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Originally Posted by Galt
Explain to me why they unproductive have a right to food paid for by someone else.
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/shrug. I simply told you what happens if you punish them. If your goal is to kill people, or you find people's death inconsequential, you can ignore this fact.
Secondly, they have a right to revolt -- to take up societial justice in the court of last appeal. When you push down on people at the bottom of society, they either die or they tear society appart in revolution.
Thirdly, blood from a stone -- it doesn't work. If government seeks to be the largest leviathan of the society, it cannot allow rivals within it's sphere of power. If it isn't the largest leviathan, than it is no longer really the government of that region. Whatever the real power in the area is matters, not the nominal government.
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Originally Posted by Galt
That depends on how severely the rich are punished. But generally speaking, they don't starve.
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Ayep. There have been situations where the rich get punished so much that they starve. See the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution or...
And no, I'm not saying this is good. I'm just admitting it can happen.
If you like, you can rearrange society that way. I'm sure many people will be happy to sell your lower-classes weapons, it has happened many times in history.
Naturally you could reverse society back far enough that the under-classes are so downtrodden they can't even manage to revolt. But that would reduce the upper-classes to a level of poverty that most westerners wouldn't like, and would make it hard to maintain a military defence against hostile, more progressive, societies.
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Originally Posted by Galt
I'd say that society is benefits far more from the wealthy than from the poor. It would be far more crippling for society if the wealthy disappeared than if the poor were to vanish from the face of the earth. Not only would their be far less tax revenue, but the poor would be easier to replace from an employment standpoint. Anybody can clean a toilet or rake leaves. How many people can perform heart surgery, program a computer, run a corporation or practice law?
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If you determine worth by what happens if they go away, what happens when the land owners decide to revolt? When the owner of a thin line of land decides to prevent crossing?
Monopoly gives you market power, but that doesn't make the price just.
If the wealthy disappeared from the face of the earth, Ayn Rand's novel wouldn't happen. It's a work of fiction. With really bad sex scenes.
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Originally Posted by Galt
I'd also say that the poor benefit far more from society than do the wealthy. Let's pretend for a moment that "society" suddenly went away; no more public education, no more public transportation, no more "free" medical and dental care for the poor, no more food stamps, etc. Who would be hurt more by this; the wealthy or the poor?
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No more police. Invading armies crossing the land, plundering what they will. No more property rights. No more contract enforcement. No more medicine. Bandits on the roads, bandits in the castles, bandits at your back. Deadly infections deseases everywhere, killing 10%-50% of children under 10 from all over the socioeconomic spectrum.
What is being taxed from the rich is money, wealth, buying power -- while the resources gained by the rich by a stronger economy (above a certain level) are not all that important, compared to not starving to death, at the same time the things being taken away are equally unimportant.
A stable strong economy genereates more wealth and money, and a capitalist one tends to concentrate it above and beyond the virtues capitalism seeks to reward would explain.
A doctor, lawyer, computer programmer, or business man benefits hugely by having a stable society of law and order around them. Their benefit above and beyond the poor person in the street is 'only money', and that is the only additional obligation society seeks from them.