What's Wrong With a Free Lunch?
David C. N. Swanson
every person be given an above-subsistence-level Universal Basic Income
with no strings attached. The book includes responses from 15 thinkers,
mostly sympathetic to the idea. A couple oppose the idea of letting
anyone have anything for nothing (as if that were not already the case),
and several suggest what they see as similar but better ideas. The
majority of these are based on the idea that enacting a UBI in the
United States is unlikely, not that it is undesirable.
This may be right, but even an unreasonable goal serves a very important
purpose. Many of the right-wing ideas openly discussed in the media
are, I dearly hope, unreasonable goals. But they serve the purpose of
making somewhat-less-destructive ideas pass for "centrist." As long as
the right wing proposes what it dreams of and the left wing proposes
only what it thinks it can get in the foreseeable future, the "center"
will be commonly placed further and further from what the left thought
it could get. Van Parijis's book is exactly the sort of thing needed to
break this defeatist pattern. We need to direct our energies to the
achievable, yes, but we also have to dream -- or the achievable won't
be.
I'm not convinced that some of the alternatives offered, such as a
Negative Income Tax, are either more desirable or more feasible. And
concentrating on how best to convince Americans to pay more income taxes
is the wrong thing to be worried about.
Our first project should be to free up the tax dollars we are wasting.
We should cut military spending, cut prison spending, cancel the wars on
victimless crimes, cut highway spending, cut trash-removal spending,
eliminate corporate welfare, tax pollution, tax the use of natural
resources, tax corporations, tax the extremely rich, tax wealth, tax
union busting, tax estates, eliminate the cap on payroll taxes,
eliminate offshore banking, etc., etc. The idea that we need to devise
a means of doing good that will most readily persuade a large segment of
society to pay higher income taxes is hopelessly misguided. (And the
idea that people won't want others to have free money while they "have
to work for it" misses the whole point of the UBI: everybody gets it!)
What I find most attractive about a UBI is the hope that it would
eliminate the most unattractive and lowest paying jobs. The response
from certain parties will inevitably be that this will "hurt the very
people it is intended to help," that certain people will be stuck with
the UBI and nothing more because there are no jobs for them. But this
same argument is made against raising minimum wages in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary. A UBI would doubtless result in
higher pay and better treatment for low-skilled workers, but it would
also do something that a higher minimum wage does not: allow people to
refuse fulltime work and pursue the acquisition of skills.
Here's an idea for a handout that does not stigmatize and actually
boosts wages. Surely that's a more valuable trick than a "missile
defense system" with a test record that would get it thrown out of the
third grade.
ted samsel
>
> "What's Wrong With a Free Lunch" by Philippe Van Parijs proposes that
> every person be given an above-subsistence-level Universal Basic Income
> with no strings attached.
If they get lunch, they'll expect dinner and a show.
ObSkiffyAcronym: TANSTAAFL.
--
TBSa...@infi.net
http://home.infi.net/~tbsamsel/
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow (1914-1999)
THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
Louis Katorz
>"David C. N. Swanson" wrote:
>>"What's Wrong With a Free Lunch" by
>>Philippe Van Parijs proposes that every
>>person be given an
>>above-subsistence-level Universal >>Basic
>>Income with no strings attached.
>If they get lunch, they'll expect dinner >and a show.
Would that be a robust "ploughman's lunch" or a skimpy "cuisine minceur"
one?
Louis xiv
Don Tuite
wrote:
>"David C. N. Swanson" wrote:
>>
>> "What's Wrong With a Free Lunch" by Philippe Van Parijs proposes that
>> every person be given an above-subsistence-level Universal Basic Income
>> with no strings attached.
>
>If they get lunch, they'll expect dinner and a show.
The Kiwis did essentially that (the three hots and a cot, not the
show), with their "Basic Human Rights." Apparently, the effort
proved neither panacea nor catastrophe.
NZ is a different kind of place, though. I have visited friends who
emigrated there a decade and a half ago. They have some interesting
stories. For example, Tom became one of the "regulars" who rotated
among all the TV game shows, which were rigged. There were ongoing
battles between the regulars and the TV producers about accommodations
and meal chits that would make a dandy TC Boyle short story.
Tom believes the reason there are "regulars" seems to be that most
Kiwis would never dream of putting themselves forward for something as
intellectual as a TV quiz show. (Sports is a different matter.)
ObKiwiComic: "Footrot Flats"
Don
I.S.Rennie
apparently new zealand has the highest rate of interpersonal violence in
the world. Can't remember where I heard that, but it's slightly scary
David J. Loftus
I used to shake my head bemusedly at the names that would be appended
to our college cafeteria food.
One delectable item was the "Epicurean sandwich." Don't ask me of what
it consisted; all I remember were my speculations about what might
constitute the Stoic dessert.
David Loftus
Don Tuite
Loftus) wrote:
>I used to shake my head bemusedly at the names that would be appended
>to our college cafeteria food.
>
>One delectable item was the "Epicurean sandwich." Don't ask me of what
>it consisted; all I remember were my speculations about what might
>constitute the Stoic dessert.
Hmm. Existential Lunchmeat.
Don
Jim Ward
> One delectable item was the "Epicurean sandwich." Don't ask me of what
> it consisted; all I remember were my speculations about what might
> constitute the Stoic dessert.
Something bitter? A sugared lemon?
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 22nd of June, 2001
It isn't free. Somebody's got to provide it---grow it, raise it, slaughter
it, harvest it, ship it, distribute it, store it, refrigerate it, prepare it, serve
it, and wash up afterwards. Either the people who can do all these things
volunteer to do them in order to provide someone else with a free lunch,
or you've got to make them do it. If you are against making them do
these things (i.e. if you are against slavery as I at least am), then you can
only persuade them to volunteer to do these things, which mostly means
you have to pay them. If you still want the lunch to be free to the recipient
in the face of this, it means you've got to go get the money from somebody
else. Either the people who have the money will volunteer to give it in
order to provide someone else with a free lunch, or you've got to make
them give it. If you are against making them give it (i.e. if you are against
slavery as I at least am), then you can only persuade them to volunteer to
give it, which mostly means you have to give them labour or political
power or somesuch in exchange. And so on and so forth.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
David J. Loftus
Nice.
And the Existential Entree?
The Tao d'oeuvre?
Lacenaire
Michael S. Morris <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote in message
news:3B335EA8...@netdirect.net...
Maybe this is how it looks in some tiny autonomous agricultural collective
in Tonga.
The proposal was intended for a technologically advanced nation collecting
two trillion dollars in taxes a year at the Federal level alone, and the
home of corporations possessing enormous amounts of capital in every
possible form and enjoying wildly accelerating profits as well as a highish
concentration of above subsistence level workers. Is was not being proposed
for a community of a dozen castaways on a desert island.
You may examine the already existing and quite elaborate system of free
lunch, free helicopter, free technology, free M-16, free money provision
here:
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/
M. Lacenaire
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 22nd of June, 2001
M. Lacenaire wrote:
You may examine the already existing and quite elaborate system of free
lunch, free helicopter, free technology, free M-16, free money provision
here:
As I said, it ain't free. None of it. What's wrong with
it ethically is precisely that it lies to people where their
lunch or M-16 or whatever is coming from.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Jim Ward
> And the Existential Entree?
I'm pondering a Zen appetizer, a nouvelle creation where you're unsure
if you should eat it or did they made a mistake in the kitchen and bring
you a soiled dish?
The Existential after meal experince would be nausea.
Jim Ward
> M. Lacenaire wrote:
> You may examine the already existing and quite elaborate system of free
> lunch, free helicopter, free technology, free M-16, free money provision
> here:
> As I said, it ain't free. None of it. What's wrong with
> it ethically is precisely that it lies to people where their
> lunch or M-16 or whatever is coming from.
The term "free lunch" means that nobody pays, not that it doesn't cost
anything to prepare. How about "Less guns, more butter!"
Vlorbik
>it ethically is precisely that it lies to people where their
>lunch or M-16 or whatever is coming from.
i can handle the lies.
it's the violence that irks me.
and, since we're being precise,
the *threat* of violence: no lie there.
http:/members.aol.com/vlorbik
Lacenaire
Withdrawn. Apologies offered.
Right you are. Surplus value doesn't just grow on trees, no matter how much
it may appear so to those who lay claim to it.
Like me, I admit. It just seems to multiply like fungus while I'm sleeping.
My Amex card can't scrape it away fast enough.
ObRefObBooks: Sraffa: _Production Of Commodities By Means of Commodities_ &
Johnstone: _The Adventures of a Guinea_.
M. Lacenaire
Oh and by the way. Thanks for lunch.
Francis Muir
With restaurants ranked One, Two, Three or Four Fingers?
Francis Muir
Vlorbik wrote:
>
> >What's wrong with
> >it ethically is precisely that it lies to people where their
> >lunch or M-16 or whatever is coming from.
>
> i can handle the lies.
> it's the violence that irks me.
> and, since we're being precise,
> the *threat* of violence: no lie there.
What's wrong with a little violence? I am nauseated by the constantly
expressed platitude that Peace everywhere and and all times is a most
desireable state.
Codswallop, that's what I say. A little violence bubbling up merely
reflects the dynamic of our world. Button it up and you're looking at
trouble. Big time.
Curiously we understand it when it comes to road fatalities, but what is
the daily Jew + Arab death toll in the Middle East compared with our
human road-kill figures for these Good Ol' United States?
As to JMC's whereabouts, he was most certainly NOT in West Los Angeles
since I personally caught him slurping down moules-frites at one of the
seedier Greek grabiteria off the Boul' Mich'.
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 22nd of June, 2001
Jim Ward wrote:
The term "free lunch" means that nobody pays,
not that it doesn't cost anything to prepare.
Are you attempting to argue with me, or with
David and M. Lacenaire? If it costs something to
prepare, then plainly somebody *does* pay---
in the case of government provided M-16's *as*
in the case of government provided lunches. Even
in the time-honoured governmental scheme of printing
money to pay for lunches, *somebody* pays (namely,
everybody who holds money and then wakes up to
find it worth less than it was).
