Trio and Friends

Ondrej wrote:Responsibility rests on the shoulders of the owner. My mom was once teaching a kindergarten class and at the beginning of the school year she purchased a set of markers for the class to share. Presently there arose a dispute between a brother and sister. The sister claimed that her brother was treating the markers too roughly and was going to damage the tips so that they would be ruined. The brother denied her claims and said the markers will just wear out naturally and that his treatment of the markers was no worse than her treatment. To solve this problem, my mom went out and bought everyone their own markers. Now the sister had nothing to complain about because her markers were not being mistreated and she would not have to suffer any consequences of his behavior. He was also perfectly happy to have his own markers where his sister’s concerns over his treatment of them no longer had any grounds. A few weeks later he began complaining that his markers no longer worked very well because the tips had been damaged. My mom then showed him his sister’s markers and pointed out that hers were still working perfectly. Finally, he agreed to change his behavior, my mom bought him new markers and the issue was resolved.

The challenge is how to attach responsibility for a person’s actions to that person. We generally consider it unjust for consequences of actions taken by one person falling onto another. In the marker story, we sense an injustice if the sister has to put up with ruined markers because of the brother’s actions. We would also sense an injustice if the good markers that the sister had preserved by her proper care were taken from her and given to the brother because his markers no longer worked. But what a story it would be if the sister had compassion on her brother, instructed him on how to properly use the markers and then voluntarily shared her markers with him. Those are the types of stories we love to tell! They ‘resonate’ with us. We sense that it is right and good. However, in the case of the communal markers it is not clear who is at fault. Is the brother being overly rough? Is the sister being overly cautious? If everyone is instructed to abide by the rules laid out by the most cautious person, many will feel unreasonably restricted. Likewise, if no rule is made, everyone will have to live with the consequences of actions that other people made.

Capitalism seeks the most practical solution. You can do with your things as you see fit (within certain limits) and you do not get to say what other people do with their things (within certain limits). Obviously this can get quite nuanced but this is at least the starting premise. But what is beneath it? What are we really trying to resolve with this arrangement? It is a difference in values. Both the brother and sister valued the markers, but the brother valued the treatment of the markers differently than the sister. Once he observed/experienced the consequences of his actions he changed his values to align with his sister’s. Without separate ownership and individual responsibility the consequences of his values could not be made clear and would also be endured by everyone.

The brilliance of this arrangement is that it is simple to understand, and reveals the truth (roughly speaking) about the consequences of your actions and values because they are not ‘subsidized’ by someone elses’ actions and values.

Take the example of the debt charity you mentioned. People have found themselves in dire straits because of poor financial management and are seeking help to understand what they can do to get out of it. What if their poor behavior was shared by all? What if they did not have to live with the consequences of their actions and they could just take what they needed from some communal pool of resources? You would never be able to say, “You are making a mistake with how you are spending” nor would they be receptive to hear it. The communal pool of resources would simply dwindle to nothing as people helped themselves to what they felt they should take. We need the corrective influence of failure to force us to take a cold hard look at our values and actions and determine where we need to improve. This was expressed as point 6) in the preamble “The vast majority of people will not spontaneously be driven to work and especially not hard work without significant motivation.” The other side of the same coin, however, is that if you are doing things ‘correctly’ you personally benefit. When people in the debt charity make changes and sacrifices in their lives the benefits do not go to someone else. This arrangement allows you to figure out what is the ‘correct’ way and it doesn’t allow you to lie to get away with anything.

In reply, Ondrej wrote:The point of the example was to illustrate the problem capitalism attempts to solve. This was just to illustrate the idea that we would like to make sure that the ramifications of poor or good choices stay attached to the people making those choices.

Nothing ensures that everyone starts off on an equal footing. There is an insinuation in your statement that this would be good and desirable. I think this is an insidious and anti-human idea; I recoil in horror at it. Some people are tall, some people are short, some people are clever, others not so much, some people have blond hair, some people have pretty blue eyes, some people are strong, some people have great parents, some people grew up poor. Differences between people are what make us human, interesting, unique. That differences between people should be eradicated is a monstrous idea.

