Welfare vs Charity

This issue bothers me more than anything nowadays, so let's have debate.

So why should a person be FORCED to help someone else? If someone needs help, they can always ask for charity.

Because once we choose to create a society, we agree to sacrifice some of our personal resources in the interests of greater availability of communal resources.  The next step is to decide which communal resources require the greatest investment.  Poverty is ubiquitous, and a drain on resources.  Whatever the reason, whether the poor have been unlucky, poorly educated, or are just stupid, lazy, or evil, they must be dealt with, and it has been proven over and over that personal and privately organized charity is inefficient and insufficient to the task.  Personally I believe that this is, in part, because people with lots of money have lots of money because they are not the most charitable people.  Politically I know that the bottom line on creating a minimum standard of living for the poor would be cheaper than addressing the problem in the half-assed, judgmental way we do now.
Just a few lines on an interesting topic.  Let's see if anyone else can post a position or an argument.  I'm not really interested in responding to people who are only capable of sniping at mine, or yapping about how it's all the fault of the "niggers" and the Jews.

>>2
I agree with some of your points, but to say that charities and the churches and the missions that help the poor are inefficient and the government magically could not be inefficient is a silly notion. Welfare and the entitlement system in general actually makes people believe that there's no point in working for the fruits of their labor.

I have a cousin that just had a child about a year and a half ago who's currently on the dole of Welfare. She was born and raised into a well-off yuppie family, and she said that it's the best thing ever. That being on Welfare and raising a child is better than bothering to go to school and getting an education. It's a scary thing when you consider the state your helping friend, because then you become like a drone; like the state is an infallible entity that can do no wrong.

She still has a desire to go back to school, but I don't see how she will being busy raising a kid and all.

This ties in with other things that the government gets involved in. The Federal Reserve has been debasing the dollar ever since its creation, and lowering the standard of living over time. The incredible loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States over the decades certainly hasn't helped. And any that are still available go out to legal and illegal immigrants first who flock here because we provide incentives like free health care and things like that since the federal government has been telling the states that they have to provide services to illegal immigrants. But that's a topic for a different thread.

The entitlement system in general has done more harm than help for the poor. There are large abuses of the system, and the emergence of the "Welfare mother" that actually has kids just to claim Welfare benefits. I've read a story from a teacher who was teaching a class in the Bronx it was I believe, and some of the female Black students have felt there was nothing more noble in life than to become a Welfare mother. Just produce children to receive checks and food stamps. I, of course, don't think it's just the Black females, I'm sure there's plenty of Hispanic and Causation females who also abuse Welfare in a similar way (by just becoming "Welfare mothers").

I could go on and on with the whole fallacy of the entitlement system, but you get the idea. It sounds get on paper, "Yeah! A Welfare system, help the poor and less fortunate! Great!", but for the most part, the reality of it is quite different.

Don't get me wrong, it's terrible that there's poor out there and they certainly need help. I think a better solution is more charities, and non-profit organizations that are more localized. This way, they help the poor in their own neighborhoods and communities. How they'll find a job once they get on their feet is a whole 'nother story. As I said before most of the manufacturing and small time work is gone overseas, and if there are any left, it's snatched up by illegal and legal immigrants first, then the American may be able to work there. The keyword there being may.

The people who herald charity over redistribution are usually the last people giving to charity in the first place.

>>4
Not true. I have donated to some foundations myself. In small amounts, but I donated what I could. I have obligations to fulfill and they cost me money as well.

OP here.

>Because once we choose to create a society, we agree to sacrifice some of our personal resources in the interests of greater availability of communal resources.

I do not agree with this. There is nothing that dictates that when you create a society you HAVE to create one with the element where the citizens have to sacrifice some of their personal resources for whatever cause. It can be the case, but it is not some essential element in creating a society.

And that is the topic I am trying to bring up. Why should this element, mandatory sacrifice of an individual's property for others (in this specific case, welfare) be included when creating a society? How exactly is this principle proper to human and therefore enrich human lives? So far from what I have observed and from studying history, it doesn't.

>Whatever the reason, whether the poor have been unlucky, poorly educated, or are just stupid, lazy, or evil, they must be dealt with,

Why must they be dealt with POLITICALLY? If a person feels sympathy for someone struggling, he is free to give the man struggling any amount of his own property as he wishes. But how exactly is it right to FORCE a man to give up his property to strangers he doesn't even know? If it's not right, then why should it be a political goal?

>and it has been proven over and over that personal and privately organized charity is inefficient and insufficient to the task

That is the same and only answer I have heard so far for my question from all over. But it does not address the main topic. The very topic is WHY should this "task", the task of "creating a minimum standard of living for the poor" be a political goal in the first place? How is this goal proper to human?

From my study of history and observation on present events, such a political goal is contradictory to human nature, and therefore, destructive.

>>5
So goes the same old tired excuse, while people still starve and freeze.
Some efficiency.

>>6

OP here again, a bit edit, meant to say "How is this political goal proper to human?" in that second last paragraph. Important clarification, missing the word "political"

>>6
Point one:  It is the essential element in any human society.  The sharing of burdens to increase the chances of group success. 
Point two:  Poverty is ubiquitous, and a drain on resources.  Charity and altruism are more desirable human characteristics than greed and being judgmental.
Point three:  Again. Poverty is ubiquitous, and a drain on resources.  And no one is "forced to give up his property to strangers he doesn't even know", except in that we are forced to belong to our society. Our participation in this society "forces" contribution to a general pool administered by our elected representatives.

It's a problem that's more expensive to ignore, yet many try.  They believe that if everyone works as hard as they, then poverty would disappear.  They are angry and want to blame poverty on the poor. They believe that the poor create their own suffering and that their suffering will "teach them a lesson"; perhaps even that poverty is a natural process that weeds undesirables out of society.  This is called social Darwinism.  It is not a humane philosophy. Is this what you meant by human nature?

P.S.: Your writing...  Is English your first language?  Not an insult.  Just curious.

>>7
People still "starve and freeze" under the entitlement system we have. So to think that the situation has changed is just plain ignorance. Have you actually met people on Welfare? It's like they've lost all ambition in life. "It's OK, the state will take care of me." It sounds great on paper, but put into practice, it's a whole 'nother story.

This system of Welfare actually encourages them to stay at the same level they're at, because it discourages working and keeps the recipients poor and complacent. Not to mention the entitlement system can be subject to new unfair CPI index calculations that show there's a higher standard of living when in face, if calculated under the old CPI index, would show that the standard of living has actually gone down. This gives politicians the "go ahead" to take some money from the pot. As they do already with Social Security.

When government becomes big like this, it also invariably grows corrupt, and the poor stay poorer and all the while you hear the news claiming the joys and success of Welfare, when in reality it's a completely different picture.

>>10
So says the school of Fox news punditry.  In turn I wonder what percentage of our budget goes to social welfare, vs. what percentage goes to stealing oil from brown people.

>>11
So says the school of Fox news punditry.
I don't watch Fox news. Or any news media for that matter. Especially not to get any real objective information.

In turn I wonder what percentage of our budget goes to social welfare, vs. what percentage goes to stealing oil from brown people.
There certainly is a huge discrepancy. I don't agree with that either, since I support those who advocate a non-interventionist foreign policy. That means not going into these endless wars, killing people for oil and stirring up trouble in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world.

Also, do you deny what I said about the entitlement system being subjected to CPI calculations that hurt and not help those already on the system? It's true and it's something no media channel will ever cover, including Fox news.

http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?BLOG,tx14_paul,blog,999,All,Item%20not%20found,ID=091102_3587,TEMPLATE=postingdetail.shtml

http://www.shadowstats.com/article/special-comment

So I'm willing to have a rational discussion. I voted for third party candidate in 2008, so I'm not a Republican nor a Democrat. I have criticized Bush and well as Obama for their actions domestically and overseas.

>>9

>Point one:  It is the essential element in any human society.  The sharing of burdens to increase the chances of group success. 

I disagree. Humans are not social animals. I mean this in the sense that a person can live fine in the wild by himself, difficult, but can still live. A human is not bound by his physical nature to a social group, like ant or bee, which cannot physically survive apart from their group. A human is an independent, selfish entity. Each person's own life, success, and happiness is the moral goal dictated by the physical nature of the human race, and that should be his purpose.

The reason why a person would find living with other people beneficial as opposed to living alone is because of trade. This important mutually beneficial activity in all forms is what improve human lives and the reason why a rational person would choose to live among other humans in a proper society instead of by himself.

A rational person don't come to live in a society so he can carry another's baggage or have someone carry his. A society of that kind destroy lives.

Trade in values, not sharing of burdens, should be the essential element in any human society. That is what the physical nature of human demands.

>Point two:  Poverty is ubiquitous, and a drain on resources.  Charity and altruism are more desirable human characteristics than greed and being judgmental.

I disagree

Firstly, poverty is not ubiquitous. Human nature does not destine man to fail. No matter one is rich or poor, if he strives and make the right choices, he will produce more and more wealth. The poor will grow rich and the rich will grow richer.

Secondly, on poverty been a drain on resources. Whose resources?

Lastly, on "Charity and altruism are more desirable human characteristics than greed and being judgmental." Why is it more desirable? And desirable for who?

>Point three:  Again. Poverty is ubiquitous, and a drain on resources.  And no one is "forced to give up his property to strangers he doesn't even know", except in that we are forced to belong to our society. Our participation in this society "forces" contribution to a general pool administered by our elected representatives.

Yes, welfare is having individuals under threat of force from the government to give up their property to people they do not know. If you do not pay up the share of tax that cover the welfare policy, you can be persecuted by law.

As for you latter parts, it makes no sense what you are trying to say. You are forced but you are not forced..?

>It's a problem that's more expensive to ignore, yet many try.  They believe that if everyone works as hard as they, then poverty would disappear.

Poverty will disappear if people are free and is willing to work/produce and trade and is safe guarded from theft on all fronts. But unfortunately destructive political policies such as welfare keeps that from happening and breeds more poverty.

>They are angry and want to blame poverty on the poor. They believe that the poor create their own suffering and that their suffering will "teach them a lesson"; perhaps even that poverty is a natural process that weeds undesirables out of society.  This is called social Darwinism.  It is not a humane philosophy. Is this what you meant by human nature?

What I meant by "human nature" is just that, what humans are. Humans are organism that have a volitional faculty that grants them free will (unlike animals) to do or not do in all things. Lion survive by hunting with fangs/jaw. Humans survive by using the reason faculty in his mind to transform inanimate objects into personal properties he can use to sustain his life.

As for this social Darwinism, that's not it. A promising young man struggling in poverty would deserve charity. I would personally help him, out of self-interest, because it gives me personal pleasure to help those I believe who deserve my help. I would not give a cent to a hobo by the street who would use it to buy another bottle of liquor.

The bottom line is though, whether I help or not, and who I help, is rightfully entirely up to me, since what I give out is my property, wealth that I have earned myself. And this applies to all human beings.

>>13
You are in error.  The human reproductive cycle and early development require an enormous social investment to succeed.  That a man, and I may add only a highly trained man, can walk into the wilderness and survive, does not change man's social nature.
The rest of your statements are equally erroneous, though it is fair for you to disagree with my placing the values of charity and altruism above all others.  This simply lets me know that you have a value system that is incompatible with mine, and therefore deem you an unsuitable member of my preferred society.  Guess we can't trade in values.  When you speak of trade you really mean commerce, and your words reek of objectivism.
Poverty is not ubiquitous. Where? 
Poverty would disappear if...   Yeah... poverty's just about how hard you work.  Fortune, random chance, intelligence, and even the weather play no part eh?  Nonsense. 
BTW, your inability to understand my statement about what we are "forced" to do may be due, in part, to a lack of context.  The contemporary global nationalist framework forces us to pick a nation to belong to.  Your individual human has no place left to go and be antisocial.  All of the land has been gobbled up, and armies built to hold it.  So like it or not we're stuck in this together until society collapses, or you're ready to fight for what you believe in.  So though we may be "forced" to belong to one of these societies, as I explained before social welfare is administered from willing (or willing enough) contributions to a general pool and administered by our elected representatives.
This is the real world. Your "values" are intellectual experiments.  One is kind, or unkind; generous or selfish; good or evil.  A wise man knows that judgment and blame are irrelevant, that there is only to help, or to refuse help.

