Do rich people have a right to consume whatever they want because it's the American Dream?

[noamnety]

Poll question: Do rich people have a right to consume whatever they want because it's the American Dream?

[Lex]

1. I'm in favor of the largest

possible strawman.

[merh]

2. Okay, before I answer your poll, I have to know

Are you asking from my perspective or from their's?

[noamnety]

4. good question.

How about from the perspective of *waves hand in big circle* all of humanity?

[merh]

9. Okay, then I choose the last option.

Of course, they think they are entitled to whatever, whenever. :hi:

[mondo joe]

3. You're mixing RIGHTS with OBLIGATIONS.

There is no question about the RIGHT to do so -- it's not up for debate. It's a matter of verifiable fact.

[noamnety]

15. I was thinking along TahitiNut's line of thought

Moral or ethical right. Legal right would be a very literal way to interpret the poll, and I guess I'm trying to figure out how many of us move beyond that literal interpretation when thinking about environmental issues.

[mondo joe]

29. Then your language should reflect that. If you want to talk obligations,

talk about them.

But the word RIGHT does have meaning.

[noamnety]

35. The definition includes multiple meanings, yes.

"a just claim or title, whether legal, prescriptive, or moral"

I think it's revealing to see DUers defend the "right" to engage in environmentally destructive acts if you can afford to, completely independent of "moral rights."

[seabeyond]

32. i thought they mixing rights with allowed.... i dont see it as a right

i see it more like, their money, they spend it, their moral conscience, their way they chose to live life. not a right... they have the money to do good or be selfish. their own personal choice on their journey.

[BuyingThyme]

5. Whatever happened to YES and NO?

[noamnety]

7. Well, some people expressed the view

that it's justifiable (excusable) to consume whatever resources you want - if you are a philanthropist. Kinda like pollution credits, I guess.

[jen4clark]

6. Tough choice.

I'd say 1 & 3 are both correct.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

8. No Choice For Me In This Poll. I Don't Think It Has Anything To Do With Earning Anything.

I just think they have the simple basic right to spend their money on whatever the hell they want.

And for those talking about ecological footprints, your footprints are probably 100 times higher then they technically have to be, so spare me the hypocrisy.

[noamnety]

16. would that include the right to buy

sweatshop goods, or products made through child labor? or prostitutes sold into slavery?

or do you have some ethical limits?

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

17. Bet You There Are Countless Things You Utilize Every Day That If You Truly Traced The Origins Of

you'd be guilty of ethical violations.

So spare me.

[Reterr]

19. Sigh the whole "hypocrisy" argument used so successfully by conservatives?

So is it your opinion that if one cannot be 100% ecologically "pure", its best to not even try?
If one cannot avoid some products made unethically, its best to not even try?

And until one is 100% "pure", you can't even advocate for an issue? Hey I am leaving an awful footprint...I am also working on it, instead of stuffing my ears and saying "lalalalala" when the issue is so important.

Is your standpoint, in other words, life sucks , everything sucks, you can't make a real difference, therefore we shouldn't even strive towards more conscientious consumption patterns, more eco-friendly behaviour etc.?

Btw I am fine with someone telling me I could consume less..I agree I could. When they say that to me, I take their point, agree with them, sometimes I start cutting down on something, sometimes I don't...

What I never do, is close my mind to the idea and say "eh..whatever..its not that important and I WANT STUFF DAMMIT..I AM AMERICAN ITS MY RIGHT.."..We can all be better..but not if we decide its not even worth trying..

The old hypocrisy argument is the best friend conservatives have had.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

20. There Is An Immense Difference Between Trying, Suggesting And Outright Vilifying.

If you can't make the distinction between them, then I don't know what to tell ya. :shrug:

[Unperson]

28. This is rich.

A relative peon singing the praises of the wealthy elite. You certainly know your place. Don't upset your master.

[Lost-in-FL]

10. Hogwash!

[noamnety]

13. Did you want to expand on that thought? (nt)

[Lost-in-FL]

14. .

:+

[TahitiNut]

11. Legally, yes. Morally and ethically, no.

:shrug:

Conspicuous consumption is a term used to describe the lavish spending on goods and services that are acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth rather than to satisfy a real need of the consumer. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status.

