Against Formal Self-Ownership (Somewhat long, I'm afraid)

[moorobot]

Libertarians and many ACers on this board appeal to the principle of formal Self-ownership in order to defend their view that government (in general or redistributive taxation in specific) is morally wrong-people, in this view, are entitled to the rewards of any and all market exchanges. In a later post I will argue that the principle of self-ownership does not in fact have these inegalitarian implications at all-redistribution of market income is compatible with formal self-ownership. In this post I will try to make an argument against formal self-ownership. My discussion undoubtedly draws very heavily on, but adds and subtracts from, G.A. Cohen's Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality , Cambridge University Press, 1995. Cohen is perhaps the cleverest living anglophone philosopher, and I don't think that anybody who hasn't read this book can really say they understand Current Political Philosophy: Here is an Amazon link (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521477514/sr=8-2/qid=1146555742/ref=sr_1_2/103-0251299-3554240?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

The idea of self-ownership seems strange, because it suggests that their is a single distinct thing, the self, which one owns. To understand it, I think that it means that to have self-ownership is to have rights over one's person that a slaveholder has over a chattel slave, or, say, a property right over myself. To many libertarians, if I own my self I own my talents. And if I own my talents, (then libertarians, as I will show in a future post, incorrectly infer) then I own whatever I produce with my talents. Owning a piece of property means that I own what is produced by that property, so owning talents means that I own what is produced by my talents. I have legal/moral rights over my physical being if I have self-ownership.

I believe, however, that substanitve self-ownership/ self determination is the more significant/fundemental value. The formal version is just a red herring. Self-determination means to have effective or substanitve control over one's life-the ability to act on our conception of ourselves. We should be able to act on our own conceptions of the good in our most important projects. This requires actual access and ownership of resources, not just formal rights. we are only free to pursue our most important projects, free from the demands of others, if we are not forced by economic necessity to accept whatever condtions others impose upon us in return for access to needed resources. Since meaningful self-determination requires both resources and liberties, and since each of us has a seperate existensce, each person has an equal claim to these resources and liberties. In an AC world, or any libertarian world, not everyone can parlay their formal self-ownership into substantive self-determination: Someone who lacks any property, and who must sell her labor to a capitalsist, has full formal self-ownership.

For example, Don and Jim both live in an AC world. However, only Jim has independent access to resources and productive property; they are his private property: Don is forced to work for Jim in order to survive under whatever
conditons Jim is offering. The resulting agreement might well be essentially equivlent to the enslavement of the worker, and has been in some actual capitalist countries past and present. The fact that Don has formal rights of self-ownership means that he cannot be the legal property of another person (unlike a slave) but economic necessity may force her to agree to terms that are almost as adverse.

Lack of property and resouces can be just as opressive as lack of formal negative rights:

"No longer enslaved or made dependent by force of law, the great majority are so by force of poverty: they are chained to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity with the will of an employer, and debarred from birth both from the enjoyments, and from the mental and moral advanatages, which others inherit without exertion and independently of desert. That this is an evil equal to almost any of those which mankind have hitherto struggled, the poor are not wrong in believing" John Stuart Mill, From the Principles of Political Economy.

One poster here told me that to reject self-ownership is to endorse slavery. At first glance seemingly the best way to avoid this kind of injustice is to give everyone the legal rights over himself that slave-owners have over their slave; the best way to prevent slavery is to give each person ownership over himself. Of course, the fact I have legal rights over myself does not mean I can avoid what is in effect slavery. Even if a capitalist does not have the same legal rights over me that slave-owners have over slaves, I may not in fact have any kind of ability to decide on the nature and terms of my living. In order to prevent the injustice that occurs in slavery, we should try to equalize the substantive control each person posseses, in the form of equal liberties in resources, not reverse the legal rights involved.

So why, in the end, should we be concerned with formal self-ownership at all? If we contrast the conception of substantive self-determination with formal self ownership, surely substantive self-determination is the fundemental value. It is the value out of the two which allows us to avoid the type of injustice that occurs in slavery.

We certainly do not endorse self-determination because it promotes self ownership. Rather, we will endorse self-ownership in so far as it promotes self-determination. So why not just start with the concept of self-determination? Why not pick the regime that best promotes self-determination? It may be the case that the best regime goes beyond and or/limits self-ownership.

Furthermore, Self-ownership only seems plausible because the concept is presented as homogenous and specific. It mistakenly suggests that we either have or lack self-ownership. But in reality there is a range of options, each allowing for different control over one's circumstances. The claim that ethics requires that we absolutely accept self-ownership only seems to be somewhat plausible when compared to the absolute denial of it.

Instead, we should ask which bundle of rights and resources contributes best in promoting people's essential interests. The question we should ask is: which combination of rights, powers, opportunites, resources etc. contributes to each human beings ability to act on their goals and projects: their conceptions of themselves? We can distinguish between the various components of controlling oneself and controlling external resources.

Being subject to taxation does not seriously or unfairly impair anybody's self-determination. Even if one is taxed according to liberal egalitarian (E.g. Rawls or Dworkin) principle of justice, for example, one still has a fair share of resources and liberties with which to control the essential feature of one's life. I am not unjustly/unfairly disadvantaged in my ability to act on my conception of myself if government taxes income from the exercise of my naturally and socially gained talents.

So we should endorse the socio-political-economic regime the best promotes self-determination, not self-ownership. Answer for me this question: Imagine we only have two choices: We can either tax Kobe Bryant's income, or we can allow a person who has no earning power (perhaps he is physically handicapped) to starve to death (or be on the edge of starvation). Which should we choose? Tax the multi millionaire athlete, or let the person with no luck in the natural and social lottery starve to death???

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
Answer for me this question: Imagine we only have two choices: We can either tax Kobe Bryant's income, or we can allow a person who has no earning power (perhaps he is physically handicapped) to starve to death (or be on the edge of starvation). Which should we choose? Tax the multi millionaire athlete, or let the person with no luck in the natural and social lottery starve to death???

[/ QUOTE ] And why choose one or the other?

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Answer for me this question: Imagine we only have two choices: We can either tax Kobe Bryant's income, or we can allow a person who has no earning power (perhaps he is physically handicapped) to starve to death (or be on the edge of starvation). Which should we choose? Tax the multi millionaire athlete, or let the person with no luck in the natural and social lottery starve to death???

[/ QUOTE ] And why choose one or the other?

[/ QUOTE ]

Kobe Bryant produces something for society. The person with no luck does not. I have more interest in letting the productive individual keep his wealth than I do in forcing him to redistribute it to someone else.

[guesswest]

You hit on my primary gripe with AC in this notion 'to reject self-ownership is to endorse slavery' (which I know you were quoting, not endorsing).

It's not that this idea is incorrect, it's that it's a binary distinction where it's not appropriate to make one. Enslavement is a continuum, and most people want a bit of it because they view it as +EV to themselves personally as it manifests in society. This may be a tyranny of the majority, but the only alternative is a tyranny of the minority one generation down the line.

[Metric]

It is very easy to have equal rights of self-ownership. It will never be possible to implement equal rights to self-determination, since that would require equal "access to resources," though certain people and governments have shown a great willingness to try, to the great detriment of the society as a whole.

[Darryl_P]

Why not just ask Kobe Bryant? If he says no then what business is it of mine to force him to say yes?

I could try of course, but if he then uses his resources to retaliate against me, then I'd hardly be surprised, nor should I be.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
Even if a capitalist does not have the same legal rights over me that slave-owners have over slaves, I may not in fact have any kind of ability to decide on the nature and terms of my living.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hogwash. You can accept the capitalists terms or you can reject them. You therefore have ability to decide the terms of your life. You may choose his terms because they are better than what you think rejecting them might bring you. That is your choice; action or inaction. No coercion. No slavery. Your "plan" necessarily involves both coercion and slavery. You coerce people into giving up their property and make them slaves to people who don't have as much. It's the Pony-Giveaway!

[ QUOTE ]
Lack of property and resouces can be just as opressive as lack of formal negative rights:

[/ QUOTE ]
And I suppose you're just the man to tell us exactly how much property and resources is necessary for self-determination. Here we see your arrogance that you routinely display in your posts; that you (or some omniscient government your approve of) could possibly know how much property and resources is required for each person to pursue their own ends. Well here's an economic idea that is pretty widely accepted; that "wants" are infinite. To satisfy all our wants, we'd need unlimited resources. Now of course, this is impossible. So instead you ask us to put our faith in monopolies of force who have ceaselessly displayed their willingness to be corrupted and hope they can divine how to equally distribute all the resources in the world? You must be joking, and I weep that because I know you aren't.

I'm curious, moorobot. Do you believe in private property? Because private property stems from owning ones' self so if you don't own yourself, you can't own property. If you don't believe in private property, you won't mind if I come over to your house and take what I want, right? We'll just be redistributing what you have to me. I'll try to leave you with a few things, but realize that I have many wants and it'd be immoral for you to withhold them from me.

[guesswest]

How on earth is the OP arrogant? He may be saying something you don't agree with, but he's doing so with rational argument in a non-emotive way and putting his ideas up to public scrutiny. Yours is the emotive response, it's not arrogance if someone doesn't agree with your politics.

As far as slaves go, slaves have a choice too. Everyone in every political model has choice, it's just about consequences. The slave can refuse to work and be beaten, the economically enslaved can refuse to work under oppressive conditions and be homeless.

As far as self-determination goes, it's true it's difficult to quantify, but I don't think the OP was suggesting he could do so, just that it should be the target of egalitarian political models.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
How on earth is the OP arrogant?

[/ QUOTE ]
His "I know best" attitude.

He just spent hundreds of words trying to say that he (or a government he supports) would know how to divvy up all the resources in order to make people able to do what they want and not be "forced" to do anything by the "evil" capitalists. How is it not arrogant to assume that anyone could know the answer to that?

[ QUOTE ]
The slave can refuse to work and be beaten, the economically enslaved can refuse to work under oppressive conditions and be homeless.

[/ QUOTE ]
These are different! Coercion means forcing someone to ACT and therfore punishing inaction or the "wrong choice" (as determined by the coercer, of course). The "economically enslaved" are given a choice by the capitalist: take this job or do something else. The capitalist is not obligated to provide them with anything and the "enslaved" is not obligated to take anything. Neither is punished by the other for inaction. Therefore the "enslaved" is not really enslaved because he has a choice of inaction and the provider of the choice will not punish him.

A real slave has no choice of inaction that doesn't result in punishment. He either acts the way the master wants him to or his is punished by the master for any "deviant" choice. THAT is coercion by definition.

[ QUOTE ]
As far as self-determination goes, it's true it's difficult to quantify, but I don't think the OP was suggesting he could do so, just that it should be the target of egalitarian political models.

[/ QUOTE ]
How can you have something as a target if you can't quanitfy it? That's silly. It's like having a war on terror (or drugs, poverty or whatever). When will we know when we've "won" such a war? It'd also be like saying I'm going to drive to a country I don't know anything about. I don't know where that is or how to get there or how I'll know when I'm there, but I'm going, damnit!

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
The idea of self-ownership seems strange, because it suggests that their is a single distinct thing, the self, which one owns.

[/ QUOTE ] The idea of self-ownership is not strange. If you deny it, you say that someone else has a higher claim to your life. Who can possibly have a better claim to your life then you, it's not strange at all.

[ QUOTE ]
To many libertarians, if I own my self I own my talents. And if I own my talents, (then libertarians, as I will show in a future post, incorrectly infer) then I own whatever I produce with my talents.

[/ QUOTE ] Some talents and products fall under the category of a public good. Like the human genome. This has zero to do with self ownership.

[ QUOTE ]
self-ownership/ self determination

[/ QUOTE ] There is no need to gulf these to ideas. Both are different and require different principles for their actualization. Self determination is very costly to ensure. The best we can do is during times of plenty is to decrease the inequities in self determination. We cannot fully equalize self determination without a serious affront to self-ownership.

[ QUOTE ]
This requires actual access and ownership of resources, not just formal rights.

[/ QUOTE ] When we attemp to argue against something we normally overstear in an attemp to correct. Resources should at the very least be described as public resources. There is no reason for us to artificailly equalize self determinaztion. But only to provide a "minimal" standard of self determination, a public good if you will, when that can be done with minimal duress shared from societies product.

[ QUOTE ]
So why, in the end, should we be concerned with formal self-ownership at all?

[/ QUOTE ] Becuase to deny it means that someone, or something else has a better claim to our lives then we do.

[ QUOTE ]
The claim that ethics requires that we absolutely accept self-ownership only seems to be somewhat plausible when compared to the absolute denial of it.


[/ QUOTE ] I'm not following.

[ QUOTE ]
So we should endorse the socio-political-economic regime the best promotes self-determination, not self-ownership. Answer for me this question: Imagine we only have two choices: We can either tax Kobe Bryant's income, or we can allow a person who has no earning power (perhaps he is physically handicapped) to starve to death (or be on the edge of starvation). Which should we choose? Tax the multi millionaire athlete, or let the person with no luck in the natural and social lottery starve to death???

[/ QUOTE ] We should provide a social saftey net, for the physically handicapped. We will call the social saftey net a public good, and we should force consumerism from those that recieve benefits.

[guesswest]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How on earth is the OP arrogant?

[/ QUOTE ]
His "I know best" attitude.

He just spent hundreds of words trying to say that he (or a government he supports) would know how to divvy up all the resources in order to make people able to do what they want and not be "forced" to do anything by the "evil" capitalists. How is it not arrogant to assume that anyone could know the answer to that?

[ QUOTE ]
The slave can refuse to work and be beaten, the economically enslaved can refuse to work under oppressive conditions and be homeless.

[/ QUOTE ]
These are different! Coercion means forcing someone to ACT and therfore punishing inaction or the "wrong choice" (as determined by the coercer, of course). The "economically enslaved" are given a choice by the capitalist: take this job or do something else. The capitalist is not obligated to provide them with anything and the "enslaved" is not obligated to take anything. Neither is punished by the other for inaction. Therefore the "enslaved" is not really enslaved because he has a choice of inaction and the provider of the choice will not punish him.

A real slave has no choice of inaction that doesn't result in punishment. He either acts the way the master wants him to or his is punished by the master for any "deviant" choice. THAT is coercion by definition.

[ QUOTE ]
As far as self-determination goes, it's true it's difficult to quantify, but I don't think the OP was suggesting he could do so, just that it should be the target of egalitarian political models.

[/ QUOTE ]
How can you have something as a target if you can't quanitfy it? That's silly. It's like having a war on terror (or drugs, poverty or whatever). When will we know when we've "won" such a war? It'd also be like saying I'm going to drive to a country I don't know anything about. I don't know where that is or how to get there or how I'll know when I'm there, but I'm going, damnit!

[/ QUOTE ]

Can't be bothered to quote piece by piece so will number.

1. I don't think that's what he was saying. I think he was saying we should be shaping egalitarian political models around that target, in the same way a utilitarian model is aiming for 'the greater good' but can't exactly put a number on it. Knowing how to achieve equality of self-determination is a whole other issue, but it's one that's only really worth trying to figure out if the prior step is accepted.

2. I don't see how they're different in any meaningful way. If you're forced into an oppressive or humiliating job by financial debt to an employer, if the consequence of quitting is that your kids will starve, or you'll wind up homeless etc. That's no real choice in my mind. And for that matter, I think a great many ACers would agree - hence the common suggestion that society isn't ready for AC yet (needs to become significantly wealthier with a better developed infrastructure).

This kind of economic enslavement is what happens in the sex trade in asia. Women are given visas and provided green cards by their employers for a fee which they agree to subsequently pay off through work, but unaware of the costs and how much pay they can expect they are effectively 'owned' for life, even though it's just an issue debt (they have full self-ownership legally).

3. I didn't say you couldn't quantify it I said it was difficult. But even if it does turn out to be impossible to do so, not being able to pinpoint exactly where the equality balance finds equilibrium doesn't stop you identifying serious instances of inequality and setting up society in such a way that you close in on the target by eliminating such instances.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Answer for me this question: Imagine we only have two choices: We can either tax Kobe Bryant's income, or we can allow a person who has no earning power (perhaps he is physically handicapped) to starve to death (or be on the edge of starvation). Which should we choose?

Rather than comment on your overall pseudo-intellectual argument, I'll just pick on the above strawman. First of all, it contains a logical fallacy, in that you juxtapose a real person (Kobe Bryant) with a hypothetical.

Why must you assume that without the initiation of force by the collective, no one would voluntarily of his/her own accord, do anything to assist the hypothetical handicapped man?

Your assumption is that without the all-knowing government, there would be no private way to aid people in need? That is patently false since charity pre-existed the welfare state. You also assume that the government would by nature do a better job than private endeavor, a point with which I disagree.

Regardless, you either choose to ignore or cannot understand the simple fact that government funding of social programs is a black hole that is by nature both inefficient and counterproductive. There will always be more "good ideas" than there will be public funds to adequately provide those services. Thus the need for public funds will always rise. Limited funds in the hands of government will mean that such endeavors will always be underfunded and badly adminsitered, making it impossible for them to accomplish those tasks.

I have no idea how Kobe spends his money, but there are many examples of wealthy people (Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, et al.) who do more to benefit less fortunate people than the government can ever hope to do.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
but there are many examples of wealthy people (Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, et al.) who do more to benefit less fortunate people than the government can ever hope to do.

[/ QUOTE ] You think 3 people can do more than any government can hope to do?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but there are many examples of wealthy people (Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, et al.) who do more to benefit less fortunate people than the government can ever hope to do.

[/ QUOTE ] You think 3 people can do more than any government can hope to do?

[/ QUOTE ]

Those 3 were examples. However, as a short answer - yes. Any private organization will have better control over outcomes than a government bureaucracy.

All government is, is an alternate type of enterprise. In many ways it is no different than private enterprise, i.e., it consists of people managing processes and delivering services. Where public enterprise falls short is in cost and outcome control. Private enterprise innovates better than government. Private enterprise adjusts to unknowns better than government.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but there are many examples of wealthy people (Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, et al.) who do more to benefit less fortunate people than the government can ever hope to do.

[/ QUOTE ] You think 3 people can do more than any government can hope to do?

[/ QUOTE ]

Those 3 were examples. However, as a short answer - yes. Any private organization will have better control over outcomes than a government bureaucracy.

All government is, is an alternate type of enterprise. In many ways it is no different than private enterprise, i.e., it consists of people managing processes and delivering services. Where public enterprise falls short is in cost and outcome control. Private enterprise innovates better than government. Private enterprise adjusts to unknowns better than government.

[/ QUOTE ]I agree completely, but strangly I'm not anti-government. I think AC is much worse ethically. But that's because I don't think people have freewill, or at least the type of freewill that AC needs for it to be viable.

[Riddick]

[ QUOTE ]
The idea of self-ownership is not strange. If you deny it, you say that someone else has a higher claim to your life. Who can possibly have a better claim to your life then you, it's not strange at all.


[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't yet fully read the OP, but I must say, Bingo.

Property begins with the body.

[DrewDevil]

moorobot, rather than engage in philosophical hand-washing with you, I must simply ask:

Have you not observed the catastrophic failures of your egalitarian vision when it is put into practice?

"Making everyone equal" requires an iron-fisted state to take from the producers and give to the non-producers (or, as you would call them, from the lucky to the unlucky). History has shown that at best, it leads to a degradation of society (e.g., everyone gets the same lousy health care), and at worst, it leads to unspeakable atrocity.

Meanwhile, history has shown that the absence of government interference actually leads to prosperity and innovation. Can you not see this? Freedom works.

