The Student Room Group

Are rich people more important than poor people?

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Reply 20
Original post by Besakt
Poor people are the backbone of society and economy.


I am agree with you both have their own importance at different place.
Reply 21
Neither is more important than the other... they coexist in an essential symbiosis.

The rich can't become rich unless there are many, many poor people to exploit (either as staff within their companies or as consumers of their products and services).

And the poor can't get by at all without the jobs and tax benefits that are by-and-large provided for by the companies and taxed incomes of rich individuals.

If one fails, the other fails. Simply as that.
Reply 22
Original post by 'Will'
i think rich people are definitely more important form an economic standpoint. The top 1% of earners in the UK contribute a ridiculous percentage of tax revenue.


But their ability to earn that kind of money is predicated upon the availability of poor people to exploit.

Duncan Bannatyne wouldn't make a penny from his gyms if he didn't have thousands of near-minimum wage staff to exploit, for example.

Yes, in terms of tax revenue, the top earners contribute far more per capita than the rest of the country, but their ability to earn that much in the first place is completely tied up with the availability of masses of "poor" people.
Original post by Chucklefiend
Capitalism is based upon extracting the surplus value of workers, remove the poor from society and you remove the source of labour. Unless, like I said, the people above them took over the removed workers' roles, the economy would collapse and everybody would become poorer.


People on high wages would get more because their labour would be more valuable when there is too much capital but capital owners would get less income.

If randomly killed 50% of the population, the other 50% would be extremely well off for many years so it is hard to believe that if these people were the less productive members of society, the other 50% would be worse off.
Original post by Sternumator
People on high wages would get more because their labour would be more valuable when there is too much capital but capital owners would get less income.


People on high wages don't clean toilets, or drive taxis, or deliver post, or serve tables etc etc. Somebody has to do these jobs and if you remove the poorest section of society it's those immediately above them who'd have to fill the void.

Original post by Sternumator
If randomly killed 50% of the population, the other 50% would be extremely well off for many years so it is hard to believe that if these people were the less productive members of society, the other 50% would be worse off.


The working class are not the least productive members of society, your assertion is based on a false premise.
I would love to say no but i would say YES
Reply 26
No.
Original post by facdroit
Personally I think that they are indeed more important : they create jobs,they pay more taxes and they contribute more to the economy.
But [relatively] poor people create the vast majority of the demand that the economy relies on -- jobs are created by that demand, the capital just allows the creation to go ahead. Tesco, along with most other businesses, couldn't survive, for example, if only the rich were allowed to spend there. Not to mention, of course, that the poor supply the labour without which there'd be no economy. Rich people also spend a much higher proportion of their wealth overseas (and on luxury goods that require only a few highly-skilled people to be employed in their production) than do the poor.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by Chucklefiend
People on high wages don't clean toilets, or drive taxis, or deliver post, or serve tables etc etc. Somebody has to do these jobs and if you remove the poorest section of society it's those immediately above them who'd have to fill the void.



The working class are not the least productive members of society, your assertion is based on a false premise.


If people on high wages started doing those things then the wages of those jobs would be very high so they would still be better off than before.

A person on a low wage produces less than a person on a high wage. If a person on a high wage didn't produce at least their wage's worth of output then who will employ them? If people on a low wage produce loads more than there wage then why isn't everybody offeringa higher wage to try and persuade them to move jobs?
They are both equally as important.

Like someone already has said, the less well off form the back bone of our society, we are completely reliant on having poor people in our society. This is what annoys me when people say that poor people aren't hard working enough, are useless etc, without them you wouldn't be wealthy.

And then obviously the rich are important as well, while on an individual basis, they have more power, there are a lot less of them.
Original post by Sternumator
If people on high wages started doing those things then the wages of those jobs would be very high so they would still be better off than before.


Oh I see, so toilet cleaners are only poorly paid because they're working class are they? The lower middle class toilet cleaner replacements would be paid a "very high" wage merely by virtue of middle class huh? In fact they'd just become the new working class.

Original post by Sternumator
A person on a low wage produces less than a person on a high wage. If a person on a high wage didn't produce at least their wage's worth of output then who will employ them? If people on a low wage produce loads more than there wage then why isn't everybody offeringa higher wage to try and persuade them to move jobs?


The value of a specific skill or trade depends on supply and demand and thus fluctuates. In a world full of lawyers and only very few builders, the builder demands a premium wage.

Original post by Sternumator
If people on a low wage produce loads more than there wage then why isn't everybody offeringa higher wage to try and persuade them to move jobs?


Because they don't need to... that's the point. More than half the world's population live below the poverty line; there's a millions strong reserve army of labour only too willing to provide cheap workforce. If a business has to set up sweat shops in third world countries to maximize their profits that's what they'll do.
Reply 31
Original post by Sternumator
If people on high wages started doing those things then the wages of those jobs would be very high so they would still be better off than before.

A person on a low wage produces less than a person on a high wage. If a person on a high wage didn't produce at least their wage's worth of output then who will employ them? If people on a low wage produce loads more than there wage then why isn't everybody offeringa higher wage to try and persuade them to move jobs?



You should know it is blatently not true. The wage people get paid does not depend on the 'worth' of their work. If that was really true we all know that nurses, teachers or farm workers will get paid much more than footballers, musicians or lawyers. Many factors contribute but it is mostly to do with supply and demand.
No.
Original post by the bear
You only have to look at wealthy pop "stars" like addelle ... she is rolling in it but is a complete waste of a considerable amount of space which could be used for a donkey sanctuary or a biscuit factory


Adelly the elephant packed her trunk and went away to the circus...
Original post by the bear
You only have to look at wealthy pop "stars" like addelle ... she is rolling in it but is a complete waste of a considerable amount of space which could be used for a donkey sanctuary or a biscuit factory


or even a biscuit factory run by donkeys
"they pay more taxes" ... hehehee...ok.
Reply 36
Original post by Livingstone
or even a biscuit factory run by donkeys


or a cake distribution hub run by marmots
Original post by Sternumator


If randomly killed 50% of the population, the other 50% would be extremely well off for many years so it is hard to believe that if these people were the less productive members of society, the other 50% would be worse off.


Extremely well off? Eh? nobody to pick up their rubbish, nobody to staff shops 24 hours, nobody to clean their hospitals, nobody to staff their petrol stations, nobody to work in their hotels, no baggage handlers at their airports etc etc etc.
Original post by Karlito1978
Extremely well off? Eh? nobody to pick up their rubbish, nobody to staff shops 24 hours, nobody to clean their hospitals, nobody to staff their petrol stations, nobody to work in their hotels, no baggage handlers at their airports etc etc etc.


I am not sure about if they were the bottom 50%. I was talking about a randomly selected 50%.
“You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.”

—Mises in a letter to Ayn Ran

Only Mises could lay out the facts as bluntly as this.

Important in this sense they should be given privilege or have more rights. No.

Important to the welfare of other men. Certainly.
(edited 12 years ago)

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