>>12
I find it difficult to believe that you don't watch "any news media", particularly since this very site could be classified as such.  Even still, our media ecologies are complex things these days, and "real objective information" is pretty damn hard to come by.  At any rate, your lack of exposure to Fox news has no bearing on the fact that your language is representative of its content.
I have argued for the moral, political, and logical reasons for public assistance(welfare, entitlements, whatever...)in another exchange.  As you have presented personal experiences and observations I shall respond in kind.  I have seen welfare recipients.  I am from a city with a large number of them.  A city that has rarely dropped out of the top five in murders in the US in the last 20 years.  It's even made #2.  But nobody beats Detroit.  And I lived among these people for many years.
I'm not a democrat or a republican either.  In fact, I expatriated myself 10 years ago, and after a lifetime of voting, never missing even the smallest election, and even voting by absentee ballot while in the military, I stopped.  While abroad I had the chance to observe poverty in many countries all over the world.  And here's what I've learned.  Poverty is the result of a combination of three factors, present in every case, in varying proportions.  1. Inadequate resources.  2. Inefficient distribution of resources. 3. What I'll call the X factor.  You see, I'm a lazy man.  Incredibly lazy.  I do very little, yet I am still able to live a comfortable and independent life.  Because in this wealthy society making money is easy.  I'd go so far as to say that if you can't make money in this society, then there's just plain something wrong with you. I don't know what it is, and I don't care.  I've seen poor people everywhere, and there always have been poor people, and poor people will be around until we figure out that X factor.  But we haven't figured it out yet(though education is a hell of a start).  So in the mean, the smart thing to do, the economical thing to do, the humane thing to do, is to feed and shelter these people.  'Cause it really is a minor thing, and the sooner we can agree on that simple thing, and deal with it, the sooner we can move on to fighting the corrupt, ambitious, greedy warmongers who currently own us.

>>14

>You are in error.  The human reproductive cycle and early development require an enormous social investment to succeed.

Social investment? Which one do you mean, charity or trade? It makes a world of difference which one you meant.
 
>That a man, and I may add only a highly trained man, can walk into the wilderness and survive, does not change man's social nature.

There is a big difference between it cannot be done and it is difficult to be done. A human can survive alone, and that is enough to show that he is physically an independent being. The fact he receives an incalculable benefit trading within a society doesn't make him physically dependent on other human begins, like ants or bees.

>The rest of your statements are equally erroneous, though it is fair for you to disagree with my placing the values of charity and altruism above all others.  This simply lets me know that you have a value system that is incompatible with mine, and therefore deem you an unsuitable member of my preferred society.  Guess we can't trade in values.  When you speak of trade you really mean commerce

Charity and altruism cannot be the highest values. Before one can even start to think about charity or altruism, one have to produce the goods to give away. The ability of production is a higher value/virtue, since without that, charity or altruism cannot even exist.

You say you and I can't trade because we differ in moral values. That will be true if you practice altruism consistently. Because by then you will have no goods to trade with me, you have gave them all away. You won't be able to trade with anybody.

And as for trade, yes, commerce is one of them.

>Poverty is not ubiquitous. Where?

I assume you mean by "ubiquitous" as in it will always be there. I am saying that is not true since poverty is not something necessitated by human nature. If what you were trying to instead state the fact that poverty is in a lot of places at the present time, then that is a true statement.

>Poverty would disappear if...   Yeah... poverty's just about how hard you work.  Fortune, random chance, intelligence, and even the weather play no part eh?  Nonsense.

I disagree. Accidents plays a very small roll in the production of wealth. If good luck and random chance is the root of majority of fortunes of whatever kind or size, then there wouldn't be any demand for schools/trainings.

From the facts I observed, the major cause of today's poverty is the government, with policies such as welfare among others.

>BTW, your inability to understand my statement about what we are "forced" to do may be due, in part, to a lack of context.  The contemporary global nationalist framework forces us to pick a nation to belong to.  Your individual human has no place left to go and be antisocial.  All of the land has been gobbled up, and armies built to hold it.  So like it or not we're stuck in this together until society collapses, or you're ready to fight for what you believe in. 

Fair enough clarification. The only thing I have to object is the use of the word "antisocial". If a person is willing to trade with others, but not willing to carry their baggage, then I wouldn't say he is antisocial.

>So though we may be "forced" to belong to one of these societies, as I explained before social welfare is administered from willing (or willing enough) contributions to a general pool and administered by our elected representatives.

How do you know they are willing, or willing enough? Like I said, welfare is administered BY LAW, it's not something voluntary. That is the central and essential difference between welfare and charity. One is forced, the other is voluntary.

>This is the real world. Your "values" are intellectual experiments.

Society is a man made entity like a building or plane or medicine. And like all man made entities, it can be changed for the better, or for the worse. That's what the science of politics is all about.

If you say the present state of matter is "real" and unchangeable and my values are just "intellectual experiments", then I guess the thought of inventing a new drug such as penicillin to cure diseases or the thought of founding a new nation such as the US to pursue liberty are all just "intellectual experiments" and not sticking to what's "real" no?

>>15
Oh, I agree with many of your points. What I meant by 'not watching any news media' is the news media presented in newspapers, radio and television. I should have been more detailed in that context.

There's no doubt that there's poor people that need help. I'm not saying they shouldn't be helped; not at all. But we seem to have different philosophical differences in how this should be achieved. You seem to prefer that the government can do this, where I believe that missions, charities, churches and whatnot can do this just fine. What I'm arguing is that when government is doling out these services, they are cheating the people (especially Social Security recipients), from getting the assistance that they were promised. I was pointing out government can screw up this process as I provided the two links in my previous post to how over the decades the methodology of how CPI prices are calculated and the Social Security and Welfare trust funds are depleted by politicians using the money for all these wars instead of going out to senior citizens that were promised this to.

In fact, Social Security checks from the government should be nearly double than what they are now. It's corrupt, it's immoral, and it's utterly destroying the lives of people. So what can we do? My argument is there needs to be more charities and missions helping these people on a local level. There are, but what is there is not enough. And you're right, if we weren't in all these endless wars, instead of helping our own, things would be much better. War is a goddamn corporatist racket, and it's disgusting and immoral. If there were any justice in this world, all presidents who advocated interventionism overseas would be tried by the Supreme Court.

So yes, I largely agree with you, with the exception of how a solution should be accomplished.

I only trust politicians who recognise welfare needs to be well spent or it will backfire, not politicians who's supporters consist of ghetto trash welfare queens who scream hysterically about how they are victims while fat rolls out of their $150 pumps.

>>16
Charity or trade?  I meant neither.  I was repeating a dude named Aristotle.  And another guy named John Locke.  And most significantly I was stating an obvious anthropological and sociological fact. 
If you keep stretching this far you're gonna pull a muscle.
I'm not gonna respond to your equivocations.  Unless you're a troll, it's beneath you, and since a careful re-reading will show that I have already clearly addressed all of your concerns, I have to end this here.  It's time for you to put Atlas Shrugged back on the shelf.  I keep it with the other philosophies presented in works of fiction(Camus, Sartre, Hesse, Kafka).  I keep it right next to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and all of those between real philosophers, and scriptures. 
Then you should think about this.  Whatever we create is a reflection of ourselves.  Poverty will exist until we create a benevolent society, and we remain incapable of creating a benevolent society because most of the active members of our contemporary society are more selfish than generous. They abuse reason by using it to argue for selfishness, calling it "enlightened self interest" and deny the sole characteristic that makes us truly human, truly humane.  Compassion.  My value system  is simple.  I believe that what I believe is more important than my life, and that my first duty is to protect the weak.  Now you tell me what you believe, and let's do the math.

>>17
Then we pretty much agree on everything.  Regarding the CPI; it's not really covered because it doesn't have to be.  It's common knowledge.  Nobody has to tell anybody who makes a cent of money that that money ever maintains it's value over time.  Inflation is the only constant in this ridiculous primitive economic system we're chained to. 
And the crux?  Private vs. Public?  You're right.  The government fucks up everything it touches.  But if private charities can handle the problem, then why don't they?  Is it your assertion that if all of the taxes that go to social assistance programs were eliminated, that our "missions, charities, churches and whatnot" would then have enough money to handle the problem?  Come on.  I don't approve of the way our current governments are handling the problem, but I see that as being directly related to the fundamental problems in the systems.  I still maintain that one of the main functions of any system of government that a society chooses is to provide for those who are, for whatever reason, incapable of providing for themselves.  Especially now that these god damned monsters have denied us all the option to abstain.

An interesting chart.

http://www.portfolio.com/interactive-features/2007/10/most_generous_nation/

>>20
Regarding the CPI; it's not really covered because it doesn't have to be.  It's common knowledge.  Nobody has to tell anybody who makes a cent of money that that money ever maintains it's value over time.
Right, but as I was saying before, if the government stuck with the old methodology of how it calculated CPI, then Social Security checks would be nearly double what they are. And Social Security recipients would be much better off if they did. And yes, inflation also plays a part in this. It's like a second tax, if you will. And Fed chairman Ben Bernanke even admitted this on one occasion.

Since they haven't stuck with the old methodology of calculating CPI, this has created a big problem for Social Security recipients. I'm sure they've done the same to the Welfare and Medicare/Medicaid trust funds as well. Point is, big government is corrupt and they couldn't help the poor if their lives depended on it.

>>19

You obviously have no clue about the source of wealth and the cause of the present state of poverty.

Wealth don't grow on trees or drop from the sky and appear randomly in the world. It is produced by people, through hard work. Every person have their own goals to pursue in life, and they work hard to achieve it. If someone is in poverty, it might not be entirely be their own fault, but it sure as hell isn't anybody else's fault unless they stole from him.

The very implication of welfare is that people who are richer must always have somehow stole from those that are poorer. And that unstated implication is what serves as the moral justification for welfare. The people who believe this have no clue about the source of wealth.

The function for wealth is such:

(raw material) x (invention/innovation) = wealth

Raw material, like oil, is static, so this factor cannot change. What changes is technology (invention/innovation..etc.). A simple example would be a new engine that can pump out twice the amount of power than the old ones from the same amount of gasoline. Therefore, more wealth is produced from the same amount of raw materials.

And what's the source of technology? The human mind.

That is the source of wealth. People (baring criminals) MAKES their fortune. Without them, their wealth wouldn't have existed in the world.

When you take WITHOUT CONSENT the wealth created by one man and give it to another, you are essentially destroying both of their lives. It is a wrong political action and one of the consequence is that it will act to discourage the person who created the wealth to create more, and it will act to discourage the person who need wealth to create them. You are essentially going against justice by rewarding bad choices and punishing good ones. Another important consequence is that welfare steals private wealth that could have gone into investments that would have created many more times its original worth of new jobs, thus decreasing employment rate from what could have been. Those are just some of reasons why why welfare never solves poverty, but in fact, breeds more.

As for the cause of present state of poverty, when I say if a person is in poverty, it might not entirely be his own fault, but it sure as hell isn't anybody else's, UNLESS THEY STOLE FROM HIM, there is somebody that steals from the poor, the government.

There are many examples, welfare been one of them. I'll choose another one, the minimum wage. When a person is willing to work for $7 a hour on a certain job and a employer is willing to hire people for that job on that wage but no more, and the government steps in and says, "Nope, you gotta pay him more or no employment.", what do you think happens? That person is robbed of his job and the employer is robbed of an employee. Translate this to the national level and you will have a rise in unemployment followed by a rise in poverty.

