Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
The problem isn't the amount of money they have in their pockets, it is the power that money has to influence and that is not something we can control by demanding they get paid more. As you give them more money, the buying power of that money will decrease and I doubt it would translate to a higher standard of living in the long run. You have to think about it this way... you pay them "fair" wages, product prices increase, people in the west demand more money, and as a result, the overall balance stays the same. Changing the numbers doesn't change the system.
And I would never say that socialism can't work, but it definitely depends on a lot of capital to maintain socialism. Things like universal health care and democracy are extremely expensive to maintain. How many people would be willing to give that up to be more fair to people thousands of miles away?
The problem is that most Westerners live well above their actual labour output (even a lot of our poor do this relatively speaking) . There can't be rich people in the world if there are not poor people. As it is, even the middle-lower classes in Western society take in more than they produce on average. Any type of wealth distribution on a global scale would mean not just a drastic change to the ultra-rich, but also to the middle class. Is the middle class in Canada willing to see a standard of living change to be on par with a place like Mexico, just so a place like Bangladesh can have theirs raised to that level? It's not going to happen.
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Not sure I agree with your first paragraph but the rest of the post I completely agree with. As North Americans, we feel entitled to our various forms of leisure and consumption, and we're not about to give that up for the benefit of someone we can't put a face to. I guess what irks me is the same thing that irks me about the climate change discussion. You have a lot of people that deny there is a problem or say there's nothing that can be gone, which is just a cop out for "there's nothing I actually want to sacrifice to fix the problem."