NationStates Jolt Archive

I belive my concience would lead me to help you(or whoever's in need) but I don't think I should be forced to help you. If that's what you're getting at, I'm kinda tired tonight.

Let's settle this.

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me? My "commission vs omission" thread didn't quite go in that direction, so I'm trying again.

Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it. One way to do that is to trade, by providing some sort of value in return for whatever I need. The other way is if I cannot provide anything in return.

Jello Biafra in another thread just mentioned that a right essentially confers an obligation, either negatively (ie I have an obligation not to kill you) and positively (ie I have an obligation to save you falling off the cliff). So then the question isn't so much about need as it is about how to justify a right to, say, dignified and sufficiently equal living standards, which would then make my need and your obligation essentially the same thing.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?

Let's settle this.

HA!

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me?


Why do human being have this impulsive need to think of everything in terms of force or obligation? Really, the "left" can't come up with anything more creative, and the "right" can't see anything else whenever a word starts with the letters S-O-C-I-A-L-...

It's really all very silly.

Well, if I like you, I would probably help. If however, you may have insulted me in the past (pronounced my name incorrectly for example), I would probably let you die in the gutter.
I am not being entirely serious.

Why do human being have this impulsive need to think of everything in terms of force or obligation? Really, the "left" can't come up with anything more creative, and the "right" can't see anything else whenever a word starts with the letters S-O-C-I-A-L-...

It's really all very silly.

Obligation tends to be carried in with the idea of morality and responsibility.

Force comes from morality not being absolute, but still being meaningful.

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me?

Because I recognize that if I were in your place, I would desire the same help for myself.

Obligation tends to be carried in with the idea of morality and responsibility.


I suppose I suffer from an impulsive need to hold my species to a higher standard.

I suppose I suffer from an impulsive need to hold my species to a higher standard.

I don't understand.

Because I recognize that if I were in your place, I would desire the same help for myself.
And what if you were quite confident that you wouldn't be in my place?

Say you had to give me $1000 for my operation, and you estimate that the chance that you'd find yourself in that situation is about .01% (because you're very healthy, or you're rich or something). The value of you getting that return help if you end up needing it must be at least ten million for your action to have made any sense.

If it's any less, your action isn't self-serving at all, which means there's something else.

And that's not mentioning that you'd also have to include the possibility of double-crossing into your reasoning.

I don't understand.

If the socialists would just get of their ass and do it, having to force everyone else via whatever obligation would be unnecessary. If the capitalists would actually put an honest effort into producing a wealthy society, rather than looking for obligations on others and ways to weasel out themselves...

Just do it, god damn it.

And what if you were quite confident that you wouldn't be in my place?

It has absolutely nothing to do with the expectation of material reciprocity. The key is the hypothetical--if I were in your place.

If the socialists would just get of their ass and do it, having to force everyone else via whatever obligation would be unnecessary. If the capitalists would actually put an honest effort into producing a wealthy society, rather than looking for obligations on others and ways to weasel out themselves...

Just do it, god damn it.

So you are referring to legal obligation and not moral obligation.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the expectation of material reciprocity. The key is the hypothetical--if I were in your place.

If I was caught committing a murder I would desire leniency. That does not mean that I deserve it.

So you are referring to legal obligation and not moral obligation.

Since moral values are, as you have said, not absolute, I would have to ask how "moral obligation" can even exist. Legal obligation is, of course, an attempt to make moral obligation absolute; as far as I can tell it produces far more problems than solutions, at least within the context of this thread.

Absolute/Legal obligation just gets manipulated into "why you have to but I don't."

Since moral values are, as you have said, not absolute, I would have to ask how "moral obligation" can even exist.

Any moral code implies a moral obligation, whether the morality is absolute, cultural, or individual,

Absolute/Legal obligation just gets manipulated into "why you have to but I don't."

Then it is no longer absolute.

And what if you were quite confident that you wouldn't be in my place?

Say you had to give me $1000 for my operation, and you estimate that the chance that you'd find yourself in that situation is about .01% (because you're very healthy, or you're rich or something). The value of you getting that return help if you end up needing it must be at least ten million for your action to have made any sense.

If it's any less, your action isn't self-serving at all, which means there's something else.

And that's not mentioning that you'd also have to include the possibility of double-crossing into your reasoning.

This is where your attempt to attach a dollar sign to every single element of existence and insist that it balance in your favor breaks down into meaninglessness. I may not get the same disease or require the same kind of help, but without a functioning society my little pieces of paper with presidents on them are pretty much meaningless.

Not to mention that you're oversimplifying the issue by making me the only responsible person. I share the responsibility with other member of society because I benefit from society, and not just in a singular hypothetical surgery.

Any moral code implies a moral obligation, whether the morality is absolute, cultural, or individual,


But I can be the only judge of whether a particular moral code is correct, or whether I should follow it. Nobody else can make that decision for me. I may be coerced, but having to accept negative consequences does not invalidate the existence of choice.

If, then, people would actually live up to their own standards, rather than waste time on coercion that produces little if any results, they might actually accomplish something. I don't need to invent some obligation to help others in need; I simply believe that it is right, so I do it.

But I can be the only judge of whether a particular moral code is correct, or whether I should follow it. Nobody else can make that decision for me. I may be coerced, but having to accept negative consequences does not invalidate the existence of choice.

If, then, people would actually live up to their own standards, rather than waste time on coercion that produces little if any results, they might actually accomplish something. I don't need to invent some obligation to help others in need; I simply believe that it is right, so I do it.

My point was that standards vary, and you would be hard pressed to get someone to allow you to treat them according to your own standards. At every point you disagree, he will protest that your treatment of him is unfair. Since you state that only the individual is able to judge whether a moral code is correct, you must admit that it is unfair (even if you don't consider it unfair, it is not solely yours to decide) until you convince him otherwise. If one cannot convince the other, how is this standoff settled?

First I ask myself, "What Would Jesus Do?"

Then I ask myself, "How can I make it funny?"

Whatever the answer is, I usually do. *nod*

Since you state that only the individual is able to judge whether a moral code is correct, you must admit that it is unfair (even if you don't consider it unfair, it is not solely yours to decide) until you convince him otherwise.


Obviously I had assumed that part of "just doing it" was seeking out others like myself, or convincing others of my perspective.


If one cannot convince the other, how is this standoff settled?


It probably never is (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13337050&postcount=3), because I cannot think of a way to settle it outside of peaceful persuasion that doesn't involve the destruction of freedom. Another reason to hate the absurdity of this universe.

This doesn't make open conflict between the disagreeing parties necessary, however. At least so long as each doesn't try to forcibly convert the other, as long as each is willing to preserve freedom.

If I was caught committing a murder I would desire leniency.

So? Your potential victims wouldn't.

Applying equal consideration to all leads to the satisfaction of need because of declining marginal utility. It does not lead to the satisfaction of every whim.

you have no claim on anything of mine.

and thats it. if i choose to share, then fine. if im a heartless bastard who wouldnt give you a mouldy crust of bread to keep you from starving, youre screwed.

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me?
One word: Utilitarianism. We have an obligation to perform those actions that increase the total happiness of Mankind. If you are in need, and the action of helping you would result in an increase in your happiness that is greater than the corresponding decrease in my happiness, then the action of helping you would result in a net increase in the total happiness of Mankind, and I have the obligation to perform it.

Now, you may object that there is no way to measure happiness. That is true. So, rather than evaluating each situation on a case-by-case basis - which is impossible - we have to draw up a list of situations where giving help is extremely likely to increase the total happiness of Mankind as described above, and bring in legislation to make sure people give help in such situations.

One example is redistribution of wealth. We can assume beyond a shadow of a doubt that wealth has diminishing marginal returns of happiness. In other words, a dollar brings more happiness to a poor man than to a rich man. So taking a dollar from a rich man and giving it to a poor man creates more happiness in the poor man than the amount of happiness it removes from the rich man. So redistribution of wealth from rich to poor always increases the net happiness of Mankind.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the expectation of material reciprocity. The key is the hypothetical--if I were in your place.
But I'm not. Why should my decision be based on things that I know to be false?

I share the responsibility with other member of society because I benefit from society, and not just in a singular hypothetical surgery.
So if we're not in society, but on a desert island, then I'm not morally obliged to share the food I have?

One example is redistribution of wealth. We can assume beyond a shadow of a doubt that wealth has diminishing marginal returns of happiness. In other words, a dollar brings more happiness to a poor man than to a rich man. So taking a dollar from a rich man and giving it to a poor man creates more happiness in the poor man than the amount of happiness it removes from the rich man. So redistribution of wealth from rich to poor always increases the net happiness of Mankind.
As would denying healthcare to old people, or denying education to stupid kids. There would surely be better places to spend money.

Indeed, utilitarianism can be used to justify a lot of horrible things, since it doesn't actually have any standard of morality other than aggregate happiness. If you piss everyone off, I am morally obliged to remove you.

Obligation tends to be carried in with the idea of morality and responsibility.

Force comes from morality not being absolute, but still being meaningful.

I disagree, force comes not from morality being theoretically absolute but instead by being practically limited by real considerations, coercion to altruism is just using the reactionary concept towards 'own life, liberty, property' in order to scare and force people into contributing to the common good. I probably should do a thread on this, the 'Utilitarianism of Socialism' or something, about the transitional nature of socialism in using the state, party and other reactionary institutions in favor of the proletarian dictatorship.

So if we're not in society, but on a desert island, then I'm not morally obliged to share the food I have?

I'm not sure where you get that, but you'd be a dick not to. Call that what you will. Besides, you're better off with that guy because you have a better chance of figuring out a plan that isn't "ride the food out and hope someone comes by..." Killing him is a bit short sighted.

As would denying healthcare to old people, or denying education to stupid kids. There would surely be better places to spend money.
What makes you think that denying healthcare to old people would necessarily provide enough happiness to society at large to compensate for the great suffering it would cause to old people? Likewise with education and stupid kids, plus the additional problem of deciding which kids are "stupid" and the potential loss to society if you make a mistake.

Your examples are ambiguous at best. Notice I said that "we have to draw up a list of situations where giving help is extremely likely to increase the total happiness of Mankind." Neither of your two examples are anywhere near "extremely likely." In the example I used with redistribution of wealth, however, it is certain that said redistribution will increase the total happiness of Mankind.

Indeed, utilitarianism can be used to justify a lot of horrible things, since it doesn't actually have any standard of morality other than aggregate happiness.
Aggregate happiness is the best standard of morality. To be utilitarian means to believe that happiness is always preferable to suffering. To be a non-utilitarian, you must believe that there are cases where suffering is better than happiness.

If you piss everyone off, I am morally obliged to remove you.
No, you're not, because the unhappiness you cause to me by removing me could be greater than the happiness you cause to others. Again, an ambiguous situation.

I'm not sure where you get that, but you'd be a dick not to. Call that what you will. Besides, you're better off with that guy because you have a better chance of figuring out a plan that isn't "ride the food out and hope someone comes by..." Killing him is a bit short sighted.
But you end up with the same issue: if I'm Mr Amazing and can survive okay, and the other guy is blind and has no value to contribute, then "killing" him is not so short sighted.

You'd still call me a dick, which means I'm still doing wrong. The question is why that is.

What makes you think that denying healthcare to old people would necessarily provide enough happiness to society at large to compensate for the great suffering it would cause to old people?
The same thing that makes you think diminishing marginal utility would "always" cause redistribution to make society better off.

Fact is that if you use diminishing returns to justify one policy, you're gonna have a hard time explaining why you're not using it to justify another.

Neither of your two examples are anywhere near "extremely likely."
Of course, there is a good chance that spending $10,000 on a hip replacement for an asthmatic 85-year old is better than spending that same money on something else. Or that giving remedial English classes to an almost-retarded soon-to-be garbage man is better than fitting an extra lesson into the time table of the smart kid.

Aggregate happiness is the best standard of morality. To be utilitarian means to believe that happiness is always preferable to suffering. To be a non-utilitarian, you must believe that there are cases where suffering is better than happiness.
You're being disingenious. To be utilitarian is to believe that aggregate happiness is the standard, and everything else is secondary at best. If aggregate happiness would be increased by your death, I'd be morally wrong to let you live - and by utilitarian law there is a good chance I should receive punishment for it.

If I am consequently utilitarian, I must cause any level of suffering, as long as I increase aggregate happiness with it, from income redistribution to murder and genocide.

No, you're not, because the unhappiness you cause to me by removing me could be greater than the happiness you cause to others. Again, an ambiguous situation.
Every situation is ambiguous, that's the trick. Look, I've read the essays on utilitarianism by Bentham and several by Mill. I've got a pretty good idea what it's all about.

Have you heard what sort of prisons Bentham proposed to keep criminals in?

The same thing that makes you think diminishing marginal utility would "always" cause redistribution to make society better off.

Fact is that if you use diminishing returns to justify one policy, you're gonna have a hard time explaining why you're not using it to justify another.
I really don't see how diminishing marginal utility applies in this case, unless you can come up with (a) a use for money that always causes more happiness than using the same amount of money on healthcare for old people, and (b) a reason why this new use for money requires funds to be taken away from healthcare for old people, as opposed to taking them away from something else (like, say, arms manufacturing).

Of course, there is a good chance that spending $10,000 on a hip replacement for an asthmatic 85-year old is better than spending that same money on something else. Or that giving remedial English classes to an almost-retarded soon-to-be garbage man is better than fitting an extra lesson into the time table of the smart kid.
Remember, by utilitarian standards, we should only resort to taking funds away from something if there is no way to take the same funds away from some other, less useful function.

Spending $10,000 on a hip replacement for an asthmatic 85-year old may not be the most useful thing in the world, but I can think of many other even less useful expenses that can be cut before we get to the hip replacement.

You're being disingenious. To be utilitarian is to believe that aggregate happiness is the standard, and everything else is secondary at best. If aggregate happiness would be increased by your death, I'd be morally wrong to let you live
Precisely. If aggregate happiness would be increased by my death, I would be morally obligated to commit suicide. For instance, if I were infected with a deadly incurable virus that would begin to spread to others after an incubation period, I should kill myself as soon as possible in order to destroy the virus.

And the problem is...?

If I am consequently utilitarian, I must cause any level of suffering, as long as I increase aggregate happiness with it, from income redistribution to murder and genocide.
Right, as long as you can find a reason to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that a given murder or genocide will increase aggregate happiness.

Historically, genocide has never even come close to increasing aggregate happiness - usually it ends up causing suffering for everyone, including the perpetrators.

Every situation is ambiguous, that's the trick.
You haven't provided any reason why the wealth redistribution example, for instance, would be ambiguous.

Look, I've read the essays on utilitarianism by Bentham and several by Mill. I've got a pretty good idea what it's all about.

Have you heard what sort of prisons Bentham proposed to keep criminals in?
I never said I necessarily agreed with Bentham's or Mill's particular approach. The general moral principle of utilitarianism does not rely on the usefullness or validity of particular examples. Bentham's panopticon can be criticized on utilitarian grounds too.

But you end up with the same issue: if I'm Mr Amazing and can survive okay, and the other guy is blind and has no value to contribute, then "killing" him is not so short sighted.

You'd still call me a dick, which means I'm still doing wrong. The question is why that is.


Man, if you can't sort that out, you need to track down the crazy old lady you sold your soul to and try and see if you can get it back.

I don't think Neu Leonstein is a real person, instead he is the collective manifestation of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Adam Smith and the unfeeling soulless utility of the 'free' market.

Remember, by utilitarian standards, we should only resort to taking funds away from something if there is no way to take the same funds away from some other, less useful function.
That's avoiding the point. True economic utilitarianism is embodied by the CSE, by people like Gary Becker and Richard Posner (http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/). It is not socialist, and it is not particularly kind to old or stupid people. It involves using economic analysis to work out dollar values for human lives, it involves children being adopted for money in an open market. It involves pareto optimality and support for the market economy based on the welfare theorems.

Fact is that a position that says that humans have inherent, a priori rights of any sort is not really utilitarian. You can't circumvent the unfortunate truth that if resources are scarce, stupid people must miss out on an education and poor people must be left to die if there is a superior alternative. What precisely the alternative is doesn't matter - what matters is the fact that the old person has no right to life and the stupid person no right to an education.

If that is the position you argue for, at least we can move on. If it isn't, you're not utilitarian.

And the problem is...?
That there are other potential reasons for why you're so unpopular. You might be the only one of your ethnic group in a racist community, for example.

Not to mention that I have issues with codes of morality that demand my self-destruction.

Right, as long as you can find a reason to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that a given murder or genocide will increase aggregate happiness.
I don't think the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" part is particularly utilitarian. It's a very scientific code of morality, which would mean that expected utility must come into the equation.

If genocide might generate aggregate happiness relative to other policies of 10 smiles, or -10 smiles, and we think there is a 51% probability that it will be the former, the expected utility is 0.2 smiles, which is a positive number. As a good utilitarian, it seems ridiculous to disregard this information and do something with a smaller expected utility.

Of course, that is disregarding the treatment of risk - but who exactly makes up this risk preference, and according to what sort of rules? Is there a good reason to steer away from risk-neutrality?

You haven't provided any reason why the wealth redistribution example, for instance, would be ambiguous.
Because we're talking aggregate, for example. The rich person may well be investing the money into a shoe factory, providing jobs and shoes to society that increase aggregate happiness further than just the utility of the dollar itself. Even if the dollar is not spent by the rich person, but simply stays in a bank account the question is not whether the dollar right now would be worth more in the poor person's hand, but whether the present value of the future cash flows associated with that dollar would be worth more in the poor person's hand. If the dollar goes simply to buy potato chips, that's not a given.

Dollars don't really provide significant happiness all by themselves. It depends on what is being done with the dollar, which is not something that income redistribution takes into account. And all that is assuming that you could actually measure happiness, which the original utilitarians insisted would be possible. Right now your support for income redistribution is based on precisely the same theoretical line of arguing as the assertion that minimum wages reduce employment in the affected groups - yet you don't accept that.

So really, what basis do you have for claiming that there isn't ambiguity?

I never said I necessarily agreed with Bentham's or Mill's particular approach.
Bentham was about the purest utilitarian you could think of. Mill was compromising (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/m/mill/john_stuart/m645o/) (which is why I like him much more) because he realised the sort of world utilitarianism creates.

So really, what other approach to pure, unlimited utilitarianism is there than Bentham's?

Man, if you can't sort that out, you need to track down the crazy old lady you sold your soul to and try and see if you can get it back.
I'm just asking a question. If it helps you, imagine someone else asked it.

The problem with this appeal to emotion/soul is that if for some reason I didn't share the emotion (because for example I hated that other guy), then I am perfectly justified to let him die.

I don't think Neu Leonstein is a real person, instead he is the collective manifestation of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Adam Smith and the unfeeling soulless utility of the 'free' market.
Haha, you said collective.

By the way, Adam Smith was a very feeling person. You should read his works some day, he was hardly a right-libertarian or indeed particularly free-market sort of person.

That's avoiding the point. True economic utilitarianism is embodied by the CSE, by people like Gary Becker and Richard Posner. It is not socialist, and it is not particularly kind to old or stupid people. It involves using economic analysis to work out dollar values for human lives, it involves children being adopted for money in an open market. It involves pareto optimality and support for the market economy based on the welfare theorems.
What you describe is not "true economic utilitarianism," it is economic utilitarianism plus neoclassical economic premises and methods. Indeed, if we assume neoclassical economics to be correct, then an economic utilitarian should arrive at the conclusions you describe. But I reject neoclassical economics; I reject welfare theorems and I most certainly reject pareto optimality as a particularly worthy goal.

I believe a priori that markets do not and cannot maximize welfare, because needs and wants are measured in a market by dollar values, and the dollar value one attaches to one's wants is a function of how many dollars one has in the first place. In a market, the intensity of one's demand is measured in the amount of money one is willing to pay for a product, which effectively means that the rich have more "demanding power" than the poor. It also means that the wants of the rich weigh more in a market than the wants of the poor.

If all people had an equal amount of wealth, then perfectly competitive markets would maximize welfare, but even then they would quickly destroy that initial egalitarian distribution of wealth, and welfare would no longer be maximized.

Fact is that a position that says that humans have inherent, a priori rights of any sort is not really utilitarian.
I do not believe in any kind of inherent, a priori rights. I do believe, however, that all human lives have equal value, and that human life and happiness are the only acceptable measures of moral value.

You can't circumvent the unfortunate truth that if resources are scarce, stupid people must miss out on an education and poor people must be left to die if there is a superior alternative. What precisely the alternative is doesn't matter - what matters is the fact that the old person has no right to life and the stupid person no right to an education.
Right, if there is a superior alternative. I believe that there isn't, and it is up to you to prove otherwise.

That there are other potential reasons for why you're so unpopular. You might be the only one of your ethnic group in a racist community, for example.
In that case, the optimal utilitarian solution would be for me to move out of the community. I still don't see any problem.

Not to mention that I have issues with codes of morality that demand my self-destruction.
I do not.

I don't think the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" part is particularly utilitarian. It's a very scientific code of morality, which would mean that expected utility must come into the equation.
Well, I tend to be a rule utilitarian, and the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" part is useful in designing good rules.

If genocide might generate aggregate happiness relative to other policies of 10 smiles, or -10 smiles, and we think there is a 51% probability that it will be the former, the expected utility is 0.2 smiles, which is a positive number. As a good utilitarian, it seems ridiculous to disregard this information and do something with a smaller expected utility.
You forgot to factor in the expected negative utility to the people who are to be the victims of this genocide. Since their suffering would be massive, an equally massive expected happiness would be necessary to make genocide even worth considering. I don't think you can make an argument for genocide generating any such massive happiness.

Of course, that is disregarding the treatment of risk - but who exactly makes up this risk preference, and according to what sort of rules? Is there a good reason to steer away from risk-neutrality?
This can be left up to a democratic vote.

The rich person may well be investing the money into a shoe factory, providing jobs and shoes to society that increase aggregate happiness further than just the utility of the dollar itself.
[...]
Dollars don't really provide significant happiness all by themselves. It depends on what is being done with the dollar, which is not something that income redistribution takes into account.
And the poor person may use that dollar to buy goods and services and thereby stimulate the economy. For example, he may provide the demand for shoes that makes it profitable to build a new shoe factory.

See, your examples go both ways. I fail to see any reason to expect that a dollar in the hands of a rich person would provide a greater benefit to society than a dollar in the hands of a poor person.

Right now your support for income redistribution is based on precisely the same theoretical line of arguing as the assertion that minimum wages reduce employment in the affected groups - yet you don't accept that.
Actually I'm not at all concerned with the effects of the minimum wage, seeing how the minimum wage is just a band-aid for the flaws of capitalism anyway, and I support a socialist economic system.

So really, what other approach to pure, unlimited utilitarianism is there than Bentham's?
I meant to say that just because Benthan believed that action X would improve aggregate happiness, that doesn't necessarily mean he was right in his evaluation of action X.

But I reject neoclassical economics; I reject welfare theorems and I most certainly reject pareto optimality as a particularly worthy goal.
If something is pareto optimal, that doesn't tell us much. If something isn't, that does.

I believe a priori that markets do not and cannot maximize welfare, because needs and wants are measured in a market by dollar values, and the dollar value one attaches to one's wants is a function of how many dollars one has in the first place.
And the amount of dollars you have (it's not "in the first place", they do come from somewhere) is a function of your effort spent on earning them (which includes things like getting a university degree, etc), which in turn is a reflection of just how much you want stuff that you buy with the dollars.

Yes, prices come about through supply and demand, but your own "demanding power" comes about in response to those prices.

Still, I'd just like to give you kudos for one of the better arguments I've heard in a while on NSG.

I do not believe in any kind of inherent, a priori rights.
You did in the other thread.

I do believe, however, that all human lives have equal value, and that human life and happiness are the only acceptable measures of moral value.
Human life and happiness? What if the two conflict?

Right, if there is a superior alternative. I believe that there isn't, and it is up to you to prove otherwise.
You believe that a priori, do you?

But anyways, how do you expect me to prove it, if happiness can't be measured?

In that case, the optimal utilitarian solution would be for me to move out of the community. I still don't see any problem.
What if they really want you dead?

I do not.
The question is whether a good goal that demands the elimination of the possibility to choose good in the future is really maximising "goodness" as it were.

Well, I tend to be a rule utilitarian, and the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" part is useful in designing good rules.
Rule utilitarianism is a cop-out. It doesn't eliminate the actual issues, it just sorta covers them up because you can claim things like "genocide is always bad" without having to justify it as strict utilitarianism would require from you.

So rule utilitarianism is a compromise, alá Mill. You're taking utilitarian concerns, but you're constraining them with something else - which means we're back at square one and utilitarianism doesn't answer the question of my OP at all.

You forgot to factor in the expected negative utility to the people who are to be the victims of this genocide.
I didn't, I said "aggregate" and "relative", so I covered my bases.

Basically, I can stand here and say "the Holocaust was good because the aggregate gain in happiness by the Nazis was greater than the aggregate loss in happiness by the smaller number of victims". You can't prove me wrong, because neither of us can produce any figures.

So let's not bother talking about proving the morality of stuff, because Bentham would want us to do a lot of indepth research using basically undefined methods to do it. Let me simply ask you the question: if my above statement holds true, would you support the Holocaust?

This can be left up to a democratic vote.
Is that a decision you made using utilitarianism?

There are two types of errors possible, Type I and Type II. Increase the possibility of one and you decrease the probability of the other. I can't really imagine a utilitarian argument being made for either being better than the other, so wouldn't risk-neutrality be the natural stance?

