What does a society look like where wealth is never spread?

Haiti.

What does a society look like where wealth is never spread?

I was going to go with North Korea.
Oh.  Wait.  That’s a Communist Country.  Hm…  Almost feels like I’m making a point somehow…

Ross Douthat and Jonah Goldberg are having a debate over—

And there’s your god damn problem.  Do you interview the serial rapist on how to promote women’s rights?  Do you question Fundie McAnalSexAndMethWhenNoOneIsLooking Ted Haggard about how to enact civil rights for gays?

Why would you think wonderdouche and Mr. Liberal Fascist are going to have anything remotely resembling an intelligent conversation about US tax policy.  We all know the tax policy they want.  It involves blowing through the US Treasury’s credit card and sticking the poorest people with the bill.  They’ve been perfectly happy to cheer lead for some of the most fiscally irresponsible Senators, Congressmen, and Executive Officers in American History.  They’ve watched the US deficit balloon by $5 trillion dollars and blamed the minority party at every step of the way.  They doggedly insist that cutting taxes raises revenue in the face of all contradicting evidence.

No shit its a dumb conversation.

Someone in another comments thread (sorry, at work, can’t look now) pointed out that calling it “redistribution” is buying into their frame.  We should be pointing out that people with high incomes get more benefits from the government in terms of infrastructure, so naturally they should be paying more.

If you’re still around, explain it again!

Argue on oh crazy ones.  We out here in reality land will move forward with saving our country.

Apropos of nothing, Oliver Willis screwed up.

That’s funny.. I just mentioned a friend (who is big on Austrian Economic Theory) that Socialism and Capitalism are treated kinda funny.  Any little regulation of the market and suddenly you are a Socialist (actually, I think they always blame some impurity in the market freedom when their ideas don’t hold up)

Anyway, it seems precisely like an old old joke I know.  It starts with a guy complaining to a group of strangers at a bar, “I put out a thousand fires..  but do they call me a Fireman?  ....” 

I think we all know how that one ends.

What does a society look like where wealth is never spread?

Feudalism.

keshmeshi has it in one. Really weird things happen in such places, like gated estates with perfectly paved driveways and then axle-breaking washboard right outside, because it would be socialism and wrong even to pave the road between you and your rich neighbor. Or poor people cutting down fruit trees to make charcoal because getting the fruit to market would require more protection money than the fruit is worth, and charcoal can be sold to poor neighbors by someone traveling on foot…

If there isn’t to be any redistribution, I sure as hell want my share of the iraq supplemental appropriations back—that’s what, a couple grand by now?

The basic framework idea espoused above is the key. What people who argue over redistribution forget is that it IS NOT THEIR MONEY. The money belongs to the US Government (which is ALL of us). Money is merely the means by which the value of goods and services are bargained. If it were your money, you could print your own. Try to go the store and pay with money you printed and see where that gets you. The government could, tomorrow, say all dollars bills are now worth fifty cents. And we could do nothing about it.

How the money we all own is distributed is based upon the agreement of the people involved. Our government could put a value on everything and say that our money will be divided x ways. Maybe a teacher would get a million dollars a year and Tom Cruise will get fifty thousand dollars for making a movie. Remember wage and price controls in the Nixon era? Or it could continue the way it is now where the private sector (more or less) decides on how our money is divided.

The point is the choice is ours because money is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States; the US being from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. There is nothing in the constitution that prevents the government from taking all or none of the money you have (but do not own). And no, the 5th amendment does not apply as it pertains to being compensated for the taking of your property. As is very clear from all laws involved, money belongs to the US government- not you.

So, we are redistributing Jonah’s money, but ours. Maybe that is a discussion we should have.

“Redistribution is society.”

