We who were born in the west have won the great lottery of birth. I am often struck by this, particularly when I am in a developing country: There is absolutely no reason why I was born in a middle-class American home, instead of a poor Egyptian home. It has nothing to do with personal righteousness, work ethic, or anything else else. It’s just sheer dumb luck.
It is something that I have to be reminded of, time and time again. There are moments where I think I “get” it . . . but then, you know, I walk into a maul and I’m surrounded by everything I don’t have, and I just feel poor. It’s a constant struggle to remember to judge my wealth by what I have, and not what I lack: I have never known true hunger. (You know, aside from the temporary “I’m fasting today” hunger. But even that isn’t true hunger, because I know there’s a meal waiting at the end of it.) That alone makes me almost unique in all of the generations that have ever lived. We have in abundance - and when you think that 50% of all of the food produced in the US is thrown out, when several million people die every year because of hunger and malnutrition, it should sicken and disgust us all.
That’s very humbling - I like the idea of donating “an hour” of work. It makes work seem more meaningful to think of giving a certain amount of time to someone who needs it more, even if it is spent in an office and not building schools in a developing town or something of that sort.
We are below the poverty line for the US, but still in the top 11% of the world’s population. It’s so humbling to think about how much more stuff we have and how many more opportunities here. Especially food and medicine–we don’t have much, but my kids have clean clothes and they eat every day.
I am the 773,071,647th Richest Person in the World! Woo-hoo! I have never felt real hunger. I have never eaten mud cookies. I have never had less than three pairs of shoes at the same time. I have always had running water and a refrigerator. Yeah, for always having a toilet! My kids have more clothes than they can stuff in their dresser and most of them have things that will fit when they grow out of this size. I’m rich, rich, rich!
I had to calculate the income two different ways based on various things, and the difference between the two was over $15,000. Yet both times the calculator said I was (exactly) the 107,565th richest person in the world.
That is not even believeable on its face. I’m annoyed purely by the seeming propaganda-ish-ness of the tool if it’s just spitting out numbers like that.
That all said, I recognise that my income is high and that I can’t claim middle-class anymore. I do give a lot of my money away in ways that are meaningful to me and to the recipient, and where I know it’s getting to the person/s who need it. I get a lot of pleasure out of doing so, so it’s hardly charity.
For the record, even with no kids and a high income, it never *feels* like a lot. We live in an apartment (we do not own it), we have one four-year-old car, and take few vacations if any. We live in an area with an extremely high cost of living. I am taxed in two countries, but not exceedingly so, IMO — though I’d feel better about it if people who need it were getting more GD services and money and healthcare. Grr.
I hate to rain on this PC-parade, but RE is correct. The numbers from this web site just don’t add up. I was also declared the 107,565th richest person in the world, and I’m quite sure there are more people than that with higher incomes than mine in Southern California alone. The results this site spits out can’t possibly be correct. It makes a good point, of course: By global standards most all of us westerners are very wealthy. Gosh, that never occurred to me!
I had to calculate the income two different ways based on various things, and the difference between the two was over $15,000. Yet both times the calculator said I was (exactly) the 107,565th richest person in the world.
That is not even believeable on its face. I’m annoyed purely by the seeming propaganda-ish-ness of the tool if it’s just spitting out numbers like that.
That tells me your income is over USD 200,000
The calculator doesnt discriminate when it gets over the top 0.01%. If you click on their “How do we calculate this?” link you’ll see why.
The fact that the caclculator can’t easily distinguish you from Bill Gates doesn’t much change the point.
Yeah, I got 107,565 twice, using income that was $40,000 different. Like MikeInWeHo, I’m not the 107,565th richest person in New York City (in fact, I’m probably not number 107,565 on the Upper West Side).
Yes, I’ve got a very good income by international standards, and even by U.S. standards, and the site probably has good intentions, but the sheer scope of its error undercuts what it wants us to do. (Plus, like Mike said, wow, I never realized I was wealthy by global standards. Is there anything else it wants me to take away?)
I had to calculate the income two different ways based on various things, and the difference between the two was over $15,000. Yet both times the calculator said I was (exactly) the 107,565th richest person in the world.
That is not even believeable on its face. I’m annoyed purely by the seeming propaganda-ish-ness of the tool if it’s just spitting out numbers like that.
That tells me your income is over USD 200,000
The calculator doesnt discriminate when it gets over the top 0.01%. If you click on their “How do we calculate this?” link you’ll see why.
The fact that the caclculator can’t easily distinguish you from Bill Gates doesn’t much change the point.
Sorry about the double posting, I seem to have bad proxy karma. Could one of the permas delete one of the duplicates (and maybe fix the html in the other)?
Yeah. I know I’m exceedingly lucky to have been born when and where I was, but that site’s a little mixed up. You can put in almost any amount above 250,000 and it will tell you that you are the 107,565th richest person in the world.
That’s not to deny the utter craziness of that much money; it’s just to say that the number it spits out is meaningless
At the top end of a logarithmic curve, where you are approaching an asymptote but they have estimated world population at 6 billion, the ordinal answer does become meaningless, although the percentage estimate is still meaningful.
The USD 200,000 number is just empirical, you’ll find anything you put in over that amount gives the same ordinal answer, although the percentages continue to change.
The problem with this is (besides being total left-wing propaganda) that it doesn’t say exactly what is being calculated. If I make 27000 a year in US $, that makes me filthy rich in a global context. But is this taking into consideration how many people are living off of this 27000? Answer: 5! Is this taking into consideration the cost of living in my region of the world compared to other regions of the world? Probably not.
Despite the far-left’s best efforts, we aren’t yet all living within one single global economy. So this guilt-inducing gadget tells us absolutely nothing.
But what is wealth in a country that comes with serious financial obligations? I’m not going to deny that having running water, indoor toilets, nutrient-rich food, reliable transportation, and general lack of danger aren’t huge blessings over the majority of the world’s population, but consider this: we cannot really choose to live without these conveniences in modern, industrialized society. Rent and mortgages costs hundreds or thousands more than they do in developing countries; you can’t find dwellings in an urban/suburban setting (read close enough to work) that *don’t* have running water or toilets; you *must* use some form of transportation to take you to and from your place of work, and you therefore need that money from your employment to pay your much higher cost-of-living obligations.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that wealth is really excess income after meeting basic financial obligations for whatever economic environment you find yourself in. My family and I live on a pretty bare-bones budget right now, but if we tried to live on the same budget in California, we would move from “lower middle class” to “poor” because our financial obligations would increase so much.
Its not how much you have coming in that counts. Its how much you have going out that determines how rich you are.
How many points are you going to score at the next cocktail party by declaring “I sold the house and moved into my parent’s basement. I also cut my transportation expenditures by foregoing that partnership at the firm across town so I could work at the mini-mart around the corner. I am now rich.”
Thanks for the reality-check. I guess I shouldn’t lament all of our student loans and lack of retirement savings when we’ve got so much compared with the rest of the world.