Look, I have *zero* objection to the idea that some
taxes should be required by law to be paid to the government,
and that the government ought to use such taxes
to buy things for the public good. I might argue
vigorously about how much ought to be taxed
(never more than 10% of any individual's income
in aggregate taxation from all levels of government,
and that it ought to fall as an equal percentage---flat---
on every person's income, and never on sales or property
or inheritance) and in fine detail about how it should
be spent (M-16's are a more legitimate expense and more
to the public good than free lunches, and I don't think M-16's
are much to the public good), but neither of those
debatable points are at issue here. What is at issue
is that free lunches are *never* free. They are *always*
at somebody's expense. Somebody *always* pays. It is not
even clear that they can ever be really free to the
recipient. If the money for them comes from taxes, then the
people who are taxed set their prices (salaries, for instance)
to accomodate this fact. Consequently, there are a whole
lot of goods and services (such as housing and groceries
and clothing) that will be more expensive otherwise than
they would be had those taxes not been required. So, many
future people receiving free lunches may well be put in
the position of needing the same by taxes driving up the
price of food. Anyway, my point is that it is an absolute
lie to try and sell such politically to the potential
recipients of free lunches and to those do-gooders
who conflate public welfare with private charity as
though the lunches were, in fact, free. As though they were,
in fact, not being *taken* from someone else by force
of law. For people to imagine that this can be done
without any countervailing political cost is the hokum
that politicians sell in exchange for political
power, which then *of a necessity* ends up beholden
---and controlled by---those who foot the bill.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Jim Ward
> Are you attempting to argue with me, or with
> David and M. Lacenaire? If it costs something to
> prepare, then plainly somebody *does* pay---
I'm arguing with you. Everyone knows free lunches are
never free, somebody always pays, it's an obvious point.
I don't see why it requires gobs of explanation.
Vlorbik
to my own person if i don't pay
the empire their taxes.
roadkill and the mideast
having nothing that i can see
to do with the free lunch debate.
>> i can handle the lies.
>> it's the violence that irks me.
>> and, since we're being precise,
>> the *threat* of violence: no lie there.
>What's wrong with a little violence? I am nauseated by the constantly
expressed platitude that Peace everywhere and and all times is a most
desireable state.
http:/members.aol.com/vlorbik
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 22nd of June, 2001
I said:
Are you attempting to argue with me, or with
David and M. Lacenaire? If it costs something to
prepare, then plainly somebody *does* pay---
Jim Ward:
I'm arguing with you. Everyone knows free lunches are
never free, somebody always pays, it's an obvious point.
Good, then I assume that you and I are agreed that
to call a governmental handout "a free lunch" makes
a political lie. And that the deception that is
being practiced in that phrase is being done for a
political reason, and that there most definitely is
something ethically wrong about that lie. I mean, this
answers the titular question.
I don't see why it requires gobs of explanation.
To you, perhaps it does not require gobs of
explanation, but I've seen Democrat politicians
galore in the last six months pretending that to
make a tax cut that cuts the taxes that taxpayers pay
is to "give" the government's money to the rich, rather
than simply not to take excessive money from taxpayers
in the first place. So, it apparently requires
gobs and gobs of repitition that there is in fact something
wrong with setting up a social welfare system and then
trying to sell it as "a free lunch".
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Lacenaire
Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:3B33B0AE...@stanford.edu...
>
>
> Vlorbik wrote:
> >
> > >What's wrong with
> > >it ethically is precisely that it lies to people where their
> > >lunch or M-16 or whatever is coming from.
> >
> > i can handle the lies.
> > it's the violence that irks me.
> > and, since we're being precise,
> > the *threat* of violence: no lie there.
>
> What's wrong with a little violence? I am nauseated by the constantly
> expressed platitude that Peace everywhere and and all times is a most
> desireable state.
>
> Codswallop, that's what I say. A little violence bubbling up merely
> reflects the dynamic of our world. Button it up and you're looking at
> trouble. Big time.
>
> Curiously we understand it when it comes to road fatalities, but what is
> the daily Jew + Arab death toll in the Middle East compared with our
> human road-kill figures for these Good Ol' United States?
>
Since you're asking.
The Palestinian casualties since September 2000 (a nine month
period), per capita, would be the equivalent of about 58,000 deaths and over
2 million people injured on the American Highway in that period. Which is
greater than the total traffic fatalies in the US in all 12 months of 1999
(just under. 42,000). (www.madd.org) I don't have an
injury statistic for the American roads.
If however we combined the Israeli casualties with the Palestinian
casualties, and consider them together with reference to the combined
population of Israel and the Occupied Territories, the picture is of course
very different. From inside Israel, the American road looks a lot bloodier
than the intifada and its repression.
The Israeli peace organization B'Tselem counted about 400 Israeli fatalities
from the intifada since its beginning in December of 1987 to April 30, 2001.
(The rate goes up and down and has gone up in recent weeks considerably).
Meanwhile, Israel traffic death rate is steady at about 500 per year, with
about 45,000 injuries reported, overwhelmingly classed as "slight" (from the
Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics). There is also a startling amount of
assault and injury in connection with looking for a parking space.
If you've ever been to the OT, you know that there is a different idea of
"road rage" obtaining there.
> As to JMC's whereabouts, he was most certainly NOT in West Los Angeles
> since I personally caught him slurping down moules-frites at one of the
> seedier Greek grabiteria off the Boul' Mich'.
My dear friend Laurent, when invited to one of these establishments for
dinner not long ago, agreed on condition that the ambulance be booked in
advance.
M. Lacenaire
Marko Amnell
Francis Muir wrote:
> What's wrong with a little violence? I am nauseated by
> the constantly expressed platitude that Peace everywhere
> and and all times is a most desireable state. Codswallop,
> that's what I say. A little violence bubbling up merely
> reflects the dynamic of our world. Button it up and you're
> looking at trouble. Big time.
The French anthropologist Rene Girard actually thought that
violence lay at the origins of all human culture. Religious
traditions promise to heal the wounds of human existence
by uniting humans to ultimate reality. Yet the history of
religions is seeped in blood, sacrifice and scapegoating.
The brutal facts of the history of religions pose stark
questions about the intertwining of religion and violence.
How does violence cast its spell over religion and culture,
repeatedly luring countless "decent" people--whether unlettered
peasants or learned professors--into its destructive dance?
Is there an underlying pattern we can discern? Rene Girard
provided a compelling set of answers to these questions.
He claims to have discovered the mechanism that links
violence and religion. The extent of his claim is even more
audacious because he believes that in the mechanism linking
violence and religion lie the origins of culture. According to
Girard, human culture has been founded on two principles,
which he calls "mimetic rivalry" and the "surrogate victim
mechanism." Mimesis refers to the propensity of humans to
imitate other people both consciously and unconsciously.
Girard developed a mimetic theory of the self in his early
work as a literary critic. Such novelists as Cervantes,
Stendhal, Dostoevsky and Proust taught him that humans
learn what to desire by taking other people as models
to imitate. Aware of a lack within ourselves, we look to
others to teach us what to value and who to be. Girard
observes that the desire to appropriate another person's
possessions, loves and very being may seem innocent at
first, but it poses a fundamental threat to community life.
In imitating our models, we may come to approach their
power and threaten their own position--in which case they
quickly become rivals who tell us not to imitate them.
When we imitate the model's thoughts, there is harmony;
when we imitate the model's desires, the model
becomes our obstacle and rival. Mimesis thus inexorably
leads to rivalry, and rivalry leads sooner or later to violence.
From his study of mimetic desire in the modern novel, Girard
turned to the relation of violence and the sacred in early cultures,
especially in primal religions and Greek tragedy. In 1972 he
published _La Violence et le Sacre_ (English translation
_Violence and the Sacred_, 1977), a work that ranged widely
through the fields of ethnology and anthropology. In Girard's
judgment, the conflicts that result from mimesis repeatedly
threaten to engulf all human life. Escalating violence renders
humans more and more like each other, leveling distinctions
and sweeping people up into ever greater paroxysms
of violence. Mimesis leading to violence is the central
energy of the social system. During the course of evolution,
Girard believes a long series of primal murders, repeated
endlessly over possibly a million years, taught early humans
that the death of one or more members of the group
would bring a mysterious peace and discharge of tension.
This pattern is the foundation of what Girard calls the
surrogate victim mechanism. Often the dead person was
hailed as a bearer of peace, a sacred figure, even a god.
Fearful that unrestrained violence would return, early
humans sought ritual ways to re-enact and resolve the sacrificial
crisis of distinctions in order to channel and contain violence.
"Good violence" was invoked to drive out "bad violence."
This is why rituals from around the world call for the sacrifice
of humans and animals. For Girard, the sacred first appears
as violence directed at a sacrificial victim, a scapegoat. Every
culture achieves stability by discharging the tensions of mimetic
rivalry and violence onto scapegoats. Scapegoating channels
and expels violence so that communal life can continue.
As mimetic tensions recur, a new crisis threatens, and sacred
violence is once again necessary. In Girard's view, myths
from around the world recount the primordial crisis and its
resolution in ways that systematically disguise the origins of
culture. Later cultures use judiciary systems to contain violence.
But even when cultures no longer practice sacrifice directly,
they still continue to target certain individuals or groups as
scapegoats so that violence will not overflow its banks and
threaten others. The lynch mob is at the foundation of social
order. According to Girard, every culture arises from the
incessantly repeated patterns of mimetic rivalry and scapegoating.
Some authors, like the Greek tragedians, caught a glimpse
of the underlying dynamics of the cycle and the arbitrariness
of the choice of victim.
Irene
<dcs...@cstone.net> wrote:
>"What's Wrong With a Free Lunch" by Philippe Van Parijs proposes that
>every person be given an above-subsistence-level Universal Basic Income
>with no strings attached.
I typically browse this NG for book recommendations but having read
this thread thusfar I must say I am disgusted with the attitudes I
have seen.
Even the expression "free lunch" which has produced so many droll
posts about food is a derogatory one. Think of all the contexts you
have heard it used in. Right. What's wrong with a free lunch? The
title, for a start. The idea of UBI has been around for as long as I
can remember. Its well-meaning advocates are idealists. I am not.
Yesterday, I participated in a full day session of hearings on poverty
at the Canadian House of Commons and what people have written here is
so far afield from reality that I have come to the conclusion it is
possible to be well read and completely ignorant at the same time.
Even with the social safety net we enjoy here in Canada, more and more
people are falling through the cracks.
The testimonies yesterday were often painful to listen to. Should a
woman with debilitating fibromyalgia coupled with other afflictions be
homeless? Not knowing where her next meal is coming from? Should a man
whose alimony and child support payments are more than half his net
income be eating cereal each evening for supper? Not in Canada was the
resounding sentiment. It is unacceptable. The time to take action is
now.