Invidious consumption, a necessary corollary, is the term applied to consumption of goods and services for the deliberate purpose of inspiring envy in others.

Since socio-economic status (the socially-created effects of wealth or income) is a positional good which is in fixed supply, any conspicuous consumption generates negative externalities. In fact, conspicuous consumption may be seen as the in-kind scarcity rent of socio-economic status. Minimizing economic inefficiency by capturing this rent and curbing wasteful consumption is an important argument for luxury taxes and other corrective policies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspicuous_consumption


As wealth accumulates, the leisure class develops further in function and structure, and there arises a differentiation within the class. There is a more or less elaborate system of rank and grades. This differentiation is furthered by the inheritance of wealth and the consequent inheritance of gentility. With the inheritance of gentility goes the inheritance of obligatory leisure; and gentility of a sufficient potency to entail a life of leisure may be inherited without the complement of wealth required to maintain a dignified leisure. Gentle blood may be transmitted without goods enough to afford a reputably free consumption at one's ease. Hence results a class of impecunious gentlemen of leisure, incidentally referred to already. These half-caste gentlemen of leisure fall into a system of hierarchical gradations. Those who stand near the higher and the highest grades of the wealthy leisure class, in point of birth, or in point of wealth, or both, outrank the remoter-born and the pecuniarily weaker. These lower grades, especially the impecunious, or marginal, gentlemen of leisure, affiliate themselves by a system of dependence or fealty to the great ones; by so doing they gain an increment of repute, or of the means with which to lead a life of leisure, from their patron. They become his courtiers or retainers, servants; and being fed and countenanced by their patron they are indices of his rank and vicarious consumers of his superfluous wealth. Many of these affiliated gentlemen of leisure are at the same time lesser men of substance in their own right; so that some of them are scarcely at all, others only partially, to be rated as vicarious consumers. So many of them, however, as make up the retainers and hangers-on of the patron may be classed as vicarious consumers without qualification. Many of these again, and also many of the other aristocracy of less degree, have in turn attached to their persons a more or less comprehensive group of vicarious consumers in the persons of their wives and children, their servants, retainers, etc.

http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/Veblen/CONSPIC.HTML

[Truthiness Inspector]

22. According to YOU

Seriously, who elected you as the arbiter? No one.

You thinking you are the arbiter is the height of arrogance. It reminds me of myself when I used to be a vegan (a lifestlye I still highly respect where I thought somehow I was a designated decider of things-not-acceptable).

[TahitiNut]

25. You don't seem to read very well. Pity.

Instead, you resort to personal attacks. Sad.

[Journeyman]

12. May as well simply ask if ALL of us have a right to consume what we can. . .

for in the end, the rich differ only by degree.


"The rich are very different from you and I," observed F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"Yes," Ernest Hemingway replied. "They have more money."

[pepperbear]

18. You know...some rich people didn't EARN their money at all....

something to think about.

[Truthiness Inspector]

21. People who make money can spend it

Period. Who the fuck are we to tell them what to do with their money?

I suspect this is about John Edwards, and for the love of God, he has the right in this nation to enjoy his wealth. As do others who earned their money.

Jesus Christ.

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. I agree with Jesus Christ and Warren Buffett -- the rich should give all their money away.

Or at least put it into institutions where the proceeds from that wealth go entirely to support and better the community, not to support private consumption.

You gonna go up against Jesus Christ, Warren Buffett AND Bruce Wayne?

(Remember, Wayne Manor was necessary part of his alter ego... gotta pretend to be a rich playboy to avoid detection... comes with the job, you know.) :evilgrin:

[Leopolds Ghost]

24. I hasten to add that unlike Warren Buffett, Jesus Christ and other religious leaders actually DID

give away ALL their money, which is one of the reasons they are considered revered and enlightened figures.

Religious people of almost all faiths assert that to take a vow of poverty and live at the kindness of others is the highest calling.

[Bucky]

40. Jesus is a fine one to talk. He's an unemployed, homeless carpenter.

Buffet I'll listen to. Jesus of Nazerath couldn't even hold down a job--and had a messiah complex to boot!

