“This assumes there is work, and assuming no minimum wage he could work for very little, this would increase the supply of labour and decrease the average wage - reducing the income of everyone (ok skilled labour is actually harder to dilute but you can get 10 unskilled labourers to do a job for less then you still increase the supply)”
There will be work if there is no minimum wage, and unless there is a period of drought or similar, that will cover for the person’s food and shelter at least in a free market.

“There are over 14 million unemployed people in America today, are you saying that none of them want to work or is it only the 7 million who were unemployed in 2007 who able but unwilling?”

There is minimum wage legislation stopping them from being able to work, and regulation increasing the cost of their food and housing. The Government cruelly delivers them two blows at once.

“So, say, If i were to buy all the food in the world would it be morally right for me, as the owner, to deny anyone else use of the food, even if it meant that they all starved? (or ate cardboard and whatever else they could find)”
No, I am an egoist. I wouldn’t demand he give it up, but it would be immoral for him not to sell it. It would be more seriously immoral to steal it.

Every thread ends up as either free market vs. socialism, or atheists vs. theists. =P

“If I was Person B, then I think I would voluntarily help out Person A, but that is my own perogative. If I was a third party Person C, it is certainly not my place to take what is Person B's and give it to Person A.”
Cheer

“That's just unfair to TGM. It's quite clear that the world can be improved, and is it not obvious that as a capitalist he would at least support improving the world by making its markets more free? Of course the world can be bettered, it's just that the most efficient engine of wealth creation and improvement of living standards, I believe comes from capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system, there is nothing in there to tell you that you have to spend money on yourself. You can spend it on your family, you can give it to the poor of the world, the point is that you can do with it as you want to, not as somebody else, or the government wants you to.”

Although *even if* the mixed economy were more effective for creating wealth, I wouldn’t support it and would rather have a moral pure capitalism. But that isn’t saying that I don’t want economic growth either.

"Every thread ends up as either free market vs. socialism, or atheists vs. theists. =P"

I blame the theistic socialists. =P

I of course blame the free market atheists!

Ok, i am not saying that pure capitalism isn't the best/fastest/most efficient method of obtaining growth.

I am claiming that this unfettered growth can be harmful in the long run. That the goals of a united country put men on the moon. I'm not saying i am the person to decide what direction the economy should take, but i am saying that people shouldn't be greedy - perhaps a pure capitalism economic system would work perfectly if people only aimed to personally earn enough to satisfy their own needs, and then choose to donate the excess they earned to solve other problems. (like, say, poverty, education, scientific and technological advancement etc)

That is to say I think a better world would be one where people put aside their personal greed - but perhaps that one is not something which is realistic.

now to achieve this by left-wing means is another matter entirely. you can encourage all people to do whatever they like, and then tax them to pay for repairing the damage caused.

incentives to encourage the development of 'socially useful' technologies do in fact distort a pure capitalistic system but that doesn't mean they necessarily reduce growth. There is no proof of that thesis at all.

As for the morality of taking someone's money in taxation, i think most mature individuals accept that they should pay taxation to allow the government to provide certain services (and are against such ideas of privatising the militrary, police force and judicial system - in fact i might argue that there has been too much privatisation of lawyering men as it stands in America - and that it is not possible to give every man a fair trial)

So i do not question the morality of a group of citizens choosing to pay taxes. If you don't like living in a democracy where the majority get to decide how the country is run then i suggest you leave yours and find/found somewhere nicer!

"needs"

What do you mean by need?

And how do "scientific and technological advancement" fit in with need.

orathaic, I'm sorry to be blunt, but your last post hasn't really done anything other than make a series of statements.

"i am saying that people shouldn't be greedy"

Why not?

"That is to say I think a better world would be one where people put aside their personal greed"

Why would that be better?

"I think most mature individuals accept that they should pay taxation to allow the government to provide certain services"

So what if most think that? Most mature individuals are overweight, too.

"If you don't like living in a democracy where the majority get to decide how the country is run then i suggest you leave yours and find/found somewhere nicer!"

Right, so it would be okay for 51% of the population to vote to enslave the other 49%, because the majority get to decide how its run?

"Most mature individuals are overweight, too." - not in my society; also i'm not trying to imply that you are immature, i am suggesting that you live in a democracy.

Yeah, maybe it should be 66% absolute majority not 51, but who is counting really?

yes a series of statements: "i do not question the morality of a group of citizens choosing to pay taxes" - i think they made it clear why i think this.