From back before we had government, or a word for it, or any words at all.  One kills a monkey with a pointy stick; one gives some of the meat to one’s mate, or hoped-for mate, or buddies/allies.  And making a the big jump to from this hypothetical (albeit based on current primate relatives) scenario to to modern humans, in (at least some) recently studied hunter-gather groups, there seem to be strong social norms & mechanisms to ensure pretty extensive redistribution, at least of meat -

In spite of the rather stark differences in effort and the resulting differences in acquired game, no individual was excluded from consumption of the take, and consumption appeared to bear no relation to the amount an individual provided. In fact, distribution and sharing of game is serious business; Lee (1982) writes that “…the most serious accusations that one !Kung can level against another are the charge of stinginess and the charge of arrogance.

(link).

Not that I think we should go nearly that far, but it’s seems pretty clear that human society, living-together-ness,  is to a large degree systems of redistribution.  Sometimes quite a lot of it involves the majority of many, many people’s work being redistributed up and away for a wealthy few to just a ridiculous extent- to get brutally, bone-breakingly oversimplified and (at best) a hairs-breath away from flat-out wrong, that can be what happens when the structures maintaining egalitarianism break down, but various compensatory measures - the modern liberalish state, for one - aren’t put in place either.  Maybe.  Perhaps. I dunno.

the end should read we are NOT distributing…

Most links to reactionary posts produce the same effect as the following juice-related lesson…

Ned: Ho ho ho, suckin’ down the cider, uh?  Hey, word to the wise—[shows Homer a card] season pass!  It pays for itself after the sixteenth visit.  You know, most people don’t know the difference between apple cider and apple juice, but I do. Now here’s a little trick to help you remember.  If it’s clear and yella, you’ve got juice there, fella!  If it’s tangy and brown, you’re in cider town.  Now, there’s two exceptions and it gets kinda tricky here… [Homer’s brain gets bored]

Homer’s Brain: [moans]  You can stay, but I’m leaving. [brain floats away; Homer is now staring blankly]

Ned: ... can be yellow, if they’re using late season apples. And, of course, in Canada, the whole thing’s flip-flopped. [Homer collapses]

“What does a society look like where wealth is never spread?”

We’re on our way to finding out.  America, on its current track, is headed there as quickly as the overclass can take us…

$700 billion of taxpayer money to the biggest banks sounds like redistribution to me, as does every other act the GOP does to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.  The arrow’s pointing in the wrong direction, but boy is wealth flowing.

Honest to god, Jesse.  I don’t know how you read that stuff.  I saw your first sentence and my brain tried to leap out from between my ears and skitter under the couch.  You’re a far braver person than I am.

There’s redistribution and there’s redistribution, Jesse. You’re right that no functional government can spread the benefits of its taxation and spending evenly. However, it’s perfectly possible to have a decent society where government doesn’t make direct transfer payments from one taxpayer to a common pool and then back out to other taxpayers (or non-taxpayers).

Most conservatives oppose that kind of crass, blatant redistribution not only for moral reasons but because of the huge risk it poses to democracy and to economic stability. The very rich won’t stand for having their assets confiscated to write checks to the masses; they’ll either sabotage the economic system by withdrawing their capital and/or labor, or they’ll break democracy by using their superior resources to seize control. Neither of those are good outcomes! Instead we redistribute in much more subtle and quiet ways, ways that the redistributees can live with. It’s OK to fund a school or build a road; it’s less OK to (say) decide to create a $20,000 a year minimum income for able-bodied people and use transfer payments from the government to implement that.

The difficulty comes in when the transfer payments we do manage to justify and legitimize (giving old people a decent retirement, making sure disabled former soldiers have food, etc.) start to become subjected to “mission creep”. Social Security is now the third rail of politics - because those seniors still vote, and anyone trying to make even a modest change to the benefit (which might be necessary to save the entire program) is liable to lose tens of millions of geezer votes. We’re not in a John Galt/Magical Valley of Farmerless Entrepreneur situation, or even particularly close to it, but it’s a direction that conservatives believe is dangerous to move closer to.

The very rich won’t stand for having their assets confiscated to write checks to the masses; they’ll either sabotage the economic system by withdrawing their capital and/or labor, or they’ll break democracy by using their superior resources to seize control.