And as another poster pointed out, in theory, the man with no skills could starve to death. IN REALITY, he does not. People managed to feed, clothe and shelter themselves long before the rise of the welfare state, because the "lucky" people willingly helped the "unlucky" ones.

I am not an anarcho-capitalist, because I do believe that the government is the best way to protect and defend property rights, but your vision of a better world does not work, and in fact, it makes things worse.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
You hit on my primary gripe with AC in this notion 'to reject self-ownership is to endorse slavery' (which I know you were quoting, not endorsing).

It's not that this idea is incorrect, it's that it's a binary distinction where it's not appropriate to make one. Enslavement is a continuum, and most people want a bit of it because they view it as +EV to themselves personally as it manifests in society.

[/ QUOTE ]

If they want to subject themselves to a collective organization that will make decisions for them, I have no problem with that. The problem comes in when they decide to force others (against their will) to participate in their collective.

[ QUOTE ]
This may be a tyranny of the majority, but the only alternative is a tyranny of the minority one generation down the line.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is this not one of those "binary distinctions" you were complaining about?

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The idea of self-ownership seems strange, because it suggests that their is a single distinct thing, the self, which one owns.

[/ QUOTE ] The idea of self-ownership is not strange. If you deny it, you say that someone else has a higher claim to your life. Who can possibly have a better claim to your life then you, it's not strange at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously, our intellectual betters (moorobot's ruling class) has a better claim.

[ QUOTE ]
Some talents and products fall under the category of a public good. Like the human genome. This has zero to do with self ownership.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's a "public good"?

[ QUOTE ]
We should provide a social saftey net, for the physically handicapped.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this. That's why I donate money to chairities.

[ QUOTE ]
We will call the social saftey net a public good, and we should force consumerism from those that recieve benefits.

[/ QUOTE ]

Call it whatever you want. Who is "we" and what is "forcing consumerism" and who exactly are the people that "recieve benefits"?

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but there are many examples of wealthy people (Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, et al.) who do more to benefit less fortunate people than the government can ever hope to do.

[/ QUOTE ] You think 3 people can do more than any government can hope to do?

[/ QUOTE ]

The results speak for themselves. How many people have Bill, Tiger and Phil killed? Starved? Maimed? Oppressed?

You're right. There's no way they can accomplish what government can.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree completely, but strangly I'm not anti-government. I think AC is much worse ethically. But that's because I don't think people have freewill,

[/ QUOTE ]

How do you "think" this if you don't have free will? Shouldn't you say that you're "programmed to know that people don't have free will"?

[ QUOTE ]
or at least the type of freewill that AC needs for it to be viable.

[/ QUOTE ]

And what type is that?

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
And if I own my talents, (then libertarians, as I will show in a future post, incorrectly infer) then I own whatever I produce with my talents.

[/ QUOTE ]

Until you "show" this, I don't see much point in responding to the rest of your post.

EDIT: Obviously, one must own the other inputs into the final product as well, or, at least, use inputs that are unowned in order to be the sole owner of the final product. And one must not have contracted that labor to someone else in exchange for something else.

What you need to show is how someone else gains a property interest in something I produce when they owned none of the inputs.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously, our intellectual betters (moorobot's ruling class) has a better claim.


[/ QUOTE ] Just because some people misuse and abuse authority, doesn't mean mankind is better of without authority.

[ QUOTE ]
What's a "public good"?


[/ QUOTE ] Lets call it a human invention similair to rights. But instead of the right belonging to one person it belongs to all people. Lit of a certain age, scientific research that impacts humanity, possibly music compositions, basic education, access to higher education, transportation, regulation of the market.....

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with this. That's why I donate money to chairities.


[/ QUOTE ] I don't see any reason why you should be forced to over pay for this public good. I donate too, but because I don't mind overpaying.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Obviously, our intellectual betters (moorobot's ruling class) has a better claim.


[/ QUOTE ] Just because some people misuse and abuse authority, doesn't mean mankind is better of without authority.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, not by itself.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What's a "public good"?


[/ QUOTE ] Lets call it a human invention similair to rights. But instead of the right belonging to one person it belongs to all people. Lit of a certain age, scientific research that impacts humanity, possibly music compositions, basic education, access to higher education, transportation, regulation of the market.....

[/ QUOTE ]

So, basically, anything you want?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I agree with this. That's why I donate money to chairities.


[/ QUOTE ] I don't see any reason why you should be forced to over pay for this public good. I donate too, but because I don't mind overpaying.

[/ QUOTE ]

How much payment is "overpayment"?

What did you mean by this:

[ QUOTE ]
We will call the social saftey net a public good, and we should force consumerism from those that recieve benefits.

[/ QUOTE ]

English, please.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I agree completely, but strangly I'm not anti-government. I think AC is much worse ethically.

I agree. I believe in government in a very limited role. Police and criminal justice, civil courts (impartial arbiter of contractual disputes), national defense, and certain infrastructure services like roads. I'm conflicted on things like the CDC and scientific research, but I absolutely oppose any form of social engineering. I do not believe the collective has any business legislating morality, be it the liberal welfare-state morality, or the conservative puritan ethic morality.

[gutte169]

[ QUOTE ]
Answer for me this question: Imagine we only have two choices: We can either tax Kobe Bryant's income, or we can allow a person who has no earning power (perhaps he is physically handicapped) to starve to death (or be on the edge of starvation). Which should we choose? Tax the multi millionaire athlete, or let the person with no luck in the natural and social lottery starve to death???

[/ QUOTE ]

Kobe has lots of money, and will 1) spend his money on goods and 2) reinvest his money in other ways

1) The goods he buys directly benefits everyone that creates, sells, and delivers those goods.

2) The money that he invests through his own companies or other investments has numerous financial implications, not limited to the following: better pay for employees of these businesses, more efficient production, allows for the production of new, better goods, decreases the price of these goods to the consumers, etc.

[nietzreznor]

mooro,

I haven't read Cohen's book (yet), though I intend to at some point in the not too distant future. That said:

[ QUOTE ]
The idea of self-ownership seems strange, because it suggests that their is a single distinct thing, the self, which one owns. To understand it, I think that it means that to have self-ownership is to have rights over one's person that a slaveholder has over a chattel slave, or, say, a property right over myself. To many libertarians, if I own my self I own my talents. And if I own my talents, (then libertarians, as I will show in a future post, incorrectly infer) then I own whatever I produce with my talents. Owning a piece of property means that I own what is produced by that property, so owning talents means that I own what is produced by my talents. I have legal/moral rights over my physical being if I have self-ownership.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is kind of an odd way of putting self-onwership as well, which is why I wouldn't describe self-ownership like this in the first place. While I agree that owning something has to mean something like having the right of that thing's use/disposal, the question of 'owning' talents really ought never come up.

I own myself--if anyone else owned me, that would be slavery. When I use my body in certain 'creative' ways, ie doing something talented, there is nothing extra going on here, as if my talents were somehow separable from me just using my body in way x or y.

[ QUOTE ]
We certainly do not endorse self-determination because it promotes self ownership. Rather, we will endorse self-ownership in so far as it promotes self-determination. So why not just start with the concept of self-determination? Why not pick the regime that best promotes self-determination? It may be the case that the best regime goes beyond and or/limits self-ownership.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, yes, self-owenrship is a means to self-determination (and not the other way around)--but it is a constitutive means. If I don't at least on myself, if I can't at least have freedom from others legitimately controlling me, then I couldn't possibly have meaningful self-determination.

That's all I have time for now, I'll try and comment more later...

[ianlippert]

[ QUOTE ]
2) The money that he invests through his own companies or other investments has numerous financial implications, not limited to the following: better pay for employees of these businesses, more efficient production, allows for the production of new, better goods, decreases the price of these goods to the consumers, etc.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is kind of a tangent but here goes. How much money do rich people actually take out of the system? No matter how much money Kobe has he can only consume a limited number of resources. So if he spends $100 at a fancy restaurant, but that meal only cost the restaurant $20 to make then Kobe is only consuming $20 worth of goods and giving to 'charity' $80. In this case the charity is the restaurant workers, owners, food producers, etc. Does this make sense? I guess what I am saying, is that although people like Kobe look rediculously wealthy, they are actually recieving a standard of living that is much lower, as a percent of their income, than a middle class family would recieve. The rest gets invested to successful and efficient businesses, mainly due to the fact that rich people spend lots of money.

Moorobot, the whole point of capitalism is that there will be less poor people so charity is less of an issue. I dont see how you can give me any guarantees that your theoretical government will not be corrupt and inefficient. So although I agree with you in theory I have a hard time agreeing with you in practice.

[moorobot]

Self-determination also allows for this: we don't have the choice (when deciding between formal and substantive) between someone else having a higher claim to your life and you having a claim to your life. Rather, we have a choice between two different interpretations of each person having a claim to their own lives. In my view, self-determination is a better interpretation of having the best claim to your own life.

[moorobot]

Well, just because we can't have perfect equality in an acceptable way does not mean we cannot approximate it to some degree; here is an example:

Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Japan.

ALl of these countries have a higher % of total gov't GDP spent on government programs than the U.S., and far more equality in wealth and income and educational access than the U.S. or UK.

However, they all have higher levels of productivity/hour than the U.S. and UK, and far lower levels of poverty and child poverty. They have experienced a higher rate of growth over the last 50 years: high ammounts of government programs and low ammounts of inequality are in fact correlated postiviely with economic growth, contrary to what right wing economists would try to fool you into beliving. In the U.S. 20% of Children live in absolute poverty: Why should they face such a disadvantage. The U.S. has the same ammount of technology and FAR MORE natural resources and comparatitive advantages than these countries, and the UK was a far bigger economy pre welfare state and has the oldest capitalism. The inegalitarian democracies had a big head start on the egalitarian ones, and the egalitarian ones caught up. The fundemental difference is the increase in government programs and more progressive taxation.

It is the combination of government programs and market economy that has decreased poverty in all instances. The market makes some people poor and some rich. It always has and, given what we know about scarcity now, will for at least the next several hundred years. And the advanced capitalist economies that have been most sucessful in raising productivity over the last half century are those in which the government has played an important role in the economy.

Democratic, strong and large welfare states are the ones that have eliminated poverty to the greates extent. They do not have the lack of freedom you mention, and people there on average report having more subjective satisfaction witht their life and happiness on average than in more inegalitarian, weaker affirmative states. These countries have the lowest crime rates as well. Crime is certainly caused to some extent by absolute poverty, but many medical researchers, psychologists, and evolutionary theorists, most notably Wilkinson, have put together strong arguments that crime is caused by relative inequality as well. It seems your assesment of what happens in a strong affirmative state is completely contrary to the facts.

In recent decades the distribution of income in Japan, Korea and Taiwan have been among the most equal in the world, yet the growth in productivity in these countries such as South Africa and Brazil, not to mention the U.S. and the UK.

Even confining are disucssion to relatively rich countries, we see there isn't a trade off between growth and equality. Here is the gine coefficient (measure of family income inequality, after tax disposable income) and rate of productivity rate in several wealthy countries:

Country, Gini, Avergae annual growth of labor productivity, 1950-2000.

Belgium: 27, 2.7%
Norway: 27, 2.7%
Denmark: 28, 2.2%
West Germany: 30, 2.6%
Netherlands: 33, 2.2%
France: 34, 2.9%
UK: 34, 2.1%
Canada: 33, 1.2%
U.S.: 39, 1.6%

The most inegalitarian countries have the lowest rate of economic growth. Hence, it seems that inequality doubly effects the poor: it lead to slower increases in size of the pie, and gives less of a percentage of the pie to them.

Many economists now think that economic inequality impedes rather that promotes efficiency and the growth of productivity. Inequality breeds conflicts such as strikes and fosters hostile relationships between employers and employees, wasting output and effort in important and unproductive ways. In some cases people simply walk away from an opportunity for mutual gain, because no slice of the cake seems better than an unfairly small slice (a tendency well documented in experiments such as the ultimatum game). Racial and other forms of discrimination as well as other aspects of unequal opportuinity, contribute to the lack of adequate education for many, with a resulting talent loss for the economy of a whole. And when inequalites of wealth mean that people lack the assets they would need to go into business on tehir own, the economy loses their capacities for management and innovation.

(Source for this: Bowles, Edwards, Roosevelt: Understanding Capitalism, 2005 edition)


In fact, it is quite clear that even when comparing fascistic countries with dictatorships, the ones with socialistic andd relatively egalitarian economies are doing far better than ones with laissez faire, inegalitarian ecnomies. China and Cuba's poor people have higher literacy rates, life expectancy, better health care and more security than not only those in most other dictatorships, but ones that are higher than poor people living in inner cities in the U.S. These facts haunt me daily. How can we call our nation democratic when some people don't even have the health care, security, and education which are prerequisites to participate???

[ QUOTE ]
(e.g., everyone gets the same lousy health care

[/ QUOTE ] Why don't you tell this to Canada, where 80% of people support the Single Payer system, and they pay far less for health care but have better health care than people in the U.S. The people in the U.S., the only western democracies without universal health care, pay the most for health care, but have a life expectancy several years lower than the average person in a western democracy, and the health care system is consistently rated in the bottom half of western democracies. The health care system that occurs in capitalism by itslef is very good at making money, very bad at providing health.

or all the other countries that have universal health care and keep it once implemented, or the 75% of people who want gov't in the U.S. to implement

[ QUOTE ]
And as another poster pointed out, in theory, the man with no skills could starve to death. IN REALITY, he does not. People managed to feed, clothe and shelter themselves long before the rise of the welfare state, because the "lucky" people willingly helped the "unlucky" ones.


[/ QUOTE ] This is historically inaccurate. Many people pre-welfare state, mostly elderly and people injured by unsafe working conditions, died due to lack of resources. Most of all, in the horrible and lengthy recssions that were common pre fiscal and monetary policy, many people went hungry. Many more resorted to theft and violence in order to not starve.

Many people froze to death or died of heat exhaustion in teh U.S. just last year: even if food is not a problem in a libertarian world shelter may be.

Also, the life expectancy for unskilled labor in the UK in the US pre welfare state was in the low 30s. Even if people weren't starving to death, they were getting poor nutrition and work related injury and illness. In no country did the elimination of unsafe and unhealthy working conditions foor the vast majority of the working class happen before government made them happen.

More importantly, the example was made so that we can work out our moral intutions. Since nobody (and this includes HMK, who is a nihilist) has answered it and instead sidestepped it, I assume that the correct answer is that given those two options we should take the tax the lucky wealthy person to feed the hungry unlucky person.

It is a thought experiment to test our considered convictions about justice.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
Moorobot, the whole point of capitalism is that there will be less poor people so charity is less of an issue. I dont see how you can give me any guarantees that your theoretical government will not be corrupt and inefficient. So although I agree with you in theory I have a hard time agreeing with you in practice.

[/ QUOTE ] See my reply to Drew Devil, above. It is the combination of government programs, redistribution, and markets that eliminates poverty.

[DrewDevil]

I don't think using the current U.S. system as a comparison is a good idea--the U.S. system is no longer a free market system, but more of a mixed economy (taxes are now equal to 30% of GDP and rising).

Of course, there were and are people who have starved/ frozen to death in the U.S., but surely you must realize that NO system will prevent this completely?

And I honestly can't believe you are using Cuba and China as examples of economies we should look up to.

And... you still haven't answered my question about the brutal realities that occur when socialism is tried in practice. Hasn't history shown you that socialism leads to degradation and atrocity?

[guesswest]

Socialism has actually been hugely successful when implented in countries with a stable infrastructure - Norway for example.

I think you're conflating socialism with hardcore communism here - your garden variety socialist is not going to advocate a distribution of wealth that extreme. Your average socialist will contend that some wealth inequality is necessary for an economy to function via competition, just that caps should be in place to prevent grossly disproportionate distributions.

Also, bear in mind the vast majority of nation states around the world, both presently and throughout history, have been failures (and most are capitalist) - a system resulting in a good standard of living and a stable society is the exception not the rule.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
Socialism has actually been hugely successful when implented in countries with a stable infrastructure - Norway for example.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also, these countries where it has been less unsuccessful tend to have homogenous populations. As the number of "outsider" immigrants increases, these systems tend to deteriorate.

Part of this is because people are in general OK with their money going to others as long as those "others" look like they do.

[guesswest]

I'm not going to immediately argue against that because I'm not 100% sure I'm correct without stats to hand - but having spent some time in Norway (and even more so Sweden), they appear to have a huge immigrant population.

[moorobot]

This effect presupposes racism. But racism is decreasing, and we know of some ways to decrease it further. This effect is mostly a thing of the past.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Also, the life expectancy for unskilled labor in the UK in the US pre welfare state was in the low 30s.

Please document this.

My suspicion is that, like with the current alleged lower infant mortality rates in europe, the stats are cooked.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think using the current U.S. system as a comparison is a good idea--the U.S. system is no longer a free market system, but more of a mixed economy (taxes are now equal to 30% of GDP and rising).

[/ QUOTE ]
What should we look at then?

Second, part of my point was that as government programs and equality go up, pro
Taxes being equal to 30% is very low

[ QUOTE ]
And... you still haven't answered my question about the brutal realities that occur when socialism is tried in practice. Hasn't history shown you that socialism leads to degradation and atrocity?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not saying we should look up to China and Cuba; I believe I insulted there lack of democracy. I'm saying we should look down on ourselves for failing the poor so miserably with this example, and look at how in different cultures it has been capitalism that has failed worse than a planned economy.

If by "socialism in practice" you mean the anti utopian, fascist, millitarstic, racist dictatorship implementing "state socialism" in the USSR then yes that lead to degradation and atrocity (although it didn't seem to lead to quite as much degradation and attrocity as the west seems to believe, because in the first election after communism disappeared the communist party got over 40% of the vote-but it is VERY VERY FAR from ideal)

When has a democratic planned economy ever existed?

The closest thing to it is found in Belgium, Sweden, and Norway, and Japan.

Anyway, what I would support is a market society with all worker controlled firms if it is viable. I'm not 100% sure it is, but I'm sure that it would have to be legislated into existensce (the "free" market is systematically biased against these firms for reasons I won' discuss). And it has never been tried. That is what I mean when I say I am a socialist or economic democrat. I'm not a capitalist because I support eliminating the capitalist class-not of course eliminating the people that compose it but changing their status from capitalist to worker, from master to equal, from owner to producer- and therefore eliminating the exploitation of labor, class conflict, one inegalitarian status distinction, and the control of the capitalist class over the media and the control it has over democratic politics. Most importantly, I believe jobs would be far more intrinsically satisfying and cooperative under a system of worker controlled firms.

If it is not viable then I would not try a state socialism next. What I would try is coupon capitalism/market socailism as described by Yale economist John Roemer In his book "A Future for Socialism", in which all people own part of the stock market from birth, they cannot cash in all of their stocks, but they can trade them for other stocks, vote on what the cooperation does like current stockholders, and get dividends from profits. In this way the means of production are owned by all of us in common to a considerable degree again, and each person would get about $10,000 a year in dividends.

Both worker controlled firms and coupon capitalism would still have a lot of the social democratic programs that current social democratic societies have. If neither would work there is always strongly progressive taxation and social democratic control, and/or a universal basic income funded by progressive taxation.

There are many ways to try and achieve greater equality than totalitarian state socialism as practiced in the USSR in the 1900s. And I want to see the means of achieving this to be different as well: I don't want a violent revolution to bring these into effect, I want these policies to be voted into law by the majority.
[ QUOTE ]
Of course, there were and are people who have starved/ frozen to death in the U.S., but surely you must realize that NO system will prevent this completely?

