The rise of socialism

r1ecn

I can not for the life of me think of one person alive or dead that has done enough for humanity to justify or deserve having a $1 billion or even a £100 million yacht.
TBH I can't think of many if any jobs or endevours that are worth* £1,000,000 a year to the society they work in or humanity in general either.

*actually worth in real terms rather than the inflated and belief based 'market value'.

It may be that using Ronaldo's image to sell a product does actually increase sales by £1,000,000 , but that's Ronaldo's worth as an image, not really a true reflection of his actual work, effort or contribution to society or the world.

When you improve the lot of those at the bottom of the economic system, you tend to see that additional income recirculate within the local and national economy providing opertunities for new business and expansion.
When you improve the lot of those at the top of the economic system, you tend to see that additional income disappear into tax havens.

What do you think you need to motivate you to work hard ?
I can't imagine many people who are unmotivated by earning 10 times the national average.

Pacifico

I just don't understand the concept. Why would I work hard for six or seven figures to give it all up and get five in return. It just doesn't make any sense.

Pacifico

I for the love of mankind cannot understand who the hell you think you are to assess whether someone is justified or deserved to have that amount of cash.

It is a totally alien concept to me. I don't begrudge anyone anything, I'd love for everyone to be able to reach their potential, be lucky and be stupidly rich. And hope they do a lot of good with it.

GarryF

I don't think the proposal is to stop anyone from working to supplement their basic income (i.e. assuming that the job has not been automated).

A more detailed overview:
Basic income - Wikipedia

Elon Musk on universal income:
Elon Musk doubles down on universal basic income: 'It's going to be necessary'

Toko Black

The market value is what people are prepared to pay for a service. Its the same with trading shares - their value is only what people perceive them to be worth, there isn't some arbiter that sets a 'correct' market value for any product or service.

Sure the tradesman might want £500 a day, but if the customer is only willing to pay £200 the tradesman isnt 'losing' £300, he is just overvaluing his service.

If you increase Corporation Tax for instance then the people that pay that tax are the shareholders, Pensioners and workers in those companies.

Whether that is a bad thing is personal opinion.

Toko Black

I think UBI is a great idea - I just dont ever see it getting implemented because there would be too many people losing out.

Once people have got used to a certain level of entitlement then its very hard to remove that entitlement.

Goooner

Of course the oil price was a big factor, but fundamentally this was mismanagement of their Economy.

Seizing private companies including foreign owned, corruption, bizarre currency controls, etc.

They tried for a socialist utopia to find it couldn't pay its way without oil.

Bl4ckGryph0n

So if I invented, say a method to double the MPG of all vehicles on the planet you don't think I'd deserve to be a billionaire, taking into the amount of savings in total for the planet (ignoring the economics of what this might do to oil/economies etc)

Or lets say I cured cancer, I could sell that for a pretty penny I bet, few billions or more in the bank for sure,

In your world you'd just say that's nice, that you very much, we'll confiscate it, now off you go. Who would bother to try...

That's the conflict between socialism and capitalism, socialism has great ideals but ultimately goes against basic human instincts and aspiration while capitalism can be cruel it's what creates the motivation for society to progress and move forward.

What's ironic is I hear people moaning about the billionaires, but these are the people who would just laugh at you and leave the country, the only people around that can pay the bills for socialist experiments are PAYE on £35k plus.

Reminder on human nature, union boss parks all his extra income over £100k (Gordon brown poison tax policy for the Tories) into pension Dave Prentis - Wikipedia

If nothing else that reminds how laughable the labour tax increases on anyone over £80k are, people will defer, they will work less, they'll do pretty much anything not to pay stupid tax.

With socialism we're all meant to be equal, just remember some are more equal than others "comrade" ...

Bl4ckGryph0n

Who am I ? a human being

It's not my personal assessment, it's the fact that we seem to have become detached to what currency actually is, probably due to the change to fiat money, but even before that with industrialisation and the rise of financial investments etc.

Fundamentally, the amount of time, effort and skill a human being put's into a task has a value.
Currently, because of the way we live and run our economies, that value is the 'market value' ie what someone is willing to pay.
That means invariably that two tasks that require the same amount of time, effort and skill but produce or create different things end up with different market values.
There is some abstract average unit of value for a universal persons time, effort and skill based on the economy of a society and the world, where by everyone else's time, effort and skill can be measured against, but that obviously fluctuates with the markets and demand.
The actual value of anyone's time, effort and skill is not only open to market forces of demand, but also opertunity and the ability to negotiate or 'sell' that value to others.
So two people with exactly the same time, effort and skill who's abstract market value to the economy is equal may actually be valued differently when it comes to pay.

Additionally, the market values of 'things' including peoples time effort and skill are subject to the whims and variances of fashions, trends and beliefs, not just or even despite actual needs or real benefit.
Also they are effected by scaleability and distribution. If two people spend the same time, effort and skill to create something, but one is a physical object while the other is say a piece of software or a song(at this point in writing my post there is a pause while I wipe off the dead fly from my monitor that I shot with my nerf gun), the shear volume of sales available for the digital media increases it's market value well beyond any connection to the required time effort and skill.

In a rational world populated by rational people, market forces and market values of peoples time, effort and skill would be fare more corellated to the real worth.
However, we don't live in a rational world and we aren't rational people, hence why for some reason people seem to be willing to pay £18.99 for a 13" pizza from a well known and popular fast food chain .... considering it's between a 800-900% markup in price to make.

Surely there is a better way to value and reward time effort and skill than 'market value' or rewarding fiscal generation as a means to an end ....

Toko Black

No, I would say you deserve to be rewarded handsomely, just not a £billion.
Personally I would think that being given 10 x the average salary for the rest of your life in return for your efforts would be sufficient reward, especially if you consider that in this scenario it applies to everyone, so you would be if not the richest, amoungst the richest in society.
Sir Ian Fleming could be argued to fit the bill as a candidate for the deserving the highest rewards for his contributions ... in real terms his salary today's money equates around £100k per year.