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12
40
YES NO
Debate Score:52
Arguments:38
Total Votes:56
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 YES (11)
 
 NO (22)

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Gypsee(347) pic



Rich cannot get richer without others getting poorer

(1) Karl Marx, Law of Increasing Poverty
(2) Economist Branko Horvat stated: "... it is now well known that capitalist development leads to the concentration of capital, employment and power. It is somewhat less known that it leads to the almost complete destruction of economic freedom."
(3) Some say : "The rich cannot get richer by exploiting the poor; the rich can only get richer only if the poor also prosper. Wealth cannot be created by exploiting others—only by creating and trading values, for mutual benefit, by mutual consent."
note: I am pretty sure my point of view is obvious since I provided more support from one side. I am interested in the other side.

YES

Side Score: 12
VS.

NO

Side Score: 40
1 point

I think the people posting on the other side don't understand this debate.

This is not left-wing propaganda; it simply states an axiom to which there is no counter argument.

Side: YES

I consider your theory to be quite ridiculous and belonging in the realms of the fanciful notions of the brigade of Don Quixote academics.

Your hypothetical conjecture does not belong in the real world and belies the millions of millionaires and very rich people who, through their ingenuity, self reliance, perseverance and work ethic made it to the top of the wealth tree.

In the process of developing their business concepts, into small, medium companies or enormous multinational corporations the industrious entrepreneurs have created wealth and employment for the ''shepeople' of this world.

Your juvenile assertion is akin to arguing that the physically weak can become stronger if only the strong would become weaker.

Yes, the comparative gap would narrow but the weak wouldn't have gained anything should such an imbecilic experiment ever be commissioned.

The dewy eyed innocents who submit such ingenious concepts usually do so as a consequence of being one of the large army of useless simple minded philosophers or, what is more common one of the countless number of life's resentful losers.

Apart from quoting the outdated ravings of some left wing revolutionary socialist or hate crazed communist those who criticize the status quo seldom if ever provide the readers of their unstable opinions with any detailed and realistic alternatives.

No one will take people like you seriously until they see and hear a cohesive and practical counter system to replace the current model.

Stop slabbering about what's wrong and tell us a better way to do things. Then people may listen to you.

In the meantime wise up, grow up and shut up.

Side: NO
Gypsee(347) Disputed
1 point

Woah what is with the hostility? I have my views and you have yours.

Side: YES
Gypsee(347) Disputed
1 point

Oh... I understand your anger. i understand what it insinuates. But you have to understand that my intents weren't to attack the rich when posing this debate. I wanted to further understand the subject and read opinions from both sides. It is what I believe the purpose of debate. A way to open your mind to other ideas and question your own. I believe it is important steps to personal development.

Clearly you are offended. But I assure you that there is no need. All I asked , is whether you agree or disagree. It is unnecessary to attack my person because you don't know me or what I believe.

At least Amarel had the decency to provide a complete argument with textual support. Which by the way, I gave a point for. I greatly appreciate it. So if you prefer to insult me and judge rather than give a thorough response, send me a message instead.

Side: YES
2 points

Please read this response in it's entirety, it has a happy ending.

No anger involved, maybe, indeed probably, an unfair and overly colourful expression of exasperation, but no anger.

In life there are sheep and wolves, just as nature intended.

Feeling sorry for the sheep and/or trying to champion their cause does no one any favours.

I didn't want to bore you by submitting a resume' of my life's history as I assumed you would have undoubtedly pooh pooh it as an opinion formed exclusively on narrow personal anecdotal experiences.

That is not the case as the export side of my business involved me traveling to most of the European industrial nations as well as the United States where I met numerous of my international equivalents, most of whom had similar, disadvantaged backgrounds to my own.

However, as I KNOW that I am representative of millions I feel my practical contact and observations of life is relevant.

Born into extreme poverty in the back streets of Belfast.

Went to school more often than not on an empty belly.

Very poor education.

Started work at 15.

Commercial career culminated in being appointed general manager in Ireland for an international concrete manufacturing company.

Started my own business on a shoestring.

My company grew, eventually employing over 130 full time members of staff for 26 years, two of whom, perhaps three, were murderers, political stuff, and all of whom were on the threshold of being unemployable as a result of their anti-social attitude and behaviour, euphemistically speaking.

Every day was an unholy nightmare of trying to secure sufficient work for my workforce, making sure the work was completed to the required standards, ensuring we got paid, receiving frequent death threats from the various paramilitary organizations, having to carry a legally issued personal protection weapon with me at all times, daily altercations with my more belligerent workers and so forth.

