4 ms·

Guarding wealth is a moral evil, as inherited wealth is a major cause of inequality.

CryptoPunk 5y ago
Wealth is why we enjoy the quality of life that we do. The spread of private property and contracting rights, and the consequent rise in wealth, is credited for the largest reduction in poverty in human history: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/308134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-pol... https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-war-on-poverty https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-gl... https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end... Extreme poverty is a much greater evil than inequality.
- kuschku 5y ago
  That's a common idea in capitalist theory, but it's not necessarily true. The opposite of hoarding wealth is not poverty. If you don't hoard wealth, it doesn't disappear, it just becomes available to more people. In most situations, money is a zero-sum game. Any wealth you make is by taking it from others. That's not fair or desirable.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    >In most situations, money is a zero-sum game. Any wealth you make is by taking it from others. That's not fair or desirable. For a fixed money supply, money is zero-sum. Wealth is not. If more stuff is made, and you're envisioning a system where that money commands all the goods, then same money commands more goods. That is desirable. But regardless of money system, if you make more goods and services then there are more goods and services.
dnpp123 5y ago
If you go that way, money hence property are moral evils. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-somewhat https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
lezojeda 5y ago
Are you serious?
- kuschku 5y ago
  In a fair world, the success of any individual would only depend on their own actions and work. Inheritance acts against this principle.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    In your fair world there would be no more than one generation's worth of success in science and innovation. Success of the next generation depends on our own. What I think you mean is a fair world socializes the success by removing the ability for consensual trade/gifting of resources from a person of one generation to another. But that is also unfair because it uses coercion on individual success. If you remove the ability to pass on success, I would just quit my job and abandon my children. Why try if they gain nothing.
    - otterley 5y ago
      > In your fair world there would be no more than one generation's worth of success in science and innovation. Success of the next generation depends on our own. Scientific knowledge usually goes into the public domain through patents and other information-sharing techniques. We didn't lose Newton's, Einstein's, and all our other scientific forebears' knowledge because they died. Come on. > But [socializing successes] is also unfair because it uses coercion on individual success. Coercion isn't always necessarily unfair. It depends on context and on what your society's values are. If one of your children takes all the candy away from their siblings, and you redistribute the candy to your other children, that's a type of coercion to enforce fairness. If you believe that a fair and just world is one where, by the sheer luck of being born to wealthy parents, you get advantages that others don't; and that you get to build on that wealth by keeping everything you accumulate based on that and get to pass it to your children, where the cycle repeats endlessly -- well, then, you have differing values than the rest of us. But that doesn't mean that alternatives are "unfair." > If you remove the ability to pass on success, I would just quit my job and abandon my children. Why try if they gain nothing. Or, you could not be a dick and instead spend it while you're living on your children's education, or give your excess earnings to charity.

Wealth is why we enjoy the quality of life that we do. The spread of private property and contracting rights, and the consequent rise in wealth, is credited for the largest reduction in poverty in human history: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/308134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-pol... https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-war-on-poverty https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-gl... https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end-of-poverty https://www.economist.com/leaders/2013/06/01/towards-the-end... Extreme poverty is a much greater evil than inequality.

kuschku 5y ago
That's a common idea in capitalist theory, but it's not necessarily true. The opposite of hoarding wealth is not poverty. If you don't hoard wealth, it doesn't disappear, it just becomes available to more people. In most situations, money is a zero-sum game. Any wealth you make is by taking it from others. That's not fair or desirable.
- notch656a 5y ago
  >In most situations, money is a zero-sum game. Any wealth you make is by taking it from others. That's not fair or desirable. For a fixed money supply, money is zero-sum. Wealth is not. If more stuff is made, and you're envisioning a system where that money commands all the goods, then same money commands more goods. That is desirable. But regardless of money system, if you make more goods and services then there are more goods and services.

dnpp123 5y ago

If you go that way, money hence property are moral evils. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-somewhat https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...

lezojeda 5y ago

Are you serious?

kuschku 5y ago
In a fair world, the success of any individual would only depend on their own actions and work. Inheritance acts against this principle.
- notch656a 5y ago
  In your fair world there would be no more than one generation's worth of success in science and innovation. Success of the next generation depends on our own. What I think you mean is a fair world socializes the success by removing the ability for consensual trade/gifting of resources from a person of one generation to another. But that is also unfair because it uses coercion on individual success. If you remove the ability to pass on success, I would just quit my job and abandon my children. Why try if they gain nothing.
  - otterley 5y ago
    > In your fair world there would be no more than one generation's worth of success in science and innovation. Success of the next generation depends on our own. Scientific knowledge usually goes into the public domain through patents and other information-sharing techniques. We didn't lose Newton's, Einstein's, and all our other scientific forebears' knowledge because they died. Come on. > But [socializing successes] is also unfair because it uses coercion on individual success. Coercion isn't always necessarily unfair. It depends on context and on what your society's values are. If one of your children takes all the candy away from their siblings, and you redistribute the candy to your other children, that's a type of coercion to enforce fairness. If you believe that a fair and just world is one where, by the sheer luck of being born to wealthy parents, you get advantages that others don't; and that you get to build on that wealth by keeping everything you accumulate based on that and get to pass it to your children, where the cycle repeats endlessly -- well, then, you have differing values than the rest of us. But that doesn't mean that alternatives are "unfair." > If you remove the ability to pass on success, I would just quit my job and abandon my children. Why try if they gain nothing. Or, you could not be a dick and instead spend it while you're living on your children's education, or give your excess earnings to charity.