I’m not entirely sure what you are talking about here. Are you saying that supporting the justice system is charity? Or are you saying that the welfare system amounts to exthortion?
Ah, but how do you supoprt that prophecy? What if it could be shown that not only fewer funds, bur fewer needs would result from such a system?
I do not understand what this question has to do with the paragraph you quoted. As suggested, when I see suffering which I can aleviate, I try to do so. Whether or not I do depends on many factors. How other may have “guessed” does not come into it as far as I know. Perhaps I have missed your point.
Of course. The point, however, is that such a person does not have the right to demand that I stop such pain. He certainly has the right to ask me to help him stop the pain. Doctors take oaths to the effect that they may have voluntarily offered him the right to demand that they do something. But just because someone has a pain does not give him the right to demand of anyone (or everyone which is what you are driving at) anything at all to amelliorate that pain.
If we agree that an absence of physical suffering is a need, I am unsure how “fewer needs” could possibly result?
I believe you can alleviate suffering by forbidding people to withold their contribution to suffering-prevention, whether that suffering comes from crime, hunger, foreign invasion, cancer or even an inability to read. I believe that if contributions were voluntary then more suffering from these causes would arise, because what people guessed was a “fair” contribution was actually pitifully short.
I believe he has the same right to demand that as he does to demand that you prevent crime against him, that you prevent foreign soldiers shooting him, and that you educate him and his kids.
Fair enough. You are certainly entitled to your beliefs. However, you have still not addressed the principle which demands that your beliefs amount to adding suffering to the world in the form of slavery (or forced servitude if you don’t like that word).
I believe I have addressed that very point; I do not think that what I experience due to the government spending my taxes is suffering, or slavery, or any of the other words used by the economic right to describe government spending. That is perhaps more accurately described by the word “inconvenience”, at worst, even when I strongly disagree with what my money is spent on.
There is even a word for this entire concept: Democracy.
I’m not trying to be pedantic. I think you are overestimating the ease at which even people of good will can agree over something as amorphous as “suffering”. Your tooth ache example is a perfect case. I’ve had really bad tooth aches before and, beeing without insurance at the time, I sucked it up and suffered for a few weeks. Let me tell you, it hurt like hell! But it turned out to be wisdom teeth shifting and I never treated it. This was about 20 yrs ago and I still have my wisdom teeth. So, why would I agree that sever tooth aches represent a “genuine need”?
I act if I can and if my moral sense compels me to do so. But let me ask you-- how many times have you seen unspeakable suffering somewhere on the globe and you did absolutely nothing? If you’re like most people, the answer is: “plenty of times”.
If Joe is suffering, I may feel morally compelled to help him. But would you say I was morally correct in stealing from you in order to help Joe? You seem to be proposing that one man’s suffering gives you the right to compel me to help him. I don’t see it.
For each specific instance, of course. But if I hold some general commitment that my taxes ought to be put towards minimising suffering where feasible, by increasing them if necessary (but not past the point where future suffering is caused by progress being retarded), one might say that I am doing something. Especially if am convincing other like-mided souls on a message board that such a commitment is reasonable, and that one should vote with such a commitment in mind.
I am simply, repeatedly, asking you how deal with seeing suffering you know could be averted. Or do you look away? And you not see that you are compelled to help him when his suffering comes from crime, or foreign invasion, or an inability to read?
Perhaps I am blurring the distinction, or perhaps it really is fuzzy. Let me postulate these types of collectives:
Voluntary collectives: Insurances, cable television. You pay as part of a group to get something that you either could not afford or can not get on your own. Surely nobody objects to these- you can opt out. Of course, dropping out of the insurance umbrella still leaves you in society’s collective safety net. Having no insurance doesn’t mean the hospital won’t treat you.
Semi-voluntary collectives: Utilities, public works. You’re not forced to buy electricity or travel the public roads, but you have to recognize that public works and services are best provided as collective items.
Involuntary collectives: Welfare. You pay taxes, part of those taxes provides basic needs to those that can’t afford them.
The way I’m interpreting this thread, there isn’t any objection to collective distribution of goods and services, as long as it isn’t involuntary. That is to say, “to each according to his needs” is okay, as long as it’s voluntary. That’s a line being drawn by others, not one that I am blurring.
This equates taxation with theft- I don’t agree. My elected representatives may have decided that helping people like Joe is a proper use of governmental monies to which I might have contributed through my taxes. If I don’t like it, I am free to elect representatives that agree with me. Name one developed nation that does not have some sort of social safety net. It seems to be universally recognized as a legitimate role of government.
