4 ms·

This sounds like the "meritocracy" argument. To consider your example, in the current crisis, there are plenty of people who did not link anything from past to

This sounds like the "meritocracy" argument. To consider your example, in the current crisis, there are plenty of people who did not link anything from past to present, but who do show up in hospitals evry day, help people and save lives. They have a much bigger impact on society than the smart planner who could link past and present, but they see no rewards for it. Property rights do very little for those people. See how first responders of 9/11 got treated as another example. I am afraid that incentivising property rights to absurd levels such as protecting slave-owners through compensation, or protecting people stock-piling masks does not do much for society, even in the long run. There are ways to do it in an organised, moderate, law-abiding, rational and fair way though. To me, using words like "communism" is just a red-herring to avoid a rational discussion.

solveit 7y ago
> To consider your example, in the current crisis, there are plenty of people who did not link anything from past to present, but who do show up in hospitals evry day, help people and save lives. They have a much bigger impact on society than the smart planner who could link past and present, but they see no rewards for it. The same argument would argue that medical professionals could and should ask for much higher compensation in times like these, but they won't, because they're good people who wouldn't use other people's lives as leverage, and because the community backlash to doing so would be insane. It would go on to claim that if medical professionals did make bank in crises like these, we'd have more medical professionals ready to step in in times like these, and that this would save lives. Surge pricing makes surge capacity viable.
- viklove 7y ago
  The reason those medical professionals aren't paid better is because the money we spend on healthcare is going to pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, which eventually ends up in the hands of the private equity companies that own them. We've built a system that rewards those who accumulate the most wealth. Since we reward them, their wealth grants them more power (and more wealth) with a feedback loop. We've reached the point where there isn't a single transaction that occurs in this country where PE (aka billionaires) aren't granted a slice. The reason the wealthy get wealthier in this country is because they can spend their wealth to motivate society to help them accumulate more wealth. Money is just a coupon that you can redeem by spending it on some form of human productive output. If we give all of the coupons to people who love accumulating wealth, they eventually redeem them all to channel all of human productive output into building more wealth for them. A true capitalistic system can only work with some form of UBI, to break this feedback loop, and to allow society as a whole to decide where to spend human productive output, rather than just a select group of billionaires.
  - solveit 7y ago
    I agree with the last two paragraphs, but would quibble with the first. > The reason those medical professionals aren't paid better is because the money we spend on healthcare is going to pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, which eventually ends up in the hands of the private equity companies that own them. That's the result, but I think a big part of the reason that this is the case is because society (including the medical professionals themselves) absolutely refuses to let people use human life as leverage for bargaining. If workers cannot use the fruits of their labour as leverage, of course capital wins.
    - viklove 7y ago
      > society Not society. Just the wealthy. Why do they feel this way? Because that means they don't get that money. They set the rules, and they get to decide what we work on (through funding companies and buying lobbyists). > If workers cannot use the fruits of their labour as leverage, of course capital wins. That's why we need UBI, so workers can use their dollar as leverage and the billionaires don't get to decide what we're allowed to work on and what we're not allowed to work on.

solveit 7y ago

> To consider your example, in the current crisis, there are plenty of people who did not link anything from past to present, but who do show up in hospitals evry day, help people and save lives. They have a much bigger impact on society than the smart planner who could link past and present, but they see no rewards for it. The same argument would argue that medical professionals could and should ask for much higher compensation in times like these, but they won't, because they're good people who wouldn't use other people's lives as leverage, and because the community backlash to doing so would be insane. It would go on to claim that if medical professionals did make bank in crises like these, we'd have more medical professionals ready to step in in times like these, and that this would save lives. Surge pricing makes surge capacity viable.

viklove 7y ago
The reason those medical professionals aren't paid better is because the money we spend on healthcare is going to pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, which eventually ends up in the hands of the private equity companies that own them. We've built a system that rewards those who accumulate the most wealth. Since we reward them, their wealth grants them more power (and more wealth) with a feedback loop. We've reached the point where there isn't a single transaction that occurs in this country where PE (aka billionaires) aren't granted a slice. The reason the wealthy get wealthier in this country is because they can spend their wealth to motivate society to help them accumulate more wealth. Money is just a coupon that you can redeem by spending it on some form of human productive output. If we give all of the coupons to people who love accumulating wealth, they eventually redeem them all to channel all of human productive output into building more wealth for them. A true capitalistic system can only work with some form of UBI, to break this feedback loop, and to allow society as a whole to decide where to spend human productive output, rather than just a select group of billionaires.
- solveit 7y ago
  I agree with the last two paragraphs, but would quibble with the first. > The reason those medical professionals aren't paid better is because the money we spend on healthcare is going to pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, which eventually ends up in the hands of the private equity companies that own them. That's the result, but I think a big part of the reason that this is the case is because society (including the medical professionals themselves) absolutely refuses to let people use human life as leverage for bargaining. If workers cannot use the fruits of their labour as leverage, of course capital wins.
  - viklove 7y ago
    > society Not society. Just the wealthy. Why do they feel this way? Because that means they don't get that money. They set the rules, and they get to decide what we work on (through funding companies and buying lobbyists). > If workers cannot use the fruits of their labour as leverage, of course capital wins. That's why we need UBI, so workers can use their dollar as leverage and the billionaires don't get to decide what we're allowed to work on and what we're not allowed to work on.