211–220 of 325 posts
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You're assuming I didn't read it. Maybe you're psychologically projecting.
No, I'm concluding it because I have read it so know disconnected from reality your interpretation is.
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Communism isn't some "radical" boogeyman, it's just a process to eliminate inequality. (Why should there be any inequality at all?) We don't need to be diminutive about relatively different ideas; that's unhelpful at best.
You have no moral right to use violent force against someone to force them to give up their private property for the crime of having more than another person. The goal of eliminating resource inequality absolutely does not justify this violation. It's totally absurd on so many levels.
There are different kinds of property on a sliding scale.
1) Your personal belongings, tools of trad and other things needed for living are considered yours by everyone in practically all cultures. That's property protected by ethics and morality.
2) Anything past that is service that society/government provides for people living in advanced society. It's not a moral issue anymore. It's a issue of society agreeing on tax rate and forms of property protection.
It would be helpful to at least acknowledge that most people dont' agree with unlimited property rights morals and stop preaching like it's god given truth.
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The government doesn't own what we receive in private trade. Taxing what we earn is government intervention. This is the conventional understanding. What you're doing is what Orwell describes as doublespeak.
> doublespeak This is rich coming from someone equating financial intervention with violence.
I would laugh if the ridiculous lengths you're going to in order to euphemize violence and imprisonment wasn't so fucking terrifying.
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You have no moral right to use violent force against someone to force them to give up their private property for the crime of having more than another person. The goal of eliminating resource inequality absolutely does not justify this violation. It's totally absurd on so many levels.
What you say would be true if property would be an issue with two people when they meet one-to-one. There are different kinds of property on a sliding scale. 1) Your personal belongings, tools of trad and other things needed for living are considered yours by everyone in practically all cultures. That's property protected by ethics and morality. 2) Anything past that is service that society/government provides for pe…
That is just an arbitrary distinction to justify your greed for the property of others.
We either have a moral right to make exclusive use of natural resources or we do not. Whatever argument you make for the right to appropriate natural resources as 'personal' property can be applied to the right to appropriate natural resources as 'non-personal' property.
These debates get very philosophical, but when you step out of the theoretical for a moment, and think about what it means to tax someone's income, it's self-evident what property rights are, and that violating them is an authoritarian infringement upon human rights.
Taxing income requires a law demanding that a person disclose personal information on all of their private income to the government. Anyone who refuses to surrender their privacy and disclose this extremely personal information faces the potential punishment of being thrown in prison, where they are kept in a small enclosure, and where they often develop mental illness, and suffer from physical and sexual abuse. This is overt mass-surveillance enforced through threats of incarceration.
Then, once a person has disclosed this personal information under threat of imprisonment, a tax on income requires demanding that people hand over a share of this currency that they've received in private trade. This tax debt is unlike other types of debt. It's a debt obligation that a person assumes without their consent.
If I receive currency in private trade, that's my property. If you came up to me in the street, and demanded I give you a share, and attacked me when I refused, you would know, instinctively, that you're being an aggressor, and so would every bystander who witnessed the assault. It's merely the obfuscation provided by using layers of government intermediaries that obscures this fact when you do the same thing through the political process.
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What you say would be true if property would be an issue with two people when they meet one-to-one. There are different kinds of property on a sliding scale. 1) Your personal belongings, tools of trad and other things needed for living are considered yours by everyone in practically all cultures. That's property protected by ethics and morality. 2) Anything past that is service that society/government provides for pe…
>2) Anything past that is service That is just an arbitrary distinction to justify your greed for the property of others. We either have a moral right to make exclusive use of natural resources or we do not. Whatever argument you make for the right to appropriate natural resources as 'personal' property can be applied to the right to appropriate natural resources as 'non-personal' property. These debates get very phi…
Others don't have the obligation to protect what you think is your right. Imagine the value of your property rights, if neither law nor law enforcement would protect it.
>it's self-evident
If most people disagree with you, it's not self evident. No amount of sidestepping arguments of others and continued preaching is going to convince others. Essentially you are just stating your ideology and calling it self evident.
