5 ms·

I agree that humans have intrinsic value, but I don't see how providing them with free food, shelter, and medical care follows from that presupposition. Would t

I agree that humans have intrinsic value, but I don't see how providing them with free food, shelter, and medical care follows from that presupposition. Would that not require other humans to provide those things for free? Are their lives not as intrinsically valuable, or are you comfortable with enslaving a portion of the population to ensure these needs are taken care of?

Frondo 10y ago
I don't consider it enslavement, any more than I consider a parent's obligation to feed and clothe their child enslavement. I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your offspring starve to death (Thank you, Mises, for clearing that up for us!), but I don't think that system of thinking is a valid or useful way to arrange society. (Neither, it seems, does any society on earth, since no one has ever attempted such a thing.) I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite different from that. I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion.
- marknutter 10y ago
  > I don't consider it enslavement, any more than I consider a parent's obligation to feed and clothe their child enslavement. So you think adults should be treated like children? Very telling. Your thinking is fallacious, though. If you bring children into the world, you are of course responsible for providing for them. But you are also responsible for helping them become self-sufficient. Perhaps you think children should be coddled by their parents for the rest of their lives? > I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your offspring starve to death Who said anything about libertarianism? A bit of a non sequitur, wouldn't you say. And I don't think you understand libertarianism anyways. If you do, then I sure as hell don't agree with it. > I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite different from that. I think we should help one another, but I don't think we should be forced to help one another. Big difference. > I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion. Again with the libertarianism. I'll indulge you because you seem to want to fight against a perceived ideology. How is taxation not theft exactly? How is forcing people to take care of others not slaver, exactly? It's not a rhetorical trick, these are objective facts.
ue_ 10y ago
>or are you comfortable with enslaving a portion of the population to ensure these needs are taken care of I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery. The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Within the capitalist mode of production, human labour-time is like any other quantity; the spinning loom, the silk, etc. Sugar is bought by the kilogram, human labour-time by the hour. Human labour-time is another commodity within capitalism, and like every other commodity in Capitalism, it is maximised for exchange-value over use-value. Market interactions, at least within Capitalism, have the quality of being fetishised, so that rather than seeing the obscured web of interactions between people, we merely see prices and figures. If anything is dehumanising, I'd say that working to make things you don't want (usually causing alienation) is the most dehumanising of them all.
- marknutter 10y ago
  > I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery. Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. > The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Capitalism helps us quantify human productivity. That's about it. Humans have transcendent value. Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force. There are no other systems that can make that claim.
  - ionised 10y ago
    > Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. You can't, a billionaire already bought that land.
    - marknutter 10y ago
ch4s3 10y ago
It's a bit far fetched to equate taxing capital with enslavement.
- marknutter 10y ago
  How are you going to collect taxes if nobody works?
  - ch4s3 10y ago
    I assume you're you meant that to be a rhetorical question, but... By taxing capital instead of income. Or by taxing value added, or by taxing sales or profits, or maybe something esoteric like a robot tax.
    - ionised 10y ago
      Tax land. Heavily.
st3v3r 10y ago
Would you rather they beat the crap out of you and take your wealth? Cause let's be honest, that's the alternative. When it comes down to it, if the masses are not having their basic needs met, they will turn to crime and violence to meet them. And no one, anywhere, is talking about enslaving people.
baursak 10y ago
An alternative to UBI as you describe it is simply that people provide their own food, shelter, and medical care. As an example, current shareholders of Chipotle, Pulte Group, and Hospital Corporation of America are not anywhere near physically providing people with food, shelter and medical care.
- marknutter 10y ago
  Worked well enough for humans for the past few million years or so.
  - baursak 10y ago
    It's literally what's happening now too. Unless you think that, for example, Mr. Thomas F. Frist Jr., the largest individual shareholder of HCA, is personally providing healthcare to people.
nikdaheratik 10y ago
Slavery is taking someone's labor for free. Even an Anarcho-Capitalist would have trouble equating taxation with slavery. The person being taxed gets the benefit of living in a country not plagued by uneducated, sick, hungry citizens. All for the low price of a certain percentage of their income.
- marknutter 10y ago
  I'm not saying taxation is slavery. I'm saying that you cannot have a system in which a portion of the population does zero work and receives resources for free without requiring that the other portion to do the work producing those resources. If the productive portion simply stopped working, or only worked enough to barely survive themselves, the nonproductive portion of the population would perish unless they enslaved the productive portion and forced them to produce surpluses.

