NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/can/general/6465

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From: [e-mail] (Dave Till)
Subject: Re: Communist Progressive Tax System (was Re: Liberal Party Tax Policy)
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Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 19:53:27 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (John LaRocque) writes:
>> Did he earn the extra $300 because he hoarded a scarce resource, and forced
>> people to buy it at the price he set?  (Read "Ten Lost Years" by Barry
>> Broadfoot or "The Depression" by Pierre Berton to learn what can happen
>> when a free-market economy goes haywire.)
>
>Go ahead blame the evil heartless businessmen. What if Bob DID earn that
>money? It is his.

I am not assuming that all businessmen are evil and heartless; apologies
for the confusion.  You seem to be implying that the money that a person
earns is always proportional to the person's effort, and is a useful
measure of the person's worth; I disagree with this, and was trying to
come up with useful counterexamples.

>Or do you believe that we OWE something to society
>(you know the line "your brother's keeper".... oh how communist)?

Actually, yes, I do.  That's part of what my taxes go for.  It's in
my best interest to "keep my brother":  health-care costs go down,
the streets are safer, and society as a whole is stronger if no one is
suffering.  Everybody benefits, not just those who receive the money.

>I was in the music faculty for almost two years. I saw a dead end career
>and people who sucked every enjoyment out of music and I saw my friends
>graduate with a degree that no one would want. Artists - unfortunately
>everybody thinks their the hottest thing on the block. I'll take Alice
>Cooper over our university trained artists any day. And besides... HE
>EARNED HIS MONEY!

The artists I was thinking of are not necessarily university-trained,
but that's beside the point.  I don't think anybody goes into the arts
to make money.  The serious artists (and writers, and theatre people)
that I know put up with a lack of money to do what they do best.

>Why am I in computer science? Because it requires BRAINS. The jobs of
>the future depend not on how wealthy you are but HOW SMART YOU ARE.
>If you drop out of school you deserve to be unemployed and homeless.
>If you go to university expecting greatness, with your parents money
>and OSAP, expect nothing but tears. Hey History grads, I hear there
>are jobs at the local McDonalds.

I agree with you that intelligence and ingenuity will be the prime assets
in the future.  However, I'm not sure that a computer science education
is necessarily the best way to obtain the skills needed in the 21st
century.  A computer science education gives a person a limited set of
technical skills, which may or may not be useful for very long.  (I have a
computer science education, by the way; see your comments on Waterloo below.)

Futurists seem to agree that the 21st century worker will need to
be intelligent and able to adapt to a rapidly changing society.
Literacy and mental flexibility will be valuable assets, and these
are the skills which a good liberal arts education gives you.  I don't
have data handy, but I believe that a liberal arts education is not
a handicap in the job market.  I myself have found my writing skills
more of a marketable asset than my computer skills.

>Oh well. What is society anyways? Go read Ortega Y Gassett on why it
>is impossible to define "society" (MAN AND SOCIETY?  --- oooh how sexist).
>Ever seen Boyz in the Hood. The main character, Furious Styles (the dad)
>says that on the SAT tests blacks and whites are equal where it
>concerns MATH AND SCIENCES. There is no limit to the power of the human
>brain. And none of that depends on "wealth". So get off your moralistic
>high horse.

I'll climb off mine if you climb off yours :-).

There is no limit to the power of the best human brains working together,
true (which is my definition of what society should be, for what it's worth).
Sadly, however, there is a limit to the power of the individual human brain.

It's all very well to say "I am strong!  I deserve the spoils!" when
you are young and healthy.  But what should we do with people who are
no longer young, who aren't necessarily healthy, but still can contribute
positively to society?  Should we shoulder them aside to allow the young
and strong to reap their just reward, or what?

>Spike Lee's comments in his making of Malcolm X (BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY)
>condemn black kids for dropping out of school just because it is the
>white thing to get A's. ( Chapter 1 ).

As well he should.  But I think you're wandering off topic (or you and I
disagree as to what our topic actually is).

>Ever wonder why the sons and
>daughters of so many Asian immigrants are going to run Canada in the
>21st century. Because they studied hard. Their parents were poor,
>uneducated, but that didn't stop them from greatness. You CAN work
>towards success.

