this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 118 points 2 years ago (5 children)

Trickle down never worked, this is end game capitalism, something else needs to be added to this mix to fix this mess.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Trickle down didn't work in the 1980's or anytime after that.

Trickle down did work in the 1940's, 1950's, and most of the 1960's, it just wasn't called "trickle down" at that time.

The difference was a punitively high tax rate that nobody actually paid, because they found better ways to spend their excess revenue than simply giving it to Uncle Sam.

It turns out that when the richest among us are forced to spend instead of lend, the rest of us finally start to earn fair wages.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well, that's not really "trickle down" as championed by Reagan, that's more "use it or lose it". He wanted to reduce those crazy high tax rates to give the rich the choice of whether to keep the money for later or to spend it now, with "trickle down" being the phrase to tell people that it's fine, it'll make it's way out to everyone else... eventually?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

something else needs to be added to this mix to fix this mess

Could Universal Basic Income play a role in this?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Band aid solution. The system remains unchanged. The billionaires still make their profits off of the backs of you and me.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Well at least after AI and robots replace a good portion of the workforce, detaching happy, educated citizens from the societies money flow.

My guess is gouverment by powerful corporation and people unable to adapt dying in gutters, rather that universal income.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

There was a "this day in history" tidbit a day or two because it was the anniversary of the last guillotine execution.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

The last so far.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well there was this guy called Karl Marx, who tried to suggest solutions to the problems of capitalism.

...but I hear he's not trending these days. Wrong kind of people liked his stuff.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (9 children)

Actually socialism is more popular now than ever. Enough that mainstream media constantly writes scare articles about how socialist the young generations are.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The media thinking they can threaten me with a good time...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

That's what the media has always done. It's just that in this age it's the easiest it's ever been to see past red scare propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

"Socialism" in the form of government regulations and healthcare is popular. Not so much Marxism or proleterian revolution

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think you're seriously underestimating what most young socialists believe. It is true that they don't believe in revolution, but many of them change when they grow older and they lose faith in the system. I'm confident that will keep happening.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I'm a millennial communist - though in any practical sense, I'm socialist. I've got very little faith in the system beyond it's ability to act on its self-interest, but (as much as I'd like to believe otherwise) I believe revolution isn't a sustainable way to bring about the change we want.

Revolution before we put in the groundwork to level wealth inequality will inevitably lead to power imbalance, and a likely collapse into autocracy. On the negative side, we see the likes of China and the USSR - massive death, famine, corruption, and a failure to deliver on the promise of worker enfranchisement. The most positive example I can think of is Cuba.

I want revolution to be a practical path forward - it brings the change we need quickly when we don't have the time to wait and incremental transition will be all but impossible at this point, but I'd need to be convinced it won't almost certainly lead to a worse state. What would be different about this revolution that would see it go right (or what examples am I missing?)

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