This is like abortion issue where minority of people asserts that fetus has rights but majority don't see it.
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With regard to neighbors, there is hard-wired reciprocity involved. And, if one doesn't reciprocate, they may eventually be cut off from future generosity. On the other hand, many people genuinely get pleasure out of helping others. And, there are certain classes of people to whom special treatment is given - like the elderly and children. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a communist, and I'm not completely against capita…
> Furthermore, what do we with those who are just unable to produce anything of value? it's implied that they just die. Capitalism doesn't stop a person from donating to those people. Indeed, that's what happens through the government.
I wish more people could have Thomas Piketty's balanced view on capitalism. Too often it is treated as some sort of game where you have to pick sides whether you are for or against capitalism. Especially in America there seems to be a kneejerk reaction to any calls for regulations or moderations of the effects of the free market. Usually it is dismissed without further discussion with "look what happened in the east…
Especially hard when there is a lot to loose.
Try convincing any manager in a large corp, with 2 kids about to head to college/a mortgage/family healthcare bills or some combo of those three to take a difficult decision and 90% of the time you will fail. Fact of life.
Over time I have come to the conclusion it really depends on the kind of leaders we prop up. Yes we prop them up. Every time we go along with whatever the empire needs defending justifications they come up with to do the next dumb thing.
While we like to believe we are lucky that Zuckerberg or Page&Brin landed up in the positions they did rather than a Larry Ellison controlling Google or Murdoch controlling Facebook. I think we just need higher expectations. I would rather support a Mark Shuttleworth or a Jimmy Wales, or even a Elon Musk.
The difference being they have clear stated visions for the future that doesn't just benefit them and their corp but everyone.
These days I actively work against people who I see working to strengthen their positions at the expense of others.
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>2) Anything past that is service That is just an arbitrary distinction to justify your greed for the property of others. We either have a moral right to make exclusive use of natural resources or we do not. Whatever argument you make for the right to appropriate natural resources as 'personal' property can be applied to the right to appropriate natural resources as 'non-personal' property. These debates get very phi…
>We either have a moral right to make exclusive use of natural resources or we do not. Others don't have the obligation to protect what you think is your right. Imagine the value of your property rights, if neither law nor law enforcement would protect it. >it's self-evident If most people disagree with you, it's not self evident. No amount of sidestepping arguments of others and continued preaching is going to convi…
True, but they also don't have a moral right to violate my rights.
If the government merely stopped protecting private property from aggressive seizure, that would be one thing. But thanks to "social democracy" (demagogic democracy), the government has become the primary instrument by which people aggressively seize the property of others.
>If most people disagree with you, it's not self evident.
I disagree that most people disagree with me. Most people do not consider the steps involved in money that someone earns going into their own bank account thanks to government intervention.
If they did consider it, I believe it would be self-evident to most what property rights are, and that violating them is an authoritarian infringement upon human rights.
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> I think anti-free-market ideologies like Piketty's are deeply authoritarian and violent. I watched the whole video I didn't see him arguing with authority and violence. He said there can be other factors and he wants to open up a debate. > As a corollary to this, it means prying into people's personal affairs to determine how much in income tax they owe ... His argument is to have finanacial transparency which does…
He supports heavy taxes on private property. Tax laws are based on violence. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/enforcin... >Enforcing the Law Is Inherently Violent >A Yale law professor suggests that oft-ignored truth should inform debates about what statutes and regulations to codify. Socialist ideology relies exclusively on aggressive violence. >His argument is to have finanacial transparency whic…
I didn't get the same impression watching the video. Do you have any references? As far as Law and Violence is concerned, I agree voilence to some degree may be involved. So what is your alternative? No Law every man/group for himself?
There is no such thing as No Law. Void will ne replaced with Natural Law in which powerful eliminates weak. If well reasoned Law is not present in society, Law of jungle will take over.
> People in a market generate income by trading something of value for currency that others freely give them
Something of value is the operative word here. From where "something of value" comes? There is no tax on exchanging valuable thoughts. We are only taking about financial trades which does impacts society.
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Where in the USA is the market not regulated?
is wealth regulated, and do you have a wealth tax?