Cutting overseas aid is shortsighted. Who are our political leaders really putting first – ordinary people or the super rich?

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/24106397

Cutting overseas aid is shortsighted. Who are our political leaders really putting first – ordinary people or the super rich?

  • MrMakabar@slrpnk.netOPMEnglish
    10·
    6 days ago

    That is not the point of the article at all. The idea being that most scarcity in the world is not due to a fundamental lack of resources in form of material, time, effort, education and so forth, but a decision on how to use those resources.

    The case being made is that talking about is scarcity in food, green investment, health care, education and so forth is not something politicans can seriously argue about, when we have billionaires building private mega yachts, live in multiple houses each bigger then apartment blocks, with gardens around them, which could pass as parks, while flying around the world in private planes and so forth. Taking that wealth would solve really a lot of the worlds problems.

    • it_depends_man@lemmy.world
      71·
      6 days ago

      The idea being that most scarcity in the world is not due to a fundamental lack of resources in form of material, time, effort, education and so forth, but a decision on how to use those resources.

      Yes. And sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s NOT true. That’s my point.

      The way the authors use the word confuses the two. Which is wrong and bad and not helping.

      https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scarce

      “deficient in quantity or number compared with the demand : not plentiful or abundant”

      Let’s be really clear here with an example:

      Housing is scarce. That is a FACT. No amount of taxation or even change of ownership will change that housing is scarce right now. That’s scarcity. We could have a complete and happy and peaceful world revolution tomorrow, socialize everything and the day after tomorrow there would still be scarcity. That’s what the word means.

      As for how to solve this problem and where to get the money to invest into housing, that’s where taxing the rich comes in.

      But even then we are limited by the amount of material we right now and the amount of people who can work in construction right now and the amount of machines we can use to build new housing right now.

      Again, do tax the rich. And that does depend on political will.

      Just be very clear in the messaging of what that can solve and what it can not solve.