I don't see how it mitigates the injustice of the racial wealth gap to say "Wealth is created by human creativity, ingenuity, risk-taking, and entrepreneurship and all of that." Sam Walton, for instance, began Walmart in Arkansas in the 1940s, with a loan that was the equivalent of $300k today. Today, Sam Walton's children are some of the richest people on earth. You can say "Well, Walton built that wealth through ingenuity and risk-taking." But what Black entrepreneur in Arkansas in the 1940s could have accessed the capital necessary to start the first mega-store chain? The first megastore was always going to be built by a white person, because the opportunity arose during Jim Crow. The Walton family's wealth today may be the result of "creativity and risk-taking" but it was creativity occurring under conditions that kept Black people from competing in the marketplace. Their wealth here in 2023 is Jim Crow wealth. If the racial wealth gap has existed continuously since the end of the civil war, and if access to capital builds wealth that can build more wealth, then the racial wealth gap is the injustice of the past passed down to the present, no matter how much "creativity" led to the creation of that wealth. I don't think there's any more reason to wave away the injustice of the wealth gap today than there would be in 1940.
Counter-factual assertions are simply silly. How many Sam Walton's have their been? Of all the millions and millions of White, Black, Yellow, Green, Purple people in the world who were born in 1918, why was there only one Sam Walton / Walmart? Did Jim Crow also keep out the other non-Black millions who also failed to found a multi-billion dollar retail chain?
Sam's actual independent start was the purchase of a Ben Franklin store in Newport, Arkansas with a $20K loan from his father-in-law + another $5K he had saved from his army service. Can we assume that no one else's father-in-law ever loaned their daughter's husband $20K.
As for the 'injustice of a wealth gap'...I'm not sure what that really means. Everyone experiences a wealth gap. Your great-great-great-great-grandparents (and do you even know all 64 of their names? I sure don't!) undoubtedly had more or less 'wealth' back there in the early 1700's than my 64. Did ANY of that wealth somehow trickle down to us (from people whose names none of us recall)? What about the 128 grandparents, five greats ago? Or the 256 another generation back?
The truth is, "70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the next generation, with 90% losing it the generation after that." Is that just? Who's to say? Is it just that your folks had more or less than my folks? In the end, it's a meaningless question...nor is there any reason to believe that the State has or should have any role in rebalancing whatever wealth imbalances which may exist. [Though I'd sure like it if LeBron did some personal rebalancing and sent a chunk of his my way. The inequity between the two of us is chasmic!]
Glenn - "It seems to me, if you wanted to actually get it done, whatever the “it” is ... you need political majorities. And the mustering of those political majorities requires formulating your claims in terms that are universally applicable to the people whom you're trying to persuade."
This thread is an excellent illustration of a point I came here to make in regard to this statement from Glenn, which I think gets to the root of his philosophy of overcoming inequality. Everybody who thinks they are poor thinks they are deserving, maybe not necessarily of a handout but at the very least of getting to keep what they have. Everybody who claims redistribution, whether racially or non-racially based, is necessary always thinks the redistributed share should come from somebody else.
The Woke project quite specifically avoids universally applicable claims to redistribution of some wealth and quite openly claims, just like you did, that specific wealth should be confiscated because the point of the project is *not to equitably redistribute wealth*. The point is to give one set of white people a way to gain power over another set of white people (since white people are still a de facto political majority in this country) by claiming their opposition to wealth redistribution is based on 'racism'.
Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919) was “the first Black woman millionaire in America” and made her fortune thanks to her homemade line of hair care products for Black women. Born Sarah Breedlove to parents who had been enslaved, she was inspired to create her hair products after an experience with hair loss, which led to the creation of the “Walker system” of hair care.
Why on earth do you want to take the Walton family wealth away? Has it not been earned? Didn't Sam spend his life building it? If he'd been your grandfather would you give it all away? (of course you'd have to argue with the other maybe 20-30 children and grandchildren who currently share in that wealth).
Who do you think deserves what the Waltons spent lifetimes building more than the Waltons who have undoubtedly already given billions away while employing millions and millions of others over the last 60 years?
Do you have some 'basement level' of wealth that you would allow families to retain? Or do you demand that ALL wealth from every generation somehow pass to the State upon that generation's death, for use as the State sees fit?
If a father dies first, does his wife get to keep the family wealth until her death, or does she have to relinguish 50% to the tax man at the funeral of her husband? And if any one of us is foolish enough to still be living in our parent's basement when they die, are we immediately out on the street as the State soaks-up all their assets?