The politicians who spoke about some of the new laws which have come
into force here in Ontario. The children of the poor will be getting a
stripped down curriculum in the public school system; those with money
can hire private remedial tutors if their children are struggling or
private music teachers because the music program has been eliminated,
and those children who attend private schools -- well, their parents
have just received a $3,500 tax write-off. Interesting, especially
when you browse a copy of "Who's Who in Canada" and see that so many
of the power brokers in this country have one thing in common...they
went to Upper Canada College in Toronto...a private boys' school. Or
Brébeuf or Lower Canada College in Montréal.
It does not take a visionary (though I should make an exception in the
case of John Kenneth Galbraith who saw this coming) to see what is
happening and still to come.
I guess when you're in the middle of massive socio-economic change and
still comfortable in your little corner, you can afford to be cavalier
about all of this. Or intellectualize ad nauseum. Intellectualize
away, some of us have work to do.
Irene
The Lone Stranger
USA. Need I say more?
There are many forms of insecurities in this world. And faux
intellectualism is among them.
Good day all, Richard.
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>
>To you, perhaps it does not require gobs of
>explanation, but I've seen Democrat politicians
>galore in the last six months pretending that to
>make a tax cut that cuts the taxes that taxpayers pay
>is to "give" the government's money to the rich, rather
>than simply not to take excessive money from taxpayers
>in the first place.
Mike, those rich taxpayers whose money is being
supposedly "taken away" did not make their money
without government help. Consider the internet. All
businesses these days use the internet. It's arguably
a major source of efficiency and increased productivity.
Something like the internet would not have been built
if the government had not significantly funded research
and development for a decade. And that is only one example.
And the point is that something like the internet
probably *could* not have been possible without the
government as a funding source. Industry, by its very
nature, tends to fund projects which have short-term
payoffs and is unlikely to fund something that results
in general good and increased productivity for the
*entire* society many years into the future, especially
when the outcome is uncertain.
Since a very large chunk of money that these rich taxpayers
have could not have been made without government's help,
it is entirely fair that they be taxed a lot. As it is
the US's tax rate is among the lowet, if not the lowest,
among industrialized nations.
But it is probably a waste of time telling you all this,
because reading your posts over the years one starts to
see a pattern of wilful ideological blindness triumphing
over facts as far as your world-view construction is
concerned.
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>
>I typically browse this NG for book recommendations but having read
>this thread thusfar I must say I am disgusted with the attitudes I
>have seen.
>
>Even the expression "free lunch" which has produced so many droll
>posts about food is a derogatory one. Think of all the contexts you
>have heard it used in. Right. What's wrong with a free lunch? The
>title, for a start. The idea of UBI has been around for as long as I
>can remember. Its well-meaning advocates are idealists. I am not.
>
>Yesterday, I participated in a full day session of hearings on poverty
>at the Canadian House of Commons and what people have written here is
>so far afield from reality that I have come to the conclusion it is
>possible to be well read and completely ignorant at the same time.
>
>Even with the social safety net we enjoy here in Canada, more and more
>people are falling through the cracks.
>
>The testimonies yesterday were often painful to listen to. Should a
>woman with debilitating fibromyalgia coupled with other afflictions be
>homeless?
If she did not have the foresight to buy insurance beforehand,
of course she should be homeless. Why do you expect the rest of
society to foot the bill for her home?
>Not knowing where her next meal is coming from?
Half of the world's population does not know where their next
meal is coming from. Why should this woman have an automatic
right to a meal ticket? Just because she had the good luck
to be born in Canada?
>Should a man
>whose alimony and child support payments are more than half his net
>income be eating cereal each evening for supper?
Why did the man not use a contraceptive instead of fathering
that child? Or if he had forgotten to use a contraceptive, why
did he and the mother not put up the child for adoption after it
was born? Why do you expect the rest of society to reward
irresponsible behavior?
>Not in Canada was the resounding sentiment.
Not in Canada, but okay elsewhere?
What makes a Canadian woman's next meal more important than a
Ethiopean or a Bangladeshi woman's? Just the fact of being Canadian?
>It is unacceptable. The time to take action is
>now.
You can take action by moving out of Canada if you dislike
the Candian government's policies so much. There are many
people in the third world who would probably give an arm
and a leg to move to Canada. Maybe you could give them a
chance by making room ?
>
>The politicians who spoke about some of the new laws which have come
>into force here in Ontario. The children of the poor will be getting a
>stripped down curriculum in the public school system;
They should be eternally grateful that they would be getting any
education at all. Why do the indigent think that they have a
right to the rest of society's pocketbook?
Louis Katorz
>I typically browse this NG for book
>recommendations but having read this
>thread thusfar I must say I am disgusted
>with the attitudes I have seen.
>Even the expression "free lunch" which
>has produced so many droll posts about
>food is a derogatory one.
Though your post rankled me somewhat, I reply sans rancoeur. First of
all you know nothing about our personal lives. Many of us do good deeds
but don't brag about it. I don't usually post personal things but to
prove a point I will state that I sponsor, monthly, an orphan in Bolivia
thru the Pan Y Amor program. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in
the world. But lest you consider this a paean of self-praise, I'll say
no more.
IMO you mis-judge this board. It is a haven of wit, humour, intelligence
and information for people who enjoy books. Must every NG concern itself
with the woes of the world? It seems to me that persons like Swanson
are mere political proselytizers and are therefore not taken seriously
on this board. One wonders why he bothers to post here. BTW I can't
recall that he ever complained about our disgusting attitudes. In fact,
after his initial post, he seldom posts again.
Well, back to my frivolity.
Louis xiv
Michael S. Morris
Saturday, the 23rd of June, 2001
Sayan:
Mike, those rich taxpayers whose money is being
supposedly "taken away" did not make their money
without government help. [...]
Which help has been paid for by taxpayers in the
first place. Period. Government creates nothing
without *taking* money from taxpayers by force of
law.
[internet "major source of efficiency", etc.]
Bah. Humbug, I say.
Industry, by its very
nature, tends to fund projects which have short-term
payoffs and is unlikely to fund something that results
in general good and increased productivity for the
*entire* society many years into the future, especially
when the outcome is uncertain.
This is total nonsense. In the first place, the "nature"
of industry is a highly constrained nature---constrained
by regulation and by the tax code. And, it is precisely the
tax code which insists on those short-term payoffs. In the
second place, even in the face of a tax code that demands
short-term liquidity in lieu of long-term investment,
from Thomas Edison to Microsoft Corporation, private
enterprise has continually funded many somethings
that have resulted in "general good and increased
productivity" for the *entire* society many years into
the future, almost always when the outcome has been
uncertain.
Since a very large chunk of money that these rich taxpayers
have could not have been made without government's help,
it is entirely fair that they be taxed a lot.
It simply is not a question of fairness, Sayan. It
is a question of political lies, and political power.
Tax only people whose last name begins with "M"---
I don't care, "fairness" is irrelevant. But, note
that if you do that (i.e. tax me, and do not tax 25
other people whose last names begin with different
letters), and if you, as government, expect to actually
collect the same amount of tax, then you are going to
have to get something like 26 times the average tax
you now take from a taxpayer, and to do that, you'll
want to structure the laws such that *I* and other people
with last names beginning with M make substantially more money
than other people. I certainly will not cooperate with
the tax scheme otherwise. So, there will probably
have to be laws guaranteeing employment and high salaries
for M's, and so on and so forth. The non-M's will be made
to pay for the M's. And the voice of M's will be raised loud in
governmental councils. My point is that the way the system
works now is like the M-taxing scheme. You say it is
entirely fair that M's are taxed heavily, because they
benefit the most. I say it's all a shell game so that the
political parties can play the M's against the non-M's, and
that really both the M's and the non-M's are paying for it
all of the time. That is why a flat percentage tax on income
makes real constitutional sense---it denies to political
parties a wedge to play the taxpayers against the non-taxpayers.
And that is why a limititation to never more than 10% of income
makes sense---it limits governmental power relative to
individual choice---accordingly.
As it is the US's tax rate is among the lowest, if not the lowest,
among industrialized nations.
Why any thinking person would ever resort to such an
argument is beyond me. I am well aware that much of industrialized
Europe and Canada are more highly socialized than the US.
That is utterly irrelevant to my assertion that the US ought to
be about 1/5 as socialized as it is (i.e. tax rates ought
to be no more than 10%, as opposed to the 50% that they
now are).
But it is probably a waste of time telling you all this,
because reading your posts over the years one starts to
see a pattern of willful ideological blindness triumphing
over facts as far as your world-view construction is
concerned.
Oh yeah, it is *my* willful ideological blindness
that constantly gripes about the projection of power
of the US government in foreign countries and then
disses libertarians because they don't like the
idea of handing to the US government as much relative
power as other industrialized countries give to their
governments. Yep, that's *my* willful ideological
blindness alright.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Saturday, the 23rd of June, 2001
Sayan:
What makes a Canadian woman's next meal more
important than a Ethiopean or a Bangladeshi
woman's? Just the fact of being Canadian?
Well, I'd say that what makes it important
to this thread is the fact that the much-vaunted
"social safety net" that Canada (a rich, industrialized,
and more-socialized-than-the-US country) has doesn't
exactly work like theorizing about it by some
persons hereon would have us believe.
How is it that "people fall through the cracks"
in a country like Canada?
If we taxed rich people at 150% of their income,
would then nobody ever "fall through the cracks"?
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
ted samsel
Well, he used to complain about our disgustingness and our perceived
shortcomings... usw..
Here's an example...
From: David Christopher Swanson (dc...@faraday.clas.virginia.edu)
Subject: Re: rebellion and we (who's "we"?)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Date: 1997/01/26
In article <5cgf2b$b...@news-central.tiac.net>
c...@tiac.net (Richard Harter) writes:
> paschal <pas...@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> >
> >On 26 Jan 1997, Ted Samsel wrote:
> >> David Christopher Swanson (dc...@faraday.clas.virginia.edu) wrote:
> >>
> >> : If you would rather not read a thread at all, I'm pretty sure that's
> >> : permitted. If you're just pissed off at the world and want to fight
> >> : about it, I'll meet you at the first reststop west of Richmond going
> >> : east.
> >>
> >> Oh ho! Me bucko, there's lots of threads I don't read. And if I did want
> >> to fight someone, I'd do it with someone interesting. Anyway, the travel
> >> trailer I in which I carry my colostomy bag around hasn't had the personal
> >> property tax paid on in a while so it ain't street legal.