[/ QUOTE ] The system that reduces it the most is then pro tanto the best.

[ianlippert]

[ QUOTE ]
See my reply to Drew Devil, above. It is the combination of government programs, redistribution, and markets that eliminates poverty.


[/ QUOTE ]

I would agree with this statement except for some of your other posts that I have read leads me to believe that this over simplifies what you have in mind. In my mind a government system would be in place to help poor people, people that are basically on the brink of starvation. You on the other hand want to provide equality for everyone. You dont want to allow people to accumulate large amounts of money, because you think its inherantly unjust. You want to tax the large sums of private capital and give them to the government to redistribute. A government that is going to be wasteful and corrupt, and end up taking resources from the people that need them most.

I think we need a definition of what it means to be poor. Is some guy who is working 40 hrs a week and barely getting by poor? I dont think so, he's getting by. If he's living in North America he probably has more wealth than 75% of the worlds population. These are the people that capitalism helps and that wasteful governments harm.

The biggest thing America can do to help its poor people is not to implement more government programs. The American people would benefit most from a reduction in government and a reduction in money spent on arms that are used in economically bankrupt wars.

[DrewDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not saying we should look up to China and Cuba; I believe I insulted there lack of democracy. I'm saying we should look down on ourselves for failing the poor so miserably with this example, and look at how in different cultures it has been capitalism that has failed worse than a planned economy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, there are teeming millions of desperately poor people in China, and the vast majority of Cubans are also languishing far below the American-defined "poverty line." How have these nations done better than America? It's just a ludicrous proposition.

[ QUOTE ]
If by "socialism in practice" you mean the anti utopian, fascist, millitarstic, racist dictatorship implementing "state socialism" in the USSR then yes that lead to degradation and atrocity (although it didn't seem to lead to quite as much degradation and attrocity as the west seems to believe, because in the first election after communism disappeared the communist party got over 40% of the vote-but it is VERY VERY FAR from ideal)

[/ QUOTE ]

On the one hand you acknowledge the atrocities, then on the other you muse that maybe it wasn't that bad. For the millions who died in the gulag, it was that bad. They didn't really get to vote in the elections after they were worked to death.

And yes I am talking about the non-utopian systems because we live in a non-utopian world. In the real world, you would have to have an iron-fisted state to redistribute the vast amounts of wealth you are discussing.... and I'm assuming that you would also prohibit the wealthy individuals and businesses from leaving and investing in freer markets? More soldiers, more guns.

I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you truly want to help people and that you aren't some loon with totalitarian delusions. But there is no other way to accomplish your egalitarian vision--in the real world--than with absolute power ceded to an expansive central regime, and we have seen exactly where that leads, time and again.

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, there were and are people who have starved/ frozen to death in the U.S., but surely you must realize that NO system will prevent this completely?

[/ QUOTE ] The system that reduces it the most is then pro tanto the best.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct. I believe that system is freedom, and I believe history backs me up.

[TomCollins]

Clearly, the U.S. is not far enough North. If the U.S. was somehow located further North, all our problems would be solved, as evidenced by the successes of Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Norway, etc...

[moorobot]

You can look this up your self if you want. You can also look at countries with a highly minimal welfare state or non-existent one today that has capitalism.

Think about it. Joe has an unhealthy, dangerous job where he makes $2 an hour. There are no child labor laws so unskilled laorers start at eleven year olds are working 60-90 hours a week in these conditions. If he gets hurt at his job he gets no disability payments or unemployment compensation. If he gets sick he can't afford medicine. If he gets a long term illness he certainly can't afford medicine for very long. He doesn't make enough to get adequate food or shelter, and gov't doesn't provide housing.

The functions of the welfare state are massively beyond the realm of private charity and the market in capitalism. That is why government introduced all these programs. That is why government will keep them, despite the anti-gov't rhetoric common in the USA.

If he gets killed he is dead.

You can also look at simply the history of England in the 1800s. It was largely the capitalists who were asking gov't to 'impose' a minimum wage, health and safety regulations, and working hour limits on them. Why were they doing this?

The answer is the Prisoner's dilemma inherent in the market. Each capitalist wants the other capitalists to pay their workers more so they can buy more of their stuff. But they want to pay their own workers as little as possible so they make the most money. So if they are legally free to do so they will each pay their own workers as little as possible.

Each capitalist wants the supply of labor to be high so the price is low, and so that it reaches demand. However, it costs money to create decent working conditions, and to hire and train a new worke. So, if they are legally free to do so, each capitalist will create the worst possible working condtions and work their own workers massive hours. However, what happens here? The 'supply' of labor starts to go down: Workers have their working life ended early by a work related broken leg, or illness or death. The population in Britain started to take a huge nose dive after the start of capitalism in England. The capitalist then were losing supply and demand: they lose the supply of labor, and have nobody to work for them, and they lose demand: nobody has any money to buy their products, if they are alive at all.

If they are legally free to do these things, nobody will do it: the worst result for each capitalist would have been to pay their own workers a high wage and provide good conditons for their workers while everybody else did not; the worst result in PD is to cooperate when your "partner" defects. The optimal result possible overall is for everybody to cooperate, but everybody has an incentive to defect individually.

Hence the best result for all capitalists was to agree in advance to be coerced into having a minimum wage, working day laws, and health and safety inspectors, literally a Ulysess and the Sirens situation: the capitalists know they will be brought in by the beautiful song of saving money on labor costs by providing poor working conditions and low pay if they are allowed to. So they asked government to tie their hands to the mast so they would not succumb to the siren's song.

The best result for all capitalists was if all paid decent wages and provided good health conditions. But we only get this result with these affirmative state programs

Transactions that are individually rational lead to outcomes that are collectively irrational. The paradox of rationality.

This also suggests that in capitalism the worst capitalist, the most unethical capitalist, the most unscrupulous capitalist is the one that will do the best. Whoever treats there workers the worst and does what is worst for society as a whole in the labor market makes the most profit; in the labor market in unrestricted capitalism it is not the case that Private Vices lead to public benefits. But this is not because capitalists are evil in my view for the most part. The structure of the capitalist economy
forces them to do this in order to compete, and mystifies them into thinking it is morally acceptable and/or natural. They must do this or they won't do as well as their competitiors. They must use laborers as a tool to their own end, see them as a commodity.

[moorobot]

Correlation does lend support to an argument unless you can provide an intervening variable that explains away the correlation. For example, the intervening variable here is that these countries have more egalitarian distributions and government action to promote productivity: it is not because they are further North than the U.S. that they have higher productivity, but because of these other factors which have clear intuitive causal reasons behind why they are the decisive factor.

I explained clearly why egalitarian distributions of income increase productivity, and inegalitarian ones decrease it.

So I ask you, why are all of these countries doing better on all measures than the U.S. if not for the factors I mentioned? Why is it? It is not because of more resources, because the U.S. has far more. It is not because of better technology, because that is essentially equal. Why are they doing better?

[Darryl_P]

Here is a scientific article (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=121730 29&dopt=Abstract) which shows a close relation between the genes of Norwegians and those of both western and eastern Europeans and only minor influences from Uralic speakers and Mediterranean populations.

In other words it's pretty homogenous compared to other nations.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]

Well, there are teeming millions of desperately poor people in China, and the vast majority of Cubans are also languishing far below the American-defined "poverty line." How have these nations done better than America? It's just a ludicrous proposition.


[/ QUOTE ] Ah, but perhaps they might be happier because they have more security, better health care, and can read and write? Consumer goods are not the only thing that is good in the world. I;m not saying the poor there are as well off as they in the U.S. But given that we are far richer than these countries are it shouldn't be close.

[ QUOTE ]
And yes I am talking about the non-utopian systems because we live in a non-utopian world. In the real world, you would have to have an iron-fisted state to redistribute the vast amounts of wealth you are discussing.... and I'm assuming that you would also prohibit the wealthy individuals and businesses from leaving and investing in freer markets? More soldiers, more guns.

I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you truly want to help people and that you aren't some loon with totalitarian delusions. But there is no other way to accomplish your egalitarian vision--in the real world--than with absolute power ceded to an expansive central regime, and we have seen exactly where that leads, time and again.

[/ QUOTE ] The countries that have the most egalitarian distribution of wealth out of advanced capitalistic democracies have just as much social freedom as the other ones. We have never seen a democratic country try to implement these other options. Norway has over 50% of its GDP in Government spending, and most other countries in Europe have over 40%. They are far from totalitarian regimes. Your fear here is irrational.

And I don't need to prevent the talented people from leaving because it isn't worth it to leave for a few bucks usually: they would have to leave behind their friends, family, culture and country just to make a few more dollars. In the U.S. the tax rate for the top income bracket in the 1950s was 91%. And people were not emigrating en masse. Nobody was going anywhere. Same thing in many european countries where it is currently around 80%.

And a lot of the wealthy believe strongly in redistribution as well, and they want to be forced to do it.

[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, there were and are people who have starved/ frozen to death in the U.S., but surely you must realize that NO system will prevent this completely?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The system that reduces it the most is then pro tanto the best.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Correct. I believe that system is freedom, and I believe history backs me up.

[/ QUOTE ] That is correct: the lower and working class are more free in Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium etc than they are in the United States, thanks to government programs, government market regualtion and progressive taxation , and hence their poverty rates are way lower.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
If he's living in North America he probably has more wealth than 75% of the worlds population.

[/ QUOTE ] This doesn't mean he is happier than they are. Nor does it mean he has health care, security, a good life expectancy, a good education, etc.

Barely getting by under extreme condtions of angst about the future at an intrinsically unsatisfying job just isn't good enough for me. Nor is the effects of him living under this conditon on the life chances of his children.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
This effect presupposes racism. But racism is decreasing, and we know of some ways to decrease it further. This effect is mostly a thing of the past.

[/ QUOTE ]

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2005/11/08/france372.jpg

http://www.refuseandresist.org/newwar/040702nyc.ap.jpg

http://www.osa.ceu.hu/galeria/the_divide/cpt25files/16.jpg

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If he's living in North America he probably has more wealth than 75% of the worlds population.

[/ QUOTE ] This doesn't mean he is happier than they are.


[/ QUOTE ]

So your solution to this "problem" is to make people unhappy AND poor?

[moorobot]

What?

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
If they are legally free to do these things, nobody will do it: the worst result for each capitalist would have been to pay their own workers a high wage and provide good conditons for their workers while everybody else did not; the worst result in PD is to cooperate when your "partner" defects. The optimal result possible overall is for everybody to cooperate, but everybody has an incentive to defect individually.

Hence the best result for all capitalists was to agree in advance to be coerced into having a minimum wage, working day laws, and health and safety inspectors, literally a Ulysess and the Sirens situation: the capitalists know they will be brought in by the beautiful song of saving money on labor costs by providing poor working conditions and low pay if they are allowed to. So they asked government to tie their hands to the mast so they would not succumb to the siren's song.

[/ QUOTE ] I like the way this argument is framed, I want to ask you to create an argument that usury can not surpass inflation. Any chance you have already worked on that? And that VC should have huge restriction placed on them.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
Hogwash. You can accept the capitalists terms or you can reject them. You therefore have ability to decide the terms of your life. You may choose his terms because they are better than what you think rejecting them might bring you. That is your choice; action or inaction. No coercion. No slavery. Your "plan" necessarily involves both coercion and slavery. You coerce people into giving up their property and make them slaves to people who don't have as much. It's the Pony-Giveaway!

[/ QUOTE ] They shouldn't have to choose between the first two. Somebody who has to choose between sleeping in an alley or homeless shelter. We can't just say, well they choose the alley so they must have wanted to sleep there. in this case he has the choice between slavery and death. Can we blame him for picking slavery? No. He should have better options.

If somebody has 40 and I have 5, and you take away 10 from the guy who has 40 and give it to me, how is that slavery for the person left with 30 when I have 15? I must be twice as enslaved.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm curious, moorobot. Do you believe in private property? Because private property stems from owning ones' self so if you don't own yourself, you can't own property. If you don't believe in private property, you won't mind if I come over to your house and take what I want, right? We'll just be redistributing what you have to me. I'll try to leave you with a few things, but realize that I have many wants and it'd be immoral for you to withhold them from me.

[/ QUOTE ] self-detrmination can allow for this as well.

[ QUOTE ]
property and resources is required for each person to pursue their own ends. Well here's an economic idea that is pretty widely accepted; that "wants" are infinite. To satisfy all our wants, we'd need unlimited resources. Now of course, this is impossible. So instead you ask us to put our faith in monopolies of force who have ceaselessly displayed their willingness to be corrupted and hope they can divine how to equally distribute all the resources in the world? You must be joking, and I weep that because I know you aren't.


[/ QUOTE ] Proportional representation are doing just great. And not exactly equally. Just close. It is mainly because of the fact of scarcity that we need distributive justice and government. If everything everybody wanted would just magically float down to them in a tube whenever anybody wanted it I might consider anarchy to be a somewhat reasonable position (I still wouldn't agree with it, I just wouldn't think it was a giant joke.)

[ianlippert]

Moorobot, under your system how would you deal with government corruption and inefficiencies?

Anybody else, are these european countries really great places to live? ie Norway, Denmark, any of the others moorobot talked about?

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
They shouldn't have to choose between the first two. Somebody who has to choose between sleeping in an alley or homeless shelter. We can't just say, well they choose the alley so they must have wanted to sleep there.

[/ QUOTE ]

But we can say they wanted to sleep there more than they wanted to sleep in the alley.

[ QUOTE ]
in this case he has the choice between slavery and death. Can we blame him for picking slavery? No. He should have better options.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure. But wishin ain't havin. We should pass a law that people shouldn't have to die. Or eat. Or brush their teeth.

[ QUOTE ]
If somebody has 40 and I have 5, and you take away 10 from the guy who has 40 and give it to me, how is that slavery for the person left with 30 when I have 15? I must be twice as enslaved.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who are you enslaved to when you receive the fruits of someone else's labor for free, and you get to keep your own fruits?

We can see who the guy making 40 is enslaved to. His production goes to someone else.

How much would you take away from the guy that makes 40 if he only made 30? Would you let him keep 30?

How much more would the guy produce if he got to keep it all?

You ignore the unseen effects.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm curious, moorobot. Do you believe in private property? Because private property stems from owning ones' self so if you don't own yourself, you can't own property. If you don't believe in private property, you won't mind if I come over to your house and take what I want, right? We'll just be redistributing what you have to me. I'll try to leave you with a few things, but realize that I have many wants and it'd be immoral for you to withhold them from me.

[/ QUOTE ] self-detrmination can allow for this as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Allow for what?

PS: How is the guy that gets his production taken away self-determining?

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
Moorobot, under your system how would you deal with government corruption and inefficiencies

[/ QUOTE ]

There aren't any inefficiencies in his system! Can't you read? When the guy makes 40 units of production, the state takes 10 of them and gives them to the guy that has 5, and now he has 15. There's NO OVERHEAD at all! It's brilliant!

[ QUOTE ]
Anybody else, are these european countries really great places to live? ie Norway, Denmark, any of the others moorobot talked about?

[/ QUOTE ]

The Myth of Nordic Affluence (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/weekinreview/17bawer.html?ex=1271390400&en=44ea05b3e068feb5&ei= 5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss) (in the NY Times, no less!)

[ QUOTE ]
When my mother-in-law [in Oslo] went to an emergency room recently, the hospital was out of cough medicine.

[/ QUOTE ]

[DrewDevil]

We're Rich, You're Not. End of Story.
By BRUCE BAWER
The New York Times

Published: April 17, 2005

SLO — THE received wisdom about economic life in the Nordic countries is easily summed up: people here are incomparably affluent, with all their needs met by an efficient welfare state. They believe it themselves. Yet the reality - as this Oslo-dwelling American can attest, and as some recent studies confirm - is not quite what it appears.

Even as the Scandinavian establishment peddles this dubious line, it serves up a picture of the United States as a nation divided, inequitably, among robber barons and wage slaves, not to mention armies of the homeless and unemployed. It does this to keep people believing that their social welfare system, financed by lofty income taxes, provides far more in the way of economic protections and amenities than the American system. Protections, yes -but some Norwegians might question the part about amenities.

In Oslo, library collections are woefully outdated, and public swimming pools are in desperate need of maintenance. News reports describe serious shortages of police officers and school supplies. When my mother-in-law went to an emergency room recently, the hospital was out of cough medicine. Drug addicts crowd downtown Oslo streets, as The Los Angeles Times recently reported, but applicants for methadone programs are put on a months-long waiting list.

In Norway, the standard line is that there must be some mistake, that such things simply should not happen in "the world's richest country." Why do Norwegians have such a wealthy self-image? Partly because, compared with their grandparents (who lived before the discovery of North Sea oil), they are rich. Few, however, question whether it really is the world's richest country.

After I moved here six years ago, I quickly noticed that Norwegians live more frugally than Americans do. They hang on to old appliances and furniture that we would throw out. And they drive around in wrecks. In 2003, when my partner and I took his teenage brother to New York - his first trip outside of Europe - he stared boggle-eyed at the cars in the Newark Airport parking lot, as mesmerized as Robin Williams in a New York grocery store in "Moscow on the Hudson."

One image in particular sticks in my mind. In a Norwegian language class, my teacher illustrated the meaning of the word matpakke - "packed lunch" - by reaching into her backpack and pulling out a hero sandwich wrapped in wax paper. It was her lunch. She held it up for all to see.

Yes, teachers are underpaid everywhere. But in Norway the matpakke is ubiquitous, from classroom to boardroom. In New York, an office worker might pop out at lunchtime to a deli; in Paris, she might enjoy quiche and a glass of wine at a brasserie. In Norway, she will sit at her desk with a sandwich from home.

It is not simply a matter of tradition, or a preference for a basic, nonmaterialistic life. Dining out is just too pricey in a country where teachers, for example, make about $50,000 a year before taxes. Even the humblest of meals - a large pizza delivered from Oslo's most popular pizza joint - will run from $34 to $48, including delivery fee and a 25 percent value added tax.

Not that groceries are cheap, either. Every weekend, armies of Norwegians drive to Sweden to stock up at supermarkets that are a bargain only by Norwegian standards. And this isn't a great solution, either, since gasoline (in this oil-exporting nation) costs more than $6 a gallon.

All this was illuminated last year in a study by a Swedish research organization, Timbro, which compared the gross domestic products of the 15 European Union members (before the 2004 expansion) with those of the 50 American states and the District of Columbia. (Norway, not being a member of the union, was not included.)

After adjusting the figures for the different purchasing powers of the dollar and euro, the only European country whose economic output per person was greater than the United States average was the tiny tax haven of Luxembourg, which ranked third, just behind Delaware and slightly ahead of Connecticut.

The next European country on the list was Ireland, down at 41st place out of 66; Sweden was 14th from the bottom (after Alabama), followed by Oklahoma, and then Britain, France, Finland, Germany and Italy. The bottom three spots on the list went to Spain, Portugal and Greece.

Alternatively, the study found, if the E.U. was treated as a single American state, it would rank fifth from the bottom, topping only Arkansas, Montana, West Virginia and Mississippi. In short, while Scandinavians are constantly told how much better they have it than Americans, Timbro's statistics suggest otherwise. So did a paper by a Swedish economics writer, Johan Norberg.

