tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post8494012515266821295..comments2024-03-18T15:57:33.286-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Chief Justice OckhamEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger306125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-72057979815864027682012-12-09T14:37:48.966-08:002012-12-09T14:37:48.966-08:00As I agree with your metaphysics I don't agree...As I agree with your metaphysics I don't agree with your views on ''Obamacare'' or on political issues.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28436824236440547842012-11-15T16:53:11.203-08:002012-11-15T16:53:11.203-08:00"Modern conservativism" ranges from Ayn ...<i>"Modern conservativism" ranges from Ayn Randian 'police are for commies, real americans buy their own police' lunacy to Buchanan style 'America First' protectionism to otherwise. Stop trying to prove an entire, broad range of political thought can be pigeonholed into some extraordinarily narrow definition. If I defined liberalism in some way that required a person to be pro-abortion, you'd probably go ballistic - as well you should.</i><br /><br />I would define liberalism that way <i>myself</i>, because it seems to be one of their key ideas alongside gay marriage and general moral decay. One of the many reasons I'm not a liberal.<br /><br />In any case, conservatism of all stripes encourages capitalism. It's just the brand that differs. Usually, it goes between full-on Randian social Darwinism (Tea Party) and a slightly more sane approach (<a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-breeding-program-aimed-at-keeping-moderate-rep,27371/" rel="nofollow">the elusive moderates</a>). I'd be impressed if you could find me a <i>non</i>-capitalist conservative, honestly. <br /><br /><i>No, Rank. This won't work. Your list was wrong, period. You're not going to make your case, because if you try you will fail spectacularly.</i><br /><br />Actually, it's because I'm done having a personal debate with you. I asked you to clarify your positions, as I clarified mine, and you've refused. I even explained what I thought you believed, in hopes that we could meaningfully sort this out. No luck. When you're interested in getting the debate back on track, instead of flailing around about how I'm a "liberal" who wants "big government solutions", we can try again.<br /><br /><i>For you to turn around and attribute what you did to what I've said here goes beyond me having possibly said something unclear and you legitimately misinterpreting it. You were wrong.</i><br /><br />You're the one who's still convinced I'm a liberal, after I've expressly denied that multiple times. If you want to explain yourself concisely, do so. Otherwise, we're done.<br /><br /><i>I didn't view this conversation as some kind of proxy fight that's part of a greater war against 'liberalism' or 'communists' or who knows what else.</i><br /><br />I started out this argument with a post directed at Prof. Feser. Since then, I have tried to make it clear that I'm arguing against ideologies, and not against people. It does not matter to me who I'm arguing with (no disrespect to you guys) as long as they're competent defenders of conservatism and/or Thomism. So, yes, I view this conversation as a proxy fight; and I have never tried to disguise this fact.<br /><br /><i>Because apparently there's no principled reason to reject Obamacare, or view the problems facing the world as having fundamentally different approaches re: potential solutions than government intervention, even federal intervention.</i><br /><br />There are principled reasons to reject Obamacare, but Thomism in large part does not appear to provide them. In any case, as I've said, my goal here is unrelated to the individuals involved. I'm attacking ideas.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-67757161930183007412012-11-15T15:44:23.478-08:002012-11-15T15:44:23.478-08:00It matters because modern conservatism is based in...<i>It matters because modern conservatism is based in large part on free-market capitalism. If what Tony calls "capitalism" is not actually capitalism, then it follows that I am right that modern conservatism is incompatible with Thomism. </i><br /><br />"Modern conservativism" ranges from Ayn Randian 'police are for commies, real americans buy their own police' lunacy to Buchanan style 'America First' protectionism to otherwise. Stop trying to prove an entire, broad range of political thought can be pigeonholed into some extraordinarily narrow definition. If I defined liberalism in some way that required a person to be pro-abortion, you'd probably go ballistic - as well you should.<br /><br /><i>I'm just telling you what signals I've been picking up from your posts. I have no interest in "proving a case" about what you believe. If you don't believe what it seems like you believe, then clarify yourself. I've done so in the face of your own misunderstandings about my position; if I've misunderstood yours, then I'd like you to clear up the mess.</i><br /><br />No, Rank. This won't work. Your list was wrong, period. You're not going to make your case, because if you try you will fail spectacularly. I did not say the things you attributed to me, nothing I said could be reasonably interpreted to 'get the impressions' you did. More than that, I said the *opposite* of most of what you attributed to me throughout this thread. I pointed out there was no problem with a government-led healthcare initiative in principle, subject to subsidiarity considerations. I pointed out that our current system is *busted*, but I locate the problem by and large on lowers levels. For you to turn around and attribute what you did to what I've said here goes beyond me having possibly said something unclear and you legitimately misinterpreting it. You were wrong.<br /><br />You should probably start asking WHY you were wrong too, because again, the 'impressions' you picked up about my views can't reasonably be picked up by what I wrote here. I'm talking about the moral failures of everyone from consumers to businesses, I say that government led health care can in principle be justified, but darnit, I've criticized Obamacare and said that the fundamental structure of an insuring company is defensible so clearly I have to be beholden to The Enemy?<br /><br /><i>No, it just means that we've been talking past each other for a week, because your claims about my beliefs have been radically wrong as well.</i><br /><br />Oh Lord. No they haven't, precisely because I tend to stay to the topic instead of trying to go beyond you and war against 'liberalism' or suchcrap. I didn't view this conversation as some kind of proxy fight that's part of a greater war against 'liberalism' or 'communists' or who knows what else. You, meanwhile, just revealed that for the bulk of this conversation, my disagreeing with Obamacare made you see me as some kind of radical freaking free market person who thinks 'natural selection' should take care of all problems and hey, if some poor people get smashed underfoot, well that's just the way things should be for the sake of market integrity and freedom. Because apparently there's no principled reason to reject Obamacare, or view the problems facing the world as having fundamentally different approaches re: potential solutions than government intervention, even federal intervention.<br /><br />Argue what you will. Like I said, I see this exact same problem come up when I tell conservative Christians that we should be promoting a culture that places a strong emphasis on businesses committing themselves to communities, giving to charity, not investing in immoral products, research or services, and I get 'You're a socialist!' pushback.Crudehttp://crudeideas.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29127602125153571272012-11-15T08:20:48.174-08:002012-11-15T08:20:48.174-08:00Back off a bit, and ask yourself whether you want ...<i>Back off a bit, and ask yourself whether you want to say that a market for trading in factory machines (capital assets) comes before or after there being a market of produced goods, i.e. goods produced by factory machines. Does a market in selling shoe-making machinery come before or after a market in selling shoes made by machine?