First of all, I'd like to wish everyone a happy 4-20 and remember that you should take two puffs and pass the doobie to the left.
I was looking at global GDP numbers yesterday and I noticed something that got my wheels turning: Bill Gates has a net worth of something near to $50,000,000,000...only 60 countries in the world have a GDP that is higher than his personal net worth. Gates is actually a very good man, his charity is the world's most generous and he actually does care for the world a lot more than most billionaires. (Look at Warren Buffet or Larry Ellison if you don't believe me) But there is just something sad to me when there are nations where if you add up the entire population (some of the nations he's richer than have 25,000,000+ people) they cannot even produce half of what this single man has. Hell, in this nation there are over 8,900,000 millionaires, many of whom have hundreds of millions or even billions to their name. On the flip side, there are people who struggle their whole life just to earn 250,000 in a lifetime. A-Rod makes more than that in a double-header. Maybe it's just me, but that's out-of-whack.
I'm not one to talk, growing up rich enough that I was driven to school in a stretch limo for a number of years, but I still have developed a socialist sensibility in my years in public schools, through my travels and living in New Orleans for over three years. The more egalitarian a society is, the more peaceful and cohesive the society is. The distribution of wealth must be relatively equal for a society to be fully functional. Now I am not advocating that everyone have equal shares, they just should have relatively equal shares. In Norway they have a very high tax rate, lots of natural resources and a an almost crime and poverty free society. This is because they are provided with services that are generally equal throughout the nation regardless of wealth. There is so little poverty in Norway that they don't really even have any charities that help homeless or poor people. However, despite the fact that nobody is poor, there are rich people too. Captains of industry are still wealthy, just not at the expense of the people. They pay a ton in taxes, while our rich only pay 40% at most and generally a lot less than that thanks to trickster accountants.
In my ideal society, there would be internal socialism but external capitalism. Meaning that within the borders of my society (a city-state is ideal) there would be 85% taxes and nationalized health care and subsidized housing and food. The society would specialize at a few specific industries, like sugarcane, sunflowers and pineapples while maintaining capitalistic trade with other city-states. All city-states would have a tourist industry and would be energy self-sufficient. All houses would be constructed to adhere to strict environmental regulations and would generate all the power needed by itself. With this, every city-state would develop a niche and a symbiotic trade relationship with many other city-states. If a city-state like Seattle specialized in computer software and aeronautical supplies it would be very wealthy, but Bill Gates would have to redistribute the majority of his vast wealth to the people who helped make him so rich.
I am not convinced that large nations could ever work. As the borders expand, the people lose their unfluence and more inequality spreads. In Europe, the nations with the fewest problems are also the smaller and less populated ones. Overpopulation is always a problem, but overextension of the government's resources is another one. If an office in Washington DC is trying to make decisions that affect people in Lanai, how is that logical? They are 4500 miles apart, yet they are still forced to adhere to the rules set by the government. Not only that, but they also send their hard earned money to Washington to see it evaporate without coming back to them. Shouldn't our taxes go towards our own society? If Bill Gates paid 35,000,000,000 in taxes to the Seattle area, imagine how much that would benefit the schools, police, hospitals, roads, etc. And Bill would still have more money by himself than more than 100 countries worldwide. Do we really need to have that much money? Does anyone really need to be so much more wealthy than everyone else? I'd love to see what this country would be like if we fragmented into hundreds of smaller city-states with highly socialistic taxes. Maybe we'd see our crime rates fall towards Scandanavian rates...but then again, maybe Americans are just more violent and greedy than everyone else.
I was looking at global GDP numbers yesterday and I noticed something that got my wheels turning: Bill Gates has a net worth of something near to $50,000,000,000...only 60 countries in the world have a GDP that is higher than his personal net worth. Gates is actually a very good man, his charity is the world's most generous and he actually does care for the world a lot more than most billionaires. (Look at Warren Buffet or Larry Ellison if you don't believe me) But there is just something sad to me when there are nations where if you add up the entire population (some of the nations he's richer than have 25,000,000+ people) they cannot even produce half of what this single man has. Hell, in this nation there are over 8,900,000 millionaires, many of whom have hundreds of millions or even billions to their name. On the flip side, there are people who struggle their whole life just to earn 250,000 in a lifetime. A-Rod makes more than that in a double-header. Maybe it's just me, but that's out-of-whack.
I'm not one to talk, growing up rich enough that I was driven to school in a stretch limo for a number of years, but I still have developed a socialist sensibility in my years in public schools, through my travels and living in New Orleans for over three years. The more egalitarian a society is, the more peaceful and cohesive the society is. The distribution of wealth must be relatively equal for a society to be fully functional. Now I am not advocating that everyone have equal shares, they just should have relatively equal shares. In Norway they have a very high tax rate, lots of natural resources and a an almost crime and poverty free society. This is because they are provided with services that are generally equal throughout the nation regardless of wealth. There is so little poverty in Norway that they don't really even have any charities that help homeless or poor people. However, despite the fact that nobody is poor, there are rich people too. Captains of industry are still wealthy, just not at the expense of the people. They pay a ton in taxes, while our rich only pay 40% at most and generally a lot less than that thanks to trickster accountants.
In my ideal society, there would be internal socialism but external capitalism. Meaning that within the borders of my society (a city-state is ideal) there would be 85% taxes and nationalized health care and subsidized housing and food. The society would specialize at a few specific industries, like sugarcane, sunflowers and pineapples while maintaining capitalistic trade with other city-states. All city-states would have a tourist industry and would be energy self-sufficient. All houses would be constructed to adhere to strict environmental regulations and would generate all the power needed by itself. With this, every city-state would develop a niche and a symbiotic trade relationship with many other city-states. If a city-state like Seattle specialized in computer software and aeronautical supplies it would be very wealthy, but Bill Gates would have to redistribute the majority of his vast wealth to the people who helped make him so rich.
I am not convinced that large nations could ever work. As the borders expand, the people lose their unfluence and more inequality spreads. In Europe, the nations with the fewest problems are also the smaller and less populated ones. Overpopulation is always a problem, but overextension of the government's resources is another one. If an office in Washington DC is trying to make decisions that affect people in Lanai, how is that logical? They are 4500 miles apart, yet they are still forced to adhere to the rules set by the government. Not only that, but they also send their hard earned money to Washington to see it evaporate without coming back to them. Shouldn't our taxes go towards our own society? If Bill Gates paid 35,000,000,000 in taxes to the Seattle area, imagine how much that would benefit the schools, police, hospitals, roads, etc. And Bill would still have more money by himself than more than 100 countries worldwide. Do we really need to have that much money? Does anyone really need to be so much more wealthy than everyone else? I'd love to see what this country would be like if we fragmented into hundreds of smaller city-states with highly socialistic taxes. Maybe we'd see our crime rates fall towards Scandanavian rates...but then again, maybe Americans are just more violent and greedy than everyone else.
posted by Dan Pasternack at 1:20 PM
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