Contrasting "the American dream" with "the European daydream," Mr. Norberg described the difference: "Economic growth in the last 25 years has been 3 percent per annum in the U.S., compared to 2.2 percent in the E.U. That means that the American economy has almost doubled, whereas the E.U. economy has grown by slightly more than half. The purchasing power in the U.S. is $36,100 per capita, and in the E.U. $26,000 - and the gap is constantly widening."

The one detail in Timbro's study that didn't feel right to me was the placement of Scandinavian countries near the top of the list and Spain near the bottom. My own sense of things is that Spaniards live far better than Scandinavians. In Norwegian pubs, for example, anyone rich or insane enough to order, say, a gin and tonic is charged about $15 for a few teaspoons of gin at the bottom of a glass of tonic; in Spain, the drinks are dirt-cheap and the bartender will pour the gin up to the rim unless you say "stop."

In late March, another study, this one from KPMG, the international accounting and consulting firm, cast light on this paradox. It indicated that when disposable income was adjusted for cost of living, Scandinavians were the poorest people in Western Europe. Danes had the lowest adjusted income, Norwegians the second lowest, Swedes the third. Spain and Portugal, with two of Europe's least regulated economies, led the list.

Most recently, the Danish Ministry of Finance released a study comparing the income available for private consumption in 30 countries. Norway did somewhat better here than in the KPMG study, lagging behind most of Western Europe but at least beating out Ireland and Portugal.

The thrust, however, was to confirm Timbro's and Mr. Norberg's picture of American and European wealth. While the private-consumption figure for the United States was $32,900 per person, the countries of Western Europe (again excepting Luxembourg, at $29,450) ranged between $13,850 and $23,500, with Norway at $18,350.

Meanwhile, the references to Norway as "the world's richest country" keep on coming. An April 2 article in Dagsavisen, a major Oslo daily, asked: How is it that "in the world's richest country we're tearing down social services that were built up when Norway was much poorer?"

Obviously, this is one misconception that won't be put to rest by a measly think-tank study or two.

Bruce Bawer,a freelance writer based in Oslo, reports frequently on social and cultural issues.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
Dining out is just too pricey in a country where teachers, for example, make about $50,000 a year before taxes. Even the humblest of meals - a large pizza delivered from Oslo's most popular pizza joint - will run from $34 to $48, including delivery fee and a 25 percent value added tax.

[/ QUOTE ]

Meanwhile, in the US, which is so much less productive, people are spending less on food as a percentage of disposable income, and spending more, relatively, on dining out than eating in.

http://assets.families.com/Encyclopedias/efc_01_img0183.jpg

See also: figure 29 in this report: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/sb965/

"Total food expenditures have been increasing, yet the percent of income spent for food has been decreasing."

This almost feels like piling on.

[TheHusky]

tl;dr ?

[HLMencken]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Well, there are teeming millions of desperately poor people in China, and the vast majority of Cubans are also languishing far below the American-defined "poverty line." How have these nations done better than America? It's just a ludicrous proposition.


[/ QUOTE ] Ah, but perhaps they might be happier because they have more security, better health care, and can read and write?

[/ QUOTE ]

So much for any semblance of credibility.

Yeah, Cuba is the land of happiness, milk, and honey--that's why Americans are dying at sea every year trying to flee from Florida to get to this paradise.

[ianlippert]

thx for the links.

So moorobot, where do these welfare utopia's exist?

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
thx for the links.

So moorobot, where do these welfare utopia's exist?

[/ QUOTE ]
I wouldnt call it utopia but Australia seems closer to a welfare state than the US (we have some areas where we are closer to a free market but not many). I think we have more social programs and a higher tax base. Clearly we are a mixed economy not planned or fully capitalist (and drifting farther and farther right) it may prove useful if people want something to compare though.

[Borodog]

Your entire philosophy of political economy is based upon the premise that people don't own themselves?

Good luck with that.

[gutte169]

[ QUOTE ]
If somebody has 40 and I have 5, and you take away 10 from the guy who has 40 and give it to me, how is that slavery for the person left with 30 when I have 15? I must be twice as enslaved.

[/ QUOTE ]

What's the motivation to get 40 (or even 50, 60, or 70?) when you can just lie around and smoke weed while "looking" for a job and get 15?

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
After adjusting the figures for the different purchasing powers of the dollar and euro, the only European country whose economic output per person was greater than the United States average was the tiny tax haven of Luxembourg, which ranked third, just behind Delaware and slightly ahead of Connecticut.


[/ QUOTE ] He forgets to mention that this entirely because of the long hours that Americans work. Per hour of work, however, most European countries have a higher level of productivity: European people work hundreds of less hour per capita than Americans because most have four weeks paid vacation, many more paid vacations

And more families are single income because there are more jobs that pay enough to allow for this.

I'll try to get you a list later.

[ QUOTE ]

Contrasting "the American dream" with "the European daydream," Mr. Norberg described the difference: "Economic growth in the last 25 years has been 3 percent per annum in the U.S., compared to 2.2 percent in the E.U. That means that the American economy has almost doubled, whereas the E.U. economy has grown by slightly more than half. The purchasing power in the U.S. is $36,100 per capita, and in the E.U. $26,000 - and the gap is constantly widening."

[/ QUOTE ] That's nice, but real (purchasing power adjusted) wages in the United States are the same as they were in 1975, and have declined for the bottom half of the country since 1980(the rich make a lot more in the U.S. than they did in 1975, and the middle class is disappearing).

And some individual countries in the EU had higher growth than the U.S. during this time period: namely, the ones with the most government programs and equality. And that growth was actually turned into a growth in real wages i.e. actually improved the lives of people in the country.

BTW-here is a link to a life satisfaction chart in different countries. Guess which countries' populations are the happiest? Go Number 11, U.S.A.!!! (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/lif_lif_sat)

Anyway, I have different figure for purchasing power adjusted GDP: it is actually higher in Norway and Switzerland than it is in the U.S.A., and for Denmark it is about the same, despite the fact that they all work hundreds of hours less per year per capita than the U.S.: different figures (http://lilt.ilstu.edu/gmklass/pos138/datadisplay/images/divide/divide16.gif)

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
The idea of self-ownership seems strange, because it suggests that their is a single distinct thing, the self, which one owns.

[/ QUOTE ]

And so you want to give ownership to an even MORE nebulous entity, the state.

This isn't even worth arguing. This is evil.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The idea of self-ownership seems strange, because it suggests that their is a single distinct thing, the self, which one owns.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



And so you want to give ownership to an even MORE nebulous entity, the state.

This isn't even worth arguing. This is evil.

[/ QUOTE ]

What??? I want to give people substantive self-ownership, as I said in the OP, not formal self-ownership.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
many more paid vacations

[/ QUOTE ] I meant to say many more paid holidays here. That's what I get for posting while playing...

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
Your entire philosophy of political economy is based upon the premise that people don't own themselves?

Good luck with that.

[/ QUOTE ] What? Once again, you must have posted without reading the OP, because I think people should own themselves substantively and not formally.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm curious, moorobot. Do you believe in private property? Because private property stems from owning ones' self so if you don't own yourself, you can't own property. If you don't believe in private property, you won't mind if I come over to your house and take what I want, right? We'll just be redistributing what you have to me. I'll try to leave you with a few things, but realize that I have many wants and it'd be immoral for you to withhold them from me.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

self-detrmination can allow for this as well.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Allow for what?

?

[/ QUOTE ] Allows for private property.

[ QUOTE ]
PS: How is the guy that gets his production taken away self-determining?

[/ QUOTE ] He loses the ability to use that income, but somebody with less income gains more ability-so it equalizes self-determination, or maximizes the worst of in society, alternatively. It does not maximize it, not an aggretative principle.

But more fundementally, in another thread I made an argument that said that it never really makes sense to say that one person is producing something (that everything you have, and everything you will ever have, is the result of the work of lots and lots of people and not just you) and you agreed with it-you said it was obvious. Now you are once again trying to use arguments that presuppose that we can seperate it, which is false.

And most fundementally, in your replies here e.g. "WE can see who the guy 40 is enslaved to. His production goes to someone else" that you are still presupposing the principle of self-ownership, but I argued that was a flawed concept and we should use self-determination instead. You have not confronted that argument, and until you do, it begs the question to say that someone who produces 40 and makes less than that is enslaved. I don't think what people create with their unearned talents is morally theirs at all. I don't think that millionaire athletes are currently enslaved or more enslaved than somebody working a minimum wage job, and it is absurd to say so. But on your premises the happiest and most self-determining, richest people in the world are enslaved. And the least happy people, on average, with the least security and money who don't have to pay taxes because they are too poor, are free. The homeless guy is free, the workers in sweathsops are free, and Kobe Bryant is enslaved????!!! And that is, to put it nicely, bluntly absurd. On your definition of slavery just about everybody who is not currently enslaved would prefer to change places with the enslaved.

Are you are Marxist btw PVN? Because you should be making these arguments: part of what the worker produces goes to capitalists and stockholders, who may or may not be doing any work at all. Hence they are enslaving him, on your premises, because "His production goes to someone else"

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]

If somebody has 40 and I have 5, and you take away 10 from the guy who has 40 and give it to me, how is that slavery for the person left with 30 when I have 15? I must be twice as enslaved.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



What's the motivation to get 40 (or even 50, 60, or 70?) when you can just lie around and smoke weed while "looking" for a job and get 15?

[/ QUOTE ] Over 90% of impoverished people in the world have a job right now. And people want to work, or at least most of them do, and everybody I have ever met makes some contribution or at least tries to. The vast majority of unemployed people feel better-report higher life satisfaction- before they lose their job, and better after they get another job, even if during the time off they were paid the same ammount. People like to work, regardless of what they say to the contrary. And we could have a set of social norms and ideals which would make them want to work more.

[DrewDevil]

"And we could have a set of social norms and ideals which would make them want to work more."

Like, for example, letting them keep the fruits of their work?

Socialism is about minimizing misery for everyone. In theory, it does this. In practice, it does not.

Capitalism is about maximizing happiness for the most people. In theory, it does this, and in practice, it maximizes happiness *and* minimizes misery, better than any other system.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
In Oslo, library collections are woefully outdated, and public swimming pools are in desperate need of maintenance. News reports describe serious shortages of police officers and school supplies. When my mother-in-law went to an emergency room recently, the hospital was out of cough medicine. Drug addicts crowd downtown Oslo streets, as The Los Angeles Times recently reported, but applicants for methadone programs are put on a months-long waiting list.

In Norway, the standard line is that there must be some mistake, that such things simply should not happen in "the world's richest country." Why do Norwegians have such a wealthy self-image? Partly because, compared with their grandparents (who lived before the discovery of North Sea oil), they are rich. Few, however, question whether it really is the world's richest country.

After I moved here six years ago, I quickly noticed that Norwegians live more frugally than Americans do. They hang on to old appliances and furniture that we would throw out. And they drive around in wrecks. In 2003, when my partner and I took his teenage brother to New York - his first trip outside of Europe - he stared boggle-eyed at the cars in the Newark Airport parking lot, as mesmerized as Robin Williams in a New York grocery store in "Moscow on the Hudson."

One image in particular sticks in my mind. In a Norwegian language class, my teacher illustrated the meaning of the word matpakke - "packed lunch" - by reaching into her backpack and pulling out a hero sandwich wrapped in wax paper. It was her lunch. She held it up for all to see.

Yes, teachers are underpaid everywhere. But in Norway the matpakke is ubiquitous, from classroom to boardroom. In NEW YORK , an office worker might pop out at lunchtime to a deli; in Paris, she might enjoy quiche and a glass of wine at a brasserie

[/ QUOTE ] What's hillarious here is that he must be comparing Norway to richest part of the U.S., namely New York, the whole time: because in every midwestern city, and in the rural south, and just about every where in the U.S., all this and worse is going on. Has this guy ever been to or read about the millions and millions of impoverised people in even more impoverished neighborhoods in inner city Detroit, or Cleveland, or Chicago, or rural Missisippi? And at least they try to cure there drug addicts instead of using the more barbaric and expensive solution the U.S. uses: imprisoning them.

[nietzreznor]

[ QUOTE ]
But more fundementally, in another thread I made an argument that said that it never really makes sense to say that one person is producing something (that everything you have, and everything you will ever have, is the result of the work of lots and lots of people and not just you) and you agreed with it-you said it was obvious. Now you are once again trying to use arguments that presuppose that we can seperate it, which is false.


[/ QUOTE ]

You are conflating the separability of production with the separability of ownership. It seems pretty obvious that production is heavily inter-dependent; A couldn't do his job without B doing hers, and they both depend on C's production. But it doesn't follow that what people own is murky. The fact that A depends on B and C, and so forth, doesn't mean that B and C own some of A's stuff, anymore than A owns some of B and C's stuff.

[ QUOTE ]
And most fundementally, in your replies here e.g. "WE can see who the guy 40 is enslaved to. His production goes to someone else" that you are still presupposing the principle of self-ownership, but I argued that was a flawed concept and we should use self-determination instead.

[/ QUOTE ]

You still haven't shown how anyone can have self-determination without having at least self-ownership. Most libertarians wouldn't deny that self-determination is important and a worthy goal; as you point out, (one reason) we value self-owenrship is because it brings self-determination. But you say, 'what good is self-ownership without self-determination'? Its a joke, if the only thing you are free to do is be poor and unhappy.
And I agree. But how is this any less true the other way around? If I have money, material goods, etc., what good are they if I am not free to choose how they are used? What good is it if I 'own' some thing x, but if I use it in certain ways, then it creates too much inequality and bye-bye it goes? So I say, self-determination with self-ownership (of the evil 'formal' kind) isn't self-determination at all.

To twist the Kantian phrase: self-ownership without self-determination is empty, self-determination without self-ownership is blind

[ QUOTE ]
But on your premises the happiest and most self-determining, richest people in the world are enslaved. And the least happy people, on average, with the least security and money who don't have to pay taxes because they are too poor, are free. The homeless guy is free, the workers in sweathsops are free, and Kobe Bryant is enslaved????!!! And that is, to put it nicely, bluntly absurd. On your definition of slavery just about everybody who is not currently enslaved would prefer to change places with the enslaved.

[/ QUOTE ]

This, I think, is an odd and misleading way to put libertarianism. Sweatshop workers are free? Bull[censored]. Sweatshop workers do choose to work in sweatshops as opposed to starving or prostitution--this much is obvious. But why do they have such a limited range of choices? Because of 'evil free markets' and 'ruthless self-ownership'? Wrong. it is because large global corporations get countless favors from government, including monoplisitc rights in certain areas, hence avoding competition. Because labor rights are brutally suppressed. Because thrid-world governments go against the will of the people and transform their countries into sweatshop centers, taking land away from the people who rightfully own it and creating a system where the best option for these people is, sadly, to work for pennies/hr in terrible conditions.
I have no comment on Kobe Bryant in particular, but the super-wealthy, the big businesses, aren't the enslaved, they are often the ones holding the bag when government robs everyone else at gunpoint. They are often the beneficiaries of government theft and coercion.
When true self-ownership exists, then self-determination will follow.

[moorobot]

Like, not exactly. The countries with more egalitarian countries and higher marginal taxes have higher levels of productivity (adjusted for purchasing power parity) per hour, higher rates of economic growth and report higher life satisfaction than similar counties with a more inegalitarian distribution of income. Have you read the whole thread here?

[ QUOTE ]
Capitalism is about maximizing happiness for the most people. In theory, it does this, and in practice, it maximizes happiness *and* minimizes misery, better than any other system.


[/ QUOTE ] People working mind numbing jobs that are deadening to human thought and sensibillity and working for low wages who are low in relative socioeconomic status in their country are extremely unhappy, as are their children. Capitalism makes some people happy and some people very Unhappy i.e. it creates happiness for some at the expense of others.

[ QUOTE ]
Like, for example, letting them keep the fruits of their work?


[/ QUOTE ] So you don't think their should be capitalists or stockholders then? Because 'profits' and dividends are the fruits of somebody else labor, not their own. Or do you just want wealthy people to keep the fruits of their work?

In any case we can't seperate the fruits of one's work. We can't even measure productivity individually in most cases at a job. But more fundementally, everybody is themselves the fruits of someone else's work (their mother's-shouldn't see own everything you make), your talents were cultivated by other people in your house, school and neighborhood, Bill Gates could only have invented what he invented if someone else first created the computer if someone else first created electricity if someone else first created....all the way back to the beginning of time. Kobe Bryant can only play basketball because other people are willing to play it with him: if nobody played it he wouldn't be rolling in the millions. And lets not even go into the fact that you need natural resources to do this.

It makes no sense to say that you did this work independently of others. Everything you have, AND EVERYTHING YOU WILL EVER HAVE, is the work of lots and lots of people, not just you. If you had sprung up out of the ground like a mushroom on a completely deserted island with no natural resources and started making money then your comment might make sense. Until then it is just mystical nonsense.

The fruits that occur in a society are created by everybody. And they belong to everybody.


[ QUOTE ]

Socialism is about minimizing misery for everyone. In theory, it does this. In practice, it does not.

[/ QUOTE ] No democratic socialist society has ever existed, if by socialist you mean Ussr style state socialism. It may be dictatorship making people unhappy relative to democracy here.

More fundementally, the varieties of 'socialism' I advocate, listed in this thread, have never been tried at all.

[DrewDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
No democratic socialist society has ever existed, if by socialist you mean Ussr style state socialism. It may be dictatorship making people unhappy relative to democracy here.

More fundementally, the varieties of 'socialism' I advocate, listed in this thread, have never been tried at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

But are you naive enough to believe that it's a mere COINCIDENCE that in all the countries where socialism has been tried, dictators arose and unspeakable brutalities followed?

Even a so-called 'democratic' socialist nation REQUIRES the installation of an all-powerful state that owns everything and controls the citizens absolutely. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the citizens are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw... the heads of state live in luxury while the people starve.

Every time socialism has been tried, this has been the result. Every single time. It is not a coincidence.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
And I agree. But how is this any less true the other way around? If I have money, material goods, etc., what good are they if I am not free to choose how they are used? What good is it if I 'own' some thing x, but if I use it in certain ways, then it creates too much inequality and bye-bye it goes?

[/ QUOTE ] Self-determination would let people use their approximately equal share of income in all of the justice respecting/self determination respecting ways they wanted. Is the only good thing in the world accumulating a bunch of money???? Things are not just a means to get more things, that wouldn't make sense. You can use things however you want under a system of progressive taxation. But you know that when you make money some of it is going to be taxed so that other people who currently have less of these things have more. As I said in the OP, redistribution does not unfairly limit self-determination, it just equalizes it, makes the distribution of it more fair.

Obviously you aren't morally able to do whatever you want with your things. You shouldn't be able to use them to buy slaves, or to kill people, or anything else morally wrong. In my view large ammounts of inequality in wealth, which also creates inequalities in power, opportunity etc., are deeply wrong, as I've argued at length in the politics forum.
[ QUOTE ]

This, I think, is an odd and misleading way to put libertarianism. Sweatshop workers are free? Bull[censored]. Sweatshop workers do choose to work in sweatshops as opposed to starving or prostitution--this much is obvious. But why do they have such a limited range of choices? Because of 'evil free markets' and 'ruthless self-ownership'? Wrong. it is because large global corporations get countless favors from government, including monoplisitc rights in certain areas, hence avoding competition. Because labor rights are brutally suppressed. Because thrid-world governments go against the will of the people and transform their countries into sweatshop centers, taking land away from the people who rightfully own it and creating a system where the best option for these people is, sadly, to work for pennies/hr in terrible conditions.
I have no comment on Kobe Bryant in particular, but the super-wealthy, the big businesses, aren't the enslaved, they are often the ones holding the bag when government robs everyone else at gunpoint. They are often the beneficiaries of government theft and coercion.
When true self-ownership exists, then self-determination will follow.

