When you say, ‘Individuals have no collective duty of responsibility’ I can see that we have a fundamentally different philosophical view on what moral responsibility individuals have, and fundamentally different moral framework.
I think you may be misunderstanding my position on governments. You see that I am against government in…
When you say, ‘Individuals have no collective duty of responsibility’ I can see that we have a fundamentally different philosophical view on what moral responsibility individuals have, and fundamentally different moral framework.
I think you may be misunderstanding my position on governments. You see that I am against government intervention, but then say I am implying that we should take other peoples money by government taxation. I am against any government doing either, because I am against government existing at all. I believe all associations with others should be voluntary, without coercion or exploitation. That is why I am against Capitalism.
Confusingly to me, you seem to accept the idea of common objectives but not common action or common progress. You speak of ‘structures and systems’ lifting ‘people out of poverty’, but then say that everything is done by individuals and that we have progressed beyond tribes.
I’m not convinced that all of these people have been lifted out of poverty just because more people are now earning two dollars a day (which is the world bank metric and applies mostly to China, however if we used the UN metric of seven dollars then poverty hasn’t gotten better). In many cases Capitalism has increased peoples access to money, and at the same time decreased their security and access to housing, food, and community support.
If we judge poverty solely by income then a person who lives in a village in which food is farmed and shared freely, whose neighbours help build their home and sees that no-one is homeless, who look after their infirm and elderly is considered to be greatly impoverished. However, they are considered by Capitalism to be more successful when they are thrown off that land (or taxed off of it), so that they have to work long hours in a factory, and when they can barely afford shelter and food, but now earn two dollars a day. So I find the way Capitalism measures such progress as highly dubious.
You stated that ‘Individuals are no longer members of tribes. This is a great development, if for no other reason than to avoid genocide and rape.’ But I think that you are imagining an old view of pre-history being savage and brutal which more evidence has dispelled the myth of. Many anthropologists now see that period as a largely co-operative and communal one, not without the difficulties of more rudimentary living, but with good varied diets, shared rewards, relatively long lives (into the 70s once you take out higher infant mortality), and community care for the disabled and elderly. I would encourage you to read, The Dawn Of Everything, which gives a very different perspective on this period.
As you admire Adam Smith I wonder if you also accept his belief in different economic classes, about the coercive and exploitative nature of the worker owner relationship, his views against the hoarding of wealth, and his pro-regulation (including banking), pro-union and anti-landlord views. We know what he would have thoughts of Sam Walton, to him such people were ‘an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.’
The one thing Smith felt was morally reprehensible was the adoration of the rich - ‘This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.’
I have tried to address your essential points as they appeared in your reply. I’m sure that I missed some nuances for which I apologize.
Government is bad—More common ground:
I’m so glad to hear that you’re against “government existing at all.”
Less common ground: You are against Capitalism because you view it as exploitation. This is a non sequitur. Capitalism is voluntary trade. A worker trades his time and work for money. There is no force involved. Any business enterprise that uses coercion or exploitation is not a capitalist enterprise.
Common objectives: “Common objectives” are individual objectives that two or more individuals share in common. There can be cooperation among the individual members.
Poverty: Sadly poorer people do have more children than first world people, but you are ignoring the fact that poverty is moving in the right direction: less than 10 percent of the global population lives in extreme poverty per the World Bank—read Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now.
Capitalism and money: Capitalism isn’t about money, it’s about producing and trading goods and services that improve human lives. Money is only a medium of exchange. Access to more affordable goods and services is a problem. However, this problem is the direct result of government intervention—read Bryan Caplan’s Build Baby Build and Open Borders.
Your utopian village: Your utopian village where food is grown and shared and neighbors help each other is a beautiful dream. If you find it, I would be happy for you. But if you do find it existing somewhere you need to look closer—there are no free lunches and thus someone is paying for this actual dystopia.
