A system where everyone lives at existing lower-middle class levels (without exception)

OR

A system where 10% live at existing lower-middle class levels, 80% live at existing middle class levels, and 10% live a very wealthy levels where they don’t need to work and have, essentially, unlimited access to material wealth?

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Originally posted by MacD:
You're conflating "class" with "socio-economic status". Income and wealth levels pertain to SES. Class relates to the economic relationships among individuals: are some individuals interests (e.g. workers) subordinated to the interests of others (managers, investors)? The forced elimination of SES inequalities would not eliminate class differences. Conversely, the elimination of class does not necessarily require complete equality in terms of SES.

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Is it necessarily true that the simultaneous existance of wealthy people alongside workers implies subordination? No. If the wealth was earned through an individual's own efforts (as opposed to speculative investment, for example) and if that wealthy individual does not use their wealth to leverage control and ownership of others' labour, then I would say that the economic relationship might not be one of domination.

[ 16 October 2005: Message edited by: MacD ]

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Originally posted by MacD:
If the "wealthy people" have control over the work done by the "lower-middle class" and if the reason that the wealthy people don't have to work is because they live off the production of the lower-middle class, then yes, I would say that the system does subordinate the interests of the lower-middle class to those of the wealthy.

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Linda McQuaig's "Wealth Parade" (and based on 1984 wealth data, too. An update would probably shock us even moreso) We already know there will be more "invisible marchers" because of life-long student loan debt sentences.

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A household with average wealth is symbolized by a marcher of "average" height – say, something less than 6 feet tall. The parade takes one hour to pass the viewing grandstand.

The first marchers in the parade are actually under the ground – that is, they do not have any wealth, and in fact carry net debts. It isn't until 10 minutes later that the first "break-even" Canadian marches by: the first Canadian who carries no debt, but owns no net wealth either, and hence marches by exactly at ground-level. After 15 minutes, we see the first dwarfs, standing just three feet tall...

During the last minute of the wealth parade, marchers are as tall as Toronto's CN Tower, over one thousand feet tall. And in the last second of the parade, the truly lopsided nature of wealth ownership in Canada is stunningly revealed: the very last marchers in this parade are supernatural giants, towering some 200 miles above the rest of the parade.

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According to McMaster University economist Michael Veall, the top-earning 1 per cent of Canadians have almost doubled their share of our national income - from 7.6 per cent in 1980 to 13.6 per cent in 2000.

Osgoode Hall law professor Neil Brooks said the top-earning Canadians haven't raked in as large a share of Canada's national income since the 1920s and 1930s, a time when Canada was often regarded as a plutocracy (iow's, a society ruled by the wealthy).

[ 16 October 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Sven:
Given that, which system would you select?

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Originally posted by MacD:

Would you prefer to be hanged, or drawn and quartered?

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Hanged. It's quicker (usually).

That being said, my hypothetical was not "would you rather get shot in the head or have your head sliced off?" In either case, the result is the same.

In my hypothetical, the results are significantly different from each other.

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Originally posted by MacD:
My point is that I see no reason to choose between two alternatives, neither of which is acceptable. I'll stick with door number 3.

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Back in the '80s, a poll was taken of Americans (when Japan was veiwed as the unstoppable economic behemoth). They were asked if they'd rather live in a world where the growth in GNP for the USA and Japan was both 5% or a world where GNP growth in the USA was 10% and GNP growth in Japan was 20%.

Overwhelmingly and even though it was contrary to their own economic self-interest, people said they'd rather live in the world where the growth was the same between the countries.

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Originally posted by Sven:
I think that most progressives would rather have a society where eveyone was of modest means, but equal, rather than have some with modest means, some with "outrageous" means and most with middling means.

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Originally posted by MacD:

As I tried to convey in my original post, "equal" has different meanings depending on whether it is construed in the context of "class" or of "socio-economic status". Does "outrageous means" simply mean more consumption of goods and services (SES context) or does it entail power over those of lesser means (class context)?

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and lets not forget that middle class people rely on the exploitation of poor,third world countries and labour to sustain their standards of living

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Originally posted by CourtneyGQuinn:
and lets not forget that middle class people rely on the exploitation of poor,third world countries and labour to sustain their standards of living

(snip)

....it will be the middle class that helps cause worldwide poverty

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Originally posted by CourtneyGQuinn:
...poor,third world countries...

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you ask if poor are the only virtuos ones?...maybe...perhaps if they are technically, materially and economically defined as poor yet they live a rich life regardless....maybe more people should try to follow suit somewhat

There is a standard we as Canadians should demand of our heritage, to have a guaranteed right to shelter and a minimum income. A shield where no one is left in the cold. Think of how much even better our "country" could be if we truly helped each other to achieve what one or the other could not.

Leadership is to set high goals for yourself and do what others wish they could be respected for.
The way things currently are in this world is a genie with different priorities which in the past have benefited Canadians who think that because you do not have a job, you are not working.

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Originally posted by CourtneyGQuinn:
you ask if poor are the only virtuos ones?...maybe...perhaps if they are technically, materially and economically defined as poor yet they live a rich life regardless....maybe more people should try to follow suit somewhat

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I think a person can live a very rich and fulfilling life without being poor!!

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Originally posted by Fidel:
...even though the Liberals have created a shortage of physicians in order to foment national discontent over our health care system.

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