The fact that the caclculator can’t easily distinguish you from Bill Gates doesn’t much change the point.
If the calculator can’t distinguish between me and Bill Gates, then what is the point, exactly? That I’m closer to Bill Gates than to Ndugu? Thanks for the wake-up call.
All of this talk of wealth reminds me of a few scriptures. Parts of Jacob 2:
12 And now behold, my brethren, this is the word which I declare unto you, that many of you have begun to search for gold, and for silver, and for all manner of precious ores, in the which this land, which is a land of promise unto you and to your seed, doth abound most plentifully.
13 And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they.
14 And now, my brethren, do ye suppose that God justifieth you in this thing? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. But he condemneth you, and if ye persist in these things his judgments must speedily come unto you . . .
17 Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you.
18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.
19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.
Like a few others in the post I question the accuracy of the survey. If I live in NYC with 100,000 income I’ll probably be ok, but a 50,000 income in NYC would leave me living on a shoestring (if not in debt) On the other hand, if I live n Utah with a 100,000 income I can keep myself in fine style, whereas a 50,000 income in Utah is quite management. The ability to afford the cost of living only decreases on those incomes once you start adding in dependent spouses or children.
Too much of the “income” estimation is based strictly on current income and income potential (i.e. education, location, and employment rates) whereas the “other 90%” we’re being compared to haven’t the same opportunities.
That being said, I will claim that I am very, very rich in opportunity.
Comment by Janell the Great — June 4, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
My two favorite verses above are Jacob 2:18-19. I admit that I am seeking to obtain wealth. I want to be really careful in how I share this story because my choices are mine, and I am not saying anything about anyone else and their choices (particularly whether to work or be a SAHM).
When I was finishing up my MBA, I was pregnant with my first, and my husband wanted to get a PhD. I had several great job offers. I had a hard time deciding what to do - should I work, or should I stay home? We would have a lot more money if I worked. If I stayed home, we’d be living on a small stipend and student loans for many years. A scripture similar to those above gave me my answer: Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
I decided to stay home, and because I was home, I was able to serve the church and community and my family in a lot of ways that I wouldn’t have been able to if I were working (I know there are some women who can do it all, but not me). We were also poor like I anticipated (not much change from before, except that now we had kids in the mix, and that actually is a HUGE change!) Now my husband has graduated, so we have a more comfortable income. I am seeking wealth. Part of it is that I was “poor” for most all my life and don’t want to go back if I can help it. Part of it is that none of our parents have anything saved (mostly just debt) and I am scared of having to take care of all of them plus my kids. But, most of it is that I really do “seek [wealth] for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.” My husband and I have a lot of goals about service we’d like to give, but they take money - a lot of it.
I’m not trying to toot my own horn. I guess my point is that IMO, the Lord tells us that seeking wealth and being wealthy isn’t bad if you are putting Him and His objectives (taking care of His other children) first.
Jacob 2 is one of the chapters I find very fascinating as well. It is one I think is often misunderstood. Few people pay attention to the actual phrases of verses 18-19. We are blessed with the wealth for the purpose of building of building the Kingdom of God, which is accomplished by helping our fellow man (”clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted”). Given the amount of wealth we save for ourselves in our culture–by this I mean U.S. culture, including the culture of the members of the Church–I would say we are not hearkening to that principle. There are still thousands upon thousands in the U.S. who are inadequately clothed, homeless, in bondage to their economic circumstances, suffering from debilitating physical, mental, and emotional illness–let alone those suffering even worse outside the U.S. And yet our homes keep getting bigger, our driveways filled with more and bigger cards, our closets filled with more clothes, more toys, etc.
I also think we as a culture reconsider what it means when the Lord promises that “all these things shall be added unto you.” I’ve met far too many within the Church who believe this means that if we go to Church, pay our tithing, make our monthly HT (or VT) visits, and go to the temple, we are promised and justified in living an upper-class lifestyle (relative to the U.S.). I think the point of this very post is to show that if we live pretty modestly by U.S. standards–we have a small home, a few clothes, a nourishing amount and variety of food, decent health care (dubious in the U.S. today), and a little set aside to carry us through tough times, we could easily consider that we have been blessed with “all these things” which our Father has promised us.
I’ve been reading all of these threads about income and health care lately, and if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been pretty quiet. I haven’t quite known how to say what I want to say, but here’s a stab at it.
I’ve lived a pretty easy life. I grew up in an upper-middle class suburb of NYC, a couple of steps from the beach. I always had food on my table and doctors when I was sick and good public schools to attend. My dad lost his job for a year when I was in high school and things were very tight, but it was more tight in the sense that we could no longer afford for me to take ballet master classes or buy me a car. It was a long stretch, but we all knew that eventually, there’d be another relatively high-paying white collar job at the end of the tunnel. With the help of scholarships and summer jobs, I put myself through school, with virtually no help from my parents.
When my dh and I met, he already knew he wanted to be a doctor. Honestly, that didn’t sound too bad to me. While we’ve shouldered most of the financial burden of going through medical school, we’ve always known that his parents (and to a lesser degree, mine) would be there to help out if they needed to.
I trained as a teacher and was the sole full-time wage earner for the first three years of our marriage. It was tight sometimes, but we were able to get by. When we had our first baby, I switched to working part-time, which made us lose our health insurance. We took out student loans to pay for our health insurance, even though people recommended that we go on government assistance. We figured that we’d make enough money later on that the programs didn’t really apply to us, even though we qualified.
So now, eleven years after we married, my dh is fielding job offers in cardiology. I’m not saying this to brag, but they’re eye-popping. And if we chose to live somewhere less desirable, they’d be doubly eye-popping. So yeah, we have quite a few student loans, and we’ve barely scraped by for a lot of years of our marriage (the training years can be very lean, even though dh started making money after he graduated from med school). I feel sheepish about what he’ll be making, and don’t feel entitled to it for the years of sacrifice we’ve put in or whatever.
That said, there have been sacrifices. We’ve never been able to live near family, so when he’s gone, I’m on my own, which is a lot of the time. Our whole family trades time with him for the work he does (which he really sees as his calling, so I’m glad he does it). I have a good friend in my ward here whose husband is always taking her kids to and from school, always home for dinner, always around to let her take a break when she needs it. They struggle more financially, but money’s not the only thing, right? My SIL and her husband are both teachers, and they have the whole summer off to spend with their kids. It’s a huge event when we have a whole weekend to spend with my dh (and I’m not complaining, it’s just a trade-off).
From the (almost) insider’s perspective on the health care industry, yeah, there’s a lot of waste. My dh will come home talking about people dying of cancer, with a month or two left to live, who subject themselves to hundred-thousand dollar heart procedures, paid for by insurance. We’ve gone through our own health hell this year with my son, and without insurance, we’d be in a LOT of debt. The kind that it would take years to pay back, even on a cardiologist’s salary.
