Does this mean you disagree? You believe that a class based capitalist society isn't unjust? Really? You think you have the same rights as anyone else in your society? Interesting.
You might think that a class-based capitalist society is the best option available, but that's a far cry from claiming that it is just and non-oppressive. The simple fact is that the statistically most likely way to be a rich person is to be born into a rich family. No one is saying that it's the only way, but if you want to lay odds its the way to bet. That's just? It plays havoc with the idea of a meritocracy.
The lesson that I understood that the kids were learning is that what you happen to have started out with doesn't give you inalienable rights. In other words, be sensitive to the fact that you got where you are _at least partially_ by luck. The rest is just figuring out what it means to be sensitive in this way.
There is another important lesson that I think the teachers missed (about how to handle the disenfranchisement that the Lego-less kids felt), but that's another story.
Just because you weren't born into money doesn't mean you can't get there. That's the beauty of the free market, you have the OPPORTUNITY to succeed and get ahead.
If everyone and everything is the same, then why even bother doing anything better or trying?
Socialism scares me to no end because it is way easier to scream for support and get it than it is to actually make something out of yourself.
I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to have to live in a world that is built for the LCD.
Actually, I agree with you. I assume that you are reading into my comment some enormous weight of dialog that I wasn't a part of. I'm unsure about how to respond since I feel like we're talking at cross purposes. So with the fair warning that we may simply continue to misunderstand each other, here goes:
Of course you can 'get there'. But that doesn't make it 'fair'. If someone has to work for 0 hours for 100% chance of success and I have to work for 2000 hours for 0.01%, that isn't just. Horatio Alger stories are, frankly, rare and far between.
The basic problem is that the outlook that a person should take on life is that they are the master of their own destiny and that they can make it on the strength of their own power. When I say "should" I just mean, that is the viewpoint of the world that makes them have the best chance of achieving success. It's a psychological trick that gives people courage, and helps them to recognize opportunities. That's a very short form of what I meant when I said that there was another lesson that the teachers missed out on.
What is frustrating to me is that people take an outlook ("I am the master of my own destiny") and apply it to the world as though it were _true_. So it is common to hear people look down on the poor by saying variants of "if only they weren't so lazy they could make something of themselves". This ignores the fact that different people have different oportunities and that those oportunities are not of their own making.
Whenever someone wants to attack capitalism, they always seem to attack people born into wealthy families. That has nothing to do with capitalism. Nothing whatsoever.
In fact, one of the GREATEST CHANGES to take place with the industrial revolution was the reduction in the prevailance of nepotism due to the importance of technical and managerial skills, rather than clannishness. Clannishness, family preferences, primogeniture, cousin marriages, etc, are all necessary to maintain feudalism, not capitalism.
If you really hate capitalism, go straight to the real alternative: Command economy. This is where some brain dead bureaucrat decides who gets wealth based upon adherance to political orthodoxy--which is essentially what the teachers did in the end. Works great with fixed resources like toys. Doesn't work so great when the fields need tilling.
[1] EDIT: Should be several higher. They only wrote "WalMart inheritence" once.
If 29/384 got that way purely on inheritance, then inheritance is statistically extremely significant in getting into that 384; the rich don't make up anywhere near 7.5% of the population, but that list is at a minimum 7.5% born rich. Also, as one example, Gates was born filthy rich, I don't the word "inheritance" occurs everywhere on that list where it plays a part.
That list is irrelevant. The people there are not representative of the entire population. They only represent the top .xx1% and are a very poor sample.
What about the people who aren't on the list? There are a lot more of them, and they're still multimillionaires. We have no information about them, nor do we have any information from which we can derive conclusions from.
As far as the top billionaires, it is true that many of them were extremely fortunate in life and had some money from birth. Only around 30 of them made their billions that way, the others worked to turn their millions into billions, which still takes a great deal of work (and pure luck).
I see this argument going nowhere unless we can agree that everyone who has under $X to start and creates $Y over the course of their lives counts as someone who became successful through capitalism. But I doubt we can agree what the X and Y values should be.
