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[Eagle_eye]

I think it's acceptable because he got something essential, treatment for drug abuse, from an incredibly minor loss from the bank. If it increases happiness without a greater increase in suffering, it is good. Stealing to save your own life, as is probably the case if he needs drug rehabilitation, is acceptable.

Our society is nowhere near being unable to provide enough labor to sustain the retired. While we will likely eventually have to encourage older people to work, it won't be for a long time. I'm confident we'll have almost all manual labor automated by the time demographics get that bad.

[Descan]

Or you could simply get rid of capitalism. It's a broken system that encourages people to compete, rather than work together, in hopes of personal reward. If everyone has the basic necessities, and is then given money with which to buy luxuries based on how much work they put in, noone is dying, and you still have a productive workforce. Noone deserves to die, no matter how worthless to society they are. As I've said previously, I don't care if they're a pathological liar, horribly lazy and a crackhead, they still deserve to live, and depriving them of that is murder.

Yes. This. I agree with this manshaped entity.

[Strife26]

Or you could simply get rid of capitalism. It's a broken system that encourages people to compete, rather than work together, in hopes of personal reward. If everyone has the basic necessities, and is then given money with which to buy luxuries based on how much work they put in, noone is dying, and you still have a productive workforce.

Aaand then there's no personal reason to work or work hard, unless you'd like to play some fun, extreme patriotism/ authoritarianism/ enthusiasm type thing where the cure's at least as bad as the disease.

You don't get freedom and a system where stuff is equal, except on such a small level where you can self-police your own group. Doesn't work for a country, or even a city.

Capitalism's like democracy. They're both the worst things ever, except for everything else.


Honestly, a better argument, at least in my mind, would be how much a government's supposed to be helping people get out of the property trap, and what specific measures are semi-cost effectivish.

[i2amroy]

Or you could simply get rid of capitalism. It's a broken system that encourages people to compete, rather than work together, in hopes of personal reward. If everyone has the basic necessities, and is then given money with which to buy luxuries based on how much work they put in, noone is dying, and you still have a productive workforce. Noone deserves to die, no matter how worthless to society they are. As I've said previously, I don't care if they're a pathological liar, horribly lazy and a crackhead, they still deserve to live, and depriving them of that is murder.

While I agree that everyone deserves the chance to live, the problem comes as Strife26 pointed out. If I was guaranteed all the basics (food, clothing, shelter) I figure that I personally would throw in the extra 2 hours a week to purchase access to the internet, and then I'd be fine with that lifestyle. And I'm betting there is a good percentage of people out there who would agree with me.

The other problem comes in that prices have to be based on the demand of the things being bought. Communist Russia proved that you can't base your prices on anything else, or you end up with companies only making children's clothing since they "can make more per month" or only making large & tall since "they have a large volume and a heavier weight". And currently, the only system in existence that can modulate prices fast enough to keep up with changing demand is capitalism. Government pricing sure can't keep up fast enough, as Communist Russia once again proved; you need something that can respond instantly to changing demands. Sure someday in the future we might have computers that can anticipate fast enough to allow more in-depth government pricing, but at the moment capitalism is the only system that works.

[Eagle_eye]

Prices shouldn't be based on supply and demand. They should be based on the time required to acquire or manufacture something. If a couch can be made with roughly one hour of labor, it should be worth one hour of someone else's labor.As for people not working enough, that's absolutely fine. We really don't need that much production. Not nearly as much as we use. If people want considerable amounts of luxuries though, they will have to work more. Perhaps a certain amount of mandated work for those who are capable to cover food and utility costs, but beyond that, you should get as much out of society as you put in. If people collectively decide they don't want to produce luxuries, there's nothing wrong with that.

[Descan]

I just want subsistence life for everyone guaranteed. House, food, and whatever you need to get a job. (Safety shoes, a suit, a 100 dollar laptop for office work, whatever.)

Just because you get fired, get laid off, no one will hire you, doesn't mean you should starve in the streets. :/

And in Canada? We're pretty close to that! So I'm happy. Mostly. I'll be happier when Harper leaves.

[Truean]

One of the most misunderstood topics today, wealth is a problem currently. You've got rules written against the average person, but also hurting the productive wealthy while helping the corrupt wealthy. Ironically enough, the people who pay the most taxes in the US are the self employed, and if people want to talk about help for "small businesses" then quite frankly you can't get smaller than one person businesses, except ... none person businesses.... Doesn't work does it?

Fact of the matter is we have limited resources and I get that. The issue is how we use them, who decides that and by what formula. The problem comes in when people make stupid choices based on bets they aren't sure on: a lot of Wall St. Moreover, it's increasingly "cost effective" not to hire anyone, which is crap. Ethically, I suppose slavery has always been "cheaper" (which is what the third world basically is: slave labor) and robots may be great, but "How many cars do those machines buy Mr. Ford?" <--- Those who don't learn from the past, are doomed to repeat it.

It's a case by case situation and depends upon the individual wealthy person. The one thing I will say though, is that people who are well off, tend to not give a shit about the rest of the world. I often hear "well I did it" from wealthy people as a reason why everyone else should too.... This is foolish at best. There's only one 1st place winner, that doesn't mean everyone else who runs the race isn't worth anything. Without everyone else in the race, there wouldn't be a race. It would just be one person running....

[kaijyuu]

Yeah I'm pretty sure most everyone would love a scarcity-free environment, at least when it comes to necessities (food, etc).


People don't need responsibilities to be productive. Sure, we'd have a lot more artists out there and a lot less people flipping hamburgers, but frankly? That's a huge improvement. Even discounting everything else.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

What is the progress of human civilization if not trying to move towards an arrangement where as many people as possible can do whatever they want to with their lives? Modern civilization at least. Traditional civilization had much different goals, but being that traditional civilization is worse in virtually every way and is very quickly dying off I'd say we don't need to pay it much mind.

[Descan]

I don't know all the results that would come from bumping the baseline state of living from "Starving in the streets" to "Opportunities abound" (CAN YOU TELL MY BIAS?) but I'm willing to try it. :I

I would love a -lot- more artists around. And less burger-flippers.

[GlyphGryph]

I find it amusing the number of people who consider "adding value" or "stealing" or "coercion" to be the only routes to wealth. What of value manipulation? (creating a need to fill, meaning no value is added overall, it is simply moved to those who provide). Most advertising works nowadays by creating a negative value situation - by actively harming those who view it, in order to sell a product that brings them back to the same level, while transferring wealth to the advertiser. And rent-seeking? I'm pretty sure gatekeeping is one of the most common routes to wealth today, and has been for a long time. It's also one of the most nefarious - production benefits everyone, stealing and coercion can easily be legislated against (though there are currently a great many types of theft that are either legal or minimally enforced.

But gatekeeping... thats not so easy. It's easy for it to pretend to add value without doing so, or even while decreasing overall value. To get a clear view of the problems with gatekeeping, look at real estate markets or monopoly-patents. There's undoubtable value to have a system where gatekeeping is allowed, to reward those who are productive but would otherwise gain little from it, but it often seems overshadowed by uses that are technically similar but overall quite negative.

[i2amroy]

Warning! Wall-o-text inbound! 

Prices shouldn't be based on supply and demand. They should be based on the time required to acquire or manufacture something. If a couch can be made with roughly one hour of labor, it should be worth one hour of someone else's labor.As for people not working enough, that's absolutely fine. We really don't need that much production. Not nearly as much as we use. If people want considerable amounts of luxuries though, they will have to work more. Perhaps a certain amount of mandated work for those who are capable to cover food and utility costs, but beyond that, you should get as much out of society as you put in. If people collectively decide they don't want to produce luxuries, there's nothing wrong with that.

The problem I see with this is that if you measure everything in hours you can get some crazy results. I mean are we just counting factory time? Because then I could buy a car for 27-35 hours worth of work then (which even at $50 and hour is only $1750). Are we including growth time? Because then things like a single peach skyrocket up considering that teams of people work long hours for months to grow, tend, pick, and sort a crop of peaches, which even after division by the number of peaches in each crop still leads to a substantial number. Are we including transportation time? Prices go up even more.

And what about jobs that produce more then others in the same amount of time? Who determines the hour ratio that each job functions at? Is an hour of saying "thank you may I take your order" worth the same amount as an hour of working in a clean suit building circuit boards? What about an hour digging ditches for irrigation? If the president works an hour on national security is it worth the same amount as an hour spent picking avocados?

