Quote Originally Posted by motorfirebox View Post
But the role class plays in future success can and should be limited. If we're not going to limit it, then we ought to quit pussyfooting around and go back to absolute monarchy.
Don't agree. Monarchy has little or nothing to do with class in the US (as opposed to many other nations...). Our classes divide by wealth, by job or career field, by academic accomplishments (a relatively recent addition...) and ethnically or nationally (and I mean that not in the racist sense. The Scotch Irish despise the English, many Italians do not like Germans, etc.). Even geography enters into it -- royal or peerage issues not at all.
The purpose of a capitalist economy, as opposed to an economic free-for-all, is to keep the pot stirred.
Is that a purpose or a by product?
When the top goes up, part of that good result should be used to bring the bottom up a few points. Not up to the top, not so much that the top goes down to the bottom, but enough to keep circulation happening.
Most will agree, many will quibble about mechanisms and degrees of up...
Because what's happening now is the exact opposite. The top is going up, which is fine, but it's doing do in large part by lowering the bottom. That is natural, too--as natural as the strong caveman barging in and taking the weaker caveman's wife.
There's truth in that and it does make a good if questionable talking point (in that it is repeatedly raised by some media personages and some politicians for partisan, not altruistic, reasons) but there's also a degree of unintended consequence. Recall that part of the top's recent upward trajectory was imparted by failures of social policies aimed at raising the bottom...
I agree. I've often thought that most laws and government programs ought to come with an expiration date rather than automatically being perpetual...
Strongly agree. I'd also add the stringent Hodenosaunee or Iroquois requirement that the Sachems and councils had to consider effects unto the seventh generation.
I don't deny that there's over reliance on government, but I don't think that over reliance is on the part of people who have to worry about whether or not there's a cop around when they need one...Gosh darn those poor and middle class people, why can't they go get their own multi-billion-dollar bailout instead of trying to steal what the financial industry rightfully obtained as ransom!
Hyperbole again???

My observation -- admittedly mostly but not exclusively in the South -- is that the over reliance exists in all strata but the emphasis on what's expected differs sometimes strongly from locale to locale and level to level in a rather complex mix.

Regardless, it is IMO becoming more problematical and has contributed to a somewhat coddled and certainly risk averse society. It also seem to have a slight adverse impact on initiative and innovation.
Not really. The US isn't a turnip, it's a... tick... it's hard to buy the turnip argument when Wall Street is posting record profits.
True on the profits but consider also that the sale of new cars (as opposed to homes -- though we are arguably already over endowed with individually owned homes in comparison with most other nations even considering the Housing crunch) and large flat screen TVs to the great unwashed (we just bought a flat screen... ) indicate that while the bottom may not be getting elevated as much as many of us would like, much -- not all but much -- of it is living better than that Royalty did a few years ago.
I don't see equalizing--movement towards equalizing, not to be confused with absolute imposition of equality--as separate from equal opportunity.
We can disagree. Equal opportunity to me is to offer unimpeded access to use one's potential. Equal outcomes are efforts to insure that, regardless of capabilities, effort, merit or productivity, all have a relatively even standing in all things. In no case is the sorting of that simple, nor can, due to the variation in people and circumstances, hard and fast rule be laid down. It is also very important that everyone realize that nuances aside, there will always be outliers and exceptions and that, while true in any event, is particularly true in an issue this complex and in a nation as large and diverse as are we. One of the major flaws with the big government crowd is their refusal to acknowledge the inevitability due to our size of poor rules that will not work in all segments of the society or nation. They create flawed law, see inequities and try to fix it, often only making it worse for someone else...

For most of us the difference between those things is nuanced and probably variable, the largest discriminator IMO being the amount of effort required by the individual versus the amount given by the state.
Mmmmm okay. There's bloat. My concern is that in getting rid of the bloat, we'll end up skewing things even more to favor those who already well-positioned.
The well positioned will certainly try to insure that is the case. Rather logical and to be expected. the role of the politicians is to insure that does not happen. Experience shows that Politicians each side will skew the efforts to suit their ideology and that, whether they champion 'more freedom' or 'better control,' the result will be the favoring of the well positioned.

Is that the fault of the well positioned or of politicians from both sides who simply do not do their job and place partisan interests, contributions and votes ahead of the interests of the nation and its people?

Whatever the answer to that question, history says we will screw it up, one way or another and then slowly, over many years adjust and eventually get it about right. It's the American way; we always over react then over correct.
I think that's true. Mainly, I think that our current situation comes as close to fulfilling the phrase "fox guarding the henhouse" as one can get without involving actual poultry, and I think the most effective solutions are going to be those that remedy that.
Being old, I can sigh and write: It's been worse, yeah, we'll mess it up but eventually sort it a bit and then it'll later return. Everything goes in cycles...
...and I think a lot of current violence that is attributed to other causes--mainly race--is more accurately the result of financial distress.
Yep. That too is historically illustrated. It'll probably get worse before it gets better. Democracy is messy and inefficient. American democracy is particularly messy and extremely inefficient. Based on time spent in 30 plus other nations, it still beats most others in most ways most of the time...