[/ QUOTE ]

I obviously of course don't agree with this but our views of the market and anarchy are very different. To me it is the market that creates most of the problems fundementally.

And I believe Anarchy (and CERTAINLY AC) would first result in illegal dictatorhsip and then legal dictatoship and/or constant civil war. Your medicine is worse than the disease. I argued this at length in the On Capitalism thread.

[ QUOTE ]

But more fundementally, in another thread I made an argument that said that it never really makes sense to say that one person is producing something (that everything you have, and everything you will ever have, is the result of the work of lots and lots of people and not just you) and you agreed with it-you said it was obvious. Now you are once again trying to use arguments that presuppose that we can seperate it, which is false.



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You are conflating the separability of production with the separability of ownership. It seems pretty obvious that production is heavily inter-dependent; A couldn't do his job without B doing hers, and they both depend on C's production. But it doesn't follow that what people own is murky. The fact that A depends on B and C, and so forth, doesn't mean that B and C own some of A's stuff, anymore than A owns some of B and C's stuff.

[/ QUOTE ] He was arguing that people should own what they produce. he was conflating them, not me. If we can't seperate production we cannot achieve the principle "to each according to their contribution".

I certainly don't think people should own what they produce with talents that were gained in the natural and social lottery, even if we could seperate them. Obviously. I think to each according to their contribution is a disgusting principle which bribes lucky people into doing what they should do anyway, punishes the already unlucky further just because of the unluck of not having talents, and 0

BTW-how do you decide what people should own? How do we get from self-ownership to world-ownership?

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Your entire philosophy of political economy is based upon the premise that people don't own themselves?

Good luck with that.

[/ QUOTE ] What? Once again, you must have posted without reading the OP, because I think people should own themselves substantively and not formally.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course I read it. It's more of your usual argument: Arbitrarily redefine terms in opposition to their plain meaning and then derive kooky conclusions from them. Like saying that coercing one human being to work for the ends of another is not slavery, but that being constrained by one's human nature to either produce in order to consume, or suffer the consequences, is slavery.

Your "substantive self ownership" is your usual Orwellian fare: slavery is self-ownership and self-ownership is slavery.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]


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But are you naive enough to believe that it's a mere COINCIDENCE that in all the countries where socialism has been tried, dictators arose and unspeakable brutalities followed?

Even a so-called 'democratic' socialist nation REQUIRES the installation of an all-powerful state that owns everything and controls the citizens absolutely. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the citizens are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw... the heads of state live in luxury while the people starve.

Every time socialism has been tried, this has been the result. Every single time. It is not a coincidence.

[/ QUOTE ] No, these countries were not democratic when it was implemented. And in democracy the people are the state.

And I'm not arguing in favor of an all powerful state that owns everything. Did you read what I in fact advocate? Worker controlled firms, or corporations controlled equally by everybody as stockholders. I want most things to be PRIVATELY, and approximately equally, OWNED. We don't know how to run a fully state owned and run economy sucessfully or morally acceptably right now. In a few hundred years we might, but we do not right now.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course I read it. It's more of your usual argument: Arbitrarily redefine terms in opposition to their plain meaning and then derive kooky conclusions from them. Like saying that coercing one human being to work for the ends of another is not slavery, but that being constrained by one's human nature to either produce in order to consume, or suffer the consequences, is slavery.

[/ QUOTE ] That is not human nature. We could have a different system in which it is not true, we are not constrained into this be human nature. What about a small tribe that shares everything? What about social security? This person is not producing-they are still alive. And you are making the naturalistic fallacy here. It doesn't follow from the fact that something is that it ought to be. If it is someone's human nature that they want to murder should they murder? It is human nature that humans get sick. Does it follow we shouldn't take medicine? If you get deathily ill tomorrow are you just going to lie down and die or are you going to take medicine? It is 140 degrees in Phoenix in the summer. Are people morally prevented from having central air to change it? Nature makes the world inhospitable to humans so we fix it.

But the fact of the matter is that I didn't say either of these things in the OP. I never said people should be coerced into working for the ends of another. People don't have to make a lot of money. If they choose to make a lot of money they have to pay progressive taxation. Seriously, how can you think somebody who supports a basic income think people should be coerced into working for the ends of another? I don't think people should be forced to work, if people choose to work then they pay taxes. Nobody is forced to pay for redistibution because nobody is forced to make a lot of money.

And in a libertarian world, and in our world today, billions of people work very hard, living up to a higher percent of their potential that the natural and social lottery gave them then many wealthy people are, yet they are still impoverished people lacking health care, security and a job that is not deadening to human thought and sensibility and uncooperative. That is slavery. They are doing the best they can, the best they possibly can and the current institutions or lack there of are leaving them in this situation. They cannot do anything about it-they are forced to do this be a combination of the social structure and nature. But things could and should be differently.

Your comment is just your usual "I don't care about other human beings. Only my own wallet. I want to be able to do whatever I want regardless of the consequences for others" nonsense. I don't know why I've made this long comment now: I realize I'm having a discussion about justice with someone who somehow does not have a sense of justice or pretends not to.
[ QUOTE ]
usual Orwellian fare

[/ QUOTE ] Well, this is true: Orwell was a SOCIALIST. He even fought in the Spanish civil war, which wasn't even his own country, on the side of the socialists. He tells the story of this war in Homage to Catalonia, a great book. Orwell would support John Roemer's idea for market socialism if he was alive today.

[..........]

[ QUOTE ]
Your entire philosophy of political economy is based upon the premise that people don't own themselves?

Good luck with that.

[/ QUOTE ]

And how exactly do you "own" yourself, may I ask? Did you decide to be brought into this world? Did you have any say in the matter at all?

No. Of course you didn't. You were PRODUCED into a world where the rules were already set. The laws and constructs clearly defined. You were sent through a system already in place that belonged not to you, but to your rulers. A system that DECIDED FOR YOU that you'd better make yourself useful to it or face the terrible consequences. How you ever derived from that that you "own" yourself, or that it would be any different in an AC society is beyond me.

The Acers’ answer to this is that it is your choice as to whether or not you produce. My answer to that is obviously; it is also your choice as to whether or not you pay your taxes, or leave the country altogether.

The distinction between government, boss, and master would appear to quite vague indeed.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]

And how exactly do you "own" yourself, may I ask? Did you decide to be brought into this world? Did you have any say in the matter at all?

No. Of course you didn't. You were PRODUCED into a world where the rules were already set.

[/ QUOTE ] Exactly. By their logic it would seem that they should jointly owned by their parents, because they were produced by their parent's talents talents.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
He forgets to mention that this entirely because of the long hours that Americans work. Per hour of work, however, most European countries have a higher level of productivity: European people work hundreds of less hour per capita than Americans because most have four weeks paid vacation, many more paid vacations

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey borodog, how many hours a week do you spend "working"?

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
PS: How is the guy that gets his production taken away self-determining?

[/ QUOTE ] He loses the ability to use that income, but somebody with less income gains more ability-so it equalizes self-determination,

[/ QUOTE ]

How does relying on someone else to give you something make you self-determining?

[ QUOTE ]
But more fundementally, in another thread I made an argument that said that it never really makes sense to say that one person is producing something (that everything you have, and everything you will ever have, is the result of the work of lots and lots of people and not just you) and you agreed with it-you said it was obvious. Now you are once again trying to use arguments that presuppose that we can seperate it, which is false.

[/ QUOTE ]

It is obvious. Cooperation is a big boon. Why can't it be seperated?

Property rights ensure that everyone gets compensated for his contribution. When I buy a chair, I don't have to worry about thanking the guy that built the chair. The retailer already did that for me.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think what people create with their unearned talents is morally theirs at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

But you want them to keep producing it, right?

[ QUOTE ]
Are you are Marxist btw PVN? Because you should be making these arguments: part of what the worker produces goes to capitalists and stockholders, who may or may not be doing any work at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

*All* of what the worker produces goes to the capitalist, because the capitalist *bought* that production.

[ QUOTE ]
Hence they are enslaving him, on your premises, because "His production goes to someone else"

[/ QUOTE ]

When I buy an ice cream cone, have I enslaved the ice cream man? His ice cream goes to me!

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
BTW-here is a link to a life satisfaction chart in different countries. Guess which countries' populations are the happiest? Go Number 11, U.S.A.!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Boy wouldn't it be an upset if #1 was a highly capitalized country with low taxes that was known for its laissez-faire neutrality?

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The idea of self-ownership seems strange, because it suggests that their is a single distinct thing, the self, which one owns.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



And so you want to give ownership to an even MORE nebulous entity, the state.

This isn't even worth arguing. This is evil.

[/ QUOTE ]

What??? I want to give people substantive self-ownership, as I said in the OP, not formal self-ownership.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. You're not. You're denying self-ownership on the grounds that you think it will make people happier. You actually refuted self-ownership in the above quote by denying the fact that individual people exist.

[nietzreznor]

[ QUOTE ]
Self-determination would let people use their approximately equal share of income in all of the justice respecting/self determination respecting ways they wanted. Is the only good thing in the world accumulating a bunch of money???? Things are not just a means to get more things, that wouldn't make sense. You can use things however you want under a system of progressive taxation. But you know that when you make money some of it is going to be taxed so that other people who currently have less of these things have more. As I said in the OP, redistribution does not unfairly limit self-determination, it just equalizes it, makes the distribution of it more fair.

Obviously you aren't morally able to do whatever you want with your things. You shouldn't be able to use them to buy slaves, or to kill people, or anything else morally wrong. In my view large ammounts of inequality in wealth, which also creates inequalities in power, opportunity etc., are deeply wrong, as I've argued at length in the politics forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, you can't use money to do anything that's 'morally wrong'? I thought the spirit of liberalism was that people are free to make their own choices--even ones that are morally wrong. So even if drugs are bad, or visiting a prostitue is wrong, etc., we can still do them because that's part of owning oneself and having self-determination.

What people can't do to another legally speaking is violate their rights; thats what rights are. Fighting against anything you think might be morally suspect is, frankly, fascist. So even if inequality in 'stuff' is "deeply wrong", that wouldn't justify violating self-ownership to fix it.

And what's all this about money? I never said, nor do I hold, that 'money is everything?' As an Aristotelian I would obviously reject that. The problem is that it makes no sense to 'redistribute' stuff (so that everyone owns equal stuff), then turn around and tell them how they can or can't use it. It's their stuff, remember? We just equalized it; if there are additional restrictions on use, then we really haven't made things equal (since people don't really 'own' the things in question), and we sure as hell haven't granted people 'self-determination'.

[ QUOTE ]
He was arguing that people should own what they produce. he was conflating them, not me. If we can't seperate production we cannot achieve the principle "to each according to their contribution".

[/ QUOTE ]

As I understand it, he meant produce in a much stricter sense. I don't really see much conflict between saying that I 'produce' something, by laboring on my land, or by using capital and hiring labor to do it, and also admitting that in a more general sense my 'production' could not have occurred without a myriad of other people and things happening.

[ QUOTE ]
how do you decide what people should own? How do we get from self-ownership to world-ownership?

[/ QUOTE ]

Homesteading and voluntary exchange. You find some unowned land, you start using it, its yours. You sell it for some dudes house, or $$, or whatever, now you own the new thing.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
In any case we can't seperate the fruits of one's work. We can't even measure productivity individually in most cases at a job.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why not?

[moorobot]

I just posted the answer in the politics forum.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you are Marxist btw PVN? Because you should be making these arguments: part of what the worker produces goes to capitalists and stockholders, who may or may not be doing any work at all.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



*All* of what the worker produces goes to the capitalist, because the capitalist *bought* that production.

[/ QUOTE ] Therefore, workers do not own themselves in capitalism. Therefore, if we believe in formal self-ownership we should not advocate capitalism.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]

Wait, you can't use money to do anything that's 'morally wrong'? I thought the spirit of liberalism was that people are free to make their own choices--even ones that are morally wrong. So even if drugs are bad, or visiting a prostitue is wrong, etc., we can still do them because that's part of owning oneself and having self-determination.

What people can't do to another legally speaking is violate their rights; thats what rights are. Fighting against anything you think might be morally suspect is, frankly, fascist. So even if inequality in 'stuff' is "deeply wrong", that wouldn't justify violating self-ownership to fix it.

[/ QUOTE ] It does make sense to tell people to some degree how they can and can't use it. You said so in this post: they shouldn't be able to use it to violate other people's rights. Hence, people don't really own things on your view either, since you restrict their use. Fortunately, you are wrong. Let us say I have five thousand dollars. I want to buy a semi-automatic weapon but they are illegal. Just because I am banned from using it to buy a semi-automatic weapon does not mean I don't own it, because I can use it on many other things still. And things are equal, because everyone is equally free to use it on other things and equally unfree to use money on semi automatic weapons. I can use money to buy thousands of different things, and I get to choose which of those things to use it on, hence I own it. Hence I determine, within some reasonable limits, how to use it. Just because you can't use it in every possible way you can imagine does not mean you don't own it at all.

The spirit of liberalism , in my view, is the harm principle. You keeping that money for yourself instead of gov't redistributing it or you giving it away to someone who is less advantaged harms that persons. Since he is harmed by not having it, to your benefit, it is a possible ground of government activity. Inequality and poverty are both harmful to people, therefore government can legitmately regulate them. People who argue against the legalization of drugs or visiting a prostitute often use arguments that are not based on any kind of harm to others i.e. it is offensive, or you are hurting yourself, or it is against god's word etc.

In any case, My argument in the OP can be seen as arguing "People have a right to approximately equal substantive self-ownership"-and you at least are aware that rights only make sense if they are equal. You having considerably more money than others violates millions of people's rights, according to my argument.

Remember the liberal egalitarian argument for rights:

1. Each person's interests matter, and matter equally.
2. The liberty to x is important, given our interests.
3. Therefore, each person ought (ceteris paribus) to have the right to x, consistent with everyone else's right to X.

You having more self-determination than another person is not consistent with this argument, and having more money is to have more self-determination.

[ QUOTE ]
He was arguing that people should own what they produce. he was conflating them, not me. If we can't seperate production we cannot achieve the principle "to each according to their contribution".


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



As I understand it, he meant produce in a much stricter sense. I don't really see much conflict between saying that I 'produce' something, by laboring on my land, or by using capital and hiring labor to do it, and also admitting that in a more general sense my 'production' could not have occurred without a myriad of other people and things happening.


[/ QUOTE ] But I fail to see how this is what is important morally about production in this sense, or how this fits into self-ownership. And, I don't think we can seperate this either: see my post on productivity and wages in politics.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]

The idea of self-ownership seems strange, because it suggests that their is a single distinct thing, the self, which one owns.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



And so you want to give ownership to an even MORE nebulous entity, the state.

This isn't even worth arguing. This is evil.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



What??? I want to give people substantive self-ownership, as I said in the OP, not formal self-ownership.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



No. You're not. You're denying self-ownership on the grounds that you think it will make people happier. You actually refuted self-ownership in the above quote by denying the fact that individual people exist.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't deny that individual people exist. That quote is taken out of context and is not an argument against individuals existing, it is not an argument at all. It was a comment that it seems bizzare to own a self, I never argued that individuals do not exist. I don't think people formally own themselves or anybody else, if you read the whole post: I don't think people are morally owned by states; I didn't argue that they are. I think formal self-ownership is a rather empty, and non-fundemental, principle. It is not possible in my view for the state to formall own people: nobody formally owns themselves or anybody else, and in any case you can't transfer a moral right via physical action, it just exists or does not exist.

I in fact later supported SELF-determination.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I in fact later supported SELF-determination.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, since you describe the central planning state determining what people do with their lives with an antonym, yes, I guess you do support "self" determination.

[moorobot]

No, the "state" gives individuals an approximately equal ability to determine what to do with their own life.

[DrewDevil]

[ QUOTE ]
No, the "state" gives individuals an approximately equal ability to determine what to do with their own life.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or be shot.

[bearly]

is the never-ending debate concerning the morality (or ethics) of re-distribution of income the theme of your post? if not, could you outline a few of the other points you believe to have been made?.................b

[moorobot]

Which is why the most egalitarian democracies usually have no death penalty and among the lowest crime rates in the world. Gotcha.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
No, the "state" gives individuals an approximately equal ability to determine what to do with their own life.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, unless it abuses its incredible power, which of course it would never do because it is benevolent and cares about people other than itself.

http://www.odisea.ucv.cl/download/recopilacion%20imagenes/Historia%20Universal/Primera%20y%20Segunda%20Guerra%20Mundial/Tropas%20Nazis.jpg

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If he's living in North America he probably has more wealth than 75% of the worlds population.

[/ QUOTE ] This doesn't mean he is happier than they are.


[/ QUOTE ]

So your solution to this "problem" is to make people unhappy AND poor?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it's to make the rich people poor so that the poor are happy.

[nietzreznor]

[ QUOTE ]
It does make sense to tell people to some degree how they can and can't use it. You said so in this post: they shouldn't be able to use it to violate other people's rights. Hence, people don't really own things on your view either, since you restrict their use.

[/ QUOTE ]

But this isn't any additioanl restriction--its just the restriction inherent in 'giving' the same rights to everyone. If everyone has the right of self-ownership, then my right of self-ownership is not abridged by the fact that I can't murder my neighbor, any more than by the fact that I can't jump to the moon.

[ QUOTE ]
Fortunately, you are wrong. Let us say I have five thousand dollars. I want to buy a semi-automatic weapon but they are illegal. Just because I am banned from using it to buy a semi-automatic weapon does not mean I don't own it, because I can use it on many other things still.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is like saying that I don't a ten dollar bill because no one would trade me a house for it. Clearly this is not the claim I am making. I do think, however, that there is an important sense in which the gun owner's ownership has been compromised, since he is being arbitrarily and forcibly restricted from selling it to another consenting human being. When I own something< i get to choose what to do with it, within the parameters of not violating rights, etc.

[ QUOTE ]
The spirit of liberalism , in my view, is the harm principle. You keeping that money for yourself instead of gov't redistributing it or you giving it away to someone who is less advantaged harms that persons. Since he is harmed by not having it, to your benefit, it is a possible ground of government activity. Inequality and poverty are both harmful to people, therefore government can legitmately regulate them. People who argue against the legalization of drugs or visiting a prostitute often use arguments that are not based on any kind of harm to others i.e. it is offensive, or you are hurting yourself, or it is against god's word etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

How are these not all types of harm? Should the government force me to mow my lawn, so that my neighbor's property value doesn't diminish? What if someone is gay, and that psychologically harms that person's parents? Harm is a very poor criterion, precisely because it is quite subjective, and because people getting 'harmed' in one way or another is psrt of basically anything that happens.

[ QUOTE ]
In any case, My argument in the OP can be seen as arguing "People have a right to approximately equal substantive self-ownership"-and you at least are aware that rights only make sense if they are equal. You having considerably more money than others violates millions of people's rights, according to my argument.

Remember the liberal egalitarian argument for rights:

1. Each person's interests matter, and matter equally.
2. The liberty to x is important, given our interests.
3. Therefore, each person ought (ceteris paribus) to have the right to x, consistent with everyone else's right to X.

You having more self-determination than another person is not consistent with this argument, and having more money is to have more self-determination.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, yeah. You posted this before, and I explained my disagreements. I still stand by that, so I'll leave it at that.

