http://www.gizmag.com/economist-debate-does-the-global-elite-serve-the-masses/17926/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=075d4115b3-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email <http://www.gizmag.com/economist-debate-does-the-global-elite-serve-the-masses/17926/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=075d4115b3-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email>
OMG these lefties at Gizmag (;-) are making questions that get techno-capitalists all worked up and angry...
----- Facebook User - February 18, 2011 @ 10:23 pm PST
To answer the headline, yes, the 'global elite' serve the 'masses' - very well. Is there something wrong with that? The terminology you use is right out of Trotsky, but otherwise it's what we call business; what Gizmag also happens to be itself.
This paragraph is the standard argument for Communism. To make it stick the writer has to make a number of false assumptions and characterizations to make a (hidden) case for confiscation and redistribution of income. That is of course the implied solution here, since the writer is alleging that it's a problem when people innovate and make money.
Pretty retrograde for what used to be a forward-looking Tech blog, where the spirit of invention and entrepreneurialism used to be celebrated instead of feared.
The ancient Communist argument that wealth and inequality are the same thing doesn't play to those who have taken an Econ class. When successful people keep doing the things that make them successful, and poor people keep doing the same things that make them poor, a 'disparity' results.
So to make Gizmag's editors happy, should we stop reading about these great innovations on Gizmag, and stop innovating on our own projects, to make our incomes more closely match with poor people's? Or should we just give our own money away to those who don't work as hard?
I've heard this is being tried in North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba. They have followed this article precisely and removed that terrible disparity between rich and poor.
comment Todd Dunning - February 19, 2011 @ 02:21 pm PST ---
FC