[slamdance]

>democratically elect representatives who will distribute it for them...

good thing we live in a "republic". This line smacks of wanton theft. The poor should have a reason to be "given" money other than just being "poor" (as the standard reasoning with 'wealth distributors'), similarly, the rich should have a good reason to have their money stolen other than just being "rich".

Bezos BUILT something, Oprah BUILT something. Just because they're rich and you're not doesn't mean you deserve to be. This country (USA) - at least in theory - is about equal OPPORTUNITY - NOT "Equal Outcome".

Life Isn't FAIR. Stop trying to make everyone equal when they clearly aren't. Some people put in more work, have better ideas, better skills, attention to details, and follow through, while others do not.

You may never steal directly from your neighbor or friend, but voting for the government to do it is the same thing.

[jjaredsimpson]

When voters elect representatives to move money from the wealthy to themselves it is theft.

When wealthy donors, lobbyists, and corporations pour money into the political system to affect laws, distribution, incentives, outcomes it is "speech."

If life isn't fair, then why do you care about something you call theft? I'm not reading a self-consistent critique here.

[slamdance]

you're not reading it because you're looking to justify your own position and don't want to see it.

when someone CHOOSES to give money towards a cause, it IS speech. (granted, most don't agree the citizens united ruling, but mainly because it allows a corporation to have "more" speech than you or I). This is not a problem with the law, this is a problem with money in politics. Solve that problem (like only money from companies/people from within the district is allowed or something), and you solve the 'citizens united' problem.

Just because life isn't fair doesn't mean I GIVE You my money. I should have every right to keep it without being robbed at gunpoint (IRS) - by lazy socialists who don't understand how business works, have never run a business or "democratic-mob-rules-socialists-who-abuse-government-to-do-their-dirty-work".

[stdbrouw]

An economic system is an agreement to forgo violence and theft as acceptable means to get what you want, in order to establish mutually beneficial conditions for the exchange of goods and services. As soon as the system stops being mutually beneficial and instead benefits the few at the expense of the many (regardless of skill, regardless of effort), the entire moral foundation on which the system was built crumbles and what you call wanton theft can sometimes be the rational response. Does this sound revolting to you? Well, too bad, life indeed isn't fair.

[dragonwriter]

> An economic system is an agreement to forgo violence and theft as acceptable means to get what you want

No, its not.

I mean, sure, an economic system is always imposed by a political system, and some modern political systems have in their theoretical background an ideal of being established through free agreement, but that ideal is never actually fully realized in those systems, and plenty of political systems don't even have that in theory; in practice, participants in an economic system mostly do not get there as part of any agreement, and especially not a free and uncoerced agreement.

And economic systems often (in practice, always) involve violence and only avoid theft in that “theft” is defined as that which defies the rules of the state.

[mping]

The Bezos example is interesting, he did built something, and part of it was on low wage workers on Amazon fulfilment warehouses alright.

[slamdance]

people that willingly choose those positions. I didn't go to college. I go a job out of high school. I did what I had to do, to be able to do what I want to do. People today think a degree entitles them to $100k/yr and a new Porsche. That's not this works. That's not how any of this works...

[anigbrowl]

A republican governmental structure has exactly zero to do with economic distribution. Also, people who say 'Life isn't FAIR' are choosing to make it that way. Other people think it should be fair and want to organize so as to maximize fairness. The fact that you know whether something is unfair or not (regardless of whether you approve of it) suggest that it is objectively measurable in some way.

Also, LOL at the irony of someone proclaiming that life isn't fair while simultaneously denouncing redistribution of resources as 'wanton theft'. Don't dish it out if you can't take it.

[drewrv]

Bezos and Oprah have benefited enormously from public resources, from laws and regulations to roads and schools. To take one small example, how would a book business do in a country without widespread literacy? How would a delivery company do in a country without roads?

They're members of a society and that society has enabled them to amass tons of wealth, it's not unfair to require them to return some of it.

[davidgerard]

thus demonstrating the claim in the comment it answers

[petraeus]

And our goal should be to change this system.