I'm not sure if I want to specifically quote and reply to the bog-standard conservative drivel this illustrious mudkip user is pumping out since it's clearly an unproductive use of time to expect someone wholly stuck in their ways to change, but it reminded me that people genuinely think like that---so on the off chance someone relatively apolitical or a conservative that isn't too far gone is skimming this thread, I'd like to toss my hat in the ring to try to dispel some of the insistences the right throws out routinely to make their case (I will be paraphrasing obviously; I cba to scroll through Twitter replies trying to find good examples to quote verbatim):
1) Significantly taxing the wealthy is essentially a form of theft.
The first problem with this assertion is that it is predicated on the assumption that the mega-rich that will see sizable bumps in their taxes under lefty administrations/tax reforms
actually earned their fortunes through wholly honest means in the first place. Slight sidenote here: please note that I am fairly confident in saying that the overwhelming majority of lefties have zero vendettas against highly educated/highly skilled
workers that rake in heftier salaries---stuff like surgeons who make a median of $180k; many of these jobs and roles are nigh-indispensable in a modern setting and necessitate lengthy education, extensive training, and accruing large debts---financially incentivizing them is a natural and fair way to balance out their high entry barrier and potential significant amount of stress (no way surgeons would fall under the "chill job" category). The crux of the problem with regards to wealth/income inequality is the owner/management class---the CEO, the board, and the investors/stock holders the CEO/board are beholden to above all else. It really is not possible to amass obscene amounts of wealth through a salary alone: for example, a surgeon making a bit above median pay---$200k---would need to work
non-stop for 5,000 years straight to amass a
gross of 1 billion. A surgeon---a professional bearing an immense amount of responsibility that is highly educated and trained performing a job absolutely vital to modern civilization---would need to have worked nonstop from before the first pyramids were built if they wanted to have a billion dollars in 2020. You cannot earn a billion dollars. You cannot earn billions of dollars.
So how does one amass such a massive fortune? You steal the surplus the working class generates. You take the surplus the working class generates through the nonsensical, hierarchic, and outright authoritarian entity we recognize as conventional capitalist enterprises and do everything you can do optimize the process by which you take a surplus you didn't create---you underpay, you purely hire contractors to dodge benefit obligations, you overwork, you harm the environment to cut costs, etc. There is a fundamental element of exploitation to the manner in which private enterprise is currently run that is undeniable: whatever value your work offers a given enterprise, the given enterprise will repay you a lesser value (to generate a surplus). You don't get to have a say in what the surplus goes towards (do you think workers would prefer the surpluses they generate go towards reinvestment and pay raises or to stock buybacks and payments to management consultation firms like McKinsey that specialize in advising companies on downsizing?)---you shut up, accept that you're being ripped off, and slowly watch your work and your colleague's work inflate some fat cat's bottom line.
If reasonably taxing the mega-rich is theft to you, then you absolutely do not have a reasonable sense of justice.
2) Rich business owners took a big risk when they first began building up their firms; they deserve to reap the benefits!
This insistence relies on the assumption that the worker does not take comparable risk; if we are to assume that this assertion recognizes that the working class faces more than comparable risk, then you simply acknowledge the controlled element of risk and the disparity in benefits reaped becomes completely indefensible.
Yes, starting an enterprise involves and element of risk, but in what universe is the worker significantly less burdened by such a thing? Working is an immense investment of time, energy, and other resources in hopes of reasonable return, and if their venture doesn't pan out---whether they are laid off, receive insufficient compensation, or otherwise---they can potentially plunge into abject poverty, lose their footing in life, and be placed in a position of immense desperation. The worker has to hope the oligarchic organization of private enterprise is benevolent enough to not immediately fuck them at the drop of the hat should it help fluff up their bottom line---which is a completely unrealistic expectation they
HAVE to rely on. It's complete lunacy. Did the swathes of immigrants that poured into the US from the turn of the last century seeking un-glamorous work not take a risk by uprooting their lives in Italy, Poland, Russia, and Hungary and banking on travel to the ports of NYC being a productive venture? Most workers have little to show as far as financial cushioning should they fall on hard times. One mistake can be everything.
3) I don't want the government to raise my taxes for their inefficient programs! I want to keep my own money! I don't want to pay for other people's [blank]!
This is a common kneejerk reaction to proposals like Medicare for all that suggests a refusal to go through the critical thinking step of digesting policy.
If little Timmy wants to sell lemonade for a profit and it costs $0.30 a cup to produce, he must sell each cup at a minimum of $0.31 to turn a profit. You probably want to generate profit at a much greater rate than what the minimum would give you, so he'd probably price it at at least fifty cents or a buck or something. The buyer has to front more cash than what the product is actually worth so that the seller can make a return on their time and energy.