"i am saying that people shouldn't be greedy" - because greed alone leads to scarcity in any system which does not have infinite resources, and inequalities in resource division are what has lead to almost every conflict in human history. That is leading any society to the point where individuals or groups no longer respect each other's rights - which you claim to be one of the goals of your ideal society.

'And how do "scientific and technological advancement" fit in with need.'

you could simply allow "scientific and technological advancement" to be governed by market forces, and you would have human clones by now being used for organ transplant - scientific advancements are not driven purely by profit in our society.

As for what is 'need' you do need to eat, you do not need to be overweight. See the difference?

"Yeah, maybe it should be 66% absolute majority not 51, but who is counting really?"

So 67% can enslave the other 33%?

"That is leading any society to the point where individuals or groups no longer respect each other's rights "

So we shouldn't be greedy lest that results in people stealing what we have? Hang on a moment, the reason why stealing is wrong is that it takes stuff away from people. Why would we do that ourselves.

You don't seem to be acknowledging that life isn't a zero-sum game here, when I am greedy, I don't make other people poorer, I actually make them richer. Your case might have some traction if that weren't the case.

You still haven't properly answered the question, "what do people need?", and since you insist on referring to need so much, it is a block to discussion.

so it's gone from comparing metagaming accusations with communism accusations to the majority of fat people? i'm lost

@ Reaver

The webdip community is very out there, we could connect florida oranges to the cuban missile crisis to your mothers apple cobler in one paragraph

"because greed alone leads to scarcity in any system which does not have infinite resources"

This is funny because scarcity necessarily exists in any system which does not have infinite resources. =P

AND think they are making perfect sense. And that they are right.

"So we shouldn't be greedy lest that results in people stealing what we have? Hang on a moment, the reason why stealing is wrong is that it takes stuff away from people. Why would we do that ourselves."

- yes by increasing the inequality the worse off feel they are being unfairly treated. Because of inheritance and the fact that their parents didn't have as much to give them - they feel that, through no actions of their own, the system they grew up in was one which was unfair (and humans have an inherent sense of fairness) so if you are being unfair to them, and having lots of things is desirable in the system you conceive then they (or at least some of them) are encouraged to steal from you.

So telling a society that greed is the ideal worth aspiring to leaves you with poor greedy people who are willing to steal to reach their aspirations.

Am i that wrong?

"You don't seem to be acknowledging that life isn't a zero-sum game here" - life isn't zero-sum but limitless growth is also not possible, and the relative difference in living standards is important to what people think of as fair.

"You still haven't properly answered the question, "what do people need?", and since you insist on referring to need so much, it is a block to discussion. " - what i said was "choose to donate the excess they earned to solve other problems." the excess is whatever you decide, but the point is that if you measure yourself by your personal wealth and you greedily seek to only increase that wealth then you are unlikely to ever be satisfied with the amount you earn as there will always be someone who has more (except bill gates who set up a charitable foundation aiming to end poverty)

"- yes by increasing the inequality the worse off feel they are being unfairly treated. Because of inheritance and the fact that their parents didn't have as much to give them - they feel that, through no actions of their own, the system they grew up in was one which was unfair (and humans have an inherent sense of fairness) so if you are being unfair to them, and having lots of things is desirable in the system you conceive then they (or at least some of them) are encouraged to steal from you."

So what? If people do that (and crime has been going down with time for a millennium), then we imprison them, because what they are doing is immoral.

"So telling a society that greed is the ideal worth aspiring to leaves you with poor greedy people who are willing to steal to reach their aspirations."

You don't understand what rational selfishness is. It isn't to lie, steal and cheat, its to earn. So when I argue that there is nothing wrong with it, I'm talking about selfish businessmen who make a product, not the guys at enron- look where they are now, was that in their self-interest?

I think most people aren't so vindictive or angered, but they're not going to make threads saying "hey I just played a good game, seemed alright, maybe another some time?" So all we see are the angry ones

Remarkably back on topic from kestas ^

I think I've had the luxury to witness an 'everyone is equal' society without really having to suffer from it. I was 16 when the system changed in the East.

Greed is not the right word. Success is. We have abstract thinking, so, different to animals, it's not only about the material world. It's about who get's the hot date, who is captain of the team, who gets to be the boss and tell others what to do (regardless of pay), who get's the best seats, etc. You cannot manufacture this, so it's not a matter of technological advancement.

People are competitive and to think otherwise is naive. Education and experience can teach us to control it and be 'fair', but capitalism and market economy are, effectively, the closest we've come to replicating nature. The rest is ideology, which is a weird word as the ideas are there, but not the science.

