Wealth, Poverty, and Morality

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What you are advocating is literally communism.
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Let me try and put this scurrilous allegation down, once and for all.

I am not a communist. I find Marx’s labour theory of value faulty, and, for that reason, the entire intellectual edifice he constructed in Das Kapital unpersuasive.

I am not a communist. It is debatable whether either Russia and China ever implemented communism as advocated by Marx and Engels. What they did do was implement a system of government of the people, by the elite, for the elite. The people were, and are, denied basic freedoms, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of movement and freedom of conscience. Such denial of freedoms is just plain evil, and I do not support it in any way whatsoever.

I am not a communist, and my criticisms of neo-liberal capitalism do not make me one. I just note that this persuasion leads to the same government of the people, by the elite, for the elite. The only significant difference I can find between these extreme ideologies is that one uses civil and military power to exercise control, and the other uses the forces of economic necessity. Either way, the result is the same. The small people get screwed.

I am not a communist. Just a simple Christian, who loves God, and His world, and His children, and is fed up to the back teeth of having his heart broken by the plight of the dispossessed.

I am not a communist. I advocate a voluntary, not compulsory, redistribution of God’s providence. To that end, I have provided in the OP, as guidance, figures for a first approximation as to what an equitable distribution of the world’s wealth would entail. The suggestion that I am a communist is an intellectually lazy, libellous mischaracterisation. I expect better from this forum.

Best wishes, 2RM.
 
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Within 5 years civilization would collapse, and the world would be in anarchy.

What a wonderful world it would be. :roll_eyes:
 
A voluntary redistribution of wealth? I don’t think that would work. You and 6 other people giving up their paychecks aren’t going to feed many people.
 
I think if one were to take this idea of voluntary redistribution and repeat it yearly, assuming that nearly everyone voluntarily redistributed their assets and income, soon we would have true equality: Everyone would be equally poor, and getting poorer each year.

One problem is that those who are making productive use of capital are redistributing that production into non productive uses, so that productivity becomes less and less as time goes on. Nations which waste capital or do not make productive use of it remain poor. Nations which make productive use of capital become wealthy.
 
Shakuhachi said:
But “competitive” can involve a lot of factors beyond ones control. And other factors still, are “fair play” and balance, Exploitation of worker, workaholism.
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Yup, some runners are built for running, they win with less effort.
Our country promises opportunity, which is not the same as everyone being equal.
 
Theo520 said:
It says that given time, the people with more of those virtues will have more stuff/wealth than the people in their society with less of those virtues. It’s comparative, not binary.
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The problem is that it can also be that people who have more vices like greed and envy may have more economic resources over time as well. While virtue can affect economic activity, so can vices. It is difficult to distinguish the effects of each individually.
 
Definition of communism by Google, which is as good as any:
a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.
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Best wishes, 2RM
 
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stinkcat_14 said:
The problem is that it can also be that people who have more vices like greed and envy may have more economic resources over time as well. While virtue can affect economic activity, so can vices. It is difficult to distinguish the effects of each individually.
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It would be better to label them as attributes rather than virtues or vices.
 
Theo520 said:
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stinkcat_14:
The problem is that it can also be that people who have more vices like greed and envy may have more economic resources over time as well. While virtue can affect economic activity, so can vices. It is difficult to distinguish the effects of each individually.
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It would be better to label them as attributes rather than virtues or vices.
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Why? Greed and envy are vices, why should we not call them that?
 
So is the system the early Christians lived by according to the Book of Acts. It states quite clearly they lived communally, as do many Catholic Religious Orders.
 
True.

If you knock out the American power grid, the world would probably devolve into anarchy.

You wouldn’t even need to introduce zombies, but they would be helpful. 😀
 
I would now like to justify the figures in the OP. They are quite simple, really.

The $33,000 figure for an equitable level of net worth is derived from the Credit Suisse estimate of total world wealth in 2017 That is approx $241 trillion.

The $16,000 figure for an equitable level of annual income is derived from the wikipedia estimate of Gross World Production at approx $126 trillion for 2017.

Both these figures were divided by a world population, again estimated by wikipedia, at approx 7.2 billion in 2017.

Clearly, these figures for each individual’s equitable allowance of wealth rise if total world wealth or annual production increases, and fall if the world’s population increases. Similarly, they fall if total world wealth falls, and rise if population falls.

Best wishes, 2RM.
 
Did they continue to live communally when they reached larger numbers, or am I missing all of the communes?
 
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