> >>
> >> Rebellion? Revolting, more like.
> >oh rats and i wanted a ringside seat to this one....
>
>
> 'Twould be quite a fight to see, with Ted sitting in a deck chair
> putting down a brew and David knocking himself around the ring
> with self inflicted blows.
>
>
>
>
> Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
> URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-508-369-3911
> I'm a primatologist specializing in homo sapiens.
> Their lack of true intelligence simplifies my studies.
Fuck you, Richard. Do you have something to say? Say it. Say it here
or e mail it. See if I ever think better-than-average of anyone again.
Go fuck yourself.
And I'm not waiting for Fiona's addition. Fuck her in advance.
DCS
http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~dcs2e
"If we can't get anything done here, I will call President Carter."
Radovan Karadzic
--
TBSa...@infi.net
http://home.infi.net/~tbsamsel/
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow (1914-1999)
THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
Lewis Mammel
I never interpreted it this way. I thought it meant that
if you thought you were getting a free lunch, you were
wrong - not because somebody was paying for it, but because
somebody would want something back from you in some way
for having provided it to you. I assumed it originated in
reference to the business lunch, where you might get schmoozed
into a bad deal that costs you thousands or millions because
you felt so good about being treated to a free fifty dollar
lunch.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Lacenaire
Louis Katorz <motde...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:17246-3B3...@storefull-232.iap.bryant.webtv.net...
> Ir...@magma.ca wrote in part:
>
> >I typically browse this NG for book
> >recommendations but having read this
> >thread thusfar I must say I am disgusted
> >with the attitudes I have seen.
>
> >Even the expression "free lunch" which
> >has produced so many droll posts about
> >food is a derogatory one.
>
> Though your post rankled me somewhat, I reply sans rancoeur. First of
> all you know nothing about our personal lives. Many of us do good deeds
> but don't brag about it. I don't usually post personal things but to
> prove a point I will state that I sponsor, monthly, an orphan in Bolivia
> thru the Pan Y Amor program. Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in
> the world. But lest you consider this a paean of self-praise, I'll say
> no more.
>
> IMO you mis-judge this board. It is a haven of wit, humour, intelligence
> and information for people who enjoy books. Must every NG concern itself
> with the woes of the world? It seems to me that persons like Swanson
> are mere political proselytizers and are therefore not taken seriously
> on this board. One wonders why he bothers to post here.
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will?
It is by no means self-evident that "wit, humor, intelligence and
information for people who enjoy books" is so much more valuable than "mere
political proselytizers." That is it in better taste, well. Another discreet
charm of the usenet.
M. Lacenaire
M J Carley
>Francis Muir wrote:
>
>> What's wrong with a little violence? I am nauseated by
>> the constantly expressed platitude that Peace everywhere
>> and and all times is a most desireable state. Codswallop,
>> that's what I say. A little violence bubbling up merely
>> reflects the dynamic of our world. Button it up and you're
>> looking at trouble. Big time.
>
>The French anthropologist Rene Girard actually thought that
>violence lay at the origins of all human culture.
ObBukeFlick: The opening sequence of 2001, on rerelease at a cinema
near you.
--
`Let me say before I go any further that I forgive nobody ...'
Jim Ward
> It is by no means self-evident that "wit, humor, intelligence and
> information for people who enjoy books" is so much more valuable than "mere
> political proselytizers." That is it in better taste, well. Another discreet
> charm of the usenet.
Piffle! You can turn on your TV at most any time of the day and watch
gasbags nattering on about the sorry state of something. Now count the
ones who have something to say about a book. The math is plain.
Bravo to Lou!
Francis Muir
C-SPAN seems to say a lot about books and the persons who write them
Meg Worley
JimW complained:
>> Piffle! You can turn on your TV at most any time of the day and watch
>> gasbags nattering on about the sorry state of something. Now count the
>> ones who have something to say about a book. The math is plain.
>C-SPAN seems to say a lot about books and the persons who write them
Ah, but like brunch, it is almost entirely confined to the
weekends.
ObBook: *Mothsmoke*, upon which I unintentionally dumped a
flagon of coffee before I'd finished the book. And if binding
and type size & style affect one's joy at reading, imagine
the negative impact of a ruffly brown thing. I don't think
I'll be finishing this copy.
Rage away,
meg
--
Meg Worley _._ m...@steam.stanford.edu _._ Comparatively Literate
Jim Ward
> Bars used to offer free lunches. The idea is that they'd make enough
> from drinks to cover the cost and then some.
In Mencken's day, oysters were free bar food. It is to weep.
Louis Katorz
>Well, he used to complain about our
>disgustingness and our perceived
>shortcomings... usw.
>Here's an example...
If anyone is disgusting, it is he. His puerile, obsence responses
reflect dumbing down at its worst. Thanks for the clarification. I've
ony been here a few months.
Louis xiv
Louis Katorz
>Piffle! You can turn on your TV at most
>any time of the day and watch gasbags
>nattering on about the sorry state of
>something. Now count the ones who have
>something to say about a book. The math
>is plain.
>Bravo to Lou!
Grazie Jim. What I most dislike about these gasbags is that they lack a
sense of humour and spend more time talking than doing
Louis xiv.
Francis Muir
And, in special case the free oyster quality, to vomit.
ObFlickrefOysters&Vomit: Topsy Turvy
Lewis Mammel
>
> Lewis Mammel <l.ma...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> > I never interpreted it this way. I thought it meant that if you
> > thought you were getting a free lunch, you were wrong - not because
> > somebody was paying for it, but because somebody would want
> > something back from you in some way for having provided it to you. I
> > assumed it originated in reference to the business lunch, where you
> > might get schmoozed into a bad deal that costs you thousands or
> > millions because you felt so good about being treated to a free
> > fifty dollar lunch.
>
> from drinks to cover the cost and then some.
That looks like it. Mencken's American Language mentions free-lunch,
but only by way of its inclusion in a German manual of English
phrases. ( I notice it was hyphenated in the Hemingway excerpt too.)
I guess the idea here is that you will be disappointed if you
think you are about to avail yourself of one, whereupon you
make the sad discovery.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Don Tuite
<l.ma...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>The Other wrote:
>> Bars used to offer free lunches. The idea is that they'd make enough
>> from drinks to cover the cost and then some.
>
>That looks like it. Mencken's American Language mentions free-lunch,
>but only by way of its inclusion in a German manual of English
>phrases. ( I notice it was hyphenated in the Hemingway excerpt too.)
>
>I guess the idea here is that you will be disappointed if you
>think you are about to avail yourself of one, whereupon you
>make the sad discovery.
OTOH, if the chow's included in the price of the beer anyway, you
might as well pig out.
ObLitRef: Yossarian's Rationalization. I think the dialog goes
somewhat along the lines of:
"What if everybody did that?"
"Then I'd be a fool not to do it too!"
Don
ted samsel
>
> On Tue, 26 Jun 2001 00:21:09 GMT, Lewis Mammel
> <l.ma...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >The Other wrote:
> >> Bars used to offer free lunches. The idea is that they'd make enough
> >> from drinks to cover the cost and then some.
> >
> >That looks like it. Mencken's American Language mentions free-lunch,
> >but only by way of its inclusion in a German manual of English
> >phrases. ( I notice it was hyphenated in the Hemingway excerpt too.)
> >
> >I guess the idea here is that you will be disappointed if you
> >think you are about to avail yourself of one, whereupon you
> >make the sad discovery.
>
> OTOH, if the chow's included in the price of the beer anyway, you
> might as well pig out.
Some of free bar food at happy hours these days is pretty excreable.
Cocktail kielbassi in a sauce made of grape jelly on a steam table tray,
por ejemplo.
Moggin Goldberg
> "What's Wrong With a Free Lunch" by Philippe Van Parijs proposes that
> every person be given an above-subsistence-level Universal Basic Income
> with no strings attached. [...] We need to direct our energies to the
> achievable, yes, but we also have to dream -- or the achievable won't
> be.
But what a testimony about _what is_ that merely providing
subsistence, or somewhat more, falls in the category of an
unrealizable dream. A requisite of civilized life this wealthy
civilization considers unthinkable. That talk about the
unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
was bull. ObLupus: "A Room of One's Own."
-- Moggin
Vlorbik
consider the lillies of the goddamn field.
http:/members.aol.com/vlorbik
R.A. Leonard
in the publishing world.
I was a mad keen Philip Wylie fan at one point; it must
have been in my early twenties. He is due for a revival;
fuzzy dice are making a comeback. It all fits.
Vlorbik wrote:
--
__________________________________________
R.A. Leonard
Ottawa Canada
http://www.raleonard.com/
jamesson
> Friday, the 22nd of June, 2001
<snipped>
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
This is another one of the classic Ishmael effect line of arguements,
which assumes that everyone is a Mike Morris. Now, Mike Morris sounds
like a damned reasonable and intelligent fellow, so this may well be a
rather optimistic assumption - too bad its false. Yes, Mike, a
reasonable fellow like yourself wouldn't do things for nothing - but,
if you take a look around you, the world is full of totally
unreasonable people. They buy SUVs and never go off-road, they buy
deodorant when nobody cares how they smell, they give money to
charities which spend it in advertising and salaries for management,
they bury people when they die, etc. To a utilitarian goal-oriented
logic (which sounds like what youre talking about) this definitely
sounds pretty ridiculous - but, humans are a pretty ridiculous species
after all...
That said, your piece is essentially solipsistic - it is saying,
roughly, "I would do or not do X (harvest food, prepare food, serve
food, etc.) if I were Y (a food harvester, food preparer, etc. who was
paid / not paid). While it is valid to have a long philosophical
debate about whether it is possible to form the conception of another
subject, and wherefore whether or not it is possible to understand and
talk about the motivations of someone else, I dont think that thats
what the writer of the original post is after. Therefore, let me give
you an arguement for the Free Lunch; I wish to prevent anyone from
hitting me. Now, I have two ways of going about this; I can either
incarcerate, deport, or kill anyone whom I have reason to believe is
going to hit me, or I can essentially create a situation in which
people will not want to hit me. History has demonstrated pretty
conclusively, I think, that people who try the former option always
come to a bad end. Therefore, I should stick with the latter option. I
see the Free Lunch as a significant step in this direction.
Constructed in a manner somewhat similar to this, a free lunch
campaign will have a good chance of succeeding.