Oh, god.  Atlas Shrugged.  Ayn Rand alert. :(

The very rich won’t stand for having their assets confiscated to write checks to the masses

I’m not convinced that the “very rich” have any special ideological attachments to how their tax money is used that makes them different from other voters.  The “very rich” are not a unique interest group with a special set of ideological beliefs. It may be that the rich will react differently under specific taxation regimes, and the these consequences should be taken into account when formulating policy, but to claim that they, more than anyone else, would have specific ideological objections that need to be catered to is incorrect.  Some are country club Republicans, some are religious conservatives, some are Randian libertarians, and some are raging liberals.

First of all, the classic essay on this is here  Second of all, here’s the obligatory Bob the Angry Flower Atlas Shrugged Vol. 2 cartoon: here.

“The very rich won’t stand for having their assets confiscated to write checks to the masses; they’ll either sabotage the economic system by withdrawing their capital and/or labor, or they’ll break democracy by using their superior resources to seize control.”

They can take their labor, whatever that may be but their capital(money) can easily be retained by the government. The Supreme Court has never stated that taxation is illegal or unconstitutional only that it be consistently applied. They can scream all they want, but the very rich know that the money they have can very easily be taxed away and used by the government (us) as we see fit. A cursory glance at the inequality in income and wealth distribution in America would make one realize that there is plenty of money in America to make sure everyone has a place to live, food on their plates, and healthy care. There is no way to say either morally or economically that a wall street exec ‘earns’ 10 mil a year while a coal miner ‘earns’ 45k. The fact that we allow such a wide disparity says more about our society than it says about either the exec or the miner.Surely, as a society, we can agree that the exec can live quite well on 1 mil a year while 180 miners get another 50k a year?

Dan, also, re: Social Security. It’s well documented (see 2006) that NOBODY wants to privatize social security. It’s not simply, to put your concept crassly, greedy poor old dudes. It’s everyone—or rather, a sufficiently cross-demographic majority of the electorate—that supports Social Security more or less as it currently exists, because the social safety net is, well, important to them.

The very rich won’t stand for having their assets confiscated to write checks to the masses; they’ll either sabotage the economic system by withdrawing their capital and/or labor, or they’ll break democracy by using their superior resources to seize control.

And this would be different than what we got by letting them have everything they wanted, how, again?

Caliban.  Seriously.  Unless they’ve wisely invested their “money” in something real like, for example, gold.  And even more wisely put it in a safe on their own property guarded by weaponry.  Which any sane person would do in the case that the government is promising to steal everything they own and “redistribute” it to people who don’t produce anything of value.

However, your entire premise is so fundamentally and fatally flawed I’m flummoxed.  I’ve never seen such a ridiculously low understanding of the foundations of economic systems in my life.  Marx included.

Jessie, you assume there is no incentive for a person to, say, save their neighbor’s house (or indeed even their own) from burning to the ground in a free market system.  Or to improve the roads so that trade may not be hindered.  You assume wrongly.  Built on wrong assumptions, how can one answer the charges that result?

The very rich won’t stand for having their assets confiscated to write checks to the masses; they’ll either sabotage the economic system by withdrawing their capital and/or labor, or they’ll break democracy by using their superior resources to seize control.

That’s why we invented the guillotine and the rifle.

You COULD end up with a voluntarily-funded system paid for by the people involved, which may include benefits to those less fortunate (private charity has never not existed) in which we have water systems and firefighting systems (both volunteer and paid) because people like to protect that which they own.  It also helps no one (rich included) for their labor force, property, etc. to not be protected from fire.  I acknowledge that we are so socialized at present that most of us don’t KNOW what a privately funded system looks like, but it doesn’t look like “poor people get burned out and society collapses under its own weight” lol.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t get hit with an irony bomb.  Unfortunately for your simplistic assumptions, it doesn’t work that way.

Siobhan, societies have had private fire-fighting organisations in the 19th century.  Guess what?  They morphed into public systems over time as it became clear that that was a more effective way of doing it.  Ditto the police force.  Ditto road building.  Serious infrastructure is far better, and more cheaply, done by government.

