Doc wrote:Amazeroth wrote:Please explain more about how you, or Aristotle, come to the conclusion that fairness means everyone has what they need. I'd really be interested in that.
Aristotle believed that justice was located in moderation, which is not having an excess or a deficiency in moral virtue. In the Politics, Aristotle described the Just society as the society which ensured that all people could live the good life, which is the life where people had all that they needed, and friendship (defined as good will between equals) along with time to contemplate virtue. I draw my sense of fairness then from the notion of the Golden Mean. I argue that a person that has very little is miserable, and people that have too much are also miserable. Those who have little are miserable because they suffer from a deficiency of those things that they need to live a good life. Those who have too much are also miserable because they are constantly worried about losing what they have. Consequently, both apply to the government for protection, but in our society, the rich just happen to be more adept at getting public policy to protect them from those who have very little than the poor are at protecting themselves from the systemic demands of capitalism.
It would seem to me that there's a mix-up of ethics and fairness, but I might be wrong. As far as I know, Aristotle doesn't talk about fairness at all in his ethics, at least not when he talks about the Golden Mean, but about ethics, answering the question not of how everyone should be treated, and what everyone should have (which would be about fairness), but what you should do (ethics in general). So what, as far as I know, Aristotle does, is telling you that you should strive to meat the Golden Mean, to avoid extremes. But I wouldn't know how Aristotle would relate that to fairness, or that Aristotle also said that people should be forced to their Golden Means, or should have their needs fullfilled for them.
Amazeroth wrote:And where would the money come from to pay for the fullfillment of all the citizens' needs, or for taxation in general, if nobody needs to work anymore in order to have his or her needs fullfilled? Who would perform all the manual labour jobs needed to produce food, or houses, or even medication? Who will go and seek higher education, in order to fullfill management roles in governmental positions, or become doctors, or scientists working for the government, if they get the same as the manual labourers, or the people doing boring but easy bureaucratic work?
Who said nobody would work? I explicitly argued that the private sector should be maintained to provide luxury for people once basic needs were met. And who said all people working for the public service get the same regardless of what their job is? I think you didn't read what I wrote. The National Service would be paid on a scale similar to the Military. In the military, no E-2 is a supervisor of anything, and they are paid as such. The Supervisors, the NCOs are paid higher, and their bosses are paid higher. Even Corporals make different rates, based on their time in service... And Military members dump boatloads of money into the economy. So much so that when a base closes, it ruins the town or towns attached to it, which is why it is so hard to close bases.
Where do you define luxury? Or how basic woudl the needs be, that were met? For example, if the need to eat and drink was met, would that mean that only water and some kind of nutrious pulp were free, and the rest would be considered a luxury, or would only the more expensive foodstuffs, like better meat and wine, or only what is now considered absolute luxury food, like real caviar and truffles, be exempt? Or would all food fall under basic need fullfillment?
I admit that I was under the impression that you meant pretty much the whole food industry (maybe except from caviar and truffles), if you only meant that the most basic need should be fullfilled, I agree with you. People shouldn't be afraid to starve, or suffer health issues because of malnutrition all the time (at least not forcefully).
I also admit that my impression that everyone would get paid the same came from your ideal that every demand and need would be met exactly. Which would include the demand for money, which shouldn't be greater because of your education or responsibility - after all, educated and responsible people don't need more to eat than those who do the menial labours. If that's not the case, you'd still be dealing with corruption and the like, but it would be far less devastating that what I made it out to be.
Amazeroth wrote:Next question - why wouldn't it end like the Soviet Union did, if there is no incentive for government workers to work hard, since they don't get paid more if they do? That's actually one of the few things the Soviet Union has shown pretty impressively - that people need motivation to do more than the least. Granted, there will always be a few idealists who go the extra mile even if they don't get paid, but the majority won't, at least in a bureaucratic system like you're proposing, where you don't actually see any consequence of your shoddy labour.
There were disincentives to work in the Soviet Union. Bureaucracy and just the tendency to lop off the heads that stuck out too far was a real disincentive to hard work. But I can see a different situation as well, where hard workers are promoted, and lousy workers are cashiered. I am not proposing a bureaucratic system. I know that in the military, people strive for medals and distinctions, and there is zero money attached to that. Why would that be so difficult to imagine?
The answer to this is the same as I gave above - if there are different pay grades, in other word, if not every need is met exactly, that would be far less of a problem. Due to the government taking over a lot more responsibilities, you'd still have a larger bureaucracy, but that alone wouldn't automatically have to be a problem.
Amazeroth wrote:Who would pay taxes in that setting? I mean, you'd have to enact it globally to prevent all the wealthier people fleeing your country, and then who would work extra if that only means getting taxed all of a sudden? I'm all against subsidizing too, but it wouldn't matter, the government as competitor would either be so efficient that it remained the sole competitor in the end - since it has, compared to private companies, unlimited resources; or so inefficient that you'd have a large black market going in no time.
That's fair, but I would bet on the prior over the latter. The Private sector does too, for that matter. This is why the public option in the ACA was killed by the insurance industry. In the beginning, all who earned money would pay taxes. And since I am exempting the private sector from government control when they produce luxuries, anyone who works for them will pay taxes. And anyone who works (beyond their initial conscription) for the Public sector will pay taxes on their income just like the Military does today.
