Ok I see what you are saying. progressive taxation is acceptable, but only when the progressive taxation doesn't pay for anything that only the poor use.
Fair enough, but even in your worst case scenario, of progressive taxation giving benefits to the poor, there has never been a modern democratic society where the whole system collapsed from progressive taxation and wealth distribution.
Therefore, since there is not any example of that, you shouldn't worry about it collapsing our, or any economy.
In the short run, it is obviously better for a rich person to give me a check for doing nothing, then me just hoping that a job working for them will give me that same check. anyway, if i just got a handout, then i could use my time to get another job instead of working for someone to get the handout (in the form of a paycheck)
Don't worry though, i agree with you in the long run that less taxation of the wealthy helps the poor.
Your claim does not mean anything. There are many, many factors in determining rascism and crime, so unless you can seperate the different variables, that means nothing.
Also, I was talking about crime and not racism or segregation. Despite segregation being horrible, maybe it decreases crime. I am not sure, that is something else.
All of the effects that you are talking about are negative, but those do not need to happen with wealth redistribution.
The problem is that people unfortunately are more unhappy about their economic condition if there are some people that are much, much richer then they are. It has statistically been proven that people would even be happier in a poorer, but more egalitarian society.
I first saw that in Allan Greenspan's book "A Turbulent Decade" where he admits that correlation despite him being a libertarian. (even if he isn't quite as much as he use to be when he wrote the book)
Look at this
http://www.springerlink.com/content/y3014v7537576t17/fulltext.pdf
In the conclusion of this study it says that there is a strong correlation between inequality in nations, and unhappiness.
"5. CONCLUSIONS
My first question was: Is there a relation between level and
inequality of happiness in nations? The answer is that there is a
negative correlation between level and inequality of happiness:
higher levels go together with less inequality. This negative
correlation is substantial: )0.65 for all nations, )0.74 for rich
LEVEL AND INEQUALITY OF HAPPINESS IN NATIONS 413
nations and )0.29 for poor nations. Thus, level and equality of
happiness are not antithetical; inequality is apparently not
required for achieving higher levels of happiness."
That is really great that you were able to get out of poverty with only your own work.
However, the problem is that what you did was very rare. There are even many surveys on this that maybe you have seen. the social mobility in America is actually fairly low.
Even if more people are able to go from poor to billionaire in America then other nations, it is still much rarer for someone who is poor to go into the middle class.
I could go fishing around for a statistic about that, and they are pretty common.
The problem is that the inequality is normally continuous.
You need to remember that the government is not treating people who do the same things differently. You are right, two people committing the same crime should receive the same penalty. However, when two people commit different crimes, or make different incomes then their taxes or penalties should be different.
Progressive taxation is not arbitrary different treatment by the government.
The problem is that those societies wouldn't be as homogeneous if there was wide income inequality.
why do you think "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" are so important anyway? Seriously, why should that goal be promoted beyond all others?
I just don't think that they are worth not promoting a utilitarian goal.