why not cull 20% of the wealthy, and redistribute their wealth back to the bottom.
Controversial essay- cull 20% of the poor.
by fulltimestudent 26 Replies latest social current
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GLTirebiter
why not cull 20% of the wealthy, and redistribute their wealth back to the bottom.
Pol Pot tried that. It didn't turn out well for Cambodia.
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Lore
It would not work, of course. It would cull the bottom-rung workers that make our pre-packaged meals, wash our restaurant dishes, and make our hotel room beds.
Well that's assuming it's done indescriminately ala a plague or bomb.
But if people were individually chosen to die it would make sense to choose people without jobs at all, bedridden, without family who rely on them.
why not cull 20% of the wealthy, and redistribute their wealth back to the bottom.
Well one good reason is that the wealthy are the ones who would make the decision. They're not going to have themselves or their family executed.
Additionally if you started killing people for being successful then nobody would try to earn any more money than they absolutely need. They certainly wouldn't report their earnings anymore. Suddenly the entire population would quit their high-skill jobs and start flipping burgers at the resaurants without owners.
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JeffT
I'd rather cull all of the politicians first and see what result that produces. We wouldn't have to kill them, just make them get jobs outside the public sector for a few years.
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Satanus
Iceland got rid of a large part of its financial sector, after its economy crashed. Iceland is feeling much better w a downsized financial sector. Seems to me, that the usa also has a financial sector problem that a courageous excision would solve.
S
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rebel8
They are all on social services, spending their money on alcohol, drugs and gambling. They serve no useful purpose in society, and contribute nothing of value, except to inflate the profits of the liquor and gambling industries. The police are often there, at least once a fortnight, thus adding another layer of costs.
Assuming one could clearly distinguish between those poor folks and the poor folks who are struggling to get off social services and contribute to society...the solution should be aimed at reducing the problem you described in that snippet. Culling is obviously not what a civilized society will do, but there are many other options...restrict access to the vices, eliminate the income of those who persist and offer only a chance for 1 evidence-based treatment episode (and then they're off the dole), etc... You might be able to start with identifying them by drug/alcohol screening tests or create a nuisance law for how many times a person was involved in calls to the police, etc.
I think a go at treatment is warranted. Look, anyone can become an addict. I've worked in behavioral health for many years and have seen people from all walks of life. I've worked in special programs for society's elite who are addicts. Addiction happens. We should put our efforts into preventing it instead of punishing and scorning. Because treatment works and people recover, we should at least try to give them 1 chance to succeed. Very strict--you get kicked out of treatment if you don't follow the rules or work on your recovery. (That's what we do and we kick people out all the time, which hurts us financially but it's best for the patient and for the other patients to know that will happen to them too if they don't straighten up.)
Regardless of party, most people agree they do not want people on the dole who are capable of working or spending their checks on alcohol/drugs/gambling. No one likes fraud.
If we as a society put our efforts at eliminating those problems systematically, instead of trying to lump them in with the rest of the poor and punishing purely by income level, we would arrive at a more humane, ethical, socially/financially productive solution.
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Amelia Ashton
Since being poor is not yet a crime why not start with culling 20% of the prison population.
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sammielee24
Well - what an interesting tongue in cheek - but not so 'tongue in cheek' little take on how to solve two problems - the disgusting, leeches of poor in our society and the financial mess a country has itself in.
Let's put another face on that twist and see how much outrage there is because you see, when an article simply indicates how 'right' it might be to get rid of the poor - it tends to point the finger at those lazy leeches on welfare who apparently contribute nothing to society. Dig deeper. Now - let's examine half of all those poor - 10% of them are mentall ill. 10% are disabled. Now lets call it out for what it is.
Let's not just say poor. The disabled are getting benefits and half of them live in boarding houses or other places offering cheap rent. Some of those are mentall and physically ill. The disabled are among the very poor receiving medical and housing benefits and a form of welfare. What do they contribute? Why nothing one can suppose if they are disabled. They can't work. They don't hold jobs. They are in and out of hospital using up care those 'better off' and somehow more deserving should get. Those preemies in hospital? Do you realize how much money it takes to save those lives and theres no guarantee that they won't have some sort of disability and cost you even more. Goodness where do we start? How about we start with all the disabled first? Lets cull them because from the get go they have nothing to offer. Then lets get rid of all the mentally ill because for the little they give back, they are definitely taking up more than they should. Now, I say we go after all the young and old next - I mean, who wants to spend two million bucks keeping a baby alive with no guarantee and as for those old folks - heck - what have they got left to contribute but more medical bills and taking up rental space.
So tongue in cheek or not - the disabled and mentally ill in our societies make up a large percentage of the poor. This article chooses not to separate all the issues because it's easier to just label someone as 'poor' and let it fly. Those who love class division use this tactic all the time and for those who can't think for themselves it always works. They recoil at points in history when the mentally challenged and disabled were the first rounded up and put to death under a Nazi regime - but don't have a problem including those same people in a tongue in cheek article by including them in the region of the 'poor'. We just don't do it because it doesn't sound pretty - easier to dress it up so we don't appear to dehumanize some segments of the population.
If a country wants to solve their mess why not deal with it at every level instead of culling the herd of the poor? Why not deal with the issues of real poverty first....sadly these tongue in cheek articles aren't really a spoof - often they are a way to garner support in a sarcastic way by pitting all poor against the rest of society and by portraying them all as leeches on society. England ditched as many poor as she could for a hundred years - many ended up in Australia - a great many in Canada. Kids shipped away at six years old because parents were poor. Becoming felons for 12 years for stealing a loaf of bread. Children of the poor stolen from the country and sold into slavery to the USA. As always the poor are a blight on society but it seems that society still hasn't figured out how to fix the problem after hundreds of years. We couldn't ship them away fast enough. We couldn't build prisons large enough. We instituted work houses so the poor could live there and their kids could die there with them. We couldn't beat it out of them through religion. We tried to starve them out and beat them down but the damn poor keep rising up and so another tongue in cheek article arrives speaking of a utiopia if only we could cull the herd - again. sammieswife
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sammielee24
Quarter of disabled people living below poverty line
Updated Fri Mar 22, 2013 6:54pm AEDT
New figures suggest as many as one-in-four Australians with a disability are living below the poverty line.
The figures from the nation's peak welfare advocate, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), blames poor job opportunities and inadequate welfare payments for people with disabilities.
It says more than 620,000 Australians with a disability are struggling.
ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie says a national commitment is desperately needed.
"We're deeply shocked about the figures," she said.
"It absolutely backs up all the stories of personal experience of people with disability and those that are out there in the community supporting them.
"We have a growing gap between the rich and people who are in poverty in Australia.
"Our poverty rate is increasing at the same time as we are peaking as one of the wealthiest countries in the world."
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ballistic
I'm sure Hitler would have entertained the idea, but as it turns out we are currently due a mass-extinction event:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
Such an event would be much less discriminate as it would just kill a massive swathe of humans regardless of wealth etc.
If there was a Gamma Ray burst in our Galaxy, it would almost be like Armageddon and most people would die. I'm sure the Witnesses would think it had come to pass.