Irene
Katorz) wrote:
>IMO you mis-judge this board. It is a haven of wit, humour, intelligence
>and information for people who enjoy books. Must every NG concern itself
>with the woes of the world? It seems to me that persons like Swanson
>are mere political proselytizers and are therefore not taken seriously
>on this board. One wonders why he bothers to post here. BTW I can't
>recall that he ever complained about our disgusting attitudes. In fact,
>after his initial post, he seldom posts again.
>
>Well, back to my frivolity.
>
>Louis xiv
'Tis true, this NG is for people who enjoy books. As for the rest,
there's only one poster here who consistently makes me laugh. It is
because she possesses a vast knowledge base, has interesting thought
processes and is funny in a way that I enjoy. Matter of personal
preference.
Incidentally, even at the best of times "one up, one down" humour is
not my style, no matter how cleverly it is packaged to appear
otherwise. Bear in mind, I could have written my entire post using
that style. I chose not to.
In times of sweeping socio-economic change, typically the vast
majority of the population is in ignorance of "the large picture" but
the last thing you need at such times is a complacent intelligentsia.
What is the difference between ignorance and complacency in terms of
impact?
Your point that perhaps rec.arts.books is not necessarily the place to
discuss the world's woes is duly noted. The wrong NG...oh well --
c'est la vie. Je m'excuse.
Irene
PS: To the poster who told me I should leave Canada and make room for
someone else, thanks for the advice. I'm heading right back to my
native Finland as we speak.:)
Larisa
> JimW complained:
> >> Piffle! You can turn on your TV at most any time of the day and watch
> >> gasbags nattering on about the sorry state of something. Now count the
> >> ones who have something to say about a book. The math is plain.
>
> Francis writes:
> >C-SPAN seems to say a lot about books and the persons who write them
>
> Ah, but like brunch, it is almost entirely confined to the
> weekends.
>
>
> ObBook: *Mothsmoke*, upon which I unintentionally dumped a
> flagon of coffee before I'd finished the book. And if binding
> and type size & style affect one's joy at reading, imagine
> the negative impact of a ruffly brown thing. I don't think
> I'll be finishing this copy.
>
A coffee-scented book might be somewhat energizing to read.
Larisa
Jean Clarke
a pineapple jam and Italian, hard salami sandwich on seeded rye. A
wonderful adventure into assuagement.....and now, what was it you were
submitting?
Just a Jeanie
Jean Clarke
eggs, their cold draft beer and cheery bartenders! To borrow a phrase,
"Those were the days......", farethee well, Mr. O'Connor.......
Just a Jeanie
Francis Muir
And handily match the look and feel of those old Avon and Penguin
paperbacks tht keep it company.
Irene
I'm not entirely sure, but I think it had something to do with
_Little Boxes_, a song popularized by Pete Seeger; ergo your post is
completely appropriate.
Irene
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 27th of June, 2001
I wrote:
<3B335EA8...@netdirect.net>
jamesson says:
This is another one of the classic Ishmael effect line of arguements,
which assumes that everyone is a Mike Morris.
This strikes me as ridiculous, given what I said exactly. What I
wrote, after all, divided all persons into two classes---those with money and
those without. I said that, in order to get a free lunch out of the first (=to
provide a lunch to someone who is hungry and can't pay for it),
you've got to get them to volunteer their labour, and to get a free a
lunch out of the second, you've got to get them to volunteer their
money. This is simply factually correct, and makes no assumption
wahtsoever that "everyone is a Mike Morris". Then, I said *most*
people do not volunteer either free labour or free money in the sense
of enough of same to hand a free lunch to everyone on the planet
who might need it. Again, a simple observational fact making no assumption
whatsoever that anyone is even like "Mike Morris", whatever that
would mean. Finally, I concluded that in order to provide a free lunch
when volunteerism isn't enough, you have to legislate laws in order
to tax people either labour or money. And I added that meant you had
to stick a gun to people's heads. Again, a rational deduction, fully
in accord with the facts of every free-lunch scheme ever implemented
and not at all assuming that anyone else is like "Mike Morris".
Your opening sentence, in fact, is so irrelevant to anything I've said,
the question is why read any more?
But, here goes. You say:
Now, Mike Morris sounds like a damned reasonable and
intelligent fellow, so this may well be a rather optimistic
assumption - too bad its false. Yes, Mike, a reasonable
fellow like yourself wouldn't do things for nothing -
Absolute nonsense. I do things for nothing all of the time.
Sometimes I even feed people for nothing, though free
lunches for others stand rather low in my system of priorities,
compared with, say, supporting my city's arts community.
jamesson:
but, if you take a look around you, the world is full of totally
unreasonable people.
There is nothing in what I said that disputes this in any way.
However, I did indicate that most people do not like to provide
free lunches to other people, and I stand by that assertion. I.e.
people like to spend their labour and their money on things that,
whether reasonable or unreasonable, please them. Free lunches
to other people is, of course, one option, and some do choose
it, but it remains one option among many, and it remains that
most do not choose it. Perhaps you would care to engage this point?
jamesson:
They buy SUVs and never go off-road,
I'm sorry, but I have bought two SUVs and never have gone
off-road with them. And, your implication that such is "unreasonable"
behaviour is simply nonsense. If their only reasonable use were for off-road
driving, nobody would've bought them. I don't dispute that people
are often unreasonable---animus against SUV ownership is pretty
darn irrational---, but people buying SUVs is simply not an example
of unreason in practice.
jamesson:
they buy deodorant when nobody cares how they smell,
I'll swear you write like David Swanson. I mean that you
make these enthymemic assertions that can only come from
some political extremism of your own, and try to make it sound
as if everyone agreed with from the start. Anyway, for the record, I
don't use or buy deodorants. But, geez, to diss everyone who
does use deodorants as therein unreasonable, or not to understand that many
people *do* care how others smell, and *do* care how they
themselves smell, is, again, simply nonsense. Again, I could
care less about deodorants, but your premise is vapid.
jamesson:
they give money to charities which spend it in advertising and
salaries for management, they bury people when they die, etc.
Again, nothing necessarily unreasonable in either case. Why do you want to
be confusing rationalism with some sort of hyper-logical and cold
mindlessness?
jamesson:
To a utilitarian goal-oriented logic (which sounds like what
youre talking about)
No, I'm not talking about that at all. I merely said that people
like to get paid for the work they do, and then like to have the
control themselves over their own money. Hence, a free
lunch---at the political level of a guaranteed minimum
subsistence---wouldn't be free. It would cost. Not that
it isn't a good idea. Not anything else, but that it is a lie
---and a big one, aimed at garnering political power, in fact---
to sell it as "free".
jamesson:
this definitely sounds pretty ridiculous - but, humans are a
pretty ridiculous species after all...
I'm sure whatever you say must be correct.
jamesson:
That said, your piece is essentially solipsistic - it is saying,
roughly, "I would do or not do X (harvest food, prepare food, serve
food, etc.) if I were Y (a food harvester, food preparer, etc. who was
paid / not paid).
No, it is not. It is precisely not saying anything about *my* behaviour.
In fact, you would be entirely wrong about *my* behaviour were
you to infer such from what I have said about what other people
do. What I spoke about is how the majority of human beings actually
behave. What I spoke about is a political reality that has been true
for some 2000 years of political theorizing in human history. Every
attempt to deny this reality of human nature (not Mike Morris nature,
mind you, but human nature for the greater part) has led exactly
to where I said it would lead---to slavery.
jamesson:
While it is valid to have a long philosophical debate about whether
it is possible to form the conception of another subject, and wherefore
whether or not it is possible to understand and talk about the motivations
of someone else, I dont think that thats what the writer of the original post
is after.
What he's after is assent to his political schemes. I happen to disagree
with his political schemes as leading inevitably to centralization of
political power and slavery. And this is precisely because there is
no such thing as a free lunch.
jamesson:
Therefore, let me give you an arguement for the Free Lunch;
I wish to prevent anyone from hitting me.
A noble goal.
jamesson:
Now, I have two
ways of going about this; I can either incarcerate, deport, or
kill anyone whom I have reason to believe is going to hit me, or
I can essentially create a situation in which people will not want
to hit me.
Huh? You can either use pre-emptive violence on others
to prevent violence to yourself, or you can engineer their
psychologies so that they won't want to be violent?
This is a bizarre understanding of human psychology indeed.
Do you really think that such a thing as environmental
control over evil is possible? Do you think you, or indeed
anyone else on the planet, understand the reason another person
might want to hit you well enough that you could "essentially
create a situation in which people will not want to hit" you?
If you do, then what I think is that you are one dangerous
individual.
jamesson:
History has demonstrated pretty conclusively, I think, that
people who try the former option always come to a bad end.
Total nonsense. What history has demonstrated conclusively
is that if you hand out free luches to hoi polloi out of *fear*
that they might hit you, then hoi polloi will sense only the fear
and will demand to rape your wife and enslave your children
after they've beaten you before they've killed you.
jamesson:
Therefore, I should stick with the latter option.
Do you think of yourself as demonstrating reason or unreason here?
jamesson:
I see the Free Lunch as a significant step in this direction.
If you implement it for such reasons, then I see it as
a significant step in the direction of you being beaten
black and blue.
jamesson:
Constructed in a manner somewhat similar to this, a free lunch
campaign will have a good chance of succeeding.
So, you are basically saying to sell a welfare program to those
who can provide labour or money, tell them that bread and
circuses will keep the plebs from rioting, or in fact, demanding
so much that no one has any incentive any more to produce
surplus anything, so that you end up with no lunches to spare
whatsoever. Hmm, history tells me something way different
than it seems to tell you.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Bruce McGuffin
Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> writes:
> What's wrong with a little violence? I am nauseated by the constantly
> expressed platitude that Peace everywhere and and all times is a most
> desireable state.
>
> Codswallop, that's what I say. A little violence bubbling up merely
> reflects the dynamic of our world. Button it up and you're looking at
> trouble. Big time.
>
> Curiously we understand it when it comes to road fatalities, but what is
> the daily Jew + Arab death toll in the Middle East compared with our
> human road-kill figures for these Good Ol' United States?
obbook: P. J. O'Rourke, Give War A Chance
Karenina
own institutionalization of a welfare class. What able bodied people
need is training (lots of it), education and child care.
The offspring of people below the poverty who do not receive public
assistance are 80% less likely to need public assistance, then
offspring of people ON public assistance and far more likely to move
out of poverty and into the mainstream.
The only place in the world where this has been tried and NOT
destroyed the economy are places that are 1) homogeneous and 2) Very,
very, very tiny (in terms of population)...like New Zealand. And even
then, people were no better off than before the program.
