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Hard work is often touted as the key American virtue that leads to success and opportunity. And there's lots of evidence to suggest that workers buy into the belief: For example, a recent study found that Americans work 25 percent more hours than Europeans, and that U.S. workers tend to take fewer vacation days and retire later in life. But for many, simply working hard doesn't actually lead to a better life.
In the past, economists have acknowledged that citing hard work as the path to prosperity is overly simplistic and optimistic. Ultimately, whether hard work alone can lift people into better economic conditions is a more complex question. The formula only works if an individual's efforts are met with opportunities for a better life. According to research, it's getting harder and harder for Americans to move up the income ladder.
A new poll from the Strong, Prosperous and Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC), an initiative to bolster local economies, found that Americans are quite skeptical of the narrative connecting wealth with personal agency. SPARCC found that 74 percent of those surveyed believed that most poor people work hard, but aren't able to work their way out of poverty due to the lack of economic opportunities. In the U.S., 19 percent of income inequality is attributed to predetermined circumstances such as a person's race, gender, and parental income. The SPARCC report also points to past research showing that economic mobility and health outcomes are greatly affected by geography as evidence that individual hard work won't ensure success because opportunities aren't evenly distributed.
The hard-work argument also plays into the policy discussion around inequality. As Katharine Bradbury and Robert Triest, both economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, write:
Increased inequality may result from increased risk taking and entrepreneurship in an environment of rapid technological change, with some entrepreneurs producing better, or just luckier, innovations than others, and reaping greater rewards. It may also result from increased disparities in work effort, with more industrious individuals earning higher incomes as a result of their greater effort. In both these cases, one could argue convincingly that the increase in inequality is justified and that no remedial changes in public policy are needed. On the other hand, if the increase in inequality results mostly from factors largely beyond the ability of individuals to control or counteract, then a strong case can be made for a public policy response.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 12 2017, @07:18PM (18 children)
Yep, you got your unfair advantage and you plan to keep it. Stay on top by pul;ling everyone else down.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 13 2017, @02:13PM (17 children)
Deciding to have a child when you are poor is what causes that child to be born with less advantages than others. Nobody else had a say in that child's conception so any unfairness is entirely attributable to the child's parents. Thus any remedy must be logically made by said parents or you do nothing but introduce further unfairness to otherwise uninvolved people and train a child to believe it is entitled to things it has not earned. Obviously someone has trained you in such a manner and our society suffers from it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday April 13 2017, @02:27PM (16 children)
So what of the child? Said child never participated in a decision to be at a disadvantage. That includes the disadvantage of not being able to afford to your standards to fulfill the biological imperative to reproduce.
It does, however, amuse me to draw parallels between your prescription and Communist China's one child policy. How does it feel to stand side by side with Chairman Mao?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 13 2017, @03:18PM (15 children)
See above re: blame and accountability. The parents of said child are the only ones responsible for its lot in life and are the only ones obligated to do anything about it.
Biological imperative my ass. We are rational beings and override "biological imperatives" every single day.
You're being intentionally obtuse. I did not say that anyone should not reproduce. I simply laid blame for the results of said reproduction firmly where it belongs. Personal accountability, you should try it sometime.
Further, you seem to think that it is somehow moral for a mob to steal from someone while it is not for an individual to. This is incorrect. There is no action under the sun that it is moral for a group to take that it is immoral for an individual to take. Numbers do not confer righteousness any more than power does.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday April 13 2017, @04:19PM (14 children)
I noticed you skipped over the part about the child having no part in the decision. Are you proposing original sin?
As for the rest, correct, the gang of thieves in the 0.1% who have stolen the wealth of the remaining 99.9% should return it immediately.
As for personal responsibility, that's hilarious coming from mister "that's not my problem".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 13 2017, @09:28PM (13 children)
It was irrelevant. When you know where the fault lies, all there is to do is correctly attribute it and seek reparations from said source.
And how were the taxes that you propose to pay for all this acquired? At gunpoint, that's how. Every tax dollar collected is an act of theft. Every single proponent of taxing some to benefit others is by definition a thief. As are those who receive the stolen lucre.
See, you don't even know what personal responsibility means. It means that every choice I make, I am entirely responsible for; every choice you make, you are entirely responsible for. And nothing else.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday April 13 2017, @10:33PM (12 children)
So how do you get reparations from someone who doesn't have any resources?
Now quit stealing valuable oxygen, you didn't pay for it.
And actually, you also benefit from a more balanced society. For one, it tends to last longer without desperate people revolting in order to have a decent life.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @12:21AM (11 children)
You don't. They fucked you right proper and there's not a thing you can do about it. And there's nothing anyone else is obliged to do about it. Anything you rightfully get is voluntary charity out of the goodness of people's hearts.
So, you're saying "wouldn't it be a shame if something happened to your nice suburban community"? And you wonder why I call you a thief...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday April 14 2017, @01:34AM (10 children)
Anything you rightfully get is voluntary charity out of the goodness of people's hearts.
So you're saying there is none in yours?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @10:43AM (9 children)
Nope. I'm saying if someone comes to my home asking for a ride to the dollar store for some food because they don't have a car, they'll get it. If, however, they attempt to redistribute what wealth I have to themselves, I will shoot them in the head. Charity is a fine thing. Thievery is not. Period.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday April 14 2017, @01:38PM (8 children)
The social safety net is nothing more or less than society believing that charity will go further if it is pooled and managed by an expert. Why be pestered a hundred times a day for spare change when you can take care of it with a reasonable tax?
Your statement is also very convenient when you don't live near where the people who might need such help can walk to your door. Out of sight, out of mind.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @02:29PM (7 children)
Neither convenience nor efficiency is an excuse for theft. Try again.
*Bzzzzt* Wrong again. You shouldn't project so hard. It'd do you good to remember that you libtards are the least charitable of any political affiliation in the U.S. While everyone else is helping their neighbor, you're stealing from them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday April 14 2017, @02:39PM (6 children)
Now read your sigline. ROTFL
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @02:56PM (5 children)
That's not a caricature and it's not an opinion, slappy. It's a researched and published fact. While we're giving out our own money, you lot are giving out money that you've stolen.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday April 14 2017, @04:04PM (4 children)
Sorry, wrong. What lot is it you think I am? I look in the mirror and see one person.
Still ROTFL, more so now that you've shown your blind spot.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @11:06PM (3 children)
I think you're one of the thieves than wants to take what I've earned, give it to someone who thinks they deserve it for having done nothing, and call it charity instead of theft. That's plenty.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday April 14 2017, @11:29PM (2 children)
In other words you believe a caricature.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 15 2017, @12:31AM (1 child)
No, just your stated position. Accuracy precludes something being a caricature.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 15 2017, @01:38AM
You are blinded by your belief. Whatever gets you through the night I guess. I'll be over here giggling at you.