What is the problem with food stamps, welfare, social security, and other socialist benafits. I would say that capitalism benafits a lot off these things. Here me out. On foodstamps, you are taking taxes from people as a whole and giving an amount of the tax money for a person to invest in food. Thats literally all you're doing. The poor person would not have money other wise to invest in food meaning the store they buy the food from would get less money and the workers might as well. Why are right wing capitalists so against food stamps. Could you even imagine how many business would lose profit, lose customers and have to close down making more people lose jobs? This is just one example.
I believe this mostly has to do with the fact that socalism has gotten such a bad rap ever since it was a threat to money hoarders. Ever since the russian revolution elites have been trying to turn people off of the idea. Now obviously i get it. taxing people to feed poor people is "not right" for workers but give me one good reason outside of personal issues how social/government benefits dont only help people, but capitalism and society as a whole
>food stamps, welfare, social security, and other socialist benafits >socialist
They are bad because they force low-income workers to live off the government, rather than collectively organize to increase their income.
Mason King
They threaten the hegemony of the upper class.
Everything after that is catchy marketing jingles designed to get the proles to vote against their own self interest.
James Turner
>Ever since the russian revolution elites have been trying to turn people off of the idea
Opposite actually. The Russian Revolution spooked the rest of the west into trying to stifle revolutionary activity through handouts.
Nathan Rivera
but many of those counties offer even more benefits to their society. Unless i am misunderstanding the chart. Americans always accuse those places of being socialist shitholes
Jordan Ross
I call bullshit. Most of America's taxes go towards social programs
Landon Hall
Most of America's social programs are aimed at buying votes from the elderly, not poverty reduction or creating a stronger workforce.
Why do you think it's "social expenditures on the non-elderly"
Connor Butler
What I'm saying is that Americans reject social spending precisely because it's effective at eradicating poverty, and a politically active, well educated working class is a mortal threat to the ruling class in this country.
Jack Bailey
Because there are also corporations that sell american goods, like apple and ford.
I have ssi and welfare and i often buy non american goods.
Brody Moore
America doesn't reject it. We have huge social spending programs.
Ayden Richardson
Essentially it is like this: proponents of capitalism claim that those who gain wealth are more superiors who would use charity to ensure an equitable chance for everyone to flourish.
Communists assume you need to have some kind of laws in place to allow this to happen.
The capitalist system assumes people are not greedy, communism assumes people are.
John Barnes
It's a ponzi scheme.
Doesn't work.
Levi Peterson
America's programs don't reduce poverty. It's probably true you spend more taxpayer money on it than other western states.
Blake Ward
Perhaps the populations getting our welfare are biologically different than those from Sweden or Italy.
Samuel Cooper
Americans spend an awful lot of money on torturing unamerican behavior. That money could be spent on something positive if they wanted.
American welfare is also full of strings. It doesn't seem designed to help anyone leave poverty, the government has decided it's a subsidy to Walmart et al.
Landon Price
Instead of giving out food reduce taxes so poor/less educated can be hired and do simpler jobs. You wont find a bag filler in europe because taxes are so high no one would pay a person to fill your bags or pump gas. So instead they get paid for doing nothing, which OFCOURSE is better. Take africa for example, EU gives bags of cash for 100 years, 0 developement, chinese invest through private enterprise and hire africans, u got roads and shit now
Julian Lee
For the elderly.
And nobody else.
Landon Cruz
most drug dealers accept 50/cents on the dollar for ebt cards
Nicholas Gonzalez
t.retard
Christopher Wood
>you are taking taxes from people as a whole and giving an amount of the tax money for a person to invest in food
correction: you are forcing the population to invest in a particular industry. food. and not just any food, cheap food.
there's no freedom of choice here, and choice is key to overall happiness.
>capitalist system assumes people are not greedy No it doesn't. Every passionate capitalist will tell you greed is not only inevitable but necessary. Regardless, its self-interest, not greed, that fuels most capitalist arguments. When you admit people are self-interested, and this isn't a negative concept like selfishness or greed, you start to see the necessity of the system that cators to that. It's as natural as water to gills. youtube.com/watch?v=VVxYOQS6ggk
Taxes are not charity and social programs sabotage economic movement in practice; they don't encourage it.
When your dad gets a job while on welfare, he loses his funding. When your girlfriend moves in and helps pay the bills, your student loans get cut.
Jonathan Miller
>school >police >literally anything public
Dominic Davis
>So instead they get paid for doing nothing, which OFCOURSE is better.
They would be filling bags and pumping gas if someone offered them a wage that made it worthwhile.
The state owes you money, you own it, and any business that does business there is doing it with your permission. It costs the state money to protect businesses and their property from theft, so they should pay for this service. Once a reasonable mark-up for profit has been added, that can go to pay the citizens.