I fail to see any reason to expect that a dollar in the hands of a rich person would provide a greater benefit to society than a dollar in the hands of a poor person.
Basically, because the rich person can achieve economies of scale and scope with his dollar, since they are working together with a lot of other dollars.

Let's settle this.

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me? My "commission vs omission" thread didn't quite go in that direction, so I'm trying again.

Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it. One way to do that is to trade, by providing some sort of value in return for whatever I need. The other way is if I cannot provide anything in return.

Jello Biafra in another thread just mentioned that a right essentially confers an obligation, either negatively (ie I have an obligation not to kill you) and positively (ie I have an obligation to save you falling off the cliff). So then the question isn't so much about need as it is about how to justify a right to, say, dignified and sufficiently equal living standards, which would then make my need and your obligation essentially the same thing.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?

the simple answer is that it isn't a question of "your" or any single individual's "need", but rather of the kind of world most, at least i hope most, of us, would prefer to live in.

there can be, that i can see, no sense of security for anyone, in a world where their survival has become, by force of the human species shere numbers, as much if not more, by that of the arrogance of formalized hierarchal 'authority, as well, dependent on our abilities to coerce each other, which it certain IS under capitolism, and probably under marxism as well.

rather the whole of what is called human civilization, even quite possibly our evolution into the species we are now, began with and depends upon, assuring one another's survival.

it was for this reason alone, that the earliest and most ancient of extended kinships began banding togather into villages.

so it is not so much a matter of personal debt, as of justifiction for the burdens of formalizing social organization, which again, began, and is really justified only by, this mutual bennifit and assistence to each other's well being and survival.

=^^=
.../\...

The thing is, not only does Neu want to be a complete bastard but he wants to feel like - and be viewed as - a good guy too. Can't have it both ways son.

The thing is, not only does Neu want to be a complete bastard but he wants to feel like - and be viewed as - a good guy too. Can't have it both ways son.

meh, I'd say he has about the philosophic 'morality' of Colonel Kurtz.

The thing is, not only does Neu want to be a complete bastard but he wants to feel like - and be viewed as - a good guy too. Can't have it both ways son.
I just don't want to be reduced to a communal resource. Of course that will make me unpopular with those who'd take advantage of me, but you're right, there is still hope in me that it doesn't have to be this way.

I just don't want to be reduced to a communal resource. Of course that will make me unpopular with those who'd take advantage of me, but you're right, there is still hope in me that it doesn't have to be this way.

You are a communal resource, whether you like it or not, we all are, you wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for the solidarity of humans to continue our legacy. Your views, or lack of, are simply an aberration brought on by the communications techniques of the modern world, which have allowed you and other capitalists of leeching off organized labor like parasites.

Let's settle this.

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me? My "commission vs omission" thread didn't quite go in that direction, so I'm trying again.

Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it. One way to do that is to trade, by providing some sort of value in return for whatever I need. The other way is if I cannot provide anything in return.

Jello Biafra in another thread just mentioned that a right essentially confers an obligation, either negatively (ie I have an obligation not to kill you) and positively (ie I have an obligation to save you falling off the cliff). So then the question isn't so much about need as it is about how to justify a right to, say, dignified and sufficiently equal living standards, which would then make my need and your obligation essentially the same thing.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?

Compassion has nothing to do with it. Just like forgiveness has nothing to do with opposing the death penalty or with drug treatment programs instead of jail for drug addicts.

When it comes to what government should do the decision is supposed to be based on what's good for society and what will work best.

Does the NYC government use tax dollars to support the Metropolitan Museum of Art because they're such snobby art fans? No, it's because it attracts a lot of tourist dollars to the area, but the hotels, restaurants, and cabs that benefit most don't see a direct benefit, so they won't do it themselves.

Old people with no school age children see no direct benefit from paying property taxes to support local schools. But they get an indirect benefit from educated workers paying into social security.

Welfare to help the poor brings a benefit to society in lowered crime and more productive society. That's why it should be provided, why it's governments job to do it, and you should shut the hell up about being forced to allow your tax dollars to help the poor.

One word: Utilitarianism. We have an obligation to perform those actions that increase the total happiness of Mankind. If you are in need, and the action of helping you would result in an increase in your happiness that is greater than the corresponding decrease in my happiness, then the action of helping you would result in a net increase in the total happiness of Mankind, and I have the obligation to perform it.

The problem is that not only can you not measure happiness (as you mention below) there are varying KINDS of happiness. For example, instant gratification vs. long-term satisfaction. Which should be served? I would say the latter, but what about someone else who simply prefers the former?


Now, you may object that there is no way to measure happiness. That is true. So, rather than evaluating each situation on a case-by-case basis - which is impossible - we have to draw up a list of situations where giving help is extremely likely to increase the total happiness of Mankind as described above, and bring in legislation to make sure people give help in such situations.


Legislation to enforce ethics. Bad, bad, bad idea.


One example is redistribution of wealth. We can assume beyond a shadow of a doubt that wealth has diminishing marginal returns of happiness. In other words, a dollar brings more happiness to a poor man than to a rich man. So taking a dollar from a rich man and giving it to a poor man creates more happiness in the poor man than the amount of happiness it removes from the rich man. So redistribution of wealth from rich to poor always increases the net happiness of Mankind.

What about freedom? If we COULD measure happiness, what would the loss of freedom do to the happy-meter? You're talking about taking away from those who have more and giving it to those who have less... But apparently nobody has the freedom to simply work hard and enjoy the benefits... Because once those benefits start rolling in it's time for the Government to come in and redistribute it.

Let's settle this.

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me? My "commission vs omission" thread didn't quite go in that direction, so I'm trying again.

Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it. One way to do that is to trade, by providing some sort of value in return for whatever I need. The other way is if I cannot provide anything in return.

Jello Biafra in another thread just mentioned that a right essentially confers an obligation, either negatively (ie I have an obligation not to kill you) and positively (ie I have an obligation to save you falling off the cliff). So then the question isn't so much about need as it is about how to justify a right to, say, dignified and sufficiently equal living standards, which would then make my need and your obligation essentially the same thing.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?

There are some cases in which a need clearly confers an obligation to help. In a child parent relation for example.

Also if you control all the water available, one could ask whether that control is just. In this case the need for one of water seems to confer an obligation to help.

But I'm not. Why should my decision be based on things that I know to be false?

It's not. You're assuming baselessly that the only meaningful way to be obligated is from self-interest.

You aren't obligated to help another person in need because you fear you'll end up in the same place, or because you somehow mystically "are" in the same place. You're obligated to do so in recognition that you have no basis to set a double standard, to say that when I am in need, I should get help, but when you are in need, who cares?

Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it.

Ultimately, macro-economics are the problem. Not in isolation, but because of how they are applied.

The 'libertarian' or the 'anti-socialist-capitalist' exist in isolation, in their own minds, because the implications of their interdependence with their environment are so remote that they can fool themselves into believing they: a) somehow exist on their own merits, and b) exist outside of the interdependence of others.

Viewed in microcosm, interdependence is obvious - if we live in a small village, and one of our families lacks food, and we don't help feed them... they WILL get food somehow, and that means they are going to have to step outside our rules system. Perhaps they will steal food... and that can only harm another family. Perhaps they will steal food from a trader? It's easier to ignore that crime, but it does mean our village constantly offsets the support of the unfed onto the trader, which is still harmful... and ultimately destructive to the whole community. Perhaps they will steal food from a communal store - which does less damage to each individual, perhaps - but which leaves us with an unexpected shortfall which is not calculated for in our planning.

(For logical reasons, I am ignoring the prospect of the hungry famly 'living off the land' outside of the 'village'... there has to be parallel to the real world, and in reality, few of us have access to unlimited food supplies that exist outside of the confines of some other entity's claim to ownership).

Pragmatically, the only way to offset all damages so that least harm is caused to individuals and community, the logical last resort is to establish a program by which no one is left short of food. This doesn't have to be a 'hand-out', there can be mechanisms of 'earning' your assistance, thus benefitting all. But - that's not to say a hand-out is bad. Those who cannot take care of themselves don't deserve to be cast aside simply because they are less productive. And, a balanced system would find some way to make them productive... it's just a matter of caring enough.

And there's our problem with macro-economics. The hungry family don't live in your direct sphere of influence. They steal from someone else. They steal from the trader, and the trader passes his loss onto you and everyone else. They find ways to steal from the community, and the whole society is left short. But - it's remote.

And there's the problem with the libertarian model - merely claiming independence doesn't remove you from the loop of dependence, it just let's you pretend it does. And if you wrap it in enough 'patriotic' (or faux-patriotic) rhetoric, other people will even protect that 'right' for you - increasing their OWN burden, to excuse you yours.

To be a non-utilitarian, you must believe that there are cases where suffering is better than happiness.

And there are a whole host of cases where this can be reasonably be argued to be true.

All else being equal, is it really equally acceptable to imprison an innocent person as a guilty one? If not, if you attach some value to desert, then at least a small amount of suffering might be justifiable in deference to such considerations.

Furthermore, if you mean "suffering" and "happiness" in the narrow sense of the mental states, then there is nothing wrong with cheating as long as your partner never finds out, nothing wrong with "hidden cameras" as long as people never know their privacy has been violated, and so on. All these increase the happiness of some without causing anyone else actual suffering--those betrayed and exploited don't know it's happening, so it makes no difference in our utility calculation.

If you expand it to more broadly mean "preference", you run into a whole host of other problems. For instance, if enough people prefer, for religious reasons, that same-sex intercourse never happen, it follows that it should never be done... even if it actually affects no one but the participants. But why should a person's individual autonomy be restricted by someone else's preference in that way? They have no business making that kind of decision for somebody else--they don't have the standing for sovereignty. So, even in the broad sense of "preference satisfaction", there are still cases where maximum aggregate "happiness" is inferior to some other possibility--when the preferences to be satisfied are themselves illegitimate.

Then there are considerations of entitlement. If I promise someone something for a service--"If you cut my lawn, I'll give you twenty dollars"--and that person proceeds to perform that service on the expectation of compensation, for me to, afterward, deny it to her is something considerably more than a failure to add the utility of $20 to her column.

There is no persuasive reason to discount everything but "utility" in moral decision-making, and that means that there is theoretical room for the advocates of free-market capitalism to justify an intrinsic value to their system beyond the aggregate utility it brings. I do, of course, remain unconvinced.

The problem is that not only can you not measure happiness (as you mention below) there are varying KINDS of happiness. For example, instant gratification vs. long-term satisfaction. Which should be served? I would say the latter, but what about someone else who simply prefers the former?
First of all, with regards to measuring happiness: Although you cannot make precise measurements, you can make rough comparisons if the difference between two amounts of happiness is large enough. Just like you could easily say that a house has a bigger volume than a water bottle without actually doing any measurements.

Regarding instant gratification vs. long-term satisfaction, it should be left up to individual people to decide which they prefer, and the results should be aggregated. Suppose for example that you have a society of 100 people, 25 of whom prefer instant gratification and 75 of whom prefer long-term satisfaction. In that case, long-term satisfaction has roughly 75/25 = 3 times the value of instant gratification.

Legislation to enforce ethics. Bad, bad, bad idea.
On the contrary, a very good idea, as long as unethical behaviour can be detected with reasonable ease.

Legislation regulating private behaviour is only bad when the effort that the state must make in order to detect illegal behaviour is so great and so intrusive that it outweighs the benefits of eliminating that behaviour.

Drug usage, for example, is bad and should be eliminated. But all existing anti-drug legislation ends up costing the state a lot of money and not doing a good job of reducing drug usage at all. Since the costs seem to outweigh the benefits, we should consider getting rid of that legislation.

What about freedom? If we COULD measure happiness, what would the loss of freedom do to the happy-meter?
Loss of freedom probably reduces happiness, so we should restrict freedom only when the benefits of doing so are high enough to outweigh the loss of happiness due to loss of freedom.

You're talking about taking away from those who have more and giving it to those who have less... But apparently nobody has the freedom to simply work hard and enjoy the benefits... Because once those benefits start rolling in it's time for the Government to come in and redistribute it.
That's only if you're assuming a capitalist system of distribution - and even then, wealth has little or no connection with hard work (and you can't really measure effort any more than you can measure happiness, by the way).

I advocate a socialist system in which wealth distribution is egalitarian in the first place, so there is no redistribution necessary.

All else being equal, is it really equally acceptable to imprison an innocent person as a guilty one? If not, if you attach some value to desert, then at least a small amount of suffering might be justifiable in deference to such considerations.
Or you could simply argue that it is preferable to imprison the guilty person because (a) it prevents him committing another crime and thus causing more suffering in the future, (b) knowing that guilty people get punished deters criminals and therefore helps society, and (c) more generally, a society where justice is served makes people a lot happier than a society where you can be randomly imprisoned for no reason.

As you can see, there are plenty of utilitarian justifications for an effective justice system, indepedent of desert.

Furthermore, if you mean "suffering" and "happiness" in the narrow sense of the mental states, then there is nothing wrong with cheating as long as your partner never finds out, nothing wrong with "hidden cameras" as long as people never know their privacy has been violated, and so on. All these increase the happiness of some without causing anyone else actual suffering--those betrayed and exploited don't know it's happening, so it makes no difference in our utility calculation.
Well, I was talking about the application of utilitarianism in matters of law. And the law can only apply in cases where the crime has been detected, so the possibility of a crime being committed without the knowledge of the victim should not be taken into consideration.

In other words: Let's use privacy laws for example. Yes, if your privacy was violated without your knowledge, there is no suffering. But the law can only take effect in cases where you do find out that your privacy was violated. So it makes sense to have privacy laws.

If you expand it to more broadly mean "preference", you run into a whole host of other problems. For instance, if enough people prefer, for religious reasons, that same-sex intercourse never happen, it follows that it should never be done... even if it actually affects no one but the participants.
Right, provided that the social costs of preventing same-sex intercourse are low enough. But we have every reason to believe that, on the contrary, the costs would be very high - regulating sexual behaviour would require a huge, expensive and intrusive police force. So preventing same-sex intercourse may not be worth the costs, even if enough people prefer it.

But why should a person's individual autonomy be restricted by someone else's preference in that way? They have no business making that kind of decision for somebody else--they don't have the standing for sovereignty. So, even in the broad sense of "preference satisfaction", there are still cases where maximum aggregate "happiness" is inferior to some other possibility--when the preferences to be satisfied are themselves illegitimate.
I recognize no such things as illegitimate preferences. Fuzzy concepts like individual autonomy are irrelevant. I recognize only costs and benefits. Everyone has every business making whatever decision they damn well please.

Then there are considerations of entitlement. If I promise someone something for a service--"If you cut my lawn, I'll give you twenty dollars"--and that person proceeds to perform that service on the expectation of compensation, for me to, afterward, deny it to her is something considerably more than a failure to add the utility of $20 to her column.
Right, but only because a society where promises are routinely broken would make most people very unhappy. Most people prefer to live in a society where promises are kept.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?If you have the ability to find it, yes, you do have the obligation to provide it.

Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it.

One way to do that is to trade, by providing some sort of value in return for whatever I need. The other way is if I cannot provide anything in return.

What about the value of the trade then ? If you can't offer much, but still can offer a "thanks" and a smile isn't it already a form of "trade" ? On the other way around, if you abuse from a position of power (you have insulin, I need it but I don't have it, so you ask me to become your personal slave to get it) to obtain much more than what you could, is it still "trade" ? Things are not as binary as that.

Jello Biafra in another thread just mentioned that a right essentially confers an obligation, either negatively (ie I have an obligation not to kill you) and positively (ie I have an obligation to save you falling off the cliff). So then the question isn't so much about need as it is about how to justify a right to, say, dignified and sufficiently equal living standards, which would then make my need and your obligation essentially the same thing.

Indeed. That's the main question, about rights and duties, and about the meaning of what a human society is.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?

From a moral, ethical point of view, it means that if I can find it for you without too much cost for myself, I have to do it, yes.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, it's the concept of solidarity and "social contract" which matters. The idea is that in a human society, people are not isolated, but linked together. Every member of the society relays upon the others, you help others while you can, in "exchange" of the fact that the society (or a member of it) will help you when you will need help.

On average, it's a win-win situation for nearly everyone, because the cost of helping is usually much, much lower than the cost of not being helped when you need it (= have serious health problem, become disabled after an accident, got struck by a natural disaster, got severe personnel problems leading you to depression, ...).

As you can see, there are plenty of utilitarian justifications for an effective justice system, indepedent of desert.

I know. Utilitarians love doing this... pretending they can reduce everything to utility even when the consideration has nothing whatsoever to do with utility.

That's why I said "all else being equal." Same consequences. Is it as okay to imprison a random person as a notorious mass murderer, as long as the same consequences ensue?

In other words: Let's use privacy laws for example. Yes, if your privacy was violated without your knowledge, there is no suffering. But the law can only take effect in cases where you do find out that your privacy was violated. So it makes sense to have privacy laws.

So? I'm not talking about privacy laws. I'm talking about utilitarianism. Do you renounce utilitarianism in non-legal contexts? If you do, then the specific example I gave doesn't apply... though the general point does.

And actually, you're wrong. Privacy laws can apply even when the victim never knows. What about restrictions on the ability of the police to search your home without your knowledge? Should they merely amount to making absolutely sure that you never find out? (And that's a good thing?)

Right, provided that the social costs of preventing same-sex intercourse are low enough.

I'm not talking about the social costs of anything. I'm talking about two people deciding whether or not to have sex.

Being moral people, they first consider whether or not it is right.

So preventing same-sex intercourse may not be worth the costs, even if enough people prefer it.

You can't say that absolutely. There's a conceivable point where the cost would be outweighed by the benefit.

I recognize no such things as illegitimate preferences. Fuzzy concepts like individual autonomy are irrelevant.

Yes, and that's precisely why preference utilitarianism is wrong.

I am obligated to respect the preference of my neighbor, even if that person's presence violates my autonomy, my dignity, my status as a human being with a right to self-determination. I am obligated to accept my oppression in deference to their prejudice, at least if they prefer it enough.

That's nonsense.

Right, but only because a society where promises are routinely broken would make most people very unhappy.

Look, I'm very well aware that you can twist any simple example I give into a utilitarian justification. It's actually pretty easy to do.

I'm asking you to go a step further... to, instead of making me go through an endless chase of finding the perfect hypothetical that isolates out every possible utilitarian consideration, actually consider what is at play.

Undoubtedly there are social consequences to a pattern of broken promises. But the point is more than that. You have not merely denied someone utility, you have stolen their autonomy: you have manipulated them into doing something by deception, something they, knowing the truth beforehand, would not have done.

That's wrong in and of itself, even before we go on to broader utilitarian consequences.

Say you had to give me $1000 for my operation, and you estimate that the chance that you'd find yourself in that situation is about .01% (because you're very healthy, or you're rich or something). The value of you getting that return help if you end up needing it must be at least ten million for your action to have made any sense.

You're making two strong errors at that point.

The first one is that money doesn't scale linearly. Losing $1 million is not 1000 worst than losing $1000, usually, in term of impact on your lifestyle and happiness. The more money you have, the less happiness more money will bring you, and the more money you lose, the more it'll cost you. If you're rich, losing 1000$ will not impact you a lot, it may cost you 10 happiness units. But losing 1 million will very likely cost you more than 10 000 in happiness units.

All that means that usually, the expectancy, in term of loss of happiness, of being sure of losing $1000 is usually much lower than having a .01% chance of losing $1 million. That's the whole idea behind insurances, and solidarity is a form of insurance (the "social contract" of helping those in need in the hope that you'll receive help if one day you're the one in need).

The second error is that you consider that everything can be put down to money. There are things which are not worth any kind of money.

If it's any less, your action isn't self-serving at all, which means there's something else.

I'm not the one who will defend the fact that actions have to be self-serving. Altruism is the most beautiful aspect of human beings, the one (with the related ability to love) that makes us different from robots.

And that's not mentioning that you'd also have to include the possibility of double-crossing into your reasoning.

Well, that's why solidarity works so much more as a social contract, as a way to build the society, than as individual acts. You pointed out to Nash equilibriums, the main reason for which free markets, left alone, just don't work.

As would denying healthcare to old people, or denying education to stupid kids. There would surely be better places to spend money.

I'm not too fond of the "average happiness" theory because it can justify very strong suffering of some, but on this case, you'll have a lot of trouble finding ways to create more happiness than the amount of suffering you'll inflict on the old people/stupid kids by denying them.

I don't think Neu Leonstein is a real person, instead he is the collective manifestation of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Adam Smith and the unfeeling soulless utility of the 'free' market.

For what I read from Adam Smith, he was much more moderate and careful about the market than we usually present him to be. Sure he wrote the (stupide) "Invisible Hand" theory, but he also issued a lot of warnings about giving too much power to businesses.

I see it as the balance between two extremes:

1) Everyone looks out for everyone else, and the millionaires who don't really need that last 100k might consider donating it to someone who does.

2) Everyone is out for themselves, which is great for the lucky winners but pretty lousy for the losers.

Option 2 includes an inherent incentive to work hard and be successful, whereas option 1 promotes freeloading and abuse of the system. However, I'd also say that option 2 encourages screwing the other guy over if it will benefit you (or even just to make sure he can't screw you over in future), which seems just as wasteful.

Personally, I'd prefer to live in a world nearer the option 1 end of the scale - I'd rather cooperate with others for mutual benefit than compete against them.

I know. Utilitarians love doing this... pretending they can reduce everything to utility even when the consideration has nothing whatsoever to do with utility.
It's not "pretending." Everything has something to do with utility. Sorry. :)

That's why I said "all else being equal." Same consequences. Is it as okay to imprison a random person as a notorious mass murderer, as long as the same consequences ensue?
Well, I just explained why such a situation is completely impossible.

But if you ask me to suspend disbelief and assume that you can perform some magic to ensure that the same consequences ensue no matter who you imprison, then yes, sure, it's okay to imprison a random person.

However, if you're using magic, I'm sure you could twist any ethical doctrine to make it support some horrendous act of your choice, provided the situation is sufficiently unrealistic.

So? I'm not talking about privacy laws. I'm talking about utilitarianism. Do you renounce utilitarianism in non-legal contexts? If you do, then the specific example I gave doesn't apply... though the general point does.
I don't renounce utilitarianism in non-legal contexts, but (a) I think discussion about morality in non-legal contexts is rather pointless since most people act immorally if free of consequences, and (b) I adopt a stricter definition of "happiness" for my personal use, which counts sins as being equivalent to suffering.

And actually, you're wrong. Privacy laws can apply even when the victim never knows. What about restrictions on the ability of the police to search your home without your knowledge? Should they merely amount to making absolutely sure that you never find out? (And that's a good thing?)
You're using massively unrealistic examples again. Yes, privacy laws should technically amount to making sure you never find out about violations of your privacy - but good luck searching someone's home without them finding out.

I'm not talking about the social costs of anything. I'm talking about two people deciding whether or not to have sex.

Being moral people, they first consider whether or not it is right.
Well, if no one else knows about it, then it can't cause any unhappiness, can it? ;)

You can't say that absolutely. There's a conceivable point where the cost would be outweighed by the benefit.
Yes, there is. I don't think we can ever realistically reach that point, but yes, in theory it exists.

Yes, and that's precisely why preference utilitarianism is wrong.

I am obligated to respect the preference of my neighbor, even if that person's presence violates my autonomy, my dignity, my status as a human being with a right to self-determination. I am obligated to accept my oppression in deference to their prejudice, at least if they prefer it enough.

That's nonsense.
Really? Then tell me, why is oppression wrong? I think it is wrong because it lowers the happiness of the oppressed. Why do YOU think it's wrong?

Undoubtedly there are social consequences to a pattern of broken promises. But the point is more than that. You have not merely denied someone utility, you have stolen their autonomy: you have manipulated them into doing something by deception, something they, knowing the truth beforehand, would not have done.

That's wrong in and of itself, even before we go on to broader utilitarian consequences.
Why? If autonomy is not good because it gives people happiness, then why is it good?

Personally, I'd prefer to live in a world nearer the option 1 end of the scale - I'd rather cooperate with others for mutual benefit than compete against them.
But why? That's the question.

For option 1 to be compelling, it needs to be demonstrably better than option 2, and it's not.

Aside from option 2 having more empirical evidence on its side, option 1 requires that some people do appreciably less well than they could under option 2, and somehow you think they should like that. If they don't (and Neu Leonstein clearly doesn't), you should be able to convince them. Otherwise your position is arbitrary.

If something is pareto optimal, that doesn't tell us much. If something isn't, that does.
Yes, of course that if some people can be made better off at no cost to anyone else, that is a worthy course of action to pursue. My previous comment on pareto optimality was a little disingenious. What I meant was that an apparent pareto improvement may have non-monetary social costs (which would make it not a pareto improvement after all, I suppose).

And the amount of dollars you have (it's not "in the first place", they do come from somewhere) is a function of your effort spent on earning them (which includes things like getting a university degree, etc)
I utterly, completely and absolutely disagree with that assertion. The amount of dollars you have is first and foremost a function of factors beyond your control - mostly the place and time you were born and the kind of upbringing you received. This is especially true when you consider the global scale. There is a vast difference between being born in Somalia and being born in the United States.

Besides, getting a university degree is not necessarily an effort, when you consider the alternatives. Take myself for example: Of all the things I could be doing right now (which is to say, either work at some job or get a university degree), the university option is the course of action that requires the least effort. Having a job would be harder, and more unpleasant.

