Could socialism and the progressive tax bracket survive without poverty?

Question

If there was no poverty, why would anyone vote to have more of their money taken? Who would it be given to? Other wealthy people? What does that say about a philosophy that requires poverty continue to exist?

Answer 1

Exactly, so let's get rid of poverty.  Are you in?

Answer 2

The poor will always be with us. As long as people have freedom, including the freedom to fail, there will be poor people.

Your question doesn't make any sense. Could capitalism exist without poverty? The fear of poverty drives people to work and accumulate assets. How could you "eliminate poverty?" As long as people have wealth and property, there will always be the possibility of losing that wealth and property.

Examine simple societies, such as hunter-gatherers, where there is essentially no poverty, because everyone is equally poor (at least by Western standards). These societies are overwhelmingly socialist/communist, as they share goods and property among the family or tribe, and personal properties are frequently traded, gifted, or exchanged through gambling. What does that tell you?

Answer 3

Could Capitalism survive without poverty? If there was no poverty, people wouldn't have to work crappy minimum wage jobs and places like McDonald's and WalMart would either be forced to pay higher wages or risk losing all of their employees and closing their doors forever.

Answer 4

Poverty and wealth are relative concepts, and that is the critical point.

When one group gets control of almost all the wealth societies collapse.

They collapse either into socialism, democracy or fascism.

What becomes obvious after a bit of looking is that what determines a society's likelihood of revolution is the disparity between the rich and poor.

Not the absolute extreme but the gap between them.

If you have relatively few who are absolutely poor and few who are absolutely rich with a well distributed wealth curve you will have a stable society.

If you have a lot of poor, both in relative and absolute terms, and a small group of extremely wealthy people with no middle income distribution you have a very unstable society.

What happens in that case is the poor rebel, and try to kill off the rich and redistribute the wealth.

It seldom works out very well because anarchy follows until somebody imposes a new dictatorship.

Answer 5

Why don't you ask the Swedes.

Answer 6

Sorry Socialism does NOT get rid of poverty.  Look around you.  There will only be the poor and the elites, the middle class will cease to exist.