There are many other examples I can list, but the fact is the government is the biggest cause of today's poverty. On the issue of welfare, there is no justification for welfare both morally and practically. Morally it is wrong and the consequence practically is that it does not solve poverty but causes more. You say your value system is simple, and that you choose your first duty as the protection for the weak. Then know that what you are arguing for does no such thing but ironically causes more suffering for the weak.

>>23
The function for wealth is such:

(raw material) x (invention/innovation) = wealth

Gee, that’s an interesting “function”.  Let’s have a look.  Raw material = Resources right?  Does that include human resources?  I’m asking because I don’t see any factor representing actual work by people in there.  Perhaps you meant to include it under invention.    Cause it’s kind of important.  If it’s represented by “raw material” then you’ve just equated people with any number of raw materials, let’s say, meat.  People are meat eh?  But no.  You obviously meant to include it in invention/innovation.  It’s a pretty simple formula.  But if the work required exceeds the production capabilities of a lone individual he will be forced to enter into agreements with other people.  Damn people.  Now they’re gonna be wanting a share of the innovators “wealth”.  How much do they deserve?  Let’s look at what wealth is.  Personally, I’d have to say that the “function” for wealth is:  (commodities necessary for survival)–(commodities on hand).    You might argue “that’s not wealth, that’s profit, or a simple surplus” and you would be right to, because your society’s definition of wealth includes influence and power over other peoples’ lives, but there are a few little problems with this.   As humans we know that power and responsibility are at least joined, if not one and the same.   Assuming the wealthy and powerful are responsible for that which they have built around them, they must accept responsibility for the poor, for poverty is a byproduct of their creation, and, once again, a drain on resources.  Where there is wealth, there are scavengers.  It is the way of nature.  If there is a river, all will try to drink.  The wealthy and powerful might have the right to exile it’s scavengers, but that’s become impossible since the wealthy and powerful have claimed that they require all of the worlds habitable lands for their purposes, and expend great resources in defending their claim.  So they’re stuck with them.  Responsible for them. 
Then there’s time.  It would be a different world if everyone generated their wealth through your formula.   But it doesn’t really work that way.   Innovators create great mechanisms for generating wealth, and focus great power for a time.  Then they die, and the wealth and power, still highly focused, passes into the hands of managers.  Managers whose only abilities and capabilities exist to maintain and increase the wealth.    Most often, these “heirs” gain access to the power by simple proximity.  They belong to the same culture, socioeconomic group, went to the same schools, lived in the same places, and mostly, were in the same family.  Practically everything they have was handed to them because they were in the right place, at the right time, and close to the right person or small group of people.  And talk about a sense of entitlement!    That they have no actual physical skills is darkly amusing.  The true source of wealth is cut off, entropy takes over, and slowly, eventually, they again begin the vicious circle that is the foundation of your system.  The suffering poor are motivated to improve their circumstances, create in order to relieve it and round and round we go.  And there’s the truth of it; you have been trained to both fear and love suffering.  You believe that it’s the primary source of human motivation.  It is you who relegate us to the status of ants and bees. 
But we are human beings.  Our greatest suffering is not physical.  It’s emotional, philosophical, intellectual, and spiritual anguish that leaves the greatest mark on us.  And it’s this suffering that motivates our greatest advancements, and these usually in opposition to “natural” progression.   We cure diseases, we learn that it’s wrong to try to own other people, that it’s wrong to kill whole groups of people, we develop technologies to facilitate better communication, and we work to improve our community.  You believe that you work for yourself, and that somehow the product of that work is yours alone to distribute as you see fit.  This would be fine if you were a mountain man, but you’re not.  You choose to live among the rest of us, and in return, we expect you to bear your share of the responsibility.  Yet you cling to the idea that the physical component of suffering is not only our greatest social motivator, but that it’s justice. Why?  In your case it’s because it’s what you’ve been taught to believe, but the root of the problem is simple primal fear.  Something less than human within you that creeps up and pushes you to desire more than you can ever foreseeably need, because tragedy may strike at any time.  Because at any time you may need all of the resources at your disposal just to survive, and damn the rest.  You divide to conquer.  You divide society into the “government” and the “market” and attempt to use the government as a tool of the market, rather than the reverse, preferring the system that addresses our desires,  because the greedy, obsessed with their own desires, are skilled at manipulating the desires of others,  rather than that which represents our ideals, and use instruments(like currency) to further stratify the population, all in the hopes that you can protect yourself, putting more and more bodies between you and that which you fear.  But humans are stronger together.  And to be human is to be courageous and generous.  You claim that feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and sheltering the homeless “destroys families”.  I think that starving, disease, and freezing does more harm. 
Just a few more words.  At this point you may be thinking that I’m a communist.  I’m not.  I can envision a society that meets the basic needs for all without depriving individuals of their rights or the product of their own efforts.  But I can see this because I have been given the opportunity to see the flaws in the two main ideologies most people’s minds are trapped in.   I have arguments equally as scathing for those who claim to be on the “left”, but I haven’t addressed them because that’s not the direction you’re coming from.   I’ve written this behemoth tl;dr in support of the idea that it’s time to end this ridiculous poverty problem, that it’s the responsibility of society and it’s chosen government, and that if individuals were capable of rising to the challenge through charity it would have already been eliminated.   I haven’t said how, and though I know, that knowledge is irrelevant as long as there are people like you, who somehow believe that the poor are just getting what they deserve; that it’s a natural and necessary state of being.  Now go learn to be a man, instead of a business man.  Learn that what is in your head is more important than what is in your pockets.  Quit spitting out your poorly understood impressions of other peoples obsolete and discredited ideas.  Learn that honorable skills involve growing food, building shelter and tools, and scholarship.   Men whose “work” consists of trading and distributing the product of those skills and that work are like the parasites that infect the brains of, and change the behavior of their hosts.  And realize that these parasites(lawyers, accountants, salesmen, and corporate managers and officers among others) are still far too numerous among us.
I guess things aren't as fuckingobvious as you thought, 'eh?
At least this time you tried to present a position, instead of sniping at selected points in my posts.

>>24

Innovators create great mechanisms for generating wealth, and focus great power for a time.  Then they die, and the wealth and power, still highly focused, passes into the hands of managers.  Managers whose only abilities and capabilities exist to maintain and increase the wealth.    Most often, these “heirs” gain access to the power by simple proximity.  They belong to the same culture, socioeconomic group, went to the same schools, lived in the same places, and mostly, were in the same family.

That's anti-SEMANTIC
http://www.mailstar.net/burnham.html
http://mailstar.net/ginsberg.html
... u honky

>>25
I'm so glad you pointed this out!  Though my use of the word managers was my own, and my only familiarity with Burnham is what may have slipped into my mind from our intellectual collective consciousness; our shared media ecology, it illustrates an important point.  In a seeming paradox I rail against the dangers of the state and socialism, yet I seem to be arguing in support of "government welfare".  Mea culpa. I do not believe that they are in opposition.  I'm what I'd call a true conservative.  Now I know that sounds pretty much like those who say that they are true christians or true americans.  It's meaningless.  So I'll say this.  I believe that a conservative conserves resources, and people are the greatest resource.  And I'll address your odd accusation of anti-semitism.  A conservative believes in, forgive me, calling a spade a spade, so I'll say this to the Jews:
Hi Jews.  Wow, you guys sure have a lot of money.  And like Ben said(the Jewish intellectual scholar who wrote the article at the other link you provided)you're disproportionately represented all over the place.  But you know what, Jews? I know that that's because your culture is a whole hell of a lot more focused on study than ours.  And though you're disproportionately represented, I know that us white folks are still the vast majority.  And that it's our game.  Smith(as in Adam) ain't a Jewish name.  So if I don't like something you're doing, it's kind of incumbent on me to come up with a better idea, huh?  I know that you guys have managed to fit in and prosper in every society you've ever been thrust into, following the many pogroms and diasporas, and though, like the Scot's, you don't have a reputation for personal generosity, you do have a reputation for advocating advances in human rights.  So I guess thanks is in order.  And we'll get back to you once we have a better idea.  And we're sure you'll do the same.  BTW Jews, I am aware of the fact that your most commonly held view of Zionism, cyclic, is not as malignant as the usual apocalyptic christian sort. 
So where were we?  That's right... let's feed the hungry people.

>>24

Let me clarify, the function I presented represents the wealth generated by an individual, not the net sum of a collective. As for work and time, I didn't put it in because under my function that factor is static/solidified (assuming the individual is healthy and work for the same amount of period). The purpose of this is to illustrate the reason why some people can produce more and become richer than others when everyone is healthy and worked for about the same amount of time. This is also essentially the very purpose of this entire function. And the purpose of me presenting it is to show that the childish misguided notion that people become successful somehow does so by "stealing" from others, is incorrect. There is nothing wrong with helping people, but those who became successful surely as hell doesn't OWN anybody anything if they brought and paid every step of the way to their fortune.

Now, if an individual happens to have people working under him, it changes nothing. All that happens is a trade, the individual exchange his own wealth that he saved up as wage and trade it with the worker for his work. There is no "sharing" anywhere. Both side produces values and voluntarily trade with each other. An inventor owns the whole of his invention (assuming he didn't sell it) even when he had employed workers. Whatever the workers contributed to his invention he traded for it with wage, and that contribution becomes the inventor's through the trade.

As for how much do they [workers] deserve? What wage is fair? That's up to the law of supply and demand and it's their (employee and employer) own business to barter it out. The employee is free to seek other businesses who can offer a better wage, and the employer is free to seek out other workers who have better qualifications. No one is forced to hire or work, it's all voluntary, that's what a free country is all about and basic econ101.

>Personally, I’d have to say that the “function” for wealth is:  (commodities necessary for survival)–(commodities on hand).    You might argue “that’s not wealth, that’s profit, or a simple surplus” and you would be right to,

That erroneous function of yours is not anything. For it to be even considered some sort of surplus you will have to switch it backwards.

And yes, you are damn right in saying I would point out that your function has nothing to do with wealth. Wealth is the commodity themselves, and your function says absolutely nothing about how they are produced, and more importantly, why can some individuals produce more than others in the same amount of time under the same conditions.

>because your society’s definition of wealth includes influence and power over other peoples’ lives, but there are a few little problems with this.

I'm not right in saying that your obviously bad function is wrong because of some nonsense you wrote here. I am right in saying that because your function IS wrong and have absolutely nothing to do with the production of wealth nor explain why some man can become more wealthy than others.

>As humans we know that power and responsibility are at least joined, if not one and the same.   Assuming the wealthy and powerful are responsible for that which they have built around them, they must accept responsibility for the poor, for poverty is a byproduct of their creation, and, once again, a drain on resources.

So, let me spell it out here, you are saying the rich has a responsibility to take care of the poor because poverty is the byproduct of people becoming..wealthy? You are essentially saying wealth production produces poverty as a byproduct, and your argument for that is...

-Where there is wealth, there are scavengers.  It is the way of nature.  If there is a river, all will try to drink.  The wealthy and powerful might have the right to exile it’s scavengers, but that’s become impossible since the wealthy and powerful have claimed that they require all of the worlds habitable lands for their purposes, and expend great resources in defending their claim.  So they’re stuck with them. 
Responsible for them.

So if we cut all the chitchats, essentially what you are saying is that the rich became rich because they hogged all the raw materials and the poor became poor because all the raw materials were hogged by the rich. And, by your argument, if that's the case, then the rich have a moral responsibility to take care of the poor because it is the rich that caused the poverty. Am I getting it right?

To believe that rich became rich on a free market because they hogged all of a certain resource, and thus somehow creating a monopoly and chocking supply so they can sell it at unprecedented high price, is just plainly mistaking. People can try to "hog" raw materials, but this feat of buying resource rich lands cannot create a monopoly that allow him to set the price of his resoruce to whatever he wants. In economics and in business, there is always substitute for any given product/resource, and new substitute are free to be made though invention/innovation. If a person tries to hog resources and actually succeeds in the expensive and risky venture of buying the majority of the land containing that resource, he still cannot set the selling price of his resource above what is dictated by the law of supply and demand, or else people will start to buy or create cheaper substitute instead and leave him out of business. This is basic econ101. Monopoly cannot exist on a free market, and certainly not how fortunes are created in a free market.