Judging by the other people at my university, I would say that pursuing a degree is for the most part a pleasurable experience, and, if income was a function of effort, we should be getting less money than our less-educated peers, not more.

Yes, prices come about through supply and demand, but your own "demanding power" comes about in response to those prices.
You are saying that some people's wants can, in fact, have a greater total intensity than the wants of other people - which is a premise I reject a priori because I believe all human beings are of equal value and their wants should receive equal consideration.

As a matter of fact, that is precisely the premise on which my entire political philosophy rests: That the desires of all human beings are equal in worth and should receive equal consideration.

You, on the other hand, start with the premise that some people's desires should receive more consideration than the desires of other people; and furthermore, that the intensity of one's desires should be the primary factor in deciding one's market power.

It seems we have reached an insoluble ethical conflict.

I do not believe in any kind of inherent, a priori rights.
You did in the other thread.
Then you either misunderstood something I said or I did not express myself properly.

Human life and happiness? What if the two conflict?
Well, life is just a special kind of happiness. Life can be assigned a happiness value like everything else, though it happens to be an extremely high value.

Right, if there is a superior alternative. I believe that there isn't, and it is up to you to prove otherwise.
You believe that a priori, do you?

But anyways, how do you expect me to prove it, if happiness can't be measured?
No, no, of course I don't believe that a priori. If you could prove otherwise, I would bow to the evidence. The way to prove it, by the way, is by deductive reasoning starting with some observation about human happiness as a function of something measurable. For example, my wealth redistribution argument started with a simple assumption about happiness as a function of wealth - and wealth is measurable.

What if they really want you dead?
Then the optimal course of action is to give them the illusion that I am dead. If that isn't allowed either, then yes, I should be killed.

The question is whether a good goal that demands the elimination of the possibility to choose good in the future is really maximising "goodness" as it were.
Well, that's one of the reasons why life should be considered as having an extremely high happiness value.

Surely you would agree that if a goal was good enough, it would be worth the elimination of the possibility to choose good in the future. What if your death was the only way to save the rest of the human race from extinction, for example?

Rule utilitarianism is a cop-out. It doesn't eliminate the actual issues, it just sorta covers them up because you can claim things like "genocide is always bad" without having to justify it as strict utilitarianism would require from you.
Err, no, rule utilitarianism is the only way to apply utilitarianism to questions of law, since laws are rules. There is simply no way to govern based on strict utilitarianism.

If you're asking about morality as opposed to law, I am a strict utilitarian (tempered with some Christian beliefs that equate sin with suffering, to be exact). But I tend to be far more concerned with law than abstract morality because of my belief that most people are not moral anyway, so questions of abstract morality are little more than interesting hypothetical games until we start talking about the way to implement them into law.

Basically, I can stand here and say "the Holocaust was good because the aggregate gain in happiness by the Nazis was greater than the aggregate loss in happiness by the smaller number of victims". You can't prove me wrong, because neither of us can produce any figures.
That is correct, though I could point out that the Holocaust took resources away from the front and contributed to the Nazi defeat in the war, which arguably caused them more suffering than any happiness they might have gained from the Holocaust.

I think the Holocaust meets the "beyond a shadow of a doubt" criterion for being considered evil from a utilitarian standpoint.

So let's not bother talking about proving the morality of stuff, because Bentham would want us to do a lot of indepth research using basically undefined methods to do it. Let me simply ask you the question: if my above statement holds true, would you support the Holocaust?
IF your above statement held true - which it clearly does not - then yes, I would.

I would like to point out, however, that not only utilitarianism, but any ethical doctrine which does not consider the prevention of death as the absolute highest good can theoretically be used to justify the deaths of millions under the right conditions. If anything is more important than preventing death, then there must be some situation where mass death is justifiable because it promotes that other thing which is considered more valuable.

An ethic which absolutely prohibits the initiation of force, for example, can be presented with a hypothetical situation where the initiation of force is the only way to prevent the Holocaust.

What is your ethic, by the way?

There are two types of errors possible, Type I and Type II. Increase the possibility of one and you decrease the probability of the other. I can't really imagine a utilitarian argument being made for either being better than the other, so wouldn't risk-neutrality be the natural stance?
The utilitarian argument is that if a sufficient number of people are not risk-neutral, the optimal decision is not risk-neutral either (since the optimal decision depends on people's preferences, after all).

Basically, because the rich person can achieve economies of scale and scope with his dollar, since they are working together with a lot of other dollars.
Hmm, interesting argument, but that would only apply if the dollar is invested - as opposed to spent on consumption. And therefore your argument also relies on the belief that it is more beneficial for society to invest a dollar than to spend it on consumption, which runs into questions of macroeconomics (supply-side vs. Keynes) and so on.

Of course, I could just counter it with the labour theory of value and argue that capitalism is necessarily exploitative, so putting wealth in the hands of the rich is actually harmful to society, economies of scale or not.

I would like to point out, however, that not only utilitarianism, but any ethical doctrine which does not consider the prevention of death as the absolute highest good can theoretically be used to justify the deaths of millions under the right conditions. If anything is more important than preventing death, then there must be some situation where mass death is justifiable because it promotes that other thing which is considered more valuable.This is an interesting point.

However, it is contradicted by the potential for utilitarianism to justify mass death.

First of all, with regards to measuring happiness: Although you cannot make precise measurements, you can make rough comparisons if the difference between two amounts of happiness is large enough. Just like you could easily say that a house has a bigger volume than a water bottle without actually doing any measurements.


I don't think this analogy fits at all. I can make a reasonable quantitative comparison between the volumes of two containers precisely because it would be simple to make the actual measurement.

Happiness, as you pointed out earlier, simply can't be measured so any comparison is still a subjective and qualitative exercise. In other words, pure conjecture.


Regarding instant gratification vs. long-term satisfaction, it should be left up to individual people to decide which they prefer, and the results should be aggregated. Suppose for example that you have a society of 100 people, 25 of whom prefer instant gratification and 75 of whom prefer long-term satisfaction. In that case, long-term satisfaction has roughly 75/25 = 3 times the value of instant gratification.


I don't think this would make any sense to me unless I were stoned. No offense...


On the contrary, a very good idea, as long as unethical behaviour can be detected with reasonable ease.


I think you're missing the point here. Ethics, by its nature is based on value systems and personal beliefs, and thus CANNOT be legislated without putting one set of beliefs over all others.


Legislation regulating private behaviour is only bad when the effort that the state must make in order to detect illegal behaviour is so great and so intrusive that it outweighs the benefits of eliminating that behaviour.


No, it's bad when laws govern my personal behavior in accordance with what YOU Believe is right and/or wrong.


Drug usage, for example, is bad and should be eliminated. But all existing anti-drug legislation ends up costing the state a lot of money and not doing a good job of reducing drug usage at all. Since the costs seem to outweigh the benefits, we should consider getting rid of that legislation.


Again, when you say 'drug usage' what do you mean? Personally, I think it's bad to smoke pot but I would like to see such legislation that bans it repealed, not because of the cost of enforcement, but because I don't think the Government has a right to legislate it.


Loss of freedom probably reduces happiness, so we should restrict freedom only when the benefits of doing so are high enough to outweigh the loss of happiness due to loss of freedom.


WTF do you mean probably? How can you even visualize a scenario where personal freedom is restricted and the result is happier people? Wars have been fought over issues of freedom smaller than socialism vs capitalism.


That's only if you're assuming a capitalist system of distribution - and even then, wealth has little or no connection with hard work (and you can't really measure effort any more than you can measure happiness, by the way).


I think on a small scale you'd be correct, but in larger scale scenarios I assure you, hard work and brains will get you a lot farther than sitting around wishing it'll happen. The exception being, obviously, people who inherit wealth, but if they don't manage it well it'll be squandered anyway.


I advocate a socialist system in which wealth distribution is egalitarian in the first place, so there is no redistribution necessary.

You brought up redistribution, not I. In a system as you describe, personal innovation and motivation are crushed in the name of financial equality. Total equality and total freedom cannot coexist, because individuals will always have varying levels of personal ambition, energy, goals and ability. Most people will choose freedom over equality because while it won't guarantee success, it will at least encourage it as opposed to striking down anyone who tries to excel.

Of course, I could just counter it with the labour theory of value and argue that capitalism is necessarily exploitative, so putting wealth in the hands of the rich is actually harmful to society, economies of scale or not.
That would only work if exploitation was necessarily bad, so you'd need to demonstrate that first.

This is an interesting point.
Not really. I suspect mass death is justifiable under some circumstances.

This is why I don't like mixing ethics and economics.

Well, I just explained why such a situation is completely impossible.

No, it isn't. You've just given reasons why it's very unlikely. You haven't explained why it's impossible at all.

Maybe the criminal would be sufficiently scared by the imprisonment of the innocent person that she would never commit the crime again. And all the other criminals wouldn't know that the person was innocent, so there would be no reduction in the general deterrent effect, either. The consequences are exactly the same for arresting both the innocent person and the guilty person.

But, unfortunately, for some reason there's a small additional monetary cost to imprisoning the guilty person--maybe his house is a little further away, and it costs a few extra cents worth of gasoline to arrest him. Oh, guess we're obligated to arrest the innocent person. Maximizing the aggregate happiness and all that.

However, if you're using magic, I'm sure you could twist any ethical doctrine to make it support some horrendous act of your choice, provided the situation is sufficiently unrealistic.

The entire point of ethical doctrines is that they exist on the level of abstract principle: they apply to all circumstances. We may have lesser rules with domain restrictions, but the fundamental doctrine applies always.

Why does it matter? Because if I can present a case where your rule doesn't seem to work, however unrealistic that case may be, then you must admit that there is a worthy consideration that your rule doesn't take into account. And once you've admitted that, dealing with realistic cases where our sense of right and wrong is not so clear is no longer a simple matter of adding utility costs and utility benefits.

Unrealistic cases allow us to clarify our moral sense, because we can assume away the ambiguities of the real world. Without such clarification, our doctrines will always be distorted and confused.

I don't renounce utilitarianism in non-legal contexts, but (a) I think discussion about morality in non-legal contexts is rather pointless since most people act immorally if free of consequences,

Most people try to act morally regardless of punishment. Most people take right and wrong seriously.

Nobody, of course, is perfect, and most people are not even close. But in no way does that imply that discourse about morality in non-legal contexts is "pointless." Indeed, if it were, there would be no point to discussing morality in legal contexts either. If you cannot persuade us to act morally, then you cannot persuade us to act to change the law for moral reasons.

So, to return to the point: assuming it is virtually certain the person won't find out, is it acceptable to, say, videotape them in the shower? Can people cheat in relationships as long as their partner won't find out, and won't otherwise be affected?

and (b) I adopt a stricter definition of "happiness" for my personal use, which counts sins as being equivalent to suffering.

That kind of personal decision, actually, is very important in defining in exactly what sense we should consider "preference." But I'm getting somewhat away from the main point.

but good luck searching someone's home without them finding out.

It actually depends very much on what you are looking for and how careful you are... I don't think it's unrealistic at all.

Well, if no one else knows about it, then it can't cause any unhappiness, can it?

Right. That's why I referenced using a broader sense of "preference" that would be able to recognize moral violation even without the victim knowing that such a moral violation occurred.

This is an important difference between preference utilitarianism and classical "hedonistic" utilitarianism. Both are wrong, but preference utilitarianism is better.

Really? Then tell me, why is oppression wrong? I think it is wrong because it lowers the happiness of the oppressed. Why do YOU think it's wrong?

Because it takes away the right of the oppressed to control their own lives, to choose for themselves how they want to live.

Why? If autonomy is not good because it gives people happiness, then why is it good?

You're begging the question.

You assume that the only thing worthy of moral consideration is happiness. Thus, "it gives people happiness" is sufficient explanation... but "it protects people's autonomy" is not. But our point of dispute is precisely over that exact point.

Freedom is not "good" because it gives people anything. It is good in itself.

Not really. I suspect mass death is justifiable under some circumstances.Which would put you on shakier ground than most, and would make it difficult for you to condemn the results of Nazism and Stalinism.

This is why I don't like mixing ethics and economics.

What's the point of economics if you don't use it to come to conclusions about what should be done?

Which would put you on shakier ground than most, and would make it difficult for you to condemn the results of Nazism and Stalinism.

What system of morality would oppose mass death, always?

Some of them might unconditionally impose inflicting mass death, but usually those are also the ones that would be willing to tolerate it to, say, avoid intentionally killing an innocent person.

I see it as the balance between two extremes:

1) Everyone looks out for everyone else, and the millionaires who don't really need that last 100k might consider donating it to someone who does.

2) Everyone is out for themselves, which is great for the lucky winners but pretty lousy for the losers.

Option 2 includes an inherent incentive to work hard and be successful, whereas option 1 promotes freeloading and abuse of the system. However, I'd also say that option 2 encourages screwing the other guy over if it will benefit you (or even just to make sure he can't screw you over in future), which seems just as wasteful.

Personally, I'd prefer to live in a world nearer the option 1 end of the scale - I'd rather cooperate with others for mutual benefit than compete against them.

But that ignores the benefits of productivity that results from personal ambition. Big companies exist because the people who founded them had the freedom to build them. Rich people might inspire jealousy but they do create jobs, they do often donate considerable sums to charity, and they provide services more efficiently than Government.

The way I approach this:

No, there is no obligation. That's why governments have to force it out of you: and they do it for utilitarian purposes - greatest good (i.e wealth) for the greatest number. If taking a bit of money away from some people is the only way to eradicate extreme poverty and improve the economy and standard of living for most people, then so be it. Although this isn't to say that taxes always achieve this result.

This is why I dislike socialists, trying to attach a non existent obligation in order to justify forced equalisation of wealth is silly.

What's the point of economics if you don't use it to come to conclusions about what should be done?

I meant I don't like debating it (OK I do really), since the debate always goes round in circles.

What system of morality would oppose mass death, always?

Some of them might unconditionally impose inflicting mass death, but usually those are also the ones that would be willing to tolerate it to, say, avoid intentionally killing an innocent person.I would think that most systems of morality would oppose mass death in all cases.

Can you give an example where you, personally, would approve of mass death?

The way I approach this:

No, there is no obligation. That's why governments have to force it out of you: and they do it for utilitarian purposes - greatest good (i.e wealth) for the greatest number. If taking a bit of money away from some people is the only way to eradicate extreme poverty and improve the economy and standard of living for most people, then so be it. Although this isn't to say that taxes always achieve this result.

This is why I dislike socialists, trying to attach a non existent obligation in order to justify forced equalisation of wealth is silly.So then wealth should be equalized, or be made more equal than it is currently, for reasons other than moral obligation? Interesting.
What if someone doesn't care if the economy is improved or extreme poverty exists?

I would think that most systems of morality would oppose mass death in all cases.

I can't think of any.

Can you give an example where you, personally, would approve of mass death?

If it's the only way to avert the destruction of all other life on Earth. If it's the only alternative to lives of horrible slavery and misery.

Which would put you on shakier ground than most
How? What about that position is inherently shaky?

This is what bothers me in ethical discussions (and has for years - I have a degree in this crap) - there appears to be some standard of acceptablilty moral positions have to meet in order to avoid flat dismissal by most people, but no one can tell me what that standard is.

It's as if most people are moral perfectionists, but don't know it.

If it's the only way to avert the destruction of all other life on Earth. If it's the only alternative to lives of horrible slavery and misery.In the former case, you are approving of mass death to stop an even greater mass death from happening, indicating that you do have a problem with mass death. In the second, are you saying that slaves should be put to death, or that they should commit suicide? If it's the latter, mass suicide is typically thought of differently than other forms of death, and would not be the type of mass death thought of when the Holocaust is mentioned.

How? What about that position is inherently shaky?

This is what bothers me in ethical discussions (and has for years - I have a degree in this crap) - there appears to be some standard of acceptablilty moral positions have to meet in order to avoid flat dismissal by most people, but no one can tell me what that standard is.

It's as if most people are moral perfectionists, but don't know it.You don't see a difference between "genocide is unjustified" and "genocide might be unjustified"?

So then wealth should be equalized, or be made more equal than it is currently, for reasons other than moral obligation? Interesting.
What if someone doesn't care if the economy is improved or extreme poverty exists?

Well currently for some countries it's alright, and for some countries I think there are too many taxes. There aren't many western countries that I think should have it's wealth more equalised through tax then it is already, except maybe for the USA with a national health service, but that may not be practical at this time.

I put emphasis on the greatest number, the happiness of the majority should be considered over the happiness of the minority when applying economic policies, and the majority of people would clearly want a better economy with less poverty. I don't think however that taxes are always the best solution.

I can't think of any.

If it's the only way to avert the destruction of all other life on Earth. If it's the only alternative to lives of horrible slavery and misery.
I have to agree. I don't think I've seen a complete, well-described moral system where I couldn't come up with a scenario where the morality prefers mass death.

Utilitarianism is perhaps the easiest such system.

Can you give an example where you, personally, would approve of mass death?


First, define "mass death."

Some forms are clearly horrifyingly immoral: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust

Some forms are clearly horrifying, but necessary, and in many ways the morally correct action:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overlord

I have to agree. I don't think I've seen a complete, well-described moral system where I couldn't come up with a scenario where the morality prefers mass death.

Utilitarianism is perhaps the easiest such system.

Aquinas' Natural Law? (it would be playing god for one thing).

You don't see a difference between "genocide is unjustified" and "genocide might be unjustified"?
I see a difference. I go with door #2.

Imagine if an entire population is going to be horribly enslaved, but we can prevent that by killing half of them, thus providing the other half with freedom and happiness.

Is mass death not supported there?

Well currently for some countries it's alright, and for some countries I think there are too many taxes. There aren't many western countries that I think should have it's wealth more equalised through tax then it is already, except maybe for the USA with a national health service, but that may not be practical at this time.

I put emphasis on the greatest number, the happiness of the majority should be considered over the happiness of the minority when applying economic policies, and the majority of people would clearly want a better economy with less poverty. I don't think however that taxes are always the best solution.Is there a moral obligation to consider the happiness of the majority over the minority in economic policies or not?

First, define "mass death."

Some forms are clearly horrifyingly immoral: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust

Some forms are clearly horrifying, but necessary, and in many ways the morally correct action:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_OverlordIt was in the context of genocide, so I meant in this case, the deliberate and systematic extermination of a large group of people.

I see a difference. I go with door #2.

Imagine if an entire population is going to be horribly enslaved, but we can prevent that by killing half of them, thus providing the other half with freedom and happiness.

Is mass death not supported there?It could be, in some moral systems.
In mine? No.

In the former case, you are approving of mass death to stop an even greater mass death from happening, indicating that you do have a problem with mass death.

Yes--mass death figures in the "negative" column.

But that is not the same thing as saying that mass death is never justifiable.

and would not be the type of mass death thought of when the Holocaust is mentioned.

Right, but no one says that that kind of mass death is justified... racist industrialized mass murder is not acceptable.

The way I approach this:

No, there is no obligation. That's why governments have to force it out of you: and they do it for utilitarian purposes - greatest good (i.e wealth) for the greatest number. If taking a bit of money away from some people is the only way to eradicate extreme poverty and improve the economy and standard of living for most people, then so be it. Although this isn't to say that taxes always achieve this result.

This is why I dislike socialists, trying to attach a non existent obligation in order to justify forced equalisation of wealth is silly.

Forced equalization of wealth through government does seem to be the popular trend, but I would again insist that it is not the only possible vision that fits within the term "socialist." I've concluded myself that I cannot force or create a meaningful obligation on others without serious threat to freedom, but I don't see how this makes socialism impossible.

After all, I could just as easily conclude that capitalism forces an obligation in order to justify concentration and inequality of wealth (private property) but this doesn't lead me to reject property itself.

Is there a moral obligation to consider the happiness of the majority over the minority in economic policies or not?


Not an obligation no, but its probably the best way to approach economics.

Right, but no one says that that kind of mass death is justified... racist industrialized mass murder is not acceptable.There are people who do so, though.

Not an obligation no, but its probably the best way to approach economics....Because?

After all, I could just as easily conclude that capitalism forces an obligation in order to justify concentration and inequality of wealth (private property) but this doesn't lead me to reject property itself.

I'm not sure if I understand, where is the obligation in capitalism?

It was in the context of genocide, so I meant in this case, the deliberate and systematic extermination of a large group of people.


War is not necessarily precluded, or at least "genocide" is an unnecessarily specific definition. For example, it was regular practice in WWII to systematically target and exterminate large groups of people through firebombing, conventional or nuclear. There are plenty of strong arguments making such actions at least necessary, if not moral.

I'm not sure if I understand, where is the obligation in capitalism?

Every rule, law, or moral value that protects and enforces private property.

...Because?

If we keep going down this route, we will eventually reach a point where we are asking: "who is to say that unhappiness is better then happiness?", which is pointless and too silly to consider.

War is not necessarily precluded, or at least "genocide" is an unnecessarily specific definition. For example, it was regular practice in WWII to systematically target and exterminate large groups of people through firebombing, conventional or nuclear. There are plenty of strong arguments making such actions at least necessary, if not moral.I suppose 'genocide' is a smaller category than 'mass killing', but because of the context I was conflating them.

If we keep going down this route, we will eventually reach a point where we are asking: "who is to say that unhappiness is better then happiness?", which is pointless and too silly to consider.But why would we create happiness if we are not morally obligated to do so?

I would think that most systems of morality would oppose mass death in all cases.
No, as I explained before, any ethical doctrine which does not consider the prevention of death as the absolute highest good can theoretically be used to justify the deaths of millions under the right conditions. If anything is more important than preventing death, then there must be some situation where mass death is justifiable because it promotes that other thing which is considered more valuable.

Every rule, law, or moral value that protects and enforces private property.

I see, as in an obligation to respect someone else's private space I'm assuming. Yeah I guess that's a good point. Here is how I approach that:

The right to private space is a negative right, I feel that respect of negative rights should be the one and only obligation enforced by government (and only again for practical/utilitarian reasons). This would mean that the government can't intrude on someones freedom of speech, or religion etc... and of course freedom of space. I think this obligation is transcendent of economics, as it applies to all areas of governance. Economics I think should be bound by the greater social law, so if a business is polluting the environment to an unacceptable extent, or implementing abusive child labour etc... the government has a right to fine or close down that company.

An obligation to respect negative rights will be present regardless of the economic system, the only thing that will change will be what are and what aren't negative rights. Under communism, private property is not a right, under capitalism it is.

But why would we create happiness if we are not morally obligated to do so?

Because we want to.

I don't think this analogy fits at all. I can make a reasonable quantitative comparison between the volumes of two containers precisely because it would be simple to make the actual measurement.
Well, actually, if the two containers have highly irregular shapes, making the actual measurement may be quite tricky (unless you can fill them with water, which is not always feasible).

In any case, if you want a more mathematically rigorous explanation, quantities of happiness can be compared if it can be shown that happiness is proportional to some measurable variable. For instance, it can be reasonably assumed that chocolate provides happiness in proportion to its mass. Mass is measurable, so we can say that more chocolate (that is to say, chocolate with more mass) provides more happiness than less chocolate. [this was of course a very simplistic example, but you get the point - I hope]

I don't think this would make any sense to me unless I were stoned. No offense...
Fine with me, as long as you recognize that such a statement doesn't refute anything.

I think you're missing the point here. Ethics, by its nature is based on value systems and personal beliefs, and thus CANNOT be legislated without putting one set of beliefs over all others.
Right, but I see nothing wrong with putting one set of beliefs over all others. In fact, I argue that it is inevitable to put one set of beliefs over all others.

For example, you want government to put one set of ethical beliefs over all others. That set of beliefs can be described as follows: "Governments should not legislate morality."

Remember, the decision to let individuals make their own choices is in itself a moral value judgement.

Again, when you say 'drug usage' what do you mean? Personally, I think it's bad to smoke pot but I would like to see such legislation that bans it repealed, not because of the cost of enforcement, but because I don't think the Government has a right to legislate it.
"Right?" There are no such things as rights.

WTF do you mean probably? How can you even visualize a scenario where personal freedom is restricted and the result is happier people? Wars have been fought over issues of freedom smaller than socialism vs capitalism.
Actually, wars are usually fought over economic interests, but that's beside the point.

In Western societies, laws against smoking in public are an example of a scenario where personal freedom is restricted and the result is happier people. So are laws against child pornography. In more devout societies, laws against blasphemy are another example.

I think on a small scale you'd be correct, but in larger scale scenarios I assure you, hard work and brains will get you a lot farther than sitting around wishing it'll happen.
Bull. Hard work makes a little bit of difference, of course, but your place and time of birth and your upbringing are the deciding factors.

You brought up redistribution, not I. In a system as you describe, personal innovation and motivation are crushed in the name of financial equality.
No, because wealth is not the only possible reward for innovation and hard work. In my system (which, by the way, I did not describe to you, so you should stop making unfounded assumptions about it), innovation and effort are rewarded with additional choices: The best person in a field can choose to work at any job in his field, anywhere, under almost any conditions; the second-best person can choose between all the jobs except the one taken by the best person, and so on down the line. Although the pay is more or less the same, the best people get the best jobs and the most job satisfaction.

Well, actually, if the two containers have highly irregular shapes, making the actual measurement may be quite tricky (unless you can fill them with water, which is not always feasible).

In any case, if you want a more mathematically rigorous explanation, quantities of happiness can be compared if it can be shown that happiness is proportional to some measurable variable. For instance, it can be reasonably assumed that chocolate provides happiness in proportion to its mass. Mass is measurable, so we can say that more chocolate (that is to say, chocolate with more mass) provides more happiness than less chocolate. [this was of course a very simplistic example, but you get the point - I hope]


So are you withdrawing your earlier assertion that it's impossible to actually measure happiness?

