Stumbled upon this argument and got stuck:When there is a shortage, prices on a free market rise accordingly to signal high demand as compared to low supply which victimizes poor customers since rich buyers could simply buy up all the reserves until the crisis is over. In some cases, e.g. drinking water production, this would severely endanger the well-being of the poor. Thus, government must ration these important products should they be in short supply, to ensure the survival of poor citizens.Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
You really think a person ought to stand by while his family starves because a rich but feeble man buys up all the food before the physically stronger can get any?
Why not just live in the jungle? I mean, there such a process is automatic.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
JCFolsom:Again and again I see people on this board admit their hypocricy in this matter, clinging to ideals they know would be meaningless in terms of their own actions when push comes to shove.
Hypocrisy does not invalidate a principle, nor does proposing hypotheticals which have yet to happen. You may see it as meaningless to be just in every circumstance, but to call other's weak because you put personal well being before righteousness is foolish.
banned:Hypocrisy does not invalidate a principle, nor does proposing hypotheticals which have yet to happen. You may see it as meaningless to be just in every circumstance, but to call other's weak because you put personal well being before righteousness is foolish.
YOU put your personal well being before "righteousness", you have admitted such yourself. I am just honest about it. I don't claim to follow a principle I know I wouldn't practice. I don't put righteousness before my personal well-being; I believe that in such circumstances, there is no contradiction between them.
Hypocrisy is actually not the right word for it. Hypocrisy is you claiming that you shouldn't and you wouldn't, right up to the point that you do it. You claim that you shouln't, but that you would. I'm not even sure what to call that. Deliberately evil, I guess. Yes, indeed, that is the ticket, EVIL. You PLAN to do something you believe to be wrong should the situation arise. I don't know that I've ever encountered such an openly evil group of people before. It's fascinating, really.
Jon Irenicus:Why not just live in the jungle? I mean, there such a process is automatic.
Look, dude, in a just world, that is, a world where wealth is gained justly, nobody would have the ability to corner the market on a surplus of necessities anyway. It's too off-topic for here, but there's just no way that people who make as much and only as much as the value they personally produce will ever get so GD wealthy, ooh look a commie blah blah maybe I'll start another thread if I feel like it.
JCFolsom:YOU put your personal well being before "righteousness", you have admitted such yourself.
Yes, but I dont consider those I would take from "weak".
JCFolsom:I don't claim to follow a principle I know I wouldn't practice.
That's is baseless. You dont know you wouldn't practice it, you just have a feeling you value personal well being over principle. Until you actually violate that principle, nothing can be said. And whether or not you practice it does not determine whether you follow it. You can consider yourself following a principle and simply fail to meet it's conditions.
JCFolsom:You PLAN to do something you believe to be wrong should the situation arise. I don't know that I've ever encountered such an openly evil group of people before. It's fascinating, really.
Well, at least as far as protestantism goes (I'm not that familiar with catholicism so I don't know their ideas on this) most consider themselves evil to some level. It's part of "coming short to the glory of God".
JCFolsom: In any case, whether justified or not, economic power is just like any other power; it trumps some forms of power and is trumped by others. Is it such a controvertial statement to say that, if you are going to hoard in a time of extreme scarcity, you need a way to protect your hoard? If I sound unsympathetic to one who will store more than he needs at present, just in case, while others who need food now starve, that is because I am. You are using economic power to kill people in the name of easing your mind. Well, your economic power can always be trumped by sheer violence.
If I sound unsympathetic to one who will store more than he needs at present, just in case, while others who need food now starve, that is because I am. You are using economic power to kill people in the name of easing your mind. Well, your economic power can always be trumped by sheer violence.
Let's be completely candid for a moment. The argument you're trying to make, without actually saying, is that, in the event of hoarding in the above situation, because a bunch of poor people will inevitably rob, maim, and lynch the hoarder, their actions should at least pass without judgment (or are even possibly vindicated) given their situation. (There's a Georgist who pops up on this forum from time to time who's made the same argument, but even he wasn't completely forthright about it).
Now, if I were a derelict, would I participate in the mob? Probably, if I knew I could get away with it. Self-interest, you know.
That said, the feeling of desperation of a mob member (or of sympathy in your case) should not be confused with a justification. The fact that he cannot feed his family, pay the rent, or falls into some other boring sob story may be sufficient reason for action (robbing and killing), but I insist that it is not sufficient reason for him to feel self-righteous about it.
Diminishing Marginal Utility - IT'S THE LAW!
JCFolsom: Is it such a controvertial statement to say that, if you are going to hoard in a time of extreme scarcity, you need a way to protect your hoard?
Is it such a controvertial statement to say that, if you are going to hoard in a time of extreme scarcity, you need a way to protect your hoard?
As a simple statement of fact, no; of course that's always the case. It's the way you say it (including the use of the pejorative "hoard").
JCFolsom: You really think a person ought to stand by while his family starves because a rich but feeble man buys up all the food before the physically stronger can get any?
What if it's a rich strong man and a feeble poor one?
See Rothbard's chapter on "lifeboat situations" in The Ethics of Liberty.
banned:Well, at least as far as protestantism goes (I'm not that familiar with catholicism so I don't know their ideas on this) most consider themselves evil to some level. It's part of "coming short to the glory of God".
