Idea for Welfare Reform

I think I might actually be able to agree with this.

I don't claim to speak for the majority. Neither should you... And the few people I know that are receiving welfare are working. By 'working' I don't necessarily mean that they have a full-time job.

I don't think anyone who's jobless is happy about not having a job...

Probably because selling drugs can be profitable... When people can't get money in the legal market, they'll turn to the illegal market for money.

 

The cycle of joblessness isn't something I'd call a choice man, how many people would you find who'd say "Oh yes, this is the choice that I made and one that I stick to... and lawdy lawds, am I glad that I've chosen so wisely!" No, most of the time it's a trap that people don't really realise they're sinking into until it's too late, a bit like getting addicted to a drug - which you could also call a 'choice', to be true, but one that typically requires a helping hand to escape rather than the individual having the willpower and strength to go cold-turkey and quit with no help.

This opposition to wealth-redistribution has always baffled me a bit, specifically in relation to corporations. I think I've broached the point several times here, but if we were to say that, overnight, all government regulation was removed from the market and anyone was free to do whatever they wanted in the marketplace... corporations, who currently are bound by minimum wage laws, worker-health protection laws, taxes and whatnot, would grow like a plant under 24 hours constant light! Of course, the comeptition has the same opportunity, but the corporations have a quite ridiculously large head-start... so, is there a problem in redistributing their wealth to level out the playing field and give everyone EQUAL OPPORTUNITY to prosper? After all, I have heard this repeated a fair bit by libertarians here - equal opportunity does not entail equal outcomes and such. If there's no equal opportunity though, the whole thing largely falls apart and the corporations continue to dominate (at least, for the time being until some other company grows enough to combat them, in which case you've simply had one gigantic, centralised comglomerate of wealth replaced by another...) just as they did when regulated by the government. So, a clean slate is needed, which entails a redistribution of wealth, no? Which should be OK anyhow, due to the wealth being illegitimately and coercively acquired?

Certainly, but (depending on what field you want to work in, of course) you know how it is nowadays - more and more jobs are strictly requiring qualification, thanks to government regulation!

Fair point, fair point... I guess this is where Mists idea helps to get society out of the 'pit' then

Pah! That's only the homeless folks who actually managed to show up, what about the poor people who were too lazy to rock up! How dare you let them starve and die, you heartless monsters!
/sarcasm

As you probably know, I'm largely a consequentialist. If you're stealing Bill Gates' wallet to feed 100 starving Ugandans, I won't be particularly fussed that it's 'theft' - I'd be more fussed that there are 100 starving Ugandans not being fed. Obviously, an extreme example and I certainly don't condone 'theft', but I have less problems with 'Robin Hood' theft than I do with 'unjustified' theft. I can predict I'll get largely scorned for that statement ('What is justified theft?!'), but c'mon - surely you fellas got behind Robin Hood as kids? Or did you reject him as a thief and a criminal?

 

You're right, they don't have free will and they were tricked into it by the evil corporations... The few people I know who are actually having trouble finding work are either extremely unskilled or they're asking for wayyyy too much money... Most of the other people I know are finding either contract work or part-time jobs...

Yes, there is a problem... It's rather obvious, and I think you've already thought of it. Who decides get what money? Does everyone have money taken or just the most productive members? Since there are no regulations are they allowed to opt out of this redistribution or are they forced to comply? Idk, this forced redistribution of wealth sounds a lot like regulations...

A clean slate is impossible. It's a pipe dream... You would need a lot more than a simple redistribution of wealth to allow for the equality of opportunity you're talking about. I'm personally not a big believer in equality of opportunity because I believe it is a pipe dream. It's nice to think about, but the fact is that people aren't born the equal and thus there will never be equality of opportunity. I'd be a lot more interested in trying to provide everyone with a basic minimum...

As for the wealth that was illegitimately and coercively required, I'm sure the courts can handle something like that.

Thanks for proving my point?

But why would they want to necessarily get out of the 'pit'? If everything needed/wanted is provided for, why ask for anything more?

Lol, you snooze you lose pal.

Couldn't you have just asked him nicely (and preferably publicly)? I'm sure Bill Gates would gladly feed 100 starving Ugandans... Hell man, if he refuses, you can make a spectacle about how Bill Gates wouldn't give you money and I'm sure that publicity will get you some money.

Robin Hood, steals from the rich and gives to the poor. It's a nice story and I can't imagine how I would actually object from stealing from some warlord and his buddies, but that doesn't change the fact that this is not what is being proposed. Not everyone who has >$X acquired their wealth coercively. Not everyone who has >$X deserves to have their money taken by force. You see the predicament, don't you? Who gets to decide how the wealth is distributed? Some fallible, corrupt government?

 

It would indeed BE a regulation... I guess you could call it the regulation to end all regulations, the regulation to ensure that all other regulations need not occur because from their clean slate people may regulate themselves and put up with whatever fate ensues from there. If the clean slate isn't there, then people aren't free to regulate themselves due to some people having far more ability TO regulate themselves than others - to put it in Orwellian terms, all people are free, but some (the rich) are more free (have more options available to them) than others.

I think this is probably the big point that it boils down to, in which my socialist tendencies come to surface and your capitalist tendencies likewise come to surface. You say equality of opportunity is a pipe dream, I say it's a social obligation that, if not met, makes a society 'unfree'. It's sorta like that thing you free-market fellas talk about, "A market is either free or it isn't, there's no halfways". To me, the people are either all just as free as each other (ie, they all have the same opportunities and no-one is born 'free-er' than anyone else) or some people are 'free' (have opportunities not afforded to the poor) at the expense of others. I don't think there's anything wrong with either perspective, they're both different - I guess you could say mine is 'idealist' or even 'utopian' (which would be a stretch), while yours might be called 'realist'.

Of course, people will never 'be equal' - some folks are born with good brains, others are born with good muscles, others are born with both and others are born with neither. This is a good thing! Diversity is the cornerstone to a healthy society. But biological diversity aside, all of them - without exception - should be granted the same opportunity to utilise whatever skills they have or develop the skills they wish to have.

Another thing I've never properly understood, what's the go with courts? Surely they're not private and open to competition too...

I'll prove your point a second time around too, with an observation that I didn't think of before - most unskilled workers are unskilled because they didn't like school and thus didn't want to pursue further education... and the reason why they didn't like school is because they, very likely, were not learning about stuff that interested them, which is the fault of government-mandated curriculums that work on a 'one-size-fits-all' model of education. Once more, let's give a hand of gracious applause to the wonderous government!

It's not a situation where you get 'everything needed/wanted', or at least here it's certainly not - being on the dole is living at or below the poverty line, typically. I was on the dole for a brief spell, I got $170 a week... admittedly, I could of got more if I'd pleaded unstable accomodation (thus giving me a $100 rent allowance), but $270 a week is still a lowly, lowly payment. And, what's more, it's very shameful, to have to say "Yep, I'm on the dole" to anyone who asks what you do for a living... not to mention how fucking annoying it is having to report into Centrelink (our welfare agency) twice a week and apply for 5 jobs a week. To be honest, at first I just applied for ridiculous jobs that I could never possibly get, but it got to me so much that I, with purely myself and my own shame/poverty to motivate me, went out and actually LOOKED for a proper job.

Sure, you could do both of those things... Bill Gates might oblige, or he might say "Fuck all of you pricks trying to pressure me into giving away my money, you manipulative little turds can gtfo" and proceed to sit back and enjoy his riches. I'd tend to go with the former as being the most likely option, sheerly because of his obscene wealth - but, as we move further down the chain in wealth and public prominence, I would predict that the latter would start to emerge as the more statistically likely option, for two obvious reasons. One is that the person with less wealth doesn't want to give away so much (which is understandable), and two is that they have less public prominence so will be less phased about the papers smearing them. Which means, essentially, that Bill Gates becomes a bit of a cash-cow, someone who society could easily come to rely on for charity... until he gets sick of it and cuts off the tap, leaving the less wealthy, less public figures to fill the gap left. And, as said, they're going to be less and less likely to give money due to having less wealth and less motivation to due to their lack of publicity.

Therefore, I would say that your first option would absolutely be to ask him first... and if he says no, jump the bastard in a dark alley

I can see the predicament, and I'd say that the matter of how the wealth is distributed is one that should, like all matters, be one resolved by complete and total public consensus. The people (which is to say anyone and everyone who chooses to participate) get together and discuss just what they want the money to go towards... they debate, trying to find solutions so as to make sure that every persons suggestion is realised rather than any kind of 'majority rule', and then they act on whatever has been decided.