Your view of Capitalism: Even though unfettered Capitalism doesn’t exist—it never has—no human beings living in first world countries are earning $2/day. Anyone who is poor in a first world country has given up on their life—not my problem.
Your view of tribal life: This revisionist view is objectively false. Anthropologists have been studying tribes like the Yanomami for hundreds of years, and I would dare say that no one would want to exchange places with them. Having said this, there are plenty of historical examples of peaceful natives. The point is not that tribes are bad or good; the point is that such a social system inevitably leads to violence because it is a zero-sum game. As for the quality of their lives, good science and even good social science never ignores the facts of reality or offers counter factual conclusions about what “would’ve happened” had better medicines or medical treatments developed earlier than they did. Capitalism is the only social and economic system that produces such wonders on a scale that transforms the world by increasing the lifespan of humans and decreasing the mortality rate. But before you object and point to places where people are living and dying earning $2/day, those places don’t protect individual rights and have corrupt governments. Take a look at Africa in general.
Adam Smith: Adam Smith is a hero, but he didn’t get everything right. No, I don’t view the world or any country in particular as being made up of different economic classes or that workers in general are exploited by capitalists. Most importantly Smith pointed economics in the right direction: the division of labor and specialization has achieved more in 200 years than humans achieved since they began walking upright. Frederick Bastiat and Ludwig Von Mises are two of the best minds in economics who bridged the way from Smith’s achievement to present day. Today Thomas Sowell at the age of 94 is a must read for any one who desires to understand economics and larger social and cultural issues.
The despicable rich: Alas Adam Smith was a college professor and an intellectual so he quite naturally despised the rich. But, to be fair, in his day many businessmen were corrupt because the existing economic system was flawed. However, most capitalists are not rich, if you mean multimillionaires and billionaires, they are skilled workers and professionals who voluntarily trade their services for fees or wages.
Sam Walton and Walmart: Unskilled workers who live in first world countries should thank men like Sam Walton everyday. They can voluntarily trade their work for a paycheck and then get more for less in stores like Walmart. That my friend is a moral system. That is what Capitalism has achieved.
Daniel, Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’m glad we agree on governments, although how we come to that conclusion may be different. I am working on a longer article addressing some of your points in more detail, but here is a brief response to them:
Exploitation - I don’t believe in any trade which involves someone owning resources another needs is voluntary, or that necessitates them having to work for someone with such resources in order not to starve or be homeless isn’t coercive.
Poverty - I addressed this briefly, it is only by using very narrow metrics which were changed to come up with this positive result that such a conclusion is possible. (I read a different Pinker book which touches on this and found it unconvincing. Please see - https://jacobin.com/2020/07/international-poverty-line-ipl-world-bank-philip-alston
Money - I agree, technically, that Capitalism isn’t necessarily about money, although during its relatively short history it has been inextricably intertwined with money, either in capital investment, capital exchange or capital profits, so it seems to be a technical distinction without a practical difference.
Can you give me some examples of exchange since the advent of capitalism which does not involve the state guaranteeing the value of currency or protecting the capitalists property? (Does Caplan give evidence of this?)
Utopian Villages - there are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of communes and cooperatives currently. However, when they get bigger, such as starting to make an economic difference in larger regions they have usually been persecuted, scattered or killed off (although there are larger successful examples with hundreds of thousands or millions or people too, when they have avoided such fates for a while).
Tribal Life - You prefer the Huxleyan Social Darwinist view of ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ / ‘nasty, short and brutish’ I guess (makes good poetry, not good history). I don’t think that it is supported in biology or anthropology today (can you giver me references?), at least by those scientists and scholars who I find compelling, but undoubtedly you’d find support for your view too. Maybe it comes from a difference in life experience (I grew up near a 500 year old communal group and was later part of a different commune myself).
Capitalist Progress - I believe that most of what Capitalism takes credit for can be attributed to the Enlightenment and Scientific progress, which began before Capitalism, and many of its greatest breakthrough were made by Socialists (Einstein for instance).
