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I think it's not as much mentioning Marx, but seriously mentioning him - as if those words as a solution. If people choose to live in a Kibbutz then that's the

I think it's not as much mentioning Marx, but seriously mentioning him - as if those words as a solution. If people choose to live in a Kibbutz then that's the sort of attitude they should have, yes. But if they aren't choosing that, then "from each according to his ability" is slavery. It's not magically okay (and, worse in an argument sense, isn't magically workable) simply because it's a social good in question. > Making peeling a free service from the produce department, available on request, seems reasonable For a store to choose, free peeling is fine. The meat department will often do special cuts for you for free if it's not an abusive request. But when you mandate that the store do it you're just stealing from everyone. Labor isn't free and to mandate that someone perform it without compensation means they either won't sell oranges, or will simply jack the prices up. If orange prices go up too much the people who don't need peeled oranges will buy other fruits and the orange demand will dry up. If you're so set on peeled oranges, why not instead pass a law that makes the government pay all labor charges from orange peeling? Rank it against other things, find space in the budget. Make sure nobody in unevenly penalized in the deal. And the answer of course is that nobody is willing to pay for it. When it's not "free" (ie someone else's burden) nobody wants it enough. If we really do want the disabled to live better lives we need to make a principled stand and actually pay more tax to fund higher pensions and give them more cash, which they can spend on orange peeling or hawaiian vacations, as they see fit. Stores could offer free peeling (at a higher base price) to capture this spend, home-care workers would have time (budget) to peel unpeeled oranges, independent orange-peeling services could possibly be economically viable. Perhaps this would spur the invention of an orange-peeling machine, if this really ended up being a pain point. tl;dr You seem fine with making other people work for goals you see as good. If you really cared (enough to spend your own money too) you'd propose fixing the problem at the source and letting the details work themselves out. It's the attitude, not the quote.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago
I never said anyone should be forced to peel oranges against their will. I actually mentioned the idea because the first couple of comments on the blog post say that peeling and wrapping fruit is already a service quietly offered by (most?) grocery-store produce departments; that seems reasonable and praiseworthy, although maybe it's a problem that it's not better-known to the people who need it. There's no need to force anyone to do anything, orange-wise. > If we really do want the disabled to live better lives we need to make a principled stand and actually pay more tax to fund higher pensions and give them more cash, which they can spend on orange peeling or hawaiian vacations, as they see fit. That's what I said. Whack asked if I'd support a 1% tax increase to give better support to the disabled, and I said yes. (I'm assuming that support covers a lot more than orange-peeling!) So it sounds like, as I said, people saw a Marx quote (it's actually from Louis Blanc, Marx only quoted him, but never mind) and immediately assumed that I was agitating for a command economy and five-year plans and whatever. I think that people should hold down a job and pay taxes if they're able, and if they're not able (due to illness, injury, age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, etc.), they should be able to count on the government/society to take care of them. That's all.
- EdHominem 11y ago
  > I never said anyone should be forced to peel oranges against their will. Here's what makes it seem like you did: > Making peeling a free service from the produce department, available on request, seems reasonable If a store chooses that as one of their features, it certainly is reasonable for them to do so. Yes. But that's so obvious you wouldn't be saying that..? So the line reads (to me, and I presume, others) as: "It seems like a reasonable thing for us the people to make 'free peeling on request' a thing that produce departments do." ie, an accessibility law. > "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is still the best fundamental social principle I can think of. The problem is that needs are infinite and my time is finite. As a loose moral compass it's a nice idea - as a government principle it's nearly slavery.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

I never said anyone should be forced to peel oranges against their will. I actually mentioned the idea because the first couple of comments on the blog post say that peeling and wrapping fruit is already a service quietly offered by (most?) grocery-store produce departments; that seems reasonable and praiseworthy, although maybe it's a problem that it's not better-known to the people who need it. There's no need to force anyone to do anything, orange-wise. > If we really do want the disabled to live better lives we need to make a principled stand and actually pay more tax to fund higher pensions and give them more cash, which they can spend on orange peeling or hawaiian vacations, as they see fit. That's what I said. Whack asked if I'd support a 1% tax increase to give better support to the disabled, and I said yes. (I'm assuming that support covers a lot more than orange-peeling!) So it sounds like, as I said, people saw a Marx quote (it's actually from Louis Blanc, Marx only quoted him, but never mind) and immediately assumed that I was agitating for a command economy and five-year plans and whatever. I think that people should hold down a job and pay taxes if they're able, and if they're not able (due to illness, injury, age, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, etc.), they should be able to count on the government/society to take care of them. That's all.

EdHominem 11y ago
> I never said anyone should be forced to peel oranges against their will. Here's what makes it seem like you did: > Making peeling a free service from the produce department, available on request, seems reasonable If a store chooses that as one of their features, it certainly is reasonable for them to do so. Yes. But that's so obvious you wouldn't be saying that..? So the line reads (to me, and I presume, others) as: "It seems like a reasonable thing for us the people to make 'free peeling on request' a thing that produce departments do." ie, an accessibility law. > "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is still the best fundamental social principle I can think of. The problem is that needs are infinite and my time is finite. As a loose moral compass it's a nice idea - as a government principle it's nearly slavery.