People who work hard to make a dent in the universe will anyway, and people who just mess around don't really get much done at work anyway, so why keep up the charade?
This is typical libertarian claptrap, from the Skilled White Male litany. The only thing of value appears to be making a dent with your special skills, and no consideration is given to the huge numbers of unskilled jobs required to keep 'the universe' running.
The point is that society supports far more shitty retail jobs than universe-denting programming jobs. Those shitty jobs need to be done, and it's hard to excel in them. What kind of dent can a convenience store clerk make? They're still necessary though - and for people in those jobs, work is not particularly fun.
In terms of your hand-wringing about full-time programming work, there are all sorts of ways you can work part-time in programming and part-time in something else. That you can't see this shows you haven't really thought about the problem seriously.
Hell, if you really are a 'denter' and have skills that are in demand, you have a good chance of simply going up to your boss and saying that you only want to work part-time now. Frequently they'll still want to keep you on for your dentable skills.
> This is typical libertarian claptrap, from the Skilled White Male litany.
Perhaps I was understanding or explaining it poorly, but my understanding is that it's close to the opposite of the "typical libertarian claptrap", which I take to mean something close to "we need the concept of money (and a free market) to get people to work" (and consequently, if you don't work, you get no money, and therefore none of the stuff you need). The position I was talking about is very explicitly that, whether or not you work at all, you deserve food/shelter/healthcare/education/etc.
The point was not whether you can change the world with your work (I think that'd more accurately be the "G. H. Hardy claptrap"!), but why you do what you do, or not, e.g., I know someone who works in a bookstore who would be there even if salaries did not exist.
> shitty jobs need to be done
This statement has been the case for all of human history, and yet the mechanism by which these jobs manage to get done has changed rather drastically many times. Even assuming the current set of "shitty jobs" isn't changing, I see no reason the mechanism couldn't change again.
> In terms of your hand-wringing about full-time programming work, there are all sorts of ways you can work part-time in programming and part-time in something else. That you can't see this shows you haven't really thought about the problem seriously.
You are welcome to accuse me of being stupid, or to point out that these opportunities are incompatible with my other (unstated) requirements, but it's not fair to claim that I've not thought about the problem seriously.
The position I was talking about is very explicitly that, whether or not you work at all, you deserve food/shelter/healthcare/education/etc.
I misread you then. What you wrote sounds like the typical libertarian spiel of 'skilled work = hard work' and if you're not skilled, then by definition you don't work hard, with the corollary that you are then not deserving of wealth or esteem.
You are welcome to accuse me of being stupid, or to point out that these opportunities are incompatible with my other (unstated) requirements, but it's not fair to claim that I've not thought about the problem seriously.
I don't think you're stupid, but I do think you're hand-wringing (that is, not serious about doing it) if you're having trouble figuring out eays of doing it.
I'm sorry but this is BS. You don't deserve food/shelter/healthcare/education etc. You only deserve what you go out of your cave, kill, and bring back home.
Food, shelter, healthcare, and education are all things that require someone else to do something to provide. Why should I have to go to work to pay for your X that you think is a right so that you can sit on your couch or plant trees and be happy. That's absurd. That bread you find at Kroger, somebody had to work to make it appear in your cart.
> That bread you find at Kroger, somebody had to work to make it appear in your cart.
In any community there is likely to be someone with a passion for something. Whether that something is making bread, helping the sick, or teaching children.
It's true that there are some jobs which people aren't naturally inclined to do, but in the society being described I think that communities would become smaller, and more cohesive. Some the of the jobs required to maintain a large city no longer need to be done, and those that do still need doing become less of a strain and can be distributed amongst people.
we've tried utopian societies before. they have never worked. we've tried socialism and it mostly doesn't work that well. communism looks great on paper and it has been a failure. why do people still continue to believe this is the way things should be?
>I'm sorry but this is BS. You don't deserve food/shelter/healthcare/education etc. You only deserve what you go out of your cave, kill, and bring back home.
Yes. That's what we did when we lived in caves.
When man grew into civilization (neoliberals excluded), we collectively decided that people deserve food/shelter/healthcare/education. Not in every country, mind you. But then again, there are countries so backwards that they still have the death penalty...
>This is typical libertarian claptrap, from the Skilled White Male litany.
No it isn't. That's straight-up Socialism. The phrase who you might think would tend towards free-market/libertarianism doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
The idea that people who make dents are the only ones that work hard, and people who don't make dents don't want to work/don't work hard is part of the worldview of libertarians.
No libertarian is going to suggest that the guy out laying asphalt isn't working hard.
You seem to have confused libertarians with some sort of ultra-elitists, whom I don't think exist in any significant number.
Only a very small fraction of mankind is actually making a dent in the world. Are you saying that libertarians believe that only 0.01% of people are actually working hard?
You are correct, no libertarian will say that as a direct comment. However, it is implicit in the way many of them present their points - if you're not getting ahead in the world (usually this means accruing enough wealth to live comfortably), that's due to 'not working hard/smart enough'.
Most of the libertarians I have talked with on the web are skilled white males, largely unaware/unaccepting of the advantages they've had in being able to gain the skills they do, and basically assume that if you don't have marketable skills, it's solely due to your own effort. Big subscribers to the Just World Fallacy. They offer no mechanism for either levelling the playing field nor systematic assistance for those whom catastrophe strikes. There's very much a subtext of "you only deserve to be comfortable if you're like me" in libertarianism.
Only a very small fraction of mankind is actually making a dent in the world. Are you saying that libertarians believe that only 0.01% of people are actually working hard?
I think we have very different ideas of what 'making a dent in the world' means.
I must note, however, that it's interesting you use 'mankind' - another trademark I find libertarians use frequently, hence why I specify "skilled white male" above.
