Degrowth

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Scarcity is a political choice: It’s time to tax the super-rich (350.org)

submitted 1 week ago by MrMakabar@slrpnk.net to c/degrowth@slrpnk.net

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24106397

Cutting overseas aid is shortsighted. Who are our political leaders really putting first – ordinary people or the super rich?

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[–] it_depends_man@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The one thing I dislike about "THE LEFT NARRATIVE", and I am generally left leaning, is that "left" people pretend that "left" solutions somehow end scarcity or end things costing.

That can't be true. Just because a new solution would be more social oriented, doesn't mean it suddenly doesn't take material, time, effort and education to do things.

The market economy, in theory, finds fair and correct prices. Obviously when it's being manipulated that's not true. But people criticizing it must show some understanding that what they are criticizing is the malfunction and the unlimited negative consequences and NOT the concept of "some things are rare".

So no. Scarcity is not a political choice. It is a natural fact.

Artificial scarcity, that's a choice.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That is not the point of the article at all. The idea being that most scarcity in the world is not due to a fundamental lack of resources in form of material, time, effort, education and so forth, but a decision on how to use those resources.

The case being made is that talking about is scarcity in food, green investment, health care, education and so forth is not something politicans can seriously argue about, when we have billionaires building private mega yachts, live in multiple houses each bigger then apartment blocks, with gardens around them, which could pass as parks, while flying around the world in private planes and so forth. Taking that wealth would solve really a lot of the worlds problems.

[–] wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago

Yeah if we treat billionaires like cash pinatas then we can solve quite a lot of scarcity in a short amount of time.

[–] it_depends_man@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

The idea being that most scarcity in the world is not due to a fundamental lack of resources in form of material, time, effort, education and so forth, but a decision on how to use those resources.

Yes. And sometimes that's true and sometimes it's NOT true. That's my point.

The way the authors use the word confuses the two. Which is wrong and bad and not helping.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scarce

"deficient in quantity or number compared with the demand : not plentiful or abundant"

Let's be really clear here with an example:

Housing is scarce. That is a FACT. No amount of taxation or even change of ownership will change that housing is scarce right now. That's scarcity. We could have a complete and happy and peaceful world revolution tomorrow, socialize everything and the day after tomorrow there would still be scarcity. That's what the word means.

As for how to solve this problem and where to get the money to invest into housing, that's where taxing the rich comes in.

But even then we are limited by the amount of material we right now and the amount of people who can work in construction right now and the amount of machines we can use to build new housing right now.

Again, do tax the rich. And that does depend on political will.

Just be very clear in the messaging of what that can solve and what it can not solve.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah that theory often does not work at all. It really only works for things were most people could afford it and don't really need it. So they could take it or leave it. NPR was doing a piece and a thing briefly talked about is how much we save no vaccinating for smallpox in the us due to doing it overseas. As much as we say we defeated a disease that is never really the case and we will more than likely see it again doing things the way we are now doing them.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Absolutely agree. This feels like a subtle dig at the fashionable pseudo-solution of the day, abundance.

[–] Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The super rich can afford to move and hire top lawyers and accountants.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 week ago

But not their assets. You can not just move factories, stores, warehouses and so forth. Even IP is useless, if you can not use it in the large markets. So it can be taxed.