Try to make ends meet; you're a slave to money; then you die.

[Milossarian]

It strikes me that the true “evil” isn’t money and our need to be enslaved to making it in order to survive. It’s land ownership.

You could drop out of our economic system and stop making money if you went the Ted Kasczynski route. (Actually, bad example. Because I think he never stopped using money and went into town for provisions occasionally.)

You could build shelter, grow your own crops, hunt, fish etc. (For the sake of my point, I’ll assume that you painted some guy’s barn for that rifle, bullets and fishing equipment.)

The only catch is that all land, everywhere, is owned. Maybe you’d get lucky, and try to do all of this somewhere where the property owner didn’t mind your squatting. But probably not.

Bums on the streets of New York are reliant on the good graces of property owners (often the city itself) allowing them to sleep on that park bench or beneath that overpass.

How do you get around the land ownership conundrum? I guess you can philosophically refuse to recognize the property ownership of others, but that could end you up in other privately-owned facility, with bars. Not the kind that serve liquor, either.

[Saint_Zero]

*Originally posted by jmullaney *
**Saint Zero – only tempted?

**

Only tempted. Now, if I were such a slave to the capitalist slavemongers and their monetary immorality, I might be tempted to find out how much you were worth to my local hospital. Or your ass might be on EBay, you never know…

I would start with a common definition of morality as being described by the Golden Rule or Kant’s moral imperative, I suppose, take your pick, as acted upon by an ideally rational and empathic person.

And yes, I suppose earning money isn’t strictly in and of itself immoral, but the fact that you earn money in order to spend it, and that no man is an island, leads to it’s immoral nature, because the end result is a universal social contract to which people are forced to consent in order to have a basic “standard of living” (another term I’ll leave hanging undefined for the moment). That social contract is no different than any other which spits out of the machinery of a moral imperative system.

“no man is an island unto himself, each is a piece of the puzzle, a part of the main.” For Whom the Bell Tolls, I think. It’s been awhile since 11 grade.

And what, exactly is wrong with the system as you’ve described it so far? My earning minimum wage in order to buy gas and burgers doesn’t cause some poor Sudanese child to go hungry one more night. Of course you have to earn money in order to spend it. Otherwise, it’s commonly called stealing. That’s immoral too. Earning a living isn’t immoral. Probably that Puritan work ethic showing through, that we should earn our way.

[quote]

The argument that some have given – that the system is moral because the ends justify the means – is invalid. They set up the strawman that without the forced consent inherent in the system, we’d have total anarchy, no specialization, and no economies of scale – for which they can offer no evidence. So my response, which is accused of being just as much of a strawman – perhaps rightly so – is that, even in mankind’s earliest days without technology or large economies of scale, there was still a division of labor and man survived with much less effort than what is required of the average person in the modern economy. So all we are doing is scaring away crows anyway. They would have me believe it took more effort for a stone age man to live (160 hours to kill a bison perhaps?) but hopefully some expert on the stone age will show up to refute that. I would argue that a free people are more productive that people who inherently aren’t free, and that technology tends to advance faster in less stifled economies.

Not that it matters anyway, because the “ends justify the means” argument for excusing the immorality doesn’t undermine the premise that the system is immoral to begin with.

[quote]

Here we part company again. “Ends justify the means” is not valid in my book. If I kill the murderer of a small family, how does that elevate me above him? If I embezzle vast profits from a company and funnel it to a enviromental group for use in buying rainforest, does that make me saintly somehow? Not in my book, because I believe how I accomplish something recieves just as much moral consideration as what I’m trying to do.

Now, on to freedom. Define it. Are we free? Not absolutely free. We have laws we have to follow. Why have laws? Because we don’t have a society that can behave without the threat of a judical system. This system includes laws against stealing, and laws enabling the government to help those who can’t find work and their families. It regulates how those of us who work can be treated. It regulates the companies who employ us. It taxes everyone in the system for a small part to finance the mutual protection of us all and police us on a national scale and an army of glorified clerks to take care of the paperwork. Is this system moral? Depends on how you define moral. According to how you interpret the golden rule, yes. (No, Kant wasn’t on my list of things to read in HS. Sorry.) We are a free people, within limits. And we have one of the biggest economies around. We aren’t forced to work in substandard conditions to earn housing or food.

Are you forced to particpate? Strictly speaking, no.

Now I’m not particularily drawn towards doing what is moral myself anymore. The real slaves are paid off and staid, as the song goes. Some people are convinced, however, that morality is the way to go though, for a variety of reasons, and they should consider what I’m saying. **

I’ve looked over what you’re saying, and I don’t see what you’re saying. Could you make your alternatives clear to us? How can we escape this pervasive opression that paychecks somehow enforce on me?