I wasn't looking for a mathematically rigorous explanation, only pointing out why one cannot use one to describe happiness level.


Fine with me, as long as you recognize that such a statement doesn't refute anything.


...the point being I couldn't find a coherent argument to either concede or refute...

(again, no offense. Perhaps you could rephrase it?)


Right, but I see nothing wrong with putting one set of beliefs over all others. In fact, I argue that it is inevitable to put one set of beliefs over all others.

For example, you want government to put one set of ethical beliefs over all others. That set of beliefs can be described as follows: "Governments should not legislate morality."


Not exactly. What I advocate isn't so much the Government adopting my personal beliefs, but rather the Government enforcing nobody's.

(Except for those obvious values we could consider universal, like legislating against murder, rape, theft, etc.)


Remember, the decision to let individuals make their own choices is in itself a moral value judgement.


No, it's a refusal to apply anyone's judgement to them.


"Right?" There are no such things as rights.


I beg to differ. If one believes that rights are conferred by the Government, then I'd agree with you because what the Government gives, the Government can take away.

Rights are endowed by our Creator. (Re:The Declaration of Independence)


Actually, wars are usually fought over economic interests, but that's beside the point.


You're right, that is beside the point. I didn't say ALL wars.


In Western societies, laws against smoking in public are an example of a scenario where personal freedom is restricted and the result is happier people. So are laws against child pornography. In more devout societies, laws against blasphemy are another example.


It's got nothing to do with happiness. It's about protecting health and children.


Bull. Hard work makes a little bit of difference, of course, but your place and time of birth and your upbringing are the deciding factors.


Hardly. Look at Bill Gates. If what you say is true, then all people of the same age as Bill Gates who grew up in similar neighborhoods with similar values should be comparably wealthy.


No, because wealth is not the only possible reward for innovation and hard work. In my system (which, by the way, I did not describe to you, so you should stop making unfounded assumptions about it), innovation and effort are rewarded with additional choices: The best person in a field can choose to work at any job in his field, anywhere, under almost any conditions; the second-best person can choose between all the jobs except the one taken by the best person, and so on down the line. Although the pay is more or less the same, the best people get the best jobs and the most job satisfaction.

You've basically described it via your posts. You're advocating Socialism and redistribution of wealth. If I'm missing something that you feel is relevant, than please, put it out there.

So you're suggesting that in a your system, the best incentive for hard work is being able to choose what kind of work you do next? This, to me, seems a much weaker incentive than being better able to provide for one's self, one's family, the freedom to have a larger family or live where one desires, etc.

An obligation to respect negative rights will be present regardless of the economic system, the only thing that will change will be what are and what aren't negative rights.


The difference between "positive" and "negative" rights is simply a matter or rhetoric or wording. The argument goes that "negative" rights only prohibit, they don't obligate. But the truth of the matter is that one cannot prohibit an action without obligating the opposite action. One cannot prohibit theft without the "positive" enforcement of property rights.

Thus tied into every "negative" right is a "positive" right or obligation, and vice versa. Really, the only purpose of trying to distinguish between "negative" and "positive" is to attempt to establish an obligation without making it sound like an obligation. That's kind of dishonest.


Under communism, private property is not a right, under capitalism it is.

I've had the pleasure of meeting all kinds of socialists/communists here on NS General who would defend the right to one's own body, or one's own labor, or the product of one's own labor, or the result of exchange between two individual's labor.

All of that consists of, or can be considered to consist of, rights to property.

Hardly. Look at Bill Gates. If what you say is true, then all people of the same age as Bill Gates who grew up in similar neighborhoods with similar values should be comparably wealthy.


Bill Gates stayed in the same percent of incomes. He's certainly no poster boy for social mobility.

So are you withdrawing your earlier assertion that it's impossible to actually measure happiness?
Well, no. What I said earlier was that it is impossible to ascribe a definite numerical value to happiness. But it is possible to compare amounts of happiness to the extent of saying that A is greater than B, under appropriate circumstances.

...the point being I couldn't find a coherent argument to either concede or refute...

(again, no offense. Perhaps you could rephrase it?)
Ok, well, what I meant was that some people prefer instant gratification and some people prefer long-term satisfaction. The value we attach to instant gratification should be proportional to the number of people who prefer it, and likewise for long-term satisfaction.

Not exactly. What I advocate isn't so much the Government adopting my personal beliefs, but rather the Government enforcing nobody's.

(Except for those obvious values we could consider universal, like legislating against murder, rape, theft, etc.)
"None of the above" is still a choice. Your desire to keep the government out of people's private lives is still based on an ethical belief - in fact you've pretty much admitted as much with your appeal to Rights and the Creator.

As far as I'm concerned, all law is ethical law. All law is designed to encourage or discourage some behaviour. All law is informed by ethical beliefs and has ethical consequences.

I beg to differ. If one believes that rights are conferred by the Government, then I'd agree with you because what the Government gives, the Government can take away.

Rights are endowed by our Creator. (Re:The Declaration of Independence)
Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson is not our Creator nor a prophet, so just because he says it doesn't make it true. I challenge you to find a single unambiguous reference to the concept of Rights in the Bible or any other holy text.

It's got nothing to do with happiness. It's about protecting health and children.
Not necessarily. If you smoke in public away from non-smokers then you're not endangering anyone's health, and if you're taking pictures of naked children without their knowledge and without telling them to pose for you then you're not hurting the children. But it's still wrong and should be illegal, right?

Hardly. Look at Bill Gates. If what you say is true, then all people of the same age as Bill Gates who grew up in similar neighborhoods with similar values should be comparably wealthy.
Well, the majority of people of the same age as Bill Gates who grew up in similar neighborhoods in similar families with similar values are rich, though not super-rich like Gates himself. Note that Bill Gates grew up in a rich family: His father was a lawyer and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate Bank.

Although most people in Bill Gates' neighborhood are not super-rich, you can't deny that most super-rich people come from neighborhoods and families of the same type as the one Bill Gates grew up in.

But the super-rich are not a great group to study, by the way, because they are so few.

You've basically described it via your posts. You're advocating Socialism and redistribution of wealth. If I'm missing something that you feel is relevant, than please, put it out there.
Well let's see... I'm advocating a democratic system of government that combines election of representatives with direct popular votes on important legislation, and the option of a popular veto on all laws (that is to say, although not every law needs to be explicitly approved by the people, they can choose to explicitly disapprove of a law and it is automatically rejected). Such quick popular votes would be made possible by an electronic voting system relying on portable devices.

Economically, I advocate a socialist planned economy, with the general aspects of the plan subject to a popular vote every 4 or 5 years and the details left to the competence of a combination of elected representatives and appointed economists. The socialist system would guarantee full employment, making welfare unnecessary except in cases of physical inability to work. Wages would be proportional to the amount of work (measured in hours and/or output, whichever is more feasible for a given job) and to the average quality of one's work. However, this proportion would be strictly linear, resulting in a rather egalitarian wage distribution (in other words, to double your wage, you would have to double your hours, or your output, or make products that are twice as good as average - a feat that few people would be able to perform). Likewise, all professions would give you the same basic starting wage. The state would determine the amount of jobs available in any given profession - presumably lots of people would want the easy jobs because the starting wage is the same everywhere, but there are only a given number of those jobs, so only the best would get them. Finally, in addition to monetary compensation, the rewards for innovation or superior performance would be the right to pick any other job at will as soon as it becomes available. As I said before, the best person in a field can choose to work at any job in his field, anywhere, under almost any conditions; the second-best person can choose between all the jobs except the one taken by the best person, and so on down the line.

There. Now you have a more complete description.

So you're suggesting that in a your system, the best incentive for hard work is being able to choose what kind of work you do next? This, to me, seems a much weaker incentive than being better able to provide for one's self, one's family, the freedom to have a larger family or live where one desires, etc.
The freedom to live where one desires comes with being able to choose whatever job you want; being able to provide for one's self and family comes with all jobs.

There is no empirical evidence to show that a more egalitarian distribution of wealth harms incentives or innovation in any meaningful way - the Scandinavian countries, which have the greatest income equality in the world at the moment, are also among the richest countries in the world. If you plot income equality (measured by the Gini index) on a graph with GDP per capita, you will find no realationship whatsoever (I actually tried it for a Statistics project once - there was no correlation).

Is there a moral obligation to consider the happiness of the majority over the minority in economic policies or not?

It was in the context of genocide, so I meant in this case, the deliberate and systematic extermination of a large group of people.

It could be, in some moral systems.
In mine? No.
Your moral system requires you enslave a bunch of people rather than kill some of them if those are your only alternatives?

Somehow I don't find that compelling. On what is your moral system based?

The difference between "positive" and "negative" rights is simply a matter or rhetoric or wording. The argument goes that "negative" rights only prohibit, they don't obligate. But the truth of the matter is that one cannot prohibit an action without obligating the opposite action. One cannot prohibit theft without the "positive" enforcement of property rights.


One indicates a lack of action (negative), whilst the other indicates an action that the government must do (positive), for example - provide you with a basic standard of living. Private property means that you must no do an action which impedes on their space. Negative is about the must nots, positive is about the must dos. As I said, the only positive obligation is in the government protecting these negative rights, that is the only positive right.


I've had the pleasure of meeting all kinds of socialists/communists here on NS General who would defend the right to one's own body, or one's own labor, or the product of one's own labor, or the result of exchange between two individual's labor.

All of that consists of, or can be considered to consist of, rights to property.

I was generalising, I was just trying to get across as to the only thing that changes is what is considered a right.

Not necessarily. If you smoke in public away from non-smokers then you're not endangering anyone's health, and if you're taking pictures of naked children without their knowledge and without telling them to pose for you then you're not hurting the children. But it's still wrong and should be illegal, right?
No. Harmless activity should never be illegal.
Likewise, all professions would give you the same basic starting wage. The state would determine the amount of jobs available in any given profession - presumably lots of people would want the easy jobs because the starting wage is the same everywhere, but there are only a given number of those jobs, so only the best would get them.
So you'd have the most competent people don't the least taxing work? Does that seem like a good idea to anyone?

And while we're at it, let's just throw away the specialisation of labour. After all, that chapter of The Wealth of Nations doesn't make any sense.
There is no empirical evidence to show that a more egalitarian distribution of wealth harms incentives or innovation in any meaningful way - the Scandinavian countries, which have the greatest income equality in the world at the moment, are also among the richest countries in the world. If you plot income equality (measured by the Gini index) on a graph with GDP per capita, you will find no realationship whatsoever (I actually tried it for a Statistics project once - there was no correlation).
Because you're measuring outcomes, not inputs. You should try that same correlation with the size of government (either per capita or as a percentage of GDP) against per capita GDP.

All economies are not created equally. Norway, for example, derives tremendous revenue from its crown-operated oil companies, and it can use that revenue to distribute wealth. Other nations lack that advantage.

As such, you can't measure outcomes alone and expect to find meaningful data.

Why not plot per capita GDP against any of the popular measures of economic freedom (or any of their component parts)?

One indicates a lack of action (negative), whilst the other indicates an action that the government must do (positive), for example - provide you with a basic standard of living. Private property means that you must no do an action which impedes on their space. Negative is about the must nots, positive is about the must dos. As I said, the only positive obligation is in the government protecting these negative rights, that is the only positive right.


One cannot have a "must not" without having an at least implicit "must do."

And building government into the definition of "positive right" is again merely a rhetorical attempt to build freedom into "negative rights" by definition, when this may not necessarily be the case. For example, my "negative" right to life means little without the necessary access to the means for maintaining life which, like a basic standard of living. However, government is not the only or necessary means by which a basic standard of living can be secured.

The difference between "positive" and "negative" rights is simply a matter or rhetoric or wording. The argument goes that "negative" rights only prohibit, they don't obligate. But the truth of the matter is that one cannot prohibit an action without obligating the opposite action. One cannot prohibit theft without the "positive" enforcement of property rights.
There's a difference between being told I'm not allowed to deprive someone of property they already possess and being told I must give some of my property to someone who has none.

One is the natural state that exists in my absence. The other requires my intervention.

One cannot have a "must not" without having an at least implicit "must do."


I challenge you to give me an example of this must do which does not fall into my one and only obligation.


And building government into the definition of "positive right" is again merely a rhetorical attempt to build freedom into "negative rights" by definition, when this may not necessarily be the case. For example, my "negative" right to life means little without the necessary access to the means for maintaining life which, like a basic standard of living.

A right to life does not mean you will always get a good quality of life, or even a life at all. It just means that the government can't stop you from living.


However, government is not the only or necessary means by which a basic standard of living can be secured.

True

Your moral system requires you enslave a bunch of people rather than kill some of them if those are your only alternatives?

Somehow I don't find that compelling. On what is your moral system based?Would you volunteer to be one of the people killed?

So you'd have the most competent people don't the least taxing work? Does that seem like a good idea to anyone?

And while we're at it, let's just throw away the specialisation of labour. After all, that chapter of The Wealth of Nations doesn't make any sense.
I meant they can choose whatever job they wish within their field. Naturally, brilliant programmers cannot choose to be airline pilots.

And I'm having the easy jobs done by the people most competent at doing those specific jobs. Not the most competent people in general. In fact, there is no such thing as competent in general. No one can do everything.

Because you're measuring outcomes, not inputs. You should try that same correlation with the size of government (either per capita or as a percentage of GDP) against per capita GDP.
Irrelevant. We are talking about income equality, independent of the size of government. The argument was that equality per se reduces incentives, not that big government reduces incentives (that is a separate argument).

All economies are not created equally... you can't measure outcomes alone and expect to find meaningful data.
Right, which ultimately means that most country comparisons are not really all that meaningful unless you control for a billion different variables... But they can at least provide a little weight to an argument.

Why not plot per capita GDP against any of the popular measures of economic freedom (or any of their component parts)?
Because they count a lot of things that everyone (including socialists) can agree with, such as effective rule of law, as part of "economic freedom." Basically they don't measure capitalism, they measure the aggregate effect of capitalism plus a bunch of good stuff that everyone supports. Naturally, they find a positive effect.

Besides, the Scandinavian countries routinely score among the top 10 on "economic freedom," despite being the most socialist countries in the world.

Would you volunteer to be one of the people killed?

It wouldn't be murder if the people were volunteering, that would be suicide.

I challenge you to give me an example of this must do which does not fall into my one and only obligation.


Since you insist on positing government as the only entity capable of judging or enforcing rights, I cannot. You've purposefully engineered your own claim to be unfalsifiable.


A right to life does not mean you will always get a good quality of life...


...of course...


...or even a life at all.


...but how can I have any sort of meaningful "right" to something if I can be denied that right entirely?


It just means that the government can't stop you from living.


But you can stop me?

There's a difference between being told I'm not allowed to deprive someone of property...

Simply "being told" is hardly a deterrent. Some kind of positive enforcement which makes sure that people do what they are told is inevitable. This enforcement doesn't have to be the state, but one cannot pretend that there isn't any kind of obligation being placed. And the idea that property exists in nature is patently absurd; all that exists in nature is the larger animal eating the smaller animal, the "rights" of the smaller animal be damned.

Since you insist on positing government as the only entity capable of judging or enforcing rights, I cannot. You've purposefully engineered your own claim to be unfalsifiable.


I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, but rights do not exist objectively at all. They are entirely a created concept, and whatever rules the particular area is the only entity capable of creating these rights for its people, since it is the only entity that can punish or stop people from violating those rights.


...but how can I have any sort of meaningful "right" to something if I can be denied that right entirely?


No one can deny you that right but nature. The right only implies that nobody can kill you, not that you can't die of natural means. I.e. you have a right to try and survive without anyone trying to stop you, which you most likely will, but there is no guarantee that you wont die of cancer.


But you can stop me?

Sorry, nobody, neither me nor the government. Again, the only obligation is the government in stopping me from limiting your rights.

It wouldn't be murder if the people were volunteering, that would be suicide.But to kill them would still be killing, even if they asked for it.

But to kill them would still be killing, even if they asked for it.

OK, but I don't think that's what they meant though.

Would you volunteer to be one of the people killed?
No. But I'd vote in favour of a random selection that gave me a 50-50 shot at freedom and happiness.

OK, but I don't think that's what they meant though.But if people to don't choose to be killed, then that indicates they believe a life of slavery is better than dying.

No. But I'd vote in favour of a random selection that gave me a 50-50 shot at freedom and happiness.Interesting.

Simply "being told" is hardly a deterrent. Some kind of positive enforcement which makes sure that people do what they are told is inevitable. This enforcement doesn't have to be the state, but one cannot pretend that there isn't any kind of obligation being placed. And the idea that property exists in nature is patently absurd; all that exists in nature is the larger animal eating the smaller animal, the "rights" of the smaller animal be damned.
You're correct that property does not exist absent a relevant legal framework. That is not, however, a compelling argument that property should not exist.

Interesting.
That why I always though Rawls was crazy with his "veil of ignorance". Behind his veil, I'd choose a society where I had a chance to succeed, not one where I was guaranteed not to fail.

That why I always though Rawls was crazy with his "veil of ignorance". Behind his veil, I'd choose a society where I had a chance to succeed, not one where I was guaranteed not to fail.
You would. I wouldn't. I do not gamble. The question is, what would most people do?

I think Rawls was correct in that most people are risk-averse.

The ' => ' looks vaguely phallic.

Not to delve into the subconcious reasons the OP wrote the thread title as it is....

That why I always though Rawls was crazy with his "veil of ignorance". Behind his veil, I'd choose a society where I had a chance to succeed, not one where I was guaranteed not to fail.Even if the consequences of not succeeding were worse than the societies that guaranteed failure? Especially if those consequences were the result of random chance?

Even if the consequences of not succeeding were worse than the societies that guaranteed failure? Especially if those consequences were the result of random chance?
There's always a neutral option available: Death. Hugely negative outcomes aren't that dissuasive because they're easily escapable.

You would. I wouldn't. I do not gamble. The question is, what would most people do?

I think Rawls was correct in that most people are risk-averse.
But if I wouldn't, then I am disenfranchised by that way of thinking should the majority choose to structure society like that.

There's always a neutral option available: Death. Hugely negative outcomes aren't that dissuasive because they're easily escapable.Death is itself a hugely negative outcome, though arguably not the worst.

Death is itself a hugely negative outcome, though arguably not the worst.
How is death negative? It's non-existence. It is, by definition, a null value.

But if I wouldn't, then I am disenfranchised by that way of thinking should the majority choose to structure society like that.
By that line of thinking, the only other option is for the majority to be disenfranchised if you got your way.

That why I always though Rawls was crazy with his "veil of ignorance". Behind his veil, I'd choose a society where I had a chance to succeed, not one where I was guaranteed not to fail.

Ummm.... given Rawls' 3 principles(equal basic liberties, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle) and his elaboration on what that entails it would make it seem that he wants a society that gives everyone a chance to suceed and mitigation of the failure if one does not.

No. Harmless activity should never be illegal.


Then all that remains is to define 'harm'.

How is death negative? It's non-existence. It is, by definition, a null value.

Only if you neglect to allow for the fact that people are interdependent.

Example - while my death might be 'null' to me (or might not, it's not a choice I would run towards), it would impact at least 4 people in very negative fashion - since they depend upon me.

That is not, however, a compelling argument that property should not exist.

I'm not making any such argument. If anything, I wish only to suggest new ways to think about and use property.

No one can deny you that right but nature. The right only implies that nobody can kill you, not that you can't die of natural means. I.e. you have a right to try and survive without anyone trying to stop you, which you most likely will, but there is no guarantee that you wont die of cancer.


Denying me access to food, drink, or shelter because they are stolen from me, because I cannot afford it, because I have the wrong skin color, or a multitude of other reasons stops me from living. All of these reasons have a human and social origin having nothing to do with nature.

Forbidding me access to sustenance because I fail to meet socially imposed requirements is not to "die of natural means."


Sorry, nobody, neither me nor the government. Again, the only obligation is the government in stopping me from limiting your rights.

The incidental, accidental, unintentional, intentional or other consequences of your actions and choices can, however, limit my rights. Direct attack is not necessary in order to limit rights. Again, what meaningful right to life does a person possess if the political, economic, or social organization and rules can deny what is necessary to make use of that right?

If I cannot afford to eat or keep shelter, what right to life do I really have?

There's a difference between being told I'm not allowed to deprive someone of property they already possess and being told I must give some of my property to someone who has none.

One is the natural state that exists in my absence. The other requires my intervention.

And that... matters?

But why? That's the question.

For option 1 to be compelling, it needs to be demonstrably better than option 2, and it's not.

Depends what you mean by "better".

I think an option 1 dog-eat-dog world is worse because a) you have to spend your whole life watching your back, b) if you're in any sort of trouble you don't get any help, c) a lot of effort is wasted trying to beat other people rather than working together.

It's quite possible that somebody else thinks all those things are good things, in which case they will clearly prefer option 1 above the option 2 let's-all-be-nice-to-each-other scenario. I don't, which is why, as I say, I'll continue to work towards option 2 thank you very much. :)

But that ignores the benefits of productivity that results from personal ambition.

No, I explicitly mentioned that: as I said, option 2 (i.e. extreme capitalism) includes an inherent incentive to work hard and be successful, whereas option 1 (i.e. extreme socailism) promotes freeloading and abuse of the system.

I would like to point out, however, that not only utilitarianism, but any ethical doctrine which does not consider the prevention of death as the absolute highest good can theoretically be used to justify the deaths of millions under the right conditions.

Or, more generally, any ethical doctrine at allcan be used to justify any very bad thing of your choice, under the right conditions (i.e. if it is the only way to prevent an even worse thing).

Thinking up silly examples to show that your opponent's ethical position can be used to justify murder, genocide, or torture is a very old (and very easy) parlour game.

No, it's bad when laws govern my personal behavior in accordance with what YOU Believe is right and/or wrong.

How does that work then? Criminal law in general is about prohibiting certain personal behaviour that is agreed by most people to be wrong. Are you saying that all criminal legislation is bad, and all behaviour should be legal?

Or what do you mean by 'personal behaviour'?

How is death negative? It's non-existence. It is, by definition, a null value.How would non-existence be by definition a null value?

WTF do you mean probably? How can you even visualize a scenario where personal freedom is restricted and the result is happier people?

Where the personal freedom to assault random strangers is curtailed, or example. A few thugs are less happy because they're sitting in jail; the vast majority is happier because it's much safer to go out in public.

Where the personal freedom to assault random strangers is curtailed, or example. A few thugs are less happy because they're sitting in jail; the vast majority is happier because it's much safer to go out in public.

Well, that personal freedom is hardly 'personal' if random strangers must be involved, don't you think?

Where the personal freedom to assault random strangers is curtailed, or example. A few thugs are less happy because they're sitting in jail; the vast majority is happier because it's much safer to go out in public.
How does that work then? Criminal law in general is about prohibiting certain personal behaviour that is agreed by most people to be wrong. Are you saying that all criminal legislation is bad, and all behaviour should be legal?

Or what do you mean by 'personal behaviour'?

This:

Not exactly. What I advocate isn't so much the Government adopting my personal beliefs, but rather the Government enforcing nobody's.

(Except for those obvious values we could consider universal, like legislating against murder, rape, theft, etc.)

Then all that remains is to define 'harm'.
That's the most important part of any legal system.

What I advocate isn't so much the Government adopting my personal beliefs, but rather the Government enforcing nobody's.
Well said.

This position makes vastly more sense than any of the positions that involve the government imposing the views of a subset of the population on the entire population.

If you want to establish a system of mandatory charity yourself, go right ahead. Don't ask the government to help you.

I meant they can choose whatever job they wish within their field. Naturally, brilliant programmers cannot choose to be airline pilots.
Who decides what my field is?

What about children? Into what field do they go? Can they choose? If they can, that just creates the same problem I described.
Irrelevant. We are talking about income equality, independent of the size of government. The argument was that equality per se reduces incentives, not that big government reduces incentives (that is a separate argument).
But forced equality is the relevant factor. Equality that arises without government intervention necessarily would not have the same disincentive effects.
But they can at least provide a little weight to an argument.
But they don't, because you haven't corrected for any confounding factors.
Because they count a lot of things that everyone (including socialists) can agree with, such as effective rule of law, as part of "economic freedom." Basically they don't measure capitalism, they measure the aggregate effect of capitalism plus a bunch of good stuff that everyone supports. Naturally, they find a positive effect.

Besides, the Scandinavian countries routinely score among the top 10 on "economic freedom," despite being the most socialist countries in the world.
In the 2007 Gwartney/Lawson report, none of the Scandinavian countries are in the top 10. Iceland and Finland are tied at 11, Sweden is at 22 (tied with Hungary, Cyprus, and Latvia), and Norway is down at 30 (tied with Panama).

http://www.freetheworld.com/

So? Your potential victims wouldn't.

So we consider what we would want if we were in another's situation and act in accordance unless we determine that such an action would not be suitable to our future wants?

Applying equal consideration to all leads to the satisfaction of need because of declining marginal utility.

What do you mean and why is it relevant?

Who decides what my field is?
You do. However, you must choose from a list of existing fields. You could also presumably establish a new one, if you get enough people to sign a petition demanding it.

It is in your interest to choose a field you are good in, because that way you can rise as high as your abilities allow and get the benefits I described in earlier posts.

What about children? Into what field do they go? Can they choose? If they can, that just creates the same problem I described.
Children go to school, not into any workplace.