The very rich won’t stand for having their assets confiscated to write checks to the masses; they’ll either sabotage the economic system by withdrawing their capital and/or labor, or they’ll break democracy by using their superior resources to seize control.

Which is why Scandinavia is a chain of theocratic kleptocracies barely holding on against a starving populace.  Or else there’s a difference between a raising marginal tax rates for six and seven figure incomes, and you know, the Russian Revolution.

“You COULD end up with a voluntarily-funded system paid for by the people involved, ”

Could?  It’s been looking more like “will” - a year ago when wildfires were eating California, there was an article or two about how
“AIG’s Fire Trucks Save Homes of Wealthy Californians”

Oct. 26 (Bloomberg)—Firefighter Sam Crays was in the San Diego community of Rancho Santa Fe, where the median home price is $2.4 million, spraying retardant as a wildfire spread to nearby brush. . . . Crays doesn’t work for a local fire department or the California Department of Forestry. He works for American International Group Inc., the world’s largest insurer. If you’re a client with a home threatened by California’s worst wildfires in four years, you’re getting service your next-door neighbor may envy. . . . 

AIG’s Wildfire Protection Unit is in some ways a throwback to the early days of firefighting. Until 1865, when the Metropolitan Fire Bridge Act was passed in the U.K., insurance companies had their own firefighters and were responsible for protecting their customers’ homes and other buildings. That was the case in other countries as well, including the U.S. Customers were given medallions to place on their homes, and firefighters would look for their insurance company’s ``firemark’’ before extinguishing a blaze.

Some victims of the California fires may wish they had their own firemarks. During this week’s wildfires, ``there were a few instances where we were spraying and the neighbor’s house went up like a candle,’’ Crays said . . .

To be fair, the private firefighter guy told the reporter how, “While protecting the AIG client’s home there Monday night, [he] was able to stop a blaze next door as well. ``We love putting out fires,’’ Crays said.” But of course, the way things work, it’s pretty unlikely that the neighbor’s home was a modest middle class dwelling or low-cost apartment complex; it belonged to someone who bought a home in a community with median home prices of 2.4 million. 

At this point - since the acolytes of privatization, anti-tax jihadists, and devout Randians haven’t completely destroyed our “so socialized” system -there’s still somewhat of a decent level of public service for all. As such, if the wealthy want to purchase additional fire-fighting services - well . . .  But the worry is that:

a) public services become increasingly underfunded (perhaps because of ideological villains above, and/or general economic trouble) so that the wealthy can purchase elite firefighting service, less affluent families have to sweat over how to pay for college costs, health insurance, and additional half-way decent firefighting protection, and the poor get worn-down, low quality underfunded stuff,

b) We regress back to the completely private system, where middle class families get hit with even more of a burden, and low-income folks have to rely on charity fire-fighters (!) on a food-kitchen model, or the equivalent of the overpriced crappy food store filling the gap left by major chains who aren’t gonna bother going into those neighborhoods (at least with substantial gov’t favors), or just their own desperate efforts.  Remember, we’re talking about a real world where there’s usually substantial economic segregation. 

“(private charity has never not existed)”

I work in the nonprofit sector.  Private charity is great.  However, I don’t want the organization whose job it is to stop my house/neighbor’s house/neighborhood from burning down to be forced to spend a lot of time and resources on fundraising if there is a reliable alternative (which, of course, there is).  Additionally, nonprofit governance can be a big issue (generally despite best intentions) - now certainly, public agencies can be mismanaged, but there’s a lot more accountability; also, board members are (with fairly rare exceptions) uncompensated volunteers, and professionalism and organization can vary.

(And yeah, AIG . . .)

Although I should add that the firemark account in the story, while quite accurate for the U.K., is, afaik,  kinda questionable in terms of the U.S - certainly there were firemarks here, but whether firefighters would only help homes that had their marks seems at best uncertain.  What is certain is (as Katherome points out) that over the 19th century it became clear that our volunteer or insurer-owned fire brigades simply weren’t sufficient - at least for cities and such - and public systems were established.  So in a way, it’s not that we’re regressing to good old traditional American values, but rather to the corrupt practices of our former colonial masters.  To “beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” is one thing, but to turn around and row enthusiastically in that direction - and not even to our (national) past, but an even less desirable one . . .

