All societies are unequal

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

But some, it seems,  are more unequal than others.

And yet it seems to be that where the masses are dirt poor and starving peasants, the rulers of these countries are not as well off as affluent people in countries where the differences between the rich and poor are not as widely seperate.
In real terms, the people who form the ' inner ring' around a dictator like Idi Amin or Saddam Hussain are not as wealthy as say, the average stockbroker in Surrey, or the top earners in industrialised democracies. And this is not hard to fathom. If you have gun toting goons around you, you might be able to steal everything the peasants have got - but the peasants won't have that much that you can steal.

A wealthy stockbroker , though, you can tax . Sure, they will moan , but they will always pay more than an illiterate peasant. So, even the rich get a payoff for closing the gap between the rich and the poor. In pre-war Germany, Krupps, the big steel magnate, made a point of payin the workers well, building homes for the workforce, and even installing showers that the steel workers could use in the workplace before they got changed  out of their overalls and went home.

When another wealthy friends questioned his generousity, Krupps remarked " it's a small price to pay to keep Communism and Socialism out of the workplace " Cynically, he bought the workforce off, undermining the sources of  discontent and greivances in order to keep the bulk of the profits for himself. Yet it was true that  his  workers were better off than many of their contemporaries.

Today, The Green party is not out to abolish capitalism, but rather to close the gap between rich and poor. a goal that some see as a sell out. " Why beg for a few more crumbs when we can seize control of the bakery?" they ask.

The SWP, years ago were preaching  revolution , and not reform. Rather than overhaul the system, they sought to sweep it away. And one day, a demonstration , up in the north, took a surprising turn. I know , because i was in the SWP at the time and I read all about it in the party newspaper, the Socialist Worker.

It turned out that a window got broken , and a small supermarket got looted. A lot of booze and cigerretes were  'liberated' and reurned to the control of the proletariat', it seemed . So, at the next big meeting that I went to, many speakers stood up to congratulate the workers who took part in the demo  for their tremendous victory over the capitalist classes and their quasi-fascist  police force. Then I got on the rostrum and asked a few questions.  Like -
" How many tins of baby food got liberated and turned over to a young working mother to feed her child?"
"Did any local OAPs enjoy enjoy a bit of beef that evening, or did as much as a single bottle of milk go missing and find its way to  someone in need?"
These questions were met with stunned silence.  I took that to mean a 'no' then. And i pointed out that if this was what happened when they siezed control of one small shop, then what could we expect of  them if they ever got control of something biigger?

Somehow, I got the feeling that we would not see a workers paradise come into being , but a selfish mad scramble as everyone stuffed as much as they could into their own pockets. Mark it well, all the booze and ciggies went - but no food. The rioters were not hungry I suppose. Even so, there was no thought for the poor who might have been. I remember it well, because I recall how dissappointed I felt at seeing these self styled revolutionaries in their true colours.
I also remeber it as the day I tore up my SWP party card.

Everyone who gets rich, or even stays rich, does so by being disciplined and well organised - or they don't stay rich for long.  If we allow the rich to keep the bulk of the wealth they create, we can still syphon off enough to keep the poorest in our society at a decent levelof comfort and well being. We can even see to it that they can create some wealth themselves, and bette the whole community as a result.

A cap on the excessive bonusses of bankers would impact so few, but save so much. Raising the level of the lowest paid in sociey would also close the gap - and societies with a more equal wealth distribution have lower crime rates, lower rates of teenage pregnancy, disease and other social ills. So, yes, we would bring back  in the 10% tax band, and the 22% basic rate, but also crack down on tax havens. why should the rich forid 'tax evasion ' when they simply call it ' tax avoidance' when they do it themselves.

More equal societies have fewer people in prison per capita, they also have less violent crime as well.
They even mange to recycle more! So, the Greens commit to making our society more equal, using a whole raft of measures.
For more info on Equality as an issue, go to the report by independant academics, found here at
http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/

Comments

[merig00.livejournal.com]

In Russia sometimes there's no difference between the two.

What's the difference between 3 people taking your possessions at their will or 1 person but at the will of several millions?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

The difference between lawful taxation and theft, I would suppose. Pretty simple, really.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

so many people got together and decided to take your possessions - lawful. Several people decided to do the same - theft. So the difference is just in the number of people who decided to take your possessions?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

No, the difference is that one is instituted by a lawful government and with the consent of the people in a representative democracy. You did go to high school, right?

[merig00.livejournal.com]

And the difference? One can legally use force and the others can't?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

The difference is that thieves are not acting within a lawful government and by consent of the people in a representative democracy. For instance, the people in a representative democracy did not say, "Three people can go and decide to take some else's stuff." In fact, they made a law saying, "Three people can't go and just take other people's stuff."

Did you seriously miss all this, or are you just shitting me?

[merig00.livejournal.com]

But people in the representative democracy can say - we are taking your money. So what's the difference?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I already told you what the difference was. Do you think just asking it over and over again constitutes a meaningful retort? Man, you must have slept through a lot.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

All you told me so far is that a million people have some right to get together and take your belongings, but 3 people don't have that right.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

No, I believe I told you something quite different. For instance, if there was a village of 20 people, and 15 said, "This is our government, and everyone has to give two apples a month to the community food bank," then that would constitute the same thing. It has nothing to do with millions or not-millions. It has to do with the lawful representation of the people by democratic means, which is a system generally based off of some constitutional framework whereby representatives are elected according to a majority vote.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

So basically you are saying instead of coming to you with a gun a majority (many people, in your case 15) will come to you with a piece of paper and tell you - see we wrote down here that you need to share with us?

[green-man-2010.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong , but when someone says "Taxation = theft" , they usually turn out to be a libertarian.
I think I will go ask before I start on about the faults of libertarianism , though.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

If in a group of 9 people, 5 agree to take what the other four have for the betterment of the group, which is that?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

If there is a group of nine people, there is a group of nine people. If four people wish to secede, they are free to do, but then they relinquish all claims against the other group, and revert to relations of power and violence. And then what happens is what happens, be it as it may.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

If the analogy holds true to form, then this is forbidden.

And you didn't answer the question.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Please restate the question explicitly, since I'm not understanding the question as phrased.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

If four people wish to secede, they are free to do

And then the other 5 people would seal the doors and beat these 4 up and force them to stay within the Union. ;-)

[xforge.livejournal.com]

And that!! Is why some call it the War of Northern Aggression.

Not me of couse, nope, it was the War to End That Awful Practice of Slavery to me, yup, yes it was, mmhmm. ::nod::

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

It depends on whether those 9 people consented to government by democracy.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Not to these people. They seem to think that they can mount a truly moral attack by deciding if and when and how they'll be apart of the group, and when and where they won't be a part of the group. We call these people vampires.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

To be consistent with the condition most of us find ourselves in, say all of them were born into these circumstances. What does consent consist of?

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

This is obviously a tangent, because it is probably impossible today not to be born under some government, but consent consists of staying. If someone in the U.S. doesn't like the taxes, they are free to leave to another nation with lower taxes - but they can't take the land with them, which I suppose throws a wrench in things.

It also gets complicated when people can't realistically leave - they have no money to find lodging or food, they have no transferable skills, they don't speak any other language, they are not mobile, etc.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Consent obviously consists of those things which are able to be objects of consent. Since nobody chooses to be born and nobody chooses to be born where they are born, there is no inequality or unfairness to those aspects which are consentable.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

Somehow he wants all the benefits of a society, but *still* wants his individual desires to trump everyone else.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

In Russia sometimes there's no difference between the two.

That explains your failure to understand the tenets of democracy and government.