Studying hard is not necessarily the same as studying profitably, but
I'll get to that in a minute.

I think our major philosophical difference is regarding what constitutes
"success".  From your posting, I gather that you equate "success" with
"quality of life", if not "happiness" itself.  I do not.  To each their
own, I suppose.

>Oh there is this unknown idol called Destiny that somehow dictates all
>our lives in advance (or is that God?). You are a determinnist. I believe
>in the power of chaos. I am prepared for the world. Man, you have just
>missed the train.

I am not a determinist.  Let me try to explain my point again.  If you,
John LaRocque, had been born in Ethiopia, I doubt you would have the
opportunity to study computer science.  Had you been stricken with a
life-threatening disease or debilitating mental illness, you would
not be able to study computer science either.  You are able to use your
brain, and work towards success, not only because of your own efforts,
but because you have been given the opportunity to apply your efforts
and because you have been fortunate enough not to have had something
unpleasant happen to you.  You are also fortunate enough to be born with
the ability to perform tasks which are currently valued by the marketplace.

There's lots of bright people out there whose natural abilities are not
currently appreciated by the marketplace, but might have been appreciated
in another time or another place.  Suppose you had a natural genius for,
say, building new kinds of automobiles?  A modern-day Henry Ford would
not become rich; the start-up costs are too great.  (Leonardo da Vinci
may be another example of someone whose gifts were not suited for his time
and place.)

>Did Jesus come down from the mountain to tell you that one (or Marx)?
>Humans are NOT animals. You don't feed people like you feed Benji. "Oh
>poor person (you poor creature), open wide as a caring society feeds you."
>Oh how insulting. Oh the inhumanity. Boo hoo hoo. Better money management
>and less waste on lottery tickets, cigarettes and booze would save money.

A caring society should provide the necessities (note:  not the luxuries)
to those who cannot provide for themselves.  (This includes those
currently unable to find work, people in re-training programs, and
people such as the non-mobile elderly and mothers abandoned by their
spouses, who are unable to support themselves due to circumstances beyond
their control.)

I also disagree with your assertion that the poor are necessarily lazy and
shiftless, but that's a whole other story.

>Stop cancer by doing the following:
>1. Stop smoking. It's unhealty and an awful waste of money (including the
>   money I unwillingly dole out to the health care system to look after these
>   bozos).
>2. Eat healthier.
>3. If you see any bad signs, go to the frigging doctor. Don't say "It
>   will get better". That won't look good on your tombstone.

There are lots of non-smokers who eat healthily who get cancer anyway.
Not all of the answers are known.

>I agree. Get people to work harder in order to PAY LESS. Just think about it.
>You will pay LESS TAXES if you EARN MORE. Or, as in Robert Nozicks ANARCHY,
>STATE and UTOPIA (unlike pop historians like Broadfoot and Berton), who
>says that a completely private world is possible. This book is technical
>,not for plebes who read Berton pablum as "history". (Berton is a self-
>proclaimed socialist).

Is a *completely* private world possible?  (I haven't read Nozick's book.)
I could imagine, for instance, the privatization of road building and
maintenance, but I find it difficult to imagine the privatization of
the selection of the location of, say, a freeway from Toronto to Montreal.
Or does Nozick envision a group of competing freeways from Toronto to
Montreal?  And what about municipal services such as sewage management,
water supply, and electricity?  Are you going to have competing networks
of storm drains?

>Who provides incomes to the home builders? Who pays the butlers and the maids?
>Who contributes to the economy. Let those who build luxurious houses be
>PRAISED for bringing wealth to the economy. As H L Mencken said, the puritan's
>greatest fear is that somewhere, someone out there might be happy. Socialism
>is the philosophy of failure, and of envy. Socialism is the enemy of happiness.

I should mention in passing here that I am not a socialist:  I believe in
capitalism with a safety net.  As I understand it, you and I are arguing
about the need for a safety net:  I am for it, and you are against it.

If everyone has enough to eat, a roof over their heads, and opportunities
to advance as far as their abilities and efforts will take them, then
there is nothing wrong with people enjoying the rewards of their efforts.

>> a wealthy society ("wealthy" in the larger sense of the word)
>> gives everybody the opportunity to do what he or she does best, and ensures
>> that no one is deprived of this opportunity.
>
>Free markets or force (Sieg Heil!)? Remember, Hitler also said Bread and
>Work.