</i><br /><br />Wikipedia says:<br /><br /><i>The defining feature of capitalist markets, in contrast to markets and exchange in pre-capitalist societies like feudalism, is the existence of a market for capital goods (the means of production), meaning exchange-relations (business relationships) exist within the production process.</i><br /><br />This means that one man or group owns the means of production and rents or sells them to another, who, perhaps, does the same in return. The idea is that capital goods are tossed around rather than worked by the owner himself. Leo XIII and Pius XI agree, as do the distributists, as do most theorists about capitalism. Earlier in this combox, when I referenced "building, buying and selling factory equipment", this is how it should be taken. One man or group produces capital goods that he/it does not work by him/itself. They generate capital goods for the sole purpose of selling or renting them to dependent companies. Also, recall that the tools provided to the workers who built that factory equipment (for example) were themselves rented out by their owner. In other words, it goes all the way up, until we're left with a vanishingly small number of owners at the top of the food chain. The guy who rents the means of production to the workers controls the fate of both those workers and the company that depends on his factory equipment.<br /><br /><i>I am not selling them, I am selling the machine that makes them. I couldn't care less about plancuvetsos, I am not in that market.</i><br /><br />Your example, while funny, does not show anything. In a feudal (or distributist/neofeudal) economy, you would work the plancuvetso machine yourself. You would not sell it, nor would you hire help to work it for you. You <i>would</i> rent or sell plancuvetsos, depending on what they are, because they (presumably) are a secondary good. Likewise, hiring out land to workers is a capitalist practice. Traditionally, that land would have been worked by its owner(s), who would then sell the secondary goods it generated.<br /><br />Your description of capitalism on page 1 ("I propose that we POOL our resources, tools, lumber, customer list, skills, and my organizational ability and form a corporation") does not accurately define a capitalist organization, because it does not involve the owner of the means of production selling or renting them to dependent companies or workers. Presumably, everyone in that hypothetical corporation has an equal stake in its capital, which means that no one is hiring out their capital goods to be worked by someone else. This is why Mondragon Corporation (a massive co-op in Spain) is not properly described as a capitalist organization: everyone at the company has an equal stake in its capital. It has executives and organizers, certainly, and these make more money than the average worker; but they do not rent out the capital goods to the workers, because they do not own any more of them than the others. It's a co-op owned equally by every member, each of whom has a single vote in deciding its practices.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-17470517584620707502012-11-15T08:20:13.207-08:002012-11-15T08:20:13.207-08:00Oh my. My oh my. This, friends, is an example of w...<i>Oh my. My oh my. This, friends, is an example of what comes of defending a position at all costs, no matter what, without paying attention to the words you use.</i><br /><br />Not sure what this is about, all of a sudden. I think you've misunderstood something again.<br /><br /><i>But please, so you stop making such a fool of yourself on this thread (which, I may add, is not characteristic of your work on other topics) please examine your OWN DARN WORDS. In Pius XI's definition, some people provide the capital, other people work on capital provided by others, where both the capital and the work are "needed for production". THAT'S ALL THAT"S NEEDED to identify capitalism, according to Pius.</i><br /><br />Everything I wrote after that is practically line-for-line the distributist critique of capitalism, which was based largely on Pius XI's criticisms of it in Quadragesimo Anno (from which those quotes derive). I'm not putting words in his mouth: I'm repeating his beliefs. I recommend that you do a little research into the subject before assuming that I'm the one who's made a mistake.<br /><br /><i>Nowhere does Pius state or infer that there is a market for trading capital goods "without any [so-called] secondary production or sale of goods. That's your words, and your concepts added to Pius's.</i><br /><br />No, actually; it's from the distributists and even Pius himself. The idea is that one man owns the capital while others work it for him, which means that the owner is not producing any secondary goods: he is only "renting out" the means of production that he owns. Read this if you want to understand what I'm talking about: http://distributistreview.com/mag/2012/06/too-few-capitalists-or-too-much-capitalism/<br /><br /><i>But surely when we say that "others provide the labor" we ARE IN FACT referring to labor upon something, i.e. labor upon the capital assets. No, it's not just implied, it's STATED: "needed for production". Anybody who takes Pius's words and infers that the actual process of applying labor (by other than the owners) to capital is secondary to what he was describing is just plain off his rocker.</i><br /><br />You completely misread my post. Here is what I'm saying:<br /><br />1. Under capitalism, one man owns the means of production and others work them.<br />2. The men who own the means of production do not have to work them.<br /><br />Whether or not the workers produce secondary goods (they probably do) was as not my point here: I was saying that the man who owns the means of production does not himself produce any secondary goods, because he is not engaged in working his own capital.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75680404504478313702012-11-15T06:59:25.572-08:002012-11-15T06:59:25.572-08:00Let's compare Adam Smith's definition to P...<i>Let's compare Adam Smith's definition to Pius XI's: "that economic system in which were provided by different people the capital and labor jointly needed for production". In other words, the system in which there is a market for capital goods and business deals involving capital goods, without any production or sale of secondary goods by the owners thereof. It is a system in which the means of production (capital goods) are owned by one party and worked by another.</i><br /><br />Oh my. My oh my. This, friends, is an example of what comes of defending a position at all costs, no matter what, without paying attention to the words you use. Rank, I am not going to debate what capitalism means with you: if you don't think Smith's description is capitalism then you don't. Period.<br /><br />But please, so you stop making such a fool of yourself on this thread (which, I may add, is not characteristic of your work on other topics) please examine your OWN DARN WORDS. In Pius XI's definition, some people provide the capital, other people work on capital provided by others, where both the capital and the work are "needed for production". THAT'S ALL THAT"S NEEDED to identify capitalism, according to Pius. Nowhere does Pius state or infer that there is a market for trading capital goods "without any [so-called] <i>secondary</i> production or sale of goods. That's your words, and your concepts added to Pius's. But surely when we say that "others provide the labor" we ARE IN FACT referring to labor upon something, i.e. labor upon the capital assets. No, it's not just implied, it's STATED: "needed for production". Anybody who takes Pius's words and infers that the actual process of applying labor (by other than the owners) to capital is <b>secondary</b> to what he was describing is just plain off his rocker. <br /><br />Rank, you have gotten so wrapped up in your theory that you aren't even noticing the words you cite yourself and what they mean. Take a deep breath. Smell the flowers. Back off a bit, and ask yourself whether you want to say that a market for trading in factory machines (capital assets) comes before or after there being a market of produced goods, i.e. goods produced