Like I said before, for an individual to produce more wealth than before thus to get rich, he has to think up new and better ways of doing things. Fortunes are not made through cornering existing market. Fortunes are made when someone creates a new market that never existed before though invention/innovation. That is the source of wealth.

On to the point that this act of wealth creation somehow drive people into poverty, that is just plain nonsense.

>>>>>>Your second paragraph<<<<<<<<<

Whatever invention/innovation is made, it belong solely to the inventor/inventor. Since it's his, it's also his right to give/share to whomever he likes. If what you are trying to get at here is that the people he shared it with happens to be incompetent and only got wealthy because of the luck this incompetent "manager" had by acquainting himself with the inventor, then I say that could happen, but if the "manager" person is truly incompetent, then this gift is just a drop down the drain and whatever wealth he achieved though the inventor's mistaken generosity will be short lived.

>That they [the manager] have no actual physical skills is darkly amusing.  The true source of wealth is cut off, entropy takes over, and slowly, eventually, they again begin the vicious circle that is the foundation of your system.

Like I said, if this "manager" person is truly incompetent, his wealth will be short lived. As for the second part about some vicious circle, you better clarify what the hell you are talking about, so far it looks like nonsense babbling.

On your last statement:
>The suffering poor are motivated to improve their circumstances, create in order to relieve it and round and round we go.  And there’s the truth of it; you have been trained to both fear and love suffering.  You believe that it’s the primary source of human motivation.  It is you who relegate us to the status of ants and bees.

Really now? I believe that the relief of suffering is the primary human motivation? Aren't you mixing your own belief with mine?

What I believe, and what the facts about men show, is that human are organisms with free will. Unlike animals, we are not born with a purpose, we choose our purpose in life. The relief from suffering can be a primary motivation for a person if that individual choose that goal as his purpose. But this choice of goal is certainly not necessitated by human nature. And the avoidance of suffering is certainly not what brings people out of poverty or allow them to achieve greatness.


>>>>>>Your last paragraph<<<<<<<<<

>But we are human beings.  Our greatest suffering is not physical.  It’s emotional, philosophical, intellectual, and spiritual anguish that leaves the greatest mark on us.  And it’s this suffering that motivates our greatest advancements, and these usually in opposition to “natural” progression.

Fucking wrong. You are telling me that individuals who made great fortunes or/and in advancement of technology, people who made the car, the plane, the rocket, the telephone, the computer, the google..etc. are motivated by suffering? And you say I AM the one who view human as animals?

Those people's goal is the pursuit of happiness, not the avoidance of suffering. What motivated them is AMBITION. It's the thought "this is not good enough, I can do better". And they did.

>You believe that you work for yourself, and that somehow the product of that work is yours alone to distribute as you see fit.  This would be fine if you were a mountain man, but you’re not.  You choose to live among the rest of us, and in return, we expect you to bear your share of the responsibility.

Clearly stating your premises, I like that. But what you just said is dead wrong.

The concept you are having trouble with or dismissing entirely is TRADE. I addressed this in my second paragraph this post. I'll address it again. What ever contribution a worker made towards the final product, he TRADES that contribution, which is his, with the wage paid to him, which belongs to the employer. After this exchange with all the workers, the employer owns all of the contribution the workers made, which sums up to the final product. Therefore, as long as the employer paid all his dues, the final product is his in whole, and by right, just as the worker is with the wage paid to him. This applies to all business relationships. The only responsibility anyone have in a society to others is to pay up for what he buys and to own up to contracts he made, that's it.

>Yet you cling to the idea that the physical component of suffering is not only our greatest social motivator, but that it’s justice. Why?  In your case it’s because it’s what you’ve been taught to believe, but the root of the problem is simple primal fear.  Something less than human within you that creeps up and pushes you to desire more than you can ever foreseeably need, because tragedy may strike at any time.  Because at any time you may need all of the resources at your disposal just to survive, and damn the rest.

Haha, quite the e-psychiatrist are we? First of all, like I said, suffering is not whats motivates individuals to achieve greatness. That is what YOU believe. What I believe motivates individuals to achieve greatness or to rise above poverty, is ambition (this is not good enough, I can do better), and greed (this much wealth is not large enough, I can produce more). And the reason why people choose to be ambitious or greedy is not because they want to make more and better things so they can save them up to for some tragedy that may or may not come and so avoid suffering, but because as human begins, we become happy when we are able to achieve more than before. That is their goal, the pursuit of happiness.

>You divide to conquer.  You divide society into the “government” and the “market” and attempt to use the government as a tool of the market, rather than the reverse, preferring the system that addresses our desires,  because the greedy, obsessed with their own desires, are skilled at manipulating the desires of others,  rather than that which represents our ideals, and use instruments(like currency) to further stratify the population, all in the hopes that you can protect yourself, putting more and more bodies between you and that which you fear.

On your first point. If you are trying to point out that there are businessmen out there that seeks government invention into the market to bar out competitors so they can create a monopoly (which is the only way a monopoly CAN be created), then yes, there are people out there like that and this do happen. But those people are not whom I vouch for. They are not motivated by ambition, by the pursuit of happiness. Those men are motivated by fear, the fear of someone who is more ambitious than they are to come up with a better product than what they currently have. And the government have no right to intervene in the economy. If the government had acted it's proper role and separates itself from the economy (like from the church) and leave a truly free market, then this can never happen.

As for the rest, I have absolutely no idea what are you trying to say, so you better step up your act and state your argument clearly, or else you won't get a reply.

>You claim that feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and sheltering the homeless “destroys families”.

Really now, quote me. What I said was taking the property of one person, WITHOUT HIS CONSENT, and giving it to another, acts to destroy both.

Did I say giving charity to a hungry or sick person who you think deserves your help somehow "destroy families"? Stop twisting my points to help your own convenience. It is dishonest and low.

>Just a few more words.  At this point you may be thinking that I’m a communist.  I’m not.  I can envision a society that meets the basic needs for all without depriving individuals of their rights or the product of their own efforts.

If you are arguing for welfare instead of charity, then you certainly are depriving individuals of their rights and the product of their effort. And by arguing for welfare, that makes you a communist on principle, the only difference is in magnitude.

>I’ve written this behemoth tl;dr in support of the idea that it’s time to end this ridiculous poverty problem, that it’s the responsibility of society and it’s chosen government, and that if individuals were capable of rising to the challenge through charity it would have already been eliminated.

Wrong. First, on your errourous notion that it is the responsibility of the government or society to eliminate poverty.

Human begins have free will and are fallible.

Human begins have to work/think, by choice. Human begins are not guaranteed success by nature even if he choose to work/think.

Nobody can make another person who chose not to work work. Nobody can give another person 100% chance of success on a venture/work he is going to undertake.

That is the way of things between man and nature. Government or society are just made up of people, of other human begins. Grouping them up into entities doesn't give them magic power to change reality.

Because of this fact that humans are volitional and fallible, the best a proper government can do, and should do, is to protect individual rights. Even though no human begins can make another chose to work, what the government can do is say, "no body else has the right to bar you from working if you do chose to work in this society". Even though no human begins can guarantee another's success, what the government can do is say "if you do succeed in your work, then whatever you produced is yours, by right".

That is the responsibility and the best a government CAN do for poverty (for everyone for that matter), and should do. To make sure nobody steals or rob one another and every interaction between individuals are voluntary.

As an individual on the other hand. If you make it your goal to give out charity, no one will have the right to stop you from giving other people anything.

Second, on your erroneous notion that charity CURES poverty. There is nothing wrong with charity and you are in your right to give people whatever you own. It helps, especially if you lend help to the right people. But if you think that giving away goods is somehow the ultimate CURE to poverty, think again.

The point is though, government cannot solve poverty, it can only make poverty worse if it choose to violate other's individual right by taking their property without consent and giving it to the poor based on their need.

>I haven’t said how, and though I know, that knowledge is irrelevant as long as there are people like you, who somehow believe that the poor are just getting what they deserve; that it’s a natural and necessary state of being.

Know my ass, so far you demonstrated you don't know half of what you are talking about. Like I said before numerous times, and I'll say it again: If someone is in poverty, it might not be entirely their own fault, but it sure as hell isn't anybody else's unless they stole from him. All your erroneous argument arguing to the contrary has been shot down in flames in this post. You got something new to say other than twisting my words for your convenience, then bring it out.

>Now go learn to be a man, instead of a business man.  Learn that what is in your head is more important than what is in your pockets.  Quit spitting out your poorly understood impressions of other peoples obsolete and discredited ideas.  Learn that honorable skills involve growing food, building shelter and tools, and scholarship. Men whose “work” consists of trading and distributing the product of those skills and that work are like the parasites that infect the brains of, and change the behavior of their hosts.  And realize that these parasites(lawyers, accountants, salesmen, and corporate managers and officers among others) are still far too numerous among us.

I am not a businessman, but that is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you should take your own advice. Use your head and go learn some more about economics and business. Because so far your previous post and this one shows you don't even know the fucking basics. It's just goddamn down right embarrassing. Do you even know what a business is and what businessmen do? How did you think people who grow food knows how much to grow? How much they should sell their food for? Where to buy their supplies and how much? Because guess what *gasp* the people who grow food are BUSINESSMEN and farming is a goddamn BUSINESS. Same shit for people who construct houses and produce tools, they are all goddamn BUSINESSES, and if the workers themselves don't have business skills to do the required jobs, they hire professional businessmen.

I am hesitant to call you a retard since you can at least write English correctly, but what you wrote proves you are exactly, a retard.

I HAVE NOT read through all of the posts above, though I did read most of the earlier ones and kind of skimmed through the rest of them.  However, when my mother and father divorced, my mother took my sister and I and we moved from low income apartment to low income apartment.  My mother couldn't get a job because she had to take care of us, and she couldn't send us to a daycare because she had to have had a job first to do that.  We lived off of Welfare checks and food stamps for about 5 years.  We even ended up living in a homeless shelter for about 6 months.  Anyway, once my sister and I entered school my mother was able to work a job while we were there.  Fast forward 12 years and now my mother has re-married and we're a typical middle class family.  I'm going to college and not receiving much financial assistance from the government or my family, resulting in me having loans up my ass when I graduate in a couple years.  Needless to say, we were once dependent on the state, and now we aren't anymore.  While I know some people do abuse the system, the ones who don't shouldn't be punished.  If it wasn't for the help of the government during those times I don't think we ever would have turned out to be the socially productive people we are today.  Perhaps this means they need to have better knowledge of who is receiving welfare, and keep an eye on them to ensure they spend it intelligently, and impose some form of ramification if they aren't.

>>29

The welfare check isn't the thing that got you out of poverty, your mother's hard work and your own ambition to make a better life did.

The fact that welfare played a role in your success isn't itself a justification for its existence. The End doesn't justify the Means. Have you asked yourself where did the government got the money to pay for welfare? They were hard earned cash belonging to other individuals which were taken from them without consent.

Need isn't a right. Just because someone might need more wealth doesn't not give him the right to another's property. You say "While I know some people do abuse the system, the ones who don't shouldn't be punished." If the government lock you up in a cell, that would be a punishment. How exactly are you punished when you stop receiving money that was never yours to begin with?

Charity is the only right way to lend other people a hand, because the exchange of wealth is voluntary and with consent. I am not condemning you for accepting welfare checks since you are forced to pay tax too. But you should never support it.

>>30
Have you asked yourself where did the government got the money to pay for welfare? They were hard earned cash belonging to other individuals which were taken from them without consent.
Not the person you're replying to, but this is true somewhat. Most of the money that goes to our entitlement programs is a combination of borrowing from foreign nations, and whatever phantom money that the Federal Reserve creates out of thin air to continue our consumption.

Our tax dollars barely (if at all) go to entitlement programs like welfare. This of course doesn't make it any less damaging.