It is true that some people do not have the same advantages as other people. I don’t understand how it could be otherwise. If I spend all my money on booze and have trouble holding down a job should I expect the same lot in life as someone who works hard and plans for the future? Many people spend their entire lives sacrificing and laying the foundation for their children. Planting trees in whose shade they will never sit. One can only hope that God is fair enough to allow their sacrifices to bless their children. At the same time, if those sacrifices are not made how can you expect such blessings to materialize. This is how reality works. If you plan for the future properly it is easier to handle. If you don’t prepare or prepare poorly it will not go well for you. Capitalism says, and you get to keep the fruits of your labor, or stated differently, nobody is allowed to rob you of your property.

Moreover, once you have properly arranged your life and you can keep the bill collectors at bay, you are free to make contributions to your community. This used to be represented by the church. This is perfectly fine in capitalism. You are free to do what you want with your property. You can give it away. (You can’t take it back though because ownership has changed). If you are concerned with challenges faced by those in your community and you have amassed the resources to help out, great! Everyone will praise you. If you are concerned with the challenges faced by those in your community and you do not have the means to help out, you are free to request resources from fellow members of your community. They may be very willing to help out as well. Very rarely will someone rejoice in the random suffering of their fellow man. Capitalism says all of this is fine. People are doing what they want with their resources. Putting it toward goals they believe are important. Where the line is crossed is when you notice there are challenges faced by someone in your community, you do not have the resources to help out, so you help yourself to someone else's resources. Not only does capitalism forbid this, it is also immoral. Just because some cause ranks high on your priority list, this does not mean you are allowed to artificially elevate that cause on everyone else’s priority list though coercive force (i.e. government).

Two markers to begin with… You are always given markers to begin with. They are not the same markers as everyone else gets, some of them are, but there are large differences between people. The huge problem is that people focus on what other people have and how things are unequal instead of being grateful for what they do have. Ungratefulness and jealousy will not serve you well. You live in a rich, western society, you have clean water and plumbing, you have heat in the winter. You have access to the internet perhaps. You have a great friend. Look at what you have and begin with gratefulness. This will put you in the proper mindset to begin to make the world better around you. Learn to do something. Maybe you cannot be the next Google CEO, and maybe it is because you can’t afford an education (although this is by no means clear e.g. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and even the Google founder did not finish college). You could be bitter about this but it will not serve you well. Do what you can with what you have. Do not be envious of your neighbor. Start small and slow and walk forward. Maybe one day your children, or your grandchildren will be able to attend a good school. This, naturally, becomes more uncertain the more the socialists insist on taking from you and preventing you from passing on to your children. This is the American dream. There is not a mass exodus of people trying to escape the brutal inequity of capitalism, they are all trying desperately to have their own humble slice of such freedom and potential. Is it unequal? Absolutely! That is the great feature. That’s what everyone WANTS. Their work will accrue to themselves.

Let us consider a loving father who sacrifices his time and body at his work. He carefully restrains his spending and goes without fancier things; they are less important than his child’s education. He works and plans and saves and gives his child the opportunity for a top quality education. Yes, this is good, we say. But next door there is another father who is more concerned with fine amenities. They both make the same amount of money but the second father spends his money on nice things. They purchase granite countertops and sleek appliances, always have the latest cell phones, they drive fancy cars. Then their child wants a top quality education. They can’t afford it! Their child’s future will be impacted! They watch as the neighbor’s child goes off to that prestigious university. It’s not fair! Here, we have made everything equal and still it is not fair because of the choices people made.

The equality that capitalism insists upon is that everyone is equal under the law. This is a very different idea than everyone starting at the same place. We will not all start at the same place, and this is ok.

Ondrej wrote:Nothing ensures that everyone starts off on an equal footing. There is an insinuation in your statement that this would be good and desirable. I think this is an insidious and anti-human idea; I recoil in horror at it. Some people are tall, some people are short, some people are clever, others not so much, some people have blond hair, some people have pretty blue eyes, some people are strong, some people have great parents, some people grew up poor. Differences between people are what make us human, interesting, unique. That differences between people should be eradicated is a monstrous idea.