Yeah, sorry, the privatization of utilities, healthcare, and basic infrastructure services, including, apparently, finance, is FAIL. The “neighbor’s house on fire” is a metaphor. The idea that a “free market” system with no or drastically, constantly less redistribution, has failed utterly. We could be in a state without money, y’all, if we hadn’t partially nationalized our banking system. The sky didn’t fall when we did that, nor did we all die when we started getting vaccinated against smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and tetanus. And strangely, there seems to be some kind of “electric” force coming through the ground to make my computer go, even though i redistribute my money to the cable company to get the internet and they redistribute it to their employees. Somehow, we’ve held on by a thread despite the evil redistribution of the basic resources necessary for our survival in an interconnected society.

Am I right in understanding that the debate is basically about whether taxation is a legitimate function of government? Are “conservative” apologists that intellectually bankrupt?

Socialized poor relief (“redistribution”) has been feature of Western polities since the sixteenth century, for fuck’s sake. It originated as part of Christian religious reform, advanced by Protestant reformers (like Calvin) and Catholic humanists (like Erasmus).

They recognized that private, individual charity was not only counter to their theories of salvation and righteous Christian living—but that it was also grossly inefficient and perversely celebrated and perpetuated the misery it purported to alleviate.

Enough with the adolescent and criminal anarcho-capitalist mentality already.

As far as incentive to maintain infrastructure goes, I don’t think people are that motivated.  In my town, neighborhoods decide whether they want to pay the expense of putting in sidewalks.  You know, so you can walk your dogs, have your kids go to their friends’ houses, or borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor without getting muddy or having to watch for cars in the street.  EVERYONE complains about the lack of sidewalks.  Guess how many neighborhoods have actually had them installed?

None.

The only sidewalks are in places that are older than the decision to make it the residents’ responsibility.

Reasonable Republicans I read tell me there are a lot of refundable tax credits in BO’s tax planning which would mean direct cash payments by IRS to people in excess of their income tax liability.  To me that’s a legitimate complaint, if true.  A higher graduated income tax is justifiable to me, even though it means I will pay higher taxes, if it is to be used to improve services to others (including education even though my kids are past the school system or health care), infrastructure and reduction of deficits and/or national debt.  I’m not in favor of tax increases to fund direct cash outlays to people.  Maybe that makes me an economic conservative. 

Caliban said this:

Surely, as a society, we can agree that the exec can live quite well on 1 mil a year while 180 miners get another 50k a year?

  I think the objection to that idea as one for the state to implement is that it wouldn’t have a positive effect beyond the first year it’s done.  The capitalists with the money to open new mines, keep the current ones going and buy the equipment needed to do the work, all of which employs the miners, would slow their activity and fewer miners would find work.

I acknowledge that we are so socialized at present that most of us don’t KNOW what a privately funded system looks like, but it doesn’t look like “poor people get burned out and society collapses under its own weight” lol.

You sure about that?  Because that’s what’s happening in San Diego County, where people are voting against increasing funding for state and county firefighting services and paying private crews instead.  Why should they care if their neighbor’s house burns down?  They should have bought private insurance, too.

Surely, as a society, we can agree that the exec can live quite well on 1 mil a year while 180 miners get another 50k a year?

This seems overly generous to the exec. In New Harmony in the 1800’s, everyone lived on exactly the same income, which was zero. These good people just shared everything. This must be what we want to do. Why should anyone make more than anyone else. Government must equalize the results of luck in our lives. Just because someone works harder or smarter is no justification for a claim upon the resources of the commons than anyone else. I’m hoping to move to New Harmony next year when my current commune folds up. I just don’t understand why so many of our hardest workers just leave. They seem to be bitter people. Maybe they should relax more often.

Oh, and siobhan, don’t count on being able to get private fire protection even if you want it.  Most of the companies only serve certain zip codes.  If you don’t live there, well, you should have thought of that before you let your house catch on fire.

