The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > How much inequality is enough > Comments

How much inequality is enough : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 16/5/2017

As I have argued in earlier essays, I do not think that fussing over ‘inequality’ gets us anywhere, unless we are talking about inequalities in access to publicly provided health, or justice, or education.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All
“ how much inequality can a community accept without much unhappiness”.

It seems to me that the answer to that is now 'none' in Australian society. Most Australians have gone right over the edge with what everyone, irrespective of circumstances or effort, is 'entitled' to. They cannot grasp that there is no such thing as equality in their definition of he word. They see someone with something they do hot have, and they want it too; no thought is given to what that 'lucky' person had to do to get whatever the object of their envy is.

The latest whinge is the cost of housing and rent. Last night on TV: one single mother with a disabled son paying $130 a week for public housing; another paying $275 a week for a bedroom home. Alas, alack. Not good enough! What the hell do they want?

Well, folks, call it inequality if you wish, but it is here to stay, and it's going to get worse. Governments have spent all our money, and they are going deeper into debt. If you really think that Australia is an unequal society, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Posted by ttbn, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 10:50:48 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The real problem isn't inequality of wealth, it's disparity in standard of living.
Posted by Aidan, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 2:45:13 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I have no interest in what others may have, only that I can put together enough to have what I want. A huge fortune does not give any wisdom in how to most enjoy it.

In the late 60s I drove a GT B Ferrari in the Surfers Paradise 6 hour sports car race. It was, & still is one of the most beautiful cars ever built. Beautiful to look at, & beautiful to sit in. However it was a bloody awful thing to drive. It was fast enough to win it's class, but I was not upset that I was not asked to drive it again.

A few years ago I heard it had been sold for $1.6 million. I hoped the new owner only wanted to look at it, or impress his neighbours, rather than drive the thing.

A friend found it hard to understand that I would not swap my $20,000 Triumph for the GT B. My Triumph may not impress the neighbours, but is a much nicer thing to drive. I am not the least bit jealous of the man with his 1.6 million car, & I hope he enjoys it as much as I do my old Triumph.

We are so lucky that most of us can enjoy some of the good things in life if we cut our cloth sensibly. That we may not be able to enjoy the most expensive is of no importance at all.
Posted by Hasbeen, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 5:30:06 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I think a better question and germane, is when is enough enough? And given it is often obscenely exceeded, creates comparative and or gender inequality?

When I was a young man a CEO's salary seldom exceeded 30 multiplies of that of the lowest paid worker! The excuse that they are dealing with larger numbers, just doesn't fly, given every employee contributes to expanded company results.

Nor should a department heads be paid more than the PM. Who given he outranks the lot, should be the template which justifies/regulates, what others are paid?

While not everyone can be equal, the starting place, education, ought to be!

Yes, university numbers are up, so is the population and what was fair and reasonable for an earlier generation ought to be the guide or template for all who follow.

What was good for the goose is fare for the gander. Making it, fairness and equity the guiding paradigm, is only as difficult as getting the tax (capital) and energy management model right.

The first economic pillar, energy, could be so much more affordable, and all that spins off that if we were guided solely by pragmatism and future vision?

Ditto tax and the massive avoidance that is the accepted norm of today and overseen by toothless tigers and pollies more concerned with other issues or simple self interest.

If we can't afford to be evenhanded and intrinsically fair? Then ring in intelligent reform until we can. And in so doing, unleashing massive economic growth!

That said, Bill Shorten, who I might have once admired, sneered across the floor, with, you are not us. And if either John Curtain or Ben Chiefly were alive and there, they would likely respond, neither are you and that conservative cabal caterwauling behind you!

I commend the PM for having a go! And dismiss this verbiage as just ideological drivel.

In conclusion let me add, the only thing we have absolute control over is the thoughts we entertain and through them all our attitudes. Think, there is great power and dream realization there!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Tuesday, 16 May 2017 5:36:53 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
if equality means having lazy getup goons displaying contempt for people who have actually worked for a living then it is a good thing. What a pathetically indulgent, entitlement generation we have raised who feed on envy politics. Houses are still very affordable in Regions, there is plenty of fruit to pick and no one should have to pay for you to go and get dumbed down at university. I wonder how many of the entitlement generation have ever got off their cruise ships and looked at poverty. Surely that would shut them up. Then again I still hear people sucking on the public purse complaining.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 16 May 2017 11:30:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
How i wish this could be achieve, a world where every one would be equal to one another and no one should be able to use power or money on the common ones any more.
Posted by rollyczar, Saturday, 20 May 2017 4:45:53 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi runner,i think or hope for a day when the common would be equal with the ones at the top.
Posted by rollyczar, Saturday, 20 May 2017 4:50:05 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It is the politics of envy that is giving rise to envy being part of the national psyche. Or to be fair to the mainstream who are usually too busy working to raise families and pay taxes to notice, to the psyche of the self-titled 'Progressives' and 'their' chatterati, the opinionated motor-mouths for rent who dominate in the media, or is that mainly on the taxpayer-funded, Twitter-driven ABC?

The early current affairs shows had an obligatory 'human interest' hard luck story a day to make hordes of dumbed-down viewers happier with their lot and left feeling a mite superior too. The ABC's modern, tres 'Progressive' Q&A goes one better to find someone to blame where anyone feels hard done by. Stereotyping of the blameworthy is its game. And its even more dumbed-down viewers (if that is possible) get to feel superior to the show's victims and are invited to share in the sympathy by similarly blaming someone else for their own poor decisions, life's problems and lack of 'success'.

Just thinking of serial complainers who are always out for their own benefit, second wave feminism is rooted in envy. -Mainly financial envy, for they are exemplars of materialism and conspicuous consumption. As always, envy is not balanced by any compassion or attempt to understand the lot of the men they 'diss'. -Sloppy self-serving 'research' does the justification trick for them. After all, it is marketing a exercise where the aim is even more entitlements, and more cold hard cash and status for already entitled educated middle class women, although some hate doesn't go astray. Hate adds the edge. Another case where the ends justify the means.

Similarly, the self-titled 'Progressives', who like to strut as 'Left', but are usually about securing guvvy grants and highly paid sinecures in public agencies for themselves and their mates ('networking', they say), would be rendered dumb if jealousy and envy weren't in their tool kit (and their make-up).

tbc..
Posted by leoj, Saturday, 20 May 2017 8:01:23 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
contd..

'Inequality'? 'Rights?' Bah! Phooey! Most of the time it is just rat-clever, greedy dudes who are manipulating public opinion for their own benefit. They also use other tools such as fear, but envy presents so many opportunities and doesn't ebb so quickly.

Now, how will this man and his crew ever get the glittering prizes* of becoming PM and ministers if they cannot rely on the Class War and the Gender War and whipped-up envy is crucial to both? This fellow, the talented Mr Shorten,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFELLK8htKM

*the glittering prizes - Australia's first womyn PM did land herself remuneration better than the (then) President of the US of A and the PM of the UK too.
Posted by leoj, Saturday, 20 May 2017 8:15:23 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
And leoj's post illustrates the real problem: many decades ago the left spouted the rhetoric of class warfare. But nowadays the right falsely accuse the left of class warfare, while waging class warfare themselves (and dismissing any objections to it as "the politics of envy").

The problem was of course greatly exacerbated by Julia Gillard trying to reclaim the politics of class warfare. That, IMHO, was the day she proved herself unfit to be PM.
Posted by Aidan, Saturday, 20 May 2017 12:36:58 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy