Follow The Money Leads to Morality

[Thoughtful Monk]

I'm listening to the news in my car on the way home and I hear this news item. The PA Inspector General said PA should legalize marijuana so the state could collect tax revenue on it and get out of PA's financial hole.

I was struck again that over the past 10 or so years, I seem to perceive more decisions are being made for financial benefit rather than for a "right reason." My state has legalized and expanded gambling to get the financial revenue and not because it makes life better for its citizens. I believe an important reason that gay marriage got legalized was because corporate America decided they could make more money with it than without it.

I'm nervous about living in a county where the bottom line is becoming the driver on decisions. One that comes to mind is everyone gets a fixed dollars of medical coverage and then you're left to die.

Maybe its always been this way and I never noticed. It just seems to me that "money talks" is so much more obvious now.

[Starlight]

It just seems to me that "money talks" is so much more obvious now.

I think your general hypothesis is correct - money is having a much bigger influence on politics than it used to, and political corruption is increasing. Lobbyists and multinationals convincing politicians to deregulate the laws for companies and lower their taxes have become a huge problem. However, I think the specific items you cite as evidence for it are bad examples.

The PA Inspector General said PA should legalize marijuana so the state could collect tax revenue on it and get out of PA's financial hole.

States that have legalized marijuana have found it's been an unexpectedly massive source of tax revenue. However for the states that have currently legalized it, the major motivation has been that people want to use it.

I believe an important reason that gay marriage got legalized was because corporate America decided they could make more money with it than without it.

The people that legalized it were the judiciary not politicians, and it has been part of a worldwide movement that acknowledged that marriage is a human right and that gay people have that right like anyone else. Obama's specific flip-flops on the subject appear to have been driven by some gay Wall Street bankers giving him some large financial political donations, but ultimately he wasn't the one who got to make the decision.

One that comes to mind is everyone gets a fixed dollars of medical coverage and then you're left to die.

Well that seems to summarize the GOP's new healthcare plan to replace the Affordable Care Act.

Maybe its always been this way and I never noticed.

The influence of lobbyists and multinationals on the political process has massively increased over the last 50 years. You can look at the number of registered lobbyists increasing, or the Supreme Court decisions that have thrown out and rolled back anti-corruption laws, or the number and size of large multinational companies increasing, or the way the break-down of the overall tax burden has shifted away from corporations and the rich and toward the middle class and the poor etc.

But I think you are looking at the wrong type of policies to find evidence of class-warfare. You're looking at social policies, on which by and large there aren't all that many differences between rich and poor. But if you look at economic policies you find a wide gulf between the views of rich and poor, and you find that the rich successfully lowered their own tax rate by 63 percentage points in a 30 year period (in 1960 to 1990 the top US marginal income tax rate dropped from 91% to 28%). Their paid economists invented some pseudo-scientific new economic ideas which said if we gave all of society's wealth to the rich then it would turn out great (aka 'neoliberalim' or 'trickle-down economics' or 'right-wing economic policies' or 'tax-cuts for the job creators'). It didn't affect the fact that GDP continued to steadily increase due to new scientific advances, but what it did affect what where those GDP gains were going - instead of the average person taking their higher productivity home with them in their take-home pay, it all went to the rich people and the wages of the middle class completely stagnated:

[KingsGambit]

Wal-Mart's evolution over the years is a good example of this. When Sam Walton was alive, he refused to sell teen magazines like Tiger Beat because of pressure from the Moral Majority crowd (why that was a major concern of theirs is a mystery to me but that's neither here nor there). Now, the company is outspokenly LGBT-friendly; this shift coincided with when everybody else made the same shift.

I always did think it was weird that they wouldn't sell explicit CDs but they would sell R rated movies.

[Darth Executor]

why that was a major concern of theirs is a mystery to me

I browsed one of those when I was a kid. Full of garbage like sex stories, and it was aimed at tweens too. Mystery solved.

[Starlight]

Wal-Mart's evolution over the years is a good example of this. When Sam Walton was alive, he refused to sell teen magazines like Tiger Beat because of pressure from the Moral Majority crowd (why that was a major concern of theirs is a mystery to me but that's neither here nor there). Now, the company is outspokenly LGBT-friendly; this shift coincided with when everybody else made the same shift.

Over the last 50 years the progressives seem to have won on all the social policies (desegregation, equal rights for women, nuclear arms control, abortion rights, gay rights, EPA creation, keeping Christian prayer out of public schools etc), while the right-wing seem to have won on nearly all the economic policies (decimated unions, passed multinational trade agreements, cut the top tax rate by 2/3rds, deregulated Wall St, deregulated company law etc). The US, like many Western countries over the period, has moved from being economically left-wing and socially conservative, to being economically right-wing and socially liberal.



FDR's New Deal took the country far to the economic left of where it had been prior to the depression. But since then neoliberalism has taken it economically to the right, which the gradual progressive victories for human rights have brought the country to have more individual rights and less of conservative Christians authoritarianly enforcing their social views on others. Currently the country teeters dangerously on the brink on another 2008-style economic collapse because Wall St is not being sufficiently regulated and the rich are running out the back door with all the money while the wages of the average workers stagnate. The economic policies desperately need to be reset to the left, back to where they were in the 50s and 60s. Currently there is far too much of this happening:

[Tassman]

I'm listening to the news in my car on the way home and I hear this news item. The PA Inspector General said PA should legalize marijuana so the state could collect tax revenue on it and get out of PA's financial hole.

Marijuana should be legalised along with heroin and other drugs of addiction, not because drugs are a good thing but because criminalising them causes major problems of organised crime and gang warfare. If legalised, the revenues gained could be used in part for massive anti-drug campaigns in much the same way they were for tobacco. It works. Heroin is no more addictive than tobacco and smoking has gone from being commonplace to being socially unacceptable, with smokers being regarded as pariah's and tobacco consumption plummeting.

I believe an important reason that gay marriage got legalized was because corporate America decided they could make more money with it than without it.

The reason gay marriage was legalised was to grant homosexuals the same civil rights as their heterosexual brothers and sisters. In short, for reasons of social justice, nothing more. There's no reason to look for sinister corporate motives.

[Starlight]

Marijuana should be legalised along with heroin and other drugs of addiction, not because drugs are a good thing but because criminalising them causes major problems of organised crime and gang warfare.

And actually it appears that big pharma is one of the major forces trying to block the legalization of these drugs, because these drugs compete with the products that the pharma companies are trying to sell. If people take medical marijuana to cope with chronic pain then that is less prescription painkillers than the pharmaceutical companies can sell them. And currently the pharma companies have managed to get a truly massive number of people hooked on prescription Opioid painkillers so the last thing they want is to see a non-patented opioid variant like heroin legalized. So the marijuana legalization movement seems to be succeeding (Jeff Sessions aside) on the whole due to popular demand despite the corporate forces arrayed against it.

[Carrikature]

I'm listening to the news in my car on the way home and I hear this news item. The PA Inspector General said PA should legalize marijuana so the state could collect tax revenue on it and get out of PA's financial hole.

I was struck again that over the past 10 or so years, I seem to perceive more decisions are being made for financial benefit rather than for a "right reason." My state has legalized and expanded gambling to get the financial revenue and not because it makes life better for its citizens. I believe an important reason that gay marriage got legalized was because corporate America decided they could make more money with it than without it.

I'm nervous about living in a county where the bottom line is becoming the driver on decisions. One that comes to mind is everyone gets a fixed dollars of medical coverage and then you're left to die.

Maybe its always been this way and I never noticed. It just seems to me that "money talks" is so much more obvious now.

I'm not sure how the thread title works. Drug and alcohol usage aren't necessarily moral questions (though that line is blurry), but our laws can't and don't establish morality.

[Terraceth]

I'm listening to the news in my car on the way home and I hear this news item. The PA Inspector General said PA should legalize marijuana so the state could collect tax revenue on it and get out of PA's financial hole.

We should legalize marijuana because it's a complete and utter joke that it's illegal but cigarettes and alcohol, which are considerably more dangerous and kill tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, are legal.

[Tassman]

I'm not sure how the thread title works. Drug and alcohol usage aren't necessarily moral questions (though that line is blurry), but our laws can't and don't establish morality.

I suppose one could argue that it's moral to enhance the physical health of the community by discouraging the ingestion of harmful substances, which in turn benefits the survival of our species.

[Carrikature]

I suppose one could argue that it's moral to enhance the physical health of the community by discouraging the ingestion of harmful substances, which in turn benefits the survival of our species.

That works from a utilitarian standpoint (though I'm not one). It does raise the question of where to draw the line, though. You could also argue that overriding the individual's freedom of choice is immoral.

[Tassman]

That works from a utilitarian standpoint (though I'm not one). It does raise the question of where to draw the line, though. You could also argue that overriding the individual's freedom of choice is immoral.

Perhaps, but for a social species such as us, the benefits of being part of a cohesive group outweigh the benefits of individualism. And the maintenance of a healthy, prosperous society is in the interests of all.

[Thoughtful Monk]

Marijuana should be legalised along with heroin and other drugs of addiction, not because drugs are a good thing but because criminalising them causes major problems of organised crime and gang warfare. If legalised, the revenues gained could be used in part for massive anti-drug campaigns in much the same way they were for tobacco. It works. Heroin is no more addictive than tobacco and smoking has gone from being commonplace to being socially unacceptable, with smokers being regarded as pariah's and tobacco consumption plummeting.

I think its naïve to believe that if drugs were legalized, that money saved would automatically shift to anti-drug campaigns. Law enforcement would claim they need it for other tasks. Politicians would find different programs deserving of the money.

[Tassman]

I think its naïve to believe that if drugs were legalized, that money saved would automatically shift to anti-drug campaigns. Law enforcement would claim they need it for other tasks. Politicians would find different programs deserving of the money.

The consistent anti smoking campaigns have worked dramatically. Smoking, once commonplace, is no longer acceptable. There is no reason why the same sort of anti drugs campaign would not work as well. Prohibition never works and costs the community greatly with the loss of potential tax revenue and the expensive policing of mafia-style gang warfare.

[Sparko]

Tassman, Heroin is much more addictive than tobacco. It is actually physically addictive. It can cause physical withdrawal when you stop and can kill you instantly when you take it and when trying to withdraw from it. It puts you into a complete stupor for hours. It is nothing like tobacco. And making it legal would end up with so many overdoses and deaths that the cost in healthcare and lives would easily overwhelm any "profits" made on the lives you are ruining. Just because the government CAN make money off of the misery of getting people addicted to heroin, doesn't mean it should, right?