Re: Damned European Socialists ;-)

Timothy Bates (tbates@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Wed, 11 Nov 1998 11:43:31 +1100

Hi Max

Michael Lorrey suggested
>>people have the quirky notion that you can make everything
>>equal for everyone without stealing anything from anybody, or annoying
>>anyone

To which Max replied

>... I find it is fair to steal money [to]
>"Making the rich 2% unhappier to make the poor 200% happier"

That is Marx in a nutshell: property is theft, ergo theft is justice. Unfortunately,even in the Utilitarian cloths in which you dress your wolf, the sums don't compute.

Take a miniature country like NZ or Denmark. They are both 100 Billion dollar economies. Bill gates could give us a holiday for 180 days, then all his money is gone.

Add up all the other rich people and your sentence becomes

"take all the wealth form the rich and make everyone happy for about 1 day."

>taking money away from the wealthy and
>investing them in other peoples education/helping the poor can eventually
>make the wealthier even wealthier.

Nope. It just makes people stop work. Galt's Gulch. There are quite nice equations for this now. In New Zealand the Treasury suggests that the optimal tax rate to maximise GNP and government income is in the mid 20s.

>btw. I am considdered to be right wing here in Denmark :-)
I guess that is because people forget that Denmark had an explicit eugenics program to enhance the IQ of its population ;-) Skin heads keeping out "inferior" colours of immigrant is also suggests

In truth, Denmark has little to fear from socialism. Your people are so honest and intelligent that the whole system is highly self organising. I thoroughly enjoyed both my trips to Copenhagen and Aarhus for that reason. I recognised immediately why Denmark's Jewish population mostly survived the Nazis: Danes are decent human beings.

best,
tim


Dr. Timothy Bates                   Don't compromise.  Use QuickTime.
Dept Psychology                     <http://www.apple.com/quicktime/>
Macquarie University                <http://www.QuickTimeFAQ.org/>
Sydney NSW 2109 Australia           

tbates@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au

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