I am quite certain that most of my employees would have spent most of their lives on benefits had the capitalist system not made it possible for people like me to use whatever limited talents I had to create an enterprise within which many could benefit.

I recognize that my meagre accomplishments were small time, but by using the same capitalist format many 1000s of real entrepreneurs have created industrial and technological giants employing millions of people who would probably, not definitely, but probably have had to rely on their nation's benefits system with a % of them becoming involved in crime.

I am truly sorry for being personally insulting towards you and trust you will accept the sincerity my of my apology.

Side: NO

Ridiculous. That's like saying if it weren't for Bill Gates making all those billions, living in that big house and driving those fancy cars, it would be me making all those billions, living in a big house and driving those fancy cars; it's just plain ridiculous.

Side: NO
AngryNarwhal(30) Disputed
1 point

This has nothing to do with that at all. This is saying that Bill Gates, in the process of making his wealth, either indirectly took wealth from others, or at least took opportunities for wealth creation from others.

It's simply a commentary on capitalism's zero-sum nature.

Side: YES
Amarel(5669) Disputed
2 points

The problem is that capitalism doesn't have a zero sum nature. Anytime wealth is gained through sale rather than through theft, all parties are better off. This includes the Bill Gates example.

Side: NO
2 points

You assert that the money given to Gates was for nothing in return. That is a false premise. The person got something of value, be it a product or service, in return for his/her money. It was a fair/even exchange, not a lop-sided one where the other side was left holding the bag.

Side: NO
Gypsee(347) Disputed
1 point

I don't believe that is close to what is being said.

Your statement is conditional.

"the rich cannot get richer without others getting poorer" is not conditional.

Your argument is a faulty comparison.

Side: YES
Amarel(5669) Disputed
3 points

His argument makes sense here. Bill Gates has made millions. If the statement "Rich cannot get richer without others getting poorer" were true, someone else would have Bill Gates' billions. The point that Mr.Falutin is making, is that Bill Gates didn't take his billions from others, he produced things that were worth billions and sold them. Everyone involved in helping him produce those things also gained wealth since they were not slaves. Hence Bill Gates got richer, so did his employees, and so did the consumers who became one computer richer as they purchased them.

Side: NO
3 points

The view that the rich cannot get richer without the poor getting poorer is disproven both in theory and in fact. It is disproven mathematically and historically. Not only is trade more than a zero sum game on paper, but we also do not live in the stone age which serves as proof enough.

Imagine a third world tropical country where everyone lives near subsistence. All they can sell is bananas and coconuts and there is usually no one to sell them too. Then Nike comes in and builds a factory to take advantage of their rubber trees. The Nike factory is pretty bare and we would call it a sweat shop. Nike doesn’t then round up the locals and shackle them to sewing machines, they offer them slightly more than they were getting selling bananas and coconuts. Nike now has a near monopoly on the job market and the workers are totally exploited. Yet they will continue to work there because it is better than the alternative. That means they are better off. The rich Nike company wins and so do the locals.

What’s better is that the Nike monopoly cannot last. The small country offers good labor at cheap wages, which means other producers will want to set up shop too. When they do that the supply of labor will become more scarce and businesses will have to offer higher wages than Nike so that workers will come over to their factory.

This isn’t simply a hypothetical. The “Race to the Bottom” bemoaned by so many is actually a race to hire the poor. Poor countries at the bottom have not stayed there, their wealth has increased. As a result, companies have begun setting up shop in even poorer countries. Hence the term “Race to the Bottom”.

What people are upset about is the fact that economies aren’t grown over night. They take time. We see very rich people getting very much richer, while poor people in poor countries work for them and seem to raise their standard of living only to that of the 1930’s. This neglects the fact that they used to live at the standard of the 1820’s. The race to the bottom is a necessary good, not a necessary evil. Freer markets have always helped the rich get richer, and the poor too. I am better off as lower class me in the present than was 1 Percenter John D. Rockefeller in 1890.

Following are some quotes from some famous economists:

Adam Smith:

-By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

David Ricardo:

-The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.

F.A. Hayek:

-If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialist.

-There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.

-Economic planning, regulation, and intervention pave the way to totalitarianism by building a power structure that will inevitably be seized by the most power-hungry and unscrupulous.

Milton Friedman:

- A minimum-wage law is, in reality, a law that makes it illegal for an employer to hire a person with limited skills.

- Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

- A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.

Ludwig von Mises:

- The Marxians love of democratic institutions was a stratagem only, a pious fraud for the deception of the masses. Within a socialist community there is no room left for freedom.