by factory machines. Does a market in selling shoe-making machinery come before or after a market in selling shoes made by machine? <br /><br />I have a plancuvetso making-machine right here in my barn. I will sell it to you for cheap (on sale, today only, price goes up tomorrow). What's that, you asking, what are plancuvetsos? Well, that hardly matters does it? I am not selling them, I am selling the machine that makes them. I couldn't care less about plancuvetsos, I am not in that market. Why would you want such a machine? Well, gosh darn it, Rank, its a factory production machine, it's <i>capital assets</i>, man, that's why. What, why are you asking about who buys plancuvetsos and how much they pay for them? What's that got to do with the market price of the machine I am selling? I tell you, you can't make this machine for less than 3 times the price I am willing to sell it to you at, it's a GREAT bargain. Yeah, so you've never heard of plancuvetsos before, and you don't know anyone who has. Good, good, that means the market for plancuvetsos is still undersaturated, which is a really good thing for someone who wants to sell the darn things. But that's really no never mind of mine, my market is just the MACHINES, I tell you, and boy are you getting this one at a steal of a price. You don't know if you want the machine until you know how much you could sell a plancuvetso for? Boy, I wish you would stop confusing two different things, and get with the picture: selling plancuvetsos isn't something that pertains to the market in machines that make plancuvetsos, that's a different animal altogether. Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18861947399917258382012-11-15T03:55:26.079-08:002012-11-15T03:55:26.079-08:00It's all about aggregation of capital (meaning...<i>It's all about aggregation of capital (meaning, PRIMARILY, physical thing upon which labor can be brought to bear, not money, certainly not debt), division of labor, application of labor to capital, increase of productivity through focus of expertise, innovative improvements in production process, and trading what is excess-to-you for what is in shortage to you but is in excess-to-them.</i><br /><br />I never talked about trading debt, so I have no idea why you're bringing that up. As for your description above, it's fairly clear that Pius XI was right.<br /><br />Crude,<br /><br /><i>I'll further add - why in the world does this matter anyway? If Tony's defending something you don't think is capitalism, great. Then clearly he's operating from a different idea. Are you going to insist 'no no no what you're talking about isn't capitalism, so you can't defend that view'? Even if your criticism somehow held, it wouldn't matter much in this situation. No one's going to hold it against him for failing to properly adhere to the capitalistic view - at least, save for other capitalists, which isn't Rank anyway.</i><br /><br />It matters because modern conservatism is based in large part on free-market capitalism. If what Tony calls "capitalism" is not actually capitalism, then it follows that I am right that modern conservatism is incompatible with Thomism. <br /><br /><i>It's like being told I'm not a capitalist because, say, I'm actually not completely against communities determining what sort of businesses will be present in their community via zoning laws, and a True Capitalist believes you can start a coal mining operating right in the middle of a suburb.</i><br /><br />It isn't anything like that, but okay.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-31282163601092870592012-11-15T03:55:12.429-08:002012-11-15T03:55:12.429-08:00NOTHING you have done shows any kind of natural ri...<i>NOTHING you have done shows any kind of natural right of a sick person to be waited upon by others for health care. There is no such right.</i><br /><br />Of course there is. If an innocent man is dying, and you do nothing to save his life when you have the power to do so, you have violated his rights. This is not an obligation of charity alone, but also of justice: by choosing not to act, you actively deny him his right to life. If you can assist a child with cancer with money for treatment, but fail to do so, it is also a violation of rights. How? Because, as I believe the above quotes demonstrate, aid in extreme situations becomes the right of the needy. Even theft is no longer theft, because property rights change to the person in need. <br /><br /><i>For you to have a natural right to receive care from me is for me to be a natural slave to you.</i><br /><br />No--not unless you call "being a slave" having an obligation by justice to save an innocent man's life when it's in your power, or having an obligation by justice to give people their own property.<br /><br /><i>You can talk all you want about the evils of modern insurance companies, but none of that remotely begins to establish a natural right of a poor person to be given health care gratis, much less a health care contract. Charity is an obligation on those who (should) give, WITHOUT being a natural right for those who receive.</i><br /><br />I have been arguing for the last 150 posts or so that this scenario is an obligation of justice and not merely of charity. You're going to have to reinterpret the ST articles I cited if you want to make your case. <br /><br /><i>I am not going to debate the definition of capitalism.</i><br /><br />Then you have no case whatsoever. As Mr. Green said earlier, defining "capitalism" is the key to unravelling this entire mess.<br /><br /><i>Adam Smith, in Wealth of Nations, wrote the first major tour-de-force on capitalism, and it does NOT talk in any way, shape, or form of either the treating debt as a capital commodity, nor focus strictly on manufacture and control of factory tools and machines as central capitalism components.</i><br /><br />Let's compare Adam Smith's definition to Pius XI's: "that economic system in which were provided by different people the capital and labor jointly needed for production". In other words, the system in which there is a market for capital goods and business deals involving capital goods, without any production or sale of secondary goods by the owners thereof. It is a system in which the means of production (capital goods) are owned by one party and worked by another. This is not your "joint-ownership-with-executives" definition from before, which would even include a (basically distributist) co-op like Mondragon Corporation. Capitalism does not just involve executive powers--it involves owning capital goods that are then "rented" out to be worked by someone else, so to speak. Because of this market for capital goods, they gradually move into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals, who can hire more and more people to work for them. Pius XI's solution was "to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners", rather than merely contracted workers. rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-62356345427465709762012-11-15T03:50:53.133-08:002012-11-15T03:50:53.133-08:00Crude,