What a dumb idea.
Give a person a job. Give a person some dignity.
Karenina
jamesson
> Wednesday, the 27th of June, 2001
>
> I wrote:
> <3B335EA8...@netdirect.net>
> jamesson says:
> This is another one of the classic Ishmael effect line of arguements,
> which assumes that everyone is a Mike Morris.
>
said,
> the question is why read any more?
Okay mike, I admit I misspoke here. If it makes the arguement go
smoother, please feel free to mentally substitute <most (reasonable)
persons as seen by Mike Morris> whenever you see the words Mike
Morris. In my experience, its tough to construct a model of The Common
Man without at least a little bit ascribing to him my own qualities
and foibles, but you may be a much better and wiser person than I
am....
> But, here goes. You say:
> Now, Mike Morris sounds like a damned reasonable and
> intelligent fellow, so this may well be a rather optimistic
> assumption - too bad its false. Yes, Mike, a reasonable
> fellow like yourself wouldn't do things for nothing -
>
> Absolute nonsense. I do things for nothing all of the time.
> Sometimes I even feed people for nothing, though free
> lunches for others stand rather low in my system of priorities,
> compared with, say, supporting my city's arts community.
Good for you.
>
> jamesson:
> but, if you take a look around you, the world is full of totally
> unreasonable people.
>
> There is nothing in what I said that disputes this in any way.
> However, I did indicate that most people do not like to provide
> free lunches to other people, and I stand by that assertion. I.e.
> people like to spend their labour and their money on things that,
> whether reasonable or unreasonable, please them. Free lunches
> to other people is, of course, one option, and some do choose
> it, but it remains one option among many, and it remains that
> most do not choose it. Perhaps you would care to engage this point?
Well, we've agreed that most people are pretty unreasonable, so I
guess that answers your question...
No, really - do you mean to say that in America in the year of our
lord AD 2001 they have such a choice?
> jamesson:
> They buy SUVs and never go off-road,
>
> I'm sorry, but I have bought two SUVs and never have gone
> off-road with them. And, your implication that such is "unreasonable"
> behaviour is simply nonsense. If their only reasonable use were for off-road
> driving, nobody would've bought them. I don't dispute that people
> are often unreasonable---animus against SUV ownership is pretty
> darn irrational---, but people buying SUVs is simply not an example
> of unreason in practice.
Now, in theory, I could go off on a long leftie whine about car
crashes, pollution, and the abuse of human insecurity by mADison
avenue, but that would just annoy you Mike, and we wouldnt want that,
would we.
Were you accuising me of being tangential a little while ago?
>
> jamesson:
> they buy deodorant when nobody cares how they smell,
>
<snipped>
> jamesson:
> they give money to charities which spend it in advertising and
> salaries for management, they bury people when they die, etc.
>
> Again, nothing necessarily unreasonable in either case. Why do you want to
> be confusing rationalism with some sort of hyper-logical and cold
> mindlessness?
My argument via allegory here was directed at the fact of what Russel
(I think it was Russel) humorously called "Conjunction of an Irregular
Verb";
I AM strong-minded
You ARE stubborn
He IS a pig-headed fool.
My point is that the two sides of an arguement frequently demand
things of their opponents which they would never dream of demanding of
themselves. Note that when you say "Most people wouldnt do something
for nothing so you must coerce them in some way to do something" you
see this as rational, while when I question the rationale for buying
an SUV you see it as irrational. I am not seeking any kind of moral
superiority here - Im not out to prove that Im not guilty of the same
thing you are - but I'd like a little empathy.
Now, before you go after me again for misinterpreting what you say,
let me insert a note for the cyber-archeologist digging through this
thread 10 years from now. It was never my serious intention to attack
the expressed thesis here, namely that "the free lunch isnt really
free". The fact that nothing in human existence - not even breathing -
is free is so indeniably a part of the pleasant agony of human
existence that it can only serve as a topic of poetic musing, but it
can hardly be a fit subject of debate (and certainly need not be
defended with several paragraphs of prose,). Yeah, the free lunch isnt
really free. So what? Therefore, I chose to attack what I saw as the
subtext of your post, namely that the "free lunch" was rendered
impossible by human nature and therefore required either coercion or
manipulation to function, which you found morally distasteful. To
recapitulate; I never wanted to debate the fact that the "free lunch"
wasn't free - this is to me a trivial and self - evident notion.
>
> jamesson:
> To a utilitarian goal-oriented logic (which sounds like what
> youre talking about)
>
> No, I'm not talking about that at all. I merely said that people
> like to get paid for the work they do, and then like to have the
> control themselves over their own money. Hence, a free
> lunch---at the political level of a guaranteed minimum
> subsistence---wouldn't be free. It would cost. Not that
> it isn't a good idea. Not anything else, but that it is a lie
> ---and a big one, aimed at garnering political power, in fact---
> to sell it as "free".
>
<see above> If you think anyone will fall for a "really free free
lunch" proposal, by the way, you must be underestimating the brains of
the american people more than P.T. Barnum ever did, but you may well
be right - a wise hacker once said, "artificial intelligence will
never overcome the power of natural stupidity".
> jamesson:
> this definitely sounds pretty ridiculous - but, humans are a
> pretty ridiculous species after all...
>
> I'm sure whatever you say must be correct.
>
> jamesson:
> That said, your piece is essentially solipsistic - it is saying,
> roughly, "I would do or not do X (harvest food, prepare food, serve
> food, etc.) if I were Y (a food harvester, food preparer, etc. who was
> paid / not paid).
>
> No, it is not. It is precisely not saying anything about *my* behaviour.
> In fact, you would be entirely wrong about *my* behaviour were
> you to infer such from what I have said about what other people
> do. What I spoke about is how the majority of human beings actually
> behave. What I spoke about is a political reality that has been true
> for some 2000 years of political theorizing in human history. Every
> attempt to deny this reality of human nature (not Mike Morris nature,
> mind you, but human nature for the greater part) has led exactly
> to where I said it would lead---to slavery.
<see above>
> jamesson:
> While it is valid to have a long philosophical debate about whether
> it is possible to form the conception of another subject, and wherefore
> whether or not it is possible to understand and talk about the motivations
> of someone else, I dont think that thats what the writer of the original post
> is after.
>
> What he's after is assent to his political schemes. I happen to disagree
> with his political schemes as leading inevitably to centralization of
> political power and slavery. And this is precisely because there is
> no such thing as a free lunch.
>
<see above>
> jamesson:
> Therefore, let me give you an arguement for the Free Lunch;
> I wish to prevent anyone from hitting me.
>
> A noble goal.
>
> jamesson:
> Now, I have two
> ways of going about this; I can either incarcerate, deport, or
> kill anyone whom I have reason to believe is going to hit me, or
> I can essentially create a situation in which people will not want
> to hit me.
>
> Huh? You can either use pre-emptive violence on others
> to prevent violence to yourself, or you can engineer their
> psychologies so that they won't want to be violent?
My apologies again - please replace <create a situation> with <behave
in such a manner as to>
> This is a bizarre understanding of human psychology indeed.
> Do you really think that such a thing as environmental
> control over evil is possible? Do you think you, or indeed
> anyone else on the planet, understand the reason another person
> might want to hit you well enough that you could "essentially
> create a situation in which people will not want to hit" you?
> If you do, then what I think is that you are one dangerous
> individual.
>
> jamesson:
> History has demonstrated pretty conclusively, I think, that
> people who try the former option always come to a bad end.
>
> Total nonsense. What history has demonstrated conclusively
> is that if you hand out free luches to hoi polloi out of *fear*
> that they might hit you, then hoi polloi will sense only the fear
> and will demand to rape your wife and enslave your children
> after they've beaten you before they've killed you.
>
There is an old russian immigrant joke about a fellow who wishes to
emigrate from soviet russia and visits the requisite government
office, where he is asked what country he wants to go to. Numerous
proposals are rejected (Too much crime in the US, too much terrorism
in Israel, etc.) until finally the guy is placed in a room with a
globe and told to come out when his mind is made up. He re-emerges two
hours later and asks sheepishly, "You guys have a different globe?"
It is my experience that, in any arguement, a point is reached where
the people involved discover that they're living on different planets
(or in our case, read different history books); we could trade
historical figures which support our perspectives back and forth, and
you may well come up with more historical examples to defend your view
that those who hand out free lunches come to a a bad end, but that
will have convinced me of nothing but my ignorance of history. The
same would be true of you should I produce more examples of historical
figures who handed out free lunches and did well for themselves than
you did. We could go back and forth about the proper interpretation of
the life of this or that historical figure, but that wouldnt get us
anywhere either.
Note, by tha way, that I dont see this as a bad thing; I see peoples'
"globes", their most basic axioms of the world they inhabit, as some
of the best indicators of the nature of their personalities.
> jamesson:
> Therefore, I should stick with the latter option.
>
> Do you think of yourself as demonstrating reason or unreason here?
Well, it is roughly Humean induction - given that event A (behaving in
such a manner as to prevent people from wanting to hit oneself) is
constantly (okay, regularly) conjoined with event B(not being hit), it
is reasonable for me to assume that A causes B.
>
> jamesson:
> I see the Free Lunch as a significant step in this direction.
>
> If you implement it for such reasons, then I see it as
> a significant step in the direction of you being beaten
> black and blue.
>
I'd bet you'd be first in line, huh?
> jamesson:
> Constructed in a manner somewhat similar to this, a free lunch
> campaign will have a good chance of succeeding.
>
> So, you are basically saying to sell a welfare program to those
> who can provide labour or money, tell them that bread and
> circuses will keep the plebs from rioting, or in fact, demanding
> so much that no one has any incentive any more to produce
> surplus anything, so that you end up with no lunches to spare
> whatsoever.
Well, no, but it sounds like a damned good idea. After all, would the
seven - figure crowd prefer a new lexus or riot insurance?
>Hmm, history tells me something way different
> than it seems to tell you.
Damn straight.
>
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
Arindam Banerjee
> like to get paid for the work they do, and then like to have the
> control themselves over their own money. Hence, a free
> lunch---at the political level of a guaranteed minimum
> subsistence---wouldn't be free. It would cost.