The thing is, I don’t have answers. I’m not even all that sure how I feel about making the salary jump. Right now we’re planning not to change our lifestyle and catch up on the savings we don’t have. But what I’ve read over the last few days has helped me make an internal commitment to increasing our donations and decreasing the things we think we need.
There is a principle in rand’s work that seems completely lost here. Trends and the evolution of systems. Compassion aside, there is a general economic principle that if you subsidize something, it grows. My opposition to the welfare state has much more to do with marginal trends than a lack of compassion. Simply put, if you take aways (or minimize) the economic consequences of poor life decisions, more people will be prone to making poor decisions. For a society to work, there has to be rich and poor. Incentives and all that. You could do away with poverty, but the end product would be stagnant economic and technological development.
Do any of you even realize why the book was called Atlas Shrugged? because at a certain point, the philosophy that it is the responsibility of the collective to provide for under-performing individuals will lead to a world where a minority group of producers and acheivers are holding the rest of the world on their shoulders.
I firmly believe that if we hadn’t expanded the welfare state so much over the last 50 years, we would have far less people living below the poverty line today.
Derek, you missed my point. If your compassion results in more economic depression, than it is not compassionate.
btw, I accidentally posted this in the wrong thread…
full disclosure, i spend about 20 hours a week volunteering for a community based mutual benefits organization that provides low income service workers with food, clothing, legal, and medical benefits. I am also a randian and a libertarian. personally helping others directly is compassionate; advocating for the government to do this is NOT compassionate.
I understand, Casper. But I also see that the philosophy of Rand inherently makes virtues of what we know to be sins (Think The Virtue of Selfishness), and that her theories directly challenge our divine mandate to help others. Until objectivist advocates can reconcile that contradiction, Rand and objectivism is only so much sophistry (2 Nephi 15:20)
Notice that objectivism (and the related Chicago-school theory of economics) not only criticizes government giving, but private giving for the same reason (it reduces the incentive for personal enterprise and industry). To criticize government welfare by saying we should give voluntarily, privately give is a fairly respectable argument; to criticize government welfare by resorting to Randian theory–what is essentially social darwinism–is inconsistent with the Gospel (Mosiah 4). That you yourself give a great deal of yourself to charity is very noble. You should make your intellectual arguments more closely match those of your actions.
Selfishness may be a sin on a PERSONAL level, but human beings are inherently selfish, and those tendencies drive society in a positive direction. The fact is, nobody is better informed to make a choice about MY life than ME. nobody is better qualified to make a choice about YOUR life than YOU. Millions of people making choices that are in THEIR best interest is what creates a benefit from selfishness. You are reading the word ’selfish’ and having a knee-jerk reaction without understanding the concept.
You will never do away with the fact that individuals tend to act in their best interest. Capitalisms taps this fact and uses it to the benefit of society as a whole.
Ok, you are reading randian philosophy far more dogmatically that most randians. Very few mainstream libertarians, capitalists, anti-socialists, etc, will argue against private charity. In fact, most of us simply argue that private charity can effectively provide for societies most needy.
No, I am using the real definition of the term “selfishness.” Objectivists are trying to twist the definition (calling evil good).
Yes, conventional capitalist theory does indeed tap into our natural tendencies. That theory embraces and encourages those tendencies. Those tendencies are what we call “The Natural Man,” and we are taught that we are supposed to conquer, not feed, the Natural Man. Worldly wisdom, such as objectivism, says otherwise, but are we not to be “in the world but not of the world?”
You’re right, few market advocates literally discourage private giving. But they rarely promote giving, and instead focus on market solutions, emphasize profit motive, and extol the virtues of “market successes”–those who make lots of money. It amounts to the same thing.
I submit that context matters and the term selfishness as it pertains to economic systems is being used in a different context than you are applying.
Like you, I consider charity a virtue, and i try to fight the tendencies of ‘the natural man’ in my personal life. But i do not try to force my values on the rest of the population through the inherently violent use of government coercion and force. You are conflating personal values and even religious beliefs with political philosophies and social policies. Being in the world, not of the world is a personal admonishment, I reject the idea that it can be applied to a society as a whole.
If not all libertarians actively promote private charities, I don’t see it as a fault against the political philosophy. It is an entirely different subject than what they are arguing. The truth is, economic freedom promotes better quality of life.
I want to make part of that a little clearer, I’m saying i reject the idea that my personal moral and spiritual obligation towards charity, as well as my moral and spiritual obligation towards humble rejection of material and worldly gains, cannot be applied to society as a whole. I should have added, that those values cannot and should not be applied to society through the use of legislation.
It’s a wordy way of saying that we live in a secular society and the government has no business enforcing morality.
Some words do indeed vary a great deal based on context. I disagree that “selfishness” varies. Rand and her ilk were trying to rationalize moral relativism, nothing less.
I agree that government does not have a place in enforcing morality. It does have a place in maintaining a reasonably orderly society. When the needs of the poor are overly neglected, it often leads to rampant disease, civil unrest, and even revolution. Thus government has a role in promoting social justice and welfare when private efforts are not doing the job.
If libertarians who are moral people do not strongly express their personal morality, particularly on this issue which has very real social dynamics, then their position loses its validity.
BTW, I did not call you morally bankrupt on the other thread. I called your argument morally bankrupt when you resort to the morally bankrupt reasoning of objectivism.
derek, it is still an ad hominem attack. Instead of directly addressing the substance of my arguments, you are calling the entire philosophy i advocate morally bankrupt.
I’m glad you dropped the pretense that your arguments are backed up by god, and switched over to sort of a role-of-government approach to welfare.
if you do accept that government has a place maintaining reasonable order, you could easily argue to maintain the status quo and stop the slide towards socialism since we DO have a reasonably orderly society. It’s similar to the healthcare argument. Many act as if the poor have NO access to medicine and treatment. This is simply not true. We take care of our poor NOW. What is your argument for more? People do not starve to death in america.
crazywomancreek, I never said that I am an Ayn Rand follower. I haven’t studied philosophy, and I hadn’t heard her name before the discussion. I don’t know enough about her or her ideas to say exactly how I feel about it, but based on this quote I found on wikipedia:
According to Rand, the individual “must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”
I am going to say no, I don’t step in line here, although I do like the basic premise of individual rights and free market economy.
I can see why your head would explode, though, if I said I bought into thinking like the quote above and then denied being selfish. But, I don’t. You can put the duct tape away.
Allayall wanting a libertarian (or at least “Conservative” before it meant Bushy) Mormon blog, there are plenty. Probably one of the most thoughtful and intelligent is Kiriath-Arba.blogspot.com.
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Casper, I have attacked the substance of your argument several times. I have pointed out that the objectivist arguments, both those to which you directly referred and others are the root of objectivism, are completely contrary to the teachings of the Gospel. They rationalize selfishness, plain and simple. If you choose to see critiques of your argument as ad hominem, there is nothing else I can do.