And certainly, not everyone who has a certain amount of money deserves to have it stolen, but everyone deserves a clean slate in my view, which entails everyone being born with access to the same resources - ie, no person is born richer or poorer than anyone else. If one rich person has to lose their money (and be bought down to the same clean slate as everyone else has) so that others may be given the opportunity that is deprived from them for the sake of the one rich man, I wouldn't feel too uncomfortable about him losing that wealth that he holds at the expense of everyone else. Of course, I'd prefer that it didn't happen but the poor still have their clean slate so that everyone's happy, but if it did come down to it I know that my loyalties lie with the masses and not the wealthy elite.

 

i have never been out of work.....just sometimes i don't get paid for it. i have been unemployed a few times in my life, and have taken unemployment without shame. but its not like i sat on my ass doing nothing. looking for a job (if you are doing it right) should take about the same amount of time as a full time job. if not then you got time to volunteer.

and this, i think is the direction that welfare needs to take. if you want to take my money for welfare, fine....really. i just want something for my money. we can find 500 hours of community service for lindsey lohan cause she snorts coke too much, but there isn't required community service for welfare recipients??? makes no fucking sense to me. pick up some fucking garbage on the way to the welfare line, weed flower beds in a city park, just DO SOMETHING for the money......i mean other than pump out crying brats as fast as you can

 

A clean slate is impossible as is equality in the way you're talking about equality... Equality under the law is a lot more feasible, but allowing everyone equal opportunities is impossible.

How can you even reconcile the two? It's impossible. There's no way around it... Society will always be 'unfree' in your eyes.

See, us Austro-libertarians just don't believe that some people are 'free' at the expense of others. The economy isn't a zero-sum game. Wealth can be created out of nothing.

My idea of freedom stems from natural rights, self-ownership, and, by extension, private property rights.

They're not equal, but should be afforded equal opportunity? How's that fair? Hell, how is that even feasible? Are you going to force employers to give people an equal opportunity in the hiring process? I'm sure you know how discriminatory employers can be...

How exactly are you going to create this equal opportunity paradise? Through force?

Surely, they are... If you'd like some reading material, I'm sure I can find some on private courts. Hell, I bet that "competing agencies of retaliatory forces" thread had some info on this subject.

That's not what it is like here... Our welfare budget is gigantic... Obviously, I don't think it's gigantic compared to our military budget, but it's still very large nonetheless. It's pretty obvious that our entire welfare system would be better off if we just wrote checks to people (go look up our welfare numbers if you don't believe me).

I don't really have sympathy for those that are going to milk someone for charity... No one deserves charity. No one is entitled to charity.

I'm fine with this. As long as people have the option to opt-out, I'm fine with you starting your own consensus-style commune and then redistributing wealth within that commune of consenting individuals.

There seems to be a disconnect, imo, between what you think people deserve and what is actually feasible. It's not feasible to give everyone a clean slate, since people are always going to have advantages over one another. IMO, even with the use of force, it will be impossible to enforce this 'clean slate' philosophy (read: Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut).

I guess another issue is why would any rich person want to participate in a commune where their wealth is going to be taken from them? I would think rich people would, at the least, think they know how to allocate resources better rather than some consensus-based commune does.

 

Equal access to the means of production by way of equal and uninhibitated access to education and training. That would be a clean slate, as far as determinism of ones life is concerned - everyone has complete liberty to pursue the career of their choice, rather than the rich having the priveledge of being born with connections/a university degree paid for by their parents. Equal and uninhibitated access to all information that society possesses - science, art, everything. This shouldn't be too shocking if you don't believe in the legitimacy of patents/intellectual property! Equal and uninhibitated access to food, water, shelter, electricity and other essentials of life, without charge or exception. Equal and uninhibitated access to healthcare... the things that each and every human being NEEDS in order to survive, and needs in order to pursue their own talent and inclination.

There's nothing impossible about any of this. Equal access to education, housing, water, electricity and information boils down to nationalising the education/construction/water/electricty sectors of industry and subsidising agriculture. Under this bare bones model of equality of opportunity, not much would even have to change in government. They'd make a few new departments and carry on as usual. I'm certainly not advocating THIS and would go about it a very different way, but I make the point to show that providing this equality of opportunity is not an impossible thing for society to provide at all.

Not sure I get what you mean here, society will only be 'unfree' so long as some people have more freedom and priveledge than others. If everyone has that clean slate, then everyone is free to forge their own life from it, and if some are born with nothing and others are born with plentitude then those with nothing are only free to forge so much of a lfie as they can afford.

The economy isn't a zero-sum game, but I'm I can't agree with your claim that 'wealth can be created out of nothing'. Besides singing a song on the street, I can think of no way that anyone could make wealth without possessing anything. Every tradesman needs his tools...

Natural rights are something I can't help but find a bit ridiculous because only humans have recognised these so-called 'natural rights'. I could claim that the right to walk naked in public is a natural right, and how exactly would you be able to disprove my statement? Unless we have physical, tangible evidence that we are 'born' with a certain set of rights, they remain a human construction and thus just as unnatural as 'original sin', signs of the zodiac and anything else humans bestow upon each other as facts of their birth.

Self-ownership is something I dig too, very much so - that's why I so enthusiastically pursue the vision of a society in which everyone has the right to express their ownership of the self as manifested by whatever career/engagement they want to do. If someone is able to be a doctor but can't purely because they don't have the money for training, how can he be said to own himself unless he only owns himself up to the point that others allow him to, by granting him access to training. To explain this, the man owns himself, but does not own his who he is in the future (a doctor) because that is only given to him if he pays the money to recieve training for that employment. If someone else owns your means to becoming who you want to be in life, then how can you be said to own yourself? Unless, as I say, you only own yourself and who you are in the future so far as you can afford to...

Private property is something everyone's entitled to... but not public property, under which I would deem those institutions at which we live our public lives - this is to say, where we work. Private property is connected to your private life, which is your non-working life. Public property is connected to your public life, which is your working life - hence, the machines of production over which we spend our days working are public property, belonging equally to everyone.

Equal opportunity FROM THE OUTSET, equal opportunity to recieve training and education in how to best utilise the muscles/brains that the individual is born with, whether they are good muscles/brains or not. As to your question about employers, of course not! The best person for the job deserves the job, but everyone deserves the opportunity to potentially become that 'best person' for the job through training and education.

Through worker ownership of the means of production. The schools, owned by the people, are created by the people themselves, Morales style! The electricity/water/etc etc companies, owned by the workers, produce their goods for the people, who in turn reap the wealth of whatever the people can offer.

I'd love some reading material on the topic, because the idea of private courts competing against one another sounds absolutely and completely insane, without knowing the details. Can't read anything tonight because I'm right about to go to bed after this post - which means, funnily enough, that I won't be able to reply to what you post back tonight and will do so tomorrow - but it's something that I'm very curious about as I'm stumped as to how you can resolve such a problem.

That's not what it is like here... Our welfare budget is gigantic... Obviously, I don't think it's gigantic compared to our military budget, but it's still very large nonetheless. It's pretty obvious that our entire welfare system would be better off if we just wrote checks to people (go look up our welfare numbers if you don't believe me).[/QUOTE]

Why is the budget so large? Why are people not just paid the bare minimum, enough to survive but not enough to make a comfortable lifestyle of it? Or put to work, as Mist said from the outset... if the US government is allocating too much funding to welfare and breeding an army of lazy unemployed, overpaid slobs with no incentive to work then that's not the fault of WELFARE, as a concept - it's the fault of the US's suicidally stupid interpretation of 'welfare'.

A baby is entitled to the charity of its mother, who is charged with manslaughter/negligance if she fails to provide it. Similarly, the husband/father of the family is very much expected to bring home money/food for the wife and kids, who would very much argue that they are entitled to it and deserve it. I don't think the husband would argue against that much too, unless he's a selfish bastard who shouldn't have had a family in the first place. The elderly, on busses, are entitled to the charity of youngsters, who must leave their seats and give them to the elderly. Similarly, I'd view that the poor, to varying extents, are entitled to the charity of the rich. You might call it a jump from the elderly-on-the-bus scenario, but I'd say that the logic is just the same - one member of society is weak and suffering, while someone who could wouldn't suffer nearly as much if in the weak persons place is enjoying a priveledge that could be more beneficial to the weaker person. Thus, they're obliged to give charity, and the weaker person deserves charity.

Same goes for whatever your group of people would want to do and however you want to rule yourselves, I can't see how either of us could object to the other group of people voluntarily and consentually living as they choose. For this reason, it baffles me why libertarian socialists, libertarian capitalists and whoever else don't agree to stop fighting each other and start fighting for the common cause of being able to 'seceede' in such a fashion.

