Xilizhra
Well-known member
Two questions. First, I'm now curious how far the "picks my pocket" idea goes when it comes to taxation. Second, why do you care if other people accept consequences or not if it doesn't affect you?
Validity of Left-Right Divide Concerns
- Thread starter CurtisLemay
- Start date
Those consequences DO effect me, when they refuse to take responsibility for them. I mean don't put the responsibility on society as a whole. If you lived your life dwelling In a basement or spent your time working on a useless degree, Don't blame society or the system when you go nowhere in life, and don't expect society to bear the burden of your bad decisions. There is plenty of opportunity in this country, but you DO have to work for it and make the right decisions. In times of recession, and for example this Covid-19 recession, I am for temporary expansion of safety nets, because those opportunities dry up and it's no fault of the people. In this particular case, most of the country shut down. If the government is forcefully taking away your ability to prosper, they damn well better compensate you for it.
However, Many "victims" of this "oppressive" society are only victims of their own bad choices.
Taxes? I can't say exactly where they should be. I'm not a "taxation is theft," type, and I do support safety nets for the truly vulnerable in society who by no choice of their own have found themselves destitute. It's less of a burden to society to help get those people back on their feet. I am relatively happy with taxes and safety nets where they are, and they shouldn't be much or any higher. They should be intended to get people back on their feet and back to being productive members of society. It's a problem when the safety nets are used to perpetually fund able bodied people who just choose not to produce anything for society. Society can help take care of you when you need it, but in turn, you must be productive and take care of society.
Admittedly, this pandemic has demonstrated that Healthcare could use some work. People losing their jobs, and therefore their insurance, during a pandemic where they need it most, is definitely a problem.
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Fair point, but I guess there's so long you can tolerate another person just pushing the same completely irrelevant point over and over before you run out of patience.
One of the Sietch advantages is that we're not obligated to try to pseudo-debate here, we can just talk. So let's focus on talking rather than debating for now. Tempers are raised as it is.
Xilizhra
Well-known member
I don't know, I think that society bears a proportion of blame for 1. overvaluing college degrees (or undervaluing those without them), 2. vastly overcharging for them, and 3. offering extremely little education in personal financial management, and that's just stuff that could be changed in a system that stayed capitalist (something that I by no means want to keep).
Those are issues that come with making it super easy to get grants and loans, making colleges inflate their prices because they know they can get away with it.
These are problems causes by government subsidies.
Xilizhra
Well-known member
It's a problem that can be fixed by just making tertiary education free. You can still have private colleges if you want.
That though increases the problems with degree inflation, and them becoming useless.
It doesn't sound great to hear it, but college isn't for everyone, and degrees aren't for everyone. Some measure of gatekeeping actually keeps degrees valuable, but you also want to keep opportunities open so poor people can uplift themselves. If I'm honest, I don't have an easy answer for this.
Trade schools are a great option, however.
Xilizhra
Well-known member
They may well be. However, tertiary education isn't just for getting employment bona fides, but for generally expanding one's mind and becoming more well-rounded. I consider it enough of a social good that it's worth subsidizing more heavily.
I'm not sure you're right about that. The cost of private higher education in my country (Israel) is much cheaper than in the US. It's still more expensive than the public universities (which are, by the way, fairly top notch). My yearly tuition when I was enrolled (in a public university) had been around 3500$, and since I came from a low-income family I was entitled to a further donation-funded subsidy and only had to pay about half of that. Private colleges here cost no more than 4-5 times as much as the public ones, since they have to be competitive with them (and have much, much lower standards of acceptance, but that's another story).
So you can have government subsidy keeping tuition costs all across the board low. I'm not saying that it's a model that can necessarily work for the US (it would require stomping hard on the colleges, and of course costs plenty of taxpayer money which the American public is averse to), but it's more complex than "subsidy bad".
There's a slight ethical problem with that. Being able to round-out your education in a way that doesn't contribute back to society is a great privilege, and I'm not sure that the government should grant privileges like that to citizens while taking money from others to pay for it. Do you believe, for example, that the government should pay for, say, therapy for people without a proven need for it (clinical depression, post trauma etc)?
