[quote]ephrem wrote:
Redistribution of wealth isn’t evil.[/quote]
If it is involuntary, then yes it is. It’s very evil. It’s theft and nothing else.
As a sidenote, pretty much all of our problems have clean, elegant solutions in libertarian theory and most of them have real world examples to back up the theory. Have you read any real libertarian authors ephrem?
oh the magic of “simple concepts” like private property…
let’s try an experiment :
let say you are a videogamer and an amateur developer.
you work a few hours and you produce a little videogame in your mom’s basement and you decide to upload it on a server you rent to an internet hosting company.
your internet hosting company find the files on their server, they test them, think it’s great, and decide to publish it in its own name, and make billions selling your game.
the EULA you accepted when you first registered clearly state that all uploaded files “belong” to them. So they refuse to give you anything back.
now, forget currents laws and current practices…
is it ok or not. And if not, why ?
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Oh yeah, I remember your fondness of Victorian Britain, orion.
I can only hope you’ll never get your wish.[/quote]
too many Dickens novels?
In no time in history did the poor benefit more than in 18th and 19th century Britain and America.
Their purchasing power went up by 1900%.
There were charities all over the place, “friendship” societies that were organized by trade had doctors on a retainer you could go to if you were sick and the crime rates were roughly 2-4 % of what they were now.
You dont like their values, however their values enabled them to take care of their fellow man without government with less technology and wealth that we have now at our disposal.
[/quote]
Keep dreaming orion. If child labor, widespread disease and slum housing, corruption and rampant crime, no healthcare or education for the poor is your idea of a better society then, again, I hope you never get your wish.[/quote]
The literacy rates were as high as now if not higher, and the fact that those kids had jobs meant that they would not starve.
Also, as I pointed out, they had access to healthcare, cheaper and more readily available than now.
As I said, lay off the Dickens novels and do some research.
[quote]kamui wrote:
oh the magic of “simple concepts” like private property…
[/quote]
I would not call emergent systems that develop out of simple rules “magic”, but I agree that it sure looks that way some times.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Redistribution of wealth isn’t evil, but we could do better, that’s for sure.[/quote]
So armed robbery is not evil?
Pray tell, what is?
[quote]Gaius Octavius wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Redistribution of wealth isn’t evil.[/quote]
If it is involuntary, then yes it is. It’s very evil. It’s theft and nothing else.
As a sidenote, pretty much all of our problems have clean, elegant solutions in libertarian theory and most of them have real world examples to back up the theory. Have you read any real libertarian authors ephrem?[/quote]
No I have not. The way the proponents of libertarianism on PWI handle the topics and themselves on these matters do not inspire me to educate myself on the subject.
Furthermore, I don’t believe a self regulating free market is a viable option as I believe humankind’s nature is selfdefeating.
If there are comprehensive articles on this subject you can suggest I peruse, be my guest, I’m open to suggestions.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Keep dreaming orion. If child labor, widespread disease and slum housing, corruption and rampant crime, no healthcare or education for the poor is your idea of a better society then, again, I hope you never get your wish.[/quote]
The literacy rates were as high as now if not higher, and the fact that those kids had jobs meant that they would not starve.
Also, as I pointed out, they had access to healthcare, cheaper and more readily available than now.
As I said, lay off the Dickens novels and do some research.[/quote]
Right, right. Okay. You win.
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/index.html
Very interesting articles. Anyone who’d want to return to these times should have his head examined.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/index.html
Very interesting articles. Anyone who’d want to return to these times should have his head examined.[/quote]
Nirvana fallacy.
Google it, you use it all the time.
[quote]kamui wrote:
oh the magic of “simple concepts” like private property…
let’s try an experiment :
let say you are a videogamer and an amateur developer.
you work a few hours and you produce a little videogame in your mom’s basement and you decide to upload it on a server you rent to an internet hosting company.
your internet hosting company find the files on their server, they test them, think it’s great, and decide to publish it in its own name, and make billions selling your game.
the EULA you accepted when you first registered clearly state that all uploaded files “belong” to them. So they refuse to give you anything back.
now, forget currents laws and current practices…
is it ok or not. And if not, why ?
[/quote]
Assuming you actually agreed to the EULA, they have done nothing illegal. Immoral? Sure. Violation of your rights? No.
You simply shouldn’t have been doing business with someone that includes that in their EULA.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/index.html
Very interesting articles. Anyone who’d want to return to these times should have his head examined.[/quote]
Nirvana fallacy.
Google it, you use it all the time. [/quote]
You’re projecting.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
No I have not. The way the proponents of libertarianism on PWI handle the topics and themselves on these matters do not inspire me to educate myself on the subject.
Furthermore, I don’t believe a self regulating free market is a viable option as I believe humankind’s nature is selfdefeating.
If there are comprehensive articles on this subject you can suggest I peruse, be my guest, I’m open to suggestions.
[/quote]
So essentially you simply assume that libertarianism is false axiomatically? It’s kinda hard to argue with that dude. If you ever decide to actually form an educated opinion on the matter I suggest starting with something like “For A New Liberty”. Or, alternatively, if you are more of an economics guy, something like “Human Action” is a good, comprehensive read.
[quote]Gaius Octavius wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
No I have not. The way the proponents of libertarianism on PWI handle the topics and themselves on these matters do not inspire me to educate myself on the subject.
Furthermore, I don’t believe a self regulating free market is a viable option as I believe humankind’s nature is selfdefeating.
If there are comprehensive articles on this subject you can suggest I peruse, be my guest, I’m open to suggestions.