Harrison Bergeron is about equality of outcome - everybody MUST look the same, nobody may be more handsome or intelligent than anyone else etc. That's not what I'm about here at all, I'm talking about equality of opportunity FROM THE OUTSET, as I said before. Equality of access to do whatever you want in life, it shouldn't be up to who has the all the wealthy, well-heeled contacts to get the job, or who has the most money to go to the top schools to get the top job. No, everyone should be able to be trained in whatever they have the ability/motivation to be trained in. If they don't have the ability, then unlike in Harrison Bergeron society doesn't bring everyone down to their level, these people just have to do something that they do have the ability to do. Life's unfair sometimes - you might want to be a basketballer, but are very short, or might want to be a mathematician but are terrible at math. That's unavoidable and inevitable, but you'll never know whether you have what it takes or not unless you have the access to education from the get-go.

I don't see how the rich man could think that. How can any one man have justification in thinking he knows better than the people of the society which the wealth effects? Regardless, there's a serious argument behind you saying that no rich man would want to participate in a commune where his wealth is going to be taken away. Some eccentric guilty-bourgeoise type might, but on the whole it would seem that the hypothetical commune is just going to have to create its own wealth...

One question I have for you, also, before I go. To be truthful, this question - or statement - comes from my Dad, who is largely a capitalist himself but has a problem with capitalists claiming that welfare must not exist etc. This is because unemployment MUST exist under capitalism, you can NEVER have 100% employment under it. The reason for this is that there must be an available workforce of disposable workers to do the miserable jobs that nobdy wants to do - teenagers working at McDonalds etc. If everybody was employed and there were enough jobs for everyone, then teenagers (and other low-skills workers) would simply be able to find another one of the plentiful jobs available and there'd be no one around willing to do the miserable jobs. It's the shortage of jobs that forces people to take what they can get, forces them to work for low wages etc, and it's this disposable workforce that keeps much of the consumer economy going. Hopefully I've understood and relayed this right, I'll update if I misunderstood what Dad was trying to say, but if I have got it right it's quite interesting - normally, it's a challenge put forward to socialists; "If everyone's paid the same, why would anyone want to be a doctor?" It's a bit of an inversion here - "If everyone's got a job, why would anyone want the bad job?" Anyhow, if this is the case and unemployment MUST exist under capitalism, then welfare also MUST exist in some form or another, for obvious reasons...

 

Like I've said, this is a nice ideal to strive for, but it's not feasible... There's always going to be people who is able to get access to more education and training than an another person... This equality ideal you're striving for is a pipe dream. I can't emphasize that enough. I'm with you if you're trying to provide everyone with the means to survive, but I don't see how you can claim to be providing equal opportunities when, by definition, we're not equal and, by extension, will not have equal opportunities throughout life.

Not everyone can pursue any career... I know you love to hate on the rich, but that appeal isn't going to do much for me.

Let's take the internet and its users as an example. Do you think everyone who connects to the internet has equal and uninhibited access to all the information on there? Why not? What're the barriers between the current internet and your ideal internet?

So, how will these services be provided? Slave labor? Services and goods cost something and to claim that they'll be provided 'without charge' sort of implies that you're going to either steal to provide them or you're going to force people to work to provide them.

My dad's a doctor. You think he's going to provide you with the same care he provides me with? Come on dude... My dad cares about his patients, but I'm his son. I think I might get some preferential treatment and thus better access to health care.

This notion of equal access is a pipe dream... There will never be equal access so long as we're talking about humans providing goods/services. If you try to enforce equal access to health care, people will go underground in their dealings in order to secure better care.

It is impossible in the sense I've described already. People are going to want more education sometimes and they'll be willing to pay for it. People's preferences will make the playing field uneven, no matter how much you try to enforce equality. I think we both know how well enforcement will work in this scenario.

Like I've said, this sort of setup would be great and I'd be fine with so long as you have the consent of the governed. If you want to go create this equal opportunity society, go ahead; just leave me and anyone else who doesn't want to participate out of it.

Which, given your definition of freedom and privilege, will always be the case.

'That clean slate' is a pipe dream...

Wealth can be created out of nothing and your example works fine. Someone thinks up a song in their head and then attempts to sell his service of singing that song to someone for a price. If the song and his/her singing is good enough, people will pay to hear that person sing their song.

I would argue that human constructions aren't necessarily 'unnatural', but I'm not really interested in arguing the case for natural rights in this thread.

You're not entitled to training... Self-ownership doesn't imply any positive rights since positive rights imply that someone else doesn't own their body and owes you some service/good. Positive rights are, in essence, slavery.

Ok, so if I work from home on a computer and create some web application on my computer at my house, that is a means of production and thus is public property even though it resides inside my home. Can't you see the obvious predicament with trying to claim public ownership over things that the public obviously does not own? This is just another attempt to justify theft when people don't do what you want them to do.

Hell, if I think of some idea in my head and that idea could better the lives of everyone, wouldn't that make my head a means of production? What's to stop people from claiming public ownership of an intelligent individual? I don't know about you, but that is where I spend a lot of my time 'working'...

This is a nice thought, but impossible to implement. The education and training you're talking about will never be equally accessible.

See, I wouldn't even say that everyone deserves an opportunity... Not everyone deserves an opportunity. You're not entitled to any opportunities in this life except for the ones you create yourself.

And if the current owners don't want to give up their means of production? Force them, right? And if they fight back?

I'm at work right now, but I will spend some time today looking for some reading material for you on this subject. I'm betting there's some in that competing agencies of retaliatory forces thread, but I'm not 100% sure.

Why is the budget so large? Why are people not just paid the bare minimum, enough to survive but not enough to make a comfortable lifestyle of it? Or put to work, as Mist said from the outset... if the US government is allocating too much funding to welfare and breeding an army of lazy unemployed, overpaid slobs with no incentive to work then that's not the fault of WELFARE, as a concept - it's the fault of the US's suicidally stupid interpretation of 'welfare'.
[/quote]

I think now you understand why I have such an aversion to government. Welfare to me is just the theft of money from some people so that they can appease some other people.

Here, in the US, the government always runs at a loss and is obviously inefficient. The bailouts are a perfect example. With all that money, the government could've paid off everyone's mortgage and just let them stay in the house and they still would have had some money left over.

No, it's not... Ever hear of an abortion? I guess it's not a baby though, so its life of entitlements hasn't started yet.

Children are the guardian's responsibility; however, the guardian is free to hand over the baby to someone who will take care of it. so in that sense, no the baby is not entitled to charity. I wouldn't even use the term entitlement at all here. I would love to be able to provide all children with a basic minimum, but I just don't think that everyone is entitled to have it. No one has the right to force someone to provide for them: not even a child.

How will these entitlements be implemented? Through force, I presume... How else could you expect people to actually adhere to these ridiculous entitlement claims? I'm entitled to charity because I'm >X years old! I'm entitled to charity because I'm your child! I'm entitled to charity because I'm physically weaker than you are! Puhhhlease...

It's spelled 'secede.' hehe

Like I've said in the past, I'm fine with allowing you to secede and I would love to work with you in order to get that ability, but I'm not going to pretend like your system is going to work well when I have reason to believe otherwise.

Harrison Bergeron is about a hypothetical's society pathetic attempt at enforcing equality of outcome by bringing suffering upon those who are gifted. Harrison Bergeron obviously shows why this ideal is ridiculous to even strive for: humans aren't equal and they never will be.

Probably the same reason that he's wealthy and the 'people of society' aren't.

I'm not claiming that welfare must not exist. I'm claiming that theft is not justified just because someone has more than >$X.

I guess I'm also claiming that welfare as an institution (take from the rich, give to the poor) is basically just subsidizing poverty, but I haven't really delved too far into that, yet.

Define unemployment. I think full employment is possible...

There are so many assumptions in this paragraph, it's going to be difficult for me to answer any question you have without clarification. If nobody wants to do them, why are people doing them? They obviously must want to do them or else they wouldn't do them... Humans have free will, no?

There are enough jobs for everyone. Remember what I said about wealth being created out of nothing? Same thing obviously applies to jobs.

Shortages of jobs are caused by government intervention in my experience. Also, as far as I know, no one is forced to work unless they're in some prison work camp... People choose to work for low wages. People choose to work. Every action is a choice, even the decision to not act is a choice.

Read up on subjective theory of value... I think your dad is a little bit lacking on that subject. People value things differently. To one person, that 'bad job' might not be so bad and might be worth the wage he/she receives for doing that 'bad job'.