Show me where I've said this. Because ...Crude,<br /><br /><i>Show me where I've said this. Because you are going to have to ridiculously modify your words here to have them come anywhere close to resembling what I've said.</i><br /><br />I'm just telling you what signals I've been picking up from your posts. I have no interest in "proving a case" about what you believe. If you don't believe what it seems like you believe, then clarify yourself. I've done so in the face of your own misunderstandings about my position; if I've misunderstood yours, then I'd like you to clear up the mess.<br /><br /><i>And if you can't adequately supported this interpretation of my words, then you're going to have demonstrated that you've been unable to accept what I really have been saying.</i><br /><br />No, it just means that we've been talking past each other for a week, because your claims about my beliefs have been radically wrong as well. I could not care less whether my characterization of your position can be proven correct--I want to hear your actual position. <br /><br />Tony,<br /><br /><i>That does it. Rank, you have not been listening.</i><br /><br />No, I have been listening. To Aquinas. See this article: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3066.htm#article7. Quotes:<br /><br /><i>It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another's property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need.</i><br /><br /><i>Hence whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor. For this reason Ambrose [Loc. cit., 2, Objection 3] says, and his words are embodied in the Decretals (Dist. xlvii, can. Sicut ii): "It is the hungry man's bread that you withhold, the naked man's cloak that you store away, the money that you bury in the earth is the price of the poor man's ransom and freedom."</i><br /><br />Further (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3058.htm#article11):<br /><br /><i>As stated above (A8,10), the matter of justice is an external operation in so far as either it or the thing we use by it is made proportionate to some other person to whom we are related by justice. Now each man's own is that which is due to him according to equality of proportion. Therefore the proper act of justice is nothing else than to render to each one his own.</i><br /><br />Withholding aid <i>is</i> a rights violation, because, by natural law, the money or goods involved are the property of the man who is being denied them. The quote from Ambrose made this abundantly clear. Unless you can show that I've misinterpreted these articles, you don't have any moves left.<br /><br /><i>But obligations in charity do not create or even point to natural rights in the recipient of charity. That's just the problem with liberalism all over again. It ISN'T a violation of RIGHTS when I fail in my duty to be charitable.</i><br /><br />I'm aware of this. Natural rights are involved in cases of justice, which is why it's been my goal to show that the case in question is a problem of justice.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-46979190662718037032012-11-15T00:56:48.541-08:002012-11-15T00:56:48.541-08:00Because what you call capitalism is not capitalism...<i>Because what you call capitalism is not capitalism, and no one else has ever agreed with your definition of capitalism. </i><br /><br />I'll further add - why in the world does this matter anyway? If Tony's defending something you don't think is capitalism, great. Then clearly he's operating from a different idea. Are you going to insist 'no no no what you're talking about isn't capitalism, so you can't defend that view'? Even if your criticism somehow held, it wouldn't matter much in this situation. No one's going to hold it against him for failing to properly adhere to the capitalistic view - at least, save for other capitalists, which isn't Rank anyway.<br /><br />It's like being told I'm not a capitalist because, say, I'm actually not completely against communities determining what sort of businesses will be present in their community via zoning laws, and a True Capitalist believes you can start a coal mining operating right in the middle of a suburb. Alright, fine, I guess I'm not a True Capitalist then. I still have the views that I do.Crudehttp://crudeideas.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-15946519843532737782012-11-15T00:10:50.198-08:002012-11-15T00:10:50.198-08:00Some commentators on this thread, seem to subscrib...Some commentators on this thread, seem to subscribe to a somewhat mistaken perception of the 'free market' as a justified end in itself, and speak of it as if it were endowed with a life force of its own, an entity that must remain unrestrained to find its own equilibrium within the marketplace. It is a sort of God of righteous mammon, so to speak, seemingly legitimated by the contemporary promotion of its correlate, the prosperity gospel. <br /><br />What is missed in this misconstrued conception is that the 'free market' is a means to an end purely. What is missed in this misconstrued conception is that free market economics is a wholly-owned derivative of human social activity. No people, no free market. And like all social or communal activity it must be tweaked and regulated in order that it best reflects what society demands of it. A defensible end in a civilized society is the continuing improvement of the 'human condition', however that may be defined, of which health is a fundamental requisite. One cannot talk of improving the human condition if some in the community through no fault of their own are excluded access simply on the basis of a free-market incapable of delivering it. It is unfortunate that the purveyors of the 'free market' seem singularly unable to envision the provision of healthcare unless and until it is commodified, ill-fittingly compacted into a cardboard box suitable for trading within the free market paradigm. Unfortunately, within that paradigm the free market trading of healthcare is regarded as simply synonymous with or no different to any other tradable commodity, as buying a washing machine, or a company taking out fire insurance cover. Such a perspective is a flawed one, as the current unacceptable level of market failure in the health insurance industry is clearly informing the discerning economist. There are several orders of magnitude in difference in accessing a washing machine to that of accessing health care.<br /><br />One can conceivably live without a washing machine but what is the point in excluding those in the community from accessing the great advances in medical and health services for no more reason than they have an inadvertent pre-existing condition.Papalintonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03818630173726146048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-70150806814392415062012-11-14T18:52:53.945-08:002012-11-14T18:52:53.945-08:00The natural law response to serious and/or prolong...<i>The natural law response to serious and/or prolonged rights violations</i> <br /><br />That does it. Rank, you have not been listening. Everything you have said so far points in the direction of an obligation we have to sick destitute people, an obligation in charity. But obligations in charity do not create or even point to <i>natural rights</i> in the recipient of charity. That's just the problem with liberalism all over again. It ISN'T a violation of RIGHTS when I fail in my duty to be charitable. It is wrong of me, and I will receive my due punishment for such a failure in due course, but it isn't because what I have done is to withhold a natural right to someone - no such thing. NOTHING you have done shows any kind of natural right of a sick person to be waited upon by others for health care. There is no such right. For you to have a <i>natural right</i> to receive care from me is for me to be a natural slave to you. You want to skip back beyond Christian natural law theory all the way back to Aristotle's (mistaken) natural slave theory. Well, nobody in the Church upholds that theory. <br /><br />You can talk all you want about the evils of modern insurance companies, but none of that remotely begins to establish a <i>natural right</i> of a poor person to be given health care gratis, much less a health care contract. Charity is an obligation on those who (should) give, WITHOUT being a natural right for those who receive. <br /><br /><i>You cannot explain how what you're talking about differs from feudal business, nor have you even tried to justify your belief that what everyone else calls "capitalism" is in fact what certain people call "finance capitalism". All you've given me on this front is a lot of hand-waving and red herrings. Why? Because what you call capitalism is not capitalism, and no one else has ever agreed with your definition of capitalism. </i> <br /><br />I am not going to debate the definition of capitalism. Adam Smith, in <i>Wealth of Nations</i>, wrote the first major tour-de-force on capitalism, and it does NOT talk in any way, shape, or form of either the treating debt as a capital commodity, nor focus strictly on manufacture and control of factory tools and machines as central capitalism components. (Those all came later.) It's all about aggregation of capital (meaning, PRIMARILY, physical thing upon which labor can be brought to bear, not money, <i>certainly</i> not debt), division of labor, application of labor to capital, increase of productivity through focus of expertise, innovative improvements in production process, and trading what is excess-to-you for what is in shortage to you but is in excess-to-them. (All of which were present in my example). If you don't think that's capitalism central, then you don't think the grandfather of capitalism talked about capitalism. And there's nothing I want to say further, which is why I refused to get into it with you chapter and verse. Not worth it. Think what you want. Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-33416487252421932052012-11-14T17:04:54.544-08:002012-11-14T17:04:54.544-08:00dguller: No. And? The fact is that there are docto...dguller: <i>No. And? The fact is that there are doctors and healthcare available.</i><br /><br />If healthcare is a "right", then, if there were no doctors, we'd have the right to force people to become doctors.<br /><br />But you said healthcare is not a right unless there are doctors.<br /><br />Which was why I asked the question - to spur discussion of when someone has a "right" to <i>require</i> something of someone else. <br /><br />We can agree (I think) that a child has the right to expect parental action on his/her behalf and that that right does not cease to exist because the parents, for whatever reason, are not around (but rather falls on some adult somewhere).<br /><br />I think we can also agree that there is not a 'universal right to auto care' (even though there are plentiful mechanics and auto repair shops available).<br /><br />From this we can conclude that the existence and availability of something does not make a right exist. If it's a right, it is <i>always</i> a right.<br /><br />So where is the dividing line and where and why does healthcare fall on one side or the other?<br /><br />With a child, the right that requires action ceases to exist when the child comes of age. At that point, the child-become-adult is expected to take care of him/herself. This is based on the helplessness of the child when young and the capability of the adult.<br /><br />Auto care is similar in many respects - a broken car leaves us vulnerable and helpless transportation-wise (especially in rural areas). The main difference being that auto care (unlike parenting) is a business and a profession. We don't have a right to require a businessman (the owner of the repair shop) or a professional (the mechanic) to give us free auto care simply because we are in need.<br /><br />So I think it is safe to say that the child/parent relationship is born of a natural right whereas the car-owner/mechanic relationship is not.<br /><br />So is a doctor/patient relationship more like the child/parent or the car-owner/mechanic? That's the question.Liberteurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17878796551917615050noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38959982320045652932012-11-14T14:27:18.729-08:002012-11-14T14:27:18.729-08:00Correction.
Again - show me where I said anything...Correction.<br /><br /><i>Again - show me where I said anything to the effect of 'poor people slipping through the cracks is the price we pay for freedom', as opposed to 'individuals, families, friends, communities, churches, charities, neighborhoods, societies, local government, state government, etc have a responsibility and an ability to help the poor, and by the principle of subsidiarity effort should be applied to these groups in vastly more concentration than they currently is with regards to addressing problems and injustices.'</i><br /><br />Show me where I said otherwise, rather.<br /><br />The idea that I've been in this conversation insisting that poor people just have to suck it up and die because the free market is sacrosanct and there are clearly no problems to address, is ludicrous. I haven't even ruled out government action - I've argued that modern emphasis is on law, even federal law, and it's leaving a tremendous blind spot, harmful in itself.Crudehttp://crudeideas.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-73583957392360032782012-11-14T13:58:19.743-08:002012-11-14T13:58:19.743-08:00Insurance, à la the private health models with whi...Insurance, à la the private health models with which we are only too familiar, together with the broader Insurance industry covering life insurance etc. seem inexorably bound towards catastrophic market failure. These industries do much of their best work in an ignorant and ill-knowledgable environment based predominantly on actuarial predictions. The industry is economically incapable of functioning adequately in the context of pre-existing conditions. <br /><br />With the advent of DNA analysis and today's medical and scientific investigatory methodologies, pre-existing conditions and the prospect of identifying the genetic precursors of known illnesses in advance, now a reality, simply swamps any pretence of the current private health model as being an efficient market solution. The identification of genetic markers of possible future and likely illnesses mapped though DNA, as it is now demonstrating, will do little other than exacerbate the already deeply problematic nature of the current private health model. Obamacare is but only the second time [on from Medicare] that the US government has responded to an identified national need. It has been been a positive response in mopping up the discards and rejections that private health have clearly demonstrated are systemically incapable of managing. <br /><br />How might the private health insurance industry utilise the knowledge of an individual's DNA profile when dealing with pre-existing conditions? Not very well I suspect, as do most economists with conscience.Papalintonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03818630173726146048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-72465166282312596372012-11-14T13:33:58.614-08:002012-11-14T13:33:58.614-08:00rank,
Alright. I'm going to zero in on this.
...rank,<br /><br />Alright. I'm going to zero in on this.<br /><br /><i>1. In a free-market capitalist society, bad companies can be weeded out through natural selection.</i><br /><br />Show me where I've said this. Because you are going to have to ridiculously modify your words here to have them come anywhere close to resembling what I've said.<br /><br />I nowhere spoke of 'natural selection' - in fact, the *opposite* has been true. I've suggested that in a capitalist economy, one reasonable and important way to deal with bad companies is through the active, purposeful withholding of funds from them by consumers owing to their moral and ethical choices *apart from their quality of service*. That is the opposite of 'natural selection', passively letting the market do its thing while competitors are weeded out. So please, either back up what you've said here, or admit you were wrong.<br /><br /><i>2. Charities and so forth exist to take care of the people who get shut out.</i><br /><br />Uncontroversial. You're going to deny this?<br /><br /><i>3. The number of people shut out are the price we pay for "freedom".</i><br /><br />Again - show me where I said anything to the effect of 'poor people slipping through the cracks is the price we pay for freedom', as opposed to 'individuals, families, friends, communities, churches, charities, neighborhoods, societies, local government, state government, etc have a responsibility and an ability to help the poor, and by the principle of subsidiarity effort should be applied to these groups in vastly more concentration than they currently is with regards to addressing problems and injustices.'<br /><br /><i>4. It is better to leave these variables to themselves than to have the government deal with natural rights violations.</i><br /><br />*Show me where I've said this.* I have directly granted that some government intervention may well be necessary and justified to deal with rights violations - what I've said is that it's a mistake to think of the government as the first and foremost means to a solution, especially federal government as opposed to state and local. I have said that the problems in society are largely cultural, and that these cultural problems should at the very least be given vastly more attention than they are now. I have pointed out you are paying no attention, for all your talk of modernism, to these factors.