Has anyone figured out who Eugene thinks he’s making fun of?

The capitalists with the money to open new mines, keep the current ones going and buy the equipment needed to do the work, all of which employs the miners, would slow their activity and fewer miners would find work.

How many mines are privately or individually capitalized in this day and age? We’re talking about money that is already being paid as salaries, and unless mining company executives are out there risking their own salary (beyond stock options) I’m not quite sure how this follows.

Auguste, I only continued with the mines term because caliban used it.  It’s a metaphor for just about any business or industry.  Expanding business means more employees and better paid employees.  Concentration of capital is necessary for this in general.  Big salaries can be incentive for big productivity and generally and in the long run downside risk controls crazy business decisions.  If we all, in the form of government bailouts, remove the downside risk for certain sector executives, it is quite reasonable to limit the upside rewards in those sectors.

My brother always brings up the points of siobhan about privatizing everything and let teh people choose what to fund. I always point out the issue of who builds roads, who builds waste facilities, who builds schools; who builds dams, etc….He always responds that someone would see the profit in building a highway from Boston to NYC, say. But then I ask him what about the little roads we all spend time on- like the road in front of our homes or the small road to the road in front of our home? No one would ever argue (seriously) that there is a private economic benefit to be gained from putting a toll on the road where I live that has 4 homes? It would never have been built. Or hospitals? Who would ever build a rural hospital without government subsidy? Or a school? Schools would become what they were originally- bastions of those who were rich enough to pay to go there.

In order to privatize everything, we would have to create mass cities far greater than any that exist now to make the scale of economy viable. If you want to see how life would be under a private everything, study the middle ages and study some of the rural areas in underdeveloped countries. There was a great article in SLATE about a guy going to Mongolia and he was on a road with his guide and the road stopped- just stopped- because there was no economic need for it to go any farther; despite the fact that people lived farther down the unimproved road.

And I still don’t see why does who want more would not be satisfied with a million dollars? Am I missing something? Don’t even tell me they drive the economy; the 180 miners who have 50k more will certainly buy more ordinary durable goods overall than 1 person.

To be more clear to some of those here who just don’t get it: the money you have is legal tender for all debts public and private. It is a MEANS to exchange goods and services that is owned by everyone and we allow you to possess- but not own- the money to make trade/exchange work more smoothly. It does NOT have to be accepted as payment. Your local liquor store could demand you pay in chickens or in euros. The only reason money works is that we all accept it. The government could say tomorrow that we are converting to the euro and the dollar is to be exchanged at 50 dollars to one euro.

Money is what WE make of it; hence we can make it do ANYTHING we want- including making sure everyone has a plate of food, a warm place to sleep, and a doctor to visit. If those aren’t among the basic inalienable rights, than I am not sure what such rights would be.

“Government must equalize the results of luck in our lives. Just because someone works harder or smarter ”

But you can, contra pseudo-Debs’ oddly irrelevant mockery, make a very good case that there is a role for gov’t in addressing the results of luck in our lives.  I mean, past a certain point, it doesn’t really seem quite fair that (say) Paris Hilton has had a bazillion-jillion opportunities, while (for example) the daughter of hardworking but dirt-poor immigrants has, shall we say, somewhat fewer.  Equality of opportunity is a goal that even Repuplicans can rhetorically embrace [pdf] (while their party works to limit or undermine actual efforts to approach that goal, of course, but . . .)

Ah, but Dan, they don’t really want equality of opportunity. They want to restore aristocratic elites resembling the British gentry from the Glorious Revolution to Victoria—or hell, the mostly closed 19th-c. haute bourgeoisie from all over Europe and America (but without cultivation of high culture and classical education). We’re practically at such a restoration now.

Sorry wapsie, but since I am always annoyed with right wingers claim they know what MY real motivations are, I object when people on my side of the divide do the same for them.  I’d rather we argue what their policies would result in rather that slam them for what we think their true motivations are. 

