>> > The point is to maximize justice for all. This is
>> > the best route to that.
>>
>>This begs the question -- what's just? I don't believe
>>that equal incomes is the best route to distributive
>>justice and neither do you. As you note below,
>>people's needs and wants are not equal. It traets them
>>unequally to give them equal incomes, therefore. Now,
>>we necessarily have to treat people unequally, but why
>>is this the appropriate sort of unequal treatment? [Justin]
>
>Needs and wants are treated differently. Needs are filled first. The
>remainder is used to fill wants and is distributed equally. I've written
>this before but I can retype it again.
>There is nothing unequal about treating wants as equal bundles among
>people. You assess what level of remuneration can be sustained and parse
>it out in the form of a payment to each individual after all needs are
>satisfied. You have no choice but to accept the fact that people must bear
>the consequences of the preferences or tastes they have on their level of
>welfare or preference satisfaction. To do otherwise, to take into account
>individual expensive preferences, would amount to giving more resources to
>those with more expensive or difficult to satisfy tastes. This does not
>work to equalize peoples opportunities. You are seriously advocating
>because I want a Ferrari and Tom wants ice cream I should be given 37,000
>times remuneration so we can fill our preferences and then consider this
>just? You are saying this if you wish to treat wants unequally.
>
>>is the root of all evil."), you actually think people
>>should receive unequal incomes proportionate to their
>>needs and wants. (Marx agreed, though he thought that
>>wasn't justice ("Recht"). [Justin]
>
>No! Stop lumping needs with wants. You keep doing this. I don't. Of
>course filling needs will be unequal. I have never stated otherwise and
>have explicitly stated that this is so.
>
>>The question is, what is justice? Opportunirt and
>>freedom might be two of the goods the distribution of
>>which,a long with wealth and income, we are concerned
>>with distributing justly. But what is the just
>>distribution? Why think it is an equal one, or if it
>>is, in what respect is it equal? [Justin]
>
>It is equal in opportunity to maximize their freedom and welfare at such a
>level that no one can be made better off, with respect to need satisfying
>resources, another has access to than with their own. If you have a
>better route toward maximizing everyones opportunities I am open to
>hearing about it.
>
>>So I am entitled to a piano if anyone is? Even if I
>>don't want it and can't use it? Or even if I do want
>>it but can't use it except as a status symbol? Even if
>>it would benefit society more to have pianos
>>distributed to piano players rather than people who
>>would use them as, say, tables, or gut them and turn
>>them into planters? [Justin]
>
>You are entitled to the same opportunity for piano acquisition as everyone
>else. No one cares whether you can play or not. It will lose its symbolic
>status however with everyone having equal opportunity to acquire one. This
>incidentally is one of the differences between what I am proposing and Parecon.
>
>> > It is time to stop
>> > giving the lions share to the largest lion.
>>
>>Why? Why shouldn't those who contribute more get more?
>>Is it because it's not their responsibility that they
>>have the talent or character to contribute more? That
>>is a reasonable objection, but first, you don't
>>respond to the point that there is evidence that it
>>benefits everyone to provide people with incentives
>>(up to a poiunt) to develop their talents and
>>cultivate their characters. That is, unless you
>>believe Carl that gold stars will do just as well, a
>>proposition for which he offers no evidence. [Justin]
>
>The fact that everyone is not equally endowed with talent, character,
>intelligence, all these things that cannot be expressed as some metric
>that allows us to take them precisely into account matters a great deal.
>Why should two piano players, one of whom is born with more talent make
>more money? What is just about rewarding an accident of birth?
>You feel that the incentive to be a great surgeon or tennis player is
>driven too much by remuneration. I doubt that I can change your mind. You
>are projecting the values of people who live in an oppressive society that
>values wealth excessively on future generation who could be raised not to
>think that way very easily in an equally remunerative society. I think
>having people excel at many endeavors does benefit society as a whole I
>just don't think you have to bribe them to do so.
>
>> Second, the idea thatw e have no responsibility for
>>our talent and character seems to depend on a very
>>strong metaphysical view -- hard determinism -- which
>>sort of undermines the point of moral evaluation at
>>all, including assessment of actions an institutions
>>as just or not. [Justin]
>
>I do not advocate the hard determinism that it may seem I do at first
>glance. Another crude analogy (can you tell I teach 18 to 25 year olds?)
>will hopefully make the point more clearly than I have done so far. If one
>persons "determination", admittedly unmeasurable, is 10% inherited and 90%
>societally derived and another persons is 5% and 95% and a third is 15%
>and 85% since it is impossible to determine this the only just way is to
>treat them all as equal and assume it is high. Assuming it is low will
>allow to many people to "fall between the cracks" as it were. Crude, but a
>quick email friendly format to explain the basic thought process behind
>that particular assumption.
>You seem to be advocating a similar idea with respect to the concept of
>human nature. It seems to run a little like this:
>{People need addition financial incentives to excel in their field
>otherwise they will "slack" and work poorly. This has been true in the
>past. It is not a function of existence in an exploitative society with
>unequal opportunities but rather some characteristic of human nature.
>Placing people in an egalitarian society with equal opportunities will not
>rid them of this aspect of human nature.}
>If you are not advocating this I would like to know why you insist so
>axiomatically that there must be an addition reward beyond what I have
>already described in order to act as incentive to strive for excellence or
>even do more than just a half-assed job?
>
>>OK, here;s the bite. You don't want unequal wealth
>>because you don't want unequal power. But the question
>>of what kind of wealth translates into power is an
>>empirical one. As I have already ponted out, there are
>>people who are fabulously wealthy but have no power --
>>actors like Harrison Ford, atheletes like Sammy Sosa,
>>authors like Stephen King. So not all wealth means bad
>>inequalities of power. You deny this below, saying
>>that people like this have "potential" power -- this
>>is what happens when you forget the ABC's of Marxism.
>>Can we remember the expression "Ownership of the means
>>of production"? [Justin]
>
>But wealth CAN be translated into power in many circumstances if the
>holder should so desire. King and Sosa don't want it but Bush does. You
>don't have to purchase the means of production to have an unequal grip on
>the levers of power do you? Certainly in a more just society wealth should
>be less of a conduit to power but that will not be eliminated. The lust
>some people have for power will never be eliminated. This is denying them
>one more path to achieve their means however. Any inequality in
>opportunity satisfying ability could be used exploitatively and nothing
>positive can be gained from it. We gain nothing as a society by having
>14,000 or 45,000 or whatever number of individuals with incomes 2 or more
>times higher than others so why have it? It is unnecessary as incentive
>and quite potentially corrosive.
>
>>Still there needs to be some reason to think that modest inequalities of
>>wealth -- say a 5:1 ratio between the richest and
>>poorest -- means unacceptably disproportionate power
>>asymmetries. On your own principles, the obkection is
>>not to inequalities, but to inequalities that gives
>>ome people too much power. [Justin]
>
>It is more than just power it is opportunity. Unequal incomes give unequal
>opportunities. This matters more than the issue of power. If we seek
>justice we seek equal opportunities as far as we can.
>
>> Based only on
>> > the fact that you and I exist do we "deserve" the
>> > same rewards.
>>
>>Everyone is entitled to equal concern and respect just
>>based on being human. But you will have to do some
>>more explanation before you start to make it plausible
>>that being human entitles you to equal incomes. [Justin]
>
>Before I make it plausible to you is what I think you mean. It is more
>than plausible to me and a few others.
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