 

There won't be ABSOLUTE equality, because of the reason that you say below - your Dad's a doctor, and we can thus expect him to give preferential treatment to you. That's fine, natural and unavoidable. But preferences aside, everyone requires and deserves the opportunity to recieve the health-care. This means that they have health-care available whenever it's needed, nothing more than that. And that isn't a pipe dream at all, there's nothing impossible about socialised health-care. Society can work in whatever direction that its people (and leaders, though leaders and heirarchies aren't concepts I get behind at all) demand it to. That direction might be to focus societies resources in creating a military state (this has been done many times), into creating a colony or settlement (obviously has also been done many times before), into creating an agriculturally based society with the prime objective being to produce food for everyone (has been done many, MANY times before, look into the Caddo Indians for example) - or, and here's the punchline - a state (I use the term very loosely) in which the primary objective of its people is to provide education, housing, food, water, electricity and whatever else for each other, a state in which the objective is providing the same basic standard of living for everyone (that the individual can augument through their own efforts) and thus creating equal opporunity for everyone.

I don't see what's impossible about this, at all - it simply requires the people to want it, and to work for it.

Of course it isn't! Your Dad is a doctor, and without making personal assumptions or being similarly obnoxious I think it'd be safe to assume that not being able to afford education, food or whatever else has never been an issue for you and your family. Thus, it's no wonder that my 'appeal' won't appeal to you, because I'd wager it'd be quite hard for you to relate to where I'm coming from when I say that nobody deserves to have to eat bubble 'n squeak for 4 nights running, or that nobody deserves to have their water cut off from not being able to afford the bill. Or, for example, my current situation - need to go to uni but can't afford the tuition and the move from the country to the city, where the universities actually are. The tutoring is easy, get a loan - which scares me shitless, but is a neccesity. But there's nothing out there to help poor country kids to leave their homes and get themselves a new home in the city. It's such an impossible situation that I'm going to have to get an even higher loan to study by correspondance, which is fucked... but there's no alternative. Rich folk would have a hard time understanding this - beyond the physical, practical difficulties of the situation, the immense resentment I feel towards those who can go to university properly and learn in a classroom for no other reason besides the fact that they were BORN rich. Most of the rich kids who've gone down a year ahead of me never had jobs when school was on, haven't worked a day in their life... it's a simple entitlement of their birth that they should have opportunities that are denied to me not because I'm less deserving or less intelligent but because I'm less wealthy. This is not how it should be, this is not how society should work. Society should be structured around catering for the needs of the people, ALL OF THE PEOPLE, not the needs of those who can afford it.

Everyone largely does, yes, thanks to Wikipedia! Wikipedia is a god-send in this regard, anybody from any country (so long as they have a computer to begin with) can access free, in-depth articles about fairly well anything they want. It's a fucking miracle, one of the best things that has ever happened to humanity! You can't ask for much more than this, but ideally the Wikipedia concept would be extended to cover music, film, books, poetry etc, as well as any and all scientific data that's floating around, lab notes on experiments/scientific studies and whatnot. You largely have the music and film covered too with Youtube, so the foundation is already in place, as it is with free e-books available online and whatever else. Largely, the internet itself is 'freedom of information', freedom to upload, download, view (and charge for) information as the individual sees fit. Thus, I probably would summate 'freedom of information' by two things - free access to the internet, and free access to libraries. The internet in particular, though, because it can also be used for communications, much like I'm doing now... which is marvellous, when you think about it, communicating with someone over the other side of the world for free! Everyone should have that opportunity, in my opinion, and everyone (who owns a computer) currently does, to a large extent, have that opportunity. Thus, there's not much I'd actually do to create an 'ideal' internet, the key point would be equal opportunity for access TO the internet itself.

Well, as I've said it's all about the people directing the course of societies production. These services will be provided voluntarily by the people, in exchange for the services that the people who benefit by recieving the electricity/food/etc can provide. If this is the direction that everyone wants society to focus upon, I have no doubt that it can be accomplished entirely voluntarily and without any kind of slave labour, force, theft or anything else.

This has been formerly addressed ^^^

Sure, people can go underground, that's their choice and it's just as impossible to try to prohibit it as it is to try to prohibit people smoking weed. These people might be said to have 'better access' to health-care, or be said simply to be enjoying 'better care' - this doesn't mean that nobody else can recieve care, even if it is comparitively 'inferior'. Equal access entails equal opportunity to health-care, and so long as everyone is able to see a doctor (regardless of their wealth or anything else of that nature) then everyone has equal opportunity.

And, though I disagree that it's impossible 'so long as we're talking about humans providing goods/services', I would contend that it's certainly possible to build robots...

Enforcement would not work whatsoever, and is unethical to try to impose. No, once more it's not about some people being willing to pay for better education, it's about everyone having the same access TO education. If someone wants to suppliment their entitled education with private education that they've paid for, good for them - just as long as anyone who wants education is able to pursue education regardless of their wealth, then there's no problem.

To the contrary, it would be official doctrine of the Australian Greens Nazi Libertarian Liberation Coffee Party to regularly abduct capitalists and force them to live new lives as socialists, as has been instructed by our holy book, Being Super-Cunts, For Dummies. Failure is not an option.

Well, given the rigid definition that I gave ('society will only be 'unfree' so long as some people have more freedom and priveledge than others'), that would be true - society will always be unfree, due to some people wanting to pay for better services. You can work on making it less 'unfree' though, by giving everyone as much of a clean slate as is possible by the people of society focusing society into providing for its people, by way of providing water, food, education and so on and so forth.

The song is a 'product', sure, but one of those very rare products which requires no physical possession (besides a throat) to create. Let's take it a step further and say our street-singer wants to write down his song and sell it as sheet music, and thus create wealth. Hold on, he needs paper and a pen to create that wealth! That pen and paper will cost him something and certainly not nothing, thus I can't understand how you can claim he can make wealth 'from nothing'... as though wealth just falls out of the sky without initial investment!

Just so I know I've got this straight, negative rights are 'freedoms from' and positive rights are 'freedom to'?

If this is the case, I can see how you might say positive rights equate to slavery. However, if everybody has the same positive rights then everybody is everybody elses slave... which, if these 'slaves' are consenting to (it's hard to see why they wouldn't when they benefit from the arrangement just as much as the person who holds them 'slave') then I see little problem with.

A poigant observation! In your example, no, your computer is not public property because it exists inside of your private home. And your head is certainly not public property, whatever ideas you have is no ones but your own. I'm more talking about the physical and tangible, the workplace and the products of the workplace - the standard workplace anyhow, not people who work from home and whatnot. I'm talking, for example, about the workers making plastics in a plastic factory, the workers in a fish and chip shop, the workers in an office etc. These institutions at which they spend their public lives and devote themselves to are, under socialism, public property that are owned by all the people of society and everyone has access to.

It's equally accessible if everyone has access to it, and I see no reason why everyone can't have access to it... besides money (or lack of it), which is why money/profit must be cut out of the equation and the education/training provided on virtue of the persons skill/passion/entitlement.

That'd be fair and reasonable, if everyone actually CREATED their opportunities. But most of the time it's inherited opportunity, which is ethically dubious enough without throwing in the problem of inherited businesses by which the boss has not created his opportunity to profit from others but has simply inherited it. Meaning, of course, that by default others inherit their position of working for him or other business owners, because they didn't inherit any business. They can work to create the opportunity to own a business - and bloody good on them for it - but those who didn't create the opportunities that they enjoy the manifestations of don't deserve that opportunity purely by circumstance of their birth. To me, that's very, very ethically wrong...

I can't speak for the people. If the people wanted this vision badly enough that they could justify forcing business owners into giving up their means of production, then as much as I can sit back and condone it (which I do, voluntarism is the only basis of a sustainable society) I can't do anything about it other than to tell people to be rational, reasonable and tolerant of the wishes of others and their non-involvement in a socialist community.

I dig your job man, being able to forum-arise at work...

I saw something similar about the topic in the retaliatory forces thread, something about NAP... if I'm not too busy I'll take a look, but it's specifically private courts (and private police, too, that sounds just as disasterous) that I'm perplexed by.

Yeah man, the more I think about it the more it seems that the Democrats are only behind welfare in such a big way because it secures them votes by appeasing those on welfare. This is an abuse of the concept of welfare...

Yep, still unsure why people didn't revolt in a major way after the bailouts... 'too big to fail', isn't that a terrifying thing for them to proclaim...