(hijack)
I hate people who always argue Devils Advocate. Nearly took a louisville slugger to a friend after one too many debates.(/hijack)

[Zakalwe]

Oh. My. God.

jmullaney

I have two major questions. I will try to be as unambiguous as possible. Please answer both of them:

**
[list=1]
[li]What is your definition of ‘leisure time’?[/li][li]What is your definition of ‘work’?[/li][/list=1]
**
According to you (and I still want a cite on this, dammit), my ancestors had to ‘work’ 20 hours a week for survival. This included (my assumption here) the procurement of food and shelter (clothing being a form of shelter). I spend 40 hours (actually more like 60 or 70) a week working for my employer. However, guess what? I LIKE what I do. When I’m not getting paid, I do it on my own time. So, you could say that I have complete leisure time. I’m not being forced to do something I don’t like doing in order to survive. Please make sure that my situation fits into your definitions.

grem

[waterj2]

This seems like a debate I would enjoy, if I could make figure out what exactly jmullaney’s point is. I have seen a flat out assertion of something that goes against all common sense, namely that cavemen worked only 20 hours a week. He has been called on to provide a cite for this repeatedly, and hasn’t, so I’m not inclined to waste too much effort on him.

I will state that using the amount of leisure time available as the only way to measure the quality of life is stupid. In every possible way our lives are easily a hundred times as rich as our Cro Magnon forefathers. And for that we only put in twice as much effort, even if we accept jmullaney’s statistic.

Throughout all of recorded history, people have overwhelmingly chosen not to live the life of cavemen, and have worked to the best of their abilities to be able to afford the comforts and amenities that the economic system has provided them. In order to get others to provide the products and services that make life better, one must provide something in return. This is not a matter of jmullaney being a slave to money, rather a matter of society not being a slave to jmullaney.

[Triskadecamus]

Half the leisure time, for twice the lifespan still works out to a break even. (Disregarding questionable statistics on Cro-Magnon productivity.)

Tris

[ed]

For the sake of articulation, let me take a stab:

This sounds like a distribution of wealth argument. It has been supposed by some anthropologists that the move away from a hunter-gatherer society to that of agriculture was a mistake. I don’t agree, but an interesting argument can be made, namely that with the ability to store goods beyond immediate need came the evils of greed, poverty, and a class system.

This sounds similar to what jmullaney is describing. If you assume the total world goods required for the human population to survive is a fixed amount, and then examine how to divide the labor so that this is most efficiently produced, then it becomes apparent that having people with accumulated wealth is detrimental to others. Those who have excess are taking away from the rest, ie, I have to work 40 hours a week to feed my family because rich kids need their GAP clothes (or whatever).

For the amount of money I make, for example, I could easily work only 15 hours a week and survive. I could even do it somewhat comfortably, if I gave up the luxuries I’ve come to enjoy. So for me, and others like me, your argument doesn’t wash, since we choose to be slaves to our luxuries. But not everyone has that choice, and I suspect that’s what you’re getting at.

What we have, then, is an argument for Socialism. You would like, ideally, for everyone to only be required to work for their fair share of the work that needs to be done for survival of the group (nation, state, world, whatever), rather than having some people be required to work entirely for survival while others have extra time and money available. You are also suggesting that this “fair share” would be less than the current 40 hours a week(which could be correct, I wouldn’t know), leaving more time for leisure activity.

In short, you don’t like that the lifestyles of the wealthy are dependant on the work of the poor. Am I close? Because many of us are having a hard time sorting out the actual logistics of your argument. You seem to be assuming that we all must work 40 hours to survive, and this isn’t the case. I have friends (artists, mostly) who do quite well working under 20 hours a week. They’re not on welfare, they don’t hunt their own food, they just managed to land decent part time jobs and decided they didn’t want much in the way of luxuries. For them, they have tons of leisure time and still recieve most of the benefits of modern society. Are you lamenting the fact that many people cannot do this?

[And for the record: while I’m pretty far left, I am by no means a socialist and I present these concepts only for clarification, as they don’t represent my personal philosophy. If someone who subscribes to these concepts wants to run with it(or pick them apart, please feel free.]

No Conservatives were harmed in the making of this post.