There is no pretense that my arguments are backed by God. They are backed by scripture, by prophets throughout all the standard works. If you believe those works to be divinely inspired, then yes, my arguments are backed by God. Taking care of the disadvantaged should be front and center in our social concerns. If private interests were taking care of the needs of the disadvantaged, I would most happily eliminate government involvement. When libertarian advocates show me how they intend to provide a comprehensive, voluntary method of caring for the poor, I will enthusiastically support them. Since up to this point, private interests have shown themselves woefully insufficient to care for the needs of the poor, and since there is, as I’ve shown, a legitimate role of government in maintaining order, I will continue to support government involvement. Since most libertarian thought glorifies enterprise, individualism, and profit, neglecting the concerns of the community and the disadvantaged, I cannot accept their reasoning.
I’m not going to play the ridiculous libertarian game of building the straw man of socialism. No liberal, here or in anything approaching mainstream U.S. liberalism, advocates the abolition of private property.
The poor do have some limited access to health care. We owe it to them to provide a system by which they have more comprehensive care. If we do not, not only do we fail our moral obligations, but from a government perspective, we risk compromising the order of our society. I see no way a free market will provide such a system.
I know a person with adult onset diabetes. She cannot get any sort of health insurance. Do you seriously expect me to believe that if we drop all government regulation and allow the health care industry to play in a free market, it will be more likely that a health insurance company (which, according to conventional free market and objectivist dogma, has no obligation but profit maximization) will take her on?
hmm, you’re right, there are plenty of Mormon libertarian blogs out there. The one I find most refreshing is Simple Utah Mormon Politics, by Frank Stahelli. While I disagree with him in some fundamental ways, I find him reasonable, honest, and consistent with the Gospel than most.
Derek, The problem with this whole thing is that I completely agree with you on your central philosophy. Yes, I believe it is a sin for a person to be selfish. Yes I believe the gospel teaches us to care for the needy and devote ourselves to the good of others. The problem is, I do not and will never view the government as an extension of the gospel, or a tool used to manifest our moral obligations towards our fellow man. The government backs up it’s policies with the use of force. I do not believe in forcing anybody to follow the gospel.
In as much as objectivism is applied as a personal moral system that directs my personal actions, yes it is selfish. In as much as it is applied as a social theory that directs public policy and legislation, I believe it is just, and therefore moral.
If you see someone suffering, such as your friend with diabetes, you may feel that the gospel compels you to help her, or to petitions others to help her. Instead you feel that the government should FORCE all of us to help her.
No I do not seriously expect you to believe that under a free market health care system she could expect to get insurance with a costly, pre-existing condition. I do believe that health care itself would be quite a bit cheaper if the industry were mostly deregulated. In that case she could perhaps afford to pay for care, or get an agreement with her provider to be on a payment plan with them. If she cannot afford this I believe private charity could raise the money to help her.
Not looking at this philosophically, but just practically, casper, I don’t think it would happen. Simple deregulation doesn’t necessarily mean that a free market would exist. In fact, I think that in a lot of cases, proper regulation enables competition. I guess I just don’t feel that with the health care industry the way it is, simple deregulation would do much to solve the problem of skyrocketing costs.
Practically, how many people are there that would need private charity to raise money for them? If it were a few, it would happen. If it were an accident or a one-time event that elicits emotion, it would happen. But, for a chronic condition, I think she would run into “charity fatigue” rather quickly - particularly with the high costs, and particularly if a lot of people were doing it.
Looking at all of this from just a “what do I think would happen” point of view instead of a philosophical point of view (of which I have none) leads me to think that we need some type of universal provision here.
#57 Sorry- I knew you were not a follower, I was responding to your #304(?) I posted the links because I thought you were not familiar with Rand. I used to be a major Rand fan. Would it sound too snarky to say, “but then I turned 16″? Yes, yes it would! Sorry.
Comment by CrazyWomanCreek — June 6, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
Yeah, deregulation, baby. Reagan deregulated the entertainment industry, the savings and loan industry, and the airlines, among others. Thank goodness that led to SUCH grand social improvement for all of us (sarcasm alert).
Yeah, I know. It’s not supposed to provide benefit for everyone. It’s supposed to provide benefit for the survivors, for the successful, who the propgate their success genes to the next generation of Jungle alphas.
And doesn’t that sound JUST Like Jesus! It’s uncanny….
Yes, I can help my friend. Do you believe all of those in her circumstances, or those similar, will be caught solely through private means? Or even more than are caught now through government means? Are you willing to bet the lives of thousands upon thousands on your theory that government absolutely should not be involved because it relies on coercion?
Casper, I’m sure you are a moral person. And I agree that we should not use government as an extension of religion, or to enforce religious obligations. But I believe you are cannot separate personal and public morality quite as distinctly as you are trying to do by justifying public objectivism. There are fundamental moral obligations which transcend religion, and which are necessary for a functional society. If we do not maintain those obligations, society devolves into chaos. To prevent that, we must surrender some of our personal liberty. A certain level of social justice is among those. And if you, as a representative of the libertarians, want to convince us that the level can be lower, you must first provide us some assurances that the libertarian movement takes those obligations into consideration. Because too many of us have seen the libertarian/objectivist ideology used to rationalize far too much neglect and even abuse of the disadvantaged by the powerful.
Stephanie, I appreciate your objectivity (hate to use that term considering the related term we’ve been throwing around…) and honesty in making that recognition that regulation is necessary, in recognizing some weaknesses in relying upon private means (the “charity fatigue”), and that some sort of universal provision is necessary. We may not agree yet on the levels or particulars, but now we’ve established a framework for meaningful conversation on solving the problem (because I’m sure we denizens of FMH can come up with a solution when all the politicians and professionals cannot… ).
Derek, we aren’t subject to the same conflicts of interest as many politicians (wouldn’t it be nice if all politicians just did what was in the best interest of their constituents)? But, we can write to our congressmen with our ideas, spread them around, perhaps influence someone still mulling things over (hearing opposing views has helped me). Plus, who knows if some of us “denizens of FMH” aren’t/won’t be politicians and professionals? Times and seasons . . .
hmm, deregulation of the savings and loan industry is one major reason we are in the mortgage crisis today (I’m sure you know that based on your comment - just wanted to point it out).
crazywomancreek, it wasn’t actually the “selfish” part of #304 that I was responding so vehemently to. (no matter now)
I am sorry, but this is eating me up, so I have to spit it out. Derek, this comment
because I’m sure we denizens of FMH can come up with a solution when all the politicians and professionals cannot…
is belittling. I know you know it is, which is why you put the smiley-face there. What you mean is, “We may not agree yet on the levels or particulars, but now we’ve established a framework for meaningful conversation on solving the problem but it’s really not important because who are you anyway? Not a politician or a professional or someone important who has a valid opinion.