Xilizhra
Well-known member
Firstly, I believe a more educated citizenry will necessarily be a benefit to society anyway. Secondly, in regards to therapy... I'm not sure how you're supposed to prove that you have clinical depression without it? And I would put it as part of the standard UHC package, yes.
I don't believe that this applies to every topic of study.
This issue actually does touch on the left/right divide. Do you feel that some topics of academic study have either devolved to or intrinsically are worthless, and serve only as ideological recruitment centers rather than meaningfully contributing to humanity's knowledge? Because I definitely do, as well as many on the right.
How about a free single session for consultation and diagnosis, followed by further subsidized sessions as needed? Granted, it could probably be exploited, and would cost a lot of taxpayer money.
The left has a collectivist approach, in which society owes the individual some things that are typically considered privilege. We need to define what is a privilege and what is a right before we can sort this out.
EDIT: @Rocinante Hope you don't mind that I've pushed into your conversation with Xilizhra a bit.
You know what, why beat around the bush? If education and therapy for the purpose of merely rounding-up one's knowledge and personality are intrinsic rights and should be granted for free, how about food, medicine, housing and transportation? All these are surely much more important to one's well-being than education or therapy. Should all these also be free?
Xilizhra
Well-known member
I don't believe that making judgments about such things is within the remit of the state, as it's entirely too subjective.
I do not believe that privilege should exist. Unless there are physical/medical necessities for it, one citizen should not have more or less than another (and then, it's not really having more or less, it's getting a slight boost to be on an equal playing field).
Yes.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
I'd love to live in the United Federation of Planets, and have argued in the past that this should come about if and when AI and automation get advanced enough to ensure that the economy can afford to give everybody those things free.
Xilizhra
Well-known member
I will very firmly argue that chronic poverty is more expensive for society as a whole than protecting people from it would be.
It is if the state will be called upon to pay for them. No?
What about citizens that want to have more than they currently do? Say, I want a huge estate manor, and I am willing to work hard to get it. Am I not allowed to?
How do you propose to implement it given the prohibitive costs of fully subsidizing such?
Xilizhra
Well-known member
How would that be determined? Some kind of academic inquisitorial commission? Admittedly, they would surely have a fun time making that decision...
In theory, but it'll be tricky to accumulate enough money for it under my ideas for mandated worker ownership of businesses.
As I said, I believe it's cheaper than the costs of allowing people to remain chronically poor. The more expensive part will come in one fairly compact lump, I think.
At this point, @GoldRanger I don't mind you stepping in. I am stepping out.
@Xilizhra is a communist, and I respect (his/her? I honestly don't remember right now,) opinions and the right to share it, but I do not agree with it, and don't wish to have this conversation for the 1000th time. So at this point, I am respectfully going to bow out. You go ahead and continue the discussion from here if you like.
@Xilizhra is a communist, and I respect (his/her? I honestly don't remember right now,) opinions and the right to share it, but I do not agree with it, and don't wish to have this conversation for the 1000th time. So at this point, I am respectfully going to bow out. You go ahead and continue the discussion from here if you like.
Pretty much, yes. It would have a mandate to determine if a topic of study has been politicized, thus tipping the ideological balance scales in the country and harming democracy.
That doesn't sound particularly fair to me. You're basically telling me that I will have to give up on my dreams to live in your ideal society, even if I'm willing to put a lot of work into getting there.
If the state guarantees me that I won't starve or find myself without shelter, and it prohibits me from further material gains through harder work (or work that's more in demand), why should I, personally, work at all? Do you envision most people in your society as enjoying their life in leisure, without ever doing work unless for self-fulfillment?
It would not be cheaper to provide over 300 million American citizens with full fledged housing and a constant supply of food and medicine, I guarantee it. In fact, since this money is supposed to come from taxpayer's money, what you're doing is basically taking people's money and buying them stuff with it (their own money). So the same thing as going on right now, except with an extra-step (government middle-man) that will introduce more overhead costs and beaurocracy, while simultaneously taking away the individual's freedom to decide what to do with said money. How is that a good idea?