this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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The downside to this approach, when you get right down to it, even if it works and improves standards of living all round. The real crux of the problem that the scientists always ignore is this: you'd have to allow some of your money to go to other people. That's a deal breaker for most folks with money.
It's worse than that. Some folks actually reject the idea that those poorer than them should have nice things, or even OK things. This is why there are voucher programs, why so much social housing (when it was built) are ugly, plain boxes showcasing the worst of brutalism.
I feel like most rich people would reject 1000$ if that meant a poor person got 500$.
During covid, they took $100ks while people got $500,
everybody knows how deverstating low crime and high purchasing power are for business
Western capitalist neoliberal dogma, which has largely been adopted globally, has us working against each other rather than towards a common good. That dogma dictates that we should see poverty as laziness and entitlement and wealth as aspirational and fulfilling.
It's easy to blame capitalism for this and I don't disagree it's pretty broken right now but I've been all over the world and people are largely like this. In India I heard a lot of "rich people deserve it because they have good karma" in China I heard a lot of "rich people just work harder or come from a great family" against all visible evidence.
Thats because the Western capitalist worldview has spread globally.
Many of these countries had more socialist systems after establishing their respective post colonial governments but embraced more protectionist strategies or had sanctions placed on them by the wealthiest (Western) nations for not playing ball with the neoliberal capitalist agenda.
Basically, the West stole from them for centuries through settler colonialism, left with the riches and then said 'you better do things our way or we will refuse to do trade with you and you will continue to starve'
The world has had no choice to embrace it, for better or for worse.
Western capitalist mores are actively brainwashing us into thinking wealth is virtue. Might is right. It is not.
I think once you see how much damage colonization did it's easy to blame everything on that one evil. But that's oversimplifying to an extreme extent.
For example, I really doubt the idea of class based karma (or karma based class perhaps) was a colonial introduction to India. I'm not disagreeing with you that modern capitalism is bad or saying that colonialism wasn't damaging, those are both true, but it's pretty damn patronizing to says "they couldn't have had bad socioeconomic practices without us" Hell they had a literal caste system of worker exploitation long before we showed up.
It was not a colonial based introduction but it was institutionalized by colonists.
I'm glad that we agree modern capitalism is problematic and the history of colonialism (and the modern Western world) is predicated on evil, exploitative, inhumane and non-egalitarian principles.
I didn't say that they couldn't have bad socioeconomic practices without [the West]. I simply stated that a forced assimilation to a capitalist worldview has occurred globally (the alternative being destitution) and which has reinforced the idea that wealth is virtue.
If we're going to have an honest reflection on caste, we first need to acknowledge that the West treated all colored peoples as low caste for hundreds of years (and it still does in many ways through neocolonialism). Inequality is inherent to modern Western capitalist dogma, just as it is in a rigid institutionalized (courtesy of colonial legacy) caste based system.
I won't deny that I am lazy (wealthy enough to not need to work for a few months a year), however I and almost everyone I know would much rather get that down to never needing to work. Capitalism has proven its ability to allow this for some people, social services would be amazing if there was enough capital behind them to enable their own self sustainability without requiring external revenue (aka surviving off the interest - inflation) so they could have a chance of working even if the majority of people rely on their services.
I think people are our own worse enemies at times. There are some countries that are less individualistic than the ones I've lived in, but there's a "crabs in the bucket" mentality.
I was lectured by a coworker about how the poor have it better than us and how we provide for them but they have it better than us. Note that despite having this knowledge, my coworker still decides to earn a paycheck. People hate it when others get stuff for free. There is definitely a form of entitlement that some people can get. I know people that work in government (Canada) and they say those that get free benefits just act so mean about it and if things go wrong or are delayed.