But forced equality is the relevant factor.
Not true. We socialists value equality and do not care how such equality is achieved. A society that achieves equality by non-governmental means is just as good as one that achieves equality through government intervention.

Most socialists favour what you call "statism" because we believe that state intervention is the best means to achieve equality, but we attach no inherent value to state intervention itself. If we found a better way to achieve equality, we would adopt that instead.

In the 2007 Gwartney/Lawson report, none of the Scandinavian countries are in the top 10. Iceland and Finland are tied at 11, Sweden is at 22 (tied with Hungary, Cyprus, and Latvia), and Norway is down at 30 (tied with Panama).
I was thinking of the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation reports, but whatever. My points still stand. Such reports don't measure capitalism, they measure the aggregate effect of capitalism plus a bunch of good stuff that everyone supports. And your points about the flaws of comparing countries also stand.

I'm sure you could also find a strong positive correlation between geographical position and GDP per capita, but that doesn't mean that there's something about the European or North American continents that magically causes economies to grow.

What I advocate isn't so much the Government adopting my personal beliefs, but rather the Government enforcing nobody's.
Well said.

This position makes vastly more sense than any of the positions that involve the government imposing the views of a subset of the population on the entire population.
No, it doesn't, because this position is in itself an ethical position.

In other words, look at it this way: You say that the government should not impose ethics on anyone. But if my ethics require me to force you to pay for welfare, you would want to use government power to prevent me from acting according to my ethics.

You want to impose [classical] liberal ethics on everyone, under the ethical belief that people have no right to interfere in other people's lives.

We socialists value equality and do not care how such equality is achieved.
I don't think you can talk for all socialists on that one.

And besides, if some get hurt and others receive help, they're not being treated equally, so whatever equality you're after, equal treatment by the law it ain't.

You want to impose [classical] liberal ethics on everyone, under the ethical belief that people have no right to interfere in other people's lives.
Or rather, no right to use violence to do so. And there are multiple potential reasons for this, in my case it comes back to the idea that the use of violence is the denial of reason, which is the denial of your tool you need to live. Your gripe is not with the other person, but with nature - by taking from another you're not actually freeing yourself from the need to interact with nature and change it in a way that allows you to live your life the way you want it. By taking from another you're feeding off their ability to live until it's gone, and then you have the same problem as before.

I don't think you can talk for all socialists on that one.
True, though I believe I can talk for the majority of socialists - or at least the majority of "state socialists." I have never seen a socialist argue that the state is good in and of itself; we tend to merely argue that the state is the most effective means to an end.

And besides, if some get hurt and others receive help, they're not being treated equally, so whatever equality you're after, equal treatment by the law it ain't.
Equality under the law requires that people get equal treatment if they are in similar situations. It does not require that all people get the same treatment all the time.

For example, in most places, the law requires that criminals get punished and victims receive help from the police. Does that mean that criminals and victims are not equal under the law?

No, because the point is that every suspect is treated equally, every victim is treated equally and every person guilty of a given crime is treated equally. Likewise, socialism treats all wealthy people equally and all poor people equally, but it does not give the same treatment to rich and poor any more than justice gives the same treatment to the criminal and the victim.

For example, in most places, the law requires that criminals get punished and victims receive help from the police. Does that mean that criminals and victims are not equal under the law?
I see the point you're trying to make, but I don't think it applies. The criminal commits a crime, he gives up some of his rights by violating those of others.

Being wealthy or poor isn't a crime, it's not a violation of anyone else's rights. It's a more or less arbitrary distinction imposed by the state in this case, from which it then grants itself the right to treat people differently. It's not really any different to saying "Jews aren't allowed to drive cars". Sure, the same law applies to everyone, but the law itself treats different people differently.

I see the point you're trying to make, but I don't think it applies. The criminal commits a crime, he gives up some of his rights by violating those of others.
And the capitalist exploits the working class and causes harm to society (I am deliberating avoiding using rights-language, because I am a utilitarian).

Being wealthy or poor isn't a crime, it's not a violation of anyone else's rights.
Being wealthy is the result of exploiting workers, so it is most certainly unethical and should be a crime.

It's a more or less arbitrary distinction imposed by the state in this case, from which it then grants itself the right to treat people differently. It's not really any different to saying "Jews aren't allowed to drive cars". Sure, the same law applies to everyone, but the law itself treats different people differently.
Being wealthy is the result of your actions. Being Jewish is not the result of your actions. That is the difference. And I wouldn't say that differences in wealth are an "arbitrary distinction imposed by the state..."

Besides, wouldn't you agree that there is a fundamental difference between saying "Jews should be locked up" and saying "criminals should be locked up?" Yes, both Jews and criminals are groups of people, but they are not morally equivalent groups of people, are they?

Or rather, no right to use violence to do so. And there are multiple potential reasons for this, in my case it comes back to the idea that the use of violence is the denial of reason, which is the denial of your tool you need to live.
First of all, that is pure sophistry. Second, it is still an ethical position which you seek to impose on everyone else.

And third, the "denial" of a tool - whatever that means - does not prevent a person still using the tool. For instance, even according to your philosophy, I could "deny" the use of reason by forcing you to do something, then spend a few hours doing productive work on my own and thus use the very reason which I have supposedly "denied." Or better still, I could use my reason to determine the best way to force you to do something, thus "denying" reason and using reason all at once.

Your gripe is not with the other person, but with nature - by taking from another...
Who said anything about taking? Requiring people to behave in a certain fashion does not necessarily involve taking anything from them.

...you're not actually freeing yourself from the need to interact with nature and change it in a way that allows you to live your life the way you want it.
See, you keep getting stuck on the assumption that my only interests are in my life and the way I live. What if I'm really interested in your life and the way you live? What if I'm interested in the lives of everyone on the planet?

And the capitalist exploits the working class and causes harm to society
Proof?

Being wealthy is the result of exploiting workers, so it is most certainly unethical and should be a crime.
What if I'm being wealthy because I dug up the biggest diamond ever found in my backyard?

Being wealthy is the result of your actions. Being Jewish is not the result of your actions. That is the difference.
Sure it is. You can change your religion.

By the way, I like the way "being wealthy is the result of your actions" and worthy of a crime, but being poor isn't. If being poor isn't a choice, and becoming rich is not a choice a poor person can make either...why the hell is being wealthy a result of my actions? Why is it a crime, if I never had a choice? Aren't I the victim of a cruel, cruel fate?

And third, the "denial" of a tool - whatever that means - does not prevent a person still using the tool.
It does in this case, because reason is by definition not something that tolerates inconsistency.

Forcing others to do something is basically like lying to yourself. You're trying to make whatever idea you have equivalent to right by making others behave as if it were.

So yes, you can use reason some of the time, but you'd only be living some of the time. And if the other person chooses death rather than act according to your wishes, that's gonna be the end of everything you stand for.

Who said anything about taking? Requiring people to behave in a certain fashion does not necessarily involve taking anything from them.
Of course it does. You're taking whatever else they would have done or made from them.

See, you keep getting stuck on the assumption that my only interests are in my life and the way I live. What if I'm really interested in your life and the way you live?
Then you're not alive, and shouldn't have a problem with getting murdered right now. It's what I've been saying before - following a moral code that advocates the destruction of one's own ability to make moral choices is either a paradox or evil.

Let's settle this.

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me? My "commission vs omission" thread didn't quite go in that direction, so I'm trying again.

Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it. One way to do that is to trade, by providing some sort of value in return for whatever I need. The other way is if I cannot provide anything in return.

Jello Biafra in another thread just mentioned that a right essentially confers an obligation, either negatively (ie I have an obligation not to kill you) and positively (ie I have an obligation to save you falling off the cliff). So then the question isn't so much about need as it is about how to justify a right to, say, dignified and sufficiently equal living standards, which would then make my need and your obligation essentially the same thing.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?

You don't know anyone whose about to commit suicide, do you? Sorry, it's late at night, and that's what it sounds like.

You don't know anyone whose about to commit suicide, do you? Sorry, it's late at night, and that's what it sounds like.
Not that I know of, no.

Proof?
I could explain the labour theory of value to you, but I get the feeling you know it already.

What if I'm being wealthy because I dug up the biggest diamond ever found in my backyard?
In that case, you are wealthy as a result of taking advantage of an illegitimate system of property rights that allows you to keep the rewards of such a find to yourself as opposed to sharing those rewards between all members of society.

So it's not exactly exploiting workers in this case, but it still is depriving society of what should rightfully belong to it, and therefore illegitimate.

Sure it is. You can change your religion.
I was assuming you were referring to a more or less Nazi-esque policy that defined Jews by their family heritage, but okay.

In you converted to Judaism, the difference between being a Jew and being a criminal is that committing a crime is an unethical action while converting to Judaism is an ethically neutral action.

By the way, I like the way "being wealthy is the result of your actions" and worthy of a crime, but being poor isn't. If being poor isn't a choice, and becoming rich is not a choice a poor person can make either...why the hell is being wealthy a result of my actions? Why is it a crime, if I never had a choice? Aren't I the victim of a cruel, cruel fate?
Alright, I was being inexact and using "wealthy" as a synonym for "capitalist," which I shouldn't have.

Yes, the amount of wealth you have is not the result of your actions. The poor are not poor through their own fault and the rich are not rich through their own merits. However, I would like to point out that since your ability to control your own fate depends on your wealth, a rich person has far more control over his own life than a poor person.

However, the point is that being a capitalist - in other words, being a member of the ruling class - is the result of your actions, and most (though admittedly not all) rich people are capitalists. Undoubtedly, there are also poor people who wish to be capitalists but cannot achieve their wishes. However, wishing to commit a crime is not a crime in and of itself, so they are innocent.

Not that I know of, no.

Oh. In that case, just to throw in my own two cents (or is that sense?), I think everyone has a moral obligation for both senarios. Refusing to help someone in dire peril when they could be easily saved in almost as bad as killing someone. However, I don't think refusal to help should be covered in the legal code because it is difficult to justly administer.

BTW- Bist du ein Deutscher?

BTW- Bist du ein Deutscher?
Laut Pass, ja.

Laut Pass, ja.

Ahh, wunderbar! Aber was bedeutet "Laut Pass"? Ich lerne Deutsch noch...

Ahh, wunderbar! Aber was bedeutet "Laut Pass"? Ich lerne Deutsch noch...
Basically "according to the passport". But you seem to be pretty good at it, though you can drop the comma in your signature and make it "Im Himmel".

Basically "according to the passport". But you seem to be pretty good at it, though you can drop the comma in your signature and make it "Im Himmel".

Danke. I've taken German for years but I still need to work on my grammar...

It does in this case, because reason is by definition not something that tolerates inconsistency.
You're talking in abstract concepts and I'm talking in concrete actions. You may think that using reason in certain ways is not really using reason, or living in certain ways means you're not really alive. But for my part, I am concerned with concrete, visible, measurable results.

And if you think I'm offending reason by using my reason to deny reason, well frankly that's your problem.

Forcing others to do something is basically like lying to yourself. You're trying to make whatever idea you have equivalent to right by making others behave as if it were.
No, because forcing others to do something is not about me or my ideas, it's about the physical universe and the practical consequences of people's actions.

So yes, you can use reason some of the time, but you'd only be living some of the time.
Biology disagrees. And I also disagree. I think, therefore I am, and we have already established that forcing you to do something does not magically shut down my brain.

And if the other person chooses death rather than act according to your wishes, that's gonna be the end of everything you stand for.
I must admit I completely fail to understand what you're talking about, but I strongly suspect it has something to do with treating abstract ideas as if they have some independent existence of their own.

See, you keep getting stuck on the assumption that my only interests are in my life and the way I live. What if I'm really interested in your life and the way you live?
Then you're not alive, and shouldn't have a problem with getting murdered right now.
Are you insane? I assure you that I have a pulse. And I also assure you that I will not accept any definition of "being alive" other than the biological one, because any other definition is really just a deceitful way to take a concept other than life and give it the name "life."

I am alive. My body functions, my brain functions, and I think. I am also, at the moment, moderately happy. I know what life and happiness are. Now, what is this other thing you want to sell me?

It's what I've been saying before - following a moral code that advocates the destruction of one's own ability to make moral choices is either a paradox or evil.
Not if one accepts that one's self is not the supreme arbiter of morality.

That's the most important part of any legal system.

And it's pretty arbitrary - thus your comment was pretty much a waste of time.

You can argue that 'harm' only means 'pain' and 'death'... I can argue that it means 'suffering'. My definition forbids a whole load of actions your narrow definition might allow. Allowing someone to go hungry could be 'harm'...

How is death negative? It's non-existence. It is, by definition, a null value.

Death implies suffering on the relatives/friends, so even in itself, it's not a null value.

But the most important is the "opportunity cost" of death, if you really want to use such stupid economical ways of looking at things.

And besides, if some get hurt and others receive help, they're not being treated equally, so whatever equality you're after, equal treatment by the law it ain't.

Equality itself has no real meaning. The question is equality of what. The (neo)liberal crowds speak of equality of chances, which is basically making the whole life a big lottery with happy winners and losers suffering all their life. And they don't have propose anyway to reach it, because through all the consequences (both direct and indirect) of having a wealthy or poor family, they in fact just recreate an "economical feodality" as the CNR (national council of french resistance against nazism) so beautifully said.

Leftists, socialists speak of equality of rights. The right to have a roof, to have food, to be cured when you're sick, to receive education, to have free time to dedicate to your family and your hobbies, and so on. That's the equality we seek. Taking wealth from some and giving it to others may be a way to reach it, but it is no way a break of "equality", because the equality we are speaking of is the equality of rights.

And there is another form of equality that capitalists always refuse... same reward for the same work. In a capitalist system, your earning depends as much, if not more, of the wealth you already have (the capital you own) than on the work you do...

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me? My "commission vs omission" thread didn't quite go in that direction, so I'm trying again.
Golden Rule, I'd say, or compassion if you prefer.
Compassion from cum + pati (latin) meaning feeling together. If I can picture myself in your own situation, I can feel the ethical (not moral) obligation of helping you, because I would like someone to help me - and even think that I have the right to receive help from a fellow human - if I were in your situation. That is, I help with a sort of "implicit promise of eventual future return were I in need", if you get my mind.


Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it. ...

Mhh. The need might also arise because external, objective conditions, independently of your internal abilities or will, prevent you from fullfilling your needs on your own - take a poor man born in a poor country from a poor family who suddenly needs costly medical care.


Jello Biafra in another thread just mentioned that a right essentially confers an obligation, ...
I'd say he's right - that's why I feel just to pay taxes: to uphold the welfare state.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?
Yes. Or, at least, I must contribute, in a measure according to my own needs also, to the human society so that the society will be able to give you insulin. Why? Because I'm human, you're human, and we have to live in a society to continue to exist, as species and as individuals.

Well, that personal freedom is hardly 'personal' if random strangers must be involved, don't you think?

Unless you live alone on a desert island, everything you do is likely to have some sort of repercussions on somebody else. Where would you like to draw the line?

What I advocate isn't so much the Government adopting my personal beliefs, but rather the Government enforcing nobody's.

(Except for those obvious values we could consider universal, like legislating against murder, rape, theft, etc.)

Just because you and I agree on those particular values, doesn't make them either obvious or universal. Plenty of historical scenarios where all of those behaviours are considered acceptable by certain people, even whole populations.

Sounds to me that what you're actually saying is that the Government should enforce nobody's beliefs except where a sufficient majority agree strongly enough. Which is not nearly so clear-cut, is it?

Just because you and I agree on those particular values, doesn't make them either obvious or universal. Plenty of historical scenarios where all of those behaviours are considered acceptable by certain people, even whole populations.

Sounds to me that what you're actually saying is that the Government should enforce nobody's beliefs except where a sufficient majority agree strongly enough. Which is not nearly so clear-cut, is it?

In a Democratic system, that's exactly what happens.

In other words, the government should be prohibited from taking any action against me so long as I disagree with said action?

No, in other words nobody's individual values are held as superior to anyone else's.

What I advocate isn't so much the Government adopting my personal beliefs, but rather the Government enforcing nobody's.
Well said.

This position makes vastly more sense than any of the positions that involve the government imposing the views of a subset of the population on the entire population.

In other words, the government should be prohibited from taking any action against me so long as I disagree with said action?

No, in other words nobody's individual values are held as superior to anyone else's.

what if they are superior?

what if they are superior?

AH, but who would be qualified to make THAT call on behalf of the country?

If your answer is anyone but "nobody" then you're part of the problem, not the solution.

AH, but who would be qualified to make THAT call on behalf of the country?

If your answer is anyone but "nobody" then you're part of the problem, not the solution.

I don't think any country should aim to refelct the highest and most superior moral values in its legal system anyway, no matter what the majority of the population think.
I think when it comes to morality and legislation, democracy is not the right tool. If it was, it would be fair to assume that black still would be segregated, women still wouldn't have the right to vote anywhere, and gay marriage wouldn't even be open for discussion.
Rather, legilation needs to find viable and practicable compromises between average moral values and everyday life.

AH, but who would be qualified to make THAT call on behalf of the country?

If your answer is anyone but "nobody" then you're part of the problem, not the solution.
Your problem, not mine.

The answer, by the way, is "the people."

And as I said in a previous post, you're still trying to impose your ethics on others. Look at it this way: You say that the government should not impose ethics on anyone. But if my ethics require me to force you to pay for welfare, you would want to use government power to prevent me from acting according to my ethics.

You want to impose [classical] liberal ethics on everyone, under the ethical belief that people have no right to interfere in other people's lives.

Your problem, not mine.

The answer, by the way, is "the people."

And as I said in a previous post, you're still trying to impose your ethics on others. Look at it this way: You say that the government should not impose ethics on anyone. But if my ethics require me to force you to pay for welfare, you would want to use government power to prevent me from acting according to my ethics.

You want to impose [classical] liberal ethics on everyone, under the ethical belief that people have no right to interfere in other people's lives.

Everybody's problem. It's just a question of whether you want to ignore it as long as things are done your way.

The fact is, morality/ethics is not the realm of Government. The baseline is that Government is only there to defend individual rights. That's why things like murder, theft and rape are considered to be universally wrong... because they are examples of people preying upon each other... violating one's right to property, life or choice. My advocacy of that is merely advocating the absence of any particular ethical code.

On the other hand, if someone advocated a welfare system then they ARE trying to impose a particular set of ethics because welfare is not an example of a universally accepted point of view precisely because a lack of welfare is not an example of anyone violating anyone else's rights.

I think when it comes to morality and legislation, democracy is not the right tool. If it was, it would be fair to assume that black still would be segregated, women still wouldn't have the right to vote anywhere, and gay marriage wouldn't even be open for discussion.
No, it wouldn't be fair to assume that at all (except perhaps for the gay marriage part).

First of all, democracy assumes that all adults can vote, so you couldn't possibly use democratic principles to justify denying voting rights to women or minorities. Second of all, most males have been in favour of giving women the right to vote since the beginning of the 20th century anyway. That's how female suffrage got passed in the first place.

As far as segregation is concerned, first of all I am sure that most whites today are opposed to it, and second of all I'd like to remind you that a democratic vote requires that everyone votes - not just whites. If blacks are, say, 30% of the population, then they only need an additional 21% - a minority of whites - to agree with them in order to form a democratic majority and end segregation.

The fact is, morality/ethics is not the realm of Government. The baseline is that Government is only there to defend individual rights.

What *his* individual rights is a moral, ethical point of view. I consider that "right to education", "right to healthcare" and "right to housing" are "individual rights" on the same level than the right to free speech or to a fair trial.

That's why things like murder, theft and rape are considered to be universally wrong...

There are cultures in which one or several of them are considered to be right.

because they are examples of people preying upon each other... violating one's right to property, life or choice.

And aren't things like usury, or exploiting underpaid workforce, "people preying upon each other" ?

My advocacy of that is merely advocating the absence of any particular ethical code.

Defining that right to property is a "right" while right to healthcare is not is an ethical code. Private property is in no way a "natural" thing, it's something that was created by modern societies. It doesn't mean it's either right or wrong, but choosing to enforce this "right" while not enforcing other "rights" is an ethical choice.

On the other hand, if someone advocated a welfare system then they ARE trying to impose a particular set of ethics because welfare is not an example of a universally accepted point of view precisely because a lack of welfare is not an example of anyone violating anyone else's rights.

I consider that if you have a lot of wealth, but you let people die from starvation/curable disease/... you violate their rights much more than a starving person violates the rights of a shop owner when he steals an apple or a bag of rice. And many people share my opinion. So it's not "universally accepted" that theft is wrong, in this case.

Everybody's problem. It's just a question of whether you want to ignore it as long as things are done your way.
I would accept it even if things were not done my way. Vox populi, vox dei.

Besides, things are not currently done my way - we don't have a socialist economic system - and I still accept the right of the people to choose for themselves to keep things as they are.

The fact is, morality/ethics is not the realm of Government. The baseline is that Government is only there to defend individual rights.
INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS ARE AN ETHICAL POSITION. How many times do I need to say this?

That's why things like murder, theft and rape are considered to be universally wrong...
They are not considered universally wrong. They are considered wrong by a large majority of people in our society. But not by everyone in our society. Murderers, for example, disagree.

On the other hand, if someone advocated a welfare system then they ARE trying to impose a particular set of ethics because welfare is not an example of a universally accepted point of view precisely because a lack of welfare is not an example of anyone violating anyone else's rights.
What if welfare was a universally accepted point of view, or at least had the same approval rating as anti-murder laws? (which it does in some places)

And I find it hillarious that you keep talking about rights while apparently failing to realize that a belief in rights represents an ethical view. Besides, who gets to decide what rights we have? You? The government? The people? Looks like someone has to enforce ethics after all.

No, it doesn't, because this position is in itself an ethical position.

In other words, look at it this way: You say that the government should not impose ethics on anyone. But if my ethics require me to force you to pay for welfare, you would want to use government power to prevent me from acting according to my ethics.

You want to impose [classical] liberal ethics on everyone, under the ethical belief that people have no right to interfere in other people's lives.
No. You can interfere in people's lives all you want - you just don't get to have the coercive power of the state behind you. If you do, you're indirectly forcing all citizens to participate in your interference, thus depriving them of the option not to interfere.

I'm not saying you can't interfere in people's lives. I'm saying you have to do it on your own, and the people are allowed to resist.

You do. However, you must choose from a list of existing fields. You could also presumably establish a new one, if you get enough people to sign a petition demanding it.

It is in your interest to choose a field you are good in, because that way you can rise as high as your abilities allow and get the benefits I described in earlier posts.
No, it's in my interest to choose a field in which I can excel with the least effort. That means easier fields will be more appealing.

High-risk or very difficult fields will be staffed by those least capable generally.
Not true. We socialists value equality and do not care how such equality is achieved. A society that achieves equality by non-governmental means is just as good as one that achieves equality through government intervention.

Most socialists favour what you call "statism" because we believe that state intervention is the best means to achieve equality, but we attach no inherent value to state intervention itself. If we found a better way to achieve equality, we would adopt that instead.
Great. I suspect your position is uncommon, but I do like that your position makes sense.

That said, what's so great about equality? Why does equality have intrinsic value?
I was thinking of the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation reports, but whatever. My points still stand. Such reports don't measure capitalism, they measure the aggregate effect of capitalism plus a bunch of good stuff that everyone supports. And your points about the flaws of comparing countries also stand.
I'll accept that, though I really don't like the Heritage Foundation report.
I'm sure you could also find a strong positive correlation between geographical position and GDP per capita, but that doesn't mean that there's something about the European or North American continents that magically causes economies to grow.
I've read credible arguments that Europe's climate encourages urbanisation and industrialisation in a way Africa's doesn't.

What *his* individual rights is a moral, ethical point of view. I consider that "right to education", "right to healthcare" and "right to housing" are "individual rights" on the same level than the right to free speech or to a fair trial.

There's a substantial difference between provision rights to something, and rights that are a protection from something, specifically forms of direct coercive force or fraud. Protection rights do not require action or interference until an injustice has occurred. To restore the balance and justice to the natural order of things. Provision rights attempt to restructure the natural balance, their application is far more complex, and as all things are, have greater unintended consequences as the scale of the application increases.

Defining that right to property is a "right" while right to healthcare is not is an ethical code. Private property is in no way a "natural" thing, it's something that was created by modern societies. It doesn't mean it's either right or wrong, but choosing to enforce this "right" while not enforcing other "rights" is an ethical choice.

Once again, protection of property rights is a protection, not a provision, right. To protect him, and the product of his liberty, from coercive seizure.

What *his* individual rights is a moral, ethical point of view. I consider that "right to education", "right to healthcare" and "right to housing" are "individual rights" on the same level than the right to free speech or to a fair trial.


And I would disagree, because housing and healthcare would have to be provided by the community, thus placing a burden on them, wheras the right to free speech/religion/press or the right to have a speedy trial (as opposed to a slow one) do not.


There are cultures in which one or several of them are considered to be right.


The definition of 'rape' may change (for example) but the concept is universally wrong.

Disagree? Name an exception.


And aren't things like usury, or exploiting underpaid workforce, "people preying upon each other" ?


Not universally. The former isn't much different from interest charges.

The latter is a matter of normal day life in many places. Now, in our culture, it IS considered universally wrong and thus illegal.


Defining that right to property is a "right" while right to healthcare is not is an ethical code. Private property is in no way a "natural" thing, it's something that was created by modern societies. It doesn't mean it's either right or wrong, but choosing to enforce this "right" while not enforcing other "rights" is an ethical choice.


First of all, right to healthcare is a matter of opinion and poossibly ethics. In either case, it's not universally held to be valid.

Second, what do you mean modern societies? Personal property has existed at least long enough for theft to be punishable by a savered hand in Hamurabi's code. Hardly modern.


I consider that if you have a lot of wealth, but you let people die from starvation/curable disease/... you violate their rights much more than a starving person violates the rights of a shop owner when he steals an apple or a bag of rice. And many people share my opinion. So it's not "universally accepted" that theft is wrong, in this case.

You'd be hard pressed to make a case to defend the former assertion in any case, but at best y ou're expressing an opinion, not a legal reality.

I would accept it even if things were not done my way. Vox populi, vox dei.

Besides, things are not currently done my way - we don't have a socialist economic system - and I still accept the right of the people to choose for themselves to keep things as they are.


That's nice.


INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS ARE AN ETHICAL POSITION. How many times do I need to say this?


You can say it 1,000,000 times with a megaphone on a pulpit and it won't magically become so as a result.

Ethics are how you deal with people's rights. Not the formation therof.


They are not considered universally wrong. They are considered wrong by a large majority of people in our society. But not by everyone in our society. Murderers, for example, disagree.


Is this an argument by exception you're making? People who violate universal rights are hardly an example of a valid position, wouldn't you say?


What if welfare was a universally accepted point of view, or at least had the same approval rating as anti-murder laws? (which it does in some places)


What are you trying to prove with a hypothetical? As I noted above, rights exist regardless of the community's ability to provide support for them, thus you'd have a helluva time constructing that hypothetical in a seamless way where it's on the same level as freedom of speech, for example.


And I find it hillarious that you keep talking about rights while apparently failing to realize that a belief in rights represents an ethical view. Besides, who gets to decide what rights we have? You? The government? The people? Looks like someone has to enforce ethics after all.

Well according to the Declaration of Independence, certain rights are endowed by God. All of the derived rights in the Bill of Rights are rooted in that.

If you don't believe in God then it's anybody's guess what the original source of rights is, since the role of Government is to protect them, not to grant them.

You and I seem to be working off of two disparate meanings for the term 'ethics.' I see eithics as closely tied to morality, or in other words, that which is right and wrong. This isn't the same as defining rights.

Ethics (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ethics)

For example, I believe that fornication is immoral. To encourage someone to do it is unethical (IMHO). That has nothing to do with the legal right, or lack therof, to sleep with someone you're not married to.

Maybe that's a good way to define it... Ethics can be subjective, rights are not. What you find ethical or moral may be utterly different from what I do, yet we both have the same rights under the same laws, regardless of our opinino on it.

I've read credible arguments that Europe's climate encourages urbanisation and industrialisation in a way Africa's doesn't.

Climate and geographic location, I'd say.

Jared Diamond pointed out this fact quite well when talking about the plight of Africa in Guns, Germs and Steel. Historically, Africa has been faced by the challenges of a tropical climate, specifically, the challenges of diseases in a tropical climate. These diseases make settlements on bodies of freshwater, especially rivers and lakes, incredibly hazardous, and large settlements even more so. Large human settlements on such waterways are almost impossible, because of the challenges posed by diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and sleeping sickness.

The agricultural revolution that occurred in Europe proved to be key in permitting the industrial revolution to occur. Without this, small farmers would not be outclassed by those using the new techniques, and they would not have been forced to search for labor in the cities, the swelling cities of post-AR Europe permitted sufficient labor surplus to exist, for the Industrial revolution to occur.

Agricultural revolution or no, as I pointed out earlier, mass cities like London and Berlin are not as feasible in Africa as they are in Europe because of the tropical climate. The riverine trading posts that were the center of trade in craft and guild economies, and later became the industrial hubs, cannot simply grow as large in Africa as they can in Europe.

Further, Europe and North America have significantly higher proportions of navigable rivers than does Africa. Placid, slow rivers like the Rhine or the Mississippi facilitate easy and cheap transportation to coastal port facilities to this very day.

Also, because of the sheer size of the continent of Africa, many areas are extremely remote from access to the sealanes that have permitted the economic success and growth that has benefited East, Southeast and South Asia so greatly. Without this access to the seas, so much of Africa is cursed to higher prices of imported goods, as well as higher prices (thus lower demand) for their exported goods. (in comparison to manufacturing costs, of course)

The regions that do have ready oceanic access are impacted negatively by the economic woes and uncertainty of the interior.

No. You can interfere in people's lives all you want - you just don't get to have the coercive power of the state behind you.

But private property *is* interfering in people's lives with the coercive power of the state behind you. When a landowner in South America calls the state to expelled peasants from the land he owns, he's doing exactly that. The same holds in "western" countries when a flat owner calls the police to expel someone from the flat when he doesn't/can't pay.

And it's the system, if you look carefully, about the whole capitalist production system.

There's a substantial difference between provision rights to something, and rights that are a protection from something, specifically forms of direct coercive force or fraud.

That's where socialists and "liberals" diasgree. I consider that killing someone by refusing him food you can easily give him is the same as shooting a bullet in his head. The same goes for the society.

Protection rights do not require action or interference until an injustice has occurred.

It does. Because the whole police-justice system needs to be paid (exactly like healthcare needs to be paid). Because if you want to really protect those rights, you've sometimes to act before (by education, by putting cops just to watch over, by putting video cameras, by requiring people to have an ID card, and many other ways used to try with more or less success to enforce the "no killing" or "no stealing" laws).

To restore the balance and justice to the natural order of things.

Which "natural order" ? In "natural order", the strong male take the female, whatever the female wants it or not. Natural order, "law of the jungle", is done without any protection of life or property. As soon as you start protecting them, you go away from the "natural order", which is overall a good thing. Exactly the same goes for healthcare or other forms of welfare.

Provision rights attempt to restructure the natural balance, their application is far more complex, and as all things are, have greater unintended consequences as the scale of the application increases.

I would hardly say that state-provided healthcare as more unintended consequences that state-enforced property laws, with all the consequences of abuse of power from cops, from people convicted by mistake, and from its cost to the taxpayers which is very comparable to the one of healthcare.

But private property *is* interfering in people's lives with the coercive power of the state behind you. When a landowner in South America calls the state to expelled peasants from the land he owns, he's doing exactly that. The same holds in "western" countries when a flat owner calls the police to expel someone from the flat when he doesn't/can't pay.
Fine, let's get rid of state-backed private property.

Problem solved. Welcome to the Libertarian Utopia.

And I would disagree, because housing and healthcare would have to be provided by the community, thus placing a burden on them, wheras the right to free speech/religion/press or the right to have a speedy trial (as opposed to a slow one) do not.

That may hold for right to free speech, that definitely doesn't hold for protection of private property - that requires to be provided by the community, through a police and justice system, and through insurance for destroyed property.

But anyway, I don't consider the right of freedom of press to be real if people can't right (it becomes a useless, purely theorical right), if newspapers cannot be printed because of economical reasons, or if someone can murder the journalist if he doesn't like an article. All of those (basic education, stable economical situation for newspapers, protection of journalists) has to be provided by the community.

The definition of 'rape' may change (for example) but the concept is universally wrong. Disagree? Name an exception.

If you define rape by "illegal sex", then course, it always was illegal. But if you use a sane definition of rape ("sex without consent" for example), then it was widespread in many places and times. It was very very common, and always considered "normal", to rape during war for example. Another example would be the "droit de cuissage", an informal right granted to lords to have sex with any of the women of his estate on their wedding nights.

During a long part of middle ages and in roman era, rape was only considered bad because it was an assault on the property of the husband, not because of the girl herself (and if the husband agreed, everything was ok). And if someone raped a virgin girl, the law was to ask to the father, and marry the girl the rapist if he agreed (for money, usually), without asking her opinion to the girl. You really see how the concept evolved in different cultures and times, and how you can't say it's "universally wrong".

In fact, if you look carefully, rape with really considered as a crime against the woman, and severely punished, only quite recently (second half of the XXest century) in many parts of the western world.

And aren't things like usury, or exploiting underpaid workforce, "people preying upon each other" ?Not universally. The former isn't much different from interest charges.

Which is a way of preying upon each other. You may accept it or support it, but you cannot deny it's a way to prey upon someone else, abusing from his (temporary) weakness for your own good.

The latter is a matter of normal day life in many places.

Which doesn't make it less "preying upon each other".

Now, in our culture, it IS considered universally wrong and thus illegal.

Oh, really ? When you see how poorly paid and badly treated are the people working in fields like construction work, you can't honestly say that.

First of all, right to healthcare is a matter of opinion and poossibly ethics. In either case, it's not universally held to be valid.

No more no less than the right of property, or right of loaning for interest (which was considered a capital sin by the Christian church for centuries, for example). None of those are universally considered to be valid. I personally consider the right to healthcare has much more fundamental than the one to do loan for interest.

Second, what do you mean modern societies? Personal property has existed at least long enough for theft to be punishable by a savered hand in Hamurabi's code. Hardly modern.

That's definitely modern if you consider the history of mankind. The right to property (and the related concept of theft) is usually considered to have appeared slightly after the transition from palaeolithic to neolithic, and even then, it was usually a very limited one.

You'd be hard pressed to make a case to defend the former assertion in any case, but at best y ou're expressing an opinion, not a legal reality.

Yes, I was expressing my socialist opinion, not describing the legal system of a capitalist society.



Ethics are how you deal with people's rights. Not the formation therof.

Then who defines "people's rights" and how ? Do you have any absolute (ie, not "it's this way right now" or "I believe this way") argument to make private property a right, and not healthcare ? Absolutely not.

Ethics is what is a right and what is not a right. And most of all, how do you handle situations in which someone's right contradicts with someone's else right.


They are not considered universally wrong. They are considered wrong by a large majority of people in our society. But not by everyone in our society. Murderers, for example, disagree.
Is this an argument by exception you're making? People who violate universal rights are hardly an example of a valid position, wouldn't you say?

Technically, they are not "universal", as soon as one disagree with them ;)

But things are not as simple as you claim. What is a "murder" ? Killing someone ? Then a soldier is a murderer. An "illegal murder" ? But then stoning a woman who was raped (has it is done in some Islamic countries) is not a murder. Once again, there is no absolute of what is and what is not a murder. It may have been a murder to kill a nazi officer in occupied France between 1940 and 1944, but I would praise the one who did it.

As I noted above, rights exist regardless of the community's ability to provide support for them

That's something socialists strongly disagree with. The right to life doesn't exist in Irak because the society is unable to keep the "terrorists" under control. Exactly the same way, the right to life doesn't exist in USA because people can be left dying just because they can't pay healthcare. In both way, the society failed to protect the right to live. I don't see any difference between both, while a "liberal" will.

If you don't believe in God then it's anybody's guess what the original source of rights is, since the role of Government is to protect them, not to grant them.

There is absolutely no difference between both. The right of property, or the right to not be murdered, doesn't exist in "nature", and is both granted and protected by the government. There is absolutely no conceptual difference between the government using tax money to enforce the "murder is forbidden" law than between the government using tax money to pay for healthcare. Both are the government creating and enforcing a right to life.

You and I seem to be working off of two disparate meanings for the term 'ethics.' I see eithics as closely tied to morality, or in other words, that which is right and wrong. This isn't the same as defining rights.

You see, even the words are the same. Defining what is right and is wrong is not the same than defining what are rights ? Both are two faces on the same concept.

For example, I believe that fornication is immoral. To encourage someone to do it is unethical (IMHO). That has nothing to do with the legal right, or lack therof, to sleep with someone you're not married to.

You're speaking of "legal rights", but "legal rights" are absolutely not universal, and don't really matter when we speak of politics. In politics, we speak of *changing* the law, of what *should* be legal rights. And that's ethics.

Right to property was denied by law to slaves for centuries, but it still is a "universal right" for you ? Then you must admit that legal right is not what we are speaking about.

And if you speak of legal right, then healthcare is one (to a point) in most of western world.

Fine, let's get rid of state-backed private property.

Problem solved. Welcome to the Libertarian Utopia.

You mean, welcome to law of the jungle, everyone for himself, dystopia ? Goodbye civilization, goodbye any rights, goodbye any kind of security and safety. Welcome to struggling every day for your life, welcome to becoming a slave, to being raped, to being killed for a wrong word. Lovely.

I could explain the labour theory of value to you, but I get the feeling you know it already.
So if I can demonstrate to you that the LTV is fundamentally flawed, you would drop the idea that capitalism exploits people and would be willing to consider it better than something based on the LTV from a utilitarian perspective?

In that case, you are wealthy as a result of taking advantage of an illegitimate system of property rights that allows you to keep the rewards of such a find to yourself as opposed to sharing those rewards between all members of society.
Why is it illegitimate in this case? There was no exploitation, no interdependence with society. You walk along, see the diamond, pick it up. And since it looks nice, you can exchange it with another individual for whatever item of value you want. No third party gets affected, no one else was involved.

So it's not exactly exploiting workers in this case, but it still is depriving society of what should rightfully belong to it, and therefore illegitimate.
What is society, and what has it done to deserve it?

In you converted to Judaism, the difference between being a Jew and being a criminal is that committing a crime is an unethical action while converting to Judaism is an ethically neutral action.

That depends entirely on your code of ethics, which in your case is utilitarianism, which means that every action is a priori ethically neutral. Including exploiting the living crap out of your employees, by the way.

Yes, the amount of wealth you have is not the result of your actions. The poor are not poor through their own fault and the rich are not rich through their own merits.
So, what sort of household were you born into? If I can find a rich person who was born into similar circumstances, where would that leave your theory?

However, the point is that being a capitalist - in other words, being a member of the ruling class - is the result of your actions, and most (though admittedly not all) rich people are capitalists.
How does one become a capitalist? Owning a company? Owning shares? Being a manager? Is a share trader for Goldman Sachs (with two Bentleys and a holiday house in Tuscany) a capitalist, or just a worker whose labour gets exploited? What about the CEO of the same company? What about the chairman, who represents the owners but might not even be one of them?

What about the owner of the local cornershop, who employs people? Is he a capitalist? Should the fact that he perhaps came from abroad and couldn't find a job, thus having to choose self-employment, mean he's committed a crime?

Indeed, since apparently I commit a crime by picking up a diamond from the ground and keeping it: is anyone who takes advantage of the private property system a criminal? Are you?

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/capitalista.htm

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

So if I can demonstrate to you that the LTV is fundamentally flawed

It is flawed, as is any other economical theory, if you try to consider it as explaining everything. It is not flawed if you consider it at was it's aimed for: describing how wealth is created and shared in a capitalist system.

But anyway, LTV => exploitation doesn't mean "no LTV" => "no exploitation", that's pure logic. If you managed to demonstrate that LTV is flawed, it would leave "exploitation" in an undefined step, and would require work from either side to show if it's "true" or "false".

But since you can witness it everyday, if your theory concludes it doesn't exist, then the wrong system is your theory. You can write the most complete, beautiful, coherent and whatever system in physics, it it claims apples don't fall, then your system is useless.

Why is it illegitimate in this case?

It's unfair, so from an ethical point of view, it's illegitimate. You claim rich people deserve it because they worked hard, then, of two people a similar land, one becoming rich because by luck he had diamond in it while this other doesn't breaks your theory.

There was no exploitation, no interdependence with society.

There is exploitation because natural resources are limited. The exploitation is not of workers in this, but in natural resources. And there is interdependence with society - with the future society, with the human beings who will exist tomorrow, who will find depleted mines.

What is society, and what has it done to deserve it?

Society is the community of human beings working together. And it did all the most beautiful (and also the most horrible, too) that we enjoy now. Science is a product of society, not of any single man. Infrastructures are the product of society. Public order (that you can travel without too much risk of being assaulted) is a product of society. And so on. So society did a really great deal for improving lives of everyone, and it "deserves" a lot to continue its efforts.

So, what sort of household were you born into? If I can find a rich person who was born into similar circumstances, where would that leave your theory?

Of course not, because "luck" and external circumstances is not only how you were born. Economical situation of family plays a very important role, but many other facts too. There is the luck of being friend at school with the right persons. There is the luck of having good teachers. There is the luck of having parents who care about you. There is the luck of finding a diamond in your garden, as you spoke of before (which can take many forms). There is the luck of having your banker in good mood the day you ask him for a loan. There is the luck of being there at the "right time". All those, and many others, are much, much more important in becoming rich than hard work and skill.

Take an example, the one of Bill Gates. He had the luck of being there at the right time, the same guy born 5 years later or earlier would probably not have been able to do what he did. There is the luck of him having a computer in his school, which was very rare at this time. There is the luck of befriending Paul Allen. There is the luck of having a lawyer as a father, who could help him to negotiate with IBM. There is the luck of finding IBM in need of an operating system, which was very unlikely. There is the luck of them accepting the deal with Bill Gates, which very bad for them (so a mistake from them, more than real skill from him). There is the luck that the PC was a success, which could have been quite the opposite (and which is not thanks to DOS, which was one of the crappiest operating systems, even at the time, especially the 1.0 version was really catastrophic). And I could continue for very, very long. Hard work and skills played a very, very limited (if any, because Bill Gates never was that a great programmer) role in this "success story". You can find similar stuff in all "success story" of someone starting modest but ending up very rich.

How does one become a capitalist?

According to Marx, you are a capitalist when you primary source of income is not the work you do but the interests of the capital you own (shares, land, loans, ...).

Owning a company?

If a company owner owns most of his income by doing actual work for the company, and the work is not paid sensibly more that if someone was hired to do the job, then "owning" the company is not the source of his income, the work he does is.

On the other side, if he does very little work for the company (making employees do all the work) and earns a lot compared to the work he provides (he would never hire someone for this work at this wage), the source of his income is capital and not work.

It may be hard to draw an actual line, but that doesn't mean the concept itself is flawed. In "real life" it's hard always hard to draw a line... at what point a damaged chair would still be called a chair depends of people and circumstances, but that doesn't mean "chairs" don't exist.

Is a share trader for Goldman Sachs (with two Bentleys and a holiday house in Tuscany) a capitalist, or just a worker whose labour gets exploited?

The same could be said for slaves. The slave whose job is to control, oversee and punish other slaves, is he a slaver or a slave ? Technically speaking, he's a slave. The same way, technically speaking, a worker for Goldman Sachs is a worker. But in reality, the "control slave" is also using slave labour, punishing them, ... and the same way, the trader is exploiting, indirectly, the work of others. Being exploited doesn't prevent you from exploiting others.

Indeed, since apparently I commit a crime by picking up a diamond from the ground and keeping it: is anyone who takes advantage of the private property system a criminal? Are you?

Crime is probably too strong. Crime is used for murder, rape and similar. It would more be a misdemeanor. But yes, "taking advantage" of the private property system is an abuse of the system, and we should try to limit the consequences and frequencies of the such acts. It can take a lot of forms, and punishment is not the one I like the most.

But a major difference between marxists like me (well, I don't like "people-ists" because you can never agree with all what someone else said and did, but still, let's use "marxism"/"marxist" for simplicity) and people like you is what we tend to think on society level, not on individual level. I don't care about blaming this CEO for exploiting is worker, and sending him to jail or whatever. I care about preventing him or any other CEO of doing more harm. What we want is to change the way the system works so abuses are much less frequent and have much less consequences. Not saying how much each individual is guilty and how long he should be sent in jail.

It is not flawed if you consider it at was it's aimed for: describing how wealth is created and shared in a capitalist system.
That's most certainly not what it was developed for. Fact is that people came up with it as a rule of how valuable things should be, no more and no less. And then people came along and figured "hey, that means that things aren't being traded at the right prices", and from that they started yelling about exploitation (or at least in this context).

If its most basic function, namely to figure out how much things should be worth, is not met, it doesn't care how well it fits into any other model - it's wrong.

But since you can witness it everyday, if your theory concludes it doesn't exist, then the wrong system is your theory. You can write the most complete, beautiful, coherent and whatever system in physics, it it claims apples don't fall, then your system is useless.
But your entire claim that such a thing as exploitation even exists depends on the LTV being true. If there is no LTV, then how do you define exploitation? If there are no inherent, true values that deviate from market prices, then where do you come off claiming workers aren't paid the inherent, true value of their labour?

It's unfair, so from an ethical point of view, it's illegitimate. You claim rich people deserve it because they worked hard, then, of two people a similar land, one becoming rich because by luck he had diamond in it while this other doesn't breaks your theory.
No, I'm not claiming that I deserve the diamond. I say that I have it (which is fact), and am now asking why you deserve it.

And don't start talking about society again, because the diamond will not go to society, it will go to individuals within it. Why should they have the diamond, but I shouldn't?

There is exploitation because natural resources are limited. The exploitation is not of workers in this, but in natural resources. And there is interdependence with society - with the future society, with the human beings who will exist tomorrow, who will find depleted mines.
Neither of these things really mean anything in this argument. Even if we lived in a socialist world, we'd be exploiting natural resources and future humans would find that they're no longer around. Whether a capitalist uses the diamond to build private housing, or a socialist uses it to build public housing doesn't change the relationship with future humans one bit.

If you want to talk future, we really have to talk about the efficiency of the allocation of resources in the economy. And if there is one thing I have found, it's that socialists aren't keen on people who like to talk about efficiency.

Society is the community of human beings working together. And it did all the most beautiful (and also the most horrible, too) that we enjoy now.
People within it did.

Science is a product of society, not of any single man.
"Science", perhaps. But science is just a broad word as society. Any single scientific discovery is due to the work of individuals who we can name and identify, and without whom we have no reason to suspect that they would have been made.

Infrastructures are the product of society. Public order (that you can travel without too much risk of being assaulted) is a product of society. And so on.
Infrastructure is very clearly the product of people with shovels, and people with papers telling them what to do. And whatever public order we do have (which, in France, seems to find its limits at times) is due to the police.

The real question is what we actually gain on a theoretical or practical level by divorcing stuff that gets done from the agents who do stuff. It's not particularly scientific, not particularly marxist and not particularly smart, because it creates the temptation to just sort of declare stuff to be done and not worry about who will actually do it. The USSR and its imitators had that sort of issue in the very real world.

So society did a really great deal for improving lives of everyone, and it "deserves" a lot to continue its efforts.
Which leaves me to question who I can go to thank. I mean, society, regardless of how you view it, is not actually, physically real. I can't address a letter to it and I can't send it money.

I can interact with individuals who are part of society, sure, but the question stands: why them and not me? What makes them more representative of society than myself?

All those, and many others, are much, much more important in becoming rich than hard work and skill.
You do realise how utterly unscientific your claims are, right? There is no way to prove them either right or wrong. Anything that happens you call "luck" and that's the end of that.

Of course, if luck is all that truly matters, then why in hell's name should I waste my time trying? If some sort of mystical fate will determine what will happen to me, it would happen regardless of whether I study or go to the pub all night, wouldn't it? Or am I somehow taking your reasoning too far - do I have a choice afterall?

It may be hard to draw an actual line, but that doesn't mean the concept itself is flawed.
It makes it sort of useless though. If whether or not someone is a capitalist is up for interpretation, then you can't make consistent policy using that sort of distinction.

Either grandma with the share portfolio financing her retirement is a capitalist or not. And if she isn't, neither is her 30 year old son who happens to have retired a billionaire.

But in reality, the "control slave" is also using slave labour, punishing them, ...
No he's not. "Using" implies that he utilises it to his own ends, but he actually utilises them to the ends of his masters. He's not punishing them at all, because he doesn't have a choice in the matter. He's just a tool of his master.

Crime is probably too strong. Crime is used for murder, rape and similar. It would more be a misdemeanor.
Which doesn't change a thing. You still end up with either guilty or not guilty, and treatment accordingly.

It can take a lot of forms, and punishment is not the one I like the most.
Though you secretly must realise that it is what it comes down to. If the existence of the capitalist violates your system, then unless you want to share the world, you will have to eliminate him. You can try to kid yourself into all sorts of things, but this is a war of annihilation you're fighting.

You deny the idea that some individuals are better at others at tasks like organising, or share trading or generally making money. That makes everyone who has money an exploiter of some form or another.

You can try and limit the "damage" they do by denying them compensation for the value they create. But that doesn't somehow make them different people. It doesn't kid them or their fellow humans that they don't have those skills which are necessary to such a degree that they justified these high incomes. And if they still know, then they can and will choose to behave differently.

You can call your system "socially-minded" all you want, but the capitalist knows perfectly well that he has nothing to gain, and that society is apparently everyone but him. It's an adversarial system. And you may well not care if they all leave or stop working and just do precisely the least they can get away with - because you deny the fact that these people even exist. All I'm asking of you is that you find out what happens next by yourself, and leave me out of it. I'm not into the whole story about utopian dreams and dystopian results. You can take society and do whatever you want with it - but have the decency to keep the politicians and their guns away from me. I'll go and be my own society somewhere with people I agree with.

I've never seen the appeal of any form of non-libertarian socialism: what would you possibly have to gain by making me into a vegetable? You know I'm never going to support you, you know I'll sabotage you and fail to live up to what you expect me to do for you.

Not if one accepts that one's self is not the supreme arbiter of morality.
I think we need to go from first principles on the issue of objectivist justification for the intiation of violence against another being wrong.

And this is a good place to start.

Not only am I the supreme arbiter of my morality, I am the only arbiter of my morality.

Even if I couldn't work out a moral code all by myself (which is impossible, because even a caveman has a code of behaviour distinguishing between right and wrong), I am still the one to be choosing between doing what someone else says is moral, and not doing it.

I make the choice of what is moral. And then I make the choice to be moral or not (though it's extremely rare that someone does something which they consider evil, and if they do it's a one-off thing). And that's true whether I'm on a desert island by myself, or I live in the US, or I live in Saudi Arabia.

I've never seen the appeal of any form of non-libertarian socialism.Does that mean you see the appeal of libertarian socialism? ;)

Does that mean you see the appeal of libertarian socialism? ;)
Within limits, yes. I like the "libertarian" part, and I can see the connection between your ideas about liberty and socialism.

I still fundamentally disagree on your ideas about society, individuals and the connection between the two, and I think you people have something wrong in your understanding of how the world works, but at the very least I know that you're not going to destroy my life, given the chance.

That's most certainly not what it was developed for. Fact is that people came up with it as a rule of how valuable things should be, no more and no less.

"Value" is a very broad philosophical word. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, "Something which has a price has no value".

The LTV doesn't speak of value in the philosophical or ethical terms, it doesn't say how valuable things *should* be. It's a purely descriptive theory (it doesn't deal with *should*) of the cost of creating something, and of how the price of selling this object is divided between capital and work.

And then people came along and figured "hey, that means that things aren't being traded at the right prices", and from that they started yelling about exploitation (or at least in this context).

Actually, the LTV claims that products (in a situation of no monopoly) is traded at its LTV cost. The exploitation coming from unpaid work, not from too high price. You should read it again ;)

If its most basic function, namely to figure out how much things should be worth, is not met, it doesn't care how well it fits into any other model - it's wrong.

You just show your complete misunderstanding of the LTV. The LTV doesn't claim any *should*. It describes the economic reality. Exploitation, defined as "unpaid work", is just a fact, the LTV itself doesn't say if it's good, absolute evil or lesser evil. Many capitalists use the LTV to maximize their profits (that's all the complaining about "lowering the cost of work").

But your entire claim that such a thing as exploitation even exists depends on the LTV being true.

No my claim about exploitation comes from witnessing the reality of (some) company owners living in insane wealth by making their workers live in insane poverty and work in insane conditions. The LTV explains this exploitation, how it works, but doesn't define it. The same way that you can witness the fall of apples without knowing anything about Newton's mechanics. Newton mechanics explain how the apples fall, it doesn't say if apples should fall, nor does the fall of apple depends of Newton's theory to be right (in fact, Newton's theory is false, because it doesn't work at high speeds, but that doesn't prevent apples to fall).

If there is no LTV, then how do you define exploitation? If there are no inherent, true values that deviate from market prices, then where do you come off claiming workers aren't paid the inherent, true value of their labour?

You really should read http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ to understand what the LTV is about.

No, I'm not claiming that I deserve the diamond. I say that I have it (which is fact), and am now asking why you deserve it.

If neither you nor me deserve it more than the other, then it should be shared between both. Or used to do something that will benefit us both, like doing some research or building some infrastructure.

And don't start talking about society again, because the diamond will not go to society, it will go to individuals within it. Why should they have the diamond, but I shouldn't?

A way could be share it evenly between all members of the society. That would be, mathematically speaking, the fairest way, the one that would dispel all the "why should he have it and not me ?". Another, probably smarter, way would be to use it in any that benefits us all - like using it to pay for cancer research, for example.

Neither of these things really mean anything in this argument. Even if we lived in a socialist world, we'd be exploiting natural resources and future humans would find that they're no longer around.

Yes, and ? I was claiming that you can't act (take the diamond) without influencing others. That you cannot claim it's an isolated act, that it's a purely personal act. I say that your acts, like taking the diamond, reaches behind your small self.

Now, we can argue about which of a single individual or the society has more rights to make decisions affecting others, but you just can't claim it's purely personal act. And I do claim that the society as much more right into deciding how to use limited resources, and in which amount it is acceptable to affect coming generations, than individuals.

Whether a capitalist uses the diamond to build private housing, or a socialist uses it to build public housing doesn't change the relationship with future humans one bit.

It does change a lot about who has a say on future generations. And it does a lot into destroying your "it affects only me so only me should decide" theory.

If you want to talk future, we really have to talk about the efficiency of the allocation of resources in the economy. And if there is one thing I have found, it's that socialists aren't keen on people who like to talk about efficiency.

Socialists do talk about efficiency. One of the many reasons for which I oppose capitalism is because of its inherent inefficiency (resources used to do non-socially useful tasks, like advertising, duplication of infrastructure or r&d because of competition, and I could continue for long). But usually socialists don't consider efficiency as a goal in itself, but more as a mean to reach goals (well-being of current and future generation, for example). For example, I can prefer inefficient weapons, because they kill less.

"Science", perhaps. But science is just a broad word as society. Any single scientific discovery is due to the work of individuals who we can name and identify

That shows your complete lack of understanding on the whole scientific process. No single scientific discovery is the product of a few individuals. Scientific discovery all build into the huge sum of accumulated, freely available, human knowledge. Every single discovery incorporate into itself the work of thousands and thousands of people. It is, inherently, a collective work.

and without whom we have no reason to suspect that they would have been made.

If you look into history of sciences, you'll see that several very important discoveries and new theories appeared with a few years of difference in different people who didn't know each others. This is a very well known phenomena for epistemologists, which points the huge importance of cultural and societal environment on discoveries.

Infrastructure is very clearly the product of people with shovels, and people with papers telling them what to do.

Which makes it a collective work, that is, a work of the society. It's the combined work of the thousands who actually build it, with the work of those managing them, with the work of the engineers conceiving it, with the work of generations and generations of scientists who made it existence possible, with the work of those who trained/educated the workers, engineers and managers, and so on. It is a collective work, the product of a broad association of human beings spanning over generations, which we call "society".

And whatever public order we do have (which, in France, seems to find its limits at times) is due to the police.

Is once again due to a combination of police, justice, education, workers who built the tools used by them, and so on. But it is also greatly the result of a general mood, a general attitude, a general respect for the laws from the population. You can use as much police as you want, you won't manage to prevent people from smoking canabis or from downloading mp3. But still, you'll keep to a very low level the amount of murders and thefts (at least compared to other places and times), that's partly because of the police, but that's also widely based on most people respecting the law by themselves (for different reasons), which is a social construction that takes generations to build.

And if it finds its limits in France, it's because in France the governments tend to neglect the social and educational part of respect and order, and considers the usage of police force as the only answer to the problems. That doesn't work.

The real question is what we actually gain on a theoretical or practical level by divorcing stuff that gets done from the agents who do stuff.

Which is not at all what I claim.

Which leaves me to question who I can go to thank. I mean, society, regardless of how you view it, is not actually, physically real. I can't address a letter to it and I can't send it money.

So, in physics, we shouldn't use "pressure", because is not an, actually, physically real, but only the macroscopic result of the interaction, at a microscopic level, of billions of molecules ? And we shouldn't use "frictional forces", because those don't exist, in reality there are only electromagnetic interactions between particles ? That's exactly the same reasoning.

The reasoning at the microscopic level is useful - but denying the usefulness and the existence of the macroscopic level is completely stubborn.

I can interact with individuals who are part of society, sure, but the question stands: why them and not me? What makes them more representative of society than myself?

As long as you try to bring everything back to the microscopic level, you can't explain anything nor improve anything, as someone refusing to speak of pressure and frictional forces would be unable to make a plane to fly.

As for "what makes them more representative of society", one possible answer is "because they were elected". That's not a perfect answer, but it does have a justification. If you look for perfection, stop politics right now. In fact, if you look for perfection, stop doing anything which is tided to reality, stop anything which is not pure maths. Even pure maths may not qualify as "perfection", because of Goedel...

You do realise how utterly unscientific your claims are, right? There is no way to prove them either right or wrong.

As any claim inside something as complex as a human society, it can hardly be proven with the same "scientific level" than a law of physics. Claiming you "prove" a "law" in economics like you can do it in physics just makes you become a fool. But it can be proven, to a point, by looking into the details of how people became rich.

Anything that happens you call "luck" and that's the end of that.

I'm calling "luck", in this context, anything which is not directly dependant on predictable outcomes of your acts. So, when I say "luck of befriending someone", it's partly luck (the fact of meeting him and even knowing he does exist is usually pure luck, unless you actually looked for someone matching some criteria), and partly not luck.

Of course, if luck is all that truly matters, then why in hell's name should I waste my time trying? If some sort of mystical fate will determine what will happen to me, it would happen regardless of whether I study or go to the pub all night, wouldn't it? Or am I somehow taking your reasoning too far - do I have a choice afterall?

You are taking it too far. You have a choice and you can, to a point, change your future. What I say is that your own margin of manoeuvre is limited, and especially if you consider things like "becoming rich", it has to involve a lot of luck. Luck enough will hardly be enough, luck will mostly create opportunity - which you may fail to take advantage of. But since different people will have a very different amount of opportunities, and all of them are not as easy to take advantage of, the relation between "having taken advantage of opportunities" and real skill/will/... is very lose, and doesn't justify the huge difference of well-being.

It makes it sort of useless though. If whether or not someone is a capitalist is up for interpretation, then you can't make consistent policy using that sort of distinction.

Everything is up for interpretation. What is a "murder" is open for interpretation, so we shouldn't make laws on it ? What is "legitimate defence", what is "theft", "rape", ... is open to interpretation. Even what is a "chair" or a "computer" is open for interpretation. Once again, if you want absolutes and no interpretation, do pure maths, and nothing else.

Either grandma with the share portfolio financing her retirement is a capitalist or not. And if she isn't, neither is her 30 year old son who happens to have retired a billionaire.

She definitely is, if she's earning money through her share portfolio.


No he's not. "Using" implies that he utilises it to his own ends, but he actually utilises them to the ends of his masters. He's not punishing them at all, because he doesn't have a choice in the matter. He's just a tool of his master.

And what if the "control slave" sometimes use the slaves for his own gain, even very slightly ? By being in a position of power, it's very easy for him to do so, and during his whole life it'll be surprising he never did it. Or even just by deciding when the master says "I want those trees cut", to ask another slave to cut the trees, and not do it himself, he's using other slaves.

Which doesn't change a thing. You still end up with either guilty or not guilty, and treatment accordingly.

No. Once again, you think at a microscopic level. I don't care about punishing people. I care about changing the rules and structure of the society to make exploitation disappear.

Though you secretly must realise that it is what it comes down to. If the existence of the capitalist violates your system, then unless you want to share the world, you will have to eliminate him. You can try to kid yourself into all sorts of things, but this is a war of annihilation you're fighting.

More exactly, it's capitalism which is fighting a war of annihilation against everything else. History teached us that capitalism will never accept to coexist with something else, it's a totalitarian system, which cannibalize everything else, and destroys any alternative because the TINA argument is the only one it can use to justify itself.

But you have many ways to win a "war". Gandhi won India's independence "war" with very few violence. I don't claim it'll be easy, but I claim it's worth it.

And the same applies for the creation of "liberalism"... "liberalism" had to fought wars against feudalism, in order to survive. Should they have accepted feudalism for ever ?

You deny the idea that some individuals are better at others at tasks like organising, or share trading or generally making money. That makes everyone who has money an exploiter of some form or another.

I don't deny that some individuals, for different reasons, are better at some tasks than other. What I deny is the owning property should not grant you the right to earn money without working. What I deny is having such enormous difference of reward for someone who is better at organising than to someone who is better at driving trains or at teaching.

And many of those who earn a lot are just _not_ better. Enron, Vivendi, Airbus, and many other examples will show you that people very *bad* at managing still earn a lot of money just because they are "managers".

You can try and limit the "damage" they do by denying them compensation for the value they create.

But which value do they create ? The manager himself doesn't create any value. The value is created by those doing the "real" work, the manager just making them more efficient. This is a collective work. But the value is *not* created by the manager, only by the synergy between the manager and the workers. So why should he gets most of it ?

In which way does the "manager" who make the workers work more efficiently is worth more than the teacher teaching them to be efficient, than the doctor making them healthy, or that the musicians allowing them to not fall into depression ? Your system, by granting the power to the managers and the owners, make them take a huge share of the wealth that is collectively produced by a very huge number of persons. That's (one of) the problem.

And if you look at the current state of economy, even managers with very poor skills still earn a lot... while even workers with very high skills earn few. You may consider that construction workers don't have a high skill, but if you look at intellectual workers, like engineers, scientists, ... they are paid more than construction workers, but levels below the managers, even if they do very comparable jobs in term of required skill and intellectual complexity.

You can call your system "socially-minded" all you want, but the capitalist knows perfectly well that he has nothing to gain, and that society is apparently everyone but him. It's an adversarial system.

That's exactly (one of) the problem of capitalism. It makes everyone look at others as foes they compete against, not as brothers they work with. And the worst part is that it grants power to those who have this mindset developed to the worst level ! By refusing collective choices, it forces everyone to chose the lowest of all the Nash equilibriums.

You can take society and do whatever you want with it - but have the decency to keep the politicians and their guns away from me. I'll go and be my own society somewhere with people I agree with.

And I could say exactly the same to you. Take your police force and your guns away from me, and let me use this land even if it "belongs" to someone, house in this empty flat even if it "belongs" to someone, and use this drilling machine to create wealth even if it "belongs" to someone else. Capitalism relays upon guns and violence much more than socialism. You need a much lower level of violence and police force to enforce a socialised healthcare system then to protect private property.

I've never seen the appeal of any form of non-libertarian socialism: what would you possibly have to gain by making me into a vegetable? You know I'm never going to support you, you know I'll sabotage you and fail to live up to what you expect me to do for you.

Who is speaking about making you into a vegetable ? That's the exact opposite of what socialism is. Socialism is about allowing anyone to be emancipated. The one who is made a vegetable is the worker who is denied education, culture, free time, and who his made to work boring, repetitive, dangerous work for all his life. That's the one who is deprived of some of his humanity.

Not only am I the supreme arbiter of my morality, I am the only arbiter of my morality.

So, if I consider murder and rape to be moral, that's fine for you, I'm the only arbiter of my morality, and no one can tell me I'm wrong or restrain me from using my own morality ?

I make the choice of what is moral. And then I make the choice to be moral or not (though it's extremely rare that someone does something which they consider evil, and if they do it's a one-off thing). And that's true whether I'm on a desert island by myself, or I live in the US, or I live in Saudi Arabia.

And you deny every impact of society upon the codes of moral the people living in it has ? So how do you explain the massive changes, in term of prevalence, of morality between time and space ? How do you explain that for centuries most people found slavery to be ok, while now (in the western world at least), very few will claim so ? How do you explain that for centuries women were considered the possession of their father or husband, while nowadays saying that is considered to be an horrible thing ?

Morality is defined by the society you live in, as much as by yourself.

Morality is defined by the society you live in, as much as by yourself.
For every instance of supposed difference in moral thought, we can identify remarkable similarities in the way humans in different societies act in a moral fashion.

Of course society influences us, but it is obviously not the ultimate decider on moral thought; two individuals in the same society can have different opinions on moral dilemmas.

However, humans appear to have similar attitudes towards very basic moral problems (a general prohibition on murder, etc.). I don't think it's entirely foolish to suppose a very basic 'moral framework' that works in a similar way to our 'language framework', an evolved mechanism for dealing with the very social nature of human life which doesn't determine morality, but limits and shapes its scope.

I've posted on this subject many times here on NS:G, partly because I think its a very important and interesting topic, and partly because I get turned off by the naive cultural relativism in your post and, more worryingly, most of the Humanities subjects.

For every instance of supposed difference in moral thought, we can identify remarkable similarities in the way humans in different societies act in a moral fashion.

I was more reacting to individualism ("my moral is my own and not no one has anything to say") than making a general statement, that may explain the way my comment was formulated.

I do think there is some "universal" base of morality, even if morality also varies a lot in space and time. There are some general behaviour and principles that are common to everyone. But the more precise moral rules depend a lot of the society and its living condition.

Of course society influences us, but it is obviously not the ultimate decider on moral thought; two individuals in the same society can have different opinions on moral dilemmas.

Yes, I don't deny the existence of some part of individual choice in moral. I only wanted to attack Neu Leonstein absolutism about individualism. If two individuals in the same society will have different opinions on some moral dilemmas, on some issues, the huge majority of a society will agree to one side. Very few people in Europe nowadays will claim that slavery is morally acceptable, while few people in the same Europe a few centuries ago (except slaves) would have said the opposite.

My point is that there are many things which participate in building a moral framework, some part is (almost) universal, some part is dependant of the society, some part is dependant of the family/social class you live in, and some other part is dependant of your own individual choices. We could debate for long to figure out which ones are the most "important", but I just wanted to answer to Neu Leonstein who said that only the last one exists.

I don't think it's entirely foolish to suppose a very basic 'moral framework' that works in a similar way to our 'language framework', an evolved mechanism for dealing with the very social nature of human life which doesn't determine morality, but limits and shapes its scope.

the 'framework' has some interesting features to it, too. for example, it clearly has a feature like that of language that causes people to tend to clump together on levels higher than the very basic, such that entire societies will tend to agree, at least broadly. but at the same time, shifts can be made on both the individual and societal level by argument and by experience (sorta what alice crary calls "developing our sensibilities")

Sounds to me that what you're actually saying is that the Government should enforce nobody's beliefs except where a sufficient majority agree strongly enough. Which is not nearly so clear-cut, is it?In a Democratic system, that's exactly what happens.

Er, that's exactly my point: a sufficient majority forces their beliefs on the rest - which by your response, you seem to regard as acceptable. Whereas before you said:



What I advocate isn't so much the Government adopting my personal beliefs, but rather the Government enforcing nobody's.
Well said.

This position makes vastly more sense than any of the positions that involve the government imposing the views of a subset of the population on the entire population.

So which is it - government enforces nobody's beliefs at all, or government enforces the majority's beliefs? You seem to have spoken in favour of both now.

No, in other words nobody's individual values are held as superior to anyone else's.

I think I understand the position you're restating; what I'm trying to get at is the consequences.

As far as I can see, what you said means that the government can't do anything to me that I don't agree to, because that would involve forcing somebody else's values on me.

It's a purely descriptive theory (it doesn't deal with *should*) of the cost of creating something, and of how the price of selling this object is divided between capital and work.
It becomes a should when it is used to justify the notion of exploitation.

Actually, the LTV claims that products (in a situation of no monopoly) is traded at its LTV cost.
No it doesn't, because it doesn't take into account other forms of productive iinput. It is perfectly possible for the price to fall beneith a previous normal profit level if a new machine was invented, for example, even if the labour input remains the same.

Exploitation, defined as "unpaid work", is just a fact, the LTV itself doesn't say if it's good, absolute evil or lesser evil.
And how do you conclude that there is unpaid work? You get the value of something as described by the LTV and you compare it with the wages paid by labour. You basically assume that the only value created was due to the labourers themselves, and the difference must somehow have been unpaid.

But if the LTV is fundamentally flawed, then this difference is made up out of thin air, and the same must then go for exploitation.

Many capitalists use the LTV to maximize their profits (that's all the complaining about "lowering the cost of work").
How does that have anything to do with the LTV? Capitalists also complain about the price of petrol to fuel their machinery - is that the Oil Theory of Value?

No my claim about exploitation comes from witnessing the reality of (some) company owners living in insane wealth by making their workers live in insane poverty and work in insane conditions. The LTV explains this exploitation, how it works, but doesn't define it.
Whether or not it is insane is only due to your subjective opinion. The problem with the LTV coming in is that it appears to lend credible support to that opinion, which in reality it doesn't.

And since your subjective opinion is negative, even if the LTV were neutral by itself, any argument you build upon it is not.

You really should read http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit/ to understand what the LTV is about.
"As the exchangeable values of commodities are only social functions of those things, and have nothing at all to do with the natural qualities..."

And the natural qualities are only meaningful when considered by the participants in the market. Hence the whole rest of the argument he makes is pointless. He's trying to find something that doesn't exist, namely some value independent from exchange or use.

And not just that, but he starts talking about "crystallised social labour", completely neglecting that the mere addition of labour doesn't change value one bit. If I go an burn your house, I apply labour to it too, but neither market value nor its natual qualities are particularly increased by it.

The rest of his discussion is precisely the rationalisation for this thing you call exploitation that I was talking about, which is based on the LTV - and therefore flawed.

If neither you nor me deserve it more than the other, then it should be shared between both. Or used to do something that will benefit us both, like doing some research or building some infrastructure.
But I applied labour to it, didn't I? Aren't you exploiting me?

A way could be share it evenly between all members of the society.
So, how much would be the value of a diamond in your type of society?

Yes, and ? I was claiming that you can't act (take the diamond) without influencing others. That you cannot claim it's an isolated act, that it's a purely personal act. I say that your acts, like taking the diamond, reaches behind your small self.
So now you're turning around cause and effect.

Now, we can argue about which of a single individual or the society has more rights to make decisions affecting others, but you just can't claim it's purely personal act.
I claim that the act itself is purely personal, and that I did it all by myself. I depended on no one when I did it.

Anything that comes after it is a second question, namely one about my actions and those of others once I have the diamond. The fact that I have it had nothing to do with anyone but myself. There is a cause (I picked it up) and an effect (I have it). If that isn't merit or desert, then I don't know what could possibly be called that.

So I have it, and now you say I shouldn't have it. And when I ask you why, you don't answer, but ask me why I should have it, as if I need to justify it to you.

And I do claim that the society as much more right into deciding how to use limited resources, and in which amount it is acceptable to affect coming generations, than individuals.
Society. Is. Individuals.

Socialists do talk about efficiency. One of the many reasons for which I oppose capitalism is because of its inherent inefficiency (resources used to do non-socially useful tasks, like advertising, duplication of infrastructure or r&d because of competition, and I could continue for long).
None of them are anything more than your ideas without even a hint of proof behind them. Advertising serves a vital role in distributing information, the market prevents duplication if it's not profitable.

But usually socialists don't consider efficiency as a goal in itself, but more as a mean to reach goals (well-being of current and future generation, for example). For example, I can prefer inefficient weapons, because they kill less.
Which is precisely the same as with capitalists.

That shows your complete lack of understanding on the whole scientific process. No single scientific discovery is the product of a few individuals.
Well then, it shouldn't make a difference what sort of person you are. So go ahead, discover the Theory of Everything for me, will you?

But you can't, because you have no training in physics, you don't have the will or the interest to get that training, you may well lack the mathematical inclination you'd need to do it all. You are not going to discover that theory. Someone else might.

So there we go: even because all that knowledge is available, even though you could find it all out, you don't. And if there isn't someone who does, then we'll go without the theory.

This is a very well known phenomena for epistemologists, which points the huge importance of cultural and societal environment on discoveries.
Except that these discoveries were also made in different cultures and societies, which kills that explanation right quick.

It is a collective work, the product of a broad association of human beings spanning over generations, which we call "society".
Huh?

I don't see anyone else doing any work. Sorry, the connection is really no less indirect than the whole butterfly creating hurricane idea. The butterfly didn't set out to cause a hurricane, it can't actually claim responsibility for it. It was just a random side effect of its pursuit of its own goals. Indeed, if we exterminated all butterflies, hurricanes will still happen, just as someone will still build a road if the need for it comes up.

...which is a social construction that takes generations to build.
It takes precisely five minutes to build, when you tell your child to listen to authority or it gets punished.

People don't break laws when they think there is a realistic chance of getting caught, and they do if they think there isn't.

Which is not at all what I claim.
You seek to diminish it. You seek to make society part of stuff, sometimes because you claim butterflies cause hurricanes, sometimes because you claim butterflies are flung all over the place by them.

And the whole time you ignore Dr. Doom with his hurricane machine.

That's exactly the same reasoning.
It is, except that you say I owe society something, which is taking things to a whole new level.

As long as you try to bring everything back to the microscopic level, you can't explain anything nor improve anything, as someone refusing to speak of pressure and frictional forces would be unable to make a plane to fly.
The difference being that an air molecule can't choose to change its behaviour, while a human being most certainly can't. Are you starting to realise why I say that socialism denies humanity?

As for "what makes them more representative of society", one possible answer is "because they were elected". That's not a perfect answer, but it does have a justification.
That's a crappy answer, and you know it. Sarkozy was elected, but that doesn't make him representative of society, nor does it make his policies right.

If you look for perfection, stop politics right now.
Are you trying to say that the things you want to do to me are justified because nothing is perfect?

But it can be proven, to a point, by looking into the details of how people became rich.
No it can't. It's anecdotal evidence, which makes it nothing more than populist drivel. Especially if you reinterpret what you find to make everything appear as though personal choice wasn't involved.

I'm calling "luck", in this context, anything which is not directly dependant on predictable outcomes of your acts.
What is predictable? What makes you think that not everyone is born with the same amount of luck to be had in life?

What I say is that your own margin of manoeuvre is limited, and especially if you consider things like "becoming rich", it has to involve a lot of luck.
And that is only because you ignore me as a person. I was born into a middle class family with a history of financial troubles, in a reasonably rich country, namely Germany.

That was it. That was my starting point, and from there I could have been a plumber, or an unemployed neo-nazi skinhead, or a drug abuser or anything else. But instead I'm in Australia, studying economics and business management and preparing for post-grad work into the behaviour of financial markets.

And now you come along and tell me that I was a passive canvas that was written upon, and you "prove" it by going through my life history and picking random stuff that just happens to support the idea that I never had a choice, if we squint enough. How the hell do you expect me to prove determinism wrong? If I go outside now and crash myself to death in my car, you'd still say that it was a random event, due to me having this argument with you.

Luck enough will hardly be enough, luck will mostly create opportunity - which you may fail to take advantage of.
No, what we call "luck" is the opportunities you took advantage of. Otherwise you wouldn't even realise that anything had happened at all.

Just from a purely statistical point of view, I don't see a reason to deviate from an expected mean of zero - that is positive and negative events cancelling each other out. If someone comes out on top, it's because they were able to realise and act according to such random events.

She definitely is, if she's earning money through her share portfolio.

So she's doing damage and must be punished. Or, since you prefer euphemisms, "limited in the damage she can do".

And what if the "control slave" sometimes use the slaves for his own gain, even very slightly ?
Then he's not being a slave.

No. Once again, you think at a microscopic level. I don't care about punishing people. I care about changing the rules and structure of the society to make exploitation disappear.
And how do you expect to do that? You want to modify individual behaviour, which means you must provide threats and incentives. Grandma will lose her retirement money, will she not?

More exactly, it's capitalism which is fighting a war of annihilation against everything else.
Okay, you're going off into your own little world in which capitalism and whatever politicians did is one and the same thing.

Haven't I made it clear enough that I'm a libertarian capitalist, that I deny the legitimacy of state violence in pretty much any form except as retribution for the initiation of violence? My state would not have the capacity to do anything to its neighbours, or the property of that socialist commune that bought a farm somewhere.

History teached us that capitalism will never accept to coexist with something else, it's a totalitarian system, which cannibalize everything else, and destroys any alternative because the TINA argument is the only one it can use to justify itself.
Capitalism can't accept anything. People can. It's just that only those who benefit from an alternative system will, and the rest will be sacrificed.

But you have many ways to win a "war". Gandhi won India's independence "war" with very few violence. I don't claim it'll be easy, but I claim it's worth it.
So go ahead and do non-violent resistance. Stop buying stuff. Stop using the private property system. Just don't get the state involved, because the state doesn't do non-violence.

And the same applies for the creation of "liberalism"... "liberalism" had to fought wars against feudalism, in order to survive. Should they have accepted feudalism for ever ?
Liberalism didn't fight any wars. People did.

And they responded to state violence, which is rather different to starting a fight because you consider your opinion more important than that of another person.

I don't deny that some individuals, for different reasons, are better at some tasks than other. What I deny is the owning property should not grant you the right to earn money without working.
Nobody earns money without working. You just redefine work to exclude various things.

What I deny is having such enormous difference of reward for someone who is better at organising than to someone who is better at driving trains or at teaching.
The differences in exchange value for these types of labour are due to their relative importance to the value chain and their scarcity. You can't change that. There's a million train drivers, and a handful of train executives. You can get rid of any one of those drivers, and it won't change a thing - get rid of the executive and shit falls to pieces.

If you impose some sort of rule that tries to get around the exchange value, it will be traded in the black market instead. And if you can somehow prevent the black market (which to this day no one ever managed), those executives will just go somewhere where they actually are appreciated, meaning the capitalist country next door.

So your utopia falls apart as one train driver after the next hopes to turn things around, and in the end you turn all Trotskyist and try to destroy the neighbour too.

And many of those who earn a lot are just _not_ better. Enron, Vivendi, Airbus, and many other examples will show you that people very *bad* at managing still earn a lot of money just because they are "managers".
They earn a lot of money because the shareholders of those companies are idiots. Which in Airbus case happens to include some governments, which should make you think.

But the value is *not* created by the manager, only by the synergy between the manager and the workers. So why should he gets most of it ?
Take him away and see how much value is created. It's a matter of people wanting that extra value to be created, and the manager being necessary to do so. Do you really think that if some activist shareholder greedy hedge fund could save the money on CEOs, it wouldn't?

You may consider that construction workers don't have a high skill, but if you look at intellectual workers, like engineers, scientists, ... they are paid more than construction workers, but levels below the managers, even if they do very comparable jobs in term of required skill and intellectual complexity.
But that's irrelevant. What matters is the scarcity and importance of the skill in question.

You mentioned musicians...I know quite a few which get paid enormous sums of money. The same goes for sports stars. Even certain types of doctors.

That's exactly (one of) the problem of capitalism. It makes everyone look at others as foes they compete against, not as brothers they work with.
Look, if you come to my door telling me that you're gonna have to take everything I worked for over my lifetime, and if I don't agree you'll throw me in jail, I don't care whose brother you say you are.

Your methods, your mindset and the esteem you hold me in are fairly obvious at that point. I don't see why I should, on top of everything, spare you the guilty feeling that comes from you throwing an innocent man in jail.

By refusing collective choices, it forces everyone to chose the lowest of all the Nash equilibriums.
Well then, sit down and show me the Nash equilibrium of the economy of France, and show me how we could all do better without anyone being worse off.

Because that's what the prisoner's dilemma is about: pareto optimality.

And I could say exactly the same to you. Take your police force and your guns away from me, and let me use this land even if it "belongs" to someone, house in this empty flat even if it "belongs" to someone, and use this drilling machine to create wealth even if it "belongs" to someone else.
Except that you're violating other people by taking their stuff. I'm not violating anyone by keeping mine. I really don't see how you can kid yourself so hard that you don't see the difference.

The only way you can claim equivalence is if you think commission and omission are the same thing, and that there is no difference between positive and negative freedom. But even you don't think that.

Who is speaking about making you into a vegetable ? That's the exact opposite of what socialism is. Socialism is about allowing anyone to be emancipated.
Except me. I wouldn't be emancipated, I would be chained. If I use my mind, it would only be to the benefit of everyone else, and if they feel like it they can throw me scraps. But they don't have to, because thinking apparently isn't real labour. Sitting in an office for 70 hours a week solving complex financial problems and being a step ahead if you want to keep your job is its own reward, as opposed to cruising through a 35 hour week in a factory and going out to the pub afterwards.

And if they can tell me what I should earn for my thoughts, by the same logic they have the right to tell me what to do with my thoughts. They can order me to do something, and I have to comply or be punished.

And why doesn't that violate me? Because nothing that is me is actually me. It's all just the product of society, and luck. Reward is due to the caveman who was my ancestor, not to myself.

The one who is made a vegetable is the worker who is denied education, culture, free time, and who his made to work boring, repetitive, dangerous work for all his life. That's the one who is deprived of some of his humanity.
Actually, that brings up a question. If my property isn't who I am, and my labour isn't who I am, and my skills aren't who I am, and my relationships aren't who I am, and the sum of my actions and experiences were all just luck and predetermined to some extent...then who am I? What is the socialist man?

So, if I consider murder and rape to be moral, that's fine for you, I'm the only arbiter of my morality, and no one can tell me I'm wrong or restrain me from using my own morality ?
Except that murder and rape are attacks on another person's ability to make moral choices, which makes them exceptions. But you know that perfectly well, so you'd be okay if we call this one a strawman, right?

And you deny every impact of society upon the codes of moral the people living in it has ?
No, why should I? Whether I develop a code of behaviour myself (which I consider a more honest, more thorough and superior way) or I just accept a code as given from someone else (which I consider the non-use of reason, demoting oneself to the level of an animal), that doesn't change the fact that I am still the only one who will make the actual judgement on whether something is morally justified or not.

Morality is defined by the society you live in, as much as by yourself.
And I can choose to follow a different code if I want to. Go to Saudi Arabia or Iran, and you'll find plenty of people who don't accept the morality prescribed by those versions of Islamic law. They don't judge their own pre-marital affairs to be immoral, and they don't judge the hanging of gay people to be moral.

Whether or not there is a dominat code of morality within a society doesn't change the fact that moral choice is only possible by individuals, and the destruction of individuals is the destruction of moral choice, which at best can lead to a zero value in which neither good nor evil are possible. Hence why Ayn Rand called mainstream morality the "Cult of the Zero".

Whether or not there is a dominat code of morality within a society doesn't change the fact that moral choice is only possible by individuals, and the destruction of individuals is the destruction of moral choice, which at best can lead to a zero value in which neither good nor evil are possible. Hence why Ayn Rand called mainstream morality the "Cult of the Zero".

why should we believe that the ultimate good is 'moral choice'?

Let's settle this.

Why does my need confer an obligation on you to help me? My "commission vs omission" thread didn't quite go in that direction, so I'm trying again.

Ultimately a need that becomes enough to involve other people is a result of my own inability to fulfill it. One way to do that is to trade, by providing some sort of value in return for whatever I need. The other way is if I cannot provide anything in return.

Jello Biafra in another thread just mentioned that a right essentially confers an obligation, either negatively (ie I have an obligation not to kill you) and positively (ie I have an obligation to save you falling off the cliff). So then the question isn't so much about need as it is about how to justify a right to, say, dignified and sufficiently equal living standards, which would then make my need and your obligation essentially the same thing.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Does my need for insulin mean that you must find it for me, if I can't? Why?

Because we're all supposed to be human beings.

the ‘framework’ has some interesting features to it, too. for example, it clearly has a feature like that of language that causes people to tend to clump together on levels higher than the very basic, such that entire societies will tend to agree, at least broadly. but at the same time, shifts can be made on both the individual and societal level by argument and by experience (sorta what alice crary calls “developing our sensibilities”)
I’ve never read any of Crary’s work, but it certainly looks interesting (http://www.newschool.edu/gf/phil/faculty/crary/index.htm).

Also, I’d say your comments on the “framework’s” abilities are bang on the mark. It’s an incredibly interesting field of enquiry, for myself at least. I’m hoping to write my Philosophy Degree Dissertation on the topic; or at least part of it.

You mean, welcome to law of the jungle, everyone for himself, dystopia ? Goodbye civilization, goodbye any rights, goodbye any kind of security and safety. Welcome to struggling every day for your life, welcome to becoming a slave, to being raped, to being killed for a wrong word. Lovely.
Rural Somalia seems to be doing okay.

why should we believe that the ultimate good is 'moral choice'?
Well, is good possible without free will? If there is only one course of action I can possibly take, then I'm not actually being a moral person by taking it, am I. I could be the worst person in the world and still take this particular course of action.

Because we're all supposed to be human beings.
And I'm trying to figure out exactly what that means.

And I'm trying to figure out exactly what that means.
What that means is most people don't seem to understand the difference between commission and omission.

Well, is good possible without free will?
Yes, absolutely! Actions are good or bad independent of the motivations of the people taking those actions.

If there is only one course of action I can possibly take, then I'm not actually being a moral person by taking it, am I. I could be the worst person in the world and still take this particular course of action.
Right, but I don't care what kind of person you are, I care only if your actions are good or bad.

You see, I believe that goodness is a quality inherent in the action, not the agent. A good action is still good even if it was done by an evil person for the wrong reasons. And an evil action is still evil even if it was done by a good person with good intentions. To maximize goodness is to maximize the number of good actions, not the number of good people.

It's not the morality of the agent that matters, but the morality of the action. Indeed, I believe the purpose of government is precisely to make evil people do good things.

No, you're not, because the unhappiness you cause to me by removing me could be greater than the happiness you cause to others. Again, an ambiguous situation.

QFT. At least as opposed to what he said (i.e., "pissed off" instead of something more serious, like "murdered").

That is to say, merely "pissing off" someone is no reason to be removed.

Well all I have to say NL, is that I am grateful your views are in a minority.

Whether or not there is a dominat code of morality within a society doesn't change the fact that moral choice is only possible by individuals, and the destruction of individuals is the destruction of moral choice, which at best can lead to a zero value in which neither good nor evil are possible.

Like most of Objectivism, that's meaningless rhetoric without any substantive meaning at all.

"The destruction of individuals is the destruction of moral choice"--well, maybe, if by "destruction of individuals" you mean, say, mass murder. So mass murder is bad. What does that prove about socialism?

Morality is only binding because a majority of society accept this morality and it becomes de facto enforced. 'Individual choice' is meaningless because the acceptance of a shared moral framework is based upon the social forces of determination, which in effect control the behavior of the constituent units of the community. The desire to conform to the prescribed norms of social behavior and action is based upon the innate human desire to conform to the wills of our fellow ethical beings, a thus create a unitary all-encompassing 'moral' unanimity which represents common responsibilities and interests and the instinctual human interdependent solidarity.

Once again Neu Leonstein, you prove yourself to be the aberration of society and just the naive silly idealist once again, please go back to reading Ayn Rand erotica and leave the politics to the experts.

Like most of Objectivism, that's meaningless rhetoric without any substantive meaning at all.

"The destruction of individuals is the destruction of moral choice"--well, maybe, if by "destruction of individuals" you mean, say, mass murder. So mass murder is bad. What does that prove about socialism?
Well, you see, it appears NL believes that not being able to own a factory is equivalent to being dead.

No, it's in my interest to choose a field in which I can excel with the least effort. That means easier fields will be more appealing.

High-risk or very difficult fields will be staffed by those least capable generally.
Umm, being able to excel with the least effort is the very definition of efficiency. Effort = cost and achievement = benefit. The optimal choice, both for the individual and for society, is the choice that produces the greatest difference between benefits and costs. Ideally, everyone should work in the jobs where they can achieve the most with the least effort.

Also, there are no such things as easier or more difficult fields in general. Whether a field is easy or difficult depends on the individual. For example, I find calculus far easier than manual labour. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who find manual labour far easier than calculus. And it is best that both I and them have the ability to work in the way we consider easiest.

Great. I suspect your position is uncommon, but I do like that your position makes sense.
Uncommon? No, I really can't think of any leftist - or anyone at all, really - who ever argued that state-enforced equality is better than equality obtained by other means.

That said, what's so great about equality? Why does equality have intrinsic value?
I assume you consider yourself an advocate of freedom. What's so great about freedom? Why does freedom have intrinsic value?

If you dig deep enough, you will find that every person has at least one ethical value he considers axiomatic. There is a utilitarian justification for economic equality, but utilitarianism itself is based on two assumptions: (1) human happiness is the measure of goodness, and (2) the happiness of every human being has equal value. I take those two assumptions as axiomatic, and you will notice that equality is part of the second assumption, so I suppose you could say that the importance of equality is axiomatic for me.

When Kilobugya says he wants to minimise the damage I can do by taking away my ability to earn money and do with it more or less as I please, then that's a way of limiting my choices to be moral or not.

Yeah, so?

In what sense does this mean that there is no "good"?

There's a substantial difference between provision rights to something, and rights that are a protection from something, specifically forms of direct coercive force or fraud. Protection rights do not require action or interference until an injustice has occurred. To restore the balance and justice to the natural order of things. Provision rights attempt to restructure the natural balance, their application is far more complex, and as all things are, have greater unintended consequences as the scale of the application increases.

Protection rights provide the right to the provision of certain services and provision rights provide protection from deprivation of certain goods and services. What do you mean by natural order? What is natural about human created institutions such as protection rights? If they're natural what's artificial about provision rights?

Umm, being able to excel with the least effort is the very definition of efficiency. Effort = cost and achievement = benefit. The optimal choice, both for the individual and for society, is the choice that produces the greatest difference between benefits and costs. Ideally, everyone should work in the jobs where they can achieve the most with the least effort.
Yes, but what the most acheivement is changes under these two systems.

In a free market, skills possessed by fewer people get rewarded more greatly because there is a lesser supply of those skills. That encourages people to acquire those skills.

If the rewards are always the same in every field regardless of what they are or how important they are to people, no one will do the really challenging fields unless there are no other options.

Becoming an engineer is hard. Why would anyone bother doing it if the rewards for excelling as an engineer were the same as the rewards for excelling as a florist? In a free market, the rewards for being a mediocre engineer exceed those for being really quite a good florist, so this encourages people to become engineers.
Also, there are no such things as easier or more difficult fields in general. Whether a field is easy or difficult depends on the individual. For example, I find calculus far easier than manual labour. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who find manual labour far easier than calculus. And it is best that both I and them have the ability to work in the way we consider easiest.
This only works if the distribution of skills matches the distribution of demand for those skills.
I assume you consider yourself an advocate of freedom. What's so great about freedom? Why does freedom have intrinsic value?
I'm not advocating freedom, here. I'm asking why we should go to any effort to achieve equality when no one's explained why it's better than the status quo?
If you dig deep enough, you will find that every person has at least one ethical value he considers axiomatic. There is a utilitarian justification for economic equality, but utilitarianism itself is based on two assumptions: (1) human happiness is the measure of goodness, and (2) the happiness of every human being has equal value. I take those two assumptions as axiomatic, and you will notice that equality is part of the second assumption, so I suppose you could say that the importance of equality is axiomatic for me.
Those axioms need to be justified for them to be persuasive. Otherwise you're just looking for people who already agree with you.

Becoming an engineer is hard. Why would anyone bother doing it if the rewards for excelling as an engineer were the same as the rewards for excelling as a florist? Because they like engineering more than flowers.

Because they like engineering more than flowers.
And some people will. But enough?

Market forces encourage prospective engineers to choose engineering through financial incentives as long as there is unmet demand for engineers. It's a vastly more efficient distribution of labour.

And some people will. But enough?Most likely. Keep in mind that we wouldn't need as many engineers then as we do now.

Market forces encourage prospective engineers to choose engineering through financial incentives as long as there is unmet demand for engineers. It's a vastly more efficient distribution of labour.Not particularly, because people will pick engineering despite not really wanting to be engineers and thus not work as well as someone who wants to be an engineer.
Not to mention that even if it's still more efficient, it's also unjust, and the latter is far more important than the former.

Market forces encourage prospective engineers to choose engineering through financial incentives as long as there is unmet demand for engineers. It's a vastly more efficient distribution of labour.

In fantasyland, maybe. In the real world, there are engineering jobs going unfilled for months at a time, and unemployed engineers. In the real world, engineers make a lot of money even when the market is satisfied... you have a lot of wealthy engineers, and some engineers employed as other things.

Market forces don't encourage 'prospective engineers' to become engineers... they encourage people who may or may not have any aptitude for engineering, to get into that job by whatever means necessary, because it pays well.

Market forces actually have a tendency to do almost exactly the opposite of what we want - which is put the best people in the job.

Most likely. Keep in mind that we wouldn't need as many engineers then as we do now.
Why not? Will we need less industry?
Not particularly, because people will pick engineering despite not really wanting to be engineers and thus not work as well as someone who wants to be an engineer.
Not to mention that even if it's still more efficient, it's also unjust, and the latter is far more important than the former.
I'm really good at my job (I design and manage databases). I seem to have a natural aptitude for understanding and applying complex sets of logical rules (purely logical rules - great for databases, but not always that useful in the real world).

It's boring. There are other things I would rather do that are easier, but they don't pay... at all, really. And because they're easier, I could excel at them, and thus I would choose them and benefit from them under a system where remuneration was equal for everyone.

But then the world would be deprived of my rarer skillset.

In fantasyland, maybe. In the real world, there are engineering jobs going unfilled for months at a time, and unemployed engineers.
I have a cousin who's an enemployed engineer, but he's a lousy engineer. He warrants unemployment.
In the real world, engineers make a lot of money even when the market is satisfied... you have a lot of wealthy engineers, and some engineers employed as other things.
If the market were truly satisfied, why isn't the competition between them driving down wages?
Market forces don't encourage 'prospective engineers' to become engineers... they encourage people who may or may not have any aptitude for engineering, to get into that job by whatever means necessary, because it pays well.
Are those people don't count as prospective engineers why?

You've just made my point. The job pays well because it's highly valued, and that encourages people to do it.

Lots of people try to become professional athletes, too, but most of the fail. But that competition selects the best available athletes.
Market forces actually have a tendency to do almost exactly the opposite of what we want - which is put the best people in the job.
I see people get placed in positions for which they are unsuited, but it's usually caused by someone using the wrong tools to measure qualifications. Why would that change under a more equitable system?

Unless your system is better, there's no point changing to it.

I have a cousin who's an enemployed engineer, but he's a lousy engineer. He warrants unemployment.


Nice anecdote. I have a friend who is a fully qualified engineer, but he ended up stocking shelves in Wal-Mart. Depressed economies don't figure in your idealised world.


If the market were truly satisfied, why isn't the competition between them driving down wages?


For real?

Why would engineers force down prices of their service?


Are those people don't count as prospective engineers why?


They weren't prospective engineers. They are interested only in the bottom line. Their aptitude (and, likely ability) lie elsewhere.


You've just made my point. The job pays well because it's highly valued, and that encourages people to do it.


Not at all. The job pays well because it is codified. Enginering is protected.


I see people get placed in positions for which they are unsuited, but it's usually caused by someone using the wrong tools to measure qualifications. Why would that change under a more equitable system?

Unless your system is better, there's no point changing to it.

Rubbish. If a system is crap, try something new - and keep tryng till you get something really good. You don't stick with a broken system just because it already exists.

Nice anecdote. I have a friend who is a fully qualified engineer, but he ended up stocking shelves in Wal-Mart. Depressed economies don't figure in your idealised world.
Sure they do. They reduce demand for his services. The most efficient application of his skills at present may well be at Wal-Mart.
For real?

Why would engineers force down prices of their service?
To get jobs. If I'm a working engineer, but there are unemployed engineers who would do the work for 20% less money, my employer would be a fool not to use them instead.

That's why scabs cross picket lines. The guys in the union have an interest in limiting the supply of labour to force up the price, but the unemployed guy who's not in the union has no such interest. As such, workers generally (and unions in particular) have a lot more leverage when the supply of labour is scarce (as it presently is in parts of North America).
They weren't prospective engineers. They are interested only in the bottom line. Their aptitude (and, likely ability) lie elsewhere.
But they freely chose to be engineers. They must, at some point, have been prospective engineers, if only for a moment.
Not at all. The job pays well because it is codified. Enginering is protected.
Unless that's voluntary, that would count as regulatory interference in the market. I would oppose that.
Rubbish. If a system is crap, try something new - and keep tryng till you get something really good. You don't stick with a broken system just because it already exists.
What if there's a cost associated with the change? Now you know there's a downside, but are unaware of an upside. Do you still make the change?

Would that count as chasing hope, or throwing good money after bad?

In a free market, skills possessed by fewer people get rewarded more greatly because there is a lesser supply of those skills.
There is a good argument to be made that such rewards are unjust. If your rewards depend on how many people have your skills, then your rewards depend on the actions of other people rather than your own actions. It's not your fault that you happen to have a common skill, nor is it your merit if your skill happens to be rare.

That encourages people to acquire those skills.
It is a mistake to assume that anyone could acquire any skills. Most people don't have a particularly broad choice in the matter. I doubt I could make a good medical doctor no matter how much the job paid and no matter how much I tried.

There is more than one job I could do, obviously, but the number of jobs I could be any good at is finite. My main strengths are my math skills, my analytical thinking and my intuitive grasp of logical systems. I am completely useless for anything involving physical labour, however, I am a lousy driver and I am an introvert - interpersonal contact drains me of energy.

So choosing a job is not a simple matter of weighing the monetary benefits against the effort it takes to acquire the necessary skills, like you make it sound. If not enough people have an aptitude for medicine, then you will not get enough doctors, no matter how much you pay them.

If the rewards are always the same in every field regardless of what they are or how important they are to people, no one will do the really challenging fields unless there are no other options.
The "really challenging fields" are defined as the fields that very few people have a talent for, plus the fields that most people find boring or unpleasant.

I am of the opinion that if society requires more people working in those fields than are available, then society needs to find a way to increase automatization in those fields or otherwise reduce the necessary number of workers in them. When you have jobs that no one wants to do, the best course of action is to try to ensure no one has to do them, rather than paying people more to persuade them to take these jobs.

In a socialist economy, there should be incentives in place to ensure that people are replaced with machines at the fastest possible rate in the jobs no one wants to do, so they can instead do the jobs they like. Having to deal with a labour shortage in the unwanted jobs is one such incentive.

This only works if the distribution of skills matches the distribution of demand for those skills.
Right. In the (almost inevitable) event that those two things do not match, there must be a mechanism in place to either encourage workers to do different jobs or to encourage consumers to demand different goods and services.

On the labour supply side, the socialist planning agency should set aside a given number of jobs of each type every year (or whatever time unit is used). If a certain job is easy or popular, workers will compete to get one of the limited number of spots, and those who cannot make the cut will have to choose instead from among the other available jobs.

Those axioms need to be justified for them to be persuasive. Otherwise you're just looking for people who already agree with you.
I am looking for people who agree that (a) happiness is important and (b) the happiness of every person is as important as the happiness of every other person. I believe that most people do, in fact, agree with these axioms, and anyone who agrees with them should logically be a socialist. But if you do not agree with them, I cannot persuade you to become a socialist.

What if there's a cost associated with the change? Now you know there's a downside, but are unaware of an upside. Do you still make the change?
Unless I'm very much mistaken, your preferred system is also very different from the status quo, so wouldn't this argument apply to you as well?

Indeed, strictly speaking, we can never be sure of the benefits of anything that hasn't been tried before - so, using your logic, no one should ever try anything new, because it's too risky.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, your preferred system is also very different from the status quo, so wouldn't this argument apply to you as well?
Certainly. Though I'm not trying to impose my system on people; I'm trying to stop people from imposing their systems on me.
Indeed, strictly speaking, we can never be sure of the benefits of anything that hasn't been tried before - so, using your logic, no one should ever try anything new, because it's too risky.
Lack of certainty is not equal to complete uncertainty. We can work out likely or probable outcomes in advance of taking action.

Certainly. Though I'm not trying to impose my system on people; I'm trying to stop people from imposing their systems on me.


Whilst you simultaneously expect to take advantage of all the benfits of those systems.

Curious - you say you are not trying to impose your system on people... this, one assumes, means you would not vote for a candidate that espoused your system as a platform?

Because.. if you would... then your claim is a lie.