And once they have a basic income, we can discover how much each job is worth.
Hypothetical: you make twenty thousand dollars a year from a trust fund. How much per hour would you need to be paid before you accepted a job filling bags? How about gardening? How about sewerage maintenance?
Adrian Clark
well, unless they're going to invest that money in MY business, why tf should i contribute
Isaac Russell
I don't get why people think they have a right to the pursuit of happiness that takes priority over someones right to a home. There should be at least shelters for everyone so they don't suffer in the cold.
Carson Davis
>They would be filling bags and pumping gas if someone offered them a wage that made it worthwhile.
How much is a job like that worth? Are you implying people would only take that job if it paid for a small house?
Cuz that's fuckin' wack, bro.
>Hypothetical: you make twenty thousand dollars a year from a trust fund. How much per hour would you need to be paid before you accepted a job filling bags?
What's your aim here? Maybe a couple bucks an hour if it was just to get me out of the house or pay for some movie tickets, or just get some job experience. Same as without the trust fund.
Zachary Ramirez
t. ignores evidence.
America has some of the lowest social expenditures on non-elderly in the OECD.
Eli Martinez
>What is the problem with food stamps, welfare, social security, and other socialist benafits. They rely on taxing the rich (capitalists)
>I would say that capitalism benafits a lot off these things. No, market economies benefit.
>On foodstamps, you are taking taxes from people as a whole and giving an amount of the tax money for a person to invest in food. Thats literally all you're doing. No, you're taking it from the capitalists, and they don't like that. It's not useful outside of specific situations such as unemployment benefits or trying to make your taxes progressive. Otherwise, you can let the market deal with it, since you're providing for those too poor to afford food. The only other people are druggies who would buy drugs over food.
>Why are right wing capitalists so against food stamps. Because capitalists think tax is theft and think property rights are the one universal natural law and human right.
>Could you even imagine how many business would lose profit, lose customers and have to close down making more people lose jobs? That's called an economy collapsing. Starving people make for cheap labor. The reason consumerism works is because the lower classes are mostly providing each other with increased standards of living, and people live beyond their means to ensure they must provide valuable and stable source of labor, and there's more to skim off the top for capitalists to take.
>I believe this mostly has to do with the fact that socalism has gotten such a bad rap ever since it was a threat to money hoarders. No, it's gotten a bad rap because totalitarian governments like to claim they're socialist, and then became the rivaling super power. Welfare state is not the same as socialism.
Brandon Stewart
>How much is a job like that worth?
We can know when the employer and the employee can both walk away from the negotiation at any time. So long as the employee has to eat, and so long as the state insists that they own the citizens rather than the other way around, this cannot happen.
>Are you implying people would only take that job if it paid for a small house?
We can only know when it's possible to negotiate.
>What's your aim here?
To see whether people even want to negotiate a better deal economically for themselves, or if they're incurably conservative.
>Maybe a couple bucks an hour if it was just to get me out of the house or pay for some movie tickets, or just get some job experience. Same as without the trust fund.
Without the trust fund you have no choice. You'll have to take the lowest paying job you can find as soon as possible or you starve. With the trust fund you can have the life you describe above.
We all understand that the state belongs to the citizens, right? That you do not owe taxes, the state owes you profits?
Cooper Edwards
>Because capitalists think tax is theft and think property rights are the one universal natural law and human right.
Until they get to vote or lobby on tax issues.
Bentley Martinez
>There should be at least shelters for everyone so they don't suffer in the cold
Who defines "should"? Where do you get that idea? What about wild animals? Every living creature appreciates shelter and food. That doesn't mean we have an obligation to end scarcity and bad weather.
The fact is, allowing that "pursuit of happiness" to be truly free is every bit as important as allowing lions to eat antelopes and for rain to fall in the rainforest.
History has shown that we are about as capable at (consciously) controlling economics as we are at controlling the weather. We ALWAYS fuck it up for someone.
"Hands-off" capitalism has proven in nearly every instance to be the best way to allocate the good stuff. Go on and see what happens to the bottom percent in every era and country where government expands.
Jose Martin
>"Hands-off" capitalism has proven in nearly every instance to be the best way to allocate the good stuff. Go on and see what happens to the bottom percent in every era and country where government expands.
Example?
Remember, the market or contracts or borders cannot be backed up with violence in your example. It has to be hands off capitalism.
Zachary Mitchell
That's all well and good, but the empirical evidence doesn't agree with your ideology.
Elijah Moore
>Without the trust fund you have no choice. You'll have to take the lowest paying job you can find as soon as possible or you starve. With the trust fund you can have the life you describe above.
Ahhh it all comes together at the end, I admit I was having trouble holding all those marbles at once. Well, I don't see how the cost of bagging zucchinis has anything to do with how much I need it to be.