[jmullaney]

*Originally posted by Milossarian *
**How do you get around the land ownership conundrum? I guess you can philosophically refuse to recognize the property ownership of others, but that could end you up in other privately-owned facility, with bars. Not the kind that serve liquor, either. **

Well, I suppose to simplify allegorically, I would ask: If you are locked in a rich man’s silo, is it wrong to eat his grain? Now the rich man offers to give you food if you jump through certain hoops and act in an immoral way. But, keep this in mind, as best you can tell the “rich man” is locked in the silo too and he may only have gotten there five minutes before you did.

So, the basic trick of survival, is making that rich man’s other slaves realize that they are acting in an immoral way, and usually the ones who are too morally weak to act in a moral way will, out of guilt, provide you with all you need to survive and prosper. Those who wish to be moral may of course realize they are wrong and decide to be good people.

Saint Zero – we seem to agree that using the ends to justify the means is wrong, perhaps you misunderstood me. As far as your buying food causing others to starve, apparently another thing you missed in your education was supply and demand. If no one buys food, the monetary demand on it drops to zero, and it essential becomes worthless, hence free. And it does not matter that here in the States we are free not to participate, because as I have pointed out there are others in this economy who do not have much of a choice. (BTW, I only heard of Kant last week. I missed that in school myself.)

grem amd ed – apparently you guys have no idea what morallity is. When you kill someone, guess what? It doesn’t hurt you. Therefore, killing people is ok? Gee, I kill people, but my friend Larry is an artist and he’s not dead, so I don’t see what is so bad about it? Doing what is moral involves doing what is right by other people.

I only brought up the issue of hunter and gatherers to counter an equally unprovable point. I skimmed through 3 volumes of scientific literature to try and support my point, which I heard from a poster on another thread anyway, to no avail. It is a moot point. I don’t see why anyone would be inclined to think that such a society would have needed 80 hours to kill a bison or a mammoth or whatever. I just think that is unrealistic.

[ed]

? Gee, I kill people, but my friend Larry is an artist and he’s not dead, so I don’t see what is so bad about it?

What are you talking about? Here I am trying to sort out your argument and you launch attacks that have no relevance to what I was saying.

Did I say that people who manage to break away from the system are any more moral? No. I was simply pointing out that not everyone is a slave in the system as you keep saying. YES, MANY PEOPLE ARE, and if you want to pursue that line of arguing there are many socialists and communists who would agree with you. But that does not seem to be what you’re getting at, and so a lot of us are confused about where you’re trying to go with this. I even offered you help:

In short, you don’t like that the lifestyles of the wealthy are dependant on the work of the poor.

But this deosn’t seem to be what you’re saying, so now I’m really confused.

You seem fond of saying that the system is immoral without presenting any real development to your argument. What should we do about it? What, in your opinion, is the base cause for this immorality? Are you suggesting we revert to a hunter gatherer society, or that we should abolish currency, or what? What do you have to offer in this argument other than “work sucks and some people are really poor”, which we already know?

[Mr.Zambezi]

ed, I think that Mullaney is trying to refute the concept of ethical egoism: that people can act ethically while acting in their own best interests. This is the opposite of Kant, IIRC.

LEt me try to explain. Let’s assume everybody acts out of their own self interest and does what feels good. THen there is nothing to stop one from killing others, right? Wrong. Because fo my desire not to be killed, it is actually in my own best interest to assure that people don’t go around killing others. SO I support a collective system in which murder is prohibited. And this is, IMHO, what huimans have all done.

AS for workers being exploited by the rich, you are assuming that wealth and standard of living are a zero sum game. That for one to be richer, others must be poorer. This is simply not the case. Were that so, for the wealthy class to have risen, hunter gatherers and farmers would have to have gotten even poorer. If we started at a baseline subsistence level, for every person who climbed above it, others would have to have fallen below it.

In actuality, while many remain at the subsistence level, Many millions have risen to levels of wild surplus. People who create new agricultural techniques, labor saving inventions, and new technologies actually raise the overall standard of living. Just think for a moment what refrigeration has done for mankind.

Farmers and hunter gatheres did not just have to feed themselves daily. THey had to figure out how to live through winter and drought.

[pldennison]

I don’t see why anyone would be inclined to think that such a society would have needed 80 hours to kill a bison or a mammoth or whatever. I just think that is unrealistic.

Lets see:

1. There is probably at least as good a chance that dinner will kill you as that you will kill dinner.
2. You have to find a creature you are capable of killing, and track it.
3. You have to kill it, dress it, and transport it.
4. You have to prevent less ethical tribesmen from attempting to steal your kill.
5. You have to prevent wild animals from trying to steal your kill.
6. You don’t have refrigeration, so you have to do this every few days.