So, if I can show that involuntary taxes at any level are detrimental (I’m not proposing to do so in this thread, I’m not that much of a hijacker ;)) to progress, then I should be able to dispossess you of the notion that all coerced taxes are OK, yes?
Quite. But what if you are simply convincing others to contribute to certain charities. Certainly that path would be harder than convincing people to authorize the state to take the money from others. But don’t you agree that it would be more fair? Perhaps even more just?
But we have all agreed that there are certain circumstances in which we would help. I simply ask that you allow me to decide what those circumstances are. Really it is that simple. No one, I repeat, no one, is suggesting that looking away is the right answer.
You have repeatedly tried to link the idea of property rights with the calousness necessary to “look away” from suffering. But nothing anyone has said here supports that notion.
Well, democracy certainly covers the process. And the power of the people to rule that people is not being questioned in here (unless I am mistaken, in which case someone will surely correct me).
However, I’m not at all sure that the concept of the welfare state is subsumed by the concept of Democracy. While democracy may certainly be one way to achieve such a thing, there are others. Constitutional Republic comes to mind. For the record, however, I think that both of these processes could also be used to prevent or end the welfare state as well.
Finally, I don’t think anyone is objecting to government spending. The objections I have raised (and a few others if I am interpreting them properly) revolve around the idea that charity is not something that should be forced.
If I give Joe something to relieve his suffering we call it charity. If I take something from you to give to Joe we call it something else. Somehow, if I vote into office a government which uses the pomp or apperatus of the state to take something from you to give to Joe we call it something else again. Unless I am mistaken, no one here is arguing against the first thing or for the second thing. We are only arguing about the third. While those in favor of it ar trying to equate or at least tie it to the first thing, those opposed to it are trying to equate or tie it to the second. In both of these lines of reasoning, however, equate is probably too strong a word. In both cases there are simply parrallels that either side aproves of or disaproves of. Perhaps there is a way for each side to see the appealing and repulsive characteristics of each of the first two phenomena.
I look away. And so do you, even if you don’t think you do. There *is ** unspeakable suffering in this world. If you are not trying to elect politicians who would raise taxes literally thru the roof in order to aleviate that suffering, then we’re only talking about matters of degree. Maybe you have a slighter lower tolerance for suffering before you"look away".
*Or unless you have given away every penny you make expect what is needed for your bare subsistance.
Well, I didn’t take the OP’s quiz, but I have no doubts I’d be in the mildly disagree category. The thing is, in the US we already HAVE a mild form of this ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ thing in our graduated tax system. Its a bit distasteful (to some, including me) but probably a necessary evil. I, for one, am glad that we have a social safety net, though I wish it was better thought out, better planned and better regulated so that people would use it as its meant to be used…as a short term safety net to catch them when shit invariably happens, but can move off it as soon as possible.
I think that the question of what constitutes an essential need is is a lot tougher a question than the OP is trying to make it out to be. There IS no common ground on what exactly an essential need is, who is essentially in need, what they need, etc. We all have our own ideas. To some, simply eating and having a warm place to stay is enough for those in need. Access to various levels of medical care is also a big one…but what access, and at what levels? For others its having access to transportation…I’ve even seen some who feel that people should have access to the internet as a basic need. There simply IS no common ground we can and do all agree upon. The OP uses pain and suffering (vaguely) as criteria…but what levels of pain and suffering? Who judges it? HOW do they judge it?
While I wouldn’t call our system optimal (from my perspective, nor anyone else’s for that matter) here in the US, it IS reasonably effective (if overly costly, bloated, inefficient, etc…IMO anyway). Generally speaking people in need don’t starve to death here. They don’t generally freeze to death either, nor die from heat prostration. Generally, they can and do have access to some level of medical care (though granted not always the best, and almost never the preventative kind). Most people in the US, no matter how poor, also have access to basic transportation and even housing (again, generally). So, we are already living the needs vs ability thing to a degree. Thats pretty much why Olentzero wet dream of ‘the workers’ taking ‘the means of production’ over and living in a socialist/communist utopia is just a pipe dream in America. Its not going to happen any time soon.
