Timaios
Art of War
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Posted - 2008.04.19 16:17:00 -
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Edited by: Timaios on 19/04/2008 16:20:55
 Originally by: Tolmart Salesmanager
Entitlements are those things that the government gives that are not actually rights. Rights, which are based on the nature of humans, when implemented by government, is just not letting one man physically harm another man, or commit contractual fraud.
Conclusion
Capitalism (as in a free market) can be simply explain as: one is free to make deals with others, but not free to punch them. Saying that one has a right to health care, is like saying, you are only allow to punch people if you are poor.
Therefor, you are advocating that those who are lazy, have a right to punch me and take my money via government taxation.
If you make an argument against capitalism, I challenge you to say something against it via morality, and explain that morality through reason.
About the nature of humans:
It's debated whether there are any rights based on simply the nature of being human. Since we are taking a philosophical standpoint, it's questionable whether there is any particular nature of being human (see the existential school of thought, for example). The second issue is that why should that have anything to do with rights that humans may or may not have. Political philosophy does not necessarily assume any such rights at all.
About your conclusions:
Let us begin with the ethics. If we go with applied Wittgenstein, there are actually two methods to argue about ethics: one can either
a) criticize the system from the inside of being inconsistent (this is the field of formal logic) or
b) criticize the system from the outside (and attempt to persuade others to change their views - but in the end both are opinions and as such either one cannot be claimed to be superior over another).
So I will go with option a and also make a brief point about the possible problems for the economics of self.
Ethics is always a system. An ethical system that is merely based on one principle (here: "one is free to make deals with others,
but not free to punch them") is inherently flawed as it is severely lacking. If that is the only guideline, nations would cease to exist, and with them law enforcement and safety of private property. It also allows mechanisms which cause the ethical system to collapse (someone acquires the streets and demands exhorbitant fees for their use). In the terms of Hobbes, it's a state of war of all against all. In a sense, problems such as these made political philosophers of the 15th and 16th century adopt models that emphasise the good of the state which in turn is the best for all it's inhabitants.
On that basis it seems more or less obvious that the state and it's mechanisms of legistlation and punishments for those breaking the laws is required for everyone to have equal economic opportunities. Unless the state is run for charity, that already requires costs, which in turn are morally justified because without them there it would not be possible to have a moral justification at all.
A second method to criticize your point of view would be to claim that the economic theory has been overextended to cover issues regarding morality; while a theory of physics explains how human bodies move it fails to explain why they make the movements they do (which is explained by psychology). In similar vein it can be argued that an economic theory is about economics, not issues of right or wrong.
A third way would be to take an economic standpoint and argue against the statement that goverment taxation (and using the money on something that is not to your direct benefit) is not to your benefit (let's forget ethics, we're talking economics here). To assume this statement is true one needs to be infallible and know beforehand that the taxes used by the goverment do not enhance your economic well-being. In other words, we would have to know that you'd earn more by not paying taxes than by paying taxes. This is a hypothesis that cannot be tested and as such it is moot
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