- Under capitalism the common man enjoys amenities which in ages gone by were unknown and therefore inaccessible even to the richest people.

-As soon as some of his wishes are satisfied, new wishes spring up. Such is human nature.

- All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by passionately clamoring for the products it turns out

- As a rule, capitalism is blamed for the undesired effects of a policy directed

at its elimination.

Side: NO
Gypsee(347) Disputed
1 point

What people are upset about is the fact that economies aren’t grown over night. They take time. We see very rich people getting very much richer, while poor people in poor countries work for them and seem to raise their standard of living only to that of the 1930’s. This neglects the fact that they used to live at the standard of the 1820’s.

I agree that the wealth of everyone increases. That idea is reassuring.

Rich are getting richer really fast. Poor are getting richer a lot slower. But relatively to the rich who are getting very rich, the poor are getting poorer.

Imagine a race. A and B are both running. A runs runs a lot faster than B. The distance between them is increased. B is father and father behind A. The absolute distance traveled is increased for both but their relative distance is also increasing.

This isn’t simply a hypothetical. The “Race to the Bottom” bemoaned by so many is actually a race to hire the poor.

Can't we see the "race to the bottom" more as a race to be at the bottom? Offering cheap labor can be a competitive market.

Side: YES
Amarel(5669) Disputed
1 point

Imagine a race. A and B are both running. A runs runs a lot faster than B. The distance between them is increased. B is father and father behind A. The absolute distance traveled is increased for both but their relative distance is also increasing

If we apply the race analogy to the topic title, we end up saying "The fast cannot run faster without the slow running slower". It only becomes true if you say "relative to the fast", otherwise it is as absurd as a squire circle.

If we re-word to topic title to be more accurate we might say "the rich cannot get richer without getting richer than someone". This would be a much truer and far less emotionally charged statement. This statement produces an appropriate response of "so what". If you are better off today than you were yesterday, why should you care if someone who was much better off than you is still much better off than you? Moral indignation would only be appropriate if the rich become richer through theft, which is why it is often asserted that they do despite being rarely the case.

Can't we see the "race to the bottom" more as a race to be at the bottom? Offering cheap labor can be a competitive market

The race to be the bottom, or offering lower prices for your product (labor) is observed regularly. We see it with migrant labor.

African American and other minority laborers used to offer their work for a lower wage than their white laborer counter-parts. They offered to work for less with the alternative being no work at all. This was one of the driving forces behind the formation of labor unions. This is also why labor unions have been associated with the Democrat party since way back when Democrats were known to be racist.

Ultimately, when unemployment becomes low, wages must rise. Rather than workers competing for jobs by working for less, companies have to compete for workers by offering more. But it takes time to get to that point. No amount of charity can bring an economy to that point.

Side: NO
2 points

The idea that the rich can only thrive due to increasing the poverty of the poor or exploiting them is an old shop-worn one. And not to mention it has been totally refuted and disproven throughout history.

Instead, it is the economic ethos of the originator of that absurd claim, Karl Marx, that has been shown not to be viable.

Of course the rich can "get richer" and succeed without causing more hardship for the poor. In fact, in the vast majority of cases, it is the wealthy business owners and entrepreneurs who actually create jobs. Thus enabling the one-time lower class members of a society to climb-up to a solid middle-class status.

Or even better! Look at your super innovators and capitalists like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And Michael Dell and a couple dozen other high tech dudes. They literally enabled dozens of people to become millionaires. If not hundreds.

And among them they enabled tens-of-thousands to obtain solid living wages.

This is called trickle down economics, and though it does not always enable the poor to prosper, the theory of it is sound and it works far more often than it does not.

The world economy is not a Zero Sum Game. No one need to fail or become financially dissolute in order for somebody to be successful. But without the wealthy and industrious business owners, and the creators of commerce, of goods and commodities, far fewer people in history would have been able to prosper as well.

Accusing and blaming the wealthy for the plight of the poor is a tiresome and almost always false excuse. And those who believe that the rich are to blame for their plight are really showing that the main problem all along has been themselves. Their attitude and false sense of entitlement.

SS

Side: NO

As is evidenced by the things you have cited, this axiom is true but only for the modern conception of capitalism, not as some inherent truth of reality sans a specific economic system.

Side: NO
AlofRI(3294) Clarified
2 points

Isn't "the modern conception of capitalism" what we are experiencing?? Isn't THAT the immediate "truth" we are living in?? We are experiencing capitalism run amok! The same capitalism that MADE U.S. is now destroying U.S.! Those capitalists are now trying to throw out "regulations" designed to PREVENT that from happening, (as what happened when they were ignored in the Bush years!). Capitalism is GOOD, when it is regulated! When it isn't, when those capitalists write their own tax loopholes (or pay to have them written, to their advantage [so they can look like geniuses when they fuck up!]), that capitalism goes BAD!