To my mind, a more stream lined and equatable system which uses local charities in conjunction with local government to administer and provide short term aid to people in ‘need’, while also assisting them in getting back on their feet and encouraging them to stand on their own again as soon as possible would be the best system. Though distasteful in concept (the whole ability/needs thing smacks of intellectual slavery to me at a fundamental level), in practice a modern capitalist society NEEDS to have such safety nets in place, as the vageries of the market place almost assure that at some time or another people will have setbacks and be in need of outside assistance to get back on their feet again. But as someone said earlier (I’m too lazy to read back through to find out who…you know who you are :)) said, you don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg either…there has to be a balance between helping those in ‘need’ and taking from those with ‘ability’.
One aspect of need (genuine or not) - even defined like the OP (ameliorate suffering) - is that, like ability, it is not a fixed quantity.
People’s circumstances, actions, attitudes and abilities have a profound effect on their needs. And vice versa. It’s a complex web of interactions.
Some people, when faced with a genuine need (of their own), are enormously motivated to alleviate it. Others (sorry for the stereotype) rather tend to sit down and gripe. A huge difference, even before taking environmental aspects and abilities into account.
Into this mix comes any governmental program of need alleviation.
Somebody said that “The public housing projects have been a disaster.” While I think this is kind of an exaggeration - the total amount of disaster in the world would be higher if there had been no public housing at all - it is true that public housing doesn’t always turn out the way idealists hoped / planned. There remains much genuine need for people living in certain public housing projects, that was supposed to have been alleviated.
My point… well… it’s an interesting discussion and valid arguments are made on all sides… but, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” could be a good idea but (when taken as policy prescription) outcome fundamentally depends on exactly what concrete actions are taken and there is a fundamental unpredictability due to the complexity of the interactions involved.
I’m changing my opinion from “disagree” to “don’t know” / “none of the above”…
I live in one of those European high-tax welfare states. Plenty of past excesses of public welfare programs. All in the process of being fixed, if not fixed already, hopefully.
The hot issue in my country right now is “incentive trap”. The tendency for well-intentioned welfare programs to discourage people from contributing to society (finding a job, etc.)
I thought this is kind of an interesting illustration of the point in my previous post.
I have said as much in other Political Compass threads, but you must understand that this balance between encouraging “progress” and ameliorating suffering is still vastly intractable, and I personally give the latter far more weight. I believe that at our present technological level, there exists preventable suffering at sickening levels even in our own countries, where more food and energy is wasted than that needed to feed and warm all those in genuine need. After all, what use is progress if vast swathes of the population do not feel its benefit? A new treatment for cancer ameliorates future suffering, yes, but if the ranks of those without access to proper healthcare swell daily, the total suffering actually increases.
But this is to wander from the point, and even if you could show that involuntary, coerced taxation is such an evil, I would still think that scrapping them would leave millions more in genuine, immediate, physical need. To believe that voluntary contributions will ever even approach the levels required to run an adequate justice system, military, police force, or school network let alone a functioning Medicare or social safety net is utterly naive.
Less fair, less just, because of the enormous shortfall from such naivete. It is unfair and unjust for a human to starve, freeze, suffer crime or treatable illness or go uneducated in our plentiful countries, where so much goes to waste.
You cannot be everywhere. Would it not be reasonable to agree by consensus *in what circumstances help should be given? Similarly, I could volunteer to prevent only those crimes I witnessed personally, and refuse to contribute to policing in general.
I have deliberately not used the word “callous” since, like “enforced charity” or “lazy bum”, it is counteractive to useful debate. I simply cannot understand being perfectly willing to hand over one’s taxes (“at gunpoint if necessary”) in order to prevent crime, invasion or grant universal education, but as soon as using it to address immediate medical need is proposed it becomes governmental theft.
Are you not being coerced, by governmental mandate, to hand over your precious cash without being able to stipulate precisely what you want it spent on? Is that not unfair and unjust?
Charity is far wider than giving someone food. It is educating a stranger. It is paying a policeman or soldier to stop people hurting others, physically or financially. Taxation is charity.
Agreed, although I did specify feasible minimisation of suffering. If we widen our net to outside our own spheres of democratic influence (ie. other countries), minimisation of that suffering becomes far less feasible, especially given the ultimate retardation of progress that tax hikes way past European levels would likely cause.
In our own rich and bountiful countries, however, I feel that a great deal of suffering can feasibly be ameliorated without detrimental effect on innovation. When I see it here in Britain (and “I know it when I see it”) I do not look away, and I do not need to help personally except to ensure that the person knows where they can get help if they want it. Where the system fails them, I advocate changes so that it does not, including tax rises if necessary. I feel that in a country of plenty, it is unjust for humans to suffer unduly.
