Skronk wrote:How is classlessness inevitable when the division between rich and poor is widening?
Depends you mean "widening". In terms of income, the difference has narrowed considerably over the past 50 years (in Europe) and in terms of availability of health, education, etc. it is even narrower. In terms of the geographical between the rich and power it is still as wide because there is still an African crisis.
In terms of disposable income, sure the might be more people around now who buy flash bullshit, but that doesn't concern me.
In the states things may be a little different, but we can safely put the blame on weighted free market economics and a decrease in workers rights through deregulation.
Tolerable, sure. But not arbitrary.
Arbitray in that the rich signify themselves as wealthy using things that are increasingly only relevant to other rich people.
What you can do with vast amounts of personal wealth, in 2008, is limited compared to what you could do with it in 1880. We no longer need vast sums to travel, have healthcare, become educated, or to become a part of what they used to call polite society.
In 1880 making your fortune would be survival, quality of life. Today it means Audis and penthouse condos. Arbitrary.
Say for the sake of discussion, what would an even handed approach by law look like? I can see something like arbitrary laws, like prostitution and drugs taken off the table to create a more hospitable environment for people. Accepting that people's situation isn't entirely there own fault is pretty vague, from a legal standpoint. Are you suggesting some radical alteration to the legal system?
I mean the law not punishing people for being poor. For example, I don't want too a law that presumes smokers 'deserve' lung cancer and gives them less of a priority when it comes to healthcare, or a law that presumes the unemployed are idle or ex-cons are criminals. You know, I have hit all these notes repeatedly in previous posts.I want the law to maintain the welfare state and prevent libertarian incursions on that eglaritarian standpoint.
I understand that you think there's no elite, no purposeful interbreeding on the part of our benevolent rulers, or a NWO.
Rich people marry rich people. Irrelevant. Unless Inheritance Tax is somehow demolished.
Power is not merely symbolic, it has a real world affect. Look at the recent situation in Burma, or even the Iraq War.
Power is entirely symbolic, this is what makes acts of violence on behest of power so reprehensible. A cop punches a protester. Power didn't throw that punch the cop did.
Free to not take part in society? I thought you said those who wish to distance themselves should jump off Beachy Head.
That is my personal opinion of people who don't give a shit about their fellows. Naturally, I would not want it legislated.
I don't see state violence going anywhere, the third world is a major example of it., or here when the police get violent on protestors. Some call 9/11 state violence, either purposeful or from negligence.
To paraphrase Hitchens on nuclear war, 9/11 was state violence because the state (through negligence) allowed civilians to become involved in war.
Are you serious? What kind of socialist answer is to ignore the growing gap between the classes? Ignoring a problem only makes it worse. I figure saying not giving a shit about your property, or money is a good way to cope when the economy crumbles. It's gone, so what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishPeople should be free to act on their desires first and foremost. Measuring that potential fulfillment of those desire cannot be accurately measured by either finances or commodities.
Would you answer Rick's question, I'd also like to know. Apart from some egalitarian tribe, have you ever seen a classless society?
Of course not. What does that prove, that someone has deliberately set up the world so there can't be?
Poo-poo, my good fellow, poo-poo.