I’d love to have you tell me I am taking it too personally and overreacting because it reminds me of when I chose my major, and I introduced myself to the class the first day in the introductory course. In front of the whole class, my professor said, “I think you chose the wrong major. You need to choose a different one [you small, stupid girl]”. I went home swearing under my breath, vowing that I would prove him wrong. And I did. He was the same professor who recommended me for the top scholarship/honor my senior year (which I got).
To me, comments like this (and a similar one directed to me on another thread that said something like, “Well, if a housewife in Texas could figure it out . . . “) are the epitome of misogyny. It is rather disappointing that I would encounter them on a feminist website because these are the kinds of comments that make the feminist in me rise up.
I’m going to assume you were just being cute and let it go. Just wanted to give you a heads up about saying stuff like that, or I’ll . . . umm . . . call you a name on the bloggersphere.
From the (almost) insider’s perspective on the health care industry,
I’d be careful about that perspective, because it does skew perceptions. In my experience, residents and their families get extraordinary health care. Hospital staff suck up to residents almost more than attendings because they know they will want a favor later.
Resident families never have to wait two months to see a specialist the way I did, even with my gold-plated health insurance. Doors are opened to them, samples fall in their laps.
It really is a shame, because they don’t have an accurate idea of what it is like for the rest of us to negotiate the health care system.
I know a person with adult onset diabetes. She cannot get any sort of health insurance. Do you seriously expect me to believe that if we drop all government regulation and allow the health care industry to play in a free market, it will be more likely that a health insurance company (which, according to conventional free market and objectivist dogma, has no obligation but profit maximization) will take her on?
Yeah, that’s the problem. Someone pointed out the Walmart clinics on another thread, as the “cure” for the health care system. Well, the article was already outdated.
About two dozen of the Walmart clinics have already closed, because they couldn’t make a profit.
Naismtih, I never said it as a ‘cure - all’ I said it covered the BASICS that many on here were saying they couldn’t get such as immunizations and asthma meds cheaply. It certainly does cover the ‘BASICS’..
The article was from 5 5/27/08 days ago on MSN money. It was just written and addressed this notion. 24 Walmart clinics have not closed, at least within the last few weeks (I did a check)…. so I”m not sure where you got your info from… but here is a CURRENT and direct link I post before…
Stephanie, I’m sorry you were offended by the silly aside. The statement was not in any way meant as a statement on you personally, the women on this group, or women generally. Remember, I said “we denizens…” That includes me as much as you. I put it in as a tongue-in-cheek sign that I recognized the previous statement “We may not agree yet on the levels or particulars, but now we’ve established a framework for meaningful conversation on solving the problem” was in one sense rather pompous. To think that we here discussing the issue in a heated series of comments FMH are going to solve the incredibly complex problem of just and compassionate health care when nobody else has in about a century of trying would be a bit arrogant, wouldn’t you say? It was not a misogynistic statement; I would have thrown in the same disclaimer on any blog. I have no doubt that members who participate on this blog could very well contribute to the solution. But we need to lighten up about it. That is all the parenthetical clause was trying to say. It may have done a poor job of making that point, but I stand by the advice–to myself as much as anyone.
They don’t Starve to Death, that’s different than going “hungry”.
There are multiple missions, multiple food banks, multiple places for the starving to do.
The only ones who DIE from starvationi are those babies and old people neglected by their caretakers. You will not hear of any homeless who have DIED from being hungry because that doesn’t happen in the U.S.
I’m amazed at how quick everyone is to attack Casper and others… Casper didn’t say people aren’t “hungry” in America, Casper said people don’t die from it. - which is true.
I think the meanness level is really high again on attacking… Julie could have said she disagreed, but to start personally attacking Casper about living in a dream world (when Casper is technically right)… wow…
You are probably correct, Elise. While many suffer hunger, I doubt there are many in the U.S. who die of starvation (there may well be a fair number of those who would die of starvation if other aspects of homelessness, such as exposure to the elements, didn’t kill them first…). It is unfair to conflate the two in attacking Casper.
I wonder how much the currently minimal number of starving would rise if the government safety net programs, which help prevent a great number of people from being at risk of hunger and starvation, were to eliminated as per libertarian ideology.
Derek, yes, I went to bed thinking I had overreacted. I didn’t follow my rule #2 - seek not to be offended. I don’t know that the health care problem has been the exact same problem with the exact same solution for the past century. I suspect that if we had stuck with a more traditional insurance model (catastrophe) instead of going to managed care, that the costs would have remained lower, that fewer people would view ALL healthcare as an entitlement, and there would be fewer barriers to entry at this point so that we could have a more free market. So, I think we are cleaning up more messes than just solving a basic problem.
I’ve been thinking all week about this argument - (MoJo has helped tons). Let me propose something a bit abstract and see what people think.
First, let’s assume that all welfare/needy are people who are innocent of where they are at (I don’t assume that in real life, but for the sake of this exercise let’s give them ALL the benefit of the doubt.)
Second, let’s prioritize what is the most important… I acknowledge BOTH aspects are important, so it’s a matter of deciding what is MORE important…
That stated… see what you think of this…
Is it not allowable for people to die due to the not helping / (lack of charity) of others? Yes or No.
Is it SO ‘not allowable’ for people to die that we must FORCE all of society to not allow any people to die due to not helping / (lack of charity) of others? Yes or No.
It is my premise that while it is painful and very hard for our Father in Heaven to ‘allow’ people to die due to free agency of others, it happens all the time in the world. (Darfur/Holocaust/Ethiopia etc etc) He doesn’t STOP or prevent others from having agency and if they are callous and watch someone die, it happens… and they will be held accountable for it in the eternities. Christ spoke often about Giving freely and the need for Charity and Love. If Satan had his way, no one could starve… no one could sin… no one could CHOOSE to ignore helping another. Compulsory and Force… they don’t teach any one anything morally. If it’s deducted from my paycheck without me even seeing it or having the choice to donate it… have I learned anything about Charity?
Do you think HF and Jesus want others to force others to support the poor? Is compulsory anything what HF and Jesus are about? I think it was HF’s intention we LEARN what Charity means and do so freely, willingly, and those who are ’scrooges’ obviously will be held to that. - Unless, through AGENCY, they change their hearts and wallets. Obviously, HF knew that people would suffer because of Free Agency, but It is my belief that Free Agency of humans is SO IMPORTANT that HF decided that would be the price for it. Free Agency and not forcing anyone to ‘be charitable’ is more important to the ‘Plan’ than suffering watching suffering get ignored and die. Free Agency is the SOLE purpose we are here (other than to get a body).. and if one says it is more important that others not suffer than have agency, I would say… Lucifer would agree with you.
I need to clarify an end sentence I wrote…. here’s what I meant…
Free Agency and not forcing anyone to ‘be charitable’ is more important to the ‘Plan’ than forcing others to assist others.