The debate isn't about abortion, but very quickly - that's right, it's not a baby. It's a baby after it's born, and before then it's a potential baby, or feotus/embryo (depending on the stage of the pregnancy). Once born, the baby recieves all it's entitlements as a human being, and before it is born it recieves basically nothing. I can justify this all goddam day because foetal rights are something that I have a strong position on as being a tremendously human-centric and quite irrational concept, but that's for another time

I can understand your position - to type it out in my own words and approximations, you believe that people are only entitled to what they have created/worked for by their own labour, and are not entitled to other peoples labour/creations just the same as nobody is entitled to their labour/creations. I guess I can see how this is right, when you break it down it's self-evident... it's just not the kind of thing I get behind, I'm more a person who gets behind the 'positive-rights-mutual-slavery' concept I was talking about before.

To use the analogy of the bus/old woman again, who is there to force a young person to get up for the old person? The bus-driver? The police? If it came to the crunch, both could physically force them to get up, but I don't think it really HAS come to the crunch in such a fashion - generally, young people are quite happy to give up their seats because they know it is what society expects of them. They could choose not to, could choose to say "Fuck off grandma, I'm comfortable here sitting down at your expense!", and short of someone physically moving them off of the seat they'd get away with it. But the rest of the people on the bus aren't going to be very happy about this young turd being so selfish, and will probably hassle and heckle him to move. And if the social pressure isn't enough, hopefully the little bastard should feel some guilt at watching the old woman stand on her weak old legs while he rests his own healthy legs.

So yes, these entitlements are not something that are enforceable, but are more social code and convention, subject to the same consequences for breaking them as any other social code or convention - for example, picking your nose and eating it in public. People generally find it disgusting, and will likely tell you this, tell you to stop it because it's offensive... or just totally ignore/avoid you. A policeman isn't going to come along and handcuff you to stop your fingers being able to touch your nose... but Christ, the thought of social exclusion and contempt is probably enough to make you cave in to accepting societies dominant values. You could still pick your nose, you just have to deal with the social consequences. See what I'm getting at here?

Peh, 'seceede' looks cooler, by a factor of 9001.

I'm not suggesting they ever will be, and I'm not suggesting that we bring suffering upon those who aren't gifted. Far from it, I want us to celebrate it and hone that 'gift' with unlimited education and training! Those who want to be educated and have the ability to be educated have nothing stopping them in my ideal system, as opposed to the capitalist system in which the thing stopping them will be their lack of money. Humans aren't equal, but they deserve equal opportunity... from that equal opportunity will come unequal outcome, and that's just the way it is. We can't all be winners, but we should all have the opportunity to develop whatever 'gifts' we are born with in order to become as much of a 'winner' as we want to be and have the ability to be.

He inherited it in a will?

My definition of unemployment would be not being paid anything due to not having a job.

They do the jobs because they can't do any other job, because no other jobs are available that cater to their skill level. It's not that they want to do them, it's that they have to do them because the alternative (not having a job) isn't an option.

Right, I agree with all of that. But it's a bit of a Hobsons choice, isn't it? Work, or choose not to work - it's almost a bit like swim through a river of shit or die. No one wants to swim through a river of shit, but the alternative is, once more, generally not an option. Yes, you could easily say "Well, they chose it, they could of chose to die but evidently value their life too much", but if the choice had been less extreme (swim through a river of shit or be spat at in the face), people would quite likely choose differently. Same deal here, people choose to work shitty jobs because their choices are extreme - employment or unemployment, survival or starvation. If the choice was less extreme, the outcome would be different - for example, choose to work at a shitty job or choose to work at a not so shitty job. People naturally want to do the not-so-shitty job, and thus they do it... leaving a gaping hole of jobs that nobody wants to do because they can get a better job. Thus, nobody does the job and society falls into disarray - this isn't an exaggeration either, if people stopped working on septic tanks or power poles because the job is dangerous/unpleasant then we've got a major sewerage/electricity problem.

Good point, I guess the only thing you could rely upon would indeed be the subjective theory of value - that someone comes from such a run-down, poor, deprived place (say, an immigrant) that they are willing to take on the shitty job even though there is a better one available, simply because they're grateful to have the job in the first place. But excepting ridiculously poor people and immigrants, most people are going to want to work the most comfortable, nice job they can...

CHRIST! That's a fucking wall and a half of text right there! Might make it a little longer by responding to Kylesa's post in the same foul swoop!

I can sorta see how this would be the case... have a bit of trouble with the 'hire less people' part though, if anything wouldn't they hire more? I mean, the boss is surely going to want his workforce to consist of a few very productive, very efficient workers rather than a whole heap of less productive, less efficient workers... so he hires the elite, leaving all the workers who are less productive/efficient to find other jobs. And if everyone's hiring only the best people rather than simply having a disposable workforce, this obviously means there'd be less jobs to go around, excepting people creating new ones etc.

For the very possible billionth time, I'm not denying this. I'm saying that it's not fair that someone is forced to work as a janitor/fast-food person when they have the potential to be a doctor, except they can't be a doctor because they have no money for training. Those who work as janitors/clerks should be working those jobs because they don't have the talent/motivation to pursue a higher career, not because they don't have the money...

Finland, so far as I can derive, have been actively fostering a program of educating their citizens, saying "Hey hey hey, let's get you educated! Why? Because you need to be educated, you need to be smart and have a degree, yeah!" What they don't appear to have said is "Are you seeking education? Do you want to have a degree? If so, then we'll help you out and make your wish a reality", which is what should have been the case - the people themselves wanting the degrees, rather than the government wanting them to have the degrees. Them doing such a thing is, as you very rightly said, fostering an artificially 'educated' work-climate, which can only lead to disaster... no, that climate of education must be natural, must be one that is a mirror of the wants and desires of the people who live there.

Now, I would contend that we, in the West, have basically no scarcity at all. Not in the economic sense of the word, in the practical sense... by which I mean we have no scarcity of food, for example, in society. We have enough net-wealth, enough food to feed everybody. But some people aren't being fed... not because of scarcity of food, but because they have no money. I'd agree, socialism couldn't possible operate with scarcity in my sense of the word, for obvious reasons... but, once more by my definition, we don't exist in a state of scarcity anyhow.

 

Who decides when it's needed? Who pays for the health care?

This is the pipe dream I'm talking about. This ideal is nice to think about, but will never ever work on a large scale like the United States.

Don't assume anything about what I can relate to. I've made my stances on entitlements on what people deserve quite clear. I also even talked about what I would like to see in a society (basic minimum).

This is what it comes down for me. I see your whole redistribution of wealth as thinly veiled class warfare and I don't want any part of it...

I can tell you that's not me at all, and I will, again, say I really don't care about those kids...

So, what's your plan to change how society works? Your plan is to steal from the rich kid? I just can't get behind that...

I'm game, so long as you allow the market to fill this demand that you and I both seem to think is apparent. I'm not going to favor central planning if only because of its garbage track record. I'm sure central planning can work on a small scale like a community, but it will never work on the scale of the United States.

It's not free... But, yes, I'm all for freedom of information. You can't own an idea; copying isn't theft. I'm all for providing internet to as many people as possible.

Sounds good to me.

Not all doctors are created equal... so, no, that's not equal opportunity. You seem to be just drawing a line and saying as long as people have this, it's equal opportunity. It's almost as if you're advocating a basic minimum but calling it equal opportunity. Equal opportunity is impossible to provide since humans aren't ever going to be equal.

Again, that's not equal opportunity, that's just a basic minimum... Equal opportunity would have to be enforced otherwise those rich kids are just going to use their money to create opportunities that poorer kids can only dream about.

I think we draw the line at a basic minimum in different places, and we differ on how we would like to provide this basic minimum, but we're basically striving for the same ideal situation.

I'm down... Basic minimum; I'm down to try and provide it. Your plan to provide the people with water, food, education, etc.?

Find an investor? I don't know what you want me to tell you... If you're going to try to sell a product, it's probably going to take some sort of down payment. Obviously there are exceptions, like some guy singing for money on the street, but even that, it's not the wealth is created out of nothing, it's that a person can create wealth. They can literally add value to something by adding their labor.

Which is why I'm fine with slavery as long as everyone is willing.

And if the previous owners of these means of production doesn't agree with you?

Voluntary exchange. People can gift whatever they want to whoever they want so long as it was their rightful property...

Yes, this is what I'm afraid of: mob rule.

Yea, sitting on a computer all day has its perks...

There are people much more well-read on this subject who discuss these issues. After I post this, I'll look around to see what I can find.

I don't get up because I'm expected to. I get up because I want to... Now, I mean, I'm not going to get up for anyone, but as a healthy, young man, I don't see why I should take the seat when I don't really need it in the place of someone who could really use the seat. I get up because I can... If someone tried to force me to get up, I'd probably think twice before actually getting up, just on principle.

