OTOH, assuming you have a situation where people have to work at all (which I think we still do, alas), there has to be some way of incentivising people.
Barring straightforward authoritarian means (if you don't work I'll beat you; I use brainwashing to make you want to work for me; I take all the production and apportion it based on how much work you do) the best way we've found to do it is 'you get more of the stuff you can exchange for anything you want'.
'Economics' seems to be based on 'if you have this flowing means of exchange, then it finds its own level like water - people give it to each other because they want stuff, and the people providing the most value for the most people get more of it to spend on what they want'.
Whether it's doing this well, or should be doing this at all, depends on your viewpoint - what do you value?
If your values are 'every human being is essentially as worthy as the next one of having their desires fulfilled', then the current system isn't doing very well, as you say, because poor people's desires are undervalued.
If your values are 'every human being should be as productive as possible, should be rewarded in proportion to how productive they are' then it does a little better, but the concentration-of-wealth problem means that some people's children get a better start than others because of their circumstances, which means equality of opportunity doesn't happen in practice and some people's productivity is stunted, and you might be looking for ways to improve that.
If your values are 'I want as much as possible for me and mine and screw the next guy', then whether the system works for you depends where you started :). So the rich want less regulation on their activities and a greater ability to screw the next guy, the middle classes want restrictions on how badly _they_ can be screwed but for their stuff to only be redistributed to the extent that it keeps unsightly starving beggars off their doorstep, provides collective services / insurance for things they're not rich enough to fund individually, and prevents spread of diseases in their neighbourhoods, and the poor want a share of the stuff the other people have got...
It turns out to be very hard to talk about 'correct' economic policies until you answer the question 'correct for who?'.
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Date: 2011-12-31 01:04 pm (UTC)From:Barring straightforward authoritarian means (if you don't work I'll beat you; I use brainwashing to make you want to work for me; I take all the production and apportion it based on how much work you do) the best way we've found to do it is 'you get more of the stuff you can exchange for anything you want'.
'Economics' seems to be based on 'if you have this flowing means of exchange, then it finds its own level like water - people give it to each other because they want stuff, and the people providing the most value for the most people get more of it to spend on what they want'.
Whether it's doing this well, or should be doing this at all, depends on your viewpoint - what do you value?
If your values are 'every human being is essentially as worthy as the next one of having their desires fulfilled', then the current system isn't doing very well, as you say, because poor people's desires are undervalued.
If your values are 'every human being should be as productive as possible, should be rewarded in proportion to how productive they are' then it does a little better, but the concentration-of-wealth problem means that some people's children get a better start than others because of their circumstances, which means equality of opportunity doesn't happen in practice and some people's productivity is stunted, and you might be looking for ways to improve that.
If your values are 'I want as much as possible for me and mine and screw the next guy', then whether the system works for you depends where you started :). So the rich want less regulation on their activities and a greater ability to screw the next guy, the middle classes want restrictions on how badly _they_ can be screwed but for their stuff to only be redistributed to the extent that it keeps unsightly starving beggars off their doorstep, provides collective services / insurance for things they're not rich enough to fund individually, and prevents spread of diseases in their neighbourhoods, and the poor want a share of the stuff the other people have got...
It turns out to be very hard to talk about 'correct' economic policies until you answer the question 'correct for who?'.