"Just because you weren't born into money doesn't mean you can't get there. That's the beauty of the free market, you have the OPPORTUNITY to succeed and get ahead."
This isn't always, or even usually, true. Millions upon millions are born into this world with _no_ prospects, and _no_ opportunity, and _no_ amount of hard work, inspiration or pure luck will change that. It may be more true in America than elsewhere, but it's certainly not the rule.
And the "free market" is a recipe for monopoly and domination as much as for opportunity. The goal of the players in a free market is the elimination of opportunity for anyone but themselves. The free market does not reward altruism, so there's no incentive not to crush anyone in your way, other than personal decency. Which also doesn't pay. The market we enjoy here is anything but free, for which I'm thankful.
"If everyone and everything is the same, then why even bother doing anything better or trying?"
That's a strawman.
"Socialism scares me to no end because it is way easier to scream for support and get it than it is to actually make something out of yourself."
Out of curiosity, what's your actual experience of socialism?
"I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to have to live in a world that is built for the LCD."
So raise the lowest common denominator. There are multiple paths to that goal, after all.
I'm short on time, but I've lived in various south american countries that are all flirting with socialism. In most cases it has been met with open arms by the poor and screams from the rich. In the end, the poor are barely better off and the rich simply buy around what the socialized stuff gives them. Price controls and other economic "flattening" certainly have poor effects on the country as well.
Certainly I feel for those in underdeveloped or regressive countries and I'm VERY thankful that I am where I am and am able to live as comfortable a life as I am living. But what am I going to do? Frankly there is very little that I can do for people in N. Korea or Zimbabwe. Socialism is not the answer for the problems in the middle east, africa or N. Korea.
And (this is getting longer than I have time for), but how do I raise the LCD? It seems to me that every day the LCD goes down further. I had a conversation today with a buddy about trying to monetize an idea and he said we needed to find a way to make it more lowbrow since stuff like that pays (see hotornot.com in its "close to porn" heyday).
I'm claiming that whatever I build with natural resources I find is mine. You happen to disagree with that statement. Fine. Now, tell me how you would practice what you preach (socialism, wealth redistribution, etc.) without attacking me (or using the threat of violence, which is practically the same thing) to steal my work (or part of it).
Maybe they should just let the kids play with the damn legos and enjoy themselves and not try and get all philosophical about it, one way or the other.
> I'm claiming that whatever I build with natural resources I find is mine.
That doesn't scale. Humanity's ability to find natural resources dwarfs the amount of natural resources to be found on earth. It's not hard to 'find' arable land, for example. Any counterclaims would have to be defended in base of some agreeable concept of justice, or failing that, via violence, actual or anticipated. Violence over resources can happen, and happens, irrespective of ideological differences.
That's (pre) feudal rather than capitalist, and it's not actually how it's working for you. Much of your wealth is in places where you don't have the physical means to reclaim it or defend it by yourself.
Much of your money is held in custody in some bank, where you put it because you trust they'll give it back to you when you ask for it, not because you think you can strongarm the clerks into returning it to you.
Maybe your car is parked out on the street. Even if you have it in a garage of your own, if some burglars came you may find it more reasonable to let your insurance company or the police take care of it rather than risk your life trying to stop it yourself via violence.
Those mechanisms work because there are rules in place about what is reasonable use of resources and wealth, and those rules could not be stable or widely respected if you couldn't defend they're just in some way.
You might think that a class-based capitalist society is the best option available, but that's a far cry from claiming that it is just and non-oppressive. The simple fact is that the statistically most likely way to be a rich person is to be born into a rich family. No one is saying that it's the only way, but if you want to lay odds its the way to bet. That's just? It plays havoc with the idea of a meritocracy.
The lesson that I understood that the kids were learning is that what you happen to have started out with doesn't give you inalienable rights. In other words, be sensitive to the fact that you got where you are _at least partially_ by luck. The rest is just figuring out what it means to be sensitive in this way.
There is another important lesson that I think the teachers missed (about how to handle the disenfranchisement that the Lego-less kids felt), but that's another story.