I agree about the loss of meaning. My definition cite was too broad. The red light example is interesting. Yes, it does restrict my freedom. But I acknowledge that most of the time (but not always) it is in my best interest to stop because it so far is the most efficient system for moving many people through a common point. That said, it isn’t always too efficient, as I believe most of us know. However, I do not think that restricting my freedom in the form of coercive taxation is the most efficient (or moral) system for a society to generate prosperity. There is the difference. It’s not a freedom I like to lose, but the stoplight freedom loss is generally okay.
What is poverty? Here’s an informal definition: poverty is when a lack of food, shelter, clothing, or healthcare, or money to purchase these, puts your health or happiness in jeopardy. Maybe a few people would be happy with minimal possessions, getting food and shelter where they could, but the vast majority would not be. I argued before that society should agree to ensure at least this minimum standard of living for everyone. It is possible to extend that argument beyond this bare minimum, but that argument is unnecessary for the current discussion of whether wealth redistribution is inherently like slavery.
In response to 4: how else would you get people to agree to poverty insurance? Those who want to buy it probably don’t have much money at the time they want to buy it, but some of those who are at risk for poverty now will end up making enough money to keep the system going. And if we ignore information about parents’ wealth, and look back to the beginning before education, socialization, etc. helped make people’s labor more or less profitable, most people (as newborn babies) face enough of a risk of poverty to agree to a system of poverty insurance, assuming they did not want to live in poverty.
Your arguments 2. and 3. can’t both work. People won’t freeload if the system doesn’t work. And even if the system does work, it only guarantees people a minimum standard of living, or a standard of living far below what most people would want. People who have food, clothing, shelter, and minimal healthcare still strive for tasty food, stylish and comfortable clothing, comfortable, livable, “home-y” shelter, and more/better healthcare.
Perhaps a system of private charity could get the job done well. If it could eliminate poverty, then I’d be all for it. I wouldn’t count on private charity being enough, though. Especially in cities without a sense of community, people don’t always see a reason to help others. And of course, when charity isn’t mandatory, the free rider problem kicks in. People think: Why should I donate my money if other peole will do it anyways? or Why should I donate my money if these other people aren’t donating their money? or What difference will my few dollars make? Or they worry about the poverty close to home, and so impoverished communities stay impoverished.
Our current system isn’t perfect, but at least we don’t have people dying of starvation. America’s poor get food, shelter, and some money, and they’re better off than the poor in most places. It’s important to look for ways to improve the lives of America’s poor, but I don’t think that would be accomplished by switching to private charity. Also, if you’re willing to give some of your money to private charities to redistribute to the poor, why is it a big deal if the government takes that money to redistribute to the poor instead?
If it is just to redistribute the excess wealth that Bob makes by spending his time working, then shouldn’t it also be just to redistribute the excess leisure time Jill has by being unemployed?
Bob trades in some of his leisure for income, and Jill, for whatever reason, does not. But both Bob and Jill have the same 24 hours a day allocated to them. Why should difference in how the two spend their time change their obligations to society?
Of course, redistributing Jill’s leisure would look very MUCH like slavery: forcing her to work for free for the good of society just as we force Bill to pay redistributive taxes. However, it’s worth considering if what we do to Jill is really all that different than what we do to Bob. How is the difference justified? Do we somehow disapprove of Bob’s working, and believes that he incurrs a disproportionate obligation to society, utterly irregardless of whatever else he does?
It’s also not enough to point to goods that government provides and demand that Bob uses them disproportionately, and thus pay more. Not all taxation is in return for government services, just like not all of it is redistributive. Further, higher income is certainly not a strong correlate with higher degree of use of government services: many other factors that differ from proffesion to proffesion to even non-proffesion that affect the burdens people place on public services.
Boy, a lot to respond to…I think I will just stick to the health care one for tonight.
Well, all health care everywhere is “rationed” in some way. In the U.S. it is rationed by price…and by the bureaucrat in the HMO who decides whether they will pay for the procedure that your doctor recommended!
Well, as you note, this source helps to provide evidence for my point that your view of Canadian health care is informed in large part by what conservative propaganda says. (And, by the way, it is not hard to figure this out from how you approach the issue.) Here, for everyone’s benefit, is the link to the actual “research paper”: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa184.html Interestingly, this is not the first time we have run into this Michael Tanner fellow this week…Check out this thread here to see how accurate one of his claims ended up being when kimstu went through the trouble to track it down (see her 11-18-02 11:33pm EST post).