[moorobot]

Um, ever heard of a state that is by, of and for the people? Oh, that's right, you grew up in the USA and not Europe.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The spirit of liberalism , in my view, is the harm principle. You keeping that money for yourself instead of gov't redistributing it or you giving it away to someone who is less advantaged harms that persons. Since he is harmed by not having it, to your benefit, it is a possible ground of government activity. Inequality and poverty are both harmful to people, therefore government can legitmately regulate them. People who argue against the legalization of drugs or visiting a prostitute often use arguments that are not based on any kind of harm to others i.e. it is offensive, or you are hurting yourself, or it is against god's word etc.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



How are these not all types of harm? Should the government force me to mow my lawn, so that my neighbor's property value doesn't diminish? What if someone is gay, and that psychologically harms that person's parents? Harm is a very poor criterion, precisely because it is quite subjective, and because people getting 'harmed' in one way or another is psrt of basically anything that happens.


[/ QUOTE ] Well, you have to take into account the difference between harm done to the person prevented from doing something and the people being harmed by this, whether the state can actually enforce the laws, do people really want this to happen or not happen, how harmful it is, etc.

It's a very good criterion for determining what the law should be, but it requires judgement in order to use. The actual practice of politics is not simple, and probably never will be again.

[Riddick]

is that you bisonbison?

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]

In any case, My argument in the OP can be seen as arguing "People have a right to approximately equal substantive self-ownership"-and you at least are aware that rights only make sense if they are equal. You having considerably more money than others violates millions of people's rights, according to my argument.

Remember the liberal egalitarian argument for rights:

1. Each person's interests matter, and matter equally.
2. The liberty to x is important, given our interests.
3. Therefore, each person ought (ceteris paribus) to have the right to x, consistent with everyone else's right to X.

You having more self-determination than another person is not consistent with this argument, and having more money is to have more self-determination.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Well, yeah. You posted this before, and I explained my disagreements. I still stand by that, so I'll leave it at that.

[/ QUOTE ] I thought you said it was a good argument? This is not the one I posted in the "what's wrong with inequality thread" but the one I posted in the maximizing freedom questions thread.

[ QUOTE ]

It does make sense to tell people to some degree how they can and can't use it. You said so in this post: they shouldn't be able to use it to violate other people's rights. Hence, people don't really own things on your view either, since you restrict their use.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



But this isn't any additioanl restriction--its just the restriction inherent in 'giving' the same rights to everyone. If everyone has the right of self-ownership, then my right of self-ownership is not abridged by the fact that I can't murder my neighbor

[/ QUOTE ] We can keep this same comment, and replace self-ownership with self-determination.

[hmkpoker]

Here's something to vote on.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
*All* of what the worker produces goes to the capitalist, because the capitalist *bought* that production.

[/ QUOTE ] Therefore, workers do not own themselves in capitalism. Therefore, if we believe in formal self-ownership we should not advocate capitalism.

[/ QUOTE ]

So when I buy the production of capitalists (let's use gasoline for an example), does that mean the capitalists do not own themselves?

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
I just posted the answer in the politics forum.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where?

[moorobot]

The worker is selling himself, his labor power. The capitalist is selling the workers labor power... I mean the product to people!!!!

He just doesn't own the gasoline anymore in your example. The worker doesn't own himself.

[pvn]

I'm not buying laborers. I'm buying labor.

The worker is himself a capitalist.

[hmkpoker]

The capitalist is assuming the risk of the business enterprise. He is trading his sweat, anxiety, and indeed his financial life for the laborer's work.

The capitalist is selling himself to the laborer.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
What people can't do to another legally speaking is violate their rights; thats what rights are. Fighting against anything you think might be morally suspect is, frankly, fascist. So even if inequality in 'stuff' is "deeply wrong", that wouldn't justify violating self-ownership to fix it.

[/ QUOTE ] Of course, i argued that people don't have a right to self-ownership in the formal sense.

But, just a question: if violating someone's self-ownership would somehow prevent a nuclear war, or a famine, should we then violate it? Are you an absolutist?

[moorobot]

You are buying their labor power, which is attached to their body. HMK's view is better.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
sweat, anxiety, and indeed his financial life

[/ QUOTE ] Sometimes, maybe even the majority of the time, but nowhere near all of the time. Lots of businesses and investments are very unrisky to the point of being almost guranteed sucess. Lots of capitalists do almost no work at all and just pay other people to sweat and be anxious; sometimes they don't even no what is going on at there own company: how could they be sweating and anxious?

And a worker's life contains far more risk than a capitalists. The worker faces unemployment, occupational disease and injury, and the possibillity of an impoverished retirement that managers and capitalists do not face. This would be pushed to a greater extreme in an AC society

The most a capitalist ever risks is becoming a worker, one with more market power than most other workers at that.

[madnak]

The reason it's not risky is because the government directly removes the risk.

The worker never risks anything worse than lower wages. There's no such thing as unemployment without a minimum wage. You can question whether wages would be higher, that is a complex subject. But whether a worker can find any paying job? That just doesn't happen without a minimum wage and other restrictions designed to artificially limit the job market.

A worker's retirement is his own business. So is his insurance. If he manages his money properly, there will be no such risks.

But we've been over this again and again. Your arguments boil down to an assumption that capitalism increases the income gap. Our argument, then, ends up being that capitalism decreases the income gap. This point of disagreement is important. It's the point that has to be approached if you want your arguments to have merit within this context.

Is this or is it not the actual issue? Let's find out.

Under the assumption that capitalism results in a smaller income gap, do you still believe that it is unjust in the ways you're describing? If not, then that is the issue you're arguing and all these peripheral arguments are totally irrelevant.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
And a worker's life contains far more risk than a capitalists.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, so one of them has a very real chance of losing a lot of money, and the other makes a guaranteed hourly wage with no variance.

hmmmmmm...which one's which?

[moorobot]

At the beginning, are you saying government removes the risk of failing for a capitalist? That is false. Assume I have a billion dollars. Half is in a business. Half is buried in my backyard. My business fails. I dig up the other 500 million and me and my Great-great-great-great grandkids live in comfort. I could come up with a billion other examples of how capitalists lives would still be essentially risk free in some occasions without government (other than the fact that in an anarchist society there would be much more violence, but that isn't what we are discussing)

Capitalism results in a lower income gap than what? Than our current system in the U.S.? I think AC is unsustainable and would result in massive violence and the reimposition of government-namely, a despotism created by for and of the most unethical wealthy people- if that is what you are asking. I think we should take measures to reduce relative inequality and absolute deprivation. The best way to do this are ones I mentioned in this thread earlier when I was talking about what it means when I say I'm not a capitalist e.g. worker controlled firms, progressive taxation, etc. If you honestly think that in a right-libertarian world there would somehow be less of an income gap than in these structures, I don't know what to say. How is it even possible? If we tax market incomes progressively and redistribute them in the same manner, that system has, by definition, less of an income gap than a completely market based society, correct? If the workers (or in Roemer's system everybody) all share the profits of mid and large sized firms (in Roemer's only large), instead of a capitalist getting all of them, how could that system have a larger income gap than capitalism?

I don't agree that a worker never risks anything worse than lower wages. First of all, I don't agree that he can always find another job, that there is such thing as unemployment without a minimum wage. Just take the U.S. There was no minimum wage until FDR, correct? Why was the unemployment rate over 10% for many years prior to FDR??? Why was it almost 25% when FDR took office??? In fact, on average the unemployment rate was higher pre-creation of the minimum wage than after in the U.S. Why you think there would be no unemployment without the minimum wage is beyond me. Second, Assume he lives paycheck to paycheck, like millions of people in the U.S. He must get another job almost immediately to ensure survival for him and his family. But in reality it often takes a long time to get another job-a hiring process occurs and takes time, and he has to get from application to the rest of the hiring process in the first place-somebody must consider him for a job. Private charity might be somewhat effective here, I suppose it's not impossible. But one of the reasons all these government programs were created in the first place was because the private charity response to these types of problems was grossly inadequate, the problems were beyond the scope and boundaries of private charity, and even more inefficient and wasteful than even the most inefficient government programs because of coordination and information problems, and, to be honest, the fact that the person(s) instituting them did not have a monopoly on the legitmate use of force in the country. People who run into bad luck shouldn't get charity, or even welfare anyway. They can give justice and are owed justice, and, as I have argued, justice requires some mix between equality and maximin equality of opportunity/life chances. They are owed fairness, not handouts.

Lower wages can be a huge risk. And it is of course true some jobs would pay less than the minimum wage if it was removed; what is the point of removing it otherwise? What if none of the jobs pay high enough for him to survive? Or all his family members to survive? Or for him to not be just barely alive? See my post about the UK pre the creation of a minimum wage law in this thread.

[ QUOTE ]
Under the assumption that capitalism results in a smaller income gap, do you still believe that it is unjust in the ways you're describing? If not, then that is the issue you're arguing and all these peripheral arguments are totally irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ] Well, I care about opportunites, power, and assets as well. I think about other injustices of capitalism as well, such as the inequity in power, as well as the mind-numbing, uncooperative, segmentated dangerous jobs it creates that are deadening to human sensibillity, the class conflict it creates, the division between people it creates, etc. It is far from just the income gap I am concerned about, although that is something that to some extent can alleviate or worsen most of the other problems.

[ QUOTE ]
A worker's retirement is his own business. So is his insurance. If he manages his money properly, there will be no such risks.

[/ QUOTE ] What if she barely makes enough to get by each week? Your post assumes he has some kind of disposable income to 'manage'. Do you think somebody today in the U.S. can save for an unimpoverished retirement, or afford insurance, if they make less than $7/hr, particularly if they must commute to work, or have dependents??? Do you realize that in all cases it is public pension and elderly health care programs (such as social security and medicare), not unrestricted capitalism, that have largely eliminated the problem of poverty amongst the elderly? Private charity and individual savings are not close to enough.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And a worker's life contains far more risk than a capitalists.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ok, so one of them has a very real chance of losing a lot of money, and the other makes a guaranteed hourly wage with no variance.

hmmmmmm...which one's which?

[/ QUOTE ]

Guranteed?????? No variance? The capitalist can fire him at any time! The capitalist can lower his wage at any time!

And once again we have the problem were you don't read my whole post, take a small part of it out, and reply to it.

I don't know how you can consider losing a few million dollars if you have a hundred million dollars risky. That is not a risk at all.

Someone with nothing losing his job, now that is a risk. Someone who will lose his only possesion, a meager house, because he can't pay the mortage if he loses his job, now that is a risk. Someone who do whatever the capitalist (or even a capitalist) tells him in order to get access to needed resources is not legally enslaved, but the difference is more formal than substantive.

What a joke. The wealthy have a less risky life, intrinsically more satisfying jobs, more power, higher status etc. than the entire bottom half of the population by far, in addition to having more money. Their life is better on essentially all metrics.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
At the beginning, are you saying government removes the risk of failing for a capitalist? That is false. Assume I have a billion dollars. Half is in a business. Half is buried in my backyard. My business fails. I dig up the other 500 million and me and my Great-great-great-great grandkids live in comfort. I could come up with a billion other examples of how capitalists lives would still be essentially risk free in some occasions without government (other than the fact that in an anarchist society there would be much more violence, but that isn't what we are discussing)

[/ QUOTE ]

There's no government, but there is a market. In other words, there is liability. You can't get away from that based on what you bury in your yard.

[ QUOTE ]
Capitalism results in a lower income gap than what? Than our current system in the U.S.?

[/ QUOTE ]

Definitely. I believe the wages of the poorest section of society would be higher under AC than any other system. Obviously a 100% egalitarian system would nominally have a lower income gap (none at all). But I think the wealth of everyone in such a system would be lower than that of the lowest 20% in AC. Basically I think AC represents the equilibrium between income gap and overall productivity. It has a lower income gap than any other system that doesn't sacrifice productivity and wealth in order to achieve it.

[ QUOTE ]
I think AC is unsustainable and would result in massive violence and the reimposition of government-namely, a despotism created by for and of the most unethical wealthy people- if that is what you are asking. I think we should take measures to reduce relative inequality and absolute deprivation. The best way to do this are ones I mentioned in this thread earlier when I was talking about what it means when I say I'm not a capitalist e.g. worker controlled firms, progressive taxation, etc. If you honestly think that in a right-libertarian world there would somehow be less of an income gap than in these structures, I don't know what to say. How is it even possible? If we tax market incomes progressively and redistribute them in the same manner, that system has, by definition, less of an income gap than a completely market based society, correct? If the workers (or in Roemer's system everybody) all share the profits of mid and large sized firms (in Roemer's only large), instead of a capitalist getting all of them, how could that system have a larger income gap than capitalism?

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, it's clearly possible to have an income gap of 0 in theory. Personally I have similar feelings about your system as you do about AC. I don't think it would be sustainable and I think the central authority would quickly snatch up most of the resources and you'd have a dirt poor working class and an extremely wealthy elite. But when I say a lower income gap, I mean lower than it is now. As a response to your assertion that "this would be pushed to a greater extreme in an AC society."

You think we should take measures to reduce relative inequality and absolute deprivation. But you don't explain which you value more. Would you prefer a society in which 2% of the population has 95% of the wealth, but everyone is well-off and happy, or a system in which everyone has exactly the same wealth and income, but everyone is miserable and hungry? I would very much prefer the former. Whether my neighbor has a better car than I do means nothing compared to poverty.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't agree that a worker never risks anything worse than lower wages. First of all, I don't agree that he can always find another job, that there is such thing as unemployment without a minimum wage. Just take the U.S. There was no minimum wage until FDR, correct? Why was the unemployment rate over 10% for many years prior to FDR??? Why was it almost 25% when FDR took office??? In fact, on average the unemployment rate was higher pre-creation of the minimum wage than after in the U.S. Why you think there would be no unemployment without the minimum wage is beyond me. Second, Assume he lives paycheck to paycheck, like millions of people in the U.S. He must get another job almost immediately to ensure survival for him and his family. But in reality it often takes a long time to get another job-a hiring process occurs and takes time, and he has to get from application to the rest of the hiring process in the first place-somebody must consider him for a job. Private charity might be somewhat effective here, I suppose it's not impossible. But one of the reasons all these government programs were created in the first place was because the private charity response to these types of problems was grossly inadequate, the problems were beyond, and even more inefficient and wasteful than even the most inefficient government programs because of coordination and information problems.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right, I was wrong about that. A minimum wage isn't strictly necessary for unemployment. Government is, however. Specifically, various labor laws and restrictions that existed before FDR came into office.

But most of your arguments here are again based on the idea that capitalism results in economic deterioration. These assumptions don't stand if we assume that everyone is making what they're worth under capitalism. Again, that's the core issue.

[ QUOTE ]
Lower wages can be a huge risk. And it is of course true some jobs would pay less than the minimum wage if it was removed; what is the point of removing it otherwise? What if none of the jobs pay high enough for him to survive? Or all his family members to survive? Or for him to not be just barely alive? See my post about the UK pre the creation of a minimum wage law in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Once again, that's the core issue. I believe the income disparity would be lower in a free market. In terms of the minimum wage, it creates an artificial "point of no return" that prevents workers from effectively competing. As a result, the job market responds to the employers rather than the laborers, and they're able to artificially restrict wages.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Under the assumption that capitalism results in a smaller income gap, do you still believe that it is unjust in the ways you're describing? If not, then that is the issue you're arguing and all these peripheral arguments are totally irrelevant.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I care about opportunites, power, and assets as well. I think about other injustices of capitalism as well, such as the inequity in power, as well as the mind-numbing, uncooperative, segmentated dangerous jobs it creates that are deadening to human sensibillity, the class conflict it creates, the division between people it creates, etc. It is far from just the income gap I am concerned about, although that is something that to some extent can alleviate or worsen most of the other problems.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems to be the basis of many of the other problems. The rest seem to be based on simple hierarchical social dynamics. I'd like to know where exactly you draw the line, because it hasn't been clear from your posts. At what point does hierarchy become unacceptable?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A worker's retirement is his own business. So is his insurance. If he manages his money properly, there will be no such risks.

[/ QUOTE ] What if she barely makes enough to get by each week? Your post assumes he has some kind of disposable income to 'manage'. Do you think somebody today in the U.S. can save for an unimpoverished retirement, or afford insurance, if they make less than $7/hr, particularly if they must commute to work, or have dependents??? Do you realize that in all cases it is public pension and elderly health care programs (such as social security and medicare), not unrestricted capitalism, that have largely eliminated the problem of poverty amongst the elderly? Private charity and individual savings are not close to enough.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again, I am running under the assumption that every worker is making enough to have a disposable income. It's the disabled, and those who didn't have the foresight to save, who are going to need help. Private donations are already enough to cover the former. The latter? That would very much depend on the market. In many cases I'm sure they'd have to fend for themselves. But in general most people who are neither mentally nor physically ill have some kind of social support network.

[ianlippert]

[ QUOTE ]
Once again, that's the core issue. I believe the income disparity would be lower in a free market. In terms of the minimum wage, it creates an artificial "point of no return" that prevents workers from effectively competing. As a result, the job market responds to the employers rather than the laborers, and they're able to artificially restrict wages.


[/ QUOTE ]

Would you mind expanding on this a bit? Are you saying that if there were no minimum wage laws that the workers would be able to compete for an overall higher average wage than what the minimum wage would be? I get that minimum wage causes unemployment but I dont see how a minimum wage law benefits employers and allows them to artificially restrict wages.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
Once again, that's the core issue. I believe the income disparity would be lower in a free market. In terms of the minimum wage, it creates an artificial "point of no return" that prevents workers from effectively competing. As a result, the job market responds to the employers rather than the laborers, and they're able to artificially restrict wages.

[/ QUOTE ] Can you explain this in detail? I don't understand it. I don't understand who the workers are competing against here or the artifical point of no return. Nor do I understand what "responds" means in the last sentence.

And wages for all of the bottom half usually go up when a minimum wage is implemented, or raised. Whatever you are saying here could be more than cancelled out by other factors.

[ QUOTE ]
Would you prefer a society in which 2% of the population has 95% of the wealth, but everyone is well-off and happy

[/ QUOTE ] This is not possible, based on my view of how human beings function-the vast majority of people at the bottom of a massive hierarchy of socioecnomic status are going to be unhappy, and subjectively view themselves as not 'well-off', and dominated by the wealthy. But to answer your question, it depends on what level the wealth is, other dynamics of the country, etc. Both are important. But I don't know how to systemize how important they are. In a democracy that is especially the case.

[ QUOTE ]
Again, it's clearly possible to have an income gap of 0 in theory. Personally I have similar feelings about your system as you do about AC. I don't think it would be sustainable and I think the central authority would quickly snatch up most of the resources and you'd have a dirt poor working class and an extremely wealthy elite

[/ QUOTE ] How would this happen in either of the societies I proposed? Has this happened in Sweden, or in Japan, or in Korea or Norway?

I think we know how to build, in both theory and in practice, a democracy which prevents this from happening, that is rather egalitarian and free of crime.

I'm curious as to why you think this 'central authority' would snatch up all the power in a society of worker controlled firms, or in roemer's 'coupon capitalism' as I described it.

[ QUOTE ]
It seems to be the basis of many of the other problems. The rest seem to be based on simple hierarchical social dynamics. I'd like to know where exactly you draw the line, because it hasn't been clear from your posts. At what point does hierarchy become unacceptable?

