Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

The married and the rich can look after their children and/or pay someone to do so, so their rate of reproduction is less of a direct social concern. As I said, I personally think that the ultra-rich breeding is still a problem because their heirs tend to grab the top spots and thus block social mobility.

Buit this presumes that it ~IS a saocial concern, while I insist that it's merely the most basic function of society.

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No. They just cannot pay for it.

Exactly. So in terms of the total burden on real resources, they are comparativeluy low impact by comparison to the wealthy. Surely we should be worried about the rich, seeing as they use up so much more?

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Well, since I disagree on that point, it is not surprise we disagree on some conclusions.

Indeed. And that is why there is an issue with Flight's remarks.

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I actually don't care about 'useful' or not. That's a value judgement. I leave these to individual firms. I care about productivity, value added and money. While your example of banker is well chosen right now, I'll transform it slightly and use a marketing executive. A marketing exec is an asset in the State's books because it pays more taxes than it consumes. A poor is the reverse.

And it pays those taxes with wealth that it take from the poor. so this is just playing a game of pass the parcel.

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High minimum wages have been linked to high unemployment. So, okay, given the amount of factors influencing unemployment, the relationship is hard to prove beyond dispute but I still think that a better way to protect the working poor is to remove high minimum wages, tax profit more and then complement said working poor income with the social income made out of the increased profit tax. It's less distorting for labour as there is less opportunities for arbitrage by companies.

No, it's more distorting for labour, as it entrenches the exploitative relationship between employer and employed. And it also leaves open the preactical reality that the rich can better escape taxes than the poor, which means thast you end up with the not-totally-poor subsidising the really poor, while the rich trouser the loot by the bucketfull.

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One thing the world is not about to run out of is poor people, alas.

Clearly not. They are capitalisms primary product.

Originally Posted by contracycle

Buit this presumes that it IS a social concern, while I insist that it's merely the most basic function of society.

Everything the members of a society do is a social concern, one way or another.

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Exactly. So in terms of the total burden on real resources, they are comparatively low impact by comparison to the wealthy. Surely we should be worried about the rich, seeing as they use up so much more?

From an ecological point of view, that's a valid argument and I would agree with you. From an economical point of view, that's just not relevant. What is relevant is that one can pay and the other cannot. Thus, one will be a cost to society while the other will be an asset, from an accounting point of view.

And, before you start saying that we should look at the big picture, from an ecological point of view, I suspect we need to shave a couple of billions people on this planet so...

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Indeed. And that is why there is an issue with Flight's remarks.

I frankly don't think that people pissed off at the term "breeding" and the idea that poor people reproduce too much thanks to state support makes any reference to marxism...

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And it pays those taxes with wealth that it take from the poor. so this is just playing a game of pass the parcel.

In your own view of the world, maybe...

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No, it's more distorting for labour, as it entrenches the exploitative relationship between employer and employed.

Price is price. Supply and demand are not huge on moral statement. OTOH, I suspect most people would prefer to work rather than being unemployed... From my experiences in France and that of my friends, let me tell you that a 12% unemployment rate fucks a lot of things up, even for people who are employed...

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And it also leaves open the practical reality that the rich can better escape taxes than the poor, which means thast you end up with the not-totally-poor subsidising the really poor, while the rich trouser the loot by the bucketfull.

Well, I was saying 'companies' profit' rather than 'the rich' but that's still a valid concern. However it's a practical one and it can obviously be addressed. For example, the various internal revenue services across the western hemisphere have significantly tightened rules with regards to internal pricing and revenues/profit transfers...

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Clearly not. They are capitalisms primary product.

The problem with that crude statement is that it contradicts evidence on the ground. So you're left with affirming it could be even better... Something I agree with but I certainly don't think it requires a wholesale change... and I don't think it has anything to do with the common sense statement that we ought not to encourage the western 'poor' to have ever more children...

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