"Many academics are inclined to favor redistribution of income. Some economists like Krugman argue forcefully that people care more about relative position than their absolute status. I have been reluctant to accept this position as being very important, perhaps because envy is so foreign to me. I do not resent Bill Gate's billions; I wish I had them. I would be happier if Bill Gates gave them to me, but I certainly wouldn't be happier if Bill Gates lost them. In fact, I think that resenting the wellbeing of others is a pretty strong character flaw. However, at some point, one must accept the fact that many people like Paul Krugman are deeply concerned with status.....
I think academics are inclined to attack the privileges of wealth, because the existence of wealth lowers the relative status attributed to intellectual achievements. If the very pursuit of wealth can be reduced to a zero-sum struggle for status, then wealth loses some of its status. Academics gain status at the expense of businessmen and other high income professions.
Academics of all levels would see their relative status rise, if wealth is besmirched. A professor at a local community typically has a high level of educational attainment but only modest social status given their average level of income.
I think that it is no accident that many of those who are most fervent about redistributing income spend so much time bemoaning the chase for status. This chase is very real for them. As Jane Galt has observed, academics are probably more status obsessed than the typical person. The attack on wealth is one dimension of their chase for status".
More here
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ELSEWHERE
Destructive British socialism: "Tony Blair's claims to have extended "social justice" were undermined last night by official figures showing the gap between rich and poor has widened by 90 pounds a week since Labour came to power. A report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also showed that Labour has failed to narrow the gap in achievement levels between parents from working- and middle-class families.... The report, Focus on Social Inequalities, compared average weekly incomes of families in the top 10 per cent of incomes (those now earning more than 658 pounds or more a week) with those in the lowest 10 per cent (those earning 164 pounds or less a week). It found that since the mid-1990s disposable income for both groups had risen by over a fifth. "However," it added, "these increases resulted in a rise of 119 pounds per week for those near the top of the income distribution compared with a rise of 28 pounds per week for those near the bottom. This shows that the absolute difference in the average weekly income has continued to widen."
More privatization in China: "China on Wednesday freed more than 1,300 largely state-owned companies to gradually sell shares of stock now controlled by the Communist Party government, putting nearly $270 billion worth of state assets on the trading block. This unprecedented wave of privatization is aimed at lifting domestic stock markets and furthering the country's transition toward capitalism... The move is "a huge deal," said Stephen Green, senior economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai and author of the book "Exit the Dragon?," which examines China's privatization. "The state-owned shares have been an albatross around the neck of the market. This is a pretty good sign that they're serious about reform".
A corrupt bureaucracy? How amazing!: "A federal judge in Texas, calling the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. a "corrupt agency with corrupt influences on it," awarded a Houston financier $72 million to cover his legal fees in a decade-long suit involving a failed savings and loan and the government's efforts to take control of a stand of endangered California redwood trees in the 1990s. The FDIC, a regulatory agency that insures deposits at banks and savings and loans, filed suit against Charles E. Hurwitz in 1995, seeking to collect more than $800 million because Hurwitz indirectly controlled a Texas S&L that failed in 1988. The FDIC, after a series of legal setbacks, dropped its suit against Hurwitz in 2002. Hurwitz then asked the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case, Lynn N. Hughes, to order the FDIC to pay his legal expenses, arguing that the FDIC should never have brought the case in the first place".
Disgusting disrespect for brave men: "The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton."" [The Left are just so full of hate that they know no decency]
Some Iraq experts think the new Iraqi constitution is great: "The Bush administration finally did something right in brokering this constitution," Galbraith exclaimed, then added: "This is the only possible deal that can bring stability. ... I do believe it might save the country."
Failure of a liberal foreign policy: "If you've ever wondered how a President Kerry foreign policy would have turned out, look no further than the state of play with the two axis states who weren't dealt with in the "Bush unilateral way" - Iran and North Korea. President Bush has been following the Democrats' multilateral route with those two. He's allowed the Europeans to take the lead in dealing with the mullahs and has been working with Asian countries in negotiating with Kim Jong Il. Both tracks have failed, but you wouldn't know that from the silence of the Democrats. After deriding President Bush for "going it alone" and "not working with our allies" against Iraq, there is little for them to say when he follows their policy and it fails".
Historian Prof. R.J. Rummel has some excellent quotes from Hitler and other Nazis showing how socialist Nazism was. I liked this one from Hitler: "In 1919-20 and also in 1921 I attended some of the bourgeois [capitalist] meetings. Invariably I had the same feeling towards these as towards the compulsory dose of castor oil in my boyhood days. . . . And so it is not surprising that the sane and unspoiled masses shun these 'bourgeois mass meetings' as the devil shuns holy water."
There is a BIG reply to the gross claim that the US Army are "mercenaries" here
Chris Brand's news site is down again so I have put up his latest postings here
Below is a good cartoon about how the mainstream media see the world:
For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald
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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)
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