[/ QUOTE ] I believe this results mostly from the hierarchical social dynamics in a specific sense: the distinction between capitalists and workers. Two different classes. It is a long, important story, and it is why I think having worker owned firms would solve it.

[ QUOTE ]

You're right, I was wrong about that. A minimum wage isn't strictly necessary for unemployment. Government is, however. Specifically, various labor laws and restrictions that existed before FDR came into office.


[/ QUOTE ] First, what about the widely accepted ways which are said to cause unemployment in the market?

Second, what about my hiring process comment: there is going to be temporary unemployment at least.


[ QUOTE ]
But most of your arguments here are again based on the idea that capitalism results in economic deterioration. These assumptions don't stand if we assume that everyone is making what they're worth under capitalism. Again, that's the core issue.

[/ QUOTE ] Right, see my productivity and wages post. You probably have.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know how you can consider losing a few million dollars if you have a hundred million dollars risky. That is not a risk at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, because all the business owners in america are worth nine figures. Most businesses are a risk...you know, it's just easier to call you stupid.

[Procrustes]

You people are just jealous because moorobot, like myself, sees the intrinsic value of equality and the intrinsic evil of inequality.

[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
At the beginning, are you saying government removes the risk of failing for a capitalist? That is false. Assume I have a billion dollars. Half is in a business. Half is buried in my backyard. My business fails. I dig up the other 500 million and me and my Great-great-great-great grandkids live in comfort.

[/ QUOTE ]

So he lost $500,000,000, but he didn't risk anything. Just half of his money.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Did he lose half of his forutne despite government? Or because of it?


[ QUOTE ]
I don't agree that a worker never risks anything worse than lower wages. First of all, I don't agree that he can always find another job, that there is such thing as unemployment without a minimum wage.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will personally guarantee right now in front of everyone here, that if you, moorobot, ever need a job, I will hire you for $0.01/hour to do menial work around my house. You can work as much as you want at that rate. I'll hire 10 of your friends, too.

[ QUOTE ]
I think about other injustices of capitalism as well, such as the inequity in power, as well as the mind-numbing, uncooperative, segmentated dangerous jobs it creates that are deadening to human sensibillity, the class conflict it creates, the division between people it creates, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

How does capitalism *uniquely* "create" these mind-numbing jobs?

Your ideas will *increase* class conflict (producers vs. plunderers) and division between people (you even specifically argue for castes).

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Would you mind expanding on this a bit? Are you saying that if there were no minimum wage laws that the workers would be able to compete for an overall higher average wage than what the minimum wage would be? I get that minimum wage causes unemployment but I dont see how a minimum wage law benefits employers and allows them to artificially restrict wages.

[/ QUOTE ]

It benefits many employers and allows them to artificially restrict wages. Overall I think it does harm to everyone involved in a societal sense, because how much employers pay for their labor isn't the only relevant factor for them.

Of course, this is all quite relative. With a minimum wage of $50, I don't think wages would be lower. People would do anything to get a job, of course, and those people who make $100 per hour today might be willing to work for $50 per hour simply to avoid the constant threat of unemployment. Prostitutes would certainly make much less money than they do today. But in general, the average worker would make more money (if unemployment isn't considered). After all, the average worker today makes less than $50 per hour, so he'd have to make more with the minimum wage.

And on the other side of the coin, imagine that everyone in society makes at least $4.00 per hour. Now imagine a minimum wage is instituted at $0.50 per hour. What are the effects of this? Probably nothing. I doubt it would have much effect at all. Everyone is already making more than that, so I'm not sure it would hurt anyone. It would simply be useless legislation.

But now, imagine that everyone is making at least $4.00 per hour and a minimum wage is instituted at $5.00 per hour. What happens now? Well, first and foremost, the people making $4.00 are out of jobs. It would be nice to think that companies would simply raise the wages, but that is often not what happens. In a functioning market, a firm is paying $4.00 per hour because that is what those employees are worth. With the minimum wage, they're no longer worth employing. They're out of work. But they need jobs. They need to stay alive, to support their families, to continue living. So they'll do almost anything to get new jobs at $5.00 an hour.

This creates incredible competition for these jobs - and often the workers are willing to do so much to get them that they're actually worth more than $5.00 now. What happens to the people who made $5.00 before the minimum wage? Now they hold some real hot property. Suddenly their once-undesirable position is in demand. If they lose their job, now they, too, are in danger of unemployment. Due to the extreme competition, so are even those making $6.00 and $7.00. It's better to take a pay decrease, after all, than to risk unemployment. A stable $5.00 wage has a market value much higher than an unstable $10.00 wage. Everyone is scared of unemployment.

And now all kinds of workers are competing for exactly the same wage. That does a few things. For one, it homogenizes these workers. To some degree they become a commodity, rather than personal agents or capitalists. It makes it very hard to tell the good worker from the bad worker, and reduces the incentive of business to care. It reduces the worker's incentive to be productive. All of this results in a higher turnover rate, which increases the marginal cost of workers (pushing their wages down even further) and results in even higher unemployment. All of this results in all kinds of social stresses, from class divisions and poverty and crime to lowered economic output across the board.

But that isn't the worst part. That's all pretty tame. The worst part is that as the economy gets better, as businesses gain the ability to pay more than $4.00 to every worker, they have no incentive to raise wages. The lowest wage was $4.00, but as productivity increases and technology gets better that wage should go up. To $5.00, and then to $6.00, and then to $7.00. But with the minimum wage, people are still competing for that $5.00 wage, even when their labor is worth $7.00. The businesses have no incentive to raise that wage, and so there is no pressure eliminating the threat of unemployment, and so workers continue to have incentive to compete for the wages that are much lower than they're worth.

When the $10.00 and $15.00 workers are competing for $5.00, that has a sort of "ripple effect" up the scale. The $20.00 worker will have to charge $10.00. No business is going to pay for a $15.00 leap in wages. And the $30.00 worker might expect $22.00. And the $50 worker may expect $47.00. Meanwhile, the $200.00 worker is unchanged. And the rich capitalist? Well he's making even more money than he would have, because he doesn't have to pay his employees as much. So the income disparity gets greater and greater, causing even more societal problems.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Once again, that's the core issue. I believe the income disparity would be lower in a free market. In terms of the minimum wage, it creates an artificial "point of no return" that prevents workers from effectively competing. As a result, the job market responds to the employers rather than the laborers, and they're able to artificially restrict wages.

[/ QUOTE ] Can you explain this in detail? I don't understand it. I don't understand who the workers are competing against here or the artifical point of no return. Nor do I understand what "responds" means in the last sentence.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've explained my perspective of the minimum wage in greater detail in the above post (response to ianlippert, if you're using threaded mode).

[ QUOTE ]
And wages for all of the bottom half usually go up when a minimum wage is implemented, or raised. Whatever you are saying here could be more than cancelled out by other factors.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's true, the absence of a minimum wage is no guarantee of prosperity. A minimum wage is just one of many negative effects of government on the economy. Wages for the bottom half temporarily go up in the sense that nobody is making $3.00 any more when the minimum wage is $3.10. Wages go up over time as well, becaues the benefits of economic growth still accrue to some degree even with a minimum wage. However, there are still many people in the US competing for minimum wage, a wage that doesn't increase fast enough to keep pace with inflation, much less economic growth.

[ QUOTE ]
This is not possible, based on my view of how human beings function-the vast majority of people at the bottom of a massive hierarchy of socioecnomic status are going to be unhappy, and subjectively view themselves as not 'well-off', and dominated by the wealthy.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are various counterexamples of this. Not everyone cares whether his neighbor has a BMW or not. And even when they do, trends show that a person making $30,000 living next to a person making $25,000 tends to feel more satisfied than a person making $100,000 living next to a person making $110,000. This is a cultural and not an economic problem.

[ QUOTE ]
But to answer your question, it depends on what level the wealth is, other dynamics of the country, etc. Both are important. But I don't know how to systemize how important they are. In a democracy that is especially the case.

[/ QUOTE ]

But in the specific example I described, you still think it's ambiguous? Perhaps I didn't use enough hyperbole? Maybe it would be more clear-cut if I said 40% of people have 60% of the wealth but everyone is tremendously wealthy vs. everyone is equal but starving? If you're seriously suggesting that such a decision would be difficult for you, then perhaps our values are too incompatible for us to reach any kind of meeting of the minds.

[ QUOTE ]
How would this happen in either of the societies I proposed? Has this happened in Sweden, or in Japan, or in Korea or Norway?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand. These countries have strong markets, and at least in the cases of Sweden and Norway, are libertarian in their approaches.

[ QUOTE ]
I think we know how to build, in both theory and in practice, a democracy which prevents this from happening, that is rather egalitarian and free of crime.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm curious as to why you think this 'central authority' would snatch up all the power in a society of worker controlled firms, or in roemer's 'coupon capitalism' as I described it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think in any system of centralized power, those with influence in the system will tend to abuse that influence.

[ QUOTE ]
I believe this results mostly from the hierarchical social dynamics in a specific sense: the distinction between capitalists and workers. Two different classes. It is a long, important story, and it is why I think having worker owned firms would solve it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why can't workers be capitalists contracting their labor? How does capitalism create such a distinction, when every individual has access to some capital (his own labor)?

[ QUOTE ]
First, what about the widely accepted ways which are said to cause unemployment in the market?

Second, what about my hiring process comment: there is going to be temporary unemployment at least.

[/ QUOTE ]

First, you'll need to get more specific.

Second, of course there will be. Nobody wants to lose a job. I don't think the risk of temporary unemployment is as earth-shaking as you're implying.

[ QUOTE ]
Right, see my productivity and wages post. You probably have.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was the first to respond to it. It doesn't change my opinion that your arguments are generally bsaed on a fundamental disagreement.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is not possible, based on my view of how human beings function-the vast majority of people at the bottom of a massive hierarchy of socioecnomic status are going to be unhappy, and subjectively view themselves as not 'well-off', and dominated by the wealthy.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



There are various counterexamples of this. Not everyone cares whether his neighbor has a BMW or not. And even when they do, trends show that a person making $30,000 living next to a person making $25,000 tends to feel more satisfied than a person making $100,000 living next to a person making $110,000. This is a cultural and not an economic problem.


[/ QUOTE ] Cultural in the sense that it might be possible to 'engineer' it away (which, of course, can't be done in anarchy). But not cultural in the sense that it only occurs in some areas and not other; in all societies people tend to judge their own well-being on relative status to others in their own country first and foremost. Keeping up with the Jones's is also a problem in terms of neighbors: a house turns into a hut next to a palace. Not everyone does this but most people do, and to say it is cultural because not everyone does it is like saying height is completely cultural because not everyone is over 6'6 tall.

[ QUOTE ]

But now, imagine that everyone is making at least $4.00 per hour and a minimum wage is instituted at $5.00 per hour. What happens now? Well, first and foremost, the people making $4.00 are out of jobs. It would be nice to think that companies would simply raise the wages, but that is often not what happens. In a functioning market, a firm is paying $4.00 per hour because that is what those employees are worth. With the minimum wage, they're no longer worth employing. They're out of work. But they need jobs. They need to stay alive, to support their families, to continue living. So they'll do almost anything to get new jobs at $5.00 an hour.

[/ QUOTE ] As soon as you tell me how we can get your imaginary 'functioning' market where power is nothing, social norms of hiring are nothing, and we can measure marginal productivity I might be persuaded. And, via a combination of minimum wage laws with other policies, even if what else you say is true about minimum wage laws are true

[ QUOTE ]

But to answer your question, it depends on what level the wealth is, other dynamics of the country, etc. Both are important. But I don't know how to systemize how important they are. In a democracy that is especially the case.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



But in the specific example I described, you still think it's ambiguous? Perhaps I didn't use enough hyperbole? Maybe it would be more clear-cut if I said 40% of people have 60% of the wealth but everyone is tremendously wealthy vs. everyone is equal but starving? If you're seriously suggesting that such a decision would be difficult for you, then perhaps our values are too incompatible for us to reach any kind of meeting of the minds.

[/ QUOTE ]

At very low levels of economic devolopment e.g. Bangladesh the maximin part is by far the most important. In the U.S. my judgement is that the equality part is more important today. The more a country has the more important equality is, the more impoverished, the more important maximin is.

[ QUOTE ]

I think in any system of centralized power, those with influence in the system will tend to abuse that influence.

[/ QUOTE ] First, I don't consider a country with proportional representation and 'economic democracy' to be centralized; that is the least possible ammount of centralization we can have without perpetual civil war that I know of. These describe the way power can be most widely dispersed in a country. It is as close as we can have to one person one vote, and it eliminates the concentration of power in the hands of capitalists in a market.

And I thought your comment was about how these systems would collapse and utterly fail. Power is probably going to be abused in all societies to some extent. But that doesn't mean they will fail to meet their stated goals/ideals, and do so better than any other system. Because, among other reasons, in these socities everyone are rather close to equally powerful.

[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Right, see my productivity and wages post. You probably have.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I was the first to respond to it. It doesn't change my opinion that your arguments are generally bsaed on a fundamental disagreement.

[/ QUOTE ] Sorry, so many ACers on this board that I just try to make sure to know who I am currently discussing with, and take what I know about them specifically into account at that time.

The unemployment in a market and 'class conflict' explanations I will work on later. The class

[ QUOTE ]

I believe this results mostly from the hierarchical social dynamics in a specific sense: the distinction between capitalists and workers. Two different classes. It is a long, important story, and it is why I think having worker owned firms would solve it.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Why can't workers be capitalists contracting their labor? How does capitalism create such a distinction, when every individual has access to some capital (his own labor)?


[/ QUOTE ] For now, just think about how selling one's living breathing labor power and time are fundementally different from having productive property are not identical.

[ QUOTE ]
Second, of course there will be. Nobody wants to lose a job. I don't think the risk of temporary unemployment is as earth-shaking as you're implying.


[/ QUOTE ] It mostly depends on what the person is being paid. If it is only a subsistence wage or close to it then it is that troubling. Even if everyone is suddenlty paid 'what they are worth', there could very well be some people worth little or nothing.

[ QUOTE ]

How would this happen in either of the societies I proposed? Has this happened in Sweden, or in Japan, or in Korea or Norway?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I don't understand. These countries have strong markets, and at least in the cases of Sweden and Norway, are libertarian in their approaches.


[/ QUOTE ] I don't advocate the elimination of markets, and we must have different definitions of libertarian here if you think these are libertarian. Why do you call them that? My point here is that it is possible to have a country with a distribution of wealth exponetially less inequitable than the one in the U.S. while still having rapid economic growth and a democracy.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I will personally guarantee right now in front of everyone here, that if you, moorobot, ever need a job, I will hire you for $0.01/hour to do menial work around my house. You can work as much as you want at that rate. I'll hire 10 of your friends, too.


[/ QUOTE ] But nobody will ever take this job-a job must at least pay a subsistence wage to be viable. Do you see why? I starve to death otherwise. Jobs below subsistence wage do not count. Nobody will ever take them.

[ QUOTE ]
Your ideas will *increase* class conflict (producers vs. plunderers) and division between people (you even specifically argue for castes).

[/ QUOTE ] Increase class conflict? Has welfare (which, in your view, is producers to plunders, despite the obvious fact that everyone tries to make a contribution in some form and therefore only the ones who can't fail) in any society increased class conflict? No, it always decreased it, as far as I know. And I would use the universal basic income, which everyone recieves, which would be even less conflictual than means tested programs which only specific gorups get-Heck, even Charles "right-libertarian' Murray has recently advocated, in a new book, a universal cash grant of $10,000 a year, partly because of this. We might not even need it if we implemented Roemer's coupon capitalism, because of the stock dividends. And I argued for castes where exactly????

Capitalism creates an immense ammount of mind numbing jobs because the capitalist defines the job in almost all cases and benefits from creating those kind of jobs immensely. Workers and their boss have fundementally opposed interests in capitalism, and we know who almost always wins (captialist), especially with no laws against union busting, as would be the case in AC.

Worker controlled firms would have jobs that were much more intrinsically enjoyable, because than it is in everybody's itnerest for the job to better.

[ianlippert]

[ QUOTE ]
It benefits many employers and allows them to artificially restrict wages. Overall I think it does harm to everyone involved in a societal sense, because how much employers pay for their labor isn't the only relevant factor for them.


[/ QUOTE ]

k lets see if I get this. The minimum wage causes people who make less than minimum wage to become unemployed because they are not worth the minimum wage. This increases the competition for minimum wage entry level positions, which allows companies to keep wages restricted at minimum wage even as they make more money per employee. Does this make sense?

Are there any real world examples of a country that implemented minimum wage laws where we can analyze the effects, or a country that has removed minimum wage laws?

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know how you can consider losing a few million dollars if you have a hundred million dollars risky. That is not a risk at all.


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Right, because all the business owners in america are worth nine figures. Most businesses are a risk...you know, it's just easier to call you stupid.

[/ QUOTE ]
In an AC world, yes, I think those would be the only people with businesses. Right before they formed a despotism. The less wealthy people who tried to start a business would be killed or enslaved by one of the large businesses 'gang'/mob/army/security group(s). Much more 'efficient' than actually competing with them. My comment was part tongue in cheek because you actually are trying to debate this point with me, but I really do think this is what would happen in AC based on the premises you guys give.

In any case, in an AC world, thanks to health inspectors being eliminated, workers would be re-plagued with work related death and disability.

It is riskier to risk death than it is to risk losing money. If you fail at one business you can still go back to work, but not if you are permanently disabled of killed you cannot. Demonstrably correct.

And the capitalist controls the life of the worker by being able to arbitrarily fire or lower his wage at any time

We were talking about riskier. The workers life contains far more risk than the capitalist.

[moorobot]

Yes, wages for the bottom half of the population have usually gone up abruptly after the implementation or increase of the minimum wage

The emprirical evidence is against his view. That is partly wages are not really tied to productivity, and they cannot be, because we can't measure marginal productivity, and partly due to the capitalists class massive market power assymetry dominance over low skilled or unskilled labor, particularly non-union ones.

[HLMencken]

[ QUOTE ]
k lets see if I get this. The minimum wage causes people who make less than minimum wage to become unemployed because they are not worth the minimum wage. This increases the competition for minimum wage entry level positions, which allows companies to keep wages restricted at minimum wage even as they make more money per employee. Does this make sense?

[/ QUOTE ]

"This study, by Dr. Aaron Yelowitz of the University of Kentucky, utilizes government collected data to examine the labor market effects of Santa Fe’s living wage increase. Dr. Yelowitz finds that the living wage in Santa Fe significantly increased unemployment and decreased hours worked for those who were able to keep their job. Even more troubling, this research found that almost the entire negative effect of the living wage was concentrated on the city’s least-skilled and least-educated employees. These are the very individuals the living wage is purportedly helping."

http://www.epionline.org/study_detail.cfm?sid=90

[hmkpoker]

In other words, you can't argue with the basic, obvious, and simple premise that is widely observable in the existing market (the fact that private businesses are risky), and have elected to retort by grossly unsupported assumptions of what you think a market anarchist society would be like, even though I never even brought up AC in this thread.

But yeah, in a society where there are no violent boundaries to business entry (which is the definition of AC, and which you assumed to be the contrary), there are going to be more small business owners. Simply because there is incentive for it, and because there can be.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Cultural in the sense that it might be possible to 'engineer' it away (which, of course, can't be done in anarchy).

[/ QUOTE ]

On the contrary. Social change can never succeed when it's predicated on violence, force, and propaganda. True social change comes from the bottom up, and is more possible in anarchy than any other system.

[ QUOTE ]
But not cultural in the sense that it only occurs in some areas and not other; in all societies people tend to judge their own well-being on relative status to others in their own country first and foremost. Keeping up with the Jones's is also a problem in terms of neighbors: a house turns into a hut next to a palace. Not everyone does this but most people do, and to say it is cultural because not everyone does it is like saying height is completely cultural because not everyone is over 6'6 tall.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is variation between cultures. Personally I think it's more culture than nature, in other words it's more learned than biological. Plain and simple.

[ QUOTE ]
As soon as you tell me how we can get your imaginary 'functioning' market where power is nothing, social norms of hiring are nothing, and we can measure marginal productivity I might be persuaded. And, via a combination of minimum wage laws with other policies, even if what else you say is true about minimum wage laws are true

[/ QUOTE ]

How to get there is a whole different issue. Removing the system of fiat currency is what Borodog suggested, and it sounds like a good start. I don't believe a single overarching plan can accomplish it. I think we have to respond in a dynamic fashion. The bulk of this paragraph seems to have been cut off, so that's all I'll say about that.

[ QUOTE ]
At very low levels of economic devolopment e.g. Bangladesh the maximin part is by far the most important. In the U.S. my judgement is that the equality part is more important today. The more a country has the more important equality is, the more impoverished, the more important maximin is.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're assuming a sum-zero system. The question I'm asking is based on the premise that an equal society will be more impoverished than a maximin society. Under those circumstances (I explained them very specifically), which do you consider preferable?

[ QUOTE ]
First, I don't consider a country with proportional representation and 'economic democracy' to be centralized; that is the least possible ammount of centralization we can have without perpetual civil war that I know of. These describe the way power can be most widely dispersed in a country. It is as close as we can have to one person one vote, and it eliminates the concentration of power in the hands of capitalists in a market.

[/ QUOTE ]

And what if your assumption fails? What if some people actually do have more power in your system than others? I think that is clearly the case, personally. And if it is, your whole society presents an ideal breeding ground for tyranny. Because if one person in your system can get ahold of great power, then everyone is doomed.

[ QUOTE ]
And I thought your comment was about how these systems would collapse and utterly fail. Power is probably going to be abused in all societies to some extent. But that doesn't mean they will fail to meet their stated goals/ideals, and do so better than any other system. Because, among other reasons, in these socities everyone are rather close to equally powerful.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't believe that assumption is accurate. The only way to prevent the consolidation of power, in my opinion, is to make sure that if one person or group gains too much of it, all the other people and groups are incentivized to oppose them. I don't think your system meets that criterion.

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, so many ACers on this board that I just try to make sure to know who I am currently discussing with, and take what I know about them specifically into account at that time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have an avatar, so I'm not very memorable. It's much easier when you have Clint Eastwood staring you down.

[ QUOTE ]
The unemployment in a market and 'class conflict' explanations I will work on later. The class



[/ QUOTE ]

Something wrong with your browser? Or mine?

[ QUOTE ]
For now, just think about how selling one's living breathing labor power and time are fundementally different from having productive property are not identical.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see the difference. Why can't labor be treated as a product?

[ QUOTE ]
It mostly depends on what the person is being paid. If it is only a subsistence wage or close to it then it is that troubling. Even if everyone is suddenlty paid 'what they are worth', there could very well be some people worth little or nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would say the only people worth little or nothing are the disabled. Didn't you once post the statistic that unskilled laborers in the US are worth $20/hour?

[ QUOTE ]
I don't advocate the elimination of markets, and we must have different definitions of libertarian here if you think these are libertarian. Why do you call them that? My point here is that it is possible to have a country with a distribution of wealth exponetially less inequitable than the one in the U.S. while still having rapid economic growth and a democracy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Relatively libertarian. Not compared to AC ideals, but compared to most countries. They're not the Netherlands, and there are a number of disturbing trends, but they're okay. I'd say they're more libertarian than the US based mainly on foreign policy and sex laws.

As to your second assertion, I fully agree. Did you forget that I think a free market results in an even lower income disparity? Or that I think it's the purest form of democracy?

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, wages for the bottom half of the population have usually gone up abruptly after the implementation or increase of the minimum wage

The emprirical evidence is against his view. That is partly wages are not really tied to productivity, and they cannot be, because we can't measure marginal productivity, and partly due to the capitalists class massive market power assymetry dominance over low skilled or unskilled labor, particularly non-union ones.

[/ QUOTE ]

What a bunch of crap. Produce the studies that show this idiocy, and then explain it.

A minimum wage will inevitably reduce employment compared to the level it would have been at in the absence of the wage controls. It is logically impossible for it not to.

And stop using meaningless [censored] phrases like "the capitalists class massive market power assymetry dominance over low skilled or unskilled labor". WTF is "market power assymetry dominance" and how does one measure it to determine that it is massive? Capitalists work for consumers. Consumers hold all the power under capitalism. Why you refuse to acknowledge this is beyond me.

It is the purest of sophistry to say crap like "we can't measure the marginal utility of labor", because that is exactly what the market does. The market price of any commodity, including lbor, is the objective realization of the subjective valuation of the market participants. The market sees to it that the maximum possible price is paid for each factor of production, including labor. If you pay more, you will suffer lowered profits and be out-competed. If you pay less, you will be unable to secure the factors you need for production, and will be outcompeted.

When will you realize that the world works in a logical fashion, and not by platitudes and "shoulds"?

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
You're assuming a sum-zero system. The question I'm asking is based on the premise that an equal society will be more impoverished than a maximin society. Under those circumstances (I explained them very specifically), which do you consider preferable?

[/ QUOTE ] NO, I'm not.

I told you it depends. It is a balance of values. That is how ethics works. It is where to draw the line. And great levels of inequality are not necessary for prosperity. That is what is 'observable'.

[ QUOTE ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cultural in the sense that it might be possible to 'engineer' it away (which, of course, can't be done in anarchy).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



On the contrary. Social change can never succeed when it's predicated on violence, force, and propaganda. True social change comes from the bottom up, and is more possible in anarchy than any other system.


[/ QUOTE ] ???

[ QUOTE ]

First, I don't consider a country with proportional representation and 'economic democracy' to be centralized; that is the least possible ammount of centralization we can have without perpetual civil war that I know of. These describe the way power can be most widely dispersed in a country. It is as close as we can have to one person one vote, and it eliminates the concentration of power in the hands of capitalists in a market.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



And what if your assumption fails? What if some people actually do have more power in your system than others? I think that is clearly the case, personally. And if it is, your whole society presents an ideal breeding ground for tyranny. Because if one person in your system can get ahold of great power, then everyone is doomed.

[/ QUOTE ] If one person can get a hold of great power, and they are in any possible system, and they are wicked, they system is 'doomed'.

It is not about an assumption. It is a description of how the system works. Power is very dispersed-that is what happens in a PR system and a worker controlled firm system. If power doesn't get dispersed in this manner at the start it is ipso facto the case that the system never came into being.

Why would this lead to concetration as opposed to dispersion of power is what I want to know. Why will this happen? Why hasn't it happened in any other PR system? Any reason other than prejudice?

[ QUOTE ]
I don't believe that assumption is accurate. The only way to prevent the consolidation of power, in my opinion, is to make sure that if one person or group gains too much of it, all the other people and groups are incentivized to oppose them. I don't think your system meets that criterion.


[/ QUOTE ] They are incetivized to oppose them in. In every system this is true. The difference is that in this system they are already organized, power starts out and is kept widely dispersed by the rules, and there are actual binding rules in place which prevent concentration of power. Anarchy does none of this to prevent concentration of power.

[ QUOTE ]

It mostly depends on what the person is being paid. If it is only a subsistence wage or close to it then it is that troubling. Even if everyone is suddenlty paid 'what they are worth', there could very well be some people worth little or nothing.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I would say the only people worth little or nothing are the disabled. Didn't you once post the statistic that unskilled laborers in the US are worth $20/hour?


[/ QUOTE ] That is on average, according to the best figures we have. Not each. Some more, some less. And they would be worth less on avg. if we lowered the minimum wage, or eliminated it, of course.

[ QUOTE ]
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The unemployment in a market and 'class conflict' explanations I will work on later. The class




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Something wrong with your browser? Or mine?

[/ QUOTE ] They are long.

[ QUOTE ]
As to your second assertion, I fully agree. Did you forget that I think a free market results in an even lower income disparity

[/ QUOTE ] Wow. Just wow. That is maybe the most absurd thing I have ever heard. You think in AC the income disparity would be less than in a society systematically set up to limit the differences in equality that occur via markets? Did you ever see my list of why markets created inequality? None of those things where essentially gov't based, but internal to the market. If there is no tax rates on the wealthy there will be a smaller income disparity in a 'free market' than if there is an 80% tax rate??? How is that possible? If kids get education based on their parents ability to pay, making it very unequal, leaving them doubly disadvantaged in terms of market skills, instead of almost equal, like in these countries, how is it possible that incomes will be close to equal? I don't think there is more than a 1% chance a fully free market as you define it would have less income disparity than the u.s. But for it to be less unequal in AC than in these countries is impossible. These countries have markets and then set up hugely progressive tax and transfer systems to work out the inequality created by markets-that is why they are built the way they are-if we remove the tax and transfer system they instantly become more equal.

Now, if you mean equalized at zero that is possible, if everyone dies in AC.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
k lets see if I get this. The minimum wage causes people who make less than minimum wage to become unemployed because they are not worth the minimum wage. This increases the competition for minimum wage entry level positions, which allows companies to keep wages restricted at minimum wage even as they make more money per employee. Does this make sense?

Are there any real world examples of a country that implemented minimum wage laws where we can analyze the effects, or a country that has removed minimum wage laws?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty much, but there are a variety of factors that can influence how things work. The simplistic model is never going to be strictly accurate for that reason. With regard to examples, just about any case of minimum wage presents a potential example of its negative effects. The problem is that with so many variables to consider, many economic policies can be evaluated in different ways based on interpretation and bias.

I would say that the unemployment problem in Europe is partly a result of the minimum wage laws there. I would say that the fact our minimum wage has reached its lowest inflation-adjusted level since 1950, and that our income disparity is increasing at an alarming rate, is a result of our minimum wage laws. If you point out any given country with minimum wage laws, I can tell you what problems those laws are contributing to.

But my opponents will have very different interpretations. The subject is much more complex and controversial than it seems. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage) is a good place to start.

[moorobot]

[ QUOTE ]
What a bunch of crap. Produce the studies that show this idiocy, and then explain it.

A minimum wage will inevitably reduce employment compared to the level it would have been at in the absence of the wage controls. It is logically impossible for it not to.


[/ QUOTE ] That is not what I said there. I said the wages have gone up for the bottom half of the population, not unemployment has gone up. For a detailed explanation of this trend check out any introdcutory book on political economy.

I explained in another post about how marginal productivity has not been measured,how it can't be even in principle in many cases, and cited a source.

[ QUOTE ]
The market price of any commodity, including lbor, is the objective realization of the subjective valuation of the market participants. The market sees to it that the maximum possible price is paid for each factor of production, including labor. If you pay more, you will suffer lowered profits and be out-competed. If you pay less, you will be unable to secure the factors you need for production, and will be outcompeted.

[/ QUOTE ] You are the one living in a dream world, talking about imaginary markets. Your assumptions aren't met in the real world, and they cannot be. And i'm talking about marginal productivity, not utility.

The market value of something cannot be the "objective realization of the subjective valuation of the market participants"
You can talk about an imaginary market given some assumptions working this way. Like people are self-interested utility maximizers (what biologist or cognitive psychologist or sociologist agrees with this? Do people still believe this in econ even? I think a few years ago the guys that one the noble prize demonstrated this was false throughout their work. Do you know what the man (and it is a man, I'm sure) you posit is called by mental health professionals? A sociopath.). That people will have perfect information. That people can't influence each other's preferences. That power in non-existent in economics. And, most of all, that people have a means to buy what they subjectively value. For purchases on the market are not based on subjective evaluation/willingness alone, they are also based on subjective ability. Unless even one has the exact same ammount of income, and the exact same effective ability to get it, the results of the market will be based disproportionately on what wealthy people want. And a billion more assumptions. The results of the market are therefore based on power: market power to get money (and productive assets, education etc.), and the market power money brings.

[ QUOTE ]
When will you realize that the world works in a logical fashion

[/ QUOTE ] What!!!!!!!!!!! What a view of history. The world, past and present, works on primarily power, contingency, illogic, chance, lack of information and ethical viewpoints. People themselves work in large part by platitudes and shoulds.

you think that the world is logical, and anybody who says it isn't is instantly villified and insulted. You think the world is simple, and that you are obviously right, 100% chance of being completely and utterly right. You make about 1,000,000 assumptions, vast over simplifications of the amazingly complex world if not completely implausible, try then to make inferences etc that are supposed to show how the world will function given these 1,000,000 assumptions and ten billion inferences.

You deny entire fields of academic study containing thousands and thousands of people (which, in case it matters, are far smarter than you) with a sentence, and than make fun of, insult anybody who disagrees with it.

Economic models are what you should stick to (maybe, I can't imagine why I thought this, maybe I am just hoping you are good at something). Stay away from describing, predicting, proscribing for the real world, past and future.

Oh yeah, and the consumers can have 'power' over the capitalists while they have power over their workers and make their lives miserable.

[madnak]

Again, I think everything here represents some basic differences in belief about how a market works and how society works. I don't believe we can have any meaningful discussion until those differences are approached.

[nietzreznor]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, i argued that people don't have a right to self-ownership in the formal sense.


[/ QUOTE ]

I know. But what you haven't really shown is why formal self-ownership isn't a constitutive part of self-determination, which I think a lot would agree that it is.

[ QUOTE ]
But, just a question: if violating someone's self-ownership would somehow prevent a nuclear war, or a famine, should we then violate it? Are you an absolutist?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm an absolutist in the sense that the extenuating circumstances (i.e., the prevention of whatever evil may come) doesn't change the fact that someone owns themselves, and that one who violates this owes them compensation.

But it doesn't follow that a virtuous person would, in all situations, act in a way that he.she never violated anyone's rights. Self-ownership is just one aspect of justice, and there are countless other moral considerations besides justice. Clearly, in the case of potential nuclear holocaust, I would hope people would value things more important (in this case) than formal self-ownership. I know I would. But that doesn't mean that self-ownership is any less absolute--if I had starving kids, I might steal to feed them, but that wouldn't make me not legally responsible, and I would certainly owe compensation to whomever I stole from.

[nietzreznor]

[ QUOTE ]
They are incetivized to oppose them in. In every system this is true. The difference is that in this system they are already organized, power starts out and is kept widely dispersed by the rules, and there are actual binding rules in place which prevent concentration of power. Anarchy does none of this to prevent concentration of power.


[/ QUOTE ]

You would be right if the only type of checks and balances possible were government laws. But this isn't the case--whether or not you agree with AC, there are plenty of historical instances of law and order, of systems of checks and balances arising without government control.

Writing a law on a piece of paper doesn't make anything 'binding'--social structures of people acting in certain ways are what make laws 'binding', and these are just as possible in anarchy as they are under government.

[ QUOTE ]
Wow. Just wow. That is maybe the most absurd thing I have ever heard. You think in AC the income disparity would be less than in a society systematically set up to limit the differences in equality that occur via markets? Did you ever see my list of why markets created inequality? None of those things where essentially gov't based, but internal to the market. If there is no tax rates on the wealthy there will be a smaller income disparity in a 'free market' than if there is an 80% tax rate???

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, yes, if you remove taxes on the rich, and keep them on the poor, and keep the rest of the heavily pro-big business system in place, of course income disparity will not shrink. I really don't understand how you believe anarchy would not create lower income disparity than the US, given how many benfits the government gives to the wealthy elite. How could a system which removes the many advantages the wealthy get over everyone else not reduce income disparity?

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
For a detailed explanation of this trend check out any introdcutory book on political economy.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is an annoying habit of yours. In lieu of making an argument, you suggest they go buy a certain book. Why can't you make these arguments yourself? At least ACers reference freely available material.

[Procrustes]

Damn straight! Way to tell that jerk-weed ACist the truth.

I can't believe they think that the market will decrease income disparity. Hello! That's what redistribution is for. Only socialism can create real equality. Capitalism just creates a world where the rich get richer and the poor just fall into miserable slavery. The market is nothing more than a joke, a sick joke.

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]

Each capitalist wants the supply of labor to be high so the price is low, and so that it reaches demand. However, it costs money to create decent working conditions, and to hire and train a new worke

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Whoever treats there workers the worst and does what is worst for society as a whole in the labor market makes the most profit

[/ QUOTE ]

You admit that it costs money train replacement workers, so the worst abuser will only profit more if training new workers is cheaper than paying old ones more/improving working conditions. This will only be true for as long as there is a ready supply of cheap labor. As others have pointed out England at the time had an almost unlimited supply of cheap labor from former farmers to laborours from Ireland. The Irish had been kept poor for years by the British government's actions.

[ QUOTE ]
The population in Britain started to take a huge nose dive after the start of capitalism in England.

[/ QUOTE ]
Working conditions were not the main cause of this- it was Living conditions in samll towns that were suddenly overrun with workers flooding in from the countryside. Human waste was lying in the streets and it was disease that was driving down the population. And this is where you should be pointing to governments triumph... but not the national parliment, it was small local townships that passed ordinences banning people from crapping upstream of water sources (and enfourced it in some cases with rotating volunteers who would patrol the banks at night and were given permission to shot anyone who did).

[RagnarPirate]

because the people who accept that system are sheep.

[RagnarPirate]

I agree with nothing except the proposal that we endorse the socio-political-economic regime that best promotes self-determination. That happens to be the one that promotes the concept that we own the products of our mind and body: laissez-faire capitalism.

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
People who argue against the legalization of drugs or visiting a prostitute often use arguments that are not based on any kind of harm to others i.e. it is offensive, or you are hurting yourself, or it is against god's word etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, the argument most often used (out loud) is that said action harms society. Somehow gay marrige harms the current institution of marrige, Pot is a stepping stone that leads to harder drugs which leads to crime, drugs breakup families and impact those who didn't use them, prostitution ruins marriges.

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
Um, ever heard of a state that is by, of and for the people? Oh, that's right, you grew up in the USA and not Europe.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless you allow infants to vote, this is impossible as a voting age will prevent a % of the population from participating. Secondly laws that were passed by people that are no longer living are being enfored upon people that are currently, thirdly of for and by the people only means that 50.1% of voters have to agree with the law. Of, for and by the people doesn't, hasn't and never will exist.

[madnak]

Underlying those arguments are assumptions about how marriage and family "should be."

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, you have to take into account the difference between harm done to the person prevented from doing something and the people being harmed by this, whether the state can actually enforce the laws, do people really want this to happen or not happen, how harmful it is, etc.

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So whoever is better at presenting their case wins- who ever has an "unfair" advantage in that they were born with a more pleasing voice, better looks, more height, blah blah blah. Your system still rewards inequalities, it simply rewards a different set of them.

[lehighguy]

Let's allow for all of the above in OP.

How does transfering ownership of all individuals to the state allow for more "substantative freedom"? Certainly, this has not been the case in the past. Rather, societies based on state ownership of individuals have had abysmal track records, both in ancient times and modern times (Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, and Mao's China.)

By contrast, allowing for constitutional limits over governments control of people and property has, both in ancient times and today, lead to people generally having greater degrees of substanitive freedom.

Don't the concepts of self ownership and substantative self ownership seem to be tied togethor.