I am definitely more of Dan S.‘s persuasion than caliban’s.  I don’t agree that “a plate of food, a warm place to sleep, and a doctor to visit” are “basic inalienable rights”.  It’s the equal political opportunity to pursue those comforts that is the inalienable right.  I prefer to live in a society that contributes through government and private charity to ease the hardships of people who have precious little of those comforts, but I don’t see them as rights. 

As to who drives the economy more, high or low income workers, consumption is not the only driver of the economy.  I’m happy to support redistribution of tax burdens in light of the widening wealth gap and the “bottom up” paradigm of BO has some value, but at this moment in time I would rather the net revenue removed from private economy via taxes rise modestly, if at all.

It sounds like you, caliban, would limit income by government action to what a person needs(as defined by you), or even some arbitrary multiplier of needs.  It makes me glad you’re not in control, and that we have a Supreme Court to control the tyranny of the majority, and I don’t even make six figures per year.

On the little yahoo news box:”• Bank of America CEO says Wall St. executives are overpaid” (a clip of Ken Lewis on 60 Minutes)

“ I don’t agree that “a plate of food, a warm place to sleep, and a doctor to visit” are “basic inalienable rights”.”

I dunno, though - this gets kinda tricky.  You can’t find rights under a microscope, or with fancy equipment, or anything like that, so it’s hard to say.  Certainly the stuff we generally regard as basic inalienable rights tend to be impossible/ extremely difficult/ of very limited use without food, and it’s very hard to overate a warm place to sleep.  Medical care is also good .  {Shrugs}

In my personal set of values professional baseball, football and basketball players in the U.S. are overpaid, too.  And ticket prices are too high.  But I wouldn’t support a government-imposed limit on players’ compensation or ticket prices.  I’ll go to minor league or high school games more often than the professional leagues because I can enjoy talented but less than the best performers. 

I agree the rights thing is a little tricky.  I have this belief that able-bodied people earn the basics of life (food, shelter, medical care) through effort rather than the simple fact of being alive.  But then I wonder if that tenet is inconsistent with my view that children have a right to support from their parents and that society should provide minimums for the incapable.  Something to noodle through.

In my personal set of values professional baseball, football and basketball players in the U.S. are overpaid, too.  And ticket prices are too high.  But I wouldn’t support a government-imposed limit on players’ compensation or ticket prices.

I think we can deal with executive pay in ways other than setting specific dollar limits, like forcing boards of directors to get an independent analysis of what to pay someone.  Right now, it’s hugely corrupt because everyone knows everyone and everyone gives their buddy extra money so he’ll give them extra money when they’re on his board.  People don’t realize what a small, incestuous world it can be with the Fortune 500 companies.  It doesn’t have to be a government agency, but it would need to be independent, though as we found out during Enron, an “independent” company like Arthur Andersen can be corrupted if they get paid enough.

Also, tying CEO pay to the stock price, or compensating with stock, was a great idea that turned out to be disastrous in execution.  Instead of giving executives an incentive to sustain long-term growth, it gave them incentives to pump up the stock price from quarter to quarter and do anything they could to get “profits” on paper, even if it meant dismantling the infrastructure of the company to do it.

Of course, there’s also the problem that Alan Greenspan was too naive to foresee:

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder’s equity—myself especially—are in a state of shocked disbelief,” said Greenspan, who stepped down from the Fed in 2006.

Maybe Greenspan should have listened to some of us DFH’s when we were saying that deregulating the way he did was setting up incentives for people to cheat.

If any wingnuts are posting on this and other threads from public library computers, they are probably doing so thanks to redistribution. Thanks to the Universal Service Administrative Company (though Republican Congressmen have ensured that your public Internet comes with TEH SEX filtered out).

  But I wouldn’t support a government-imposed limit on players’ compensation or ticket prices.

Why the hell not? We taxpayers paid for the stadium, and baseball only exists in its current form as a legally-protected monopoly by the federal government.

I’m not saying I would personally support such limits (my preference would be for cities and states to stop blowing public money on stadiums to pander to the demands of team owners), but such limits wouldn’t be wrong or unwarranted.