As a moderate conservative, I would like to see the end of private land ownership in a stateless, moneyless society.
As a moderate conservative, I believe in ownership and democracy. Therefore the people who work at a company should own it and have an equal vote in how it is run.
As a moderate conservative, I believe in conserving natural, finite resources like oil and gas. I believe in making large investments into clean and renewable energy for all, so we can conserve the natural beauty of our land, just like God intended.
So I know a guy who has this as a core belief. He voted Republican until 2016 and bitched every day and pretty frequently wrote our Congress critters about how part of conservatism is being a good steward of the environment. He refused to vote for Trump. I’m not sure who he did vote for (my guess is no one) but he said he wouldn’t support that fucking moron who wants to allow toxic waste in our rivers.
He loves clean energy and is big on environmentalism (God gave us the earth to take care of and the science to do so). He’s also in a borderline cult church. I’m surprised there aren’t more church people who think they should take care of Earth. At least then we’d agree on one thing.
I’m a far right fringe militia extremist who was there on J6 (but I did not go inside) and I’d do it all again to shift the tax burden to those most able to pay it.
Why were you there on Jan 6th. Did you really believe the election had been stolen?
As a hard line right winger I believe we should aim for a world where all forms of work can provide a dignified living
That’s a great start! I’m curious how you reconcile that with other right wing views like free-market capitalism, smaller government, and deregulation? Also curious about those who either temporarily or permanently can’t work.
I’m curious how you reconcile that with other right wing views like free-market capitalism, smaller government, and deregulation?
Read the OP again…
Well obviously smaller government needs to get its ass out of people’s private health decisions and bedrooms, and stop helping other countries invade their neighbors or abuse their populace. Big waste of money! Then it should pull back funds from enforcing ridiculous outdated regulations like zoning and trespassing that restrict the American freedom to live where you want. Also, churches should participate in free-market capitalism like every other business, openly showing their books and chipping in exactly the same percentage of taxes, as should businesses of all sizes, with a clear and simple tax code. Loopholes are sneaky communist bullshit! And we need to get the tax brackets back to Reagan levels!
this is basically what everybody believes, and what everybody should unite on, the problem is that the right is currently enraptured by what can only be described as the “most elaborate con in history” as opposed to actual politics. The left is a complete clusterfuck of bullshit and idiots, but that’s another story for another day.
This is what would be considered a “traditionally right view of politics” and if that’s where your politics align, great for you. Take advantage of that as much as possible, however, avoid the modern american right as much as you physically can. They are a bastardized version of that flavor of right wing politics. They offer nothing, and don’t even espouse traditional right wing views.
This is literally what I’ve done my whole life. I have never identified as a leftist, always as a centrist, it’s not my fault other people don’t understand where the center is.
It’s less a sneaky trick and more a condition imposed on us by political circumstance. “I can’t really tell you my ideological affiliation because I’m afraid you’re allergic to it” isn’t a good sign for your chances at persuasion.
Even then, words are wind.
I’m much less concerned with the professed views of this or that terminally online trillionaire gooner internet celebrity than I am with what said gooner is currently ordering his gooner gang to do to the US Treasury system. If he was running around in a Che Guevera T-shirt while he ripped the copper wiring out of the federal government, it wouldn’t make me feel any different.
Maybe hes a different kind of socialist, the not very socialist but very national kind.
Or maybe he’s just a carny, who’ll say anything to separate a fool from their money.
I’m a centrist. I think we should have a maximum wealth cap set at 1000x the median household income. I am willing to do this via tax policy instead of the guillotine.
I was curious what the number would be. That’s $80,000,000 (fixed) in wealth. Seems pretty reasonable tbh.
The median household income is about $80k in the US. 1000x is $80 million.
I like this ratio because it both indexes things to inflation but also ties the allowable wealth of the wealthiest to the well being of the average family. Also, it’s still a very high amount. $80 million is still a ton of money.
Consider the highest paid salary workers, not CEOs, but actual workers. Think the most well paid doctors, lawyers, and other professional classes. Even if the best paid doctor in the country kept living like a college student their whole career. They make $1 million a year but live like a monk, saving and investing everything they can. And they do this from the time they graduate until they die of old age.
They would still struggle to hit a $80 million net worth by the time they die.