Do you think such a world somehow more 'just'??? What is just about anyone other than the individual who earned a dollar being given that dollar?
Taken away by whom and for what purpose? This sort of change makes a thief, not someone to be exalted. How long will white saviors treat black people like pets before a better argument than stealing someone else's wealth is made. We're long past the 1940s, with black billionaires to show for it.
You're indistinguishable from the Walton's in your example. Give up your wealth. You're just as guilty of Jim Crow being in your favor, but obviously on a lesser scale. Or, perhaps not obviously. We're going to need to see some receipts.
Haha I'm "indistinguishable" from a billionaire, except for the fact they have a billion dollars whereas I have 150k in student debt. Get real, man. If I had wealth, you might have a point. But I don't.
A law degree from Yale, and you aren't able to pay back your student loans? Briahna Joy Gray once remarked to Dr. Loury, also bemoaning her student debt (paraphrasing), "I have a law degree from Harvard, what am I supposed to do with it?"
What kind of racket are those Ivy League law schools running?
[By the way, folks, Briahna is superb on Rising. She and Robby Soave make a great team. They sometimes have serious disagreements and go at each other hard, but there is no carryover into the next segment/topic. Great chemistry. They are better than their much-heralded predecessors.]
I do have a point. Why only the Walton's? Why not you? Why not me? Why not every person who isn't black? Why not go to year zero and redistribute all the wealth white folks have accumulated in the US thus far to black folks? I don't care how poor or downtrodden some of the white folks prove to be or how rich and affluent many of the black folks are. White guilt after all. You're a Charlatan and a hypocrite. There is no Shangri-la. Give it up.
I saw my first Shakespeare performance at the Walton Art’s center in Fayetteville Arkansas. If we define this position as “the right” with letting the Waltons keep their money and minding our own business, and we define my experience as a seminal moment in the life of a developing artist, and you want to take away that wealth, then I’m left asking the question, why does the left not care about the humanities? I saw a professor pose this question about “the right” this week, but I’ve seen the Walton’s investment in the arts first hand, it’s a social capital, only seizure required is the cost of a ticket to Othello, and you want to take this away? This isn’t the “right” by the way, I don’t know or care how the Waltons vote.
I don't see how it mitigates the injustice of the racial wealth gap to say "Wealth is created by human creativity, ingenuity, risk-taking, and entrepreneurship and all of that." Sam Walton, for instance, began Walmart in Arkansas in the 1940s, with a loan that was the equivalent of $300k today. Today, Sam Walton's children are some of the richest people on earth. You can say "Well, Walton built that wealth through ingenuity and risk-taking." But what Black entrepreneur in Arkansas in the 1940s could have accessed the capital necessary to start the first mega-store chain? The first megastore was always going to be built by a white person, because the opportunity arose during Jim Crow. The Walton family's wealth today may be the result of "creativity and risk-taking" but it was creativity occurring under conditions that kept Black people from competing in the marketplace. Their wealth here in 2023 is Jim Crow wealth. If the racial wealth gap has existed continuously since the end of the civil war, and if access to capital builds wealth that can build more wealth, then the racial wealth gap is the injustice of the past passed down to the present, no matter how much "creativity" led to the creation of that wealth. I don't think there's any more reason to wave away the injustice of the wealth gap today than there would be in 1940.
Counter-factual assertions are simply silly. How many Sam Walton's have their been? Of all the millions and millions of White, Black, Yellow, Green, Purple people in the world who were born in 1918, why was there only one Sam Walton / Walmart? Did Jim Crow also keep out the other non-Black millions who also failed to found a multi-billion dollar retail chain?
Sam's actual independent start was the purchase of a Ben Franklin store in Newport, Arkansas with a $20K loan from his father-in-law + another $5K he had saved from his army service. Can we assume that no one else's father-in-law ever loaned their daughter's husband $20K.
As for the 'injustice of a wealth gap'...I'm not sure what that really means. Everyone experiences a wealth gap. Your great-great-great-great-grandparents (and do you even know all 64 of their names? I sure don't!) undoubtedly had more or less 'wealth' back there in the early 1700's than my 64. Did ANY of that wealth somehow trickle down to us (from people whose names none of us recall)? What about the 128 grandparents, five greats ago? Or the 256 another generation back?
The truth is, "70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the next generation, with 90% losing it the generation after that." Is that just? Who's to say? Is it just that your folks had more or less than my folks? In the end, it's a meaningless question...nor is there any reason to believe that the State has or should have any role in rebalancing whatever wealth imbalances which may exist. [Though I'd sure like it if LeBron did some personal rebalancing and sent a chunk of his my way. The inequity between the two of us is chasmic!]
Glenn - "It seems to me, if you wanted to actually get it done, whatever the “it” is ... you need political majorities. And the mustering of those political majorities requires formulating your claims in terms that are universally applicable to the people whom you're trying to persuade."
This thread is an excellent illustration of a point I came here to make in regard to this statement from Glenn, which I think gets to the root of his philosophy of overcoming inequality. Everybody who thinks they are poor thinks they are deserving, maybe not necessarily of a handout but at the very least of getting to keep what they have. Everybody who claims redistribution, whether racially or non-racially based, is necessary always thinks the redistributed share should come from somebody else.
The Woke project quite specifically avoids universally applicable claims to redistribution of some wealth and quite openly claims, just like you did, that specific wealth should be confiscated because the point of the project is *not to equitably redistribute wealth*. The point is to give one set of white people a way to gain power over another set of white people (since white people are still a de facto political majority in this country) by claiming their opposition to wealth redistribution is based on 'racism'.
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/madame-c-j-walker
Excerpt:
Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919) was “the first Black woman millionaire in America” and made her fortune thanks to her homemade line of hair care products for Black women. Born Sarah Breedlove to parents who had been enslaved, she was inspired to create her hair products after an experience with hair loss, which led to the creation of the “Walker system” of hair care.
Be the change you want to see. Start writing those checks, Nathan.
The change I want to see is for the Walton family's wealth to be taken away. How can I be that change?
Why on earth do you want to take the Walton family wealth away? Has it not been earned? Didn't Sam spend his life building it? If he'd been your grandfather would you give it all away? (of course you'd have to argue with the other maybe 20-30 children and grandchildren who currently share in that wealth).
Who do you think deserves what the Waltons spent lifetimes building more than the Waltons who have undoubtedly already given billions away while employing millions and millions of others over the last 60 years?
Do you have some 'basement level' of wealth that you would allow families to retain? Or do you demand that ALL wealth from every generation somehow pass to the State upon that generation's death, for use as the State sees fit?
If a father dies first, does his wife get to keep the family wealth until her death, or does she have to relinguish 50% to the tax man at the funeral of her husband? And if any one of us is foolish enough to still be living in our parent's basement when they die, are we immediately out on the street as the State soaks-up all their assets?
Do you think such a world somehow more 'just'??? What is just about anyone other than the individual who earned a dollar being given that dollar?
Taken away by whom and for what purpose? This sort of change makes a thief, not someone to be exalted. How long will white saviors treat black people like pets before a better argument than stealing someone else's wealth is made. We're long past the 1940s, with black billionaires to show for it.
~60% of Black Americans are firmly in the Middle Class.
And given to whom, ffs? And by what means? Nonsense.
You're indistinguishable from the Walton's in your example. Give up your wealth. You're just as guilty of Jim Crow being in your favor, but obviously on a lesser scale. Or, perhaps not obviously. We're going to need to see some receipts.
Haha I'm "indistinguishable" from a billionaire, except for the fact they have a billion dollars whereas I have 150k in student debt. Get real, man. If I had wealth, you might have a point. But I don't.
A law degree from Yale, and you aren't able to pay back your student loans? Briahna Joy Gray once remarked to Dr. Loury, also bemoaning her student debt (paraphrasing), "I have a law degree from Harvard, what am I supposed to do with it?"
What kind of racket are those Ivy League law schools running?
[By the way, folks, Briahna is superb on Rising. She and Robby Soave make a great team. They sometimes have serious disagreements and go at each other hard, but there is no carryover into the next segment/topic. Great chemistry. They are better than their much-heralded predecessors.]
I do have a point. Why only the Walton's? Why not you? Why not me? Why not every person who isn't black? Why not go to year zero and redistribute all the wealth white folks have accumulated in the US thus far to black folks? I don't care how poor or downtrodden some of the white folks prove to be or how rich and affluent many of the black folks are. White guilt after all. You're a Charlatan and a hypocrite. There is no Shangri-la. Give it up.
I saw my first Shakespeare performance at the Walton Art’s center in Fayetteville Arkansas. If we define this position as “the right” with letting the Waltons keep their money and minding our own business, and we define my experience as a seminal moment in the life of a developing artist, and you want to take away that wealth, then I’m left asking the question, why does the left not care about the humanities? I saw a professor pose this question about “the right” this week, but I’ve seen the Walton’s investment in the arts first hand, it’s a social capital, only seizure required is the cost of a ticket to Othello, and you want to take this away? This isn’t the “right” by the way, I don’t know or care how the Waltons vote.