<br /><br />Further, saying that we should 'leave these variables to themselves' is the *dead opposite* of what I've been saying. I said that this is precisely where people should be attempting to change minds, and this is where more action is needed. I nowhere said 'everything is fine, just leave the market to natural selection, because freedom is important'. And I defy you to show me where I did.<br /><br /><i>If this isn't what you believe, then you've been sending the wrong signals for about a week now.</i><br /><br />And if you can't adequately supported this interpretation of my words, then you're going to have demonstrated that you've been unable to accept what I really have been saying.<br /><br />So, let's see it. These were tight, concise summaries of what you think I've said. I'm calling BS on 3 of the 4 points, with the untouched one being uncontroversial.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-15002592612446591042012-11-14T05:25:47.418-08:002012-11-14T05:25:47.418-08:00All you have done is "prove" what I agre...<i>All you have done is "prove" what I agreed to all along: that there is grave problem in the finance sector.</i><br /><br />You have given up trying to answer my questions regarding the difference between your "capitalism" and what's traditionally called "distributism". You cannot explain how what you're talking about differs from feudal business, nor have you even tried to justify your belief that what everyone else calls "capitalism" is in fact what certain people call "finance capitalism". All you've given me on this front is a lot of hand-waving and red herrings. Why? Because what you call capitalism is <i>not</i> capitalism, and no one else has ever agreed with your definition of capitalism. The implementation of what you endorse would mean the end of capitalism--not just as we know it, but entirely. But, sure: go ahead and keep calling me high (baseless ad hom) to make your own hand-waving seem less obvious. Not that anyone is fooled.<br /><br /><i>Re-writing at whim the meaning of contracts to create a new contractual obligation out of whole cloth is one of those typically liberal "solutions" that ignores both proper limits on the rule of law (ex post facto) AND subsidiarity.</i><br /><br />Who rewrote contracts? That was my own suggestion. The government has merely outlawed certain practices that previously were not outlawed, and has required certain practices that previously were not required. This is in principle no less unjust than suddenly requiring law enforcement for murder. Unless you have a better argument than that, I can only assume that I'm talking to "conservative Tony" and not to "Thomist Tony". You won't believe this, but the two argue for contradictory positions--and the second one is a way stronger debater!<br /><br /><i>On the other hand, if a kid ignorantly makes a contract to cut a lady's lawn for only half the fair rate, NO, government should not step in and suppress the contract. I don't mean to say that all injustices arise to a call for government action. Also, contract law is normally a state law arena, so generally it should be state law to intervene when the injustice is one of bad contracts.</i><br /><br />This was my take, anyway. We're still in agreement.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75701314954316056662012-11-14T05:23:47.120-08:002012-11-14T05:23:47.120-08:00Tony,
It can't be an emergency (the kind of e...Tony,<br /><br /><i>It can't be an emergency (the kind of emergency that sets aside the usual rules of private property) if the need is off into the future rather than today.</i><br /><br />The need for cancer treatment is always a "today" scenario, which is why I used it in my example. You might also use a vet with extreme PTSD.<br /><br /><i>Likewise for health care. If you need care because you are in extreme need, you need a doctor, not a contract.</i><br /><br />First, see the above two examples. Second, are you aware that people can be blocked from renewing existing health insurance plans because of a condition that "pre-existed" that renewal? <br /><br />(On another note, it should be mentioned that what companies call "pre-existing conditions" include such things as being female and of childbearing age. Before Obamacare, there was a near-infinite list of things like this to allow insurance agencies to pick only the customers least likely to require money.)<br /><br /><i>Secondarily, true insurance is about risk-sharing. It is about dealing with unknown future risk, and pooling it out between many.</i><br /><br />The purpose of insurance is to pay for things that would otherwise drive one to bankruptcy. Friendly societies, as they were called, served this purpose. Everyone contributed to a big pool that was used to charitably bail out people when they needed it. It was not a matter of predictions or gambling or "unknown future risk": it was to keep people's heads above water. Thinking of it as gambling against risk is a false, modern take on the enterprise.<br /><br /><i>Yes, but what I proposed, dissolving contracts, is actually a standard governmental device for dealing with invalid and immoral contracts.</i><br /><br />Certainly. But, unlike yourself, the government does not consider 90% of the country's biggest companies to have "invalid and immoral contracts". If your answer was followed through, it would mean the end of large-scale industry as we know it--an idea I'm on board with.<br /><br /><i>In addition: it is one thing to say "we are not going to enforce your contract, in fact we are dissolve the contract and set you back to square one as if nobody made any contractual transaction at all", and another thing entirely to say instead "this is a bad contract, but we are going to fix it up the way we would like to see it so that you are now contracted to do something that you never would have agreed to do". The second is not really a good and proper governmental response to bad contracts. It is a version of tyranny.</i><br /><br />True enough. I accept your solution as the proper one.<br /><br /><i>It not the the government's place to construct anew the kind of contract that it wants the citizens to follow and force them into it. (Oh, wait, Obama thinks it IS the government's job to force citizen't to buy contracts whether they want them or not. Hmmmmm)</i><br /><br />Obamacare does not rewrite anyone's contract: it just forces people to get coverage. In a similar way, people in 49 states are forced to get car insurance before they can legally drive. Of course, the problem of car insurance would be gone if cars weren't mass produced, if communities were localized again, if commuting was rendered unnecessary and so on--so, once again, we're dealing with a legislative bandaid fix to a problem created in large part by capitalism. The best answer is to destroy both the legislation and the underlying problem: the conservative answer is to destroy the legislation and let the problem get worse.<br /><br /><i>Keep dreaming, kiddo. Oh, wait, what is that you've been smoking? I hope it isn't one of those "medicinal" weeds, man.</i><br /><br />You seem to think I'm a liberal. You could hardly be more wrong.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-13406854468730396602012-11-14T05:22:25.131-08:002012-11-14T05:22:25.131-08:00But to suggest that I think the country's prob...But to suggest that I think the country's problems are the government's job is ridiculous. I think that government (federal and state alike) is, in large part, <i>part of the problem</i>. It has let previously-strong moral restrictions slip further and further away, while simultaneously giving big business more and more free rein. I think Obama's done a better job on that second part than Bush did, but he still lets them run wild, as every president has for decades. Neither of them were great on the issue of moral restrictions. Plus, government handling of schooling has been an absolute disaster on both state and federal ends. California practically outlaws homeschooling, for example, and the No Child Left Behind legislation destroyed the education of a generation. The obsession with college degrees in the private sector and government cripples many who could have made a decent living in the past. Universities used to be for the intellectuals; the tradesmen had apprenticeships. I could go on.