Frondo 10y ago

I don't consider it enslavement, any more than I consider a parent's obligation to feed and clothe their child enslavement. I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your offspring starve to death (Thank you, Mises, for clearing that up for us!), but I don't think that system of thinking is a valid or useful way to arrange society. (Neither, it seems, does any society on earth, since no one has ever attempted such a thing.) I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite different from that. I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion.

marknutter 10y ago
> I don't consider it enslavement, any more than I consider a parent's obligation to feed and clothe their child enslavement. So you think adults should be treated like children? Very telling. Your thinking is fallacious, though. If you bring children into the world, you are of course responsible for providing for them. But you are also responsible for helping them become self-sufficient. Perhaps you think children should be coddled by their parents for the rest of their lives? > I understand that the libertarian perspective says it is OK to let your offspring starve to death Who said anything about libertarianism? A bit of a non sequitur, wouldn't you say. And I don't think you understand libertarianism anyways. If you do, then I sure as hell don't agree with it. > I think we're all obligated to one another, and slavery is something quite different from that. I think we should help one another, but I don't think we should be forced to help one another. Big difference. > I also don't like the libertarian attempt at redefining common words to make ordinary things sound baaaaad, like "taxation is theft!!" (it isn't) or "taking care of others is slavery!!" (it isn't). I think that's a cheap rhetorical trick, and doesn't get us any farther in any kind of discussion. Again with the libertarianism. I'll indulge you because you seem to want to fight against a perceived ideology. How is taxation not theft exactly? How is forcing people to take care of others not slaver, exactly? It's not a rhetorical trick, these are objective facts.

ue_ 10y ago

>or are you comfortable with enslaving a portion of the population to ensure these needs are taken care of I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery. The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Within the capitalist mode of production, human labour-time is like any other quantity; the spinning loom, the silk, etc. Sugar is bought by the kilogram, human labour-time by the hour. Human labour-time is another commodity within capitalism, and like every other commodity in Capitalism, it is maximised for exchange-value over use-value. Market interactions, at least within Capitalism, have the quality of being fetishised, so that rather than seeing the obscured web of interactions between people, we merely see prices and figures. If anything is dehumanising, I'd say that working to make things you don't want (usually causing alienation) is the most dehumanising of them all.

marknutter 10y ago
> I'm not, which is why I'm not okay with Capitalism. Being forced to sell your labour in order to avoid poverty, destitution or death or, in the case of the modern welfare state, the degrading feeling of having to live a poor life from charity of the State is one of the ultimate forms of slavery. Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. > The idea that Capitalism promotes human value is ridiculous. Capitalism helps us quantify human productivity. That's about it. Humans have transcendent value. Capitalism defends everyone's right not to be forced into slavery by threat of force. There are no other systems that can make that claim.
- ionised 10y ago
  > Capitalism is perfectly fine with you detaching yourself from the system and surviving off the land. You can't, a billionaire already bought that land.
  - marknutter 10y ago

ch4s3 10y ago

It's a bit far fetched to equate taxing capital with enslavement.

marknutter 10y ago
How are you going to collect taxes if nobody works?
- ch4s3 10y ago
  I assume you're you meant that to be a rhetorical question, but... By taxing capital instead of income. Or by taxing value added, or by taxing sales or profits, or maybe something esoteric like a robot tax.
  - ionised 10y ago
    Tax land. Heavily.

st3v3r 10y ago

Would you rather they beat the crap out of you and take your wealth? Cause let's be honest, that's the alternative. When it comes down to it, if the masses are not having their basic needs met, they will turn to crime and violence to meet them. And no one, anywhere, is talking about enslaving people.

baursak 10y ago

An alternative to UBI as you describe it is simply that people provide their own food, shelter, and medical care. As an example, current shareholders of Chipotle, Pulte Group, and Hospital Corporation of America are not anywhere near physically providing people with food, shelter and medical care.

marknutter 10y ago
Worked well enough for humans for the past few million years or so.
- baursak 10y ago
  It's literally what's happening now too. Unless you think that, for example, Mr. Thomas F. Frist Jr., the largest individual shareholder of HCA, is personally providing healthcare to people.

nikdaheratik 10y ago

Slavery is taking someone's labor for free. Even an Anarcho-Capitalist would have trouble equating taxation with slavery. The person being taxed gets the benefit of living in a country not plagued by uneducated, sick, hungry citizens. All for the low price of a certain percentage of their income.

marknutter 10y ago
I'm not saying taxation is slavery. I'm saying that you cannot have a system in which a portion of the population does zero work and receives resources for free without requiring that the other portion to do the work producing those resources. If the productive portion simply stopped working, or only worked enough to barely survive themselves, the nonproductive portion of the population would perish unless they enslaved the productive portion and forced them to produce surpluses.