From: Timothy Bates (tbates@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Date: Tue Nov 10 1998 - 17:43:31 MST
Hi Max
Michael Lorrey suggested
>>people have the quirky notion that you can make everything
>>equal for everyone without stealing anything from anybody, or annoying
>>anyone
To which Max replied
>... I find it is fair to steal money [to]
>"Making the rich 2% unhappier to make the poor 200% happier"
That is Marx in a nutshell: property is theft, ergo theft is justice.
Unfortunately,even in the Utilitarian cloths in which you dress your
wolf, the sums don't compute.
Take a miniature country like NZ or Denmark. They are both 100 Billion
dollar economies. Bill gates could give us a holiday for 180 days, then
all his money is gone.
Add up all the other rich people and your sentence becomes
"take all the wealth form the rich and make everyone happy for about 1
day."
>taking money away from the wealthy and
>investing them in other peoples education/helping the poor can eventually
>make the wealthier even wealthier.
Nope. It just makes people stop work. Galt's Gulch. There are quite nice
equations for this now. In New Zealand the Treasury suggests that the
optimal tax rate to maximise GNP and government income is in the mid 20s.
>btw. I am considdered to be right wing here in Denmark :-)
I guess that is because people forget that Denmark had an explicit
eugenics program to enhance the IQ of its population ;-) Skin heads
keeping out "inferior" colours of immigrant is also suggests
In truth, Denmark has little to fear from socialism. Your people are so
honest and intelligent that the whole system is highly self organising. I
thoroughly enjoyed both my trips to Copenhagen and Aarhus for that
reason. I recognised immediately why Denmark's Jewish population mostly
survived the Nazis: Danes are decent human beings.
best,
tim
____________________
Dr. Timothy Bates Don't compromise. Use QuickTime.
Dept Psychology <http://www.apple.com/quicktime/>
Macquarie University <http://www.QuickTimeFAQ.org/>
Sydney NSW 2109 Australia
tbates@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au
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