<br /><br /><i>You've set this dispute up as capitalists versus anti-capitalists, and on a certain level problem This Political Wing/Party versus That Wing. I'm saying, especially given distributivism, you're analyzing the problem wrong. And part of the problem in your analysis is that if I don't chime in and say 'Of COURSE capitalists are the problem, let's go git 'em!' all you hear is 'The wealthy should eat the poor!' or something equally absurd.</i><br /><br />Capitalism has turned out to be a disastrous societal structure. Its natural form is social Darwinism. It pits brothers against each other; it places a carrot-on-a-string in front of the working class; it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. It destroys small towns. It puts a stake through the heart of small business. It creates a mass consumerist culture. It pollutes the air, poisons the water, drives species to extinction and obliterates natural resources. It spreads disease and worthless goods. It incites theft and robbery, extortion and blackmail. It runs on slave labor, whether it's in this country or in China. Aquinas says that greed is the root of every sin, and I think that capitalism proves him right.<br /><br />Is capitalism our only problem? Obviously not. We've still got the huge issues created by the government, the rise of atheism and anti-intellectualism, the decline of morality and a bunch of others. Almost all of it came in the door with modernism--and capitalism is no exception.<br /><br />Daniel,<br /><br /><i>The reason I ask is because the example used at one point (a child with cancer) is an example where the pre-existing condition happened through no fault of the individual involved. But what about the more common, real-world, pre-existing conditions such as the 300 lb diabetic, the chain smoker with emphysema, the alcoholic with liver failure, the heroin addict with hepatitis C, or the homosexual man with HIV/AIDS?<br /><br />Is it still against Natural Law to refuse healthcare coverage to someone who is actively destroying their own health?</i><br /><br />I don't believe that one would be obligated by justice to help these people. Now, natural law asks that we treat people with charity and mercy, and so we might have an obligation there. However, natural law also asks us to play hardball when necessary. It does not tell us to be suckers. Using a denial of treatment to encourage a smoker to quit the habit would be acceptable. (Although, if that same smoker had a heart attack, for example, it would remain your duty to revive him to the best of your ability.) This is why I've based my argument on extreme cases in which a pre-existing condition is no fault of the person involved. Free giving in these situations is a matter of natural rights--not merely of mercy and charity.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-50355894919464840852012-11-14T05:19:31.690-08:002012-11-14T05:19:31.690-08:00I pointed out that even if some government involve...<i>I pointed out that even if some government involvement is justified, that fact alone doesn't get one to a justification of federal level involvement. Maybe the appropriate government level is local. Or state. Or a mix. Or maybe it shouldn't just be a responsibility of the government.</i><br /><br />Let's narrow it down.<br /><br />The natural law response to serious and/or prolonged rights violations is the involvement of the government to protect the innocent, as Tony suggests. The situation at hand, then, clearly justifies government involvement. The question is how high we go.<br /><br />If the companies were local, then local government could help. But they aren't local--they're state- and even country-wide. Local government is incapable of dealing with them. What about the states? One <i>could</i> say that the states were the correct place to look, but there's a problem. Insurance has been a disaster for decades, but only one state has done anything about it. Compare this to the feudal counterpart: a prince failing to protect the rights of his subjects. Or imagine the situation of racial segregation. If one state did something, and 49 didn't, then is it proper to wait around for political and cultural shifts to change their minds? Or do we take it higher, to avoid any more rights violations? I think the answer is obvious.<br /><br /><i>The very idea that failings are failings of cultures, individuals, neighborhoods, societies - that there is something WRONG there with the modern mindset - gets treated as threatening or worse, foreign.</i><br /><br />That's a very strange thing to read into my posts. I've made it clear here and elsewhere that the modern mindset is bad. It should be fairly obvious that distributism gets more of my sympathy than do its alternatives. In this combox, I have consistently mentioned that localizing the health care industry would be a good idea. You, on the other hand, keep firing back with the same old conservative slogan of "freedom from legislation", which seems to be more important to you than bringing the industry in line with natural law. The two viewpoints are not compatible. Pick one.<br /><br /><i>I bought into that line for years. I finally realized what was wrong with it. Regarding these problems as first and foremost (or even exclusively) legislative problems, better yet FEDERAL legislative problems, is part of the modern illness.</i><br /><br />Perhaps you've been reading your own past opinions into my posts. They do not apply to me. I think that this country is in ruins from one end to the other, whether you're talking about cities or small towns, government or the private sector, communities or states, North or South, East or West, conservative or liberal and so on. Morally, we're about at the level of late-Roman society, around the time Augustine lived. Politically and socially and intellectually, we're little better off. We're even being attacked by barbarian-wannabes. Despite the rhetoric by politicians on both sides, I firmly believe that the US is in decline, and that the solutions being offered by nearly all parties are too-little, too-late. I think that Obamacare is like trying to patch the hull of the Titanic--but at least that's better than trying to ram it into another iceberg, as the conservatives suggest. Hence, I support several of the portions of it that I understand, particularly the individual mandate.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-77303221150180897782012-11-14T05:15:56.671-08:002012-11-14T05:15:56.671-08:00Crude,
Nowhere - nowhere - did I say we 'shou...Crude,<br /><br /><i>Nowhere - nowhere - did I say we 'should have just let the market run its course', as if there were no problem to even address.</i><br /><br />Here's what you've been telling me:<br /><br />1. In a free-market capitalist society, bad companies can be weeded out through natural selection.<br />2. Charities and so forth exist to take care of the people who get shut out.<br />3. The number of people shut out are the price we pay for "freedom".<br />4. It is better to leave these variables to themselves than to have the government deal with natural rights violations.<br /><br />If this isn't what you believe, then you've been sending the wrong signals for about a week now.<br /><br /><i>My points have been pretty targeted: I said that the idea that pre-existing people were excluded for coverage was not due to 'greed', but a fundamental requirement to maintain the integrity of the insurance system - it would remain even if all desire for profit were stripped from the people running the business.</i><br /><br />Which shows that the insurance industry as it exists now is a bad idea. As I've said, the structure of greed (read: capitalism) is built into modern insurance companies even before they start. They have no choice but to act in these ways, which is to say that they profit from the healthy and cut the losses caused by the sick whenever possible. This is why we see practices like spending limits and denying aid to the desperate. To reiterate: friendly societies are far and away more compatible with Christianity and natural law than is the insurance industry. This, once again, brings us back to our two choices: either we scrap the entire industry, or we apply a bandaid. Both options involve hefty legislative efforts. <br /><br />Tony said earlier that evil companies and contracts that violate justice should be dissolved. Judging by his newest posts, he doesn't seem to have realized that contracts involving the denial of aid to the desperately sick constitute such an evil.