Ondrej wrote:Where the line is crossed is when you notice there are challenges faced by someone in your community, you do not have the resources to help out, so you help yourself to someone else's resources. Not only does capitalism forbid this, it is also immoral. Just because some cause ranks high on your priority list, this does not mean you are allowed to artificially elevate that cause on everyone else’s priority list though coercive force (i.e. government).

"you're free to help them if you want, but you're not obliged to." That makes them no different from someone whose life fell apart out of their own bad choices. You're also free to help them if you want, but you're not obliged to.

But am I not free to vote for a party which, if it won the election, would spend taxpayer's money on support for the disabled, for example? Or is it immoral even to vote for such a political system?

Ondrej wrote:The choice is on YOU. What will you do? It is your morality and ethics.

Capitalism seems very focused on a single moral dilemma and aims to protect the individual who wants to keep his or her stuff.

What movements away from capitalism can be made that still maintains all the freedoms you are already assuming?

• Fund the military
• Fund the police
• Fund the courts
• Provide salaries for politicians
• Build roads

• To pay social workers to intervene in cases of domestic abuse.
• To pay for orphanages where parents are dead or incapable of raising a child.
• To pay for an immigration system that evaluates the claims of asylum seekers.
• To pay for prisons.
• To pay for schools for kids whose parents cannot afford a private school.
• To pay for hospitals.
• To provide welfare for the unemployed while they look for a new job.

Barney wrote:I think what makes capitalism so attractive is the idea that it’s a perfectly self-regulating system that needs no meddling or interference, nobody to correct it or keep it on track. It corrects itself and keeps itself on track by the force of its own logic. Nobody ever needs to worry about injustice being done, because justice is integral to the system.

In reply, Ondrej wrote:I would say it's an imperfectly self-regulating system that needs constant meddling and interference to keep it on track. However, the level of complexity of all transactions is so high that top down governmental control typically does more harm than good because across the board rules do not have the surgical nuance of a million individual decisions.

Barney wrote:I really like the way you've put it here. I agree that all transactions have a high level of complexity, such that interference can often have unwanted side-effects. I would argue, however, that the consequences of not interfering are often worse. Therefore, we are left with an imperfect situation in which decisions must be made that will have many unforeseen consequences, some of them probably negative. The art of leadership involves making such decisions with insufficient data, in the hope that the decision has the least negative consequences.

Ondrej wrote:Ok so I think we agree that unfettered capitalism must be tempered with some level of external guidance. As my previous example illustrates with regard to sex trafficking, market demand is not nuanced enough to appreciate the ethical problem involved with providing such a service. It is the degree of meddling and in which aspects where the two sides disagree. On the left they are very distrustful of "big business" and find liberal application of government interference a positive thing. On the right, they are very distrustful of "big government" having seen disastrous consequences of authoritarian control. On the right they may recognize the presence of injustice in the market but nevertheless not be willing to give the government power to regulate for fear of consequences from the government misbehaving down the line.

Ondrej wrote:If we are in one breath critical of capitalism and in the next breath asking what we ought to do, does it not follow that in the third breath we will be passing reforms of capitalism to "help" people do the right thing?

• If this was true, it would mean that we can build no further morality on top of capitalism. We must stop at the level of freedom and give neither ourselves nor anybody else any guidance on what might be best to do with our freedom. Why? Because any 'guidance' is a slippery slope to becoming a law, which is a slippery slope to a police state in which everyone is forced to do the right thing.
• If this was true, it would mean that we dare not be critical of capitalism because to do so is a threat to our freedom. Capitalism is equated so strongly with freedom that to question one means to question the other.
• If this was true, it would mean that freedom must not be compromised for anything. Freedom is the ultimate and only value, against which all other values weigh nothing at all. My freedom to drive on whichever side of the road I want; my freedom to exploit my neighbor; my freedom to pump loads of poison into the atmosphere as long as I paid for it; my freedom to lie about the products I sell; my freedom to buy the Mona Lisa just so I can burn it; my freedom to walk casually past a child drowning in the pond, when at no cost to myself I could put out a hand to rescue it; my freedom to walk into a retirement home while contagious with Covid and infect everyone else with it. And if any of these freedoms are questioned, you are seen as an evil communist who wants to take away freedom. Freedom is the only morality, therefore the only sin is to infringe someone else's freedom.