: : Nonsense. The purpose of a State, as Anatole France noted so long ago, is to take wealth from one set of people and give it to another. Almost everywhere this flow goes from the working people to the rich. It's time this flow went the other way.: I 100% disagree with that assertion but I dont think we'll get anywhere debating the purpose of the state. I dont believe government should involve itself in moving any money around. I'll conceed that some form of taxation is needed to run the government, but big government as we have seen time and time again is a bad idea.
So you don't think the government "ought to be moving money around." What information informs this opinion, Dan, and is it anything more substantial than vacuous garden-variety right-wing propaganda? Dan, what do you think the Federal Reserve is about? The government PRINTS money. The government DISTRIBUTES money through the banking system. The government GUARANTEES THE VALUE OF MONEY. Look on your dollar bill someday, ask yourself what those words "good for all debts, public and private" means. How can they say that, Dan? Look in a history book someday, find out why they set up the Fed and the FDIC, and about what those institutions could possibly be for. Read something about how the government distributes money to the public through the banking system maybe. The government INCREASES THE MONEY SUPPLY in order to boost the economy. They do this not out of any evil liberal tendency of theirs but rather because economic prosperity depends upon something called the "multiplier effect" -- gradually increasing the total quantity of money in circulation maintains an entity called CONSUMER OPTIMISM and a related entity called the MARGINAL PROPENSITY TO CONSUME that has been the magic word for macroeconomists since macroeconomics was invented. The idea is simple -- if the money is spread around, everyone has some of it to spend, and therefore everyone has a pretext for continuing to produce something, for staying in business and expanding their businesses. Read about the "inventor" of macroeconomics, John Maynard Keynes, someday. It is the logic of Keynesian overspending by "big government" (firstly with the New Deal, and then later in order to fight World War II) that pulled the world out of the Great Depression, and it is Keynesian logic that keeps the world from experiencing another Great Depression. I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying that the basis for the whole system is the government's role in taking money from one source and putting it in another set of places. If you don't believe in that, you don't believe in the system.
: : At least welfare provided the people with some compensation for the world they build, the same world the super-rich claim as their own. The people are deprived of the "fruits of their labor" because they have failed to overthrow the owning classes, the classes that rip off their labor, day in and day out. Most welfare recipients are also working people. Welfare at least provides the people with a little return on that same labor.
: Im not sure which USA you are from but most welfare recipients are NOT working people.
You're certainly not offering any EVIDENCE for your beliefs, you show no understanding of the realities of WORKFARE, and you certainly haven't taken into account CORPORATE WELFARE, which receives, statistically, more government largesse than the stuff doled out to mere individuals.
