Fundamentals.
From a broad sense, this is the core of the debate. You just read it, in the
title, right above these words.
This
is the major difference between people who associate themselves with the
"left or right" "libertarian vs statist" "liberal or
conservative" and last but not least, Democrat or Republican. Even, though
that argument is a different story. :)
1.
Market Efficiency: competition between companies lowers the prices and allows
for innovation from several of these companies to gain more consumers for their
profit. The net result, almost every time, results in the companies gaining
their money and the consumer gaining their product/service at a cheaper/lower
price. The innovation also leads into advances of the technology or techniques
used to benefit the consumer. For better or for worse, the least amount of
money + resources was used in order to complete these transactions. Mutual
transactions, mind you.
But how what if efficiency is not a good thing?
2.
Equity, or fairness: Only government can disallow income/wealth disparity
within a nation. When the economy is "booming" for example (or even
if economic growth is slowed down) there is something that leaves much room for
debate. And this is the amount of wealth that some gain versus others. It is
true that the allowing of all this competition can create wealth disparity as
the CEO's and top management of these businesses might make "hand over
fist" versus their average worker (think of that guy geeky stapler guy in
the movie "Office Space").
This
is the core of the debate, I believe. There cannot simply be both, but at the
same time, you cannot just have one or the other. Get the point? Probably not.
That was confusing. We cannot expect to prosper if there are 1 million
Americans that control all of the wealth. At the same times, we can’t have any
room for growth or to gain wealth, if everyone makes the same income. Never
mind that some people work harder than others. They wouldn’t be rewarded.
What
I'm trying to say is that in order to allow economic growth, whatever is
hindering it or holding it back in some way, must let it run itself. Why?
Because it's human nature to have an incentive to do things...or buy things.... It is within your own interest to make a product, sell,
and make a bundle of money. Repeat. Repeat.
How
much of this should we hinder, in order to promote equity?
Is
it possible that not promoting fairness, that the mere standard of living
increasing on lower income groups, is actually a way to increase fairness? Not
directly, but indirectly. The mere fact that you’re standard of living
increases every time you buy a product that makes your life more productive and
better off is an example.
Surely they are behind but they were better
off than before.
It
is true that this country has “richer” impoverished citizens. When compared to
their fellow middle-income citizens, there is a substantial difference. When
compared to the top income earners, there is an even bigger difference.
Something
left out, though: our lower income
citizens have a better lifestyle, availability of food, resources, technology,
cable tv, internet, transportation and jobs than compared to much of the
population in the entire world….
Back
to supposed market efficiency
But
what if this doesn't work? What if these people are not better off than
before?
What
if these people who have lower economic statuses are worse off?
Like,
impoverished to the point of no return? Too many questions, sorry!
I
think everyone should elaborate on this more closely. Making broad
generalizations that market efficiency is better in every way is wrong, I
think. This would be just as wrong as completely disallowing efficiency in
favor or pure economic equality.
Whether
the “state” decides or the people, it doesn’t make a difference to me at this
point (an entirely different debate).
So
I think people should ask themselves more carefully:
Why
are people impoverished, but not all? That could lead you to a broad answer of
market inefficiency or market failure.
What
if it’s due to the person’s choices or someone else hindering them, in some
way?
Well,
what caused that market failure?
What
caused them to have their particular mindset?
Was
it because of government spending in 2 wars?
How
could that influence an economy negatively?
What
about government’s role in creating economic growth in certain sectors of the
economy, in order to promote equality?
What
if it had nothing to do with that but with people simply trying to make a buck
off of a poor person?
Some
of these answers I have already found but they have always led me to more
questions of why it happened. And who did it.
What
really caused…..it……
It seems like people tend to point their crooked little finger at the other side, when in fact, from all my readings….it came from all over the place. So many people are at fault. Even if particular people advocated for such policy that went against their core ideology…
Ideology
is stupid. Why can’t Americans focus on something more productive… like let’s
say, being
more productive!
It
seems like a lot of people don’t even care about this major issue in this
country because they’re too busy pointing their fingers, even if they caused it…