Villagers - I’m not sure you really addressed my argument that many people are worse off working under capitalism than they were living in tribal (or even feudal) villages where there needs were guaranteed. This goes back to the Enclosure Acts (and similar changes in other countries) in which people lost common resources, were made homeless, and then had to enter workhouses (now sweatshops) to survive. It is what made Capitalism possible. (& Walmart has failed in some Western European countries precisely because workers there have come to expect something more than it can offer its workers)
Finally, I take great exception at your remark, ‘Anyone who is poor in a first world country has given up on their life—not my problem’. I’m sorry and deeply sad that your experienced something that left your proverbial heart so unwilling to open up and be sympathetic to such people. Maybe you have luckily never needed help from anybody, never benefitted from any help from family or friends, never relied on any government benefits, have had the money for insurance to cover any ill health or accident, or just never had one. Yet if this your choice to feel this way about others then I am even more horrified, as it is a very sheltered, condescending, callous and uncompassionate view. I hope I have somehow misunderstood your views on this.
Just one point to the above - unemployment and minimum wage levels that are below what people need to live are a feature of the system. There simply aren't - by design - enough jobs for everyone. Someone who has to work two or three jobs to feed their kids and pay for childcare faces an immense, immense struggle to gain any qualifications that may lead to better work. Meanwhile people born rich not only have more money than they could ever need from the beginning, they close access to many of the best jobs via closed networks that are partly based on schooling and education but mostly based on social networks.
There is no amount of hard work that a poor kid from Appalachia can do that is going to compensate for having an uncle who can get them an internship at the NY Times and parents who can pay their rent while they work unpaid to gain that foot on the ladder. Meanwhile that Appalachian kid has to work to survive - they are coerced into working by threat of homelessness and lack of food, which feeds right back into the first point. Coercion is built into the system, as is the illusion of scarcity - and the fear which that coercion produces not only keeps people working in what are often awful jobs but it also stops them organising against the systems which exploit them.
Daniel,
When you say, ‘Individuals have no collective duty of responsibility’ I can see that we have a fundamentally different philosophical view on what moral responsibility individuals have, and fundamentally different moral framework.
I think you may be misunderstanding my position on governments. You see that I am against government intervention, but then say I am implying that we should take other peoples money by government taxation. I am against any government doing either, because I am against government existing at all. I believe all associations with others should be voluntary, without coercion or exploitation. That is why I am against Capitalism.
Confusingly to me, you seem to accept the idea of common objectives but not common action or common progress. You speak of ‘structures and systems’ lifting ‘people out of poverty’, but then say that everything is done by individuals and that we have progressed beyond tribes.
I’m not convinced that all of these people have been lifted out of poverty just because more people are now earning two dollars a day (which is the world bank metric and applies mostly to China, however if we used the UN metric of seven dollars then poverty hasn’t gotten better). In many cases Capitalism has increased peoples access to money, and at the same time decreased their security and access to housing, food, and community support.
If we judge poverty solely by income then a person who lives in a village in which food is farmed and shared freely, whose neighbours help build their home and sees that no-one is homeless, who look after their infirm and elderly is considered to be greatly impoverished. However, they are considered by Capitalism to be more successful when they are thrown off that land (or taxed off of it), so that they have to work long hours in a factory, and when they can barely afford shelter and food, but now earn two dollars a day. So I find the way Capitalism measures such progress as highly dubious.
You stated that ‘Individuals are no longer members of tribes. This is a great development, if for no other reason than to avoid genocide and rape.’ But I think that you are imagining an old view of pre-history being savage and brutal which more evidence has dispelled the myth of. Many anthropologists now see that period as a largely co-operative and communal one, not without the difficulties of more rudimentary living, but with good varied diets, shared rewards, relatively long lives (into the 70s once you take out higher infant mortality), and community care for the disabled and elderly. I would encourage you to read, The Dawn Of Everything, which gives a very different perspective on this period.
