What about the issue of the bank debt write-offs, where they forgive them enormous debts—have you heard about that? Are you basically saying that not everyone deserves the same thing? If so, on what basis? People say the rich create jobs, but a lot of people could create jobs if they were allowed to. You could have an equal basic economic level for everyone, which would still give you the value of freedom, and then whoever wants to grow beyond that could. In my opinion the state shouldn’t fund anything except what’s necessary—roads and things like that—not yeshivas and not soccer stadiums and not theater either. Whoever wants it should pay for it, and then the content will be high quality. But in the end, it’s probably just that our value systems are different, so maybe we don’t really have a point of disagreement at all. And it’s not that I’m in favor of stealing from the rich—I asked for your opinion, and thank you for it. And it’s not that I’m against freedom, but not at the other person’s expense, because in the end it’s one plate and everything comes at someone else’s expense. After all, without the poor, the rich wouldn’t get rich; if everyone didn’t agree to minimum wage, the equation would change. Basically, the poor, or the ordinary class, are the force—they are the majority. If that were also the direction of most members of Knesset, then it would happen.

Bank debt write-offs are no different from the consideration I mentioned. Nobody gives them favors for no reason.
These are the usual arguments in favor of communism/socialism, and in my opinion they really don’t hold water. But I don’t see any point in getting into that here.

Okay, just maybe if they didn’t give them debt write-offs, they’d move to another bank, and the bank has an interest in customers that big.

Moishik, you are also assuming (explicitly) incorrectly that one person’s wealth comes at another’s expense. It’s true that the amount of money stays fixed (if you don’t print more), but there is definitely productivity that creates resources. Do you think a farmer who invested every moment and harvested food should share everything with someone who didn’t work at all, with nothing in return? Obviously that does not come at his expense. As for things like debt write-offs—obviously there are things that can be discussed, and you can’t let money decide everything (such as exploiting the poor), but even if there are injustices that need to be corrected, that doesn’t mean everything should simply be divided equally. It’s not connected at all.

Y.V., what you’re saying makes sense. I still need to digest it and think. But you need to remember that productivity profits from the little people who buy; without them all the producers are nothing at all, not the other way around like they paint it for us.
By the way, that’s also why I hinted between the lines at another possibility: a basic economic level, for example housing, a car, a phone, clothes, all the basic things you need, and whoever wants to grow can grow. You can also argue about how much to grow and how much of a gap you want to create, but that’s already another discussion. Again, I’m probably a communist. My value-world is different from yours, and again, it may be that I had a few logical failures, I admit—for example, that not everything comes at someone else’s expense. I need to examine these things. And I’m also not talking about equality without common sense. For example, a parent dividing pizza among children shouldn’t give each one exactly the same amount, but rather the same amount that he needs, taking into account age, size, need, etc. So that belongs to the first possibility, and not the one with a basic economic level.

And let’s say the farmer received fair pay for his labor—shouldn’t what remains be divided among the citizens, meaning the state? And not just stay with the government, which is what they call “the state.”

Also, lots of people want and are able to produce a great deal, and they aren’t given the opportunity for one reason or another, as I mentioned. It’s not exactly impressive to be some “successful guy” who’s somebody’s son, or who had a good starting point, and then call them good producers. If you gave equal opportunity and made it easier for everyone to enter the business world, then many who until now didn’t produce would produce, and then the distribution would also be more just according to your approach. At least you agree that there are injustices and illegitimate restrictions, right?

But the state isn’t his; it belongs to the citizens—it’s basically the home of all the citizens. And it is what enables him to work within it. After all, whichever way you look at it, in such a situation he could work less. They’d need to recruit more labor or something.