I really could give a shit about what other people on the bus say or think... That said, I don't mind standing enough to deprive someone that could use a seat of a seat. If you need to force someone to be courteous, they're probably not worth the trouble...

You don't have to abide by social conventions. I mean unless they're going to invoke some sort of mob rule where they literally force you...

Nope. I don't care what most people think of me. I care about my job, my school work, my family, my friends and probably some of my material possessions like my computer. I really don't give a fuck about 'society'.

Yes, he acquired it through voluntary exchange...

Start working for yourself? You're not entitled to a job. You're not entitled to a paycheck.

This is most likely due to the current restrictions on the market, especially within the United States.

If there is a demand for a service, the market will (read: entrepreneurs will have an incentive to) provide the service at an agreeable price (read; profitable).

Yea, I don't know if I can take another wall of text. I'm off to try and find that reading material on private courts.

EDIT for links:

http://mises.org/journals/scholar/stringham3.pdf

http://mises.org/journals/jls/9_1/9_1_2.pdf

http://www.vforvoluntary.com/wiki/TheMythOfNaturalMonopoly

http://mises.org/daily/4108

 

Depends on just how the system is geared up to work - under a socialist system, the notion of 'paying' for the health care is largely a moot-point, because society pays for it. If a capitalist system was to adopt this model of giving everyone a 'clean slate', it'd be paid for by taxes... which I don't agree with, and I know you don't either!

This is where the decentralisation kicks in, if I had it my way there'd be no such thing as a USA, an Australia, an England - no such thing as a NATION, for reasons that we've discussed before and agreed upon. I care what goes on in my town, not in a town far away, therefore the concept of a unity with towns far away to create a 'nation' is one that makes little sense in the scheme of what matters to the individual. So I wouldn't expect it to work on a national level, because the 'nation' is a concept that revolves around centralisation and other things that aren't wanted or really compatible with my 'vision' of socialism.

Yeah man, sorry for making assumptions - I'm assuming what it might be like for you based upon myself, due to the fact that I can't possible relate to having a doctor (or any other well-paid professional) for a parent. My Dad's a boilermaker and my Mum's unemployed, we've always lived in conditions varying from that of the low-middle class to firmly working class, if not occasional conditions of relative poverty. I can only really relate to those who, like me, grew up in a working class family with little money, I can't relate to the concerns of the rich. For example, if a rich kid was to tell me of the pressures that he faces because a company his father is affiliated with crashed, leaving the father in a compromised business position that makes repaying their home loan difficult, I'd have to just say "Eh, that's no good, sorry to hear it" because it's about as much an alien concern to me as worrying about whether we can afford the water bill would be to the rich kid. What I've done, however, is to project that assumption onto you - that you can't relate because you dont' know what it's like, just as I can't relate to being rich because I don't know what it's like. In hindsight, it's superficially appealing to say that such a statement is correct, but it's not correct at all because I have no idea if you think the same way I do in regards to relating to others experiences. Therefore, my apologies for my hasty projections bro

It's proabably fair to say that what I've said here fairly well IS class-warfare, it's saying that the upper class DOES NOT deserve and WOULD NOT HAVE the priveledges that they enjoy while the majority of people don't have these priveledges. It's, at it's most raw and unrefined, an attack upon the lifestyle of the upper class, the general population saying "No, society doesn't want to tolerate your opulence, priveledge and immense position of power in owning the means of production that we all use and need." It's not the sorta thing that I would be saying if I wanted to win you over to seeing things my way and agreeing with me, but it's none-the-less what the whole thing probably gets down to after all the skin and meat's stripped away from the carcass of the idea. Better to be forward and honest than deceitful and slimy

Well, I'm glad that you're not one of those people, because those who are just handed everything on a silver platter by their rich parents are, for all their 'stability', very vulnerable because they have so little experience with the real world. You might not care about them, and I don't really care about them either, it's more that it's such a kick in the teeth to people like me who want to be at uni but aren't there because our spot at uni is taken by some rich bastard who's only there because he's rich. I wouldn't care so much if it didn't effect me, but it does, because they're there and I'm not. Such is life...

The plan would be based on voluntary participation, with no theft involved - the socialists create their own farms, own industry etc. That's very idealistic though, and would require a lot of people's cooperation and resources etc. In reality, I can imagine that the rich kids/rich kids parents would indeed be 'stolen' and command tranferred to the workers. As I said in the last post, I don't agree with this, but it's what I could forsee happening without cooperation and communication between the upper and lower class. With that cooperation/communication, the upper class might manage to save their own skins a bit - perhaps they'd negate a deal with their employees where the rich person works among the workers as their equal, but still maintains control of the business, or something similar. I can't imagine many workers being duped out of controlling the workplace themselves in such a fashion, but such communication and deal-making between the upper class and lower class is certainly preferable and much more rational than both sides refusing to listen to each other and the lower class simply seizing control of the businesses by force.

Well... I'm not entirely sure the demand would be so 'apparent', demand comes only from people wanting something. If another person can provide it, then it's all good and everyone's happy. You're seemingly making the assumption that a demand for extra education or whatever could ONLY be satiated by a self-interested, profit seeking capitalist - which, of course, glosses over the fact that demand can also be met by socialist workers serving the wants and needs of the people. In fact, I can't see why demand WOULDN'T be met - the reason being that in a socialist system goods and services are produced purely for the people, and there's no sense in serving the people if you're not going to cater to the demands of the people.

Also, about central planning - I'm very, very opposed to central planning. For a voluntary commune, for a nation, for anything... I'm far more interested in the concept of anarchy, of having no leaders, no central authority or planning, no central anything. Just the people voluntarily participating in consensus-decision making.

For sure man, it's such a wonderful tool for basically everything - human advancement, human expression, communication, the internet is probably one of the best things ever to come from humanity. As such, I think that everyone should have access to this fantastic gift!

Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing - I'm drawing a line and saying "If every person without exception can recieve the treatment that they need, then they have equal opportunity". You might call that a basic minimum, but I fail to see how it's not equality of opportunity... as I say, if everyone has the opportunity to be treated when ill, how is it that they're opportunity to recieve health-care is unequal?

For sure. I think my concept is a bit different to yours of a 'basic minimum', for the reason that there is no 'minimum standard' to be applied under socialism. As I said, socialism revolves around the people serving the people, serving the wants and needs of the people - if a particular person has a particular education requirement, a socialist system will provide it. It won't say "No no, that's beyond the minimum requirement that we're allowed to give you, that's more than your share" etc, because the whole point is to provide for what people require and not to just set a standard and call it equality. Equality of opportunity entails equal opportunity to get your desire/demand met, not a basic minimum.

But a basic minimum under capitalism is a very, very good step in the right direction! Though, as I've said, I percieve a difference in your and my conceptualisations of what a 'basic minimum' actually amounts to, I can definately agree that we would be 'basically striving for the same ideal situation'.

RIGHT! Now I get it a bit better, I thought that you actually were saying "The wealth is created out of nothing", in the literal sense - that the wealth just sort of appears and that's that. Yeah man, I can understand that, that combining your labour with something (it's just a matter of how to afford that 'something', as the 'something' can be quite substantial - a farm or a factory, for example) can create wealth from that something.

Like I've said, communication and cooperation would be BY FAR the best way. Without that, I can either envision these previous owners being evicted or a massive fight-to-the-death breaking out.

That's what I can't get behind... I have no problem with voluntary exchange, but it's essentially going beyond that into building a bit of an empire, a 'lineage' of sorts. The money stays within the family, the family passes the money through the family, the family is thus one private financial empire... which makes me very uncomfortable, because we all know what empires do - expand the empire.

Me too, but there's no way to counter it unless you centralise power/authority and let them rule instead of the mob. And, as we both know, that's such a bad and unethical idea so as to be intolerable...

Aightio, cheers bud.

Interesting perspective on it... I daresay there'd be those who, like you, get up because they want to, and there'd be those who wouldn't get up if no one was around to judge them negatively.

Then you're the sort of person who, hypothetically, would have little self-consciousness or apology about wandering around down-town naked, picking your nose in public or whatever else... and, to that, I say bravo! A very admirable attitude, one that I sorta wish I could hold but can't because I would find it too shameful to have everyone looking down on me for picking my nose in public etc. The world's made up of all sorts of people, evidently...

Potentially an option, but realistically not an option to most people. If you're a trained receptionist, for example, it's a bit hard to start working for yourself... unless you're growing and selling vegetables, chickens or cannabis, that is...

Same goes for the job market too, I'd guess. I'm beginning to more and more like thinking about 'what the market will do' and whatnot, reminds me more and more of evolution/natural selection the more I think about it...