[Nikia]

26. It depends what we are talking about

Although large houses generally consume more energy than small houses, large new homes are generally more energy efficient and there are things that rich people can do to make them close to the best they can be. We have a friend who bought an older home for $50,000 a few years ago, which is approximately 1,800 square feet, He was shocked to get his first cold month heating bill of $850. He has since qualified for government weatherization and has lowered his heat consumption because of the work they did. Until he was layed off, he neither qualified for assistance nor could afford to make changes to greatly improve his energy use. Until then, he was consuming a lot more heating fuel than someone with a much bigger house. Who was making more of an environmental impact?
People are now buying fuel efficient hybrids. The poor cannot afford them. Those who cannot buy hybrids are making more of an impact. Are they wrong for buying whatever cheap used car they could find that they could trust not to break down?
Poor people in rural areas sometimes have significant commutes to work and/or shopping. They are making a bigger environmental impact than someone who lives near most shopping and community services and work. Do we give them a hard time for their 50 mile round trip commute everyday?
We all have different priorities. People of all income levels make different choices. Many people who are not rich, buy things that they do not need and sometimes don't ever use. People who are not poor, can afford to buy large quantities of cheap items that waste a great deal of resources. Their waste can cause many trees to be cut down, many animals to be slaughtered, and many more emissions to be released for no reason other than they bought something that they wasted or didn't use.
I don't think that it is wrong for rich people to spend their money as long as they give some to the poor and community related projects. It is certainly better than just letting it accumulate in a bank account or in a Scrooge McDuck type vault. As far as Edwards home, I expect that it will get use, not just by his family, but others as well. I think it is a more justifiable use of resources than buying thousands of dollars of cheap sweat shop clothing, sitting in a closet somewhere.

[Lorien]

27. Well, let's just put it this way

if every human being on earth lived like an AVERAGE American, we would need FIVE uninhabited planet earths from which to draw the natural resources (Source: World Wildlife Fund).

We only have one. Do we want to exist at all or don't we?

[Cruzan]

30. Certainly they have the right but I still find it immoral and wasteful

I just don't understand these hedge fund manager types who build these vastly expensive homes in Connecticut: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/nyregion/13mansion.html

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

31. "Conspicuous Consumption" is a big part of the American Dream.

Many a person has gone bankrupt trying to show the neighbors that "I got mine".

[TahitiNut]

36. I'd call it a perversion of the American Dream.

As I've always understood it, at least historically, the "American Dream" was the realization of the Liberty Principle and being the primary beneficiary of one's own labors, sharing those fruits with others in one's family and community according to our common sense of equity and justice.

The perversion of the American Dream includes 'owning' an enforced entitlement to the fruits of the labors of others ... being able to BUY the power of Dukes, Princes, Barons, and Kings of the past without (necessarily) being born into it. The perversion rewrites the human goals of abolishing the appalling enslavement of fiefdoms and, instead, getting a piece of the action. We now labor under the presumption that we weren't appalled at such exploitation ... but that we humans were JEALOUS of those doing the exploiting. The myth of the meritocracy has become the practice of Social Darwinism, scrambling to become the 'owner' instead of the 'owned.'

[Annces]

39. Yes, I agree with you

Huge wealth requires taking from the many for the sake of the few. And also require quid pro quo with others in power.

[Neshanic]

33. Apparently yes, if you fit the following criteria:

White southern Democratic male.
Believes in uniting the Two Americas,(you know, those with little house and ones withh bigger houses.)
Have plausable deniability and apology for vote that started a war.
Does not belive in gay rights per se.
Believes Iran is a threat.
Family tragedy in past. We all know that the average person has had none.
Are Democratic (DLC) approved.

Then it's OK.

[Jim Warren]

34. Of course, then we

[Annces]

37. I don't agree that opulence is the American Dream

And I would say Edwards is part of the Corporate System. Though he made his millions in lawsuits against them, if it were not for them having so much money, he would not have made money from them. Without corporations, he would not be rich.

[Bucky]

38. People making a big deal about Edwards's home are being dumbfucks

I struggled with the wording to this post. I was trying to come up with words like "overreacting" and "hysterical" and "feeding the rightwing smear machine." But the simple truth is, you're just being stupid.