I have to say, I admire his honesty:
There are very few unspoken rules among major-party candidates for president, and Bernie Sanders is breaking one of them. He’s saying that America’s leaders shouldn’t worry so much about economic growth if that growth serves to enrich only the wealthiest Americans.
“Our economic goals have to be redistributing a significant amount of [wealth] back from the top 1 percent,” Sanders said in a recent interview, even if that redistribution slows the economy overall.
“Unchecked growth – especially when 99 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent – is absurd,” he said. “Where we’ve got to move is not growth for the sake of growth, but we’ve got to move to a society that provides a high quality of life for all of our people. In other words, if people have health care as a right, as do the people of every other major country, then there’s less worry about growth. If people have educational opportunity and their kids can go to college and they have child care, then there’s less worry about growth for the sake of growth.”
Socialists don’t understand that in order for wealth to be redistributed, it has to be created.
it has to be created.
I think the underlying Marxist economic theories make “Wealth Creation” into an oxymoron. Yes, we know the discussion revolves around redistributing the fixed-sized-pie. But the the discussions of “Where did it come -from-” also all lead to “Stolen!”, and the only “Growth” options are “Print fiat money, pay a worker – that worker ‘made wealth!'” Which is the typical daft inanity that could only work in a -total- price-fixed economy.
Income inequality is an issue. As is stagnating middle class income even in periods of economic growth.
I told you that there would be room in this campaign for more hard left economic points of view than you guys are used to over there. This came a bit before I expected, from someone who actually is in the Democratic Party, but it isn’t totally strange. But then again this guy is one of a kind anyway. I do not expect his ideas to be followed through in the short term.
I think Bernie’s pretty darn strange, at least for a Democrat. For one thing, he’s honest.
Well, Rand, that’s partially because he’s not actually a Democrat.
Nobobdy over here is surprised by the hard left. We’ve been pointing out for decades how the SJW have taken over the universities, public school systems, media/journalism.
No, this is no surprise. And a whole new generation of millennials, unprepared for the real world will fall for this crap. Nowhere are they taught that income equality comes from the same factors that they propose, that is, big government.
I didn’t say a peep about income inequality. I talked about “Wealth Creation”. And I’m quite aware of, and used to his Snake Oil.
Large swaths of the Left believe it isn’t possible to create wealth – and that any wealth that -is- created is fundamentally theft. Presented with thought experiments that show “Wealth -can-be- created”, a large slice promptly rejects their -own- conclusions as fallacious. The rest latch on “Well, an existence proof only shows us -one- exists, so it seems bloody unlikely in practice.”
Wealth creation (Without theft, extortion, or anyone involved having a wealth -reduction-) happens to -also- be one of the items that actually do cause income inequality, and somehow ends up being the specific target of any crusade on income inequality. The word ‘progress’ practically means ‘income inequality’.
Like I said here before I tried reading Marx “Das Kapital” and it was a gigantic waste of time. Never finished it. Terrible book. There are like 1-2 quotable sentences in there which have interesting observations and the rest is verbose and useless. “The Wealth of Nations” that was a good book full of wit and insight.
A large part of the problem with Marxist economy theory is that it considers the production part of things but utterly ignores the social aspects. I mean things like network effects or relations between economic actors. Then there’s the fact that it promotes a top-down hierarchy which is something I utterly despise as a solution for solving complex problems. That’s the more philosophical side to it.
Top-down hierarchies are a gas–if you’re one of the guys at the top with the Party cards and the limousines and the dachas on the Black Sea and the secret police goon squads on speed-dial to send after anyone who has given any offense to you, ever, real or imagined. Speaking of “one percenters…”
As that brilliant, English author stated: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
I like that Bernie is up-front about his statism, saying in effect, “Yes, my grasp of economics is about on a level with that banjo playing kid from DELIVERANCE–but I don’t care! As long as I can force people to do what I want them to do, damn the economics and full speed ahead!” I’m sure he gets Jim and Godzilla’s votes. They’re intellectual soulmates.
Just saw this comment from Ken Anthony in another message thread, but it certainly applies to Berne Sanders and other State-shtuppers:
“When your arguments are wrong a state is required to enforce them.”