So on goes the sniping and the absolute avoidance of the two main points that I have reiterated again and again:
1.  Why so selfish?  The OP has even admitted that greed is a principle motivator in his system.  The system that has functioned for a long time, but has never managed to feed the millions of starving people in the world, and what's worse, driven us to a precipice over which is a world of death and starvation the likes of which is unparalleled in written history.  and
2.  Taxes are never taken from anyone without their consent.  We are not forced to pay taxes.  Long before we're faced with taxes we are forced to align ourselves with a contemporary nation.  The world the current economic system was designed to work for no longer exists.  When "economics" was developed there were still frontiers.  There was still an out. The antiquated basic economic liturgy that I keep hearing is based on an open system with unlimited opportunity.  Unlimited resources.  It's the 21st century, not the 18th.  All of the worlds available resources, at least those accessible by individuals or even small groups of people, are spoken for.  Now we are in a closed system, and the idea that opportunity has remained constant is ridiculous.  Imagine 100 people locked in a room with 100 gallons of water.  To represent the current distribution of wealth in America we shall give 42 gallons to one person, 27 gallons to 4 people.  11 gallons to 5 people, and 12 gallons to 10 people.  The other 80 people will have to split the remaining 8 gallons. You would have us believe that the 10 people who have 80 gallons earned them, deserve them, and that the best way to keep the system working is to tell everyone that someday they may have 42 gallons to themselves.  You show them photos of these people bathing and swimming and squandering the water, and give empty dreams to those dying of thirst.  But like the witchcraft you call economics, it's a lie.  There is no more water.  Some of the water barons even have the nerve to sell water that doesn't exist.  Nice system.  Run on greed.  Thanks, Mr. Gekko.
You operate from a 230 year old playbook and call me retarded.  You and your greedy cohorts are retarding the progress of humanity.  Now I suppose you're gonna want to go back to sniping at selected points, so I'll address what should be your first bullshit objection.  That I'm not taking technological innovation into account.  "Hey", you might say, "the PC was invented by two guys in a garage, and now their among the wealthiest people in the world!", but you're  forgetting a few things.  The technology that led to the PC could only have been developed by governments and the research facilities of large corporations dependent on governments and other large corporations.  Because of the corporate climate created by the current economic system, this kind of innovation is rare.  Certainly significant, but certainly not the norm.  And most significantly, people are still fucking homeless and hungry!  When is this charity gonna kick in?  Huh?  Fuck you.  You're either one of the bastards who fool the average morons into believing that "They too can one day have everything if they just work hard enough" or you're one of the dumb bastards who are falling for it.  Either way, you should be ashamed.

>>32

The whole of your issue and misunderstanding in the subject has to do with wealth. That is what is wealth and how does one get wealthy. You seem to think

that raw-materials, such as Petroleum, translates directly into wealth, and the only way a person can and do get rich is by hogging all the raw-materials.

Which means for one to get rich, it necessarily makes another poor. And I am telling you, that is wrong.

First, I already explained substitute in the previous post, a very basic economic principle, and the reason why hogging raw-materials does NOT cause others

to become poor, because the owner cannot set his price above what is fair, above what the equalibrium of supply and demand, or else people will turn to and

buy or make new substitutes.

More detailed explaination down further down below.

>>>Your first point<<<

Why so selfish? Because been selfish, truly selfish, is what promotes human life. The very definition of pursuing one's self-interest MEANS pursuing one's

life. And for humans, the act of pursuing and improving our life do NOT involve sacrificing others (again, back to the central issue of wealth production),

and vice versa. Given this fact, if your goal is to pursue your life, then ethically, been selfish is the right and moral thing to do. And politically, if

you want to create a society that is good for the people, then the right thing to do is create a society that allow it's individuals to have the freedom and

liberty to pursue their own life and happiness.

And as a side, the act of stealing wealth produced by others instead of producing wealth oneself, that is not been selfish, that is been self-destructive.

Now, the ethical "system" that has been functioning for a long time since the dawn of history that has caused mankind untold suffering and death, is

precisely the OPPOSITE of what I presented. The age old ethical system of Altruism, the ethical system that tells you that you have no right to exist for

your own sake, that service to others or other causes is the only justification for your existence, is precisely what served as the moral foundation for the

greatest atrocities committed in history. This ranges from the Spanish Inquisition to Nazi Germany to Communist Russia. The first forced people to sacrifice

their life to serve God. The second forced people to sacrifice their life to serve the state. The last forced people to sacrifice their life to serve the

poor. Everyone of them condemned selfishness, condemned a person for pursuing his own life, and forced them instead to be a slave to some other cause. I

don't have to elaborate the atrocities that resulted. This is what happens when you try to create a society on altruistic ethics, when you try to create a

society for the goal of making people into slaves to serve some other cause (such as feeding the poor) instead of creating a society for the purpose of

allowing every individual the freedom and liberty to pursue their own life and happiness.

Again, the pursuit of life and happiness of one person does not take away from another. Wealth production of one person do NOT make another poorer.

>>>Your second point<<<

>Taxes are never taken from anyone without their consent. We are not forced to pay taxes. Long before we're faced with taxes we are forced to align ourselves

with a contemporary nation.

Your erroneous premise here is basically saying that the entity "Nation" OWNS the land, and people living on them have to follow the Nation's rule, since the

land is somehow the Nation's property.

Well what is the Nation? Is it the government? The whole of the population? A group of oligarchy claiming to be the Representative of the Nation?

Nation as a whole don't and can't own anything. Only people can. When government, when other people, tells an individual that he can either give out $100 for

something he never brought/used, for something he is not responsible for, or be locked in a cell, that is called robbery, and it is forced.

Again, central issue, since poverty is not the creation of wealthy production, those who produced wealth and payed all their dues is not responsible and does

not own anybody else anything.

>The world the current economic system was designed to work for no longer exists.  When "economics" was developed there were still frontiers.  There was

still an out. The antiquated basic economic liturgy that I keep hearing is based on an open system with unlimited opportunity.  Unlimited resources.  It's

the 21st century, not the 18th.  All of the worlds available resources, at least those accessible by individuals or even small groups of people, are spoken

for.  Now we are in a closed system, and the idea that opportunity has remained constant is ridiculous.

This is the central issue you are wrong at.

Let me address the essential mistake you are making.

(As for your erroneous point that somehow government funding is the only way some tech could have been developed, this is dealt with further down below)

The essential mistake you make is that you translate raw materials directly into resource, into wealth. News flash, the black goo we called Petroleum isn't a resource and worth nothing to the cave men. Ask yourself why that is. Mud and sand dust isn't a resource right now, but can become useful resource in the future. Ask yourself how that is possible.

Fact of the matter is, ANY physical matter can qualify as resource, as long a technology is developed by an individual(s) to use it. Since creativity for the human mind is unlimited, one only has to think, resource is also unlimited.

Let me repeat that. Resource IS unlimited.

Or to be more anally precise, resource is only limited by technology, by the height of creativity the human mind has achieved at the time.

As a simple example, Uranium isn't a resource to anyone 100 years go. It only became a resource when the person split the first atom. Mud or sand dust isn't a resource right now. But assuming someone develops Anti-Matter technology in the future, mud or dust will become resource.

This is also precisely the reason why wealth is also unlimited and is PRODUCED. New wealth are produced when an individual thought up and develops a new technology that either makes a previously useless matter into a resource, or makes a present resource more useful, or make the process of resource production less costly...etc. That technology/innovation/invention..etc. is the source of any fortune he makes.

THAT is why resource is unlimited. THAT is how wealth is produced. And THAT is why when a person produce wealth, he EARNS that wealth which he PRODUCED.

Your mistake of translating raw materials, bypassing human mind, and directly into resource, into wealth, is the reason why you can come up with that ridiculous example of yours about "100 people locked in a room with 100 gallons of water". That mistake about the source of wealth is also a major cause and foundation of Communism among other things.

Now, about your erroneous point that somehow some technological innovations could ONLY have been developed by government funding, and thus implying the source of wealth somehow ultimately lies with the government. Where do you think the money government used to fund those technological innovations came from? And where did you think the money, the wealth, that individual have in the first place that can pay up as taxes came from? More over, what makes you think those individuals with the technological skill and ambition to develop those innovations couldn't have gone to the source instead and collected private investment from other individuals with the promise of a killing profit return later on, which is how the majority of businesses starts?

It's true that significant innovations are less now from what it could have been. That is the result of government intervening into the economy when they have no right too, such as bailing out corporations..etc. But this fact doesn't somehow make it any less true that the source of present wealth and of new wealth ultimately lies with technology and innovations, with the human mind, and that new opportunity and new wealth is limitless. One only has to think.

However, the most important thing of all, I never said I argue Charity over Welfare BECAUSE Charity lessens poverty. Charity does, in comparison with Welfare, since Welfare ultimately causes more poverty.

But that is not the justification nor the reason why I argue for Charity over Welfare. The reason is because it is morally wrong to FORCE someone under threat to help another person whose situation the previous someone had nothing to do with.

The only way Welfare can be morally justified is if the process of wealth production somehow directly causes poverty. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't.

>>32
>But like the witchcraft you call economics, it's a lie.  There is no more water.
So why hasn't the GDP per capita stayed the same since medieval times?

>>32
Farmers use 100000s of gallons of water but they use it better than I ever can.

I couldn't even begin to calculate what gauge railway is the most economical and that's just one tiny yet essential element of the economy and there are 1000000s of other decisions like it that you cannot make, frankly I prefer capital to be in the hands of private citizens who are properly motivated and know what they are doing than a bunch of fruity socialists.

Acclinis falsis animus meliora recusat.

>>36

That is the wrong justification for private ownership.

If a person, such as a farmer in your example, happens to be incompetent, does that give others the right to take away his property without his consent for "better" uses?

Private ownership isn't justified because somehow it happens to be the best system that allows individuals to become slaves to  causes other than their own lives. Private ownership is justified because it is the only econ-political system that recognizes the right of every person to their own life in a society and grants them the liberty to pursue their own happiness.

>>38
If liberty is good because it is the most efficient method of pursuing happiness then isn't your argument similiar to mine?

I don't believe the farmer should have his property confiscated, firstly because ownership of the farm should go to the highest bidder allowing the invisible hand of free market forces to assign the land most efficiently and secondly because whatever political authority decides the farmer is incompetent is not omnipotent and therefore not as efficient as market forces.

>>39

Depends on whose happiness, whose good, are you talking about. The good and life of the individual himself, or some collective good/public-interest.

Even though you didn't state explicitly which one it is you meant in both your posts, both of your posts alludes that it is the second, the collective good and public interest, that serves as the justification for private ownership/liberty..etc.

And I am saying that is the wrong justification.

Liberty, private ownership..etc. the Individuals Rights as a whole, isn't justified because it is somehow the best political tool that allows the people to serve some public interest. Individuals Rights are morally justified because you as an individual, as a human begin, have the right to pursue your own self-interest, your own life and happiness.

Individuals Rights are justified because people are human. The very reason why there is so much violation of Individual Rights in our political system today is precisely BECAUSE people erroneously try to justify Individual Rights under Altruism, under service to others, to the public.

For the farmer example, if you try to justify his right to property not because of the fact he is a human begin, but because giving him the liberty to use his property as he see fit will wind up allowing him to best serve some public interest, some interest of others, then consider this: If the farmer happens to be an incompetent heir who inherited a vast fortune of lands, and he screws up the operation of his farm majorly, does the government somehow then have the right to confiscate, to nationalize, his farm so they can put competent professionals to work it thus better serving the public interest? Because if Individual Rights is erroneously justified under service to others, then yes, government would have the right to confiscate his farm on principle.


Individual Rights are not justified on the ground of Altruism, of service to others or other causes. It isn't good and right because it somehow makes people better slaves to serve causes other than pursuing their own life. You do not have to justify your right to pursue your own life and happiness because it somehow winds up serving the life and happiness of others. Your right to pursue your own life, and your own happiness, is justified because you are a human begin.