I think free lunches are a marvellous idea. Free dinner, free housing
and clothing are wonderful ideas, too. As for cost, why bother? Money
is only a new invention - and a thoroughly bad one, may I add. In the
happy world provided by the makers of the Star Trek series, there are no
wants, because of ample supply. Our narrow thinking prevents us from
realizing the truly unlimited nature of the universe. Yet Nature is
so bountiful - there are so many seeds from every plant, so many stars
to go to.... Modern technology - if not outdated physics - with its
ever increasing computer power and biomedical advances, are creating the
basis for ample outputs, with intelligent robots to do everything, and
as much and as tasty food as required.
Anyway, with respect to the topic, when one gives freely, one must do so
in the right spirit - the left hand must not know what the right hand gives
away. There must be no thinking about any possible return, from the taker,
even gratitude.
When disdain is mixed with the giving, it is not giving at all, it is
horrid snobbery, and so, counter-productive. The giver must always thank
God about his good fortune, that he is in the position to give.
Arindam Banerjee.
ted samsel
>
> "Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote in message news:<3B3A0812...@netdirect.net>...
> >Hmm, history tells me something way different
> > than it seems to tell you.
>
> Damn straight.
Why am I not surprised by this?
Moggin Goldberg
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 29th of June, 2001
I wrote:
<3B335EA8...@netdirect.net>
jamesson:
This is another one of the classic Ishmael effect line of arguements,
which assumes that everyone is a Mike Morris.
I said:
<snipped>
Your opening sentence, in fact, is so irrelevant to anything I've
said, the question is why read any more?
jamesson:
Okay mike, I admit I misspoke here. If it makes the arguement go
smoother, please feel free to mentally substitute <most (reasonable)
persons as seen by Mike Morris> whenever you see the words Mike
Morris.
It doesn't smooth the argument at all. I told you, I am *not asserting
what I am asserting about reasonable persons*, but about persons,
period. My employees do not labour in order to provide me or
any other person with a free lunch---they expect to be well paid for
what they do. I am asserting that *their* expectation is the norm,
even though some of us (including myself) do labour without pay.
jamesson:
In my experience, its tough to construct a model of The Common
Man without at least a little bit ascribing to him my own qualities
and foibles, but you may be a much better and wiser person than I
am....
It has nothing do with my being "a better person". Wiser, perhaps.
But you speak nonsense again when you imply that the goal is
to describe The Common Man without qualities to be found within
oneself. That would be silly indeed, for it would be to assume that
all qualities within oneself were specific to oneself and in nowise
common with one's fellow man---it would be to deny a common
Human Nature. I understand that there are ideologies which do that,
but I consider this denial everywhere and always to be a fatal flaw in
such ideologies. In any event, I repeat that in my assertion about the
way people behave, I am talking entirely empirically---from the
repeated insurrections of the plebs in Republican Rome to the
actual effect of welfare on people in our time.
jamesson:
Now, Mike Morris sounds like a damned reasonable and
intelligent fellow, so this may well be a rather optimistic
assumption - too bad its false. Yes, Mike, a reasonable
fellow like yourself wouldn't do things for nothing -
I said:
Absolute nonsense. I do things for nothing all of the time.
Sometimes I even feed people for nothing, though free
lunches for others stand rather low in my system of priorities,
compared with, say, supporting my city's arts community.
jamesson:
Good for you.
Engage my point, please. My point is that I am *not*
talking about *myself* when I assert that people, mostly,
do not like to work for nothing.
jamesson:
but, if you take a look around you, the world is full of totally
unreasonable people.
I said:
There is nothing in what I said that disputes this in any way.
However, I did indicate that most people do not like to provide
free lunches to other people, and I stand by that assertion. I.e.
people like to spend their labour and their money on things that,
whether reasonable or unreasonable, please them. Free lunches
to other people is, of course, one option, and some do choose
it, but it remains one option among many, and it remains that
most do not choose it. Perhaps you would care to engage this point?
jamesson:
Well, we've agreed that most people are pretty unreasonable, so I
guess that answers your question...
No, it indicates that the question flew right past you.
jamesson:
No, really - do you mean to say that in America in the year of our
lord AD 2001 they have such a choice?
I don't understand how you can even ask such a question.
Americans are rich on any world geographical or historical
scale. Even fairly poor Americans find the wherewithal to spend on
cable TV, on automoblies, and on sporting events. There's one
guy works for me who is always in money trouble---credit card
debt, child support, garnisheements, has filed for bankruptcy twice,
and so on and so forth, but by God, he's got season tickets
to the Indiana Pacers. They obviously have the choice to spend their
money on free lunches for other people, and do not do so. Hell,
the fact of this choice---that Americans do have the choice and
do not exercise it often enough in the direction do gooders want
them to---is the whole premise for this discussion thread, or the
book David Swanson was reporting on to start it.
jamesson:
They buy SUVs and never go off-road,
I said:
I'm sorry, but I have bought two SUVs and never have gone
off-road with them. And, your implication that such is "unreasonable"
behaviour is simply nonsense. If their only reasonable use were for off-road
driving, nobody would've bought them. I don't dispute that people
are often unreasonable---animus against SUV ownership is pretty
darn irrational---, but people buying SUVs is simply not an example
of unreason in practice.
jamesson:
Now, in theory, I could go off on a long leftie whine about car
crashes, pollution, and the abuse of human insecurity by mADison
avenue,
Try it and see where any one of those topics would get you.
Safety on American roads has improved throughout the era
of the SUV, and that despite the roads being more crowded
than ever. So has pollution, for that matter, as even SUVs have
gotten ever so much better on emissions compared to their
forebears of, say, 20 years ago. Besides, for every 100 smug
non-SUV owners who prattle on about emissions, and who
discount the perfectly legitimate and reasonable uses a person
would have for driving such vehicles, show me *one* of them
who goes out of his financial way to buy lower-emission
premium gasoline for his car, when he *can* use just regular,
and I'll praise Human Nature for being an order of magnitude
less hypocritical than I think it is. And, finally, to ascribe the
popularity of the vehicles merely to manipulation by ad men,
when the sentiment and political animus against them is so
very common and strong is to assume an omnipotence to
the persuasions of ad men that they simply do not have. Again, there
are erfectly good reasons why people buy SUVs, and it simply
blinkered leftie ideology to deny them.
jamesson:
but that would just annoy you Mike, and we wouldnt want that,
would we.
I would suggest that you have about as good a grasp of
what might or might not "annoy" me as you do of why people
who buy SUVs buy them.
jamesson:
Were you accuising me of being tangential a little while ago?
I don't think so, unless you are talking about some earlier
thread in which you posted under a different name. You
see, what I *did* accuse you of was irrelevancy of argument.
Tangential is perfectly fine by me, I can engage it if I'm
interested, or ignore it if I'm not. Irrelevancy of argument,
however, is a different matter. What you did is make some
assertions in an attempt to contradict something I had said.
Those assertions were a) false, and b) not necessarily in contradiction
to what I said if true. Ergo, they were irrelevant argument.
In any event, the present "tangent"---namely, SUV's---was
introduced by you, not me. I am perfectly happy to counter
anything you might want to say against them. I am happy
to do that, and to keep in mind the whole time that you had
listed buying them or driving them as unreasonable behaviour---
as an example of people's unreasonability. I am happy to
argue the point that this particular behaviour is not at all
unreasonable, and knowing full well all the time that people
behave in many unreasonable ways. It's basically your choice.
jamesson:
they give money to charities which spend it in advertising and
salaries for management, they bury people when they die, etc.
I said:
Again, nothing necessarily unreasonable in either case. Why do you want to
be confusing rationalism with some sort of hyper-logical and cold
mindlessness?
jamesson:
My argument via allegory here was directed at the fact of what Russel
(I think it was Russel) humorously called "Conjunction of an Irregular
Verb";
I AM strong-minded
You ARE stubborn
He IS a pig-headed fool.
My point is that the two sides of an arguement frequently demand
things of their opponents which they would never dream of demanding of
themselves. Note that when you say "Most people wouldnt do something
for nothing so you must coerce them in some way to do something" you
see this as rational, while when I question the rationale for buying
an SUV you see it as irrational.
Rational is not the word. My assertion that people mostly don't
work for nothing is empricial, not "rational", or deductive in any way.
It comes from observation of people---other people, not myself---
in my time and place, and from the extended observation of
people afforded by history and also by fiction, by the way. Your
dismissal of SUV-buyers' rationality, however, is built entirely
from prejudice and ideology. You have these arguments against
SUV ownership. You are entirely convinced by them. Therefore,
people who choose to own SUVs must be doing so unreasonably,
in your estimation. You don't actually bother to go and ask some
actual SUV owners why they bought that car and not one you
consider "rational".
jamesson:
I am not seeking any kind of moral superiority here -
It is a good thing. Logical equality, however, would be an improvement.
jamesson:
Im not out to prove that Im not guilty of the same
thing you are - but I'd like a little empathy.
Hey, *you* are the one who began this thing by accusing
me of assuming everyone else was like me. And then, right
smack dab in the middle of doing so, you make an ideologically
loaded assumption about other people that simply contradicts
empirical fact. I happen to be an SUV owner. I am pretty
darn impervious to Madison Avenue, in point of fact. The reasons
you give against SUV ownership (crashes, emissions) do not seem
to me to be very good reasons. The reason you give for such
ownership (off-road driving) has nothing whatsoever to do with
my reasons for it. I.e. *your* take on the behaviour of
other people seems to be empirically just wrong in my case
(and I'll bet in a lot more than just mine, given other SUV
owners I know). However, *my* take on the behaviour
or most people---namely, let us recall that they do not like to
work for nothing or to hand over control of their money
to soembody else---seems to be empricially accurate.
jamesson:
Now, before you go after me again for misinterpreting what you say,
let me insert a note for the cyber-archeologist digging through this
thread 10 years from now. It was never my serious intention to attack
the expressed thesis here, namely that "the free lunch isnt really
free".
Then, why suggest, as you did, that that thesis was based upon
my erroneous assumption that everyone was a Mike Morris?
jamesson:
The fact that nothing in human existence - not even breathing -
is free is so indeniably a part of the pleasant agony of human
existence that it can only serve as a topic of poetic musing, but it
can hardly be a fit subject of debate (and certainly need not be
defended with several paragraphs of prose,).
Excuse me, but you have just argued with my thesis that what is
wrong with a free lunch is that it isn't free. You have done so
by means of a sophism---taking "free" here to such an extreme that even
breathing air wouldn't be "free". That, I note and underline, is
most definitely not the sense of "free" that I used. I spoke
in a political context, and about political economy, completely sidestepping
ultimate questions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or
even the empirical fact that many human beings do, in fact,
provide actual free lunches to other human beings. In other
words, I took my context from David's post---that the
"free lunches" already handed out by charity in the United States
were not enough, and that what was being proposed was
in fact a tax redistribution scheme in order to guarantee some
level of subsistence to all persons within the United States. When
I said that "a free lunch isn't free" it was within *that* context.
It was an assertion that there was a political price and an
economic price to pay for such a redistribution. The people
from whom the money would be taken would demand---and
in fact would have to be given---power in exchange for their
money. If they were not compensated in somesuch way, then
they would simply no longer make the money in question,
and there would soon be not enough lunches even to go around, let alone
cable TVs or SUVs.
jamesson:
Yeah, the free lunch isnt really free. So what?
So, there is a political cost to selling it, which political
cost is being hid by the use of the lie.
jamesson:
Therefore, I chose to attack what I saw as the
subtext of your post, namely that the "free lunch" was rendered
impossible by human nature and therefore required either coercion or
manipulation to function, which you found morally distasteful.
And, I argued with you, and still do, that the "free lunch"---in
sufficent quantity to provide for a satisfactory subsistence
for everyone in society---*is* impossible by human nature. And therefore,
you do either have to coerce people to provide it. Or pay them, which
makes it not free.
jamesson:
To recapitulate; I never wanted to debate the fact that the
"free lunch" wasn't free - this is to me a trivial and self - evident
notion.
To recapitulate: You have debated this fact by attempting to
trivialize what I said. What I said is an age-old assertion about
political economy and human nature. It is entirely non-trivial.
And its ignorance is the basis of several pathological political
ideologies in our time.
jamesson:
To a utilitarian goal-oriented logic (which sounds like what
youre talking about)
I said:
No, I'm not talking about that at all. I merely said that people
like to get paid for the work they do, and then like to have the
control themselves over their own money. Hence, a free
lunch---at the political level of a guaranteed minimum
subsistence---wouldn't be free. It would cost. Not that
it isn't a good idea. Not anything else, but that it is a lie
---and a big one, aimed at garnering political power, in fact---
to sell it as "free".
jamesson:
<see above> If you think anyone will fall for a "really free free
lunch" proposal, by the way, you must be underestimating the brains of
the american people more than P.T. Barnum ever did, but you may well
be right - a wise hacker once said, "artificial intelligence will
never overcome the power of natural stupidity".
I am in total agreement with the hacker. And, yes, seeing, for instance,
the behaviour of black voters in the last election voting overwhelmingly for
Al Gore, I believe that it is next to impossible to underestimate the
intelligence of the American people. I believe that already, the politicians
have divided Americans into two classes---of ostensible taxpayers and
ostensible nontaxpayers---and that these two classes are being exploited
against one another to hand to government (politicians) ever increasing
gobs of power.
[snip repitition]
jamesson:
Therefore, let me give you an arguement for the Free Lunch;
I wish to prevent anyone from hitting me.
I said (quite sarcastically, by the way):
A noble goal.
jamesson:
Now, I have two
ways of going about this; I can either incarcerate, deport, or
kill anyone whom I have reason to believe is going to hit me, or
I can essentially create a situation in which people will not want
to hit me.
I said:
Huh? You can either use pre-emptive violence on others
to prevent violence to yourself, or you can engineer their
psychologies so that they won't want to be violent?
jamesson:
My apologies again - please replace <create a situation> with <behave
in such a manner as to>
The replacement doesn't help at all. If you think you know how to
behave in such a manner as people will not do evil unto you, I call
you crazy. I think evil is much more---infinitely more, in fact---
mysterious than that implies. My point is that I do not think it is *possible* to
behave in such a manner that people will not want to hit me. My
point is that feeding them free lunches will most certainly not
accomplish that goal.
Look, my wife saw this and immediately said I should
ask you if you live in a federally-subsidized housing project.
She said, if you really believed your theory---that people
who are being fed free lunches will therewith be diverted
from wanting to hit you---then places where poor people
are being helped with handouts ( subsidized housing, food stamps) ought
to be so filled with grateful, happy people that they must
be the safest places in the world to live, and you could
demonstrate your belief in your theory by living beside them.
I said:
This is a bizarre understanding of human psychology indeed.
Do you really think that such a thing as environmental
control over evil is possible? Do you think you, or indeed
anyone else on the planet, understand the reason another person
might want to hit you well enough that you could "essentially
create a situation in which people will not want to hit" you?
If you do, then what I think is that you are one dangerous
individual.
jamesson:
History has demonstrated pretty conclusively, I think, that
people who try the former option always come to a bad end.
I said:
Total nonsense. What history has demonstrated conclusively
is that if you hand out free luches to hoi polloi out of *fear*
that they might hit you, then hoi polloi will sense only the fear
and will demand to rape your wife and enslave your children
after they've beaten you before they've killed you.
jamesson:
There is an old russian immigrant joke about a fellow [...joke deleted...]
Not only deleted---it's not a particularly bad joke---but denied,
in the empirical sense that Russian immigrants died, literally, to get to places
like Israel or the United States. I.e. in point of fact, there's one globe,
and it reads one way. The Iron Curtain was meant to stop people
from going in one direction only. There weren't many going in the
other direction.
jamesson:
It is my experience that, in any arguement, a point is reached where
the people involved discover that they're living on different planets
(or in our case, read different history books); we could trade
historical figures which support our perspectives back and forth, and
you may well come up with more historical examples to defend your view
that those who hand out free lunches come to a a bad end, but that
will have convinced me of nothing but my ignorance of history. The
same would be true of you should I produce more examples of historical
figures who handed out free lunches and did well for themselves than
you did. We could go back and forth about the proper interpretation of
the life of this or that historical figure, but that wouldnt get us
anywhere either.
I am perfectly willing and ready to examine history for any example
you might like to suggest of the dole actually working
in the direction of placating the masses, and reducing political
violence.
jamesson:
Note, by tha way, that I dont see this as a bad thing; I see peoples
"globes", their most basic axioms of the world they inhabit, as some
of the best indicators of the nature of their personalities.
Which goes to confirm a prejudice of mine---about your ideology
and how its fundamental tenet is the replacement of reason itself
by psychological assertion.
jamesson:
Therefore, I should stick with the latter option.
I asked:
Do you think of yourself as demonstrating reason or unreason here?
jamesson:
Well, it is roughly Humean induction - given that event A (behaving in
such a manner as to prevent people from wanting to hit oneself) is
constantly (okay, regularly) conjoined with event B(not being hit), it
is reasonable for me to assume that A causes B.
But, the premise isn't even remotely given. It isn't true. Housing
projects are nasty places. People who have been given bread
and circuses often riot for more than bread and circuses. And people
hit you for reasons that are entirely outside of anybody's ideology.
Evil is mysterious, and impossible to control. You can't "behave
in such a manner as to prevent people from wanting to hit
oneself". Such a manner of behaviour simply doesn't exist.
jamesson:
I see the Free Lunch as a significant step in this direction.
I said:
If you implement it for such reasons, then I see it as
a significant step in the direction of you being beaten
black and blue.
jamesson:
I'd bet you'd be first in line, huh?
I think my behaviour already with respect to the free
lunches already handed out by the US government
speaks for itself---I don't beat people black and blue.
However, I think the behaviour of people who
have already been given free lunches by the US
government also speaks for itself---many of them
tend to resent the handout, are ungrateful about it,
and want always more than they have been given.
And, they are the class who tend to beat people
black and blue. So, the first in line to beat you I predict would
be those to whom you give your free lunches.
jamesson:
Constructed in a manner somewhat similar to this, a free lunch
campaign will have a good chance of succeeding.
I said:
So, you are basically saying to sell a welfare program to those
who can provide labour or money, tell them that bread and
circuses will keep the plebs from rioting, or in fact, demanding
so much that no one has any incentive any more to produce
surplus anything, so that you end up with no lunches to spare
whatsoever.
jamesson:
Well, no, but it sounds like a damned good idea. After all, would the
seven - figure crowd prefer a new lexus or riot insurance?
That sort of riot insurance doesn't insure, is the problem. Instead
what it does is provoke riots.
I said:
Hmm, history tells me something way different than it seems to tell you.
jamesson:
Vlad Stavitsky
>
> Has ANYONE LEARNED ANYTHING from the Soviet Union debacle. And our
> own institutionalization of a welfare class. What able bodied people
> need is training (lots of it), education and child care.
>
(and medical) care, which amounts to much more than just *free* lunch,
i guess :)
as to the "debacle" - neither of the above services in the former SU
would qualify for this adjective - even comparing with contemporary
US.
"able bodied" - as "able minded", or "decent" - it's all a question of
degree and viewpoint. Subject to comparison. Some people are smarter.
Some are greedier - and have different moral standards. Some play
basketball very well. All these qualities are rewarded by the society.
Does this mean that people who can not write decent code in C++ or
play basketball - or who are not bold enough - should serve BigMacs
for 50 years? Not sure ...
I am not quoting Chomsky - but i think it's pretty much close to what
he says.
Everything depends on what society can afford. It's like with your own
children - same thing. If they can not provide for themselves -
whatever the reason might be - you'd still give them something. How
much? Depends ...
If we do not have all the answers - it does not mean we should not
keep trying.
> The offspring of people below the poverty who do not receive public
> assistance are 80% less likely to need public assistance, then
> offspring of people ON public assistance and far more likely to move
> out of poverty and into the mainstream.
statistics ... always to be interpreted ...
>
> The only place in the world where this has been tried and NOT
> destroyed the economy are places that are 1) homogeneous and 2) Very,
> very, very tiny (in terms of population)...like New Zealand. And even
> then, people were no better off than before the program.
>
> What a dumb idea.
that's the only clear statement - but it reveals more about the
author, than about the idea.
>
> Give a person a job. Give a person some dignity.
sure :) but to "give a job" is not the same as to force somebody to
work. That's exactly about dignity.
>
> Karenina
Stephen Hayes
Karenina wrote in a message to All:
K> From: kareni...@yahoo.com (Karenina)
K> Has ANYONE LEARNED ANYTHING from the Soviet Union debacle. And our
K> own institutionalization of a welfare class. What able bodied
K> people need is training (lots of it), education and child care.
Ok, but since that was destroyed in the Soviet Union debacle, to the extent
that average life expectancy has dropped by 10 years over the last 10 years,
how do you propose to put it back?
K> Give a person a job. Give a person some dignity.
And just who has all these jobs to give?
Keep well
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail: haye...@yahoo.com
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