Capitalist Philosophers And Fundamentalist Protestants

[Borodog]

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I'd [subjectively assert] that all things being equal, each person on the planet "deserves" the same opportunities and considerations as everyone else . . .


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You think it's subjective to say that, all other things being equal, all individuals "deserve" the same opportunities and considerations in life???

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Yes. But it doesn't really matter, since what we were discussing whether people did or did not "deserve" was property, not concepts like "opportunity" and "consideration."

[West]

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You think it's subjective to say that, all other things being equal, all individuals "deserve" the same opportunities and considerations in life???

[/ QUOTE ] Yes. But it doesn't really matter, since what we were discussing whether people did or did not "deserve" was property, not concepts like "opportunity" and "consideration."

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Frankly, I don't see how anyone can answer "yes" to that question. If you decided to buy a lottery ticket, do you think it's a subjective decision to give everyone who buys one lottery ticket the same chance to win? It wouldn't make any difference to you if say, 70% of everyone else who bought a ticket had twice as high a chance to win, maybe because they live in a different county?

Obviously opportunity directly relates to money and property, which obviously is related to standard of living/quality of life.

[Borodog]

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You think it's subjective to say that, all other things being equal, all individuals "deserve" the same opportunities and considerations in life???

[/ QUOTE ] Yes. But it doesn't really matter, since what we were discussing whether people did or did not "deserve" was property, not concepts like "opportunity" and "consideration."

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Frankly, I don't see how anyone can answer "yes" to that question.

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That's because you aren't thinking very clearly. Obviously, for everyone to be granted identical "opportunities", everyone would have to be raised identically. Same environment, same friends, same parents, same everything. Opportunity cannot be the same, ever. It is a physical impossibility. So saying that everyone "deserves" a physical impossibility must be a subjective claim, since it clearly cannot be objective (since its obviously wrong).

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If you decided to buy a lottery ticket, do you think it's a subjective decision to give everyone who buys one lottery ticket the same chance to win? It wouldn't make any difference to you if say, 70% of everyone else who bought a ticket had twice as high a chance to win, maybe because they live in a different county?

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What does that have to do with anything? Did the rules of the lottery I agreed to when I bought the lottery conatin a stipulation that all chances are equal? Then yes. But that doesn't have anything to do with the supposed objectivity of everyone's "opportunities" being the same.

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Obviously opportunity directly relates to money and property, which obviously is related to standard of living/quality of life.

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So? This simply means that your claim is that everyone "deserves" identical material conditions, which is impossible.

[West]

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That's because you aren't thinking very clearly.

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Most of us don't always think clearly, but I think on this issue I'm thinking fine.

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Obviously, for everyone to be granted identical "opportunities", everyone would have to be raised identically. Same environment, same friends, same parents, same everything. Opportunity cannot be the same, ever. It is a physical impossibility. So saying that everyone "deserves" a physical impossibility must be a subjective claim, since it clearly cannot be objective (since its obviously wrong).

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This is a fallacious argument. We don't need to decide whether it's possible for everyone to have exactly the same opportunities for happiness/prosperity/quality of life in order to agree that we all "deserve" it. That would be a seperate question altogether.

You are assuming "equal" is the same thing as "identical" which it obviously isn't.

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If you decided to buy a lottery ticket, do you think it's a subjective decision to give everyone who buys one lottery ticket the same chance to win? It wouldn't make any difference to you if say, 70% of everyone else who bought a ticket had twice as high a chance to win, maybe because they live in a different county?
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What does that have to do with anything? Did the rules of the lottery I agreed to when I bought the lottery conatin a stipulation that all chances are equal? Then yes. But that doesn't have anything to do with the supposed objectivity of everyone's "opportunities" being the same.


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In my example, what rules would you assume to be the case? Why? If they are subjective why would you have any basis to assume any sort of rules whatsoever? Or are you going to tell me that you would not have any basis to assume??

Do you think you agreed to any "rules" before being born in this world? Pretend for a second that you had to agree to some rules for say, world economic policy, prior to knowing the conditions under which you would be born. Would you "deserve" any more or less (money and property if you like) than anyone else?

Saying that everything is subjective is the same as saying that nothing matters at all. You can believe that if you like, but I don't think you can believe that without having formed definite opinions regarding the questions I mentioned earlier, i.e., is there life after death, etc.

[Deorum]

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People who are rich for technical capitalistic reasons do not truly deserve to be a lot better off than hardworking chemists in Burma.

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Why not? These people have found a way to use capitalism to their economic benefit. Wealth is a product of how well you manipulate an economic system, not of how much you have contributed to society. Or, in the case of somebody simply being given money, for instance a child being given wealth from his or her parents, that wealth is a product of how well his or her parents manipulated the economic system, and those parents ought to be allowed to do whatever they wish with that money.