Individuals only have rights insofar as they are able to defend them.
Individuals, therefore, in the interests of security and a common vision of what these rights should be create societies.
The goals of every human society are the preservation of the society's vision, and the security of its members.
The position of the method by which goods are exchanged in these societies, its economy, must be subordinate to its goals.  Otherwise its goals are subordinate to its economy.  If a societies goals are subject to its economy, its members have only those individual rights they can afford to buy.
Freedom may be man's natural state, but all men are born into societies, and membership in a society restricts freedom and instead confers liberty in accordance with its vision and its goals.  This liberty comes at a price, and its rewards and preservation require  contribution.  That the entire habitable 21st century world has been claimed by various societies, and there is no longer any way to live completely outside one of these societies bears repeating. 
Absolute private ownership is impossible in any society, and to underscore my point I'll mention that, as is common knowledge, all contemporary societies employ the concept of eminent domain.  The argument over the justification for private ownership is moot.  Rather than private ownership, societies confer liberties based on investment. To judge this investment based primarily on economic grounds subordinates the society to its economy.  A society whose primary goal is overall wealth, regardless of it's distribution, is best represented by monarchy, aristocracy, or oligarchy.  The goals of a democracy or a republic must be more noble, or they need not exist.  The goal must be greater liberty for all.  
I believe that a man must have food and shelter before he is capable of pursuing life, liberty, and happiness.
Capitalists, insofar as their position within society is concerned, believe that they can have their cake, and eat it too.

>>41

>Individuals only have rights insofar as they are able to defend them.

Wrong.

I'll explain.

First of all, bear in mind that all Rights, at least all Inalienable/Individual Rights, are Rights to an ACTION, and NOT the right to an object. Rights are not a guarantee that a person will earn or succeed in achieving the object. It is a guarantee that he is free to pursue the object and that if he does create/achieve it, he is guaranteed to own it.

Now, onto the nature of Rights. The Rights of an individual does NOT come from what he can "defend". Might does not make Right. What a person, a human begin, have a Right to, is defined and entailed by his nature, by the virtue of been human. Politically, a society can either recognize these Rights, or not. If a society decides to politically not recognize these Inalienable Individual Rights and decides people can have the Rights to do anything as long as it is backed by majority consensus and whatnot, backed by what people can "defend", then that just means people in that society will get to do things they have no right to as a human begin as long as they have enough power and influence. That person could be businessmen who have the money to lobby the government to pass regulations that bars out his competitors from the market, or poor men who have the numbers to vote the government into robbing the property of others to give it to them. Those examples are the results of what happens when politically a society decides to recognize Rights based on what people can defend, instead of recognize Rights based on what been a human begin entails.

>Individuals, therefore, in the interests of security and a common vision of what these rights should be create societies.
The goals of every human society are the preservation of the society's vision, and the security of its members.

I agree, that is correct. But what social vision are you talking about? The vision that some men have the right to make others into their slaves for whatever purpose, or the vision that every men have the right to pursue his own life and happiness but does not have the right to sacrifice others for his end?

>The position of the method by which goods are exchanged in these societies, its economy, must be subordinate to its goals.  Otherwise its goals are subordinate to its economy.  If a societies goals are subject to its economy, its members have only those individual rights they can afford to buy.

I agree, that is also correct. But again, what are the "goals" of the society you are talking about? If the goal of a society is to do what is right and promote human life, then it will recognize Individual Rights and subject its method of economy, it's method of allocating wealth within itself, to voluntary trade, and only voluntary trade. All forms of stealing and robbery would be banned.

If the goal, the vision, of a society is not to do what is right, does not place the life of the individual as its standard, but places some other goals higher than the life of the individual, such as service to God or feeding the poor, then that means the purpose of that society is to make human begins into slaves to serve such an end. And if that is the goal, then not just econ-political policies that deals with economy, but all political polices, will not be justified by whether or not it promotes life, whether or not it's right, but by whether or not that political policy can accomplish this "greater" or "nobler" purpose. And when politically the End justify the Means, then any means, economically such as robbery, and in other areas, no matter how destructive to human life, no matter how wrong, no matter how horrible, can be politically justified.

>Freedom may be man's natural state, but all men are born into societies, and membership in a society restricts freedom and instead confers liberty in accordance with its vision and its goals.  This liberty comes at a price, and its rewards and preservation require  contribution.  That the entire habitable 21st century world has been claimed by various societies, and there is no longer any way to live completely outside one of these societies bears repeating.

For the first part, it's true and I agree, society does place restrictions on a man's freedom in accordance with its vision and goals. But again, this leads back to the central issue, what kind of visions and goals are you talking about? Because what the kind of restriction is going to be placed depends directly on what kind of goal and vision you are trying to achieve.

If the vision is to create a society for the purpose of promoting human life, of promoting what is good and right, then every individual's physical freedom to pursue their own life and happiness will NOT be politically restricted. What will be restricted is every individual's physical freedom to steal, rob, murder..etc.

Now if the vision is to create a society for the purpose of using human life as a means, as slaves, to achieve some other "greater" purpose, then what actions are restricted and what isn't, will be much more different. I don't think I have to elaborate then what freedoms will be restricted, and what will not be.

As for the second part, I already dealt with that erroneous point in my previous posts, the erroneous point that individuals somehow takes on some kind of responsibility, some kind of debt, when they live in a society.

It's very simple, I'll explain again. Since wealth production does NOT take away from others, and since a Nation, a government, does not and cannot somehow own the land it governs, like a piece of property owned by a person, the only responsibility an individual have in a society is to pay for what he buys, and own up to his contracts. That's it. He does not own other individuals, in our case the poor, the wealth he produced and payed for, since their poverty is not caused by him producing wealth. Nor does he own the government anything for living on his OWN land. He might own the government cash if he uses public entities such as road and whatnot, but only if he USES them.

So unless you have something new to say about his point, stop repeating the same erroneous argument.

>Absolute private ownership is impossible in any society, and to underscore my point I'll mention that, as is common knowledge, all contemporary societies employ the concept of eminent domain.

Oh, so your argument that absolute private ownership is impossible in any society is because no society in history nor present day have it?

That's like people arguing few hundred years back that to fly or reach the moon is impossible because no one had done it. Or people in medieval times arguing that a free society is impossible and there will always be nobles, because nothing different have been done.

Now I am NOT arguing that ANYTHING is possible. Somethings are not. But I AM arguing that reason and facts points to that absolute private ownership, or in whole, the absolute political recognition of the Individual Rights, is possible, and more importantly, is right, and promotes life.

>The argument over the justification for private ownership is moot.  Rather than private ownership, societies confer liberties based on investment. To judge this investment based primarily on economic grounds subordinates the society to its economy.  A society whose primary goal is overall wealth, regardless of it's distribution, is best represented by monarchy, aristocracy, or oligarchy.

Wealth distribution again?

Either you can't understand what I explained in details in three posts about the nature of wealth and of wealth creation/production, or you just plainly refuse to.

Whatever the case, I am not explaining a single word more.

>I believe that a man must have food and shelter before he is capable of pursuing life, liberty, and happiness.

Don't drag concepts out of context. Refer to what I said about Rights at the very beginning of this post.

Freedom we are talking about is political freedom, meaning free to act without the physical compulsion, of other men within a society. Freedom to pursue one's life and happiness means freedom to do so without the permission from other men, whether they be the government or your neighbors.

That is what it meant, no more and no less.

You say a man must have food and shelter before he is capable of pursuing his life and happiness. That is true. But that has nothing to do with the concept of political freedom to pursue one's life and happiness. Unless someone is physically preventing by threat of force a man from earning and buying food or eating his own food, physically coercing him from buying a house or living in his own house, then a person's Right and Liberty to the pursuit of his life and happiness is not violated.

>Capitalists, insofar as their position within society is concerned, believe that they can have their cake, and eat it too.

You obviously either have no idea what Capitalism really is, or you have no idea what you are talking about.

>>42
Wrong?  You'll explain? 

I'll explain.  Throughout this thread you have failed to present a cogent, supportable argument and have consistently resorted to equivocation(please look that up), in trying to defend your position against mine.  Furthermore, FYI, my arguments are founded on the Constitution of the USA, the political and social philosophies that it was founded on, and the developments since.  Your position, and its tactics are the same ones that have always been used to undermine social progress like the elimination of slavery, the institution of trade unions, and the development of public education.  Arts and scientific research have no place in your system unless they are financially profitable.  You propose a system that you admit is based on greed, yet claim "what is good for me, will be good for everyone".  You believe in the rat race. Here are a few examples of how well that bullshit is working:
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/health/spend/cost_longlife75.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

The U.S. ranks 4th in GDP, yet it is 92nd in distribution of wealth—UN measurement.  In other words the top 5% live the best of all nations, and the bottom 25% live worse than in countries such as Greece.  You are failing to promote the general welfare.  Because you think that greed, a vice, can be bent to your will.  Did you ever read/see The Lord of the Rings?  You're Boromir.  You can't get past the fact that something evil can't be used for good. Rationalize all you like, but you cant change the nature of things.  You can only waste energy resisting the inevitable.  Humans will continue carrying your kind, ethically speaking, into the future, or we will fail, at which time you will learn the truth that you only have the rights that you can defend, and that will be a hard lesson, perhaps your last. 
At least I've given you a few new vocabulary words.

Are you fucking dense? Obviously we need a mix of charity and welfare.

Welfare for starving orphans and rape victims.

Charity for stray cats and starving nigger babies and the generalissimo of bananarepublicstan.

Furthermore, fuck you.

You just proved you know shit about Ethics, shit about Economy, shit about the Constitution of the United States, and shit about why US is currently in the shithole it is in.

You think the US now is actually a Capitalistic country? Actually running on a free market? It is mixed as hell and the socialist mixture is the cause of all the shits today you and every other ignorant morons try to blame on Capitalism and the free market.

And Ethics, do you even know what is Ethics? WHY is something morally good? or evil? Why is something a virtue or a vice? You preach Greed and Ambition are vices when they are virtues. You preach that slavery and robbery are justified as long as they serve some cause you deem the greater good. All your ethical beliefs are based on faith instead of reason. You are the one who is preaching evil. And you pull some bad metaphor from LoTR to prove you point?

The Constitution of the United States was founded on MY philosophy. The nations that was founded on YOUR philosophy was Communist Russia and Nazi Germany.

The reason why US is still left standing today as #1 even though it has fallen so far from what the Founders have intended, is because Americans still innately believe the philosophical principles this country was founded upon, that every individual, because they are human begins, have the inalienable Right to pursue their own life and happiness. The man and woman who held that belief even though they are assailed by today's media and society from all sides telling them that they have no right to their lives and that service to others, the nation, the poor..etc. is the only justification for their existence, they are the ones who is carrying this country. Your philosophy and your kind are what is responsible for the evil and disgrace that is perpetrated by today's media  and politicians, the evil and disgrace that is the foundation of countless dictatorships, theocracies, and socialist states in human history. And if not corrected and everything goes soar, for the collapse of this country.

Sean Bean was the only good actor in LOTR, it's why I only watched the first one.

What was up with those little guys? It's like they were high or something.

>>45
Here's a tissue; blot your eyes, blow your nose, and listen up. 
I can't argue ethics with someone who claims that greed is a virtue.  The dichotomy, like the truth, is self evident.  I'll say this; the difference between good and evil lies in the amount of suffering people are forced to endure.  Less suffering=good.  More suffering=evil.
I know that the US is a Capitalistic country, currently employing a poorly regulated market.  The patchwork mess that constitutes this regulation is such because of the resistance to intelligent regulation put up by the deservedly nearly extinct "free market capitalists" who think that sweatshops encourage progress.  I cited information to support this assertion.  The LoTR simile was added afterward, and addressed to you.
The Constitution of the United States was founded on your philosophy?  You must be pretty old.  The fact is that I doubt you could name any of the philosophers who influenced the Constitution if there was a gun to your head. 
Your greatest mistake is that you presume to know anything about my philosophy.  I am not arguing for communism or socialism, but against your malignant, poorly informed, hypocrisy. You want the protection of a society without the responsibility.  Absurd.  You're just a greedy, selfish little man who doesn't have the integrity to build or live in the kind of society you claim to want, because deep down you know that you wouldn't survive.  So you cower in another's, and continue to hoard all you can, endangering the security of all in a way much more dangerous than the feeding of the common poor ever could.  You really wanna get personal with me?  You ain't got the chops, boy.  Now go re read this thread.  You've been outclassed.  Then go read some history. 