Again, it all rests with what are luxuries, and what are basic needs. If the fullfilled needs are only the very basic ones - i.e. if the government fullfilling your needs means the easiest foods, the most basic (not bad, but not luxurious at all) housing, etc., there would be enough people to pay taxes. If that's the case, you just have another welfare state, though.
Amazeroth wrote:I actually live in a country where that pretty much is the case already, and so long as you have enough tax payers, it works. It's costing a lot, and it doesn't have the best image, but it does its job. But with your similar idea of forcing out taxpayers, how would you finance that?
Let me then ask you- What keeps YOUR taxpayers from fleeing? Could it possibly be that there is something which keeps them there despite the tax rate? I don't imagine that I will force out tax payers. Only those who don't think they owe anything to the society, and who don't seem to think that they gain anyone from being a domestic corporation will flee. But then again, they do that now, so what's the difference?
Same as above - low needs, enough taxpayers, etc.
Amazeroth wrote:I'd also like to know how humanity is a virtue that entitles me to have all my needs fullfilled (except the one you don't deem basic) without having to work for it. Or will people be forced to work by law in your utopia?
That would sort of defeat the purpose of freeing people from the need to work, wouldn't it? People should have the choice whether or not they want to work. In the current system, especially in places with hugely deficient social safety nets like the US, we don't have the choice. We must work or we starve. My question is, how is our system any less totalitarian then? Just because I have the choice of who I have to work for? Hunger is the master which whips me into a job. That and a desire to be clothes, housed, educated, healthy, and the need of me to provide those same things for my children. I don't actually have a choice whether or not to work. I must work. But I think if people are freed from need, want of more comfort will drive people to work. I have said that people will have their needs met. But that doesn't equal a flat screen TV and a second car. If you want that, you work for it. If you want McDonalds cheeseburgers, you work for it. If you don't want that stuff, you should nonetheless still have the choice whether or not you want to work, just like those who choose to work.
Is it really true, in the US, that people usually starve because of unemployment? I'm really asking, not doubting.
So far, totalitarian systems usually require human enforcers; at least I wouldn't have heard otherwise until know - nobody I know would call forces of nature totalitarian. So hunger driving you to work is not totalitarian, that is just nature (not even human nature, just nature). That's why your system isn't as totalitarian. And you do have the choice to work for yourself, in your system, as well. Or to go out and live from the wild, even.
But if your system is as low key (same answer as all the ones above), then it wouldn't be any more totalitarian than what you have now. It might not be affordable (but for that to ascertain we'd need actual numbers), and it would just be another version of the welfare state, but it wouldn't be totalitarian at all.
As for the humanity entitling people to have their needs fulfilled, I think the existence of society, which allows us to so so much more in life than we would if we were in Hobbes State of Nature (or even Locke's State of Nature) obligates us to help to preserve that society. Each member of that society has an equal claim on the resources and benefits of society as I do. Therefore, humanity entitles each and every member of the society to the same privileges as I claim for myself. There is no difference between the poorest person and the richest person. All are equally entitled, by virtue of their humanity.
I actually agree on most of this. But I do think that the privileges humanity entitles to are not the same (other than by chance) as the ones you claim for yourself. For example, the privilege to be left alive and unharrassed, derives from humanity. But the privilege to drive a fast car and to eat what I want comes from being able to pay for it, and is not something I'd see anyone entitled to by humanity alone.
Amazeroth wrote:Also, why exactly is it in societies interest that all are fed, housed, healthy, educated and employed?
I don't put it on Christian Duty. I say that a society with homeless people puts all those who have homes at risk. So it is in our interests to ensure that homeless people are housed. Hungry people will often resort to actions those of us with food may view as crime. Sick people will get us sick too, because disease is contagious. Ignorant people who still have the right to vote fall easily under the sway of demagogues. It is therefore, in the interest of society, not to derive some material benefit, but to protect some semblance of the good life for all, to see to it that nobody does without who will threaten the rest of us and the things we have.
I absolutely agree. I'm not convinced that it is better for society to enforce everyone to give part of what they have worked for in order to protect others (which would be what the welfare state does), but I agree that it is bad for society if there are homeless, hungry, sick or ignorant.
I can give you a good, concrete example. I teach college classes- that is well known. I have a policy in my courses. Students are able to bring a full 8X11 sheet of paper with whatever they want written on it into my tests. I argue that by eliminating the need to cheat eliminates cheating. Yes, it works. I have zero cheating on any of my tests. And yet, even with all the answers potentially in front of my students as they are taking their test, I still get a normal distribution of my scores. Those who prepared for the test and took good notes on their paper earn higher grades, while those who did not prepare for the test and wrote a bunch of worthless nonsense on their papers do poorly on the test. But over all, the scores are not different than they would be if the students took the test cold. There is just no incentive to violate academic honesty policies now.
While that makes you the kind of teacher I really would have liked in college (I did have one who even allowed textbooks, which to me seemed the most sensible, and still about half of the class would regularly fail the tests), and while I agree that it's good if there's less cheating, I'm not sure if that would be a good solution of all of societies problems. It's definitely better than guaranteeing everyone passes, but, to leave the analogy, I'm pretty sure people will still go and steal TV sets or cars, even if they don't have to go and steal bread.
There- You have your answers. Please do not fiat them away. But whatever, I have answered you, and in my opinion, those answers are more than satisfactory. And I answered in good faith. Though they may not be satisfactory for you, I hope the good faith is at least worth something.
Thank you very much for taking the time, my answeres have been in good faith as well.
