Capitalist Philosophers And Fundamentalist Protestants

[hmkpoker]

Deserves ain't got nothing to do with it.

Personally, I am a hard determinist. Ultimately no one really "deserves" anything; we're just the sum of everything that came before us.

The reason for property rights, or whatever system we implement that rewards a certain behavior and punishes another, is much better looked at consequentially than deontologically. A capitalist system will prosper more than a non-capitalist system; "justice," imho, is a much lesser priority.

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But there are planty of people who are wealthy because of the nature of the capitalist system. Options traders, baseball players, rock stars etc. Almost all of them would continue to do what they do if their salary was cut by 80% whether they liked their job or not.

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Aren't the doctors you mentioned also wealthy because of the capitalist system? They make their money based on trade of personal property, just like rock bands and athletes. No oneis forced to go to a playoff game, yet many, many people are willing to pay top dollar for it. Who are you, or anyone else, to tell them that it's wrong?

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But the fact that we won't allow these people to be stolen from in no way implies that they "deserve" their money or that some high quality people don't "deserve" to have it transferred to them.

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You cannot limit rewards for the undeserving without also limiting rewards for the deserving. Many people think it is wrong to allow a rich kid to inherit millions of dollars, yet to implement a system to counteract that deprives another man the right to work hard and raise security and prosperity for his family.

[FortunaMaximus]

The copy and paste function rewards people like Bluff. He puts little effort into the actual labor of the post. But he puts more into the thinking processes behind the post. No offense intended, but "bible" = "book" after all.

Why do heart specialists deserve that wealth? They ain't stopping death. And let's be frank, except for natural athletic geniuses, a hell of a lot of ball players work hard to get where they are. That's why their salaries are closer to the median of the league and why they compromise most of the league.

The stars, the true stars are people like Michael Jordan, who recognizes his own talent, and instead of cruising along on it, worked at his game until he wasn't merely better, but a LOT better. He's earned some infamy for being a degenerate, this is true, and some silly acrobatics like trying to play baseball. That only shows how little respect he had for gigantic sums of money. But you can be sure it never impacted his overall BR.

Take the olden days before labor union contracts in pro sports, for instance. The athletes got handed a crap deal, the owners kept most of the revenue. They deserve their cut, just as much as millionaire owners do for maintaining an arena for them to play in.

[Propertarian]

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Aren't the doctors you mentioned also wealthy because of the capitalist system? They make their money based on trade of personal property, just like rock bands and athletes. No oneis forced to go to a playoff game, yet many, many people are willing to pay top dollar for it. Who are you, or anyone else, to tell them that it's wrong?

[/ QUOTE ] I don't know if anybody is saying going to basketball games or playing b-ball is wrong on the individual level.

What has bad consequences/"is wrong" is the vast inequality that results from all of these uncoordinated market transactions.

[Propertarian]

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You cannot limit rewards for the undeserving without also limiting rewards for the deserving. Many people think it is wrong to allow a rich kid to inherit millions of dollars, yet to implement a system to counteract that deprives another man the right to work hard and raise security and prosperity for his family.

[/ QUOTE ] Only true at a 100% estate tax rate for all inheritance, which isn't advocated by many people (an understatement).

Actually, even then part of it would go back to his family in gov't programs...