 >>46
You thought Old Toby was tobacco?

>>45
YOUR philosophy... Nazi Germany.

Godwin's Law.  You lose.

>>47

Oh, so now you are back-paddling? You are not arguing for communism or socialism? Do I have to quote all your past statements about the purpose of the society? What you said about a person's "responsibility" in a society? About how wealth needs be somehow "redistributed"? About why that is? About how wealth is static?

The list goes on and on.

Based on what you posted, you are a socialist, and you are a person who supports the alturistic morality. The fact you want to back-paddle just means you haven't got the guts to admit you are wrong.

I have explained and defeated every points you brought up in this debate so far. Now you are just reusing old defeat arguments in different forms and resorting to more and more personal attacks. And now finally you back paddled saying you are not arguing for socialism. I find that hilarious.

I'll address the points you brought up this time.

On Ethics. The reason why you can even argue greed is a vice and destructive to human life is because of your erroneous notion about the nature of wealth, that it is static and the net total do not change. Therefore if a person is greedy, he will grab more of the total share therefore making another person poor.

But I already explained and trashed that erroneous notion of yours about the nature of wealth to hell and back. You have zero base to claim greed is a vice and somehow cause suffering. A person who is greedy will just invent and innovate new ways to produce more wealth, make more money, therefore improving his own life and does not somehow cause damage to others. Based on this fact greed is a virtue.

But since you want to ignore the true nature of wealth and stick to your erroneous "100 people locked in a room with 100 gallons of water" concept so all your socialist dreams can stay intact, I can see that you don't really care about reason.

>I know that the US is a Capitalistic country, currently employing a poorly regulated market.

This very sentence shows you know nothing, NOTHING about Capitalism. The essential defining characteristics of a Capitalistic society, a free society, is to have an totally unregulated market, a pure free market, a separation between State and Economy as there is one between State and Church.

Your last point about the philosophy that the Constitution is founded upon. I could name all the philosophers who influenced the Constitution, but how does that have anything to do with what I said about the philosophical foundation of the Constitution been the philosophy that I presented in this thread instead of your socialism and altruistic morality? You tried to pull a fast one last post saying and I quote, "my arguments are founded on the Constitution of the USA, the political and social philosophies that it was founded on", thus implying US is somehow founded on socialism. You didn't think I was going to let that one slip did you.

In conclusion, since the source of all your socialistic arguments lies in your erroneous notion about the nature of wealth, a foundation that I cut down posts ago, but you continue to evade or ignore, I foresee anything you write from this point on will be either:

-more pathetic personal attacks
-same old shit in different cloth based on a foundation that I burned to the ground

Prove me wrong, faggot.

The expression you were looking for was backpedaling.  Your inappropriate accusation underlies your inability to appreciate this discourse.  I have made several comments distinguishing the responsibility to care for members of society, from socialism/communism.  You don't get this though, because you apparently believe that there are only two mutually exclusive ways to administer a societies resources.  You constantly invoke your version of "Economics" when I dismissed it's relevance early on.  You continually hinge many of your objections on an academic definition of wealth that's part of your economic fantasy that I characterized accurately when I said
"You divide to conquer.  You divide society into the “government” and the “market” and attempt to use the government as a tool of the market, rather than the reverse, preferring the system that addresses our desires,  because the greedy, obsessed with their own desires, are skilled at manipulating the desires of others,  rather than that which represents our ideals, and use instruments(like currency) to further stratify the population"
The thread is little more than you yapping "that's not wealth, that's not wealth, you don't know anything about economics" and me trying to explain the many ways in which your entire understanding of economics, wealth, and society is fettered by what I also referred to as an "antiquated" ideology. 
"cut down" my arguments?
"burned to the ground"
I'll say it again.  EQUIVOCATION.  Look it up.  Your use of equivocation and deconstruction may look effective to the untrained mind, but it's never really touched my arguments.

As for your accusation that I support an altruistic morality: I find that hilarious.  I'll admit my altruistic morality freely.  What a monster I am.

>>50
Greed isn't always evil.

Properly channeled it can be used to motivate people to do an enormous amount of good for the economy and ultimately reduce poverty and suffering. If altruism prevents the use of greed in this way then it is preventing the reduction of poverty and suffering, which would be no better than causing it.

Of course altruism isn't always bad in ever situation, just in this situation altruism the equivalent of beating the living shit out of a talented young musician and sawing their hand off while they're still conscious out of sheer jealousy. That's pretty evil, bro.

>>50

>I have made several comments distinguishing the responsibility to care for members of society, from socialism/communism.

You wished, you tried, but anyone who knows what socialism is and what its essential root principles are will know that your arguments on the construct of the society is exactly socialism. The fact you wish to avoid the name socialism is just a display of your personal guilt. Unfortunately for you, no matter how much you yell "EQUIVOCATION", names do not change facts.

>You don't get this though, because you apparently believe that there are only two mutually exclusive ways to administer a societies resources.

What I believe is that resources isn't somehow the society's to begin with. Wealth belongs to whoever brought it into existence, whoever created it, produced it, and he is the only one who have the right to distribute that wealth. Now I guess you are going to start arguing that somehow wealth production has to be a social effort, or that it has to have government funding. Both points which you already have brought up and I already have addressed and defeated, completely, the first been invalidated by the concept of trade, the second by the source of the government's funding. Both points like many others which you do not wish to challenge directly but rather resort to throwing mud from the sidelines.

>You constantly invoke your version of "Economics" when I dismissed it's relevance early on.  You continually hinge many of your objections on an academic definition of wealth that's part of your economic fantasy that I characterized accurately when I said...

Yeah, you sure like to dismiss things which stands and you can't challenge. My explanation of wealth and economy, that economy is not somehow a closed system and wealth is not static, but created though human innovation, has it's root in facts. Your erroneous notion that wealth is static and somehow spawns on trees or hid in rocks and therefore somehow needs to be distributed equally among members of a society is what is the "antiquated" ideology, the very erroneous ideology adopted by prehistorical tribes and savages who cannot grasp the concept of innovation. That is what's fantasy. The very fantasy that founded Communism.

As for the whole section about "government" and "market" that you are somehow trying to place as an argument to support your fantasy about a closed economy and static wealth, it can't even be addressed because it makes ZERO logical sense, logical connection.

But I am pretty sure you already know that, since that is part of your dishonest debate strategy, to bring up statements that looks connected when in fact bares no logical connection to the point that is been challenged. Sorry pal, it only works with morons.

As for Altruism, don't try to imply that helping people automatically means been unselfish, been altruistic. When you voluntarily help someone who you believe DESERVES your help, such as a promising student struggling with tuition or a family hit with a natural disaster, you are acting in your self-interest. What is been truly unselfish is to help people without judging whether or not they deserve your help, such as a hobo who use change to buy more liquor, or a mother who does not have the ability to support newborns but chooses to have more kids so she can get welfare.

The very root principle of Altruism, of why selfishness and one's concern with his own life is evil but somehow self-sacrifice of one's own life for the life of others is good, is the principle that a person has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence. Altruism is the moral code for slaves that's what it is. And you are damn right I am accusing you for supporting such a morality.

"Yap, yap, yap.  Yoou donts know anything about Eeecoonomics!  You's a COMMIE!"

 Like most contemporary ideologues you're not debating, you're spouting rhetoric, while letting the logic and grammar slide.

As you are incapable of presenting a cogent argument, you have had to resort to attacking selected points in mine. This is, in part, because you are hiding the truth. You are clearly an objectivist.  Another victim of a third rate pop philosophy conceived by a second rate writer(It's kind of the Scientology of philosophy)whose ideas were little more than a reaction to Bolshevism.  The main reason you can't present a cogent argument is because Rand herself couldn't do it.  I'll leave you with these comments from Wikipedia:
Rand's philosophy has been the object of criticism by prominent intellectuals. In the essay "On the Randian Argument,"[115] philosopher Robert Nozick is sympathetic to Rand's political conclusions, but does not think her arguments justify them. In particular, his essay criticizes her foundational argument in ethics, which states that one's own life is, for each individual, the ultimate value because it makes all other values possible. He argues that to make her argument sound, one needs to explain why someone could not rationally prefer dying and having no values. Thus, her attempt to defend the morality of selfishness is, in his view, essentially an instance of begging the question. Nozick also argues that Rand's solution to David Hume's famous is-ought problem is unsatisfactory; an academic debate has developed around this issue, with scholars coming down on both sides.[116][117]

William F. Buckley, Jr. called her philosophy "stillborn."[118] Psychologist Albert Ellis has argued that adherence to Objectivism can result in hazardous psychological effects.[119] After his expulsion from Rand's circle, Nathaniel Branden accused Rand and her followers of "destructive moralism," something he reports having engaged in himself when he was associated with Rand, but which he now claims "subtly encourages repression, self-alienation, and guilt."[120]

Commentators have noted that the Objectivist epistemology is incomplete.[121] According to Robert L. Campbell, the notion of proof for propositions remains sketchy.[122] Rand did not work out a philosophy of science, as she herself acknowledged.[123] The relationship between Objectivist epistemology and cognitive science remains unclear; Rand, Peikoff, and Kelley have all made extensive claims about human cognition and its development which appear to belong to psychology, yet Rand asserted that philosophy is logically prior to psychology and in no way dependent on it.
P.S.:  You need to work on your writing skills before you step up to the big problems.

From what you have posted, you are a commie, just a repressed one who won't come out the closet =)

Now you literally run out of anything to say and wants to move away from discussing facts altogether and turn the debate into a popularity contest between philosophers. You never stop produce more hilarity do you.

Fact is from what you displayed you know so far, I can guarantee you don't even understand a single argument of any of the quotes you just posted. This is just another one of your pathetic evasive technique to make yourself look good while in actuality offering zero substance. Newsflash, it only works on sheeps, like yourself.

Look who's talking.  I see you didn't have the balls to start sniping at the quotes.  Philosophy isn't about popularity, it's about reason and logic, thus most of the comments above are pointing out the logical flaws in your current adopted philosophy.  The worst kind of liar is one who lies to himself.  Like I said, learn to write, then you'll be ready to learn to think.  Newsflash: Objectivist has his ass handed to him on /newpol/, claims victory.

Guess what commie, considering you know absolutely nothing about the quotes you posted or philosophy in general, why would I waste my time explaining things that is just going to be wasted on someone completely ignorant of the subject?

More over, this thread is about "welfare vs charity". If you can manage to logically link those quotes to support welfare instead of charity, then maybe I'll spare you a reply or two.

But as it stands, quoting statements irrelevant to the topic is as far as you can go. This is 4chan, practically everyone worth his salt recognize a troll when they see one. You want to appear legit? Then make solid arguments with substance instead of playing around with petty tricks, commie.

The Title of this thread is Welfare vs. Charity.  You then ask "why should a person be FORCED to help someone else?"  Then you spend all of your time attempting to support your faulty premise with Objectivist responses to my arguments, moreover(yes, it's one word), you never have the integrity, or perhaps awareness to admit to it. 
And I'm the one you think knows "absolutely nothing about the quotes you(I) posted or philosophy in general"?
I pity you.

>>57

>The Title of this thread is Welfare vs. Charity.  You then ask "why should a person be FORCED to help someone else?"  Then you spend all of your time attempting to support your [this] faulty premise...

