The problem with equality is that is not equal. In fact, is impossible to live in a society where everyone will be equal; the Russians tried it and failed. I am not saying that equality is bad, but I do not agree with is that there are people taking advantage of their situation. I agree with Rawls theory of justice and admire it. We should all definitely be free and equal. As well as help become equal those that have it more difficult. The problem is that as time passes we forget about those ideas. What was intended to work a certain way is manipulated by some for their benefit. The person who cuts the cake usually is not fair and when the other person chooses the size, it takes more than it should. That screws up the other people who are waiting for their piece. In a bigger scale, we have a high class, middle class and lower class. The rich believe that by giving them tax cut their money will some how travel to the pockets of the middle and lower class. Therefore, they should get richer and richer every day for the benefit of all. As a result, a tax increase for the middle class. The poor, are becoming poorer and poorer every day. They have it hard enough, so what do we do? Give them tax return and economic support such as food stamp, health insurance and other benefits. There is nothing wrong with that, as a matter with fact, is how it is the best to do and how it should be. The purpose of that is to help raise families from the bottom and give them a better future. The problem is that the people who have it become dependent on it and the ones who don't need it apply for it. So what does the government do to satisfy the demand? More tax increases for the middle class.
My argument is not that we should get rid of this policies. We just need to correct the malfunctions. If we were to give an update to political system of the United States it will be by eliminating the Republican and Democratic parties. The Republicans want benefits for the rich and the Democrats benefits for the poor. They haven't realized that if they unite and work together for the country and not self interest. Also, the election process, should not be in the matter of popularity (votes) it should be in the matter of intelligence. There should be an intelligence test for every person who wants a sit in the government in order to determine who is best determined for the position. That is the only way we can find out who is best fitted for the situation. Maybe, we should experiment by putting an Engineer as president and see how the country will change its path.
I do agree that our two party system is quite useless, and we could find a better way. However it would be incredibly difficult to test someone's intelligence. For example, the ACT doesn't really measure how smart you are--it measures how good you are at taking the test. One can be incredibly smart when it comes to math or science, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they would be good at leading a country.
ReplyDeleteAs for what happened in Russia (and in China and Korea), that is not a fair representation of communism at all. Communism aims to create a utopia for everyone and what happened instead was that totalitarian leaders stepped in under the pretense of giving the country back to the people and instead kept all of the power to themselves. I think equality is possible. Animal Farm is an amazing book, but all it does is mirror what happened in Russia. There are several successful socialist countries.
I agree that equality is impossible to achieve, but I don't agree on the intelligence test. Its impossible to create a system that ensures equality because everyone have their own self interest and desires. There will always be some group of people who takes advantage of the system for their self interest. Also, in a lot of books depicting an equal utopia society there are usually a group of people who created and maintain the "perfect system" who actually ruled society behind the scenes.
ReplyDeleteThough, I think that the election process could be better, I don't think that an intelligence test would make a better replacement for popularity voting. Intelligence is broad, there are a lot of things that a person can be intelligent in and it would be extremely difficult to make a test that can accurately measure intelligence in a person. An engineer may be considered intelligent when it comes to math and science, but they may not be intelligent when it comes to politics and government.
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ReplyDelete“The problem is that as time passes we forget about those ideas. What was intended to work a certain way is manipulated by some for their benefit.” I think that this is why Rawls said that the veil of ignorance should be implemented at the beginning because as you say, as time passes the main goals are lost due to people developing their own interpretation of how the goal should be achieved or even what the goal truly is. This can be seen in a plethora of situations such as the business environment, religion, and so on.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I agree with the idea that the government should be corrected of its malfunctions. The two party system takes away from the political atmosphere and divides, rather, than bring people together. People are more concerned about the political party they wish to represent rather than the issues that certain candidates are campaigning to address. Although, I do not think having an intelligence test in order for people to vote would provide a level playing field because people do not have the same intelligence level. I think we should instead focus on how the campaigns are presented so that people have a better understanding for why they would like to have their candidate in office, but that is just my take on it.
I disagree with the fact we should do away with the party system. It gives a voice to many different views and ideas and there are more parties than Republics and Democracies, they are just the biggest. The problem is that many modern politicians have their personal agenda ahead of the good of the people and that they are childish and refuse to find a common ground between policies.
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