Intellectuals vs. activism

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Aug 6 09:18:49 PDT 2002


At 03:33 PM 8/6/2002 +0000, justin wrote:


>blatant misrepresentation. Singer's argument boils down to this: since
>>massive governmental increases in the level of foreign aid from the first
>>world to the third world aren't forthcoming, we're all obligated to give
>>most of our income to the least well off.

Out of sheer curiosity - why does one have an obligation to share his/her income with others (both individually and as a society)? I can see a number of motives why people do so - such as pity, merit-making, or social status buying - but these are not principles that one would universally accept even if one did not feel pity or altruism or status envy.

Note that Marx's argument, which rests on the principle of value creation - he who creates value should own and control it; workers are sole creators of value under capitalism, ergo: workers should own and control all output of capitalist production - does not apply here. It is quite obvious that the claim to foreign aid cannot be truthfully based on the assertion that the recipients are entitled to it because they produced it

wojtek



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