Economics thread. Have you had enough of wizard of oz monetary scientists?

[ultimatesens]

But if I was one of the few people that was capable of building these power plants then I would demand more than everyone else, If I can’t have more why should I build the power plants. Society would still be unequal with some people having plenty whilst others had nothing.

 

You would have more? You would have a power plant giving you free money to trade with????

[Cavegirl]

So why don't more people volunteer rather than complain on here about how little they are paid?

 

Millions of people in Britain volunteer in various capacities every day- more so since the government cuts. They work to make money to survive and complain because we have an unequal wealth system.

[MrSmith]

That's just one of the great capitalist myths. Most people get far more pleasure out of helping others than they do from spending cash on commodities. Think back on your own life and decide whether you're one of these people.

 

Five years ago I helped a girl who'd hurt herself quite badly on a ski-slope and I'm pleased and proud that I was there to help her, I have no real recollection of any purchases I made that year and certainly no emotional attachment to any of them yet capitalists try to tell me that it's the purchasing of things that really counts in life. Rubbish!!

 

Some things are special to us as human beings (relationships) and other things are pretty mundane (purchases)- at the moment our economy worships the mundane and put the special things on the side lines.

 

Some people do and some don't, in your society what would you do with the people that don't? In the society we have now people can help others if they wish or can become wealthy and spend cash on commodities if they wish. That sounds like a fare society to me, people having the choice to do what they want within the law.

[I1L2T3]

Society as sanctioned the wealth that some people enjoy by using and supporting the business they operate, we are now sanctioning Bill Gates wealth by using a system he created.

 

Bill Gates is a good example of somebody who society (rightly or wrongly) generally accepts as somebody who has earned his wealth. He does a pretty good job at giving it away too, which helps a lot.

 

On the other hand at the current time we have a disconnect between society and certain classes of high earners. In the ideal model we would have the likes of Bill Gates lauded but not others (e.g. bankers) who step outside the boundaries of what is acceptable based on their contribution.

[truman]

Millions of people in Britain volunteer in various capacities every day- more so since the government cuts. They work to make money to survive and complain because we have an unequal wealth system.

 

We have an unequal system,as you put it,because some jobs are more responsible/harder/whatever you want to call it than others...I've trained for some years for my job and invested my own money into my training..why should I be paid only the same as someone who can't give a damn? My skills enable my company to provide society with services it needs..eg. health,fresh water,food.all vital if we need a "life of leisure" as you put it earlier (I think )

[MrSmith]

Do you have any evidence at all for this commonly heard assertion?

 

There are lots of incentives to do things. The main one being to make things better.

 

We want a bridge to cross the river so we organize and have one built. We want to create new toys or invent new software so we go out and invent it. People are naturally competitive so they would want to get better educated and design the best stuff. We have gone from nothing to where we are today not because of money but because of human need and creativity. We are talking about a fantasy scenario where people are more or less equal. I would say it's more important how we get there because that would determine what happens afterwards.

 

People are in poverty because the production of the world is being stolen by the few. Not because people are lazy or there isn't enough to go around. Once that stolen wealth is returned it should indeed allow many more people to put there feet up without it leading to a loss in standard of living.

 

Innovation won't stop. I for one can envisage many entrepreneurial former factory workers in Africa using their new found wealth to create labor saving machines and technologies to maintain the new standard of living they have found themselves in. I would do much the same.

 

It's clearly absurd to suggest that sharing the wealth of the 1% amongst the other 99% would lead to a drop in the standard of living for most people. It is also just as absurd to suggest that when peoples basic needs are met they simply give up on creativity and innovation. Clearly the reverse is true, when people have everything they need they want to create more.

 

An appropriate range of wealth with an upper limit to aspire to can be plenty of financial incentive (if it were even required) to make people improve innovate and work while avoiding the excesses of power hungry megalomaniacs and starving children. While you may decide to retire when you reach your wealth limit others most certainly won't and there are PLENTY more creative people who want to be productive who will replace you.

Do you have a shred of evidence that we could have achieved what we have achieved without the desire for some people to become wealthy, is there a country that has achieved what we have achieved in which this equal system as worked with everyone being equal, with equal wealth.

[ultimatesens]

For that to work you would first have to remove all humans from the planet and start with a different species.

 

Why?

 

Who would want to do the dangerous jobs or dirty jobs,

 

We have put nearly zero effort in to making unpleasant jobs fun. Instead we have forced people to do them under threat of starvation.

 

We could as a potential solution share out that unpleasant work equally.

 

Better still keep some aspects of the reward structure in place. An upper and lower limit on wealth with a substantial range in between. The premise of your arguments against a more egalitarian society is that there is no incentive to work. So keep some incentives and limit the extremes. That is how you would transition from one to the other.

 

who would want to spend years in education to become a surgeon if they only receive the same money and a road sweeper.

 

People who might want to better themselves. Haven't you ever seen Star-Trek?

[truman]

We could as a potential solution share out that unpleasant work equally.

 

 

What happens to those that say "no!" ?

[I1L2T3]

They only do that once they have made their cash.....would they do it if they hadn't?As for maximising income..just look at a lot of the posts on this form..everyone wants to be paid more or thinks they're worth more than they're being paid at the moment...

 

No a lot of people actually go into jobs they love and never make 'their cash'. Lots of example of that. Others earn highly and downsize later. I wouldn't deny either that others ditch the jobs they love and go after the money

 

The point is you can't say everybody is out to maximise their income. They aren't. For example I'm good friends with a hospital consultant and he chooses not to do private practice just NHS work - if he did private work too he could dramatically enhance his income. In my own household we earn about 50% of what we could - wife does only one day a week so she can be there more for our young kids and I've turned down much higher paid jobs in other cities.

[ultimatesens]

Another silly argument. You know well that motivation for work is money (for hard practical reasons) with job satisfaction as a bonus. For practical reasons, for most people, it doesn't work the other way round. But some people if they really enjoyed a job would accept lower wages than they could get elsewhere. And many people do make that choice.

 

The motivation to work isn't money. It's the things money buys. As long as we need to do some work to keep getting those things then there's an incentive.