hamei wrote:
clavileno wrote:
So, in the context of a market economy, we do, in fact, need the rich in order to provide (some of the) jobs for the poor!
Sorry but you do not understand a "market economy" in the slightest. The wealthy do not do shit to advance an economy. They are pretty much parasites. There will always be the wealthy and they do provide nice decorations but almost ALL advances come from the middle class.
Wealthy people and companies do not create anything new : they manipulate whatever comes along to provide the maximum profit for themselves and kill anything that interferes with their own selfish desires in the process. It's the middle class which is the "market economy." Crush the middle class and you get Mexico or China or India.
Please, people, use your own brains and eyes instead of just regurgitating the swill you've been fed by the CEO's and Wall Street brokers.
Ah-hem, thank you for that. Contrary to what you may think, I've spent many decades using my eyes, ears, and brain to examine the world and form my own opinions. Those opinions may not match yours, but that is the way of the world, and it would be a pretty dull place if we all agreed on everything.
Whether we like it or not, the desire for wealth has facilitated some of the most important technological advances. Without the desire for wealth, there would have been no industrial revolution, no explosion in technology and, yes, no SGI. Without access to existing wealth (capital), those advances would have been slower coming.
The market economy provides efficient means by which wealth may be acquired, and products / services distributed. Without a market economy, wealth creation becomes more difficult; without some pre-existing wealth, a dynamic market economy cannot realistically flourish. At least, it cannot in the longer term; in the short term there has, of late, always been borrowing.
Where you see parasites, I see self-interest on the part of some participants in an efficient market. Just as a mixture of abilities, of resources, of means, and so on is important to both the diversity and the movement of the economy (and, lest we forget, it is economic entropy which keeps things moving), so the varied motivations and ambitions of the market's participants also stimulate movement and development.
Now, socially - or at least, politically - it may be expedient (or even desirable!) to limit or otherwise temper by regulation the operation of some market participants, so as to allow the market to meet other, not-necessarily-market-related goals. But that is the role of the regulation; the lack of self-regulation on the part of individual participants does not render them somehow deficient or deserving of our ire, in my opinion at least.
To brand "the wealthy" "parasites" is as pointless as calling "the poor" "lazy" or "stupid". Each participant (in society, as in the market economy) plays their part, within constraints both of their own making and imposed by others. We all need (almost) all of the various types and flavours of participants; remove some, and the rest operates - at best - inefficiently.
