Comment Re:The end of poverty (Score 1) 584
There is no ethical system in the world in which that transaction could be considered good or right or just.
That is because the ethical systems in arise as a consequence of power structures, structures created, managed, and maintained by the moneyed upper classes. I think it is just as unethical to allows a person like Bill Gates so much more power and influence over the allocation of resources than any normal person has. It is in my view a gross injustice that such differences in power and wealth exist.
"Require" is a tricky criteria
Excellent point, and my view assumes that everyone's desires could be reasonably fulfilled within a fair (not necessarily equal) allocation of wealth. That might not be the case, and certainly a central management of resources (that determines what is "sufficient" for people) has a history of failure in its largest experiment, the USSR. But certainly it is possible for people to have choices about what is sufficient for them that are made within more equitable restrictions, i.e. people have more equitably sized (not necessarily equal) portions of wealth to allocate toward their material desires.
It's impossible to create wealth from nothing
Who said anything about wealth from nothing? There's a lot of wealth right now, but there are incredible inequities in the way it is distributed. And, I would argue that wealth creating activities are inhibited for many because only those with access to large amounts of capital can easily "start up" new businesses -- new sources of wealth. Furthermore, so many people are forced to live in deprived conditions that their potential to live as productive contributors to the gross amount of wealth is degraded, if not thwarted entirely, or even turned into a drain (as is the case of people we put in prison -- they drain our wealth without creating anything). You can't generate wealth from nothing, but you can distribute it more equitably, and you can focus on areas in which wealth-creation is inhibited.
If I have more money than you do, I can buy more things than you can. So there will always be inequities.
Sure, there will always be inequities, but can these inequities be reduced to the point where they will not seem "material" (and maybe I should have used the word "substantial"). You might be able to buy a Lexus or a Ferrari, and I can only buy a Honda Accord, but I don't care about that inequity because an Accord serves my needs quite nicely (and I tend to consider people who are so vain as to pay and extr $20K - $40K for a car a little pathetic). There IS however a substantial difference in wealth between the person who can drive a Lexus and throw parties that feature ice sculptures of his kid, and the person who cannot reliably feed his or her family. Those are the kinds of differences we can work toward reducing.
If you change the rules of our economic system to support your idea, you generate runaway inflation
Only if you adhere to the simplistic notion that we're just pumping up the numbers rather than reallocating wealth and working to eliminate current inhibitors of wealth creation.
Poverty just is. It's a fact of life, in and of itself neither good nor bad.
You state that my axioms are false, and I would argue that your position rests upon the above axiom, that poverty will always exist. I don't know if that is a false axiom or not, but to say that "poverty will always exist, therefore poverty cannot be eliminated" is circular logic. Furthermore, to say that poverty is neither good nor bad presumes that you do not value human comfort nor think of human suffering as "bad." If you will grant me the presupposition that human suffering is bad, you have to accept that poverty is bad (whether or not there is anything we can do about it). Furthermore, even if you care nothing about human beings, but value wealth, I have argued above that reducing gaps in individual wealth will possibly create more wealth (by reducing poverty and its effects as limiters of wealth creation).
Your axioms are false
What is my main axiom? That there is a vastly unequal distribution of wealth. That people suffer in part as a result of that distribution. These are not facts that you challenge. In fact, you say they are unchallengable facts. My hypothesis is that we can and should work toward reducing the gaps in wealth. Is my thinking at its grandest utopian? Perhaps. But the idea of eliminating disease in utopian also. Yet there are researchers working in labs across the world working toward that very goal, by defining the behavior this this enzyme or the lifecycle of that class of viruses. The original posting I responded to asked for utopian ideas, and I framed mine as one -- "an end to poverty." Perhaps you have been unable to see beyond that title. I would hope that you could be convinced there is the possibility of creating a reduction in poverty. To that end there are thousands of smaller, less grand or all-encompassing problems that beg for solutions.
That is because the ethical systems in arise as a consequence of power structures, structures created, managed, and maintained by the moneyed upper classes. I think it is just as unethical to allows a person like Bill Gates so much more power and influence over the allocation of resources than any normal person has. It is in my view a gross injustice that such differences in power and wealth exist.
"Require" is a tricky criteria
Excellent point, and my view assumes that everyone's desires could be reasonably fulfilled within a fair (not necessarily equal) allocation of wealth. That might not be the case, and certainly a central management of resources (that determines what is "sufficient" for people) has a history of failure in its largest experiment, the USSR. But certainly it is possible for people to have choices about what is sufficient for them that are made within more equitable restrictions, i.e. people have more equitably sized (not necessarily equal) portions of wealth to allocate toward their material desires.
It's impossible to create wealth from nothing
Who said anything about wealth from nothing? There's a lot of wealth right now, but there are incredible inequities in the way it is distributed. And, I would argue that wealth creating activities are inhibited for many because only those with access to large amounts of capital can easily "start up" new businesses -- new sources of wealth. Furthermore, so many people are forced to live in deprived conditions that their potential to live as productive contributors to the gross amount of wealth is degraded, if not thwarted entirely, or even turned into a drain (as is the case of people we put in prison -- they drain our wealth without creating anything). You can't generate wealth from nothing, but you can distribute it more equitably, and you can focus on areas in which wealth-creation is inhibited.
If I have more money than you do, I can buy more things than you can. So there will always be inequities.
Sure, there will always be inequities, but can these inequities be reduced to the point where they will not seem "material" (and maybe I should have used the word "substantial"). You might be able to buy a Lexus or a Ferrari, and I can only buy a Honda Accord, but I don't care about that inequity because an Accord serves my needs quite nicely (and I tend to consider people who are so vain as to pay and extr $20K - $40K for a car a little pathetic). There IS however a substantial difference in wealth between the person who can drive a Lexus and throw parties that feature ice sculptures of his kid, and the person who cannot reliably feed his or her family. Those are the kinds of differences we can work toward reducing.
If you change the rules of our economic system to support your idea, you generate runaway inflation
Only if you adhere to the simplistic notion that we're just pumping up the numbers rather than reallocating wealth and working to eliminate current inhibitors of wealth creation.
Poverty just is. It's a fact of life, in and of itself neither good nor bad.
You state that my axioms are false, and I would argue that your position rests upon the above axiom, that poverty will always exist. I don't know if that is a false axiom or not, but to say that "poverty will always exist, therefore poverty cannot be eliminated" is circular logic. Furthermore, to say that poverty is neither good nor bad presumes that you do not value human comfort nor think of human suffering as "bad." If you will grant me the presupposition that human suffering is bad, you have to accept that poverty is bad (whether or not there is anything we can do about it). Furthermore, even if you care nothing about human beings, but value wealth, I have argued above that reducing gaps in individual wealth will possibly create more wealth (by reducing poverty and its effects as limiters of wealth creation).
Your axioms are false
What is my main axiom? That there is a vastly unequal distribution of wealth. That people suffer in part as a result of that distribution. These are not facts that you challenge. In fact, you say they are unchallengable facts. My hypothesis is that we can and should work toward reducing the gaps in wealth. Is my thinking at its grandest utopian? Perhaps. But the idea of eliminating disease in utopian also. Yet there are researchers working in labs across the world working toward that very goal, by defining the behavior this this enzyme or the lifecycle of that class of viruses. The original posting I responded to asked for utopian ideas, and I framed mine as one -- "an end to poverty." Perhaps you have been unable to see beyond that title. I would hope that you could be convinced there is the possibility of creating a reduction in poverty. To that end there are thousands of smaller, less grand or all-encompassing problems that beg for solutions.