<br /><br /><i>I said that the failings are far, far broader than merely 'mean guys running a business'. I pointed out the in principle responsibilities at the levels of the individual, the family, the neighborhood, the community, the local government, the state government, the charities. I pointed out this remains the case even if there's a 'capitalist' economic system at work.</i><br /><br />In other words, we should just leave the market alone and do our best with what little we've got. Sorry, but that doesn't cut it under natural law--it's post-Enlightenment thinking that most conservatives try to disguise as tradition. Either the industry gets busted up (out of existence or into local companies), or new laws get introduced to damage-control for the evils of capitalist enterprise. Those are the two acceptable options. Your suggestion is to leave the industry's practices ungoverned and to try for semi-local solutions, perhaps getting a state or two besides Massachussetts to pass a gimped Romneycare in the next twenty years. I could just as easily say, "Well, Charles Manson is a big problem, but we don't need the government butting into our lives. We should try for a local solution--maybe in a few years we can hunt him down on our own." How is this different from what you're saying? They're both instances of natural rights violations; both involve justice; both harm the innocent; both involve capital sins (as Aquinas uses that term); both are urgent problems; and neither can be taken care of by lower offices in any reasonable amount of time.<br /><br />The only thing you've got is that society at large is a lot friendlier to the evils of capitalism than it is to murder. That doesn't take care of the problem of natural law.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-81239812894956671242012-11-14T03:01:39.795-08:002012-11-14T03:01:39.795-08:00Daniel Smith:
If there were no doctors, would ev...Daniel Smith:<br /><br /><i> If there were no doctors, would everyone still have a right to healthcare?</i><br /><br />No. And? The fact is that there <i>are</i> doctors and healthcare available.<br /><br />Tony:<br /><br /><i> Dan, EXACTLY right. If you dis-incentivize being a doctor, fewer people will want to take on the 11 years of training, and so you will have fewer doctor hours to spread around, etc. If John doesn't become a doctor, NOBODY will have "access" to a doctor's care from John.</i><br /><br />Who is talking about dis-incentivizing anyone? Socialized medicine does not necessarily dis-incentivize someone from becoming a doctor. It certainly didn’t stop <i>me</i> from becoming one.dgullerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14647381896282400404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-55765565593377430852012-11-13T17:58:04.988-08:002012-11-13T17:58:04.988-08:00Me: In its primary order of action, the governmen...Me: <i>In its primary order of action, the government has strict regard for justice: if the rich do OPPRESS the poor by treating them unjustly, say by constructing unjust contracts that create (veiled) slavery, that's something the government has a first-order duty to stop.</i><br /><br />Rank Sophist: <i>That's how it works. Your idea of extreme self-governance even in cases of justice is the modernist view--yet more free-market capitalism.</i> <br /><br />Rank (and Crude), my point was to distinguish how government's obligations differ in the areas of justice between citizens and charity between citizens. There is a much more primary duty for government to correct injustices between them than to correct failures of charity. However, I did not mean to say (and I admit my comment could be read that way, to my chagrin) that government's job is to correct ALL injustices. My example was that of a grave injustice. Government has the job of putting a stop to some sorts of injustices, but not all. For example, if 2 people make a contract for a killing, (i.e. something intrinsically evil), gov. should not only stop the killer but must also dissolve the contract (and get the other guy for conspiracy) because such contracts should be suppressed. On the other hand, if a kid ignorantly makes a contract to cut a lady's lawn for only half the fair rate, NO, government should not step in and suppress the contract. I don't mean to say that all injustices arise to a call for government action. Also, contract law is normally a state law arena, so generally it should be state law to intervene when the injustice is one of bad contracts.Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-42083889077512860512012-11-13T17:36:22.196-08:002012-11-13T17:36:22.196-08:00Daniel Smith: If there were no doctors, would eve...Daniel Smith: <i>If there were no doctors, would everyone still have a right to healthcare?</i> <br /><br />Dan, EXACTLY right. If you dis-incentivize being a doctor, fewer people will want to take on the 11 years of training, and so you will have fewer doctor hours to spread around, etc. If John doesn't become a doctor, NOBODY will have "access" to a doctor's care from John. Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-91028048463711661742012-11-13T17:29:00.558-08:002012-11-13T17:29:00.558-08:00You've actually gone in for a more extreme sol...<i>You've actually gone in for a more extreme solution than I originally advocated, but one more in line with my own beliefs. I think we can agree on this. Dissolving the contracts entirely would be the more morally correct option than an individual mandate, which, as I said, I believe is more of a pragmatic bandaid fix than a true solution.</i> <br /><br />Yes, but what I proposed, dissolving contracts, is actually a standard governmental device for dealing with invalid and immoral contracts. What you have suggested, RE-WRITING the contracts to remove one aspect of the immorality but leaving intact the rest of the immorality actually <i>isn't</i> the normative way a government should deal with bad contracts. For one thing, obviously it leaves the rest of the immorality going strong. <br /><br />In addition: it is one thing to say "we are not going to enforce your contract, in fact we are dissolve the contract and set you back to square one as if nobody made any contractual transaction at all", and another thing entirely to say instead "this is a bad contract, but we are going to fix it up the way we would like to see it so that you are now contracted to do something that you never would have agreed to do". The second is not really a good and proper governmental response to bad contracts. It is a version of tyranny. If a contract is a bad contract because it contracts to do something inherently immoral, then let it terminate and let the parties make a good new contract in its place that DOESN'T do immoral things. It not the the government's place to construct anew the kind of contract that it wants the citizens to follow and force them into it. (Oh, wait, Obama thinks it IS the government's job to force citizen't to buy contracts whether they want them or not. Hmmmmm)<br /><br /><i>My case that capitalism (and, by extension, modern conservatism) is incompatible with natural law seems to have proven correct.</i> <br /><br />Keep dreaming, kiddo. Oh, wait, what is that you've been smoking? I hope it isn't one of those "medicinal" weeds, man. Nothing of the sort. All you have done is "prove" what I agreed to all along: that there is grave problem in the finance sector. The <i>practical</i> corrective that will actually be used, (since Obamacare does NOT have any intention to dissolve the finance-capitalist insurance companies) is not settled at all. Re-writing at whim the meaning of contracts to create a new contractual obligation out of whole cloth is one of those typically liberal "solutions" that ignores both proper limits on the rule of law (ex post facto) AND subsidiarity.Tonynoreply@blogger.com