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"There is no moral issue with inequality" Well, there is. Thanks to legalized corruption ( lobbying ) the rich are able to twist laws and regulations more and

by FpUser 7y ago

"There is no moral issue with inequality" Well, there is. Thanks to legalized corruption ( lobbying ) the rich are able to twist laws and regulations more and more to their advantage. This is self feeding process and the final outcome does not look nice at all. "Therefore forcing absolute equality on everyone is a moral hazard." Nice try at twisting the line, who is talking about absolute equality here? You know there are all kinds of shades between black and white.

kova12 7y ago
Inequality and corruption are different things. It's like there used to be a catchphrase "sex and violence", piling together things that clearly don't go together
- FpUser 7y ago
  "Inequality and corruption are different things" - happily working together, one working hard to increase the other
  - kova12 7y ago
    Why did you write this comment? It does nothing to disprove my point
notdonspaulding 7y ago
> Thanks to legalized corruption ( lobbying ) the rich are able to twist laws and regulations more and more to their advantage. What you are describing is regulatory capture, and you don't have to be against wealth inequality in order to be against this. This is common ground between traditional conservatism and traditional liberalism. > ...who is talking about absolute equality here? The principled/moral argument goes something like this: - Wealth inequality is a symptom of an unjust system. - We see wealth inequality. - Therefore, we *must* have an unjust system which created it. - Therefore, we should *correct for injustice in the system* by creating laws X, Y, Z to bring about greater equality. ) Instead, you seem to be arguing that: - Wealth inequality is undesirable for some unstated reason. - We see wealth inequality. - We would like to reduce wealth inequality for some unstated reason. - Therefore, we should implement some laws Q, R, and S to reduce wealth inequality (presumably to one of your "shades between black and white"). The first argument is a moral argument. It says "wealth inequality is bad." When confronted with the fact that no two people start out in the same place in this life, it can fall back to "So? that doesn't mean they should be stuck with where they started, because wealth inequality is bad!" When confronted with the fact that freedom means people with different values being allowed to make choices with different outcomes, it can argue against that freedom, because it considers Wealth Equality to be a virtue. The second argument is an argument of degrees. To what degree is wealth inequality acceptable, and at what degree does it become unacceptable? That's not a moral argument. It's lost its fallback position of morality. The person making the argument has already agreed with the principle that in some cases, under some circumstances, wealth inequality is acceptable. Now we're just arguing about where the line should be. Reasonable people can disagree about where the line should be in an argument of degrees, but neither person can claim a moral high ground in such an argument, because they aren't disagreeing in principle. You should either strengthen your position by making the moral argument, or agree with the GP who said that forcing absolute equality on everyone is a moral hazard. Where you seem to be at the moment isn't a very defensible stance to take.
- FpUser 7y ago
  I am not even sure what I would call this diatribe. You seem to be putting lots of words in my mouth and doing more line twisting.
  - notdonspaulding 7y ago
    You quoted GP as saying: > > "There is no moral issue with inequality" Then you replied with: > Well, there is. <snip some unrelated discussion about Regulatory Capture [0]> At no point did you make an argument that there is a principled, moral problem with Wealth Inequality. My "diatribe" was simply pointing out that there was a moral argument to be made, but that you weren't making it, and instead you were actually agreeing that there's nothing wrong with a little inequality now and again. Personally, I don't care what stance you take, I was just trying to help you decide on a better one than you were taking. ;-) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

by FpUser 7y ago

kova12 7y ago

Inequality and corruption are different things. It's like there used to be a catchphrase "sex and violence", piling together things that clearly don't go together

FpUser 7y ago
"Inequality and corruption are different things" - happily working together, one working hard to increase the other
- kova12 7y ago
  Why did you write this comment? It does nothing to disprove my point

notdonspaulding 7y ago

> Thanks to legalized corruption ( lobbying ) the rich are able to twist laws and regulations more and more to their advantage. What you are describing is regulatory capture, and you don't have to be against wealth inequality in order to be against this. This is common ground between traditional conservatism and traditional liberalism. > ...who is talking about absolute equality here? The principled/moral argument goes something like this: - Wealth inequality is a symptom of an unjust system. - We see wealth inequality. - Therefore, we *must* have an unjust system which created it. - Therefore, we should *correct for injustice in the system* by creating laws X, Y, Z to bring about greater equality. ) Instead, you seem to be arguing that: - Wealth inequality is undesirable for some unstated reason. - We see wealth inequality. - We would like to reduce wealth inequality for some unstated reason. - Therefore, we should implement some laws Q, R, and S to reduce wealth inequality (presumably to one of your "shades between black and white"). The first argument is a moral argument. It says "wealth inequality is bad." When confronted with the fact that no two people start out in the same place in this life, it can fall back to "So? that doesn't mean they should be stuck with where they started, because wealth inequality is bad!" When confronted with the fact that freedom means people with different values being allowed to make choices with different outcomes, it can argue against that freedom, because it considers Wealth Equality to be a virtue. The second argument is an argument of degrees. To what degree is wealth inequality acceptable, and at what degree does it become unacceptable? That's not a moral argument. It's lost its fallback position of morality. The person making the argument has already agreed with the principle that in some cases, under some circumstances, wealth inequality is acceptable. Now we're just arguing about where the line should be. Reasonable people can disagree about where the line should be in an argument of degrees, but neither person can claim a moral high ground in such an argument, because they aren't disagreeing in principle. You should either strengthen your position by making the moral argument, or agree with the GP who said that forcing absolute equality on everyone is a moral hazard. Where you seem to be at the moment isn't a very defensible stance to take.

FpUser 7y ago
I am not even sure what I would call this diatribe. You seem to be putting lots of words in my mouth and doing more line twisting.
- notdonspaulding 7y ago
  You quoted GP as saying: > > "There is no moral issue with inequality" Then you replied with: > Well, there is. <snip some unrelated discussion about Regulatory Capture [0]> At no point did you make an argument that there is a principled, moral problem with Wealth Inequality. My "diatribe" was simply pointing out that there was a moral argument to be made, but that you weren't making it, and instead you were actually agreeing that there's nothing wrong with a little inequality now and again. Personally, I don't care what stance you take, I was just trying to help you decide on a better one than you were taking. ;-) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture