[FRIAM] Income Equality

[Steven A Smith]

On 3/31/19 11:20 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>
> Speakingof the non-adjacent impossible, I woke up the other morning
> with a fantasy of being in some sort large community meeting, and
> standing up and asking the question:
>
>  
>
> */"Why /**/èexactly/**/ç is it that everybody shouldn't have the same
> annual income?"/*
>
Try it and you will get a very quick and probably series of blunt answers.

I've had my version of that fantasy and the next step in it is to find
the person in the room with the lowest income (the shabby homeless
person lurking in the back is a good start) (or just arbitrarily pick
some one standing next to you) and offer to "average incomes" with
them.    Repeat.   Not everyone will participate, maybe only those with
"similar" incomes will share, but the exercise would be useful, even
with Monopoly Money. 

Ultimately this can become a "sorting exercise".   It would be much
easier to "share" what you have with someone just a little less well off
than you.    As a bottom up exercise, (least wealthy shares with next
least, repeat) it might work well until you hit the big disparity
gaps... The billionaires won't want to share with the millionaires nor
they with the upper-middle-class but there might be a trickle-up effect
that relieved a LOT in the meantime.   Just sayin'.

I am in the midst (literally today) of a complex of "pay it forward"
exercises with friends, organizations and acquaintances who either are,
or support folks living in or near homelessness.   A little bit of $$,
Time, Attention goes a *LONG* way with these folks.   I'm not averaging
my income with them, but in the spirit of religious tithing, I probably
do give order 10% of my income and time to these kinds of exercises and
*I* believe that provides a several X leverage factor for what I do
give.   It can be tedious, it can feel risky, it can be disappointing
sometimes, but it feels a lot more connected than writing a check to one
of the big charities.  I AM a fan of some of those (many not), so don't
want to dissuade that kind of giving, just encourage more personal,
local, engaged "sharing".

-Socialist Steve


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