Mind's Eye Re: Moral Mazes

We got the chance to buy £10K in the Royal Mail privatisation, but even though they went from 330 - 490 pence the buying and selling fees would have taken most of that for the small investor.

On Friday, 11 October 2013 10:38:53 UTC+1, archytas wrote:

Bankers, CEOs and others have been taking huge and obscene amounts of money from the rest of us more or less forever.   Point to the ludicrous inequality and injustice of such and the establishment will probably roll out a 'moral philosopher' to muddy the water.  These placepeople will say some sports personalities 'earn' (how easily the words weasel out) $1 million a week on the basis of a bit of scarce god-given skill, so why on earth should we be so concerned with bankers?  They will spin this out over an hour or so, probably implying we could all 'earn' massive amounts if we worked hard.  This is typical academic flim-flam and evades the real debate.  We can clearly cap earnings and there have been many examples - the maximum wage in UK soccer and the set match fee in rugby league.  This raises other issues, but my point would be the general failure to point to such indicates the so-called moral arguments are often totally inadequate and trivial.   Allowing people to 'earn' vast amounts of money has probably destroyed our democracies and creates economic rents that are a massive drain on real economic activity (inheritance does this too) and chances of equal opportunity and social mobility.  We are always denied the debate we should have.  Our own ignorance may play a substantial part in this, but there are other argumentative reasons deep in our biology, notably that we argue to win rather than find the best arguments (this theme is associated with Dan Sperber).  I think the argument should have shifted to whether we are faced with a choice between democracy and "banking/obscene 'earnings".   I see signs of this from libertarians (zerohedge etc.) - but main media remains silent and is now so trivial I can't stomach it.  Even most Americans now believe their news programmes don't report in an important way.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-10/10-disturbing-facts-about-exceptional-america

I don't know if we are at a tipping point, but there is very little reason to support the rich 1% as we have.  Does anyone in here still believe this?

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