Because that, forced vs voluntary, is the essential difference between Welfare and Charity? The only argument you brought up against this point was that somehow the land is a nation's property like the property of a person, therefore the government have the right to any person's property. That socialist argument was explained and defeated posts ago. But reason isn't the thing that stops you from keep going commie on me.

>And I'm the one you think knows "absolutely nothing about the quotes you(I) posted or philosophy in general"?

You don't. And apparently your skill at making logical arguments to support any point you make, is at rock bottom too.

>>58
Let's play your game.

Because that, forced vs voluntary, is the essential difference between Welfare and Charity?
I've already answered this question repeatedly, but apparently you haven't understood, 'cause your asking again.  So again, charity is obviously voluntary.  Welfare, or social assistance, is implemented by governments, and as a voluntary member of a society with a democratic or republican government, each citizen is given a voice and expected to pay their share of the costs of the programs the governments implement.  The idea that citizens should have some kind of line item veto sounds nice, but is impractical. 

But reason isn't the thing that stops you from keep going commie on me.
Uh... What does that mean?  I get what you're trying to say, but it's a complete non sequitur.  That's Latin. It means "does not follow".  In other words, there is no context to support your little grammatical abortion.  What exactly is the thing that stops me from keep going commie on you?

You don't.
Nice logical argument.

At this point it's clear that you're just trolling.  I don't mind, because I got to bash Ayn Rand and her ignorant little acolytes.  It's sad, but interest in her bullshit surges in times of economic stress.  Just like religion.  And they're both equally well founded in logic.

I think I'll read this whole thread

one day...

>>60
me too

>I've already answered this question repeatedly, but apparently you haven't understood, 'cause your asking again.  So again, charity is obviously voluntary.  Welfare, or social assistance, is implemented by governments, and as a voluntary member of a society with a democratic or republican government, each citizen is given a voice and expected to pay their share of the costs of the programs the governments implement.

>as a voluntary member of a society...

Don't equivocate government programs with society. Voluntary member, really. Do you have a choice in whether or not to participate in government programs? Do you have a choice to choose not to receive nor pay welfare? You don't. You are forced to participate, and you are forced to pay, by the government, under the socialist principle that by living among other people, among society, you magically lose all your Individual Rights and stop begin a human, but just another mindless bot whose live is to serve a public goal determined by corrupt politicians. That is your answer to why it is somehow not forced, because people stop be human begins once they live in a society and have no individual rights. And that's wrong. Whether the protocol to deprive those Rights is determined by the majority or a dictator is irrelevant.

>The idea that citizens should have some kind of line item veto sounds nice, but is impractical.

That's what you still don't get. This isn't about whether or not a political setup is practical or not at using human as slaves to sacrifice for some public goal. This is about whether something of this kind should happen in the first place, at all.

And if you have the nerves to argue that depriving people of their individual rights will somehow wind up serving the welfare of all, all of history proves you wrong.

i printed out this thread and jerked off all over it

How can you even have a serious thread when you type paragraphs of shit and nobody wants to spend and hour reading them

>>64
Actually that's exactly how you have a serious thread on a political BB.  I guess you must think that "JEWS", "Niggers", and your little troll fart are the kind of posts that constitute a "serious" thread.  And I have some bad news for you: If it would take you an hour to read this little monument to intransigency, then your reading skills are very poor.
Perhaps you would be more comfortable on /b/.

The point is that nobody wants to sit here for an hour reading a novel full of faggots who think they could run the world

>>62
Don't equivocate government programs with society.
Seriously, look up this word.  You're using it wrong.

Voluntary member, really. Do you have a choice in whether or not to participate in government programs? Do you have a choice to choose not to receive nor pay welfare? You don't. You are forced to participate,
Now you're plagiarizing elements of my argument.  Hilarious.  Nice hypocrisy, bro.  By the way, as far as I know, at least in the USA, you always have the option to refuse charity and welfare.

The rest of your post is just juvenile hyperbole and butthurt, so why don't you go spread on some preparation-H, and find something productive to do.

>>66
The point is that if you don't like it, scroll past it bitch.

please charity me several alot of money, leave message ill give you email

>>66
I could run the world, but I'm not posting in this thread so I suppose that's not relevant.

>By the way, as far as I know, at least in the USA, you always have the option to refuse charity and welfare.

Seriously? What kind of argument are you trying to make here? Sure a person can refuse to RECEIVE welfare, but what difference does it make when people can and are been forced to pay for the welfare of others without their consent? Does logics even mean anything to you?

>>71
Does spellings even mean anything to you?

It is not the responsibility of governments to give out money to those that need it. It is the responsibility of the individuals themselves to escape poverty. If they can't, then that's just the price we pay for a capitalistic democracy.

>>73
That is your opinion.
This is an argument.
Groups of people, or societies, create administrative organizations to, in part, address common problems within the society.  National governments, which are globally omnipresent institutions, are examples of these organizations. It is the responsibility of these organizations (governments) to address these problems, like all, in a manner consistent with the wishes of its members, and in the most efficient manner possible. 
 Poverty is a public nuisance, and an enormous drain on resources, manifesting itself in higher rates of crime and disease.  Cost effectiveness analyses have proven, by overwhelming evidence, that these decidedly negative effects can be mitigated by employing a system of public charity.
 If the mitigation of these effects is in accordance with the wishes of its members (citizens), and the most efficient means is the effective administration of a mechanism of public charity, then it is “government’s responsibility to give out money to those that need it”, to borrow your imprecise language.

See the difference there?  Of the many arguments for public assistance, this one shares capitalism's interest in "the bottom line".  It's just cheaper.
It remains the "the responsibility of the individuals themselves to escape poverty", but finding productive work is incalculably easier when you have showered, eaten, and have an address.
If they can't, then that's just the price we pay for a capitalistic democracy.
The price we pay for a capitalistic democracy is hard work, and "eternal vigilance".
A permanent economic underclass institutionalized through neglect is the price we pay for arrogance, stupidity, and greed.

Both the people writing 15 paragraphs of quibbling garbage in this thread are Grade A retards who should be interned and castrated for their severe mental deficiencies.

Obviously we need a mix of welfare and charity where it works best.

BBS PMS

>>76
Use tampons, they won't stop me winning argument on the internet though.

>>75
Its the same person

>>73

Believe it or not, despite your intention, you are doing much more damage against Capitalism than >>74.

The very reason why socialism took so hard a hold on US politics is because most if not almost all proponents of Capitalism don't know what the hell they are arguing for nor know what they are doing.

I am a U.S. citizen working and living in China, there is a Chinese name is Zhou Lin, I am very interested in love, Chinese kids, I used my power to help those Chinese children, hoping that we fellow Americans together to help them, Let us show the American people, humanitarian and human rights! I am a person too weak, I hope my fellow Americans, you can support me to help Chinese children, because you are!


http://zhoulin7979.livejournal.com/

Society works better together, but I only agree with the positive out comes of shared wealth. Schooling / Parks / Roads / Police / Prisons / job finding systems etc.

These kinds of things make a society much better.

In terms of the negatives like supplying housing / food / money to the poor.

I think only schooling is applicable to their situation. You do not solve a problem with someone able bodied who is incapable of finding or creating a job for him/herself. Systems of free business structures that work and benefit our economy. Of course there will be ones who will not try, find the free lessons too much of a hassle and a long term option and will go back to starve then rob / murder then go to jail. It is the choice they have taken, not that they are stuck.

I have an interesting idea that i haven't even put under any of my own scrutiny. Here it goes.

How about 2 levels of "Country"

One is a self sufficient and the other is a welfare state and I don't mean it in a bad way. The ones working in the welfare country support the ones not working there. The ones not working in the self sufficient country receive no aid at all. People can cross over as they want or as they feel it becomes applicable to them.

>>82
Good luck.  I've been trying to sell that one here for over a year.  The most recent example is here: http://dis.4chan.org/read/newpol/1263818668   starting with post >>11.

It's the only answer that makes sense.

>>82
>>83
It is totally illogical to demonise a mix of private and public economic organisations, if the point of seperating the 2 is to give people more choice you in fact restrict people's choice to have a mixed economy to varying degrees.

It would be much better to have an adaptable spectral mix of nationalisation and privatisation linked to a patchwork of local governments which can have referendums and petitions to merge or split as necessary.

hax my anus

>>85
how did you get in here?

>>84
It would be much better to have an adaptable spectral mix of nationalisation and privatisation linked to a patchwork of local governments which can have referendums and petitions to merge or split as necessary.

The point is, that's what we have now in scores of variations and it's not working.  You talk about choice.  Isn't "choice" the freedom to select one option over another?  Do you believe that you have the choice to be free?  You don't.  You are part of a system that affords you what liberty it deems necessary to satisfy you, while above all other interests it works to maintain its power over you. 
I don't need to "demonize" these systems.  They've done that to themselves.  We've not only gone beyond the point at which our collective wisdom should have moved us into a new era, but we have allowed ourselves to be led to the brink of catastrophe.  What many call choice is more like confusion and distraction.

>>87
You're right, if I want to opt out of Social Security, I cannot. I imagine if I went to my local Social Security office and request to opt out of that altogether, the receptionist at the desk will look upon me as if I had a third eye!

Is this not tyranny? How much liberty I am afforded based upon arbitrary criteria? Troubling.

>>88
And these days you would probably be added to some kind of watch list.  But what if you had a real choice?  What if you could choose between having enough land to sustain yourself, and internet connectivity, or belonging to a self supporting humanitarian organization dedicated to protecting the free, providing them the tools they need to prosper, and expanding/exploring the frontiers of knowledge, the world, and eventually space?  Which would you choose?  And what if you could change your mind?
Two of the major obstacles are hypocrisy("I'm a Conservative, but I need public services", or "I'm a liberal, but I want to do my own thing"), and the public's enormous resistance to any kind of change while their bellies are full. 

Acclinis falsis animus meliora recusat

>>87
>>88
>>89
My system is not the current system so I fail to see why you are arguing against me.

I don't need to "demonize" these systems.  They've done that to themselves
Ok, so you admit you think in absolutes and cannot distinguish petty emotions about from rational thoughts.

So what violent oppressive measures will you undertake to prevent people committing blasphemy and supporting things we have under the current system? If you intend to give them the freedom to have alternatives but deny them the freedom to conform to certain elements in the current system then you will need to use coercion to stop them.

For instance if someone says "we need a speed limit on this motorway", how would you torture them to death to serve as an example to others who dare conform to anyone other than you? Boiling alive? Impalement?

Under my system of course people would be free to have a social security system, they would just not be able to force it on everyone else, so you could opt out of social security if you wish. I'm just saying you should think this through and be logical, that's all.

>>90
(>>88 here), I don't advocate for violence, so I don't know where you're getting that from. I was just stating that nobody has the ability to opt out of certain programs like Social Security. As soon as you're born, you're given a nine digit number that you are obligated to remember for the rest of your natural life, that you cannot opt out of, nor did you consent to be a part of it in the first place. That is tyranny.

Though, hypothetically, if one were given the choice to opt out, then I would support that. I also would keep Social Security for the time being for those it was promised to (elderly already receiving Social Security payments, and baby boomers who are soon to be recipients) and the current young generation the option to opt out, since they're not going to receive all that they put in to it anyway.

>>90
Blasphemy?  What're you, Irish?  The only part of your post that makes any sense is:
...I fail to see...
Ironic, in light of my Cicero quote.

>>91
See what I mean?

>>91
How do you equate having a mixed system with being forced to accept social security among other things? Why so desperate for no society to have both public and private organisations? The only way you're going to stop people from having mixed economies in a system where they can do what they want is by using violence, which is of course logically contradictory, so you might aswell just give up on that point.

That's the issue here. Maybe I'm referring more to the other guy but it seems you are so eager to trash the current system you are willing to raze the good ideas with the bad ideas.
>>92
The moment anyone disagrees you go into "YOU'RE A SHEEPLE, THE SKY IS FALLING, BAWWW". You are a fag.

>>93
No, you're just stupid.