Group A--believes the best way to help the poor is by allowing the free market to lift everyone, and allowing private charities to fill the void.
Group B--believes the best way to help the poor is by taking a small percentage from everyone who can afford it to guarantee basic human necessities for everyone who can't.
You can debate the effectiveness of the methods of Groups A and B all you want. And that's what you started to do, but then you went directly to questioning the motives of Group A.
Since they don't agree with your methods, you've decided that libertarians believe that the poor get what they deserve and have no interest in helping them. You've moved them from the "wrong" category to the "just plain evil" category.
If libertarians really believed that the poor get what they deserve, why would they donate to charity? If your model were correct, one would expect self-professing libertarians to donate considerably less money to charity than other idealogical groups. I can't find any statistics to back this up.
>'mankind'
You have enough sample data to associate the word "mankind" with libertarians? Or are you more likely to take notice of the word's use when engaging with libertarians?
Of course they do. Libertarians in general believe that private charity should replace the government safety nets. Private charity is the first response most libertarians will give to the question of what do we do with the indigent.
You're confusing libertarians with Ebenezer Scrooge.
The ones I have come across have generally stated that they will engage in private charity if the government stops taxing them. It holds all the value of an election promise. But if you're not on the poverty line and you're not already giving to charity, you won't magically become charitable with the application of more money. It's just not how people work.
And certainly, if you're not giving to charity now out of some sense of 'cave deservedness' like clarky07 above, then nothing will make you give continuously to people in lifelong need of financial support.
Yes, they do. For libertarians the big sticking point isn't this or that thing should be done. It's whether or not people have the social obligation to help the poor or the legal obligation.
"Those who think government should do more to redistribute income are less likely to give to charitable causes, and those who believe the government has less of a role to play in income redistribution tend to give more"
>Since they don't agree with your methods, you've decided that libertarians believe that the poor get what they deserve and have no interest in helping them.
Most folks I've debated who claimed to be libertarians have pretty much stated just that, and handwaved away the problem of those in need as 'supportable by private charity' (as you have suggested in A). Like I said, libertarianism provides no mechanism for levelling the playing field - those born into poverty are frequently not even aware that they can better themselves, let alone how. Libertarianism does not address this issue, instead promoting a system that sounds nice on paper, but significantly benefits those born into privilege.
The slogans of libertarianism are nice and catchy, but the devil is in the detail. If you're not skilled, white, male, and healthy, there's a good chance of falling through the cracks.
>If libertarians really believed that the poor get what they deserve, why would they donate to charity?
The one and only libertarian I've debated that did mention that they personally gave to charity did so as a boast ("I supplied two trucks full of stuff to Katrina victims", within the context of 'this is more than you gave'). No other libertarian I've talked to has mentioned giving themselves, it's always a shout-out to faceless 'private charity'. I'm not saying that libertarians don't give, but they don't seem to be great at giving positive examples of libertarian charity.
>I can't find any statistics to back this up.
Can you find any statistics to refute it? If not, you're only making half an argument. I can't find any references saying that astronauts didn't land on the sun, does that mean they did?
>You have enough sample data to associate the word "mankind" with libertarians? Or are you more likely to take notice of the word's use when engaging with libertarians?
I was raised by a feminist and have been noticing the word 'mankind' stick out like a sore thumb for over 20 years. I've only known about libertarianism as a philosophy for about 10, so it's fair to say that no, I don't just notice it more with libertarians. Libertarian dialogue is frequently sexist ('mankind' and 'rights of man' are common) and commonly makes no acknowledgement of issues that affect women (like what happens to mothers, who bear the vast brunt of the parenting load and have less opportunity to skill up).
The thing is, libertarianism promotes itself as being fair and egalitarian - if it were really about this, libertarians would self-police their own dialogue about this overtly sexist crap. They don't, and when called on it, they get defensive (as you have) and explain it away, rather than say 'my bad' and admit that they weren't being egalitarian. I personally find that this is just more support to the idea that libertarianism is really - perhaps subconsciously - about preserving existing privilege.
I don't know if you're a libertarian or not, but you are making some of the logical errors that libertarians do.
Even as I share your distaste for (parts of) the libertarian ethos, I think you're largly blind to your own ideological faults. To wit, poor people are not stupid, and using "man-kind" in a sentence is not an attack on woman-kind.
I don't buy this idea that we have to educate the poor about their options like they are primitive tribes (note the code appearing here). "They" are perfectly intelligent and aware of their options in aggregate... just give them more options and more of a safety net. Or better yet, ask them what they need...
Likewise, I doubly don't buy the idea that every use of a word containing "man" is a form of patriarchal oppression. The same as I dont view sports analogies as oppressing those who dont play, dont watch and dont like sports.
I espose libertarian claptrap all the time, I also try to work as little as possible by ensuring I provide as much value as possible.
The hardest jobs in the world also happen to be the worst paying, hard work is generally for suckers. Smart work is where the money is, eventually the money works for you.
This is typical libertarian claptrap, from the Skilled White Male litany. The only thing of value appears to be making a dent with your special skills, and no consideration is given to the huge numbers of unskilled jobs required to keep 'the universe' running.
The point is that society supports far more shitty retail jobs than universe-denting programming jobs. Those shitty jobs need to be done, and it's hard to excel in them. What kind of dent can a convenience store clerk make? They're still necessary though - and for people in those jobs, work is not particularly fun.
In terms of your hand-wringing about full-time programming work, there are all sorts of ways you can work part-time in programming and part-time in something else. That you can't see this shows you haven't really thought about the problem seriously.
Hell, if you really are a 'denter' and have skills that are in demand, you have a good chance of simply going up to your boss and saying that you only want to work part-time now. Frequently they'll still want to keep you on for your dentable skills.