Side: YES
IAmSparticus(1516) Clarified
1 point

Actually the capitalism that made us is very different from the capitalism we are experiencing now. Capitalism has undergone some truly massive changes over the course of its existence. If you want a good example, check out Smith's writings on the fingers of the invisible hand of the market to see what the very founder of capitalism considered to be a healthy economic system.

You'll find that just about every "finger" is directly opposed by the Porter Forces, a framework taught across the country (and for many decades now) in business programs that is supposed to show which environments facilitate a successful business.

It takes much more than just regulations to make capitalism good, it takes societal values as well (the right ones, I mean).

Side: YES
Gypsee(347) Clarified
1 point

Ok I'm sorry I was not very specific. Of course that the concept of wealth arises from an economic system.

So I guess my real question is do you think that statement is true today at a global scale?

Side: YES
IAmSparticus(1516) Clarified
2 points

No need to apologize, I was trying to be specific since a lot of people on this website tend to think of our modern concept of capitalism to be A. the only concept of capitalism and B. the only real economic system.

In our current global economy, I do think the possibility of creating wealth without taking some from others is quite unlikely. Much of international commerce has to do with the exploitation of resources and labor, which inevitably has an adverse effect on some groups.

Now it's not always particularly extreme, in the sense that some can get richer without others becoming poor (as opposed to poorer), but that usually has to do with high end innovation.

However, I do think that in a more micro-level scale (such as local communities), it is entirely possible for some to become wealthier without others becoming less wealthy, generally as a result of well balanced local economies that lack predatory methods from local businesses. Obviously nowhere near all local communities can claim to have such an environment, but some of them do exist, even within our current capitalist system.

Side: YES
1 point

No, not true. Just look at industries that never existed before, like personal computers. They enriched not only their makers but in general their users, too.

But indeed I will grant that many many of the rich do get richer on the backs of others who are getting poorer. It happens, it's just not an absolute rule.

Side: NO
Amarel(5669) Disputed
2 points

The poor, on whose backs the rich get richer, are also getting richer, though not at the rate of the rich.

The idea that the poor get poorer is based on the idea that poverty is a condition relative to ones fellows, rather than a condition relative to ones future or past self. Hence, while the poor become relatively richer compared to their previous condition, they are said to get poorer because others have become richer at a greater rate.

Side: NO
Grenache(6053) Clarified
1 point

That is essentially winning based on definition. You define poverty as relative, therefore the debate heading would be true. It's a strategy and it works.

But you will find, both on debate websites and in real life, that winning arguments based on definition is one of the least compelling ways to persuade an audience to change an opinion or to want to talk with you further.

Side: YES

The rich gets richer cos we focus on world development economically in one direction that is EDUCATION(SCHOOLING).

And the rich has money to place their kids in world expensive and respected schools in the sight the big organisations(where they also send their children) and expect best of skill to continue in progressing their businesses when they hand over. So the trend continues.(the rich usually management

and poor remains subordinates)

So its not the fault of the rich getting richer. Its just a trend regardless the poor too become rich oneday or keeps being poor.

Cos the poor might get rich through miracles lol, favours, extra ordinary academic performance and lastly the major one:

CREATIVITY.

If you are poor and dont study the system to be able to generate an idea that will interest the general public and investors, forget it. As you were in the beginning, so shall you be in the end.

Identify your talent and get the necessary support and no one can take it away from you. You can never take microsoft from bill gate.

And no matter how the rich uses power to manipulate the systems, your style or talent will still be prolific.

SO for the rich its a trend and for the poor its a choice.

Its nobody's fault when people get poorer. They just refuse to think or be creative and wanna feed on what bill gates has prepared for his children forgetting bill gates has the power to twist things to favour himself cos it belongs to him and he is enjoying from his thoughts or creativity from some years back.

Side: NO
1 point

The poor staying poor is their own fault. There are 3 easy ways to make sure you're not poor in America: graduate high school, get a job, don't have kids until you're married. If you do those 3 things you will not be poor in America. Don't try to argue saying that the black community has a disadvantage or any of that nonsense because if you look at Morgan Freeman who said in several of his interviews that he had a rough life growing up but he didn't let it stop him from becoming successful. The same applies to any non-white successful person. Race has nothing to do with being poor and now that welfare exists, economy and environment have nothing to do with it either it's all about people and their determination and willingness to work for what they want.

Side: NO