Hitler liked dogs, but that doesn't mean that members of kennel clubs are
proto-fascists.  What's your point?

In a truly "free" marketplace, workers will have an opportunity to move
from one job to another, if they are willing to put in the effort to
learn new skills.  In a totally unregulated economy, such relocation
is impossible:  the worker will be too busy making ends meet to be able
to afford to relocate.

To put it another way:  if you were earning a subsistence wage and had no
other means of support, you would not be able to afford a university
education without financial help.  No amount of scrimping and saving
would help.

>> I take it you've gotten your U.S. green card, have you?  Don't slam the door
>> on your way out.
>
>Why the US? Why not one of those "non-white" countries that don't punish
>success? Asia is the economic powerhouse of the future. With each passing
>generation, Japanese and Koreans and even the Chinese are beginning to
>appreciate the things that we take for granted: civil liberties and the
>right of the individual to his own happiness. Once the Chi-com cronies
>in Peking (ohhh, Beijing) die, China will be the new Japan. A place of
>massive change. It is now happening in South China near Hong Kong.
>Take your Cantonese lessons. They will be the new bosses.

You're knocking down straw men.  I appreciate civil liberties and the
right to pursue happiness, too.

Actually, the Japanese model is not the answer to all our problems.  The
Japanese themselves are beginning to realize that their educational system
is (a) a source of great stress and (b) produces people who can work very
hard and have memorized a lot of facts but are not capable of innovative
thinking.  (And, by the way:  some Japanese companies are now encouraging
their employees to take more time off work.)

Working smart, not working hard, is the answer (as you yourself have
stated earlier on).  Western Europeans have managed to remain quite
productive despite taking more time off work than we do in Canada.

>> Such as those that fund public universities such as Western?
>
>Western. That party instituion for rich people? Ha, you think I care
>for this place. Most of these people who are here because of Mommie and
>OSAP are going nowhere with that degree that they spent a good $40 000 for.
>Fools. Absolute fools. The critics are right: Western IS an elitist
>institution. If I could, I would be at Waterloo right now. Sigh....
>There is a REAL educational institution. Where the people who teach
>courses cooperate with businesses to prepare the graduates for the
>future. Why is it that of all the university graduates at Microsoft,
>the majority of them come from Waterloo? This place kicks MIT's ASS.

I am a graduate of the Waterloo computer science program (B.Math. '84 and
M.Math. '89, as it happens), and I claim that Waterloo is good at
providing a technical education, and is also pretty good at finding
its graduates jobs in which they can apply their technical education.
However, I am not so certain that Waterloo has done all that good a
job of preparing its students for the larger world that exists outside
of the narrow technical fields it specializes in.

At some point down the road, the world will change, and computer jobs
will dry up (or, at best, will not be performable without extensive
re-training).  At that point, people who have learned to think and/or
adapt will survive best in the new work environment.  I don't think Waterloo
has done all that good a job of teaching its graduates the ability to
do these things.

>I respect immigrants for going where the money and the freedom is. They
>truly know what makes Canada special. And they work hard for their money.
>In many Third World Countries, the government controls everything.
>Here there is some semblance of a free marketplace. Here there is some
>semblance of freedom. They appreciate it much more than the guy
>who was born here and lazily expects society to look after him. A truly
>vile specimen. Maybe we should deport THEM instead.

I don't think there are all that many people who expect the state to
support them from cradle to grave.  The need to accomplish and to make
progress in life is nearly as essential as breathing to most people.
(The essay entitled "People" in *Up the Organization* by a man named
Townsend discusses exactly this point.  In this essay, he talks of two
kinds of organizations:  Theory X organizations, in which people are
assumed to be lazy sloths who need to be driven, and Theory Y organizations,
which assume that people can drive themselves harder than they can be
driven if given the chance and incentive to do so.  Your viewpoint is
that of a Theory X organization leader; many of the widely hailed Japanese
innovations such as "quality circles" are examples of Theory Y in action.)

>"I shall not serve. I am not my brother's keeper"
>John LaRocque

"I'd come up with a profound quote here, but I don't have one handy" -- me :-)

--Dave Till