[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Again this is just a capitalistic argument that is baseless. This isn’t really a function of supply and demand but a function of a learned skill. If we had cheaper more accessible education we would have more surgeons. I doubt there are more brains that need surgury than streets that need sweeping.[/quote]
Actually, with the little tractors they use nowadays, a street sweeper can cover a lot of street in one day.
What about talent? Let’s say all car mechanics are paid the same; but one in particular is “better” at properly fixing cars. Once the word goes around, people will want to deal with that car mechanic, if they can. They might even bring him gifts or outright bribes. The talented car mechanic then gets “paid” more for doing the same job, simply because he’s better at it. Will you suffer through endless visits to a lousy mechanic just because “it’s fair?”
And don’t give me the education argument here. No matter the amount of education, some people are just better at some things than others are. Now amount of hockey lessons are going to transform a competent hockey player into Wayne Gretzky.
I don’t know how it is in the state, but here you can go all the way to college with very little in the way of personal out-of-pocket. Yet, a lot of people do not avail themselves of the possibility. They drop out, for various reason, during or just after high school. Yet they should be paid the same amount as someone who goes the extra mile and gets another 5-10 years of schooling? Why waste 10 years of salary if you can start getting paid $100,000 at 12? By the time the neurosurgeon start to practice, in his mid-thirties, I already have 25 years of salary accumulated.
If that how you came up with all your arguments? My advice: use a rusty spoon.
I prefer realism.
Money is the way we measure productivity. Making more money than a competitor means that you’re better at doing whatever it is you’re doing than he is. More productive = more products, or same amount of products at reduced costs.
Often done? I don’t think so. It does happen in some particular sector when the only players are gigantic corporations, but most enterprises in a modern capitalist society do not wield that much power.
And, as with credit, the solution is not to scrap capitalism in it’s entirety, but to try and correct the “wrongs” through market regulation or various laws. This should be done carefully, and as little as possible.
There’s only one biggest and richest. People often go in business when they discover that they can make a good living from something they love doing.
That’s another problem I see with your communist society: Why would someone take the risks inherent in starting a new business if he’s not going to get any more out of it? Why deal with the stress, the long hours, the financially difficult first years and the possibility of bankruptcy if at the end you simply keep on making what you where already making previously?
I certainly hope so. You’ve never played sports with friends just for the fun of it?
What are you saying then? I’m under the impression that you think both our street sweeper and our neurosurgeon should be equally rewarded.
If there not realistic, it’ll be hard to “realize” them, though.
Instead of “punishing” the companies, simply make sure the laws in place protect the customer. We have laws that set a maximum interest rate and you prosecute anyone who goes over for shylocking… Make your laws as just and fair as possible and then punish those who don’t respect them.
Don’t simply punish law-abiding companies because you don’t like their ethics. The customer shares his part of the blame.
See? Use correctly, credit is quite useful. If you punish credit companies for lending to poor people, they might cut off all credit. Those poor people will then have no way at all to make those large purchases, other than turning to actual loan sharks or other unsavory lenders.