Now even assuming that this whole system works miraculously, somehow all of your prices are normalized, you come up with some sort of multiplication system for hours so that jobs that produce more are worth more, and you still run into one simple problem. What if nobody wants to do a certain job? With supply and demand determining prices, you know that if the demand ever outstrips the supply by far enough, then somebody will start creating that object if only for the fact that they can sell it for immense prices. If the whole thing is based on hours to produce though, then what happens when you have 1,000 people asking for TV's and you only had 500 produced? With an hours system there is no incentive to switch to a job that fulfills that demand, and you end up with 500 people who are unable to spend their hours. Which 500? Who knows! Of course you could always simply adjust your hours multiplier in order to encourage people to produce more of the desired object, but then you are once again allowing demand to moderate your prices, only now you are using it to modify the supply directly through wages. Any hours system leads to a capitalist society the instant you introduce wage manipulation, and if you don't introduce it then you don't produce what you need; since I know for a fact that me and 99% of the people out there would rather do some easy, not very productive job then do hard work that is highly productive.

Yes I am all for a massive work-for-needs program that allows those who can to work in exchange for the necessities of life; and yes, I agree that if we had some massive thing that could react quickly to supply and demand to promote co-operation it would be better, but right now we don't have one of those.Instead we have the one system that currently reacts fast enough to ensure that there is enough supply for those that want and enough demand for those that produce, capitalism. Because face it, at heart people are utterly self-centered and without some sort of positive reinforcement they won't do anything they don't need to. Sure you might point out heroes and those who acted selflessly, but if somebody throws a knife at you, regardless of who you are, your first instinct is going to be to duck, ignoring the fact that there is a child behind you. That's what makes those heroes so amazing, the fact that they overcame that selfishness that the majority of us are bound to.

[Strife26]

Prices shouldn't be based on supply and demand. They should be based on the time required to acquire or manufacture something. If a couch can be made with roughly one hour of labor, it should be worth one hour of someone else's labor.As for people not working enough, that's absolutely fine. We really don't need that much production. Not nearly as much as we use. If people want considerable amounts of luxuries though, they will have to work more. Perhaps a certain amount of mandated work for those who are capable to cover food and utility costs, but beyond that, you should get as much out of society as you put in. If people collectively decide they don't want to produce luxuries, there's nothing wrong with that.

Soooo people should be rewarded in relation to the amount they're willing to work? Shall we additionally compensate people for doing work in proportion to it being really crappy work? And what about jobs with education requirements?

Maybe a system of rewarding people with their government credits in direct relationship to how many government credits people are willing to pay for the goods they produce?

[Eagle_eye]

Yes, then they should be made to find some other work they're better at, if you pursue education and go into that field, you should be retroactively compensated for work time during education.

[GlyphGryph]

Prices shouldn't be based on supply and demand. They should be based on the time required to acquire or manufacture something. If a couch can be made with roughly one hour of labor, it should be worth one hour of someone else's labor.As for people not working enough, that's absolutely fine. We really don't need that much production. Not nearly as much as we use. If people want considerable amounts of luxuries though, they will have to work more. Perhaps a certain amount of mandated work for those who are capable to cover food and utility costs, but beyond that, you should get as much out of society as you put in. If people collectively decide they don't want to produce luxuries, there's nothing wrong with that.

Prices shouldn't be based on supply and demand. They should be based on the time required to acquire or manufacture something.

you should get as much out of society as you put in.

Your points seem to be mutually contradictory. Should the price be based on the cost to acquire or the value added to society? Those are extremely different metrics!
Also, "time required" is ridiculously hard to calculate - if I solve your problem, in server tech support, in 5 minutes, but I can only do so because I've spent years and years memorizing everything I need to do so, do I still only get compensated the same as the guy making me a sandwich?  If I invent a machine to build things quicker and better, will I suddenly be compensated less? This seems like a disaster, punishing people for doing things effectively or building up professional skills. Basically, you punish people for putting value into society. That's pretty dumb.

Edit:

Yes, then they should be made to find some other work they're better at, if you pursue education and go into that field, you should be retroactively compensated for work time during education.

You're still punishing those who work efficiently. Your making people suffer for no reason - if I can add twice the value to society I take out in, say, 2 hours, why should I have to work 8 to earn the right to extract that value? Why should I bother doing things well, when all that matters is time?