As you admire Adam Smith I wonder if you also accept his belief in different economic classes, about the coercive and exploitative nature of the worker owner relationship, his views against the hoarding of wealth, and his pro-regulation (including banking), pro-union and anti-landlord views. We know what he would have thoughts of Sam Walton, to him such people were ‘an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.’
The one thing Smith felt was morally reprehensible was the adoration of the rich - ‘This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.’
Wise words!
Nate,
I have tried to address your essential points as they appeared in your reply. I’m sure that I missed some nuances for which I apologize.
Government is bad—More common ground:
I’m so glad to hear that you’re against “government existing at all.”
Less common ground: You are against Capitalism because you view it as exploitation. This is a non sequitur. Capitalism is voluntary trade. A worker trades his time and work for money. There is no force involved. Any business enterprise that uses coercion or exploitation is not a capitalist enterprise.
Common objectives: “Common objectives” are individual objectives that two or more individuals share in common. There can be cooperation among the individual members.
Poverty: Sadly poorer people do have more children than first world people, but you are ignoring the fact that poverty is moving in the right direction: less than 10 percent of the global population lives in extreme poverty per the World Bank—read Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now.
Capitalism and money: Capitalism isn’t about money, it’s about producing and trading goods and services that improve human lives. Money is only a medium of exchange. Access to more affordable goods and services is a problem. However, this problem is the direct result of government intervention—read Bryan Caplan’s Build Baby Build and Open Borders.
Your utopian village: Your utopian village where food is grown and shared and neighbors help each other is a beautiful dream. If you find it, I would be happy for you. But if you do find it existing somewhere you need to look closer—there are no free lunches and thus someone is paying for this actual dystopia.
Your view of Capitalism: Even though unfettered Capitalism doesn’t exist—it never has—no human beings living in first world countries are earning $2/day. Anyone who is poor in a first world country has given up on their life—not my problem.
Your view of tribal life: This revisionist view is objectively false. Anthropologists have been studying tribes like the Yanomami for hundreds of years, and I would dare say that no one would want to exchange places with them. Having said this, there are plenty of historical examples of peaceful natives. The point is not that tribes are bad or good; the point is that such a social system inevitably leads to violence because it is a zero-sum game. As for the quality of their lives, good science and even good social science never ignores the facts of reality or offers counter factual conclusions about what “would’ve happened” had better medicines or medical treatments developed earlier than they did. Capitalism is the only social and economic system that produces such wonders on a scale that transforms the world by increasing the lifespan of humans and decreasing the mortality rate. But before you object and point to places where people are living and dying earning $2/day, those places don’t protect individual rights and have corrupt governments. Take a look at Africa in general.
Adam Smith: Adam Smith is a hero, but he didn’t get everything right. No, I don’t view the world or any country in particular as being made up of different economic classes or that workers in general are exploited by capitalists. Most importantly Smith pointed economics in the right direction: the division of labor and specialization has achieved more in 200 years than humans achieved since they began walking upright. Frederick Bastiat and Ludwig Von Mises are two of the best minds in economics who bridged the way from Smith’s achievement to present day. Today Thomas Sowell at the age of 94 is a must read for any one who desires to understand economics and larger social and cultural issues.
The despicable rich: Alas Adam Smith was a college professor and an intellectual so he quite naturally despised the rich. But, to be fair, in his day many businessmen were corrupt because the existing economic system was flawed. However, most capitalists are not rich, if you mean multimillionaires and billionaires, they are skilled workers and professionals who voluntarily trade their services for fees or wages.
Sam Walton and Walmart: Unskilled workers who live in first world countries should thank men like Sam Walton everyday. They can voluntarily trade their work for a paycheck and then get more for less in stores like Walmart. That my friend is a moral system. That is what Capitalism has achieved.
Daniel, Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’m glad we agree on governments, although how we come to that conclusion may be different. I am working on a longer article addressing some of your points in more detail, but here is a brief response to them:
Exploitation - I don’t believe in any trade which involves someone owning resources another needs is voluntary, or that necessitates them having to work for someone with such resources in order not to starve or be homeless isn’t coercive.
Poverty - I addressed this briefly, it is only by using very narrow metrics which were changed to come up with this positive result that such a conclusion is possible. (I read a different Pinker book which touches on this and found it unconvincing. Please see - https://jacobin.com/2020/07/international-poverty-line-ipl-world-bank-philip-alston
Money - I agree, technically, that Capitalism isn’t necessarily about money, although during its relatively short history it has been inextricably intertwined with money, either in capital investment, capital exchange or capital profits, so it seems to be a technical distinction without a practical difference.
Can you give me some examples of exchange since the advent of capitalism which does not involve the state guaranteeing the value of currency or protecting the capitalists property? (Does Caplan give evidence of this?)
Utopian Villages - there are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of communes and cooperatives currently. However, when they get bigger, such as starting to make an economic difference in larger regions they have usually been persecuted, scattered or killed off (although there are larger successful examples with hundreds of thousands or millions or people too, when they have avoided such fates for a while).
Tribal Life - You prefer the Huxleyan Social Darwinist view of ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ / ‘nasty, short and brutish’ I guess (makes good poetry, not good history). I don’t think that it is supported in biology or anthropology today (can you giver me references?), at least by those scientists and scholars who I find compelling, but undoubtedly you’d find support for your view too. Maybe it comes from a difference in life experience (I grew up near a 500 year old communal group and was later part of a different commune myself).
Capitalist Progress - I believe that most of what Capitalism takes credit for can be attributed to the Enlightenment and Scientific progress, which began before Capitalism, and many of its greatest breakthrough were made by Socialists (Einstein for instance).
Villagers - I’m not sure you really addressed my argument that many people are worse off working under capitalism than they were living in tribal (or even feudal) villages where there needs were guaranteed. This goes back to the Enclosure Acts (and similar changes in other countries) in which people lost common resources, were made homeless, and then had to enter workhouses (now sweatshops) to survive. It is what made Capitalism possible. (& Walmart has failed in some Western European countries precisely because workers there have come to expect something more than it can offer its workers)
Finally, I take great exception at your remark, ‘Anyone who is poor in a first world country has given up on their life—not my problem’. I’m sorry and deeply sad that your experienced something that left your proverbial heart so unwilling to open up and be sympathetic to such people. Maybe you have luckily never needed help from anybody, never benefitted from any help from family or friends, never relied on any government benefits, have had the money for insurance to cover any ill health or accident, or just never had one. Yet if this your choice to feel this way about others then I am even more horrified, as it is a very sheltered, condescending, callous and uncompassionate view. I hope I have somehow misunderstood your views on this.
Sincerely, Nate
Nate,
I will wait for your article (and I look forward to it) before I respond.
Until then all my best,
Daniel
Just one point to the above - unemployment and minimum wage levels that are below what people need to live are a feature of the system. There simply aren't - by design - enough jobs for everyone. Someone who has to work two or three jobs to feed their kids and pay for childcare faces an immense, immense struggle to gain any qualifications that may lead to better work. Meanwhile people born rich not only have more money than they could ever need from the beginning, they close access to many of the best jobs via closed networks that are partly based on schooling and education but mostly based on social networks.
There is no amount of hard work that a poor kid from Appalachia can do that is going to compensate for having an uncle who can get them an internship at the NY Times and parents who can pay their rent while they work unpaid to gain that foot on the ladder. Meanwhile that Appalachian kid has to work to survive - they are coerced into working by threat of homelessness and lack of food, which feeds right back into the first point. Coercion is built into the system, as is the illusion of scarcity - and the fear which that coercion produces not only keeps people working in what are often awful jobs but it also stops them organising against the systems which exploit them.
I would trade places with them. They are living in a much more harmonious state. You have no idea. Because if you did you would too