• Rampsquatch@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    9 months ago

    Where in history did this actually happen? I’m not talking about people saying they did, or a communist revolutions where the wealth just shifted hands, when did the wealth get redistributed evenly in history?

      • Rampsquatch@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        22
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        I’m going to need you to clarify your first comment, because I have no idea what you are talking about or what your point might be. I thought I understood, but this follow up is baffling.

        • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          9 months ago

          Yea, I don’t get it. Is his point that it’s impossible? Because saying it doesn’t work when it’s never happened leaves you asking “how do you know then?”

          • Vakbrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            18
            ·
            9 months ago
            • History shows that NOT oppressing you doesn’t work

            • But you never stopped oppressing me!

            • exactly

            • wtf?!

            This is pretty much his argument… WTF indeed

          • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            9 months ago

            Right - but a well educated, fully engaged population in a democratic state can keep those types of people in check.

            This is a difficult and ongoing battle with those that want to seize that power and wealth and it takes sacrifice and time to do.

              • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                6
                ·
                9 months ago

                “Underachievers”

                I hate this myth of the lazy person, that there are significant portions of people that are lazy enough to throw the entire system off.

                In almost every single UBI study done on this planet, that has not been the affect.

                Turns out the vast majority of people like to achieve things, rewards are not just monetary and the way people feel about money varies.

                The odds of you motivating me to do something specifically for money is so low, there has to be another incentive. Why because my base needs are already met, so I have the ability and time to focus on my other needs.

                That’s what inherited wealth does for people. There is not a massive portion of underachievers and this seems more reflective of the way you view people.

                  • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    3
                    ·
                    9 months ago

                    I think our ideas of how to redistribute them are different, I see your point nonetheless.

                    However we don’t live in a society where your ability to produce is directly connected to what you receive from what you produce.

                    That’s the main problem with our society, no ceo is 250 times more productive than a line worker.

                    I mean you are kind of describing the difference between socialism and communism with that point about productivity.

                    Under socialism workers get back a percentage of what THEY put in. Under communism the workers get back a portion of what ALL the workers produce or the revenue of that.

              • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                5
                ·
                9 months ago

                I think your definition of redistribution and mine are not the same.

                If I’m reading this right you are saying that any “reward” someone gets for over achieving will be punished and that person has to transfer a certain percentage of their bonus to an underachiever. That is to say that the redistribution is a direct hand out of your reward in the form of cash to some underachiever?

                My definition of redistribution is that if you live in a society that values the education of its citizens, then the redistribution (ie taxes) is pooled and then spent in a way can help people out of difficult situations so that they can pursue an education and a career that will improve their lives and in a bigger sense improve the economic life of the country.

                I see taxes as patriotic that if you truly believe in your country (that is the people that make up the country) you are willing to make a small sacrifice to help others become better citizens.

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        9 months ago

        If “history told you wealth redistribution doesn’t work”, then that doesn’t make sense. It can’t show you it doesn’t work by not happening, that’s more like showing you it isn’t achievable, at best.

          • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            9 months ago

            I guess there’s two distinct possible interpretations of the OP statement: that you can’t do it, or that the results would be bad. For some reason it makes more sense in my head that the standard propaganda would be more about the results being bad, or the idea of even trying being just unthinkable.

              • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                9 months ago

                Well I mean, what defines the meaning of “Redistribution of wealth doesn’t work” in the context of this meme is explicitly the intent of an imagined propagandist. A defining feature of mainstream political discourse is to refuse the problem of wealth distribution as a topic of consideration at all, it’s redirected to some narrower conception of the problem or made about values. I think what you are saying is not quite the same as a defense of the statement as delivered.

                But anyway it’s still wrong; even if bureaucratic mechanisms of wealth redistribution were unavoidably self defeating, it is not the case historically that wealth redistribution doesn’t happen, it just tends to happen via traumatic collapse.

    • workerONE@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      Edit: I sort of misunderstood your comment in it’s context. Anything more successful than China’s Land Reform movement?