<story><title>Capitalism and Inequality</title><url>https://avc.com/2019/01/capitalism-and-inequality/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>helen___keller</author><text>This entire post is based on a strawman argument. AoC said that a system that allows billionaires to emerge alongside extreme poverty is immoral - with reference to hookworm(which she incorrectly referred to as ringworm) in Alabama. It&amp;#x27;s hard to disagree with that, and it&amp;#x27;s a VERY different point than claiming billionaires should not exist (which OP argues against).&lt;p&gt;By the way, the point AoC was trying to make when put in context is exactly the argument that the OP was making, which is that people getting rich is OK but it&amp;#x27;s immoral that people are getting rich and also people are living in extreme poverty, so we should improve the system so people aren&amp;#x27;t living in extreme poverty.&lt;p&gt;Where OP differs from AoC is (of course) in his assessment of &lt;i&gt;how&lt;/i&gt; we eliminate extreme poverty - AoC is famously advocating a 70% marginal tax rate, while OP suggested some unspecified mix of &amp;quot;technological improvement&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;re-imagining of government&amp;quot; to achieve elimination of poverty. Frankly I think OP is just naive. Maybe he thinks government is literally in the stone age with an army of clerks shuffling paperwork, but I just don&amp;#x27;t see how eliminating some unnecessary jobs (useful, yes) in government can achieve &amp;quot;medical care for all, affordable education for all, and some amount of income for all&amp;quot; (OP&amp;#x27;s listed aims).&lt;p&gt;On top of that, ANY change to government is inherently political. The kind of revolutionary upgrades in government efficiency that OP wants would need to be a major party initiative - which would be opposed by the opposite party, watered down during negotiations, and subjected to compromise by the political process. This is simply a fact about how the world works. We&amp;#x27;re not an autocracy which means we don&amp;#x27;t get a visionary Steve Jobs figure who can dictate what the government will do for the next 10 years, and we have to accept both the good and the bad that comes with that.&lt;p&gt;To think that technology will magically save us from real world problems plaguing real people by &amp;quot;reimagining government&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;cutting unnecessary jobs&amp;quot; is literally wishful thinking. It belongs in a bygone era where tech enthusiasts were sure facebook and google would revolutionize the world by spreading democratic and free speech ideals to every corner of the earth. There aren&amp;#x27;t easy solutions to every hard problem and OP doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to appreciate this fact.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ilikerashers</author><text>Well written comment. As someone close to the NHS and UK school system, Fred&amp;#x27;s type of mentality has hit these hard and contributed to  Brexit. 
Both are constantly bringing in &amp;quot;change&amp;quot; type consultants. If only we can cut employees&amp;#x2F;use this software package&amp;#x2F;run it more like a business&amp;#x2F;get better leaders&amp;#x2F;have more digital strategies. No Fred, they just need money. They need money to pay doctors, they need money to fund beds, the need to pay teachers.
Government doesn&amp;#x27;t run like business. A hospital can&amp;#x27;t just go bust, a council can&amp;#x27;t just shut up shop, this isn&amp;#x27;t how it should work either.
His solution is roughly saying &amp;quot;well I like the status quo and if you come up with anything I&amp;#x27;ll take a look but will probably shoot it down&amp;quot;. Sorry Fred, you&amp;#x27;re on &amp;quot;the let them eat cake&amp;quot; side whether you recognize it or not. Roll on March 29th.</text></comment>
<story><title>Capitalism and Inequality</title><url>https://avc.com/2019/01/capitalism-and-inequality/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>helen___keller</author><text>This entire post is based on a strawman argument. AoC said that a system that allows billionaires to emerge alongside extreme poverty is immoral - with reference to hookworm(which she incorrectly referred to as ringworm) in Alabama. It&amp;#x27;s hard to disagree with that, and it&amp;#x27;s a VERY different point than claiming billionaires should not exist (which OP argues against).&lt;p&gt;By the way, the point AoC was trying to make when put in context is exactly the argument that the OP was making, which is that people getting rich is OK but it&amp;#x27;s immoral that people are getting rich and also people are living in extreme poverty, so we should improve the system so people aren&amp;#x27;t living in extreme poverty.&lt;p&gt;Where OP differs from AoC is (of course) in his assessment of &lt;i&gt;how&lt;/i&gt; we eliminate extreme poverty - AoC is famously advocating a 70% marginal tax rate, while OP suggested some unspecified mix of &amp;quot;technological improvement&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;re-imagining of government&amp;quot; to achieve elimination of poverty. Frankly I think OP is just naive. Maybe he thinks government is literally in the stone age with an army of clerks shuffling paperwork, but I just don&amp;#x27;t see how eliminating some unnecessary jobs (useful, yes) in government can achieve &amp;quot;medical care for all, affordable education for all, and some amount of income for all&amp;quot; (OP&amp;#x27;s listed aims).&lt;p&gt;On top of that, ANY change to government is inherently political. The kind of revolutionary upgrades in government efficiency that OP wants would need to be a major party initiative - which would be opposed by the opposite party, watered down during negotiations, and subjected to compromise by the political process. This is simply a fact about how the world works. We&amp;#x27;re not an autocracy which means we don&amp;#x27;t get a visionary Steve Jobs figure who can dictate what the government will do for the next 10 years, and we have to accept both the good and the bad that comes with that.&lt;p&gt;To think that technology will magically save us from real world problems plaguing real people by &amp;quot;reimagining government&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;cutting unnecessary jobs&amp;quot; is literally wishful thinking. It belongs in a bygone era where tech enthusiasts were sure facebook and google would revolutionize the world by spreading democratic and free speech ideals to every corner of the earth. There aren&amp;#x27;t easy solutions to every hard problem and OP doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to appreciate this fact.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zethus</author><text>Completely unrelated to the content of your post, but I find it interesting that you lowercase the o in AOC as if it&amp;#x27;s a technology like IoT.</text></comment>