to be open to them They will do everything in their power to KEEP their power, and to prevent them from EVER LOSING their power There IS ONLY ONE WAY to stop billionaires from having power and it is to stop them from being billionaires in any way available
It’s “rein them in”
Reins are for horses, reigns are for kings
And rains are for the plains of Spain!
The planes in Spain fall in the rain
The average billionaire emits 1 million times more CO2 than the average 90%er. There are about 3000 of them
Yeah and it’s easier to transition to clean energy, mitigating their output, than it is to remove them.
Consider how much easier it would be without them though
Yeah but consider how difficult it is to remove them.
Difficult in what way?
Ah, yes, lets put the climate crisis on hold
Convincing people that transwomen are women and transmen are men is right up there too.
adamantium >> vibranium
How does mythril compare to vibranium though?
Technically they don’t hoard the cash, they loan it out to other rich people with the expectation of a return on their investment. Or theyhoarfd property.
Its not even the loaning out of the cash that is the problem. The real problem is that they spend the cash on ways to prevent other people from having the opportunity they had. This goes for political routes, such as donations to influence tax breaks, goverment backed monopoly, etc. Its also spent buying competitors or losing money to crush conpetition.
I was having a talk with my 73 year old dad the other night and he still swears up and down that it’s the illegal immigrants crossing the border that are stealing all of our money. I asked him where he got this info from, he said he reads things on the internet. I had my laptop out and said “show me” and then of course he said “I don’t know how to search for it!”. I then told him that he was full of shit, he said the same things about the points that I was bringing up. I told him the difference between my points and his is that 95% of my points I can find a source for, his is always a form of “do your research!”.
He said he never believes online surveys because he’s never been asked to participate in one, so he thinks it’s always a small perfectly chosen group of people in order to sway the results. I read him Pew Research’s surveying methodology and they said that they have all the datasets available. I mentioned that the GOP is almost entirely white people, and he said “How come there were ‘Black People for Trump’ in the last election?”. He wanted to know the results of a particular survey that had to do with politics, but of course wouldn’t look them up himself so I registered for an account, downloaded the datasets and showed it to him. From 2018 until now the GOP has been almost entirely white people, from 88%-92%, it even said that a quarter of them were “males over the age of 65 who identified as Protestant”.
I asked my mom if she had seen that one Presidential debate where Trump was asked by Chris Wallace to say denounce white supremacy and the man literally contorted his brain into a pretzel to fudge out “stand by and stand back.” It was a 100% crystal clear call to “those type of supporters.” When I told my mom this, her rebuttable was “I didn’t watch it” so for her if she didn’t watch it, then it didn’t happen and even if it did happen, she doesn’t have to believe it. It floors me that white supremacist are emboldened these days, but the ignorance, complacency, and lack of empathy and critical thinking from the Right will probably doom us all in a long enough time line.
I never heard any significant party or organization blame immigrants for wealth disparity. What does this refer to?
In the US, it’s a common refrain that exploitation of immigrant workers not only takes jobs from US-born workers, but also allows the rich to increase their wealth in excess of what they could if they were paying American workers.
Rather than coming to the conclusion, then, that exploitation of workers is bad, they come to the conclusion that immigrant workers are bad.
Can you point out who is saying this?
Any time you hear right-wing talking heads complain about ‘elites’ and ‘illegal immigrants’ in the same breath, that’s usually the case. I don’t really have the patience to dig through the Tangerine’s speeches or Buck Fuckerson or Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh for a quote for someone I’m not even sure is asking questions in good faith.
I don’t agree. I’ve never heard immigration stated as a cause of wealth disparity. I’m not asking for some random scientific study or stat. If it’s so common please point out where it’s coming from.
I guess this link says it.
immigrants in the country illegally of stealing jobs from American workers
I mean it doesn’t exactly state it like wealth disparity, but such link can be easily made.
The combination of both is difficult.
Rich people hoarding wealth.
Immigrants competing with me for my tiny share.
The rich stole our shares and our migrant friends’ shares in order to enslave us all. Taking back what was stolen is surely a better option than fighting people who have been similarly victimized.
Which is possible because the worker world is a race to the bottom between natives and immigrants, who in most cases are willing to accept lower salaries and worse conditions to land a job. Both are true.