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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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If this is true, it is because they do not want to bother developing a new set of skills for a new occupation. Athletes and rock stars learned early, when they were children, that there was a lot of money in such businesses for those who excelled in them. They then realized that they enjoyed those activities, and spent a lot of time developing the skills to succeed in those fields. How can you condemn them for finding an occupation they enjoyed, that they realized paid a lot of money if done well, and then developing the skills necessary to excel at that occupation? While many of these people might continue what they do even if their pay were significantlly reduced, and their current wealth stolen, most of them probably would have chosen a different path from the beginning if they had known at the outset that the pay was lousy.

A person is not undeserving of wealth simply because his or her occupation does not contribute as much to humanity as another occupation which does not pay as well. If your hypothetical chemist position in Burma paid what a rock star makes, and vice versa, how do you know the rock star would not have chosen early on to become a chemist instead?

It really does not matter. Wealth is a function of economics, not humanity.

[David Sklansky]

"Isn't that DS's point. Those who think they are deserving when they just got lucky are mistaken. He feels nausea at people who try to rationalise that mistake just because it serves their self-interest."

chez

Forget everything I ever said about you. This is exactly my point and my only one. This stuff about me deciding who does and does not deserve their wealth is irrelevant. I have my own definition (which by the way would make both Donald Trump and a lottery winner deserving), but I have no problem accepting most other people's definition. Including the definition of large percentage of people who are undeserving.

[luckyme]

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Isn't that DS's point. Those who think they are deserving when they just got lucky are mistaken.

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Well, ignoring his list of what is deserving - something about burmese atomic tables, frittin away your 20's learning a skill that nanotechnology may negate tomorrow, or willing to lose money as a buggywhip manufacter -- it's simply apples and oranges.
Monetary "Deserves" operates within a system, it's not a stand-alone measurement or a single persons or groups preference for 'man of the year'. So, within that system, you do 'deserve' what you get, much as you might whine about wanting a different system.

If I were the last human on earth, what would I 'deserve'. nadda. Why. Because deserve is a social contract issue and luck is a gods of chance issue. If I got lucky and found some berries it wouldn't mean I deserved them or not.

Get a group of people and whether I deserve a certain ration of berries will depend on the structure that arose. My standing as a worthwhile human being in somebodies eyes is not an issue ( unless they have a 'good-guy of the year berry award).

Somehow, DS has conflated those concepts.

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I claim it is meaningful to say that someone who works hard as a cleaner all week deserves the money they get paid for it more than a mugger who beats them up and steals their wages.

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Again, that seems like a mix of two issues. Societal consideration for a task and an ethical/moral/legal action. Mind you, the thief does sound like an enterpreneur that took risks, so maybe he has at least angolian standing on DS's 'deserves' scale.

luckyme

[Borodog]

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That's because you aren't thinking very clearly.

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Most of us don't always think clearly, but I think on this issue I'm thinking fine.

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Obviously, for everyone to be granted identical "opportunities", everyone would have to be raised identically. Same environment, same friends, same parents, same everything. Opportunity cannot be the same, ever. It is a physical impossibility. So saying that everyone "deserves" a physical impossibility must be a subjective claim, since it clearly cannot be objective (since its obviously wrong).

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This is a fallacious argument. We don't need to decide whether it's possible for everyone to have exactly the same opportunities for happiness/prosperity/quality of life in order to agree that we all "deserve" it. That would be a seperate question altogether.

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Ok. So it is your contention that "obviously" everyone should objectively agree that everyone deserves to have a physical impossibility.

Have a nice life.

[chezlaw]

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I claim it is meaningful to say that someone who works hard as a cleaner all week deserves the money they get paid for it more than a mugger who beats them up and steals their wages.


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Again, that seems like a mix of two issues. Societal consideration for a task and an ethical/moral/legal action. Mind you, the thief does sound like an enterpreneur that took risks, so maybe he has at least angolian standing on DS's 'deserves' scale.

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Its nothing to do with ethical/moral/legality or societal considerations but to do with the meaning of the word 'deserve'.

If you're going to argue that its just as reasonable to claim 'the thief earned their money' as 'the cleaner earned their money' then we are not arguing about anything important because by using the word 'earn' I intend to distinguish between the two cases.

chez

[pvn]

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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.

Those who advocate systems that will protect these people's assests from "theft" are almost always self serving if they claim that it would be "immoral" to redistibute a lot of their money. Nonsense. It may not be a good idea to for practical reasons but its not immoral. People who are rich for technical capitalistic reasons do not truly deserve to be a lot better off than hardworking chemists in Burma. Period. Philosophers who try to claim otherwise are rationalizing.

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Redistribution is not inherently immoral.

You taking it upon yourself to do the redistributing is, however presumptuous, arrogant, AND immoral.

It doesn't matter if Alice "deserves" the money she has or not; you don't deserve any sway over how that property is distributed.

If, as you say later, most of these people agree that they don't deserve their wealth, there is nothing stopping them from redistributing it themselves.