According to Tanner’s footnote, the first statement (about the surgeons’ claim) comes from the Wall Street Journal in 1990. I have been unable to find out if it is actually a statement from an article or an editorial, which makes a huge difference. (I could give a long list of factually wrong or deceiving statements made in their editorials recently.) I tried looking in google but have been unable to find anything except references on conservative website that go back to Tanner or the WSJ.
The second statement (by the nurse) is one that could probably be made about many U.S. hospitals. Hell, I know it is practically true at emergency rooms I have been to and I have the sort of health care that allows me the luxury to go to the better hospitals when I need care.
Finally, the last “well documented” statement leads to a footnote that lists the source as being an information package from a U.S. group by the name of “National Committee for Quality Health Care”. Anyone want to guess who they might represent? And, the documentation in that footnote consists of comparisons that show the U.S. is flush with MRI machines and CAT scanners in comparison to Canada without assessing the implication of whether the number in Canada is inadequate or whether, perhaps, part of the issue is that in the U.S. hospitals engage in an “arms race” with fancy medical equipment. Also, it notes that Seattle has 2.5 times the number of CAT scanners as all of British Columbia but doesn’t compare the relevant populations; my guess is that all of B.C. has a population probably not much more (if at all) than that in the Seattle-Tacoma metro area.
Noone doubts that the Canadian health care systems have problems…Health care systems everywhere have problems. (And, I’ll admit that liberals who make it sound like we can convert our health care system over to single-payer and then there never again will be any problems are being naive … Health care is a complex issue in all societies.) However, Canada ranks better on several “end results” health measures than the U.S. [See the figures that I provided in this thread devoted to the subject of health care like life expectancy and infant mortality.]
Well, to be honest when I lived in Canada (which I did from 1992-1996), I knew someone who blew out their ACL and also ended up having to wait a while for surgery. At the time, I remember thinking that maybe the criticism of Canadian health care on this point were on the mark. However, I have since discovered when people have blown out their ACL here in the U.S. that they often seem to wait about as long…And, in fact there are even some medical reasons not to operate immediately. Now, it may be true that on average waits in Canada are longer for that sort of thing…But, I remain a bit skeptical of hear-say evidence as even my own turned out to be a bit off the mark.
And, if you will indulge me another anecdote, when I visited my doctor in Canada after having passed a kidney stone (this being a recurring problem of mine), I suggested that maybe I should have an x-ray to see how the stones in my kidneys had progressed in the several years since I was last x-rayed. He gave me a lecture about how in Canada, they don’t do unnecessary tests that really won’t effect the course of treatment. Fast-forward several years to being here in Rochester, I passed another stone, brought it in and suggested to my doctor that perhaps an x-ray was in order. Then, I got another lecture from my doctor about how it is silly to do a test that won’t really affect the course of treatment. (A few months later, I had a serious episode of pain from a large stone in my kidney that ended up having to be blasted with lithotripsy…As it turns out, the pain part of this episode probably would have been avoided if I had gotten that x-ray.) Anyway, the moral of these stories: Having lived in both the U.S. and Canada, I really haven’t seen much difference in the quality of care … and I am someone who is able to afford the better health care one gets if one is not poor in the U.S.
And, how, pray tell, are you planning to do the calculation to determine exactly what services you have used? This is simply not a possible calculation to perform in our modern society…But that is getting back more to the general topic that I’ll try to come back to in another post.
Pretty much true…the actual numbers for 2000 are 3.28 million in the “Greater Seattle area” (4 counties) and 4.06 million in B.C. [Sources: http://www.cityofseattle.net/oir/datasheet/demographics.htm and http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/pop/pop/rd/rdproj1.htm ]
By the way, here is a Canadian article on the current “crossroads” in their health care system that presents what is probably a fairly balanced view of the debate that is going on there and the problems that the health care system is facing: http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id={D511276F-7D8B-4A98-BFE7-070E0A0428C9}
I think it underscores the fact that, although they face problems, Canadians are very proud of their health care system (particularly in relation to the U.S.). [Admittedly, Canadians may hear the worst aspects of the U.S. system just like we do of theirs although in general Canadians are way, way more informed about the U.S. than we are about them.]
That point when one’s health and happiness (especially happiness) are in jeopardy is highly subjective. Who decides this? What is the standard?