And those are just off the top of my head, and just for obtaining food. That doesn’t speak to the questions of finding safe shelter, nurturing infants, protecting oneself from the elements and from predators . . .

All in all, I’ll take what we have now.

[ed]

AS for workers being exploited by the rich, you are assuming that wealth and standard of living are a zero sum game.

As I said, I don’t actually buy into socialism, I’m simply trying to make sense of his argument(and playing devil’s advocate a bit). He has stated that by spending money we force people into a social contract against their will, which is not the case entirely.

In actuality, while many remain at the subsistence level, Many millions have risen to levels of wild surplus.

…is exactly my point. Money may seem bad for some people: specifically, those who don’t have it. But that does not necessarily imply immorality on behalf of spending it.

I don’t see why anyone would be inclined to think that such a society would have needed 80 hours to kill a bison or a mammoth or whatever. I just think that is unrealistic.

Okay, but we’re not talking about just subsistance. Anyone who chooses to reap the benefits of modern society is required to make up for that in additional labor. If I decide to become a hermit, and become completely self sufficient, I might be able to get away with working only a few hours every day to survive. But if I want to be able to survive the winter, or to have a nice house to live in, the amount of work required to achieve this becomes very high.

We have a much higher standard of living than the caveman, and we pay for it through work. If we want to reduce how much we work, we need to give up something. So the question is, what do you want us to give up?

[jmullaney]

*Originally posted by ed *
I was simply pointing out that not everyone is a slave in the system as you keep saying. YES, MANY PEOPLE ARE, and if you want to pursue that line of arguing there are many socialists and communists who would agree with you.

Well, I guess someone could make a cause and effect argument. Some people get up, do what they want, and end up getting paid for it. I think the majority of people work in order to get money. Of course, in many socialist and all communist countries I am aware of people are coerced through threats of incarceration to work for money whether they like it or not so I’m not too inclined to have these people on my side.

In short, you don’t like that the lifestyles of the wealthy are dependant on the work of the poor.

You should reread the OP if you’ve gotten confused. Let me summarize, again:

I simply believe that freedom is better than slavery. And I would prefer freedom. Therefore, I should prefer freedom for others. But, by spending money I am encouraging their enslavement and by making the basis of my survival the working for and spending of money I endorse a social contract which deems that money is required for survival.

You seem fond of saying that the system is immoral without presenting any real development to your argument.

I don’t see what in the previous paragraph requires development. What part don’t you get?

What should we do about it?

I really don’t know. It seems to me that the system is immoral, but since there is no justice, I personally have no problem continuing to act immoral myself. Not everyone is evil of course. If you are the kind of person who has problems acting in an immoral way you should cease participating in this system.

What, in your opinion, is the base cause for this immorality?

Money.

Are you suggesting we revert to a hunter gatherer society, or that we should abolish currency, or what?

1. No. There is absolutely no reason to give up the technological progress humanity has made. We’ve had a money based economy for 6,000 years. Most of our technology is less than 200 years old. People try to draw a correlation between them. I should not have let that whole hunter-gatherer hijack take place – my fault for bringing it up.

2. Abolish currency? Are you suggesting that the system could be changed through democratic means? We can’t even get campaign finance reform, ed!

3. Or what what? Look, with any moral imperitive, you do have to ask yourself if the world would be better if it was made universal; but, you also have to be realistic enough to realize it isn’t going to be a universal as long as there are immoral people in the world. In this case, if you chose to be moral while others act immorally, they essentially become your slaves and you do not have to work at all. Of course, you have to be somewhat transient, but if you sleep in a different house every night you are still sleeping in a house every night. What is the difference? In fact, this would be in your best interest in my opinion to have freedom and still have a descent standard of living.

“work sucks and some people are really poor”

If you are focusing on class warfare, you are basically missing the point.

[TampaFlyer]

This thread is a parody, right? Nobody could seriously believe the original claims.

I suspect that cavemen devoted more time to survival than we do, but if you think they had it better, why not live like they did? Donate your possessions to charity, move into the wilderness somewhere, & live off the land like an animal. Then you won’t need to be a “slave” anymore.

I think I’ll stay right here in the air conditioning, with all the modern conveniences. Have fun in the woods!

[jmullaney]

*Originally posted by TampaFlyer *
This thread is a parody, right? Nobody could seriously believe the original claims.

Can you be more specific?

[Gaudere]

Some people get up, do what they want, and end up getting paid for it. I think the majority of people work in order to get money.