Me too man, I started writing that last post at about 9 and wasn't finished until 11.30 or so... way too long for me to dedicate, got too much to do with the day etc. That's the thing about these debates, they steadily grow larger and larger until they're so unmanageably gigantic that one (or both) sides throw in the towel, usually purely out of boredom with the whole thing/no time to dedicate to writing another massive response. To put it in different terms, nobody ever 'wins' these debate things, they just progressively abandon them. Beginning to think more and more that the Politics forum should have some kind of structured debate system to avoid the problem that we've had arise here, and has arisen many times before... as to what this structure might be, I haven't a clue

 

Do you think you deserve to be at a university? If you were to attend a university, what would you study? I know a lot of kids at my university who are exactly like you said. One of them is even one of my own childhood friends. He doesn't really try in his classes (he fails a lot of his classes), has never really worked a real job consistently, and is basically just letting his parents pay for him... I've tried to talk to him about this, but, after years and years of trying to get him to transfer to a less rigorous school or to even think about his future at all, I've pretty much given up.

No, I'm not. Where did I make that assumption?

Because not all doctors are created equal... Some doctors are significantly better than others and being 'treated' doesn't really guarantee that you're getting access to the same treatment as Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton or George H. W. Bush.

Which is the same thing with the market... If there is a demand for a service, there is an incentive to provide that service and entrepreneurs will almost certainly take up the challenge to provide education or whatever other service you can think of.

The entire scheme you're proposing sounds a lot like the free market.

Yea, I didn't mean like that wealth just came into existence like some quantum particle, I meant that humans can turn something that is seemingly value-less, combine it with their labor, and create something of value. This is especially true on the internet.

Power and authority won't necessarily be completely decentralized in the marketplace. People will (most likely) hire protection from the majority or any mobs that spring up.

See, I reject that kind of authority because I don't perceive it as legitimate; although, I'm sure if I actually saw someone deny an old person a seat, I might be apt to utter a few choice words to that person...

Well, I'm not looking to get arrested, which wandering down-town naked might result in, so I guess I would like to avoid that. I try to avoid negative encounters with the police if you know what I'm saying... I think you've seen enough to know how the police are here in the US.

Haha, perhaps... I think if we just tried to stay on a specific chosen topic (like one single question with someone in the affirmative and someone in the negative), then it wouldn't be so bad.

Welfare is a very general topic it seems and we both have very different ideas of where we'd like to see it go, which is probably why this debate sort of snowballed into these massive posts.

 

I know I deserve to be at university! I got one of the top scores in town, a score quite a lot higher than what I actually need to do the course - which has shifted from a Bachelor Of Political And International Studies to a Bachelor Of Conservation And Wildlife Biology. I've figured that politics would actually kill me, I'd go mad trying to change everything in such a ridiculously beauracratic system - so it's better to get into the opposite end of the spectrum with something I care just as deeply about, evolutionary biology/conservation of natural habitats and ecosystems. Seems better to me than the inevitable brutal suicide or (more commonly) selling out that seems to occur to all politicians in Aussie politics...

I guess you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, you can tell your friend how he's wasting an opportunity that others don't have and living unsustainably on money that won't last forever until you're blue in the face, but if he doesn't want to change then he's not going to. Personal responsibility as pertaining to self-ownership and so on...

When you said this -

People 'paying for it' is assuming that they NEED to pay for it, because only a private company can fulfil their demand for extra education. This is fair enough if you're thinking in terms of your 'basic minimum', because asking for extra would be asking for more than the minimum. But in socialism, as I've said, there really isn't a minimum - if the person demands extra education, then it's societies job to meet that demand. To explain this, people are working purely for the purpose of providing for people. There's no profit motive involved or profit at all, people work directly to provide for other people. Accordingly, those providing the goods can largely cater to what each individual wants, because doing anything else goes against the entire point of socialism, which is to provide goods for the people. If you can't provide goods that people WANT, then you fail terribly and should just let your country become capitalist so that people can actually get what they want/demand. Therefore, every effort is made to ensure that everyones demands are met - if the person wants education on a particular topic, they can recieve it. If they have some kind of ridiculous demand (tutoring at midnight, permanent exclusive one on one tutoring) that the people can't possibly fulfil and if some private individual can, then superb! Good luck! But generally, I think that people can provide for others quite adequetely if this (and not profit) is their primary motivation.

That's never going to change! You might live a town with a terrible doctor, what can be done about it? Not much, until a better doctor happens to come along, and that's just the same as it is in a free market system - except that in the free market the doctors would be competing and under socialism the doctors would cooperate to best bring care to the people... and if the shitty doctor is that bad, he goes. The circumstances of personal variance don't really effect the whole idea too much, it's something that's completely unavoidable and unchangeable no matter what system is in place.

The incentive for entrepreneurs is profit. The 'scheme' that I propose cuts out profit as an uneccesary middleman that only complicates the entire purpose of the goods' production in the first place - to be consumed.

Very much so, because what you create on the internet is largely a virtual product... which is fascinating in itself, that people pay money for stuff that doesn't actually exist! Paying people for items in WoW and the like, fucking mind boggling...

Well, I interpret that as a major blow against the practical feasability of a free market! After all, that's a monopoly on force that normal citizens don't have... the thought of these hired 'protection' squads is quite chilling

The absolute finest in the world, or so I've been told...

Agreed 100%, a 'yes or no' topic makes things a whole lot less prone to long, drawn out posts that usually address several points. Welfare is indeed a huge topic, this problem only gets worse when topics like abortion or affirmative action arise... I guess the only thing to do is to hold faith in the concept of spontaneous order to bring order to the chaos

 

No, they don't NEED to pay for it, they WANT to pay for it... To them the education is worth the money. They don't expect someone else to pay for them. They don't expect that the education be provided at no cost to them.

Which I would equivocate to slavery. I don't have a duty to someone else to provide them with an education.

Profit doesn't need to be the motive in the free market.

Cooperation is not some impossible feat in a free market...

Not necessarily and that middleman (the evil profit motive) is what has driven innovation for a long time.

It's not a monopoly and these hired protection squads already exist and no amount of happy-go-lucky-feel-good-socialism will make them go away.

 

As I say, that want can be easily catered to by society. I don't know why they'd prefer a free market solution to simply asking if they can get extra help with something and recieving it for free, but people will continue to be people I suppose...

You do, because he has a duty to provide an education (substitute: good/service) for you in turn.

Why else would someone produce something to be sold on the market, if not for profit? If profit isn't their motive, wouldn't they just give their goods away and not charge to make a profit from them...? The only other motivation I can think of for someone to produce something for sale on the free market is control/domination, having an enormous network of consumers reliant on their ridiculously cheap goods so that they have them by the balls. This presumably isn't the other motive that you're talking about, I get the assumption you're talking about an altruistic motive on the producers part. If so, I'd love to hear how altruism could possibly survive in a market based on self-interest...

No, but it's unlikely from what I've seen. If a new doctor comes to town - and in my analogy it was a small town, with one doctor - is he going to want to start his own practise and fulfil an untapped niche of the health care market (high quality health care) while broadening consumer choice, or is he going to want to work for a practise owned by the local bunglingly inefficient doctor? It's obviously impossible to predict, but being realistic about it you must conclude that the good doctor is going to want to do the best thing for himself and his community in competing against the other bad doctor. The only person who loses by not cooperating is the inefficient doctor, who is one man (plus staff) against the other efficient doctor and the rest of the community.

Bah, I don't know but I've been told that the wheel wasn't invented on account of a profit motive

It's absolutely a monopoly, because no normal, non-wealthy citizen could afford to amass an squad of hired goons. No individual should ever have a hired personal army, it's just fucked up... it imposes an authority over everyone else. To explain, let's say you disagree with Mr Master about something. Mr Master says "You wouldn't want to do that, I have friends who don't take kindly to people who slight me", and you say "Get fucked, you touch me and you violate my natural rights!" His goons kill you (in 'self-defence'), and anyone who asks questions or complains about your natural rights being broken in being murdered recieves a similar fate. Citizens know these people are silencing them, but what can they do? They can't afford to hire merceneries! They can fight, but it's going to be bloody and a lot of people will die... and why? Harmless and ethical voluntary exchange!

Under socialism, there'd be no use for such squads or armies to form - there'd be no money, so the only reason people would rally to form squads would probably be territorial gang scenarios.

 

Because sometimes simply asking isn't going to get you anywhere. Money is a means of exchange.

No, I don't. I never agreed to such a contract.

You answered your own question. Someone can produce something to be sold on the market, not for profit, but for the good of the people and that someone only asks for money so that he can continue providing whatever that something is at a competitive (read: agreeable) price. Now, such a person would probably be apt to giving away some of whatever money he makes, but I doubt he/she would give away so much as to jeopardize his entire enterprise.