Back on topic - there's a real need to reorganize/upgrade the forum, isn't there? Some separation of topics will definitely help, maybe some of those can be designed to be 'positive' :) - EOGs, Best Stab (whatever that might mean), etc. will help. Also, the educational part of the site is really basic - and only covers the moves - people start playing without having any idea what the purpose of the game is.

@ Reavernecris: "ok this is kinda late but to Jamiet99uk
The definition of greed is to want to posses more than what one needs.
I mean come on, answer honestly. Have you ever felt at all that you wanted more in a situation? Even though you had all the basic necessities of life?"

Probably, yes - but I was raised under a system where greed is actively encouraged. What I am saying is, if you raise people differently, you produce people with different motivations and values. The argument that communism doesn't work because of "human nature" is in my view fndamentally flawed.

some people don't know they need to enter the orders to convoy their units even though it is one of the options their fleet has - i know it is already a very noob friendly interface, but it would be possible to give convoy warnings when your own fleets are not orders to convoy the troops you have told to convoy...

"Education and experience can teach us to control it and be 'fair'" - i think i disagree with you to a point - we do think success can be fair, if you think of competing athletes and one gains success, but it is considered a 'fair' competition.

when i say we have an inherent sense of fairness i am reminded of an experiment two subjects are offered tokens every day, they are allowed to exchange the token for food, sometime basic like porridge, then later in the experiment one of the subject is given instead something sweeter like grapes. In this case the other subject complains and refuses to accept his porridge because it is deemed unfair.

This experiment was done on chimps - it is not something which we are just educated, and it doesn't necessarily mean we are equal, it is perfectly fine to set up a fair system which has winners. (that said, baseball accepts that whenever you play there is a loser, democracy says everyone can be winners)

"You don't understand what rational selfishness is." - ok, but as violent crime and enron employees demonstrate your ideal human is not everyone - they do not follow a code of rational selfishness, infact the are irrational (even if the economists don't seem to think so) emotional creatures.

What system of morales we have is built on our inherent sense of what is fair; and if people FEEL like they are being treated unfairly then they will rationalise their behaviour as ok.

as for crime rates reducing for a millenium: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/US_incarceration_timeline-clean.svg

this graph is really shit because it doesn't give the prison population as a percentage of total population, but i think the steep climb is indicative of something (probably harsher sentencing, leading to larger prison populations due to more people being in prison if they are all there for longer)

How about the better argument presented by the spontaneous order tradition that only a price mechanism is capable of generating sufficient information to organise an effective economy, regardless of the altruism or selfishness and the rationality or relative stupidity of the agents in that economy?

Also, you are in cloud cuckoo land about greed being actively encouraged.
Almost every child is told to share their toys.
Almost every philosopher argues for some kind of self-sacrifice, be it utilitarian or Natural Moral Law or another theory.
Almost every person agrees that if you give to charity, you are a better person.

Of course, capitalism rewards selfishness, but we keep on telling people *not to be greedy*.

Anyway, I want to ask you a question, what do you think people need?

""You don't understand what rational selfishness is." - ok, but as violent crime and enron employees demonstrate your ideal human is not everyone - they do not follow a code of rational selfishness, infact the are irrational (even if the economists don't seem to think so) emotional creatures."

And those who are criminal, have a police force and prison service!

"What system of morales we have is built on our inherent sense of what is fair; and if people FEEL like they are being treated unfairly then they will rationalise their behaviour as ok. "

a) Moral, not morale, please, sorry, that typo is starting to bug me rather.
b) So we should soothe the feeling of those who think they deserve more than they can earn? No. We should make sure we catch criminals and lock them up. It isn't a good argument that "without government controlling the economy some people might feel bad and so do bad stuff".

I'm afraid I can't find the graph of crime against time that I saw, I think it was in a book, too, but it looked a bit like an exponential decay curve.

"Also, you are in cloud cuckoo land about greed being actively encouraged.
...
Of course, capitalism rewards selfishness, but we keep on telling people *not to be greedy*." - just as play in a diplomacy game is affected by the reward (whether it is PPSC or WTA) behaviour in a capitalist society is affected by the reward - which is of course the point of rewarding greed, you asusme that greedy agents will produce the greatest growth - which is of course gaining part of the gaining power 10 course that all politicians have to take.

"So we should soothe the feeling of those who think they deserve more than they can earn?" - no we should aim to create a 'fair' society which is inclusive of all people and provides equal opportunities for all to.