How will you get anyone to offer poverty insurance? What real risk does the insured bear? How do you price it? If poverty insurance kicks in when your income falls below X, how much lower than X do premiums need to be to make it affordable? The best poverty insurance is to live beneath your means and save money.
Not all people. Your statement is subjective.
Maybe poverty can’t be eliminated. Maybe that is an unrealistic goal. At any rate, if a lack of community in cities is a barrier to the elimination of poverty, it seems that creating more community is the solution. Because people do not see a reason to help others, does that justify forcing them to do it? How can charity be mandatory!? That’s an oxymoron. Charity, by definition, is voluntary. Some people may actually think what you assert that they do, but none of those reasons justify forcing people to help. Neverthless, many people clearly think otherwise, because in the US billions of dollars are voluntarily donated each year.
The VERY BIG DEAL is that in the first case it is MY choice. In the second it is not. What if I don’t want to give as much as government says I should? What if I want to give it to an organization that I believe is more effective than government? What if I have other goals than eliminating poverty? There are multiple competing charities and causes and very few people can afford to give to all of them. I don’t even believe in all of them. Who decides what is most important? It makes the most sense that we each decide for ourselves.
Well, one of your fallacies here is assuming that, since these things do in fact happen with considerable government intervention in our society, that you can figure out to what extent you actually use various services and thus what constitutes payment for services receive and what goes beyond that. My guess is that if we had everyone estimate how much government service provides them and then had them pay in just so much, we’d end up with too little money because people would vastly underestimate. (Actually, there may even have been some studies along this line.) It is in human nature to believe we are getting the raw end of the deal much of the time.
So, it is your right to try to work for a society where all sorts of services like roads etc are privatized or paid for by users fees…But, in the meantime, in the absence of such a society (thank God!) you still “owe” for the services you use.
My point here is simply that you libertarian types always seem to have some of well-defined definition of what constitutes “redistribution” and I happen to think it is ill-defined because nearly all government policies and laws have distributive impacts. Thus, in my view corporate and patent law is highly redistributive. The difference is that it tends to redistribute upward, that is to allow some small numbers of people to build up vast quantities of wealth. Now, such laws are often justified on the basis that they increase the wealth of all…And, while I think there may be some degree of truth to this, it tends to be quite exagerated (besides ignoring effects such as how that “wealth” is created by destroying natural resources that aren’t counted in the balance). And, it is also somewhat beside the point since it is not obvious that a society should be set up to maximize the average or aggregate wealth. (Why not the median wealth…or the wealth of the least well off as John Rawls proposes?)
My personal opinion is that the possible benefits gained from our current laws regarding corporations and patents, for example, are not worth the price that we pay in terms of inequality and other stuff, at least in the absence of any attempt to redistribute the wealth that results back into a less inequitable distribution. In other words, while you don’t want to sign onto the social contract if it includes what you call “wealth redistribution”, I don’t want to sign on if it includes things like current corporate law without any of such attempt at what you call redistribution. The way this all gets settled is in the political sphere.
Yes, I think it is a bit crazy when you believe it in the sense of it being a fundamental right. I think that one of the main problems with libertarianism is that it elevates “private property” to a fundamental right…In fact, a right so important that it effectively trumps all other rights. I think the right to private property in a highly cooperative society is a right…or even privilege…granted by the society for certain pragmatic reasons, e.g., that it provides one with incentives to contribute to the society. But, I don’t think it is a fundamental right trumping all other rights and, in fact, one runs into all sorts of problems if one starts to believe that. One such problem is the problem I noted above about nearly all laws affecting how much property we can successfully acquire. Another is the problem of figuring out how much each person contributes to society (of which the pay they “earn” may be some rough estimation, but no more than that) and how much of society’s resources they use. A final problem that was the subject of a thread here within the last few months is the so-called “initial value problem”. I.e., a society always starts off with some initial distribution of property or wealth and it is impossible to justify that. (E.g., why do we own the land when the native American people seem to have prior claims on it.)
Yes, I work quite hard. In fact (ironically enough!), I work in the research labs a major U.S. corporation with over $13 billion dollars in sales and easily one of the top ten most recognized brand names in the world. And, I am quite well-compensated… in the top income quintile I believe (and probably even in the top 5 or 10% in the subgroup of families made up of one person with no spouses and no dependents).
