Do you think anyone in the US acts in the interest of the country as a whole? I have very little problem with my tax dollars going to this as opposed to dropping bombs on some hapless country.
Do you think anyone in the US acts in the interest of the country as a whole
No, but that’s my point. It’s a basic economic issue between voters with different economic interests. Cash-poor college educated people want government subsidies, and non-college educated people with money don’t want to pay for that. People who make their living doing knowledge work see the value in subsidizing college, people who don’t do knowledge work often don’t see the value and don’t think the government should subsidize it. As Marx would say, each group votes according to its class and economic interests. It’s self-indulgent in the extreme to try and dress that up with some narrative about despotism.
Do you know any proles and how they think? For the most part, they don’t expect to become rich themselves some day. Rather, they have low confidence in the ability of government to improve anything, and high confidence that the government will make life harder for small business owners, or cause inflation, or other things that affect them.
Again, circle back to my plumber. He pays enough taxes to care what the government does with the money. And he’s quite reasonably persuaded that whatever the government does won’t help him, but will probably make his life harder.
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Do you think anyone in the US acts in the interest of the country as a whole? I have very little problem with my tax dollars going to this as opposed to dropping bombs on some hapless country.
Sadly, since we don't care about deficit spending, the bombs will be unaffected by this spending.
Yes.
No, but that’s my point. It’s a basic economic issue between voters with different economic interests. Cash-poor college educated people want government subsidies, and non-college educated people with money don’t want to pay for that. People who make their living doing knowledge work see the value in subsidizing college, people who don’t do knowledge work often don’t see the value and don’t think the government should subsidize it. As Marx would say, each group votes according to its class and economic interests. It’s self-indulgent in the extreme to try and dress that up with some narrative about despotism.
Given the ever increasing concentration of wealth towards the top, either Marx was wrong about this or the proles value something more than money.
Or, to change a phrase, if the proles have been convinced that they are temporarily embarrassed bourgeoisie.
Do you know any proles and how they think? For the most part, they don’t expect to become rich themselves some day. Rather, they have low confidence in the ability of government to improve anything, and high confidence that the government will make life harder for small business owners, or cause inflation, or other things that affect them.
Again, circle back to my plumber. He pays enough taxes to care what the government does with the money. And he’s quite reasonably persuaded that whatever the government does won’t help him, but will probably make his life harder.