Myth: Economic conservatism is the only political philosophy favoring reason.

To comment on this video, go to: http://beingism.org/community/?q=node/13

Note: This video is part of a series which debunks myths pertinent to laissez-faire capitalism. Many points not addressed in this video can be found at the above link.

http://Beingism.org

Actually, the wealth disparity on our planet is immense. Just a few people have an absolutely overwhelming share of the existing wealth and income, and most people in the world are living in poverty. In the United States alone, one percent of people own more than the whole bottom 95% of the population. Don't just let that statistic go in one ear and out the other — think about it for a moment. One percent of the population owns more than the entire bottom 95%! And this disparity between the wealthy and not wealthy continues to rise.

In the United States
Wealth: In 2004, 1% of the U.S. population owned 33% of the wealth, while the next 9% owned 36%, and the entire bottom 90% owned 31%. [Source]

Income: In 2001, the richest 20% of the U.S. population gained over half of the income, while the poorest 20% gained about 3.4% of it. [Source]. In 2006, 36.5 million Americans (12.3%) lived in poverty. [Source]

Worldwide
Wealth: In 2006, the richest 2% of people in the world owned more than half of the wealth, and the bottom half of the population owned about 1%. [Source]

Income: In 1997, the poorest 20% of the world's earned 1.1% of the world's wealth, an amount that is falling as time goes on. In 2004, half of the world's population lived on $2 or less per day, while a fifth lived on less than $1 per day. Over the next thirty years the world's population will increase by about two billion people — and most of them will be born into poverty.[Source]

Yes, more than thirty-six million people in the U.S. live in poverty, and this doesn't even consider that these standards for poverty are pretty out of touch with reality. The 2006 standard defining poverty made the dubious assumption, for example, that a family of four living on over $20,614 per year wasn't poor. [Source]

There is no reason it has to be this way.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• conservative
• libertarian
• economics
• republican
• compassion
• religion
• empathy
• charity
• happiness
• reason
• philosophy
• atheist
• atheism
• capitalism
• socialism

[suarezguy]

@ineptsegue Yet Beingism claimed that possible goals (presumably consistent with themselves) were creating egalitarianism and happiness for a majority of people.

[suarezguy]

Happiness is inherently subjective (some people will never be satisfied) and therefore the goal should not be guaranteeing happiness (an impossible goal) but allowing people to pursue it.

Fixed egalitarianism is antithetical to happiness as many people would prefer to have more than others.

[Beingism]

@emaster01 Also, I hate beer, too. But I don't speak for other Beingists in saying that. :)

[Beingism]

@emaster01 "Free" markets prioritize wealth over need. Some people will die so that other people can play video games. Maybe you don't have a problem with that. We do, and will advocate for a system that works to meet human needs—especially since no one actually has to give up ice cream to accomplish this. Resources must simply be distributed more rationally.

[emaster01]

@Beingism No matter how much money you throw at doctors, they can only do so much.

There are a limited amount of doctors and nurses, and that needs to be addressed.

Beyond that, would you want to give up beer and ice cream in general? or perhaps music, or video games.

You might be thinking about things categorically, but the market decides things incrementally.

You obviously wont give up heart surger for beer, but you might forego 10 years worth of bandaids for beer (I hate beer myself :P)

[Beingism]

@emaster01 I didn't say technology only benefited the rich—just (very) disproportionately. That's why no matter how much wealth society accumulates, the work week never decreases.

You only have to ration when there are insufficient resources. Even if this had to be the case, when it comes to medical care, rationing based on anything other than need is ethically inexcusable.

[Beingism]

@emaster01 Of course investments go to people who *want* money. Need—not so much.

So it's not inefficient... but yet we invest billions in beer and ice cream when we apparently can't afford to meet the medical needs even of our own citizens?

[emaster01]

@Beingism Exactly, rationing based on wealth. You have to ration one way or another, whether by money people are willing to pay, lines or lotteries (or some other rule).

And I am not sure about the benefits of increased efficiencies benefits only or mostly the rich... Like everyone has cell phones today because of that, and everyone has TVs and cars because of it.

Things become more efficient who gets TVs? Who got the cell phones? who got the cars? Look at the goods and services

[emaster01]

@Beingism You are missing the point entirely. Investment goes to people who need money, not from rich people to other rich people who dont have any want or need for money.

I am not convinced that resources are allocated so inefficiently, neither am I convinced that the investments by rich is a bad thing.

People who said that have kept the third world poor because its not open to outside investment (the free market correction for one nation being poorer than another

[Beingism]

@emaster01 Of *course* we can teach people to do those things! As we point out at "Myth: Wealth distribution in our society is relatively balanced," the amount of inefficiently allocated resources is tremendous. No more rationing healthcare based on wealth. No more giving up control over the benefits of the increased efficiency brought about by new technologies to the rich.