I don’t follow this. If people want money, and so they work, aren’t they doing what they want? If they wished to work the minimum required for bare survival, the could do so; they choose not to. They want the money (or what the money will buy) more than they wish to not work, just as if I want to paint more than I want to read a book, I will paint. If I want a sandwich, I will do what is necessary to procure a sandwich, just as hunter-gatherers do what is necessary to procure food. If I don’t feel like doing what is necessary to provide myself with food, I will likely starve to death, barring charity from those who are willing to work extra to provide me with food. I may not like doing what it takes to get food enough that I would do it without the reward of food, just as I may not like my job well enough to do it without the reward of money (actually, without the reward of the things I can get with money). Would you say that I am therefore “forced” to procure food, or “forced” to work?

In this case, if you chose to be moral while others act immorally, they essentially become your slaves and you do not have to work at all.

You believe it is moral to allow others to work to provide for you while you do nothing for them?

[dal_timgar]

are you paying rent or a mortgage?

how did the people you are paying get the land?

what are you spending your ‘excess’ income?

you can find “Economic Wargames” on the internet with a search engine. our economist hasn’t refuted it yet.

                                             Dal Timgar

[Mr.Zambezi]

JM said

by making the basis of my survival the working for and spending of money I endorse a social contract which deems that money is required for survival.

You are a slave to your maw. Your corporeal being **needs **certain things on a constant basis. YOu must work to satasfy these needs. Whether you get paid in food, gold or currency, the reason you are doing it is the same.

Money just stores better than food, clothing or shelter, and it is more flexible. Try buying a steak with a part of your house.

Now, you could also be a slave to your wants, but that is a choice.

[jmullaney]

Is this the essay you wrote which you wanted me to read? I like it, and I agree with your points.

Wargames huh?
[computer voice]
They own lee way too win is nut to ploy they game
[/computer voice]
Is that a possibly valid conclusion?

If people want money, and so they work, aren’t they doing what they want?

Yes…

If they wished to work the minimum required for bare survival, the could do so; they choose not to.

True…

They want the money (or what the money will buy) more than they wish to not work,

Well, if everyone in the global economy lived in a free society, you might have an arguable point.

I still think this is a lousy argument anyway.

Let say you have a lab full of rats.

If a rat when he pushes a lever he gets a reward, you’d say that he was free to push the lever because he wants the reward.

But, if when he does not push the lever, he gets an electric shock, is he really free? Even though he gets a reward for pushing the lever?

Now, what if by pushing the lever the rat is actually charging the central electric shock machine? If all the rats stopped pushing the lever at the same time, none of them would get shocked. But they all want the reward.

Is that how you define freedom?

Now, no one really knows whether if all the rats stopped pushing their lever whether or not they might still be able to get the reward or not. But, it seems like either fearmongering or pessimism to just automatically conclude the worst. The rats may believe that there was a time in the past when things were not quite how they are now, but the countervaling argument is that the rewards are so much better now and even if they could still get rewarded when they stopped pushing the levers, the reward wouldn’t be as good.

You believe it is moral to allow others to work to provide for you while you do nothing for them?

Let’s say in some areas of the lab, a rat pushing his lever can give up some of his reward to turn of the electric shock of a rat who is not pushing the lever. In fact, the rat who is not pushing the lever is doing something for the other rats by showing them it is possible not to push the lever and not get shocked.

Although if he is getting shocked, whose fault is that? I suppose it is partly his for not pushing the lever which he is “free” to do. But if the shock is being powered by those who are pushing the lever, isn’t is partly their fault too?

[Mr.Zambezi]

JM said

But, if when he does not push the lever, he gets an electric shock, is he really free? Even though he gets a reward for pushing the lever?

The reason that such experiments work is becaus ehtey mimic the natural world. Rat does X, rat gets food. Rat does y, rat gets no food.

To use you example, if in the wild the rat stops engaging in behaviors that provide him with sustenence, he will feel hunger pains.

No one and nothing is punishing you for not working. You suffer because someone or something stops giving you money to meet your survival needs. Punishment for sloth is not man made.

[jmullaney]

*Originally posted by Mr.Zambezi *
No one and nothing is punishing you for not working.

Except in communist and socialist and fascist parts of the economy where you can be imprisoned, you mean, and capitalist countries where you are only forced into poverty.

Punishment for sloth is not man made.

OK, fine. Let me revise my example.

The rats have a blue lever and a red lever. The red lever gives them the reward and charges the generator to punish those who who do not push the red lever.

The blue lever sends out a message to the other rats that the rat in that cage has decided that pushing the red lever is wrong and to suggest the others stop doing that.

A rat may choose to push neither of course, but the moral choice would seem to be to push the blue lever.

Does this satify you now that work is required either way?