It is impossible to make that level of wealth by your own work alone. The only way you accrue a fortune greater than this is if you’re in the business of labor arbitrage - you are hiring people and siphoning off a large portion of the wealth they generate for yourself. A “doctor” who works a practice with 30 doctors underneath them isn’t really a doctor, they’re a business owner just like any other.
2 propositions. 1, making lawmakers job a minimum wage job so they have an incentive to raise it and feel the effect their policies have on the population. 2, capping a PDG CEO salary to ~20x the lowest salary of his company.
I see where you’re coming from, but it’s not as though refusing to implement #1 has done much for us so far. Trump and Elon are running around doing whatever they please already, and nobody who is actually capable of holding them accountable is willing to do it.
congressional appointment should be handled like jury duty. “Dammit, I pulled congressional duty again.” the certainty of having to return to your old life would encourage you to make it better for non-politicians as well.
I disagree on that. Part of our problem is that those in government don’t really understand governance and the sustem is complex. That takes time and mentorship, a jury duty like system might make bribing harder, but it would make a functional government next to impossible. Age limits, I’m all for that - give em until they’re 70 (or something close) then no more government offices - congress, senate, pres, judgeships, etc. That and have fully publicly-funded elections with limited campaigning windows. No more 2-year presidential runs or congresspeople needing to fundraise and run for their entire term.
There really should be a wealth cap. If you have more then 1000x the median income to your personal net worth then you don’t need it. Sorry not sorry.
They would likely find loops holes like they already do though…… le sigh…
None the less, we need to do something about wealth hoarding if we want to have even a semblance of a democracy.
How would you go about enforcing it? What happens to the ceo whose wealth ticks about your 1000x threshold due to a good day on the stock market?
Those are policy details. A common fatal flaw among the left is obsessing over details and trying to pick apart any good idea. The wealth cap is philosophy statement. Obviously any policy needs rules to implement it. But that’s for legislators, not people discussing the idea itself. You shouldn’t attack a broad policy by getting lost in the minutia.
This happened in the 2020 Democratic Primary. All the candidates had these pointlessly elaborate policy documents and white papers that were immediately forgotten after the election.
Politics is not about obsessing over minutia. It’s unproductive to engage in such nit picking of something that is simply a broad policy vision.
I’m sure if you wanted to, you could answer your own question. How would YOU implement this wealth cap while addressing asset swings?
Hah, my question isn’t because I’m a fatally flawed leftist, it’s because I’m a programmer and weekly I get requests from executives that simply aren’t possible or at least feasible to implement.
Your entire comment sounds exactly like one of these hand wavy requests from the heavens where details don’t matter. The cherry on top was you flipping it back at me so that I’d attempt to expand on your ill thought through plan and make it work. I’m sure you do well in the corporate landscape.
I’m not just a centrist, I’m a conservative! I agree with Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism.
For instance, I agree with him that monopolies must be regulated or they will corrupt the government:
It is to sell the one as dear, and to buy the other as cheap as possible, and consequently to exclude, as much as possible, all rivals from the particular market where they keep their shop. The genius of the administration, therefore, so far as concerns the trade of the company, is the same as that of the direc- tion. It tends to make government subservient to the interest of monopoly, and consequently to stunt the natural growth of some parts, at least, of the surplus produce of the country, to what is barely sufficient for answering the demand of the company
…
They will employ the whole authority of government, and pervert the administration of Justice, in order to harass and ruin those who interfere with them in any branch of commerce, which by means of agents, either concealed, or at least not pub- licly avowed, they may choose to carry on.
–
I also agree with him that landlords are parasites and need to be heavily taxed:
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground.
If you call yourself a captalist but don’t even believe in what Adam Smith said, are you really even a capitalist?
If you call yourself a captalist but don’t even believe in what Adam Smith said, are you really even a capitalist?
i’m a capitalist, but only to the extent that capitalism is the most effective mechanism of meeting the needs of a market. I think it’s fundamentally impossible to run an economic system in any way that is more optimized to the needs of it’s consumers than you can under capitalism, and that’s what i like about it.
It’s also true that there are some self regulating effects on the market. But that’s more complicated.
Though, just because i believe the market handles itself in most cases, doesn’t mean i believe it requires no regulation. That would be preposterous. I don’t want pure unregulated capitalism, but i don’t want socialism/communism either, i want both. Both is good.