But, no, I don’t consider ever penny that I “earn” to be mine. I consider that which I keep after taxes to be mine, because I recognize that I have to “pay” for the complex society that I am a part of. And, certainly I am not fond of all the decisions that are made by my government about how that money gets spent. [E.g., I don’t like the money subsidizing the oil industry, or subsidizing the defense industry in the form of a missile defense shield that won’t work at least anytime in the near future.] But, I accept that as being part of the society and work through the democratic process to try to change things.
How does your company figure out how to charge for its products and services? How do they figure out who is buying what? Do they just charge all of their customers equally, or perhaps a progressive fee based on their income, and it somehow just works out?
It’s a cop out to think it can’t be figured out. While it may be true that some govt. agencies have accounting procedures that make Enron look squeeky-clean, and thus it may be difficult to allocate costs right now, that is no reason to toss our hands in the air and say we can’t figure it out. And there is no reaon to believe that because our public system of services is complex that it has to be that way. The private sector is complex, but we manage to figure out how to charge customers for only what they buy. Last I checked, I wasn’t writing a check to pay for part of my neighbor’s trampoline.
I don’t see the merit of estimating what we get. I’m not aware of any business models that work using that sort of system. Why would we seriously consider this? That is hardly what I’ve been advocating.
Again, how does a business figure it’s costs? How does it determine a price? How do people determine what they get and what they pay for it? It’s done all the time! Why doesn’t govt. do it this way? I can think of one probable reason: What we get and what we pay are rarely matched, so it would be politically hazzardous to disclose that person A pays 3x person B for the same services. Or that person C pays next to nothing. Or person D pays half of the bill for 10,000 other people.
If these impacts serve to redistribute wealth from producers/earners to non-producers/non-earners (of the product/service in question) then they are unfair policies and laws. I’m not favoring anyone or anything. If you earn it, it’s yours to do with as you see fit.
You are still to vague for me on corp/patent law. What corp. laws? What are examples of resdistributing up?
If natural resources are destroyed, and those resources are not owned by the destroyer (why would the owner destroy them?) then the full cost of that destruction should be born by the destroyer. No free lunches. We “libertarian types” don’t believe in free lunches for anyone.
I’m not sure that society should have a goal of maximizing anyone’s wealth. I think a far more important goal is maximizing freedom (tethered to responsibility), which appears to lead to the maximization of many other desirable things, like wealth.
How do you maximize the wealth of the “least well off”? What is the target?
They may not be worth the benefits. To the extent that they create artificial shelters from the market they are problems. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t understand what you mean about the effect these laws have on redistribution.
If we have any redistribution that is not voluntary, it is unjust, and thus if any corp. law provides for this I don’t like it either.
Let’s keep this really simple for starters. If a guy approaches me and says I’ll pay you $10 to mow my lawn, and I do it to his satisfaction, and he pays me the $10, have I earned this? That the govt. forces me to pay a tax for services it delivers, which I may or may not want or use, does not negate the fact that I just earned the money. Who else could have possibly earned it!? I mowed it myself. We agreed to an exchange of labor for money. It could have been an apple pie or some advice, but I did the work asked of me. I earned it.
Please explain.
What does contribution to “society” have to do with it? This will never be measurable. It’s completely subjective. Pay is not for a contribution to society. It’s for a contribution to an employer. In many occupations it is still subjective, but it is up to the company/manager to decide what the individual contribution is worth. Resource usage costs are generally paid to the owner of the resource. This of course isn’t 100% true because we don’t have bona fide owners for all resources (but most) or the owner is not a true owner with a real interest in preserving the resource (like the US govt. in some cases). In some cases the resource is so plentiful that charging for it makes no sense (like air or sunlight). In other cases we either have not tried or it has not been technologically possible.
I see the potential problems with this, but I don’t feel informed enough to comment.
Whether or not one has to pay for complex society via taxation does not mean you don’t earn every penny. You earn all of it. Some of it is taxed from you, presumably to pay for things that benefit you. I find it ironic that you both acknowledge a system that forces you to pay for things that you don’t want, use, or believe in, and yet accept that the such a system is just. You seem to be saying that it’s okay if we are forced to pay for things, as long as you agree with those things. But people disagree about what we should all pay for. Is it simply a matter of getting people who think like you in power so that we only pay for what you think is fair (no oil companies, no missle defense?)? And how do we decide the proper level of taxation for everyone? It all becomes a political game of power struggle, and that is an unending battle as long as one temporary majority presumes to tell everyone else what they should pay for.