Hard work = $250,000 ?
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| Fri, 10-24-2008 - 9:07am |
I’ve read repeatedly that the $250,000 is hard earned money that the government has no right to tax. Personally, I don’t believe that hard work consistently results in high salaries and I’m not convinced that people who make more money work harder or deserve more than most people. Most people, I believe, do work hard and most people are rewarded with 25,000 – 45,000 salary. Not all some hard workers make more and some make less. What do you think? Is the Just World view valid?
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/beliefs7csend.pdf
most people have a strong need to believe that they live in a world that is just, in the sense that people generally get what they deserve, and deserve what they get. When confronted with data that contradicts this view they try hard to ignore, reinterpret, distort, or forget it —for instance by finding imaginary merits to the recipients of fortuitous rewards, or assigning blame to innocent victims.
Because of their imperfect willpower, individuals constantly strive to motivate themselves (or their children) towards effort, educational investment, perseverance in the face of adversity, and away from the slippery slope of idleness, welfare dependency, crime, drugs, etc. This is another recurrent finding from the sociological evidence. In such circumstances, maintaining somewhat rosy beliefs about the fact that everyone will ultimately get their “just deserts” can be very valuable. Furthermore, if enough individuals end up with the view that economic success is highly dependent on effort, they will ultimately represent a pivotal voting block, and set a low tax rate. Conversely, when individuals anticipate that society will carry out little redistribution, the costs of a deficient motivation to effort or savings are much higher than with high taxes and
a generous safety net. Each individual thus has greater incentives to maintain his belief that effort ultimately pays, and consequently more voters end up with such a world view.
For instance, data from the World Values Survey shows that only 29% of Americans believe that the poor are trapped in poverty, and only 30% that luck, rather than effort or education, determines income. The figures for Europeans are nearly double: 60% and 54% respectively. Similarly, Americans are more than twice as likely as Europeans to think that the poor are lazy (60% versus 26%).
Indeed, 59% of Americans agree or strongly agree that “in the long run, hard work usually brings a better life”; this view commands much less support in Europe, ranging from 34% in Sweden to 43% in Germany.
Is the “American dream,” according to our theory, just a self-sustaining collective illusion?


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<Why is that ? Is it cultural conditioning ?>>
That is a really good question and I don't know the answer. Is mental illness higher in the US than in other countries? Because that could obviously be part of it. I think Americans do live a more stressful lifestyle than in some European countries where there is less pressure to work so much all the time (more vacation time, better family leave policies). Are American doctors more likely to offer antidepressants when their patients are having problems? Part of that is that it is cheaper for insurance companies to pay for the drugs than to pay for therapy, and doctors know that. It may be a combination of those factors along with people wanting a quick fix for their problems.
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Hmmmm....well, maybe Americans are "spoiled" and don't realize how bad things are in other parts of the world or maybe immigrants are seeing us through rose-colored glasses, or probably a little bit of both?
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Thank you--I really hope she gets better too. Its good to stay hopeful. :-)
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So what!! Why can't people just be happy with where they are and with what they have?
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The point being argued is whether the "just world view" is correct or not, and the poster is trying to provide evidence that its not correct, because work effort does not directly equal what you earn. Its not an argument about whether people who make 100K or 150K have enough to be satisfied, its an argument that people who make 250K don't necessarily work harder than people who make significantly less. The poster isn't trying to be whiny.
>> Our life is a choice. and it doesn't matter if you fall on hard times, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get on with your life. The top 5% of this country are not our daddy's, they should not have to support us. Just because they can is no excuse to take from them and hand out their money to others who did not earn it. That just isn't right, and I cannot understand why some believe it's ok to do this, I just don't understand.<<
Almost 100% in agreement with everything you said here. Although some people do have the benefit of being born smarter than others. It is in their interest to treat the others fairly which is one of government's responsibilities to help with--making sure folks are educated and protected equally.
It does not mean the government has the right to force the wealthy to in effect become slaves to those with less intellect, motivation or ability through excessive taxation.
I do not have the right to what my neighbor earns merely because his genes allowed him to do better than me from an earnings standpoint.
Where do you draw the line on personal responsibility and freedom of others? If you know you suffer from debilitating mental illness the result of which places a large burden on society through your inability to care for yourself is it right for you to risk adding to that burden by having children who are likely to burden society in an equal manner?
Brings to mind a story about a family on all kinds of public assistance with a child who had an extremely costly to treat inherited condition for which the long term survival and quality of life rates were limited. They went ahead and had another child who had the same condition and weren't sure if would go for a third one or not. This family knowingly chose to cost their fellow citizens hundreds of thousands of costs by choosing to give birth to another child. Why does their right to procreate trump the rights of others to benefit from their own earnings?
How is it that the taxpayer is expected to pay for the poor choices made by others but yet has no control over those choices?
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I don't know if I can make a call on whether it is "right" or not, and it is sort of a horrifically sad question. I do think it is unfortunate when it happens, which is why my family is hoping that my sister won't have a child, and that is pretty heartbreaking to say, to be honest. There are some severe mental illnesses where I think the ability to even reason logically about whether you SHOULD have a child are pretty impaired. So what could we reasonably do to prevent it aside from sterilizing people?
<< This family knowingly chose to cost their fellow citizens hundreds of thousands of costs by choosing to give birth to another child. Why does their right to procreate trump the rights of others to benefit from their own earnings? >>
You sure like tough questions. :-) I think it must be relatively unusual for people on lots of public assistance to choose to have more children that they will struggle to support. I'm sure there are rare cases of people having more children so that they can "milk the system" but I don't really understand how that could be the norm. And choosing to have children with inherited illnesses on purpose while on public assistance must be even more rare. I think children are more central to our right to pursue happiness than having an excess of money, and I don't think children should be punished for their parents' choices, so I'm not in favor of limiting public assistance to families who have more children. But this isn't an easy ethical question. This one will probably keep me up tonight.
So, when I'm finally done with medical school, after already finishing nursing school, and paying off THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars in student loans, and take on a job with even more liability, responsibility, not to mention stress, I am to feel bad that my neighbor down the road chose to be a public school teacher, who knew, well ahead of time, that she will only earn $45k?
I'm not sure what statistics you're looking at.
According to the IMF, Sweden's unemployment is 6.1%, Denmark's is 4.0%.
Also, UK is 5.4%, France is 8.3%, Germany is 8.4%, Italy is 6.0%, Spain is 8.2%.
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