Ugh no, all you have to do is recognize that wealth is correlated with political power for wealth inequality to be a political problem around the amassing of illiberal influence People who don’t think wealth inequality is a problem should think more about board games
Fill in the blank: “Correlation is ___ causation.”
lol. It’s a repeated pattern throughout history.
You’re seriously arguing that wealth is merely coincidental with power? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it
Now you’re moving the goalposts. The argument above is “wealth inequality —> fascism, other bad stuff.” My contention is that’s a just so story. 1. *Nothing* that humans do (individually or as social groups) is monocausal. 2. The argument is supported with copious arbitrariness & cherrypicking.
3. It’s a bad explanation for what’s happening *right now.* For example, Trump’s authoritarianism is *against* the interests of the ultra wealthy. His tariffs, the instability he’s introducing to the system, his fiscal irresponsibility, the rents he’s extracting hurt THEIR bottom lines. If their >
>wealth = power were a sufficient explanation, *he* would not be in power (much less enthusiastically wrecking the economy). They have the resources to fight him yet they’ve decided to try to ride it out because they don’t want to deal with the short to medium term costs & risks of doing so.
You’re confusing how power is coalesced with what Trump is doing with said power once it was handed to him. You said earlier you consider yourself liberal vs libertarian. You’re making libertarian args that have been proven false by the current state of affairs. Dereg led to outsized private power.
That outsized private power has influence over both parties that far outweigh the power of the people. Both parties limit the options on the menu at the behest of corporate power. What Trump did with the power handed to him is after the fact.
A libertarian *is* a liberal. A liberal *is* (to one degree or another) a libertarian. I don't call myself a "libertarian" because the Libertarian Party is an abject shitshow & now frequently *unlibertarian.* You're conflating "liberal" with "left of center"—that's how Americans colloquially >
>speak but it's wrong. The current state of affairs is that, from Woodrow Wilson on (w/ a significant bump for FDR), Congress has abdicated ever more of its power & responsibilities to the President. This was not done to appease wealth but because legislating is *hard* & Congressmen didn't want >
>to take the heat for mistakes or unpopular policies. It was easier to foist the problems off onto POTUS (&, to a lesser degree, the courts). Today, Congress sees its job as getting reelected rather than legislating. Getting reelected mostly boils down to riling up the small donors by going viral >
lol Trump is acting in what he perceives his own interest to be & achieved his position in the public sphere because of a cartoon of his wealth “But tariffs!” My dude that is not a serious argument
Nope. You replied with a cliche used by people who don’t understand correlation, & are now making a lot of irrelevant statements about a pretty simple relationship bc you don’t like the plain implications
Right? It’s a lot of pre-canned rebuttals that don’t fit the current subject. “Cherry picked” 🙄. That doesn’t even make sense in the context of this exchange.
I'd find the correlation more interesting if 1. it actually existed & 2. the hypothesis hadn't already been tested & falsified by social science (see: the thread I just posted). Y'all have nice lives.