Little Timmy is operating for-profit. Sticking with the healthcare example---this is what private health insurance does, but they are tasked with the role of pooling out risk evenly such that their clientele can spare a bit of cash routinely and predictably to deal with potential future medical expenses as opposed to praying they will conveniently have sufficient financial resources available whenever they get sick. It's a pretty straightforward agreement: pay routine dues and you can stick your hand in the reserves when you need to---it grants peace of mind and stability... or at least it would if you gutted the profit motive. Actually providing clientele the coverage they need straight up opposes the bottom-line worship of private enterprise and flies in the face of what the firm is trying to do in the first place: sell something and turn a profit. Providing coverage cuts into profit, so they will find whatever convoluted path possible to avoid providing coverage. Profits are the only thing they are beholden to; ethics is a tertiary concern at best---profit is both the first and second concern.
Little Timmy had some kind of spiritual awakening and realized he cares not for profit or being business savvy, and now he wants to provide lemonade purely for the betterment of the community. He lowers the price from $0.50 or a buck to the production cost of $0.30 so he doesn't actively lose money. The lemonade is now substantially cheaper because the profit motive has left the scene.
This is the reality of why government-run universal health insurance is cheaper. By design, these programs necessitate less money is put into them than is currently put into the US's current mess of private insurance and state programs because they wholly lack the element of profit: all that is needed on top of the necessary money to cover straight up healthcare costs is some modest administrative spending to actually run the program
(Medicare spends much less on administration compared to the private sector).
Two examples of this principle being illustrated in studies on the cost of M4A
(the Mercatus one underprojects savings):
[1] [2]
Status quo: You pay a massive private tax to the private health insurance mafia that want to deny coverage as much as possible.
M4A: You pay a much more modest public tax to the federal government for comprehensive coverage without co-pays, deductibles, or premiums.
If you want specifics on tax bracket restructuring,
give this site a look.
Ok, but I still don't want to pay for other people's things!
That literally is what already happens under private health insurance companies. It's just a private entity. Do you know how banks work? Do you take a moral stand against using bank services? It may seem like I'm beating a strawman here, but this is a pretty common angle for people to take against lefty economics.
There is obviously more, but I think that covers some of the most major bits.
This post in particular by eifo touches on misconceptions of socialism (it's an umbrella!). If you want to learn more about lefty economics,
Democracy at Work is a great YT channel that features a pretty prominent lefty economist in Dr. Richard Wolff.
in other news, anyone else agree that the bernie-warren beef only serves to split the party at a crucial moment and should be resolved preferably before the primaries end? also fwiw I think that biden and buttigeg should get a pass for electability, particularly in appealing to people whose idea of 'conservative' is the clinton democrats and who're starting to defect en masse from the gop (although they're clearly not preferable to a sanders / warren ticket at least they're not going to throw us into the endstate capitalism hellhole)
Krystal Ball sums up my feelings on the Warren/Sanders friction nicely in this clip. Warren's surge from last fall has massively sputtered out, and her strategists likely concocted this as a desperation move to co-opt some votes from the identity politics-focused, affluent liberal slice of the pie. You can't beat Sanders on policy, so smearing his character appears to be a major lane his opponents want to opt for. It's not entirely a shot in the dark, either, really---
Emma Vigeland of TYT surveyed Warren supporters at a rally a bit ago and a sizable portion of them cited Warren's gender as a reason for their support of her. You've gotta do SOMETHING to get traction before the Iowa caucus and this was what Warren's team came up with.
I've never fully understood the obsession with party unity when the entire point of the primary process is to run through the battle of ideas and nominate the victor. I think disingenuous smears like this are undesirable but an inevitable component of the strategic side of the fight for the nomination; in this instance, the blatantly dishonest nature of the attack definitely helped Sanders at the end of the day which is in the best interest of the party's constituents (since Sanders actually represents their interests)---the Democratic establishment would rather have Biden faceplant into Trump and give Mango Mussolini another four years, because it keeps their donor class happy.
I... am not sure what to make of your comments on Biden and Buttigieg. Biden is absolute fodder for Trump even if you completely ignore how unpopular Biden's "policies" are---
he has obviously experienced significant cognitive decline and is unfit for office on those grounds alone. This is not to say Trump is free of any suggestion of cognitive decline, but the degree to which Biden has experienced it is absolutely greater. Biden is also not immune to attacks on corruption
(his campaign chair is a former lobbyist lol). The brunt of my criticisms of Buttigieg are that
a) his policy is that of a cookie-cutter establishment dem obsessed with triangulation and overly-bureaucratic half-measures that don't have the kind of appeal or effectiveness as actual lefty ideas,
b) he's corrupt,
c) he's such an archetypal politician in virtually every sense (a detriment in this uniquely populist era of US politics),
d) his baggage is way too overwhelming to overlook (especially his nonexistent support from the black community which results from his blunders dealing with South Bend police policy)
So yeah. Don't give either a pass; they the two are coinflips against Trump at best.