Profit defines what a job is worth. Either its profitable to hire someone or not. "Negotiating" has nothing to do with it.
John Fisher
No, profit determines the ceiling of the worth of a job. It doesn't provide a floor. Profit aims to drive the wages down as much as possible, unless you're Ford, and get this right, Ford benefited because he got higher quality labor out of the deal, not just that paying people more drives the economy.
Jackson Jones
China. "Sanctioned economic zones" or however they put it. In Shenzhen, you had a handful of fishing villages with starving farmers until the government decided to do away with OP's food stamps, allowing money to flow. Now it's yuge.
Joseph Fisher
>No, profit determines the ceiling of the worth of a job. It doesn't provide a floor.
I don't understand the difference. An employer simply asks, "What do I need to pay this new employee so that I can still make a profit?" This Ford guy sounds like he found a set of quality employees who's skills had a certain worth. He was able to meet that worth on his end and profited, presumably, immensely.
Kayden Myers
>SEZs offer "tax and business incentives to attract foreign investment and technology" You do realize much of the economic development is from foreign investment looking for the highest ROI, and the highest ROI means not paying for food stamps. It didn't magically create wealth, it attracted wealth from somewhere else.
Also special economic zones doesn't mean no welfare, it doesn't mean hands off either. The government is very involved to be as pro-business as possible. It's like a form of neo-merchantilism, hence why China gets accused of being a currency manipulator and unfair.
Businesses are decentralized compared to state industry, which is probably better, but that's hardly the only thing.
Matthew Perez
>An employer simply asks, "What do I need to pay this new employee so that I can still make a profit?" No, an employer asks, what is the wage I need to pay to MAXIMIZE profit.
>This Ford guy sounds like he found a set of quality employees who's skills had a certain worth. He was able to meet that worth on his end and profited, presumably, immensely. No, he got increased worker loyalty, and a reliable workforce this was back in the day when workers often skipped out on work. It's the same kind of benefit as healthcare, fewer sick days means more productivity. It had nothing to do with finding better workers. It was an investment in workers with a positive ROI. Do you seriously not know who the fuck Henry Ford was?
Liam Gray
>Do you seriously not know who the fuck Henry Ford was?
I can guess from context clues that he was either an important businessman or a government employee.
>No, he got increased worker loyalty I feel like that's tied to profit somehow.
>and a reliable workforce this was >It's the same kind of benefit as healthcare
This is why i'm having trouble understanding you! You sound like Yoda, and then you bring up this non-sequitur marble called "healthcare". I can only hold so many marbles at once! I cannot use the force to see the future, Yoda!
>It had nothing to do with finding better workers. It was an investment in workers with a positive ROI ROI is return of investment, right? Well, if it was negative when he was paying one particular wage, it's clear to me that it was the wrong wage for those workers!
Is that the "negotiation" that other guy was talking about? A guy's employees were underpaid, so they skipped work. So the guy increased pay, and now he could make a profit! Bingo, the One Wage is discovered!
Anthony Hernandez
>This Ford guy Are you 'avin' a giggle or are you genuinely this uneducated?
Andrew Campbell
>I can guess from context clues that he was either an important businessman or a government employee. Why are you even on a history board?
>I feel like that's tied to profit somehow. It is. I'm explaining that Fordism isn't the way some people describe it to be.
>You sound like Yoda, and then you bring up this non-sequitur marble called "healthcare" Sometimes investing in you labor force has a positive ROI.
>ROI is return of investment, right? Well, if it was negative when he was paying one particular wage, it's clear to me that it was the wrong wage for those workers! That's correct.
>Is that the "negotiation" that other guy was talking about? A guy's employees were underpaid, so they skipped work. So the guy increased pay, and now he could make a profit! Bingo, the One Wage is discovered! That's a wage based on maximizing profit, not a wage based on "still making a profit". He could have still made a profit had he been paying them shitty wages, and he was. He could have still made a profit paying them even more. The point is wages are based on profit maximization.
It's something you don't seem to get.
Evan Evans
I don't have a problem with them existing but they're basically a band-aid, an easy way out. Education and infrastructure spending should have a much higher priority but unfortunately they're harder to implement and are generally more expensive in the short-term (but not the long-term).
Jacob Cook
That's what you get with short election cycles and democracy and dumb voters or voters with strong time preference. You can actually see dictatorships putting a lot of resources into those things.
Nolan Hernandez
>I can guess from context clues that he was either an important businessman or a government employee.
HOLY SHEEIT LEFTIST ARE DUMB.
Alexander Ross
But that poster isn't leftist?
Mason Sanchez
t. guy who can't follow a conversation
Ian Allen
So what you're saying is. Everything is the fault of the baby boomers? Got it.
Jackson Foster
It's true though.
Juan Barnes
>I can guess from context clues that he was either an important businessman or a government employee. What the fuck man.
