| > Because inequality drives those local conditions... That is not in evidence. You may be thinking of inflationary pressures causing the poverty income level to be adjusted upward. This is not a result of income inequality. It is a result of supply and demand. > "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." That is an aphorism, not a universal truth, and holds zero moral weight. You may be judged as corrupt by what you do, not by what you have. > ...inordinate power and wealth ensures that abuses will occur. No. This is envy as evidence. It doesn't work that way. Your use of the word "inordinate" is also meaningless from an economic or policy stance. Who decides what is inordinate? What qualifies a level as inordinate? There is only one equilibrium state with full equality: vacuum. In an economic sense this is where zero exchange of value occurs. It is system-death. In a just world, you keep what you earn. You reap what you sow. When someone powerful steps out of line you punish them. If they do not, there is no reason to punish them. Pre-punishment because "they probably will" is propaganda from the dictator. We don't want that. |
Consider that you just haven't found something useful for me to do.
If it's too much for you, I guess you could stop. If wouldn't be your fault if I couldn't keep things together.
>This is not a result of income inequality. It is a result of supply and demand.
Incorrect. Inequality increases the pool of wealth with which "haves" may bid up the prices of commodities, real property, and services. And they do, effectively increasing demand. Transitively, inequality drives inflation, i.e., local conditions.
>That is an aphorism, not a universal truth
You might want to revisit the definition of "aphorism". (It generally includes the word "truth".)
>You may be judged as corrupt by what you do, not by what you have.
And have another: "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Implicit is that you will hammer nails. Property is intrinsically tied with action. Held power is to be wielded, even when it's not warranted; the only way not to is to give it up.
>This is envy as evidence.
I would love to understand this obsession with envy among the elite. If I take your gun and immediately throw it into the ocean, was that envy?
It's funny to me that you deride a "system-zero" world and then immediately champion a "just world". They're the same thing. And though you may believe in it, I never said I did.
The practical solution to a world with increasing (wealth) inequality is to decrease it. It will never reach zero. That's not the point. It's to affect the balance of power so that when someone powerful steps out of line, it is possible to punish them; so that things earned can be kept (and so that he definition of "earn" may be reasonable itself); so that we're not forced to consider the farce of referring to a reaction to someone's previously-accumulated wealth as "pre-punishment."
>What qualifies a level as inordinate?
One could say that it's relative.