[/quote]
So essentially you simply assume that libertarianism is false axiomatically? It’s kinda hard to argue with that dude. If you ever decide to actually form an educated opinion on the matter I suggest starting with something like “For A New Liberty”. Or, alternatively, if you are more of an economics guy, something like “Human Action” is a good, comprehensive read.[/quote]
Orion isn’t helping the cause much by claiming that Victorian Britain’s society was a better one than we have now.
That period of time might have lived up to libertarian ideals but I’d say the standard and quality of life is far better for practically all of us nowadays [in the west].
I find that self-evident, yes.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/index.html
Very interesting articles. Anyone who’d want to return to these times should have his head examined.[/quote]
Nirvana fallacy.
Google it, you use it all the time. [/quote]
You’re projecting.
[/quote]
No.
You are comparing Victorian England to some ideal standard most countries do not live up to NOW, 100 to 150 years later.
This is absurd.
What you would have to realistically compare them to is every single last country THEN, because they were doing better than all of them!
You are making the point that libertarianism led to an oh so bad society when the truth is that it led to the best living conditions that were available with the capital stricture and technology BACK THEN.
This whole “ooohhh, child labor” is absurd too.
Before they worked in those jobs they had the choice between crime, prostitution, digging in the dirt with a stick or simply dying.
They RAN towards those factories and begged to be allowed to work there.
Manchester did not growfrom 10-15000 to 80000 in one generation because people ran from it, it did because they fled conditions that were way worse than those you decry.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Orion isn’t helping the cause much by claiming that Victorian Britain’s society was a better one than we have now.
[/quote]
Oh Lord Jesus…
Your posts speak for themselves orion. If you are claiming that libertarian market forces lay the foundations for our current affluence, then there’s little I can detract from that.
Why did this system not last? Were unions, child labor laws and the suffragettes its downfall? Was it the fact we moved away from 6 working days a week? Paid holidays perhaps? Why did this not last if we owe everything to it?
Are taxes the only reason?
Or is it something else?
[quote]kamui wrote:
oh the magic of “simple concepts” like private property…
let’s try an experiment :
let say you are a videogamer and an amateur developer.
you work a few hours and you produce a little videogame in your mom’s basement and you decide to upload it on a server you rent to an internet hosting company.
your internet hosting company find the files on their server, they test them, think it’s great, and decide to publish it in its own name, and make billions selling your game.
the EULA you accepted when you first registered clearly state that all uploaded files “belong” to them. So they refuse to give you anything back.
now, forget currents laws and current practices…
is it ok or not. And if not, why ?
[/quote]
Since ideas are not scare goods they cannot be owned. Once they are expressed anyone can take an idea an use it however one wishes – including altering it in oder to create a new idea.
Since the developer in this example clearly did not own the infrastructure he developed his software on he has no claim to it.
Same thing goes here on PWI when we share our thoughts in written form. We cannot claim to own them even though we have expressed them.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your posts speak for themselves orion. If you are claiming that libertarian market forces lay the foundations for our current affluence, then there’s little I can detract from that.
Why did this system not last? Were unions, child labor laws and the suffragettes its downfall? Was it the fact we moved away from 6 working days a week? Paid holidays perhaps? Why did this not last if we owe everything to it?
Are taxes the only reason?
Or is it something else?[/quote]
Sure there is, the great political ideologies of the 20th century that were a backlash to libertarianism.
In a lot of ways that is hysterical, because without the enormous rise in productivity that enabled leisure time for ordinary folk no one would have the time to study Marx.
Hell, they would not even have been able to read them.
And of course envy.
Because the truth is, people are quite content to live in a society of castes, everyone is born into his place and does not even begin to question the privileges of the nobility.
However a free market, that is the ultimate meritocracy, raises some questions most people do not like to ask themselves, like :
If everyone can theoretically make it, how come I do not make as much as X, who is a complete moron. Could it possibly be that I am not the special, little snowflake I always thought I was, or is X greedy, lying, just lucky and should I not have some of his stuff?
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your posts speak for themselves orion.[/quote]
I try to give my best, you should read some of them if you ever find the time.
[quote]orion wrote:
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Your posts speak for themselves orion. If you are claiming that libertarian market forces lay the foundations for our current affluence, then there’s little I can detract from that.
Why did this system not last? Were unions, child labor laws and the suffragettes its downfall? Was it the fact we moved away from 6 working days a week? Paid holidays perhaps? Why did this not last if we owe everything to it?
Are taxes the only reason?
Or is it something else?[/quote]
Sure there is, the great political ideologies of the 20th century that were a backlash to libertarianism.
In a lot of ways that is hysterical, because without the enormous rise in productivity that enabled leisure time for ordinary folk no one would have the time to study Marx.
Hell, they would not even have been able to read them.
And of course envy.
Because the truth is, people are quite content to live in a society of castes, everyone is born into his place and does not even begin to question the privileges of the nobility.
However a free market, that is the ultimate meritocracy, raises some questions most people do not like to ask themselves, like :
If everyone can theoretically make it, how come I do not make as much as X, who is a complete moron. Could it possibly be that I am not the special, little snowflake I always thought I was, or is X greedy, lying, just lucky and should I not have some of his stuff?
[/quote]
Where is there a free market? You truly subscribe to the neoclassical ideas that there are no random factors at work? Wouldn’t a system that was truly based on such premise be better served by say eliminating all inheritance of wealth? Surely if the deserving will rise everyone should start with the same equality of condition and not merely what is thought to be the same equality of opportunity. With the continuing proliferation of information and situations where specialized knowledge can effect outcomes what steps should be in play to assume everyone is truly a rational actor with perfect knowledge…which is gonna be what your neoclassical system holds as a premise as well?