this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
564 points (92.7% liked)
Canada
7202 readers
357 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Communities
🍁 Meta
🗺️ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
🏙️ Cities / Local Communities
- Calgary (AB)
- Edmonton (AB)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
🏒 Sports
Hockey
- List of All Teams: Post on /c/hockey
- General Community: /c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Montréal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Football (NFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Football (CFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Baseball
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- Toronto Blue Jays
Basketball
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- Toronto Raptors
Soccer
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- General Community: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
💻 Universities
💵 Finance / Shopping
- Personal Finance Canada
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Buy Canadian
- Quebec Finance
- Churning Canada
🗣️ Politics
- Canada Politics
- General:
- By Province:
🍁 Social and Culture
Rules
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yea that all makes sense. I guess what I was trying to say was that taking the money out of the hands of the ultra wealthy seems less likely to actually happen than the smaller changes which are indeed happening slowly but surely, like greater access to clean water, food, shelter, education, the empowerment of women, etc. Generally speaking, those small changes are happening across the planet and I have hope that those changes will continue. A world with actual wealth equality just seems like a pipe dream, but on the other hand, things like indoor plumbing seem achievable globally.
You kind of lost me at ‘if we house, feed, and educate people than it will be more expensive to go to the movies or have internet’
The only hope we have of leveling the playing field is to focus on the achievable goals I mentioned. I don’t see why it is necessary to take from the rich to achieve these goals.
Don’t get me wrong, if it was at all possible to level the playing field by redistributing the wealth of the rich, that would be my first choice, I just don’t think that’s possible the way things are. I think it would be defeatist to think that that is the only way to lift people out of poverty.
Edit: one other point is that everyone benefits from less poverty, including the wealthy. The incentive is there for these changes to occur. Poor people don’t make very good consumers. Dealing with the effects of poverty is ironically a massive economic burden on society.
For the record, I don't think focusing solely on taking money away from the richest people is the only way to lift people out of poverty, I think there are many factors that create poverty and that there being billionaires at all is a contributor to it due to the power they wield with it. Mind you, I don't really include millionaires in the "wealthy" category here, I'm talking about billionaires - those with many orders of magnitude more wealth than somebody you'd just consider "rich". I'm certainly not against feeding, housing, and educating people and contribute to efforts to do so locally. I was thinking more along the lines of hypothetically long term eradicating poverty, not how to realistically approach treating it today so that's probably where our wires got crossed.
Yup, agreed completely.