Seth wrote:Again, that's not what the research showed. It showed that people favor a more equitable wealth distribution and are not well informed on the present level of disparity. It does NOT suggest that people want to live in a country "more like Sweden." It ONLY says that the wealth distribution structure in Sweden is, in their opinion, better than it is in the US.
Dear gee-bus. In the context of wealth distribution, the results show that when asked "if you were placed randomly in one of the distributions, which one would you prefer", Americans from all political stripes picked the distribution from Sweden. Thus in that context, Americans indeed prefer Sweden.
The authors made an invalid conclusion based on the data. The fact that a number of respondents favor a wealth distribution that looks like Sweden's does NOT imply that they want our country to look more like Sweden.
In terms of a wealth distribution structure, they do.
It means that of the choices given, the Swedish wealth distribution seemed "fairest" to them, NOT that they want to change the present wealth distribution, and particularly NOT change it through redistributive taxation.
No, they were specifically asked which one they would rather be placed in, and 92% of respondents picked the (unlabeled) Swedish structure.
The proper way to form such a question would be to remove the inevitable bias built in to naming the countries associated with wealth distribution and label them "Country A, Country B, and Country C." That's valid science, not the Progressive/socialist propaganda that they produced.
Which they did. That's why in the second paragraph on pg. 10, it states, "
As can be seen in Figure 1, the (unlabeled) United States distribution was far less desirable than both the (unlabeled) Sweden distribution and the equal distribution, with some 92% of Americans preferring the Sweden distribution to the United States."
WTF did you think "unlabeled" meant?
That DOES NOT mean that they want to achieve that distribution using Sweden's political and social models. That was not asked, and it's gross misconduct for the authors to infer that because respondents favor Sweden's wealth distribution that this means that they favor Sweden or Sweden's socioeconomic system or policies or even that Sweden's policies are either necessary or desirable in order to reach the desired wealth distribution. That's an erroneous and indeed mendacious inference that the authors drew deliberately in order to falsely imply that Sweden's political and social model is superior to that of the US by making the unstated argument that the only way a Sweden-like wealth distribution could occur is through Sweden-like public policies.
That's complete bullshit and what proves how biased the researchers were.
Arguing against positions that exist only in your head is getting boring.
The flaws in the methodology are perfectly clear to the intelligent and discerning rational mind based on the formation of the questions and the "conclusions" stated by the authors. Their bias and mendacious intent is perfectly obvious.
Ah yes...the creationist, "It's obvious" response to a demand for specifics. Well done.
That paragraph epitomizes the built in bias of the study because it presumes that a concern over the inequality of wealth distribution translates into a "policy perspective." That's the fatal flaw that proves the agenda of the researchers. They were seeking data that confirmed their pre-determined policy perspectives that a more equal distribution of wealth is "desired."
Assuming that's true...so what? Fossil hunters seek fossils that confirm their pre-determined views every day. Again, how does any of this change the resulting data? You're still just stamping your feet because you don't like the results.
As I said, you cannot draw a valid conclusion about the motives of the respondents and say "desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo" when you completely ignore the policy perspectives that would be required to achieve that state.
Ok, let's grant that for the sake of argument. The data still stands. Americans intuitively recognize that our current wealth distribution structure is unfair and skewed, they greatly underestimate just how skewed to the uber-wealthy it is, and when given an (unlabeled) choice of which structure they would prefer to live in, they choose Sweden's.
It's easy to say in the abstract that a more equal wealth distribution is a good thing, but to infer from the data that the consensus about the positive benefits of a more equal wealth distribution equates "from a policy perspective" into a "desire" for change is simply a false and erroneous conclusion because they DID NOT ASK the question "Do you favor policy changes in the US that would lead to a more Sweden-like distribution of wealth.
So your position is that even though people were asked to construct the wealth distribution structure they desired, what they ended up drawing isn't what they really want?
They simply asked if a more equal distribution is desirable and whether the respondent was aware of the magnitude of the wealth inequality in the United States. By framing it that way, they tainted the data and made the conclusions invalid from the get-go because by identifying the nations involved, they were inherently, and deliberately, front-loading the questions with lots of other subjective opinions.
Again, you're arguing from a state of ignorance. The countries' structures
weren't labeled, and the respondents were asked to construct a structure that they wanted.
Again, it's difficult to debate things that only exist in your head.
If they had asked "Country A has a wealth distribution of X, which is less even than Y of Country B" they would likely get the same sort of answer but without the inherent bias involved in naming the countries involved. But even then they could not infer from the data that merely because respondents favored distribution X over Y, that this translates into agreement with unstated policy perspectives or changes in order to make X more like Y. Without stating what policy changes would be necessary to make the change, no valid inference in that regard can be drawn, and all that can be legitimately said is that respondents favored X over Y.
That's it.
And that's why the paper is invalid, bogus propaganda. It's junk science of the worst sort.
Given the fact that you've been shown to be completely wrong on this, your post is hilarious.
I didn't say it did. I said that SOCIALISTS are attempting to use it as a rationalization for income equalization through forcible redistribution of wealth.
Sorry. I'm bored of debating your paranoid fantasies.