Ever hear of non-profits?

What was this hypothetical supposed to prove? That people want to contribute to society instead of working for some inefficient loser?

Maybe you don't understand the profit motive then.

Who says you have to pay to amass a squad of goons? I'm never going to agree with you on this whole: money = power, power is bad, must steal money argument...

You should read the competing agencies of retaliatory forces thread. I believe similar scenarios are touched upon in the thread.

TBH, if someone murdered me in cold blood right out in the open like that, I can only imagine the backlash they would receive from the people that know me.

Competing agencies of retaliatory forces... PDAs, private courts, etc... Also, you'd be surprised what a group of people can do if they put their mind to it. Isn't that the entire basis for socialism and collectivism?

Yes, there would be. You just described a use right above this statement... and there will always be money. Money is just the accepted means of exchange. Unless you enforce this no-money system (which would probably fail, since prohibition always seems to fail), I don't see how you could possibly believe that there'd be no use for an accepted medium of exchange aka money (usually taking the form of some sort of currency).

I don't buy into the whole gift economy idea that people will just work for nothing because that's what everyone does. People like the idea of money here in the US and we're not just going to give it up because some lefty tells us to.

 

Why wouldn't it? As said, the only purpose of the people working is to satisfy the people, so what point is there in someone not getting what they asked for and thus not being satisfied?

Voluntarism. If you don't like the idea of reciprocal altruism etc, you don't have be involved. The 'contract' is one that can only work everyone engages in it voluntarily.

Indeed, I can see how this could work... the person would probably have to be fairly rich from the outset though, the start a business that he doesn't expect to profit from. Still, it doesn't matter - these non-profit businesses can only be a good and noble thing.

It's more supposed to somewhat disprove your quote -

In the hypothetical scenario, it's very difficult to imagine cooperation occuring when nobody wins through it except the shitty doctor, who has already enjoyed a monopoly in the town until the efficient doctor moves to town. I'm not saying this is a BAD thing, I'd consider it a good thing (in a free market setting) - the consumer gets more range of health care options, the efficient doctor makes a killing, the only person who loses (as said) is the inefficient doctor... and he's one person, the good of the majority is best reflected through competition and not cooperation.

In socialism, however, there'd be no need for competition at all - the efficient doctor would cooperate with the bad doctor, and EVERYONE benefits, literally. The people benefit by having a wider range of health care options, the good doctor benefits by being able to practise without the difficulties of being a single doctor (constantly busy, not enough hands on deck etc), and the inefficient doctor benefits because instead of being run out of business he gets the opportunity for his own workload to be made easier by the efficient doctor working with him. Both doctors make each others work easier, the people get their widened choice... a veritable win-win scenario!

So far as I can figure it the profit motive is the materialism-based motive behind selling goods - because by selling the goods, the producer can profit and have more wealth. I don't know how far off the mark that is, but it seems about right to me...

I can't think of much other reason why a heap of people would spring up as a protection squad for the benefit of one person. The only reason would be that the person is extremely charismatic and the people feel the need to defend him because they love him and are devoted to him... a cult of the personality, basically, which is in itself kind of fucked up.

People might amass together to defend THEMSELVES or another person under attack, but never for the purpose of selflessly being bodyguards and offering pre-emptive based protection to an individual they aren't related to... unless they're paid to do it.

I'm thinking I'm going to do just that tonight...

Good! Only thing is... what are the people that know you going to be able to do against an army of people financed and provided for by a man with a tremendous amount of money? Kill the rich mans hired goons? He can just hire more... Christ, if he tapped into the overseas job market he could hire as many cheap thugs as he could possibly need. And besides, what with? These people that know you very likely own weapons of their own, but these hired goons ARE being financed by a rich bastard after all - a rich bastard who, if he knows what's in his best interest, would supply them with superior weapons to any potential opposition. You can see where this is headed... how are normal, everyday civilians supposed to fight back against such well-financed, systematically operational and (financially) centralised muscle?

Well, I'd see little use for printed money etc, meaning that people would pay each other with... what? Surplus goods they've made at work? Things they have lying around the house? After all, why would anybody accept goods for payment when they can GET THE SAME GOODS THEMSELVES produced (for free) by the workers of society?

Lefty?! Left and right are little more than a construction with little meaningful value besides to divide the population into two superficial camps...

And indeed, I can't imagine the idea being popular in the US. You fellas have got that whole 'rugged individualism' historical context, it's not part of the national pysche to go against money...

 

We should reform it right out of our country

 

I think you can answer that question... Why wouldn't someone just do something because they were asked? Come on...

Not if they had thought it through, had a good business plan, and had investors lined up.

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Stop right here. When voluntary exchange occurs, who wins? If 'nobody wins' why even participate in the exchange? Any time there is voluntary exchange, there is cooperation. Your standards for 'winning' are just slightly ridiculous.

It's reflected through a combination of both... How you can't understand how voluntary exchange is mutually beneficial is beyond me. Also, if you want me to think up some scenario where cooperation is possible, maybe instead of running the inefficient doctor out of town the efficient doctor tells him he'll buy his practice and give him a salary if he learns how to do things the way the efficient doctor does them.

Again, there are infinite possibilities for both competition and cooperation in the free market. Why you place these random restrictions in your mind is beyond me. Preconceived perceptions I guess...

Not true... How the hell do you know the efficient doctor will want to cooperate with the bad doctor? Who's to say they won't butt heads and make things worse for everyone? You can't just put 2 people in a room and say 'cooperate' and hope it will work out. Both people have to agree to it, so to say that 'in socialism...' they would cooperate is just proof of your obvious bias towards socialism. You have no reason to believe they'd more apt to cooperate under socialism than in a free market except perhaps your own preconceived perceptions about how each system would operate.

I explained above why your scenario could exist in a free market, but for some reason you believe it would be more beneficial in a free market to not cooperate, while under socialism, it would be. How you bridge this disconnect is beyond me. Like I said, this seems to be your confirmation bias revealing itself.

Seems right... The profit motive can mean different things to different people, since everyone has different values and goals, but, in general, this seems right.

I love these extreme "doomsday" scenarios that the market won't supposedly be able to handle but socialism will.

What's to stop people from amassing weapons and barbarians like this and attacking your socialist commune?

Also, payment is not always necessary in an exchange. Why you assume it would be, is again, ridiculous. If you believe people are going to be willing to help each other out under socialism, I don't see why you would believe they wouldn't do it under capitalism, especially in a scenario where both parties benefit from cooperation.

I guess it depends how big the army is... I doubt they'll be able to do anything against a leviathan like the federal government in the short-term.

So, this rich man amassed his wealth how? Who's to say that the people he's involved with in business will like what he's doing? Who's to say that he'll stay rich? If he starts attacking innocent people, it's going to be pretty easy for the courts and other private police agencies to gang up on this obvious criminal. Again, we go over this in the competing agencies of the retaliatory forces thread.

The only arguments I've really heard against the free market in this regard that get anywhere are these ridiculous, extreme scenarios where this guy who has somehow amassed wealth turns on the innocent and the innocent just sits back as this guy takes control. It only really makes sense in the context of the state, since the state is generally the aggressor and the citizens of the state are generally complacent, especially after many years of conditioning.

These scenarios are complete hypotheticals based on predictions of the market of which, no offense, I don't exactly trust you to make accurately.

I don't know if you heard but my dad is a medical doctor. He's not exactly friends with a bunch of poor people... How about my dad gets 100 of his rich buddies and they all gang up on this evil, rich dude? If you're going to make predictions about the market, I am too and it's unlikely that we will get anywhere. Competing agencies of retaliatory forces.

There are lots of people way more into this subject who have attempted to predict the market, but, again, there's no 100% accurate way to predict the market, so these sorts of discussions are sort of pointless, imo, and never really get anywhere. It's just one bias versus another now.

Why would anyone pay for anything if they can just steal it? Why don't humans just attack each other for money? Come on brohski... You can't ignore the incentives in place just because of your bias towards one system.

Also, not sure how you decided that printed money isn't useful. Again, the market decided a long time ago that currency is in fact useful when two parties are dealing with each other. You can try and fight the market I guess, but I doubt you're going to get very far bringing in your surplus goods when you want to buy some gasoline for your car or some food.

This socialist commune of yours is going to be completely self-sufficient or will they trade? If they do trade, they won't accept currency as payment for their goods/services? What about the need for double coincidence of wants? Aren't there obvious limitations to some sort of barter system that would be easily remedied by a form of currency?