Well, if we’re in the realm of the “worst”, this would strictly be a medical consideration to be left to medical professionals. I personally would not know whether a victim of untreated stomach cancer suffers more or less than a hypothermic homeless person or someone who has been malnourished for months. However I would certainly not, like Buridan’s donkey, abandon the attempt to address such suffering just because I could not choose between them.
I dunno. How hard is it to write a check to the International Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, or some other well regarded aid agency? In reality, you have simply chosen which suffering you will address and which you will not.
Most people are generous and empathetic. It’s completely unclear to me that in countries like the UK or the US, private charities could not fulfil the role of ameliorating the suffering of those who are “truly needy”.
But, as I said above, I don’t really have a huge problem with the non-libertarian concept of a social safety net. I do disagree, however, with the a priori assumption that it is the **only ** way to deal with the issue of sfuffering. And I think there are good and bad ways to structure a social welfare system.
Well, now we are jumping between vastly different situations in our consideration of which suffering it is reasonable and feasible to prevent, and I had hoped to keep the discussion to within the existent political entity to which proposition #11 applies, anmely our own democratic countries, but your point holds. The difference is that, regardless of my donations to Third World first, I do not think charity is enough, and I advocate the use of tax revenue as foreign investment to supplement it (or indeed eclipse it entirely).
Could private charity police, educate and cure our nations’ people universally, let alone others? I think not. The genuine need for food, warmth, protection from crime could surely not be met by voluntary contributions alone. And then you must look upon the victims of the shortfall a ask yourself whether the policy you advocate makes them suffer when they otherwise might not.
I do not assume, but I do believe, that a social safety net is the only realistic way of tackling all genuine suffering. Voluntary contributions would surely leave much genuine need unmet.
I never said “police and educate” thru charity. I was addressing physical suffering, especially hunger.
As do you. It’s funny how advocates of government action never apply those standards to government programs.
We’ll probably never know the answer to that. But voluntary charity would eliminate precisely as much “genuine need” as the citizens of the country actually desired to eliminate.
One might conceivably make charity contributions to be a tax write-off instead of a tax deduction-- ie, take off charitable contributions from your actual tax bill, not just your taxable income. That would put the same weight of “public finance” on welfare, but would put the administration of the welfare entirely in the private domain. Those charities shown to be inefficient or ineffective would die, unlike government agencies that rarely, if ever, are phased out when they don’t work.
At the risk of entering this discussion too late, I must point out that this simply isn’t true; you’re saying something that’s dispelled in second year microeconomics. An agent’s actions taken to maximize utility can change dramatically with collective action, and can often INCREASE utility, not decrease it.
The classic thought exercise here is the classroom of 50 smokers with sensitive eyes; if all smokers place a value of $1 on being allowed to smoke, and place a negative value of 10 cents on the discomfort of sharing a room with another smoker, then in a classroom with no collective action against smoking every student will enjoy a marginal utility of 90 cents by choosing to smoke, but if there’s 50 smokers in the class all will experience a -$4.00 utility because everyone else is smoking. Absent collective action the logical choice is to smoke. But if they collectively choose to ban smoking, they will all experience a utility of 0, which beats -$4.10. The rational decisions with colelctive action (let’s ban smoking) and without the power of collective action (I may as well smoke if it’s not banned) are COMPLETELY different, but they’re both rational, and collective action improves everyone’s utility.
NOTE TO SMOKERS: THIS IS AN EXAMPLE ONLY. IT’S THEORETICAL. PLEASE DON’T BITCH TO ME ABOUT NON-SMOKING LAWS, OKAY?
It’s simply not true that collective action on “charity” necessarily means everyone is not getting the amount of charity they desire. The potential result of having no collective action in this regard is the same as the smoking example; since the marginal value of choosing not to donate in the absence of collective action is positive, everyone will choose not to donate, even though the result of everyone making the same choice might be worse for everyone than collective action would have been.
To use a really obvious example, imagine what would happen if, instead of making charity voluntary, you made military spending voluntary. The armed forces would quite obviously be short of money in a matter of weeks. It’d be disastrous. I would assume your position is that charity CAN be individually directed, whereas military spending can’t - few taxpayers can afford to buy an F-22 - but then, why not just have an Armython on PBS? Pledge now and your name will appear on screen! It sounds silly, but the central economic principles are the same:
Rational decisions made by free agents in a collective context can be completely different from equally rational decisions made in absence of collective decisions.
The collective decisions can work better than non-collective ones (and vice-versa, of course.)