Although America does have its downfalls, the democratic system
is working perfectly fine without everyone being economically equal. Now I’m
not sure if you realize this, but the idea of everyone being economically equal
is called communism. Americans have fought for many years to keep communism out
of this country and their hard work should not be ruined to jeopardize the
already working democratic system. Although the clash of classes causes some
issues when it comes to voting for things such as taxes, making everyone
economically equal is not the answer.
Communism will only result in the
downfall of Americans putting forth effort into going to college and trying to
get good jobs. The number of doctors, lawyers, and teachers will drastically
decline because nobody will want to take the time to go to multiple years of
school to have a difficult job that gets paid the same amount as a McDonald’s
worker. Also, equality of the economy will cause workers to become lazy. Without
the need to be promoted or get a raise, people will no longer do the best work
that they can. Therefore, products would not be made as well and services would
falter.
The
only issue that I can see with having multiple economic classes is the debate
of taxes. Yes, this is a big issue in America and we all have our own opinions
on how taxing should be distributed. But the risk of our democratic and
economic welfare is not worth the argument of whether or not the rich should be
taxed more. After reading the article What I Told the Hedge Fund Managers in Miami, I can say that I absolutely do not agree with James Livingston when
he says, “Let’s realize that the price of liberty is equality.” This is
certainly not true considering that this country has gotten along just fine on
the economic system that we have now. As Glenn Reed states in Capitalistic Language& The Non-Profit World. Selling Out Word by Word?, “punishing the
successful.” That is exactly what communism is, punishing the successful. If
the people of this country that put forth enough effort to be successful are
punished for it, what is this country coming to?
Communism
is not the answer for this country’s democratic problems. Communism will only cause
the destruction of our country and its economy. America will always have its
issues and there will always be different ways to solve them, but an equal
economy is never the answer.
I agree whole heartedly when you say that getting rid of classes in America would basically make this nation into a communist nation. The biggest problem with having the classes does come from taxes, but how can we fix them? The government has to get money somehow. We do not export enough goods to have a net gain with all of the products and resources are imported, so how else can our government make money? The answer is taxes. However I do not see why different classes should have to pay higher percentages of their income. Why can’t everybody just pay the same percentage of their income? I mean it’s ridiculous that people who barely make it into the next tax bracket end up bringing home less pocket money than the people who are at the top of the lower brackets. It just does not seem right when we talk about rewarding people for their success, but they still end up making less money.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your idea that specific to the American Democracy that everyone doesn't need to be economically equal and I think in many ways specifically America's democracy is stimulated by having classes. However I also think that the system is far from working perfectly. On the subject of the recently magnified class conflict Obama says: "Now, this kind of inequality -- a level that we haven't seen since the Great Depression -- hurts us all,". Politicians are constantly debating on a tax policy to somehow lessen the severity of the conflict yet it's hard to come to a mutual perception of 'fair taxes'. For example raising the tax on the wealthy is seen as unfair and even as 'class warfare by the republicans. This kind of stalemate between the two parties prevents any substantial form of action being taken which in turn only exacerbates the class conflict. So while you're right that not everyone has to be on equal economic standing, the democratic system is far from perfect and while there isn't any need for actions as severe as somehow removing class among the populous more needs to be done to reduce the conflict to a less detrimental rate.
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