It sucks.. that people can suffer in this life… it sucks that others can ‘ignore’ their pleas for help… but HF allows it to happen and doesn’t ‘force anything’ because in the end, that’s what this ‘test’ is all about.
I never said it as a ‘cure - all’ I said it covered the BASICS that many on here were saying they couldn’t get such as immunizations and asthma meds cheaply. It certainly does cover the ‘BASICS’..
What you are describing is what I think of as “minor” care. Yes, such clinics can provide such services in a timely manner to the public (even though sometimes it is inappropriate, such as people who insist on being seen for a sore throat immediately, even though their doctor said wait three days and see).
But I don’t consider those “basic” services. Basic services include physicals and routine screenings, which generally involve lab work, and thus are not provided by retail-based walk-in clinics.
The downside of those clinics–and why they are not a real solution– is that they have a very limited menu of services they offer, and they don’t keep comprehensive records. They often don’t look out for patterns of diagnosis or possible drug interactions–or if they do, they accomplish it by pestering your primary care doctor for information, who likely doesn’t have time to donate to answer questions from someone who is being paid to take care of you (!). So it might save time for individual consumers, but is more costly to the health care system.
The article was from 5 5/27/08 days ago on MSN money. It was just written and addressed this notion. 24 Walmart clinics have not closed, at least within the last few weeks (I did a check)…. so I”m not sure where you got your info from… but here is a CURRENT and direct link I post before…
I have great admiration for Jim Jubak when it comes to economic matters. He has literally helped me earn thousands of dollars with his stock market advice.
But health care is not his area, so I wouldn’t take one article as the final word.
Because of my paid work, I read a lot of health policy reports and blogs, and there has been discussion of these clinics for years, so I am not sure where I got the info but… before Walmart opened its own clinics this years, there were clinics in Walmart stores operated by health care companies. It is some of those clinics that were closed.
And the challenge to provide care and make a profit is not something new to us LDS. Back in the 1880s, the Relief Society opened the Deseret Hospital, which had to close its doors just a few years later due to financial woes.
Perhaps you haven’t read the article, but Walmart, along with Google are attempting to do what ‘government’ has been
promising for a long time. Bush said it was a goal back in 2004
they want to have COMPRESENSIVE MEDICAL RECORDS available digitally. That would mean no more pestering anyone. Medicines taken at the touch of a button. Walmart is the first, along with Google to use digital records stored digitally. No more paper records at some office somewhere. This alone will save so much time and expense and make you be in charge of your records… not your doctor.
Also, by 2010, Walmart will open hundreds of more clinics, they’ve been in trials in a few states and met with success there. (Perhaps those other companies just don’t know how to keep it cost effective - but Walmart is the ruler in that dept.) They have 350 medicines available for $4 - generics on most popularly taken meds from diabetes to asthma to Birth Control.
Anyway, if my sons records are accessible to me at the touch of a button (with encription like most banks have for online banking) then it will be very easy to access history, check for patterns and also know drug interaction issues and potential abuse of medicines like antibiotics.
People here were complaining that easy “minor’ care, as you call it isn’t available cheaply. I’m showing that is a myth… and not only Walmart is seeing the need, but now King Soopers and also Walgreens are jumping on the competitive ‘minor’ care clinics.
The whole healthcare issue is far too complicated to be solved by anything mentioned (except Wal-Mart). I work in one medically-related field and have worked in an opposing one in the past and I have long said that what is needed is Wal-Mart General Hospital & Clinics.
That said, health insurance itself (NOT deregulation, as was previously stated but I forget by whom) is what’s at the base of the crisis (and yes, I do agree it’s a crisis) for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that it completely bypasses a market system of determining prices.
For instance, if you go to the ER and your bill is $1000 (arbitrary round numbers for the MoJo chick who needs a calculator to add 2+2). You have your co-pay of $100 and the insurance company pays its contracted rate of $400, making that visit a whopping $500.
If you go to the ER without insurance and your bill is $1000, your responsibility is $1000. Period, end of story. Now, you may choose not to pay it or to pay a portion of it, because they canNOT turn you away, but you don’t get that $500 discount the insurance company gets.
That has nothing to do with healthcare. It has to do with an insurance company playing both ends against the middle–and succeeding.
The other major problem I see (having worked both sides of the medical malpractice aisle) is that oftentimes, a doctor–and, by extension, a patient–is hamstrung by what insurance is willing to pay for. As long as bean counters make the decision on what care can be dispensed, they are making medical decisions and should be held accountable for such. In my opinion, this BS would stop if the bean counters were sued for medical malpractice AND charged with practicing medicine without a license. /rant on pet peeve
Wal-Mart General Hospital & Clinics would put paid to quite a few of the problems that health insurance causes simply by making healthcare costs transparent and equal. If Wal-Mart did it the way they do everything else, no one would stand for the prices having to be charged by the clinics and hospitals and they would not bother with insurance.
This comprehensive digital health care record is a long way off at the moment for a variety of reasons, but I’m not a fan of that, either. Feels a bit too Big Brotherish for my tastes.
Please keep this civil and remember our comments policy. Calling into question the righteousness or gospel understanding of another commenter is NOT acceptable — even if you do add ’smileys’ after the fact.
Not Ophelia, if you’re referring to me, at no time did I mention anythign about someone’s righteousness… I use the term “you” generally… perhaps if you’d prefer “one” instead… I can try to remember… to me.. you and one can be used interchangable as they mean the same thing. Also, my argument was completely esoteric… and I stated as much.
Perhaps if I had say… If ‘one’ would prefer that all spirits were FORCED to care for eachother, then they might be agreeing with Lucifer.
Anyway, I don’t have nearly the animosity some due towards Lucifer, I rather understand him and believe he is Loved just like the rest of us.. (and I add smileys to almost all my posts..)
they want to have COMPRESENSIVE MEDICAL RECORDS available digitally
I’m not getting back into it, promise - but that is the scariest thing I have ever heard. Why in the world would I want a conglomerate like Wal-Mart to have my entire medical record available at the touch of a button?
I am working very closely at the moment with privacy concerns in health care. When I think of the way Wal-Mart could (and would) exploit those records for their own profit - perhaps selling portions of them on, definitely not securing them properly so that anyone who wanted to open them up could do so, even if they weren’t in the pharmacy section, definitely targetting their advertising at me because of my medical records - how is that possibly a reassuring thought or a “step forward” in anyone’s minds?
Really. If you believe that’s a good idea, you really need to research medical privacy a bit better. It’s damned scary.
Why in the world would I want a conglomerate like Wal-Mart to have my entire medical record available at the touch of a button?
Bush’s goal is for the government to have it, not Wal-Mart. I’d trust WM before I’d trust Uncle Sam. Currently, WM isn’t the threat, Google is.
This isn’t a new idea; it’s been floating around since the social security number was introduced, to keep complete dossiers on American citizens. We’re just now seeing it because we now have the technology to implement it.