Ah yes, the fallen state of man and all that. What you say is surely true of Protestant perspective; however, unless I'm mistaken, they tend to believe that you will be evil despite the extreme effort you are obliged to put forth towards being otherwise.
"Be perfect", said Jesus. The amish are not even supposed to raise a hand in self-defense, and, by and large, they do not. When that psycho blew away a bunch of amish schoolchildren and was later shot, the amish attended his funeral. Unless you're a Cathar, your faith does not give you license to evil; any evil you are aware of in yourself, you should strive constantly to cleanse. You will never be perfect, but you can get closer than you are now.
JCFolsom:You really think a person ought to stand by while his family starves because a rich but feeble man buys up all the food before the physically stronger can get any?
Anything else is parasitical behaviour, so, yes.
JCFolsom:If I sound unsympathetic to one who will store more than he needs at present, just in case, while others who need food now starve, that is because I am.
Right, it simply doesn't follow that because this is wrong violence is justified.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
There is a free market solution that really works. It is called profiteers. The moment prices shot into the sky businessmen will encounter a huge opportunity and start bringing the desired good, water in this cas, to the place it is in high demand. Now, the place gets swamped with water and prices will drop heavily again. The other solution, which would be government coerced rationalizing of water will, remember FEMA and New Orleans as a not to past example, does no such thing. All a non free market solution can ever achieve is the management of increasing scarcity.
Another free market example that shows what usually will happen if a catastrophic event happens and the government keeps its useless agencies out of the already big enough mess was Hurricane Katrina as well. When heard about the news, bad capitalist Wal-Mart not only gave their local Managers a carte blanche to support the local citizenery, but started immediately to stock up trucks with drinking water to send it down to the area and to provide it for free.
Like to know what happend? The FEMA stopped them to go into the area.
Why would the bad capitalist Wal-Mart do such a thing? Because , if not for charity, because out of sheer profit expectations. Because a dead customer is no customer at all. And that little... uhm credit ... in free drinking water is made up for sure by keeping furture customers, the souce of profits, alive.
On the other hand, FEMA has no such benefit at all.
Bottomline the free market is a better safeguard, even in desastrous times and circumstances as any governement protection plan.
In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded.
Terry Pratchett (on the big bang theory)
Hm. Suppose he were wealthy due to being productive, frugal, whatever. Why should he be punished for it? In fact, if you're going to argue that in emergencies social ethics cease to apply, one can argue equally well he can do whatever he wishes to acquire whatever he wants from others and likewise can quash any attempts they make to take his holdings. It goes both ways.
JCFolsom:I don't put righteousness before my personal well-being; I believe that in such circumstances, there is no contradiction between them.
So property rights cease to be legitimate when it is convenient for you? Does that apply to other people too? For example, if you were somewhere, say Africa, and you had some food, would it be legitimate for starving Africans to take that food from you by force?
It would seem we could take this principle even farther. All criminals would simply have to make themselves poor just before they committed a crime, perhaps by giving it to a close friend, then it would be justifiable and legitimate. Then they could have the friend buy them things to enjoy the fruits of their criminal actions, only to momentarily transfer them over to the friend just before a crime is committed so they could use the JCFolsom poverty defense if caught.
Sphairon: Stumbled upon this argument and got stuck:When there is a shortage, prices on a free market rise accordingly to signal high demand as compared to low supply which victimizes poor customers since rich buyers could simply buy up all the reserves until the crisis is over. In some cases, e.g. drinking water production, this would severely endanger the well-being of the poor. Thus, government must ration these important products should they be in short supply, to ensure the survival of poor citizens.Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
Better to have the goverment buy the products in the market place but to resale them at a lower price to the poor. Rationing only disrups the market.
Julio: Better to have the goverment buy the products in the market place but to resale them at a lower price to the poor. Rationing only disrups the market.
The poor would then sell them back to the market at market prices.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
And buying by the government doesn't disrupt the market?
Why in the world would someone who is rich (whatever that means) buy up all resources if the usual scarcity of that resource is so low, that, after the temporary shortage is resolved, the price will go down to its usual range?
Let's suppose in a specific area water, which tends to be very cheap, becomes scarces because of a decontamination of the existing resources. What happens now? People will first decrease their usage of water, maybe to a point where it is only used for drinking. Those in excess possession of water might start selling it to ever increasing prices. This in turn will draw businessmen from other areas to enter that "market" in hope of a great opportunity. The result is, that the scarcity of water declines with every bottle that comes from the outside. Or to rephrase it, the supply side increases which in turn will put pressure on the price until it will level off a little higher than before the shortage took place (because of increased transportation cost).
Now, given this scenario, which is, in my view the only realistic scenerio, what could be the benefit a so called rich man could possibly have to buy all water, knowing if he wants it for personal use he would enter a very expensive insurance deal? Now, if the rich man hopse to sell the water for a profit, he has to hurry, because his competitors are already on the scene and will very soon underbit him. He is in a clear loose-loose situation. What any decend man will do is to buy as much water as he needs and can effort for his own support over whatever time he thinks the crisis will extend.
If the government provides water for the poor, whatever that means, than there is no incentive to either increase the amount of water significant nor to fix the problem as fast as possible. Another loose-loose game me thinks :-)