Capitalist Philosophers And Fundamentalist Protestants

[David Sklansky]

What you have in common is a need to rationalize rewards you don't deserve.

Heart surgeons who have sacrificed their twenties, work hard and study, deserve to be millionaires. So do many entrepreneurs who have risked bankrupcy. Many other successful people also should not be ashamed of their riches.

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.

Right now we "steal" a bit of their money through the graduated income tax. So the concept is obviously not foreign. We don't steal more or condone someone else stealing it because it would disrupt the system if we did and we don't want to prevent naive people from dreaming.

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.

In a similar vein are those who want a system where God sends you to heaven, not because you deserve to be there but rather because of a system that will reward people due to a technicality. In this case it isn't the technicality that you can make jump shots or arbitrage commododites but rather the technicality that you accept Jesus as the son of God right before you die regardless of how you lived your life.

Both stances make me nauseous. You want to go to heaven or feel that you do not deserve to have your moderate wealth taken away from you? Study hard. Work hard. Use your talent to truly help humanity (that doesn't mean providing liquidity to the orange juice market). Otherwise don't be mortified if you get scammed or go to hell.

[Lestat]

Now you're talking! I almost brought this up in your other thread (i.e. we do in fact steal from undeserving wealthy in the way of tiered taxation).

But I must be a very rare atheist in that I seem to lean a little right. I don't believe in a tiered tax rate. I don't think rich people (who deserve their wealth), should be penalized for their success. Of course, this quickly gets into politics, so I'll stop right there.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Heart surgeons who have sacrificed their twenties, work hard and study, deserve to be millionaires.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is there a list somewhere of "What we deserve" and who wrote the list, and who enforces it and what were the criteria.
The concept is baseless. Each culture conditions us to think there is a 'deserve' list. Get raped .. you get stoned...you deserve that. A different culture may believe somebody with the ability to be a doctor or a great soldier owes it to the culture they were born into, not the other way around.
That's part of the reasoning of Gates and Buffet... the prevailing system allowed them their wealth and they're 'paying back'. Similar reasoning for opposing the lifting of inheritance tax.
I may agree that doctors 'deserve' high pay, the next person may think it's a policeman, or a soldier, but it's not a stone-chiselled Right, it's a cultural/economic outcome.
Any act can be justified if it starts from the premise of "Well, I deserve X, so I'm taking it."

luckyme

[David Sklansky]

"Is there a list somewhere of "What we deserve" and who wrote the list, and who enforces it and what were the criteria."

Now you are just being silly and everyone here knows it.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
"Is there a list somewhere of "What we deserve" and who wrote the list, and who enforces it and what were the criteria."

Now you are just being silly and everyone here knows it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope so. I'm trying to combat your penchant for making ex-cathedra pronouncments and thinking others are bound by them rather than them being contentious issues on their own.

It's not a universal rule that specific roles 'deserve' extra reward. Look around the world. Various cultures reward different 'gifts' or skills.

Your claim that 'doctors deserve' and 'poor chadians deserve' are not valid premises, they are the claims that are in contention. I hope I stay silly enough to recognize them as such. The others are on their own.

silly ol' luckyme

[BluffTHIS!]

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; and to them he said, `You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.' So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, `Why do you stand here idle all day?' They said to him, `Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, `You go into the vineyard too.'

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, `Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.' And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, saying, `These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'

But he replied to one of them, `Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go; <font color="red">I choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?'</font> So the last will be first, and the first last."

--Matthew 20:1-16 (RSV-CE)

[MidGe]

Yes, I get it. It encourages working as little as possible and the rewards should be the same to all. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[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.

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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 ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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]

[ QUOTE ]
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.