One of the problems I see with social programs is that one’s liberties are increasingly infringed along with the monies available for individual subsidies.
One hand giveth and the other taketh away or, as my dad used to say, “You live in my house, you play by my rules.” There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Here’s what I don’t get: we (in the US at least) have a government that is designed with checks and balances, including some form of “democratic” say on specific policies in certain cases. And the libertarian types seem to imply that this is a LESS trustworthy caretaker than WALmart?
Really. If you believe that’s a good idea, you really need to research medical privacy a bit better.
You know, I don’t usually take potshots at people, even in passing or by inference. I don’t care to have them taken at me.
I was going to let this pass, but since Elise got called on the carpet for taking a swipe, I think it’s only fair.
If you work with health privacy issues, you would have known about Google’s datamining of health patient information and a patient’s obligation to OPT OUT if they don’t want it published.
I find it far scarier that you claim to be working in such a field, but you don’t know this.
Here’s what I don’t get: we (in the US at least) have a government that is designed with checks and balances, including some form of “democratic” say on specific policies in certain cases. And the libertarian types seem to imply that this is a LESS trustworthy caretaker than WALmart?
WM has no power to imprison me if I don’t comply with its policies. I’m not forced to give them money. I’m not forced to use WM at all and I mostly don’t when I don’t have to. I will go so far as to say that I pay MORE to shop at Target just to avoid WM, but that’s another issue.
Furthermore, we are not a democracy. We are a representative republic with fewer and fewer diverse choices as to the quality of the people we have to represent us, and further, who have specific agendas that have nothing to do with the people’s needs or wants.
WM can, at the very least, be trusted to give the consumer what it wants at a reasonable price. And I already said I didn’t want such a record anywhere. I wish people would read what is said instead of skimming and assuming and assigning motives that are incorrect.
I’m implying nothing of the sort… I’m saying while Bush promised it years ago… all the red tape of government and how costly it was slowed it down. Walmart and Google are leaps ahead technological and have resources to invest in the infastructure.
It has nothing to do with LIbertarianism, it has to do with efficiency and capitalism. And if you read up on Google, I think it’s really cool that they are jumping ahead with this, because in the end, it will benefit all and medical costs completely.
You know what? The fusion reactor at the CERN is getting all these people saying it will destroy our world… Scary Scary… Throughout history EVERYTHING new was ’showcased’ as a danger or bad thing… I even remember someone saying how solar energy is horrible because it heats up our atmosphere…
before you freak out about what is down the pipeline, really research it… digital medical records WILL HAPPEN… whether by private (regulated) companies such as Google/Walmart or by the U.S. gov hiring such companies to do it. It will save so much money in health costs.
1. Elise brought up Wal-Mart, not Google. Had she brought up Google I would’ve mentioned Google.
2. At no time was I even talking to you.
3. But now I am: I am so sick and tired of people making the wrong statement, “But we’re a Republican, not a democracy.” We are a respresentative democracy and a republic. Go back to Political Science 101.
4. And now I’m going to enjoy the rest of my long weekend and ignore this entire post.
First, let’s assume that all welfare/needy are people who are innocent of where they are at (I don’t assume that in real life, but for the sake of this exercise let’s give them ALL the benefit of the doubt.)
Do you find any inherent contradiction between your assertion that you don’t give Those Who Lack a blanket benefit of the doubt in real life, when in your statements on the other post, you appeared to assume that Those Who Have do so as a result of honest work, and appropriate sacrifice? Do you not think it is equally as likely that Those Who Have arrived at their fortunes because they have a lower ethical bar regarding economic activity than others, or are just plain lucky? If we assume that the captain of finance and the poor pre-school teacher are both being justly rewarded for their decisions, effort, and sacrifice, Is this not a subtle–doubtless subconscious–social Darwinism?
In real life, aren’t we warned by King Benjamin about dire consequences of not giving the needy the benefit of the doubt?
You raise some very good points in your position about liberty. Liberty is indeed one of the most crucial aspects of the Gospel. But I believe you frame it inaccurately when you present it as such a dichotomy. Nobody is claiming we should, or even can, force exact equality in regards to social welfare or economic opportunity. No one is claiming that liberty is inconsequential. But we recognize that we sacrifice liberty whenever we are a part of any community. I am “forced” to pay for a number of items I may never directly use, from which I may never directly benefit, or which I may never consciously choose. We permit this for the good of society. I believe that the government has a legitimately strong (though not all-encompassing) role to play in such life-and-death issues as hunger, homelessness, education, and health-care. And don’t mistake, we are talking about life and death issues here. The conditions in the Gilded Age, when the nascent roots of Objectivist ideology were predominant, were deplorable. I see little reason to believe it would not become so again if libertarian-style politics were again to become ascendant. We can never eradicate suffering, but I believe government is justified in taking some basic steps to reduce it.
But now I am: I am so sick and tired of people making the wrong statement, “But we’re a Republican, not a democracy.” Go back to Political Science 101.
If you read my original post I said.. “Walmart, along with Google…”…..
And we are NOT a Democracy… if we were, the majority would have silenced the KKK, and we could have voting on who we want to kill. —- no, we are a republic where the rights of the minority will always take precident to the ‘desires’ of the majority.
Yes, Google and Wal-Mart have the resources to invest in the infrastructure. They also have an incentive to externalize their costs, ultimately on the rest of us, focusing on shareholders interest to the exclusion of all other stakeholders (and, particularly in the case of Wal-Mart, they have quite a track-record of doing so).
I know we aren’t a democracy, or Al Gore would have been president. That’s what the quote marks were for in my post up there. Quote marks indicate not fear, not sarcasm, but quotation, as in, SOMEbody says this, but I’m not claiming it. Like the phrase airline “food” or for that matter, “President” Bush.
Here’s the beauty of capitalism costs vs. government costs… Guess what? You don’t have to shop at Walmart, nor are you charged for anything Google related. In fact, if you wanted to, you could hole up in a bunker with your guns and food storage and not contribute to any of the expense at all if you CHOSE… It’s again about Choice.. not force…
Hero, The democracy remarks were from Quimby’s posts, not yours…
Actually… in most cases you can… Unless you are talking about staples such as bread and eggs (which I could technically grow myself) I do not have to buy anything ‘corporate america’ tries to sell me on. I have freedom to decide what I choose to buy or not buy. And if I think something is overpriced, such as a Walmart product, or DSL line… I need not buy it. No one (such as government) is twisting my arm, although they certainly beg. i.e. Bush begging us to buy American Cars after 9/11.
$50 000 US puts you in the top 1% of the worlds richest people. $100 00 the top 0.11
Amazingly $500 (yes five hundred dollars) and you are still richer than more than 50% of the worlds population.
Comment by Lizzy — June 3, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
Filthy stinking rich.
Comment by Ann — June 3, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
This is eye-opening and reminds me of D&C 82:3 “For of him unto whom much is given much is required”.