And no i don't say you need government control over all things in the economy. I have already agreed that "a price mechanism is capable of generating sufficient information to organise an effective economy" - Though that doesn't mean that any deviation from a pure free market is inefficient; incentives distort the price mechanism from 'free' but you sometimes need a perturbation to get out of a local maximum and find the global maximum - so there is no reason why government incentives shouldn't be seen as a mechanism for pushing policy (say research and development policy) through without trying to direct the whole economy.

i meant - part of the gaining power 101 course that all politicians have to take. - increased economic output and population base increases a nations power and influence and is therefore in every politicians interest because they wield the nations power...

"which is of course the point of rewarding greed"

The reward for being greedy requires greed in order to be recognised. If you weren't greedy, you wouldn't care about not getting the reward.

"i meant - part of the gaining power 101 course that all politicians have to take. - increased economic output and population base increases a nations power and influence and is therefore in every politicians interest because they wield the nations power..."

That may be in part correct, but that doesn't make the politicians any good at it: if all you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

"And no i don't say you need government control over all things in the economy. I have already agreed that "a price mechanism is capable of generating sufficient information to organise an effective economy" - Though that doesn't mean that any deviation from a pure free market is inefficient; incentives distort the price mechanism from 'free' but you sometimes need a perturbation to get out of a local maximum and find the global maximum - so there is no reason why government incentives shouldn't be seen as a mechanism for pushing policy (say research and development policy) through without trying to direct the whole economy."

A valid argument, however I was arguing against Jamiet's communist ideology there, so it doesn't really dent my case.

I can't say whether no government intervention in the economy would be more conducive to growth than very slight intervention, however I can say that that isn't a crucial point to me.

i think i would disagree with Jamiet on how i might try to implement a 'communist' ideology, but i can say that the pricing mechanism is a very useful tool.

Actually i don't know if what i would prefer to see would be considered communist by you. Let us assume that government (of a newly created state) builds infrastructure, roads for one thing - the government owns the roads but is free to rent them out to the users (private bus companies, individual car owners) you can have major government investment while also having a measure of competition to provide services to the users of these services.

That said they is an arguement for investing in (let's say in my example) rail instead of roads, and the rail companies have to compete with the lack of investment compared to roads because the government was shortsighted (in this case i'm imagining the Irish government, which tore up rail lines in the 60s assuming we'd all by flying helicopters by the 90s)

So there are problems with my idea because of a lack of competition between different transport systems, but this can be overcome - oh and i am assuming that the money earned from 'renting' out us of the roads will be reinvested in further infrastructure or used to pay of debts incurred by borrowing to invest in the first place.

It is a state monopoly without state controls.

I think the idea can easily be applied to telecommunications/broadband access, but not as easily to healthcare.

But when it comes to something like broadband is it better to have two seperate competing service with different lines? I don't know. The free market can however leave you with inefficient monopolies when left mostly on it's own (like microsoft - about 89% market share if i average the three figures i found in wikipedia...) - that doesn't mean you couldn't have competition within a company (or between countries) i think on different scales competition between groups can be used to generate efficiency, but that doesn't mean you can't also use co-operation in some circumstances (and it is possible that some ideas about co-operation would be called commie tricks by some, but my point is there is no single simple solution)

Wow. What a wild and woolly conversation.
Here's my modest contribution, in light of it being the "tax season" here in the U.S.:

"I love being taxed, it's my investment in civilization." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Interestingly enough, Oliver Wendell Holmes was a conservative... ah, how things do change. Now most conservatives complain about the "unfair" tax system - how the successful are punished. Well, I submit that we all gain more from the system then we put in... it is not a zero-sum game. Secondly, I submit that $1 to a rich man is actually not worth as much as it is to a man in need. Thirdly... Our "unfair" tax system (i.e. progressive tax system... which I would argue IS fair) is central to what makes our civilization... civilized. Would you argue that your child or your crippled brother do the same chores around the house and make the same contribution to the rent? Of course not. That would not be civilized.

"Would you argue that your child or your crippled brother do the same chores around the house and make the same contribution to the rent?"

No, because I'd value them and want to give to them, so it is selfish of me to do so.
I don't value a stranger who I've never met as much, but still some, so I do give to charity, but not as much.


My objection to government is an objection to the use of force.

It is true that in the democracy you live in a majority can infringe on your rights by taking your money via taxation - whether this was the intention of your founding fathers is a rather unimportant point.

1 you don't have to choose to live where you do.
2 the system works

Actually on point number 2, it could perhaps work better, but you need consensus to change the system and at present you are all far from that.

I'm not claiming i know what the best system is, but in America you have the crazies on both sides calling each other names. Vilification is not a useful way to build a consensus even it is an easy way to gain votes.

Is it not possible to admit that those working on the other side are infact trying to achieve something good, even if you disagree about how they plan to do it. Once you admit their motives are pure then you have a base to work from.