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> a poor person confined in their home is less free than a rich person confined on their home I disagree. The rich person may be more comfortable, but they ar

> a poor person confined in their home is less free than a rich person confined on their home I disagree. The rich person may be more comfortable, but they are no more free. Confinement is confinement. > Or is fraud prevention unrelated to liberty Fraud is related to securing of property rights, which are a part of liberty. How free are you if people can remove the food from your pantry? Fraud as a criminal offense has been derived from "theft by false pretense". But I'm pretty sure we'd be fine if we decriminalized it and relegated it to a tort.

joshuamorton 5y ago
> I disagree. The rich person may be more comfortable, but they are no more free. Confinement is confinement. Is level of confinement the only thing that defines slavery? Assume the rich person and the poor person want the same thing. The rich person can acquire it. The poor person cannot (or can only do so by risking force in response). All else equal, the rich person can do strictly more things. How are they equally free? The definition of freedom is usually something along the lines of "the ability to do things". The rich person can do more things, they're freer. The term for what I'm describing is sometimes "freedom from want" and is a commonly considered to be a freedom/right when discussing freedoms if you look beyond liberalism as it was in 19th century. The idea being that while liberalism does a decent job of ensuring that the government doesn't oppress you, it does nothing to ensure that other people don't oppress you. Granting some standard of living to everyone ensures that you can't be taken advantage of because you have no better option, no one can treat you worse than the living standard the government provides.
- thegrimmest 5y ago
  > The idea being that while liberalism does a decent job of ensuring that the government doesn't oppress you, it does nothing to ensure that other people don't oppress you. The government does this by... oppressing you, by limiting your choices and your freedom. Nature itself is oppressive. We are all born naked and hungry and at the mercy of others. This does not constitute oppression by other people, and no amount of governance can change this. All government can do is provide due process to resolve the inevitable conflicts. What is should not do it paternalistically dictate how people should interact peacefully.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    Ensuring a minimum standard of living doesn't dictate how people interact peacefully, not does it require oppression, you're attacking a straw man.
    - thegrimmest 5y ago
      > doesn't dictate how people interact peacefully It very much does if it involves limiting what terms employers and employees can agree to. And it certainly requires oppression if you're going to seize and redistribute wealth to finance the required bureaucracy.
      - joshuamorton 5y ago
        > It very much does if it involves limiting what terms employers and employees can agree to You don't really need to do this if you provide a strong welfare state. Provide government healthcare and benefits to all citizens equivalent to say $10 an hour, and you don't need to limit how employers and employees interact. They have the freedom to quit. > And it certainly requires oppression So we come back to the beginning: all taxation is oppression? Keep in mind that my scheme actually probably involves less government force than yours. People will be less violent, requiring less respondent force, if given a minimum standard of living. So do you want the government to use more force? Or is "oppression" the issue, I can't keep up.
        thegrimmest 5y ago
        > You don't really need to do this if you provide a strong welfare state Why is providing a welfare state a prerequisite here? From where do you derive the need to protect people from the total consequences of their failure or misfortune by forcing the collective to bear the burden? > all taxation is oppression? Of course it is - it's robbery. Just like the draft is slavery. The important question is "What circumstances make it ethical to rob/enslave people?". They do exist, but they are quite limited. > do you want the government to use more force It's not about degrees of force, it's about what situations force is applied to. The only acceptable application of force (read violation of liberty) is to defend liberty itself from imminent danger. Applying any degree of force to compel cooperation is indistinguishable from that degree of slavery. What's the problem with strictly voluntary, at-will, consensual interaction between people?

joshuamorton 5y ago

> I disagree. The rich person may be more comfortable, but they are no more free. Confinement is confinement. Is level of confinement the only thing that defines slavery? Assume the rich person and the poor person want the same thing. The rich person can acquire it. The poor person cannot (or can only do so by risking force in response). All else equal, the rich person can do strictly more things. How are they equally free? The definition of freedom is usually something along the lines of "the ability to do things". The rich person can do more things, they're freer. The term for what I'm describing is sometimes "freedom from want" and is a commonly considered to be a freedom/right when discussing freedoms if you look beyond liberalism as it was in 19th century. The idea being that while liberalism does a decent job of ensuring that the government doesn't oppress you, it does nothing to ensure that other people don't oppress you. Granting some standard of living to everyone ensures that you can't be taken advantage of because you have no better option, no one can treat you worse than the living standard the government provides.

thegrimmest 5y ago
> The idea being that while liberalism does a decent job of ensuring that the government doesn't oppress you, it does nothing to ensure that other people don't oppress you. The government does this by... oppressing you, by limiting your choices and your freedom. Nature itself is oppressive. We are all born naked and hungry and at the mercy of others. This does not constitute oppression by other people, and no amount of governance can change this. All government can do is provide due process to resolve the inevitable conflicts. What is should not do it paternalistically dictate how people should interact peacefully.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  Ensuring a minimum standard of living doesn't dictate how people interact peacefully, not does it require oppression, you're attacking a straw man.
  - thegrimmest 5y ago
    > doesn't dictate how people interact peacefully It very much does if it involves limiting what terms employers and employees can agree to. And it certainly requires oppression if you're going to seize and redistribute wealth to finance the required bureaucracy.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      > It very much does if it involves limiting what terms employers and employees can agree to You don't really need to do this if you provide a strong welfare state. Provide government healthcare and benefits to all citizens equivalent to say $10 an hour, and you don't need to limit how employers and employees interact. They have the freedom to quit. > And it certainly requires oppression So we come back to the beginning: all taxation is oppression? Keep in mind that my scheme actually probably involves less government force than yours. People will be less violent, requiring less respondent force, if given a minimum standard of living. So do you want the government to use more force? Or is "oppression" the issue, I can't keep up.
      - thegrimmest 5y ago
        > You don't really need to do this if you provide a strong welfare state Why is providing a welfare state a prerequisite here? From where do you derive the need to protect people from the total consequences of their failure or misfortune by forcing the collective to bear the burden? > all taxation is oppression? Of course it is - it's robbery. Just like the draft is slavery. The important question is "What circumstances make it ethical to rob/enslave people?". They do exist, but they are quite limited. > do you want the government to use more force It's not about degrees of force, it's about what situations force is applied to. The only acceptable application of force (read violation of liberty) is to defend liberty itself from imminent danger. Applying any degree of force to compel cooperation is indistinguishable from that degree of slavery. What's the problem with strictly voluntary, at-will, consensual interaction between people?