Comment by Stephanie — June 3, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
paying med school tuition and living on student loans at present. but someday…
(and yes, i realize that even so, how blessed are we!)
Comment by Blue — June 3, 2008 @ 9:33 pm
I knew I was blessed and lucky to be in the western world, but this is quite the eye-opener! I’ll be thinking long and hard next time I buy apples.
Comment by Eris — June 3, 2008 @ 9:44 pm
We who were born in the west have won the great lottery of birth. I am often struck by this, particularly when I am in a developing country: There is absolutely no reason why I was born in a middle-class American home, instead of a poor Egyptian home. It has nothing to do with personal righteousness, work ethic, or anything else else. It’s just sheer dumb luck.
It is something that I have to be reminded of, time and time again. There are moments where I think I “get” it . . . but then, you know, I walk into a maul and I’m surrounded by everything I don’t have, and I just feel poor. It’s a constant struggle to remember to judge my wealth by what I have, and not what I lack: I have never known true hunger. (You know, aside from the temporary “I’m fasting today” hunger. But even that isn’t true hunger, because I know there’s a meal waiting at the end of it.) That alone makes me almost unique in all of the generations that have ever lived. We have in abundance - and when you think that 50% of all of the food produced in the US is thrown out, when several million people die every year because of hunger and malnutrition, it should sicken and disgust us all.
Comment by Quimby — June 3, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
That’s very humbling - I like the idea of donating “an hour” of work. It makes work seem more meaningful to think of giving a certain amount of time to someone who needs it more, even if it is spent in an office and not building schools in a developing town or something of that sort.
Comment by Elise — June 3, 2008 @ 11:24 pm
We are below the poverty line for the US, but still in the top 11% of the world’s population. It’s so humbling to think about how much more stuff we have and how many more opportunities here. Especially food and medicine–we don’t have much, but my kids have clean clothes and they eat every day.
Comment by FoxyJ — June 4, 2008 @ 12:52 am
I am the 773,071,647th Richest Person in the World! Woo-hoo! I have never felt real hunger. I have never eaten mud cookies. I have never had less than three pairs of shoes at the same time. I have always had running water and a refrigerator. Yeah, for always having a toilet! My kids have more clothes than they can stuff in their dresser and most of them have things that will fit when they grow out of this size. I’m rich, rich, rich!
Comment by Jami — June 4, 2008 @ 1:08 am
thankyou ophelia (not!)
(not as in ‘not ophelia… not as in ‘no thanks’)
ps. quimby… ‘maul’; yep, that about explains them! good one!
Comment by G — June 4, 2008 @ 4:15 am
Hmm.
I had to calculate the income two different ways based on various things, and the difference between the two was over $15,000. Yet both times the calculator said I was (exactly) the 107,565th richest person in the world.
That is not even believeable on its face. I’m annoyed purely by the seeming propaganda-ish-ness of the tool if it’s just spitting out numbers like that.
That all said, I recognise that my income is high and that I can’t claim middle-class anymore. I do give a lot of my money away in ways that are meaningful to me and to the recipient, and where I know it’s getting to the person/s who need it. I get a lot of pleasure out of doing so, so it’s hardly charity.
For the record, even with no kids and a high income, it never *feels* like a lot. We live in an apartment (we do not own it), we have one four-year-old car, and take few vacations if any. We live in an area with an extremely high cost of living. I am taxed in two countries, but not exceedingly so, IMO — though I’d feel better about it if people who need it were getting more GD services and money and healthcare. Grr.
Comment by RE — June 4, 2008 @ 7:23 am
I hate to rain on this PC-parade, but RE is correct. The numbers from this web site just don’t add up. I was also declared the 107,565th richest person in the world, and I’m quite sure there are more people than that with higher incomes than mine in Southern California alone. The results this site spits out can’t possibly be correct. It makes a good point, of course: By global standards most all of us westerners are very wealthy. Gosh, that never occurred to me!
Comment by MikeInWeHo — June 4, 2008 @ 8:33 am
That tells me your income is over USD 200,000
The calculator doesnt discriminate when it gets over the top 0.01%. If you click on their “How do we calculate this?” link you’ll see why.
The fact that the caclculator can’t easily distinguish you from Bill Gates doesn’t much change the point.
Comment by obi-wan — June 4, 2008 @ 8:41 am
Yeah, I got 107,565 twice, using income that was $40,000 different. Like MikeInWeHo, I’m not the 107,565th richest person in New York City (in fact, I’m probably not number 107,565 on the Upper West Side).
Yes, I’ve got a very good income by international standards, and even by U.S. standards, and the site probably has good intentions, but the sheer scope of its error undercuts what it wants us to do. (Plus, like Mike said, wow, I never realized I was wealthy by global standards. Is there anything else it wants me to take away?)
Comment by Sam B. — June 4, 2008 @ 8:43 am
I had to calculate the income two different ways based on various things, and the difference between the two was over $15,000. Yet both times the calculator said I was (exactly) the 107,565th richest person in the world.
That is not even believeable on its face. I’m annoyed purely by the seeming propaganda-ish-ness of the tool if it’s just spitting out numbers like that.
That tells me your income is over USD 200,000
The calculator doesnt discriminate when it gets over the top 0.01%. If you click on their “How do we calculate this?” link you’ll see why.
The fact that the caclculator can’t easily distinguish you from Bill Gates doesn’t much change the point.
Comment by obi-wan — June 4, 2008 @ 8:43 am
Sorry about the double posting, I seem to have bad proxy karma. Could one of the permas delete one of the duplicates (and maybe fix the html in the other)?
Comment by obi-wan — June 4, 2008 @ 8:46 am
Yeah. I know I’m exceedingly lucky to have been born when and where I was, but that site’s a little mixed up. You can put in almost any amount above 250,000 and it will tell you that you are the 107,565th richest person in the world.
I think I was something like 27 millionth.
Comment by meems — June 4, 2008 @ 8:49 am
That’s not to deny the utter craziness of that much money; it’s just to say that the number it spits out is meaningless
At the top end of a logarithmic curve, where you are approaching an asymptote but they have estimated world population at 6 billion, the ordinal answer does become meaningless, although the percentage estimate is still meaningful.
The USD 200,000 number is just empirical, you’ll find anything you put in over that amount gives the same ordinal answer, although the percentages continue to change.
Comment by obi-wan — June 4, 2008 @ 8:55 am
Top 98% in the world. And I can’t afford to buy a house in the area where we live.
Gosh.
Comment by sare — June 4, 2008 @ 9:42 am
The problem with this is (besides being total left-wing propaganda) that it doesn’t say exactly what is being calculated. If I make 27000 a year in US $, that makes me filthy rich in a global context. But is this taking into consideration how many people are living off of this 27000? Answer: 5! Is this taking into consideration the cost of living in my region of the world compared to other regions of the world? Probably not.
Despite the far-left’s best efforts, we aren’t yet all living within one single global economy. