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>That means that only 1 person owns all resources and everyone else owns nothing. That's like saying we should not have an absolute right to be more intelligen

by aminok 10y ago

>That means that only 1 person owns all resources and everyone else owns nothing. That's like saying we should not have an absolute right to be more intelligent than the average person since such a right is perfectly consistent with a society where one person is infinitely more intelligent than everyone else. Material equality is not a right, and the pursuit of a society with material equality does not grant any party a right to imprison someone for their refusal to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade.

aninhumer 10y ago
The problem is that extreme inequality under a property system is functionally equivalent to slavery. If one person owns all of a society's resources, then everyone else must work for them if they want to survive. To claim that the enforcement of property rights is still just in such a scenario, is to argue that autocracy is just.
- aminok 10y ago
  It's not functionally equivalent to slavery. Slavery has nothing to do with being resource poor. It has to do with threats of violence being used to compel one person to work for another. There is a fundamental moral difference between using violent threats and physical confinement from using offers of payment to compel work. Taking a job because the alternative is to starve is still a consensual interaction. We need to work to survive. We can go out into the wilderness, and live off the land, which would let us survive at subsistence levels, or we can go into civilization and work within an employment contract that gives us a much higher standard of living. The freedom to choose ensures that generally speaking, people in a market economy are choosing one of the better options available to them, rather than one of the poorer ones. It also ensures that when people DO interact with others, it is because it is generally mutually beneficial. This basic dynamic leads to an emergent property of actions carried out in markets generally being a net-value gain for the economy as a whole.
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    >Taking a job because the alternative is to starve is still a consensual interaction. If someone points a gun at you and tells you to work, your choice is obedience or death. If someone hoards all the food and tells you to work for it, your choice is obedience or death. In what way are these meaningfully different? >We can go out into the wilderness, and live off the land No you can't, because the tyrant owns all the land and calls the police if you try to take any of their food.

by aminok 10y ago

aninhumer 10y ago

The problem is that extreme inequality under a property system is functionally equivalent to slavery. If one person owns all of a society's resources, then everyone else must work for them if they want to survive. To claim that the enforcement of property rights is still just in such a scenario, is to argue that autocracy is just.

aminok 10y ago
It's not functionally equivalent to slavery. Slavery has nothing to do with being resource poor. It has to do with threats of violence being used to compel one person to work for another. There is a fundamental moral difference between using violent threats and physical confinement from using offers of payment to compel work. Taking a job because the alternative is to starve is still a consensual interaction. We need to work to survive. We can go out into the wilderness, and live off the land, which would let us survive at subsistence levels, or we can go into civilization and work within an employment contract that gives us a much higher standard of living. The freedom to choose ensures that generally speaking, people in a market economy are choosing one of the better options available to them, rather than one of the poorer ones. It also ensures that when people DO interact with others, it is because it is generally mutually beneficial. This basic dynamic leads to an emergent property of actions carried out in markets generally being a net-value gain for the economy as a whole.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >Taking a job because the alternative is to starve is still a consensual interaction. If someone points a gun at you and tells you to work, your choice is obedience or death. If someone hoards all the food and tells you to work for it, your choice is obedience or death. In what way are these meaningfully different? >We can go out into the wilderness, and live off the land No you can't, because the tyrant owns all the land and calls the police if you try to take any of their food.