Russell Brand

[doodab]

I take value, I don't add it.

No tulip. You're so blinded by your own prejudice you're incapable of rational debate so rather than try you troll to get a reaction. Complete useless ****. I would say even for an agent you're an unusually worthless individual.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

I'm not suggesting that you should "engineer society so that everyone is successful". I am suggesting that a society that allows a very few people to succeed massively and a few more succeed a little bit while most people remain relatively poor regardless of how hard they try needs to consider whether that society as a whole is succeeding or failing. Perhaps society needs to consider what is rewarded and how it's rewarded, so that it can make better use of the attributes that people do have, rather than structuring itself in such a way as to make success due solely to hard work marginally less likely than a lottery win.

Ok, financial success depends mainly on supply and demand - if people create a product or a service that many people want they will make money - in that case 'society' has created that demand and has therefore enabled the person who put the product or service onto the market to create wealth.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

You haven't defined "success" either, but you keep using the term. Lets relate the two, and say success is having an income as great, or greater than, that which you need to live, and call that amount a living wage.

Let's define success as having all those things in life that you want. What you 'need' to live is subjective.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

I would happily do away with the vast majority of welfare. However, as I explained earlier, most welfare recipients are actually in work. Clearly there are jobs there that need doing and people are willing to do them, but they don't pay enough for people to live on. How do you propose to solve that conundrum?

Not everyone is employed by Richard Branson or Alan Sugar - many people who work and are on benefits are employed by small companies whose employment costs are increasing due to pressures from Government e.g. pensions auto-enrolement. You cannot assume that people who receive a low wage are being exploited or penalised by their employer. I am sure there are unscrupulous bosses out there who could pay more and don't but, conversely, there are also people who exploit the benefit system.

[Platypus]

but, conversely, there are also people who exploit the benefit system.

That's because they are so poor, being exploited by evil rich bosses whose children don't work

[doodab]

Ok, financial success depends mainly on supply and demand - if people create a product or a service that many people want they will make money - in that case 'society' has created that demand and has therefore enabled the person who put the product or service onto the market to create wealth.

Yes, but the whole thing is massively non-linear. It simply isn't the case that hard work leads automatically to success or that the rewards are proportional to the level of effort or talent of the protagonists. Lots of people have ideas before their time, better products are often beaten out by better funded, better marketed competitors, and large companies can enter a nascent market and obliterate the small players. It really is the luck of the draw as much as anything.

[doodab]

You cannot assume that people who receive a low wage are being exploited or penalised by their employer.

I'm not. I'm simply pointing out that, for whatever reason, many jobs don't pay enough for people to live on. That creates a conundrum that requires a solution, whether it's to let them starve, give them benefits, or try and change the system so that the situation no longer occurs, or something else.

How would you address the issue?

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

That's because they are so poor, being exploited by evil rich bosses whose children don't work

I assume your tongue was firmly in your cheek

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Yes, but the whole thing is massively non-linear. It simply isn't the case that hard work leads automatically to success or that the rewards are proportional to the level of effort or talent of the protagonists. Lots of people have ideas before their time, better products are often beaten out by better funded, better marketed competitors, and large companies can enter a nascent market and obliterate the small players. It really is the luck of the draw as much as anything.

You have missed the point - market forces drive business - the demands and desires of 'society' determine success - how can you change that?

[doodab]

Let's define success as having all those things in life that you want. What you 'need' to live is subjective.

I think success is subjective however you define it. Whether you consider yourself successful or not, others will look at you and decide you are or aren't based on their own yardsticks.

What an individual thinks they need to live probably isn't the appropriate way to define a living wage, IMO. I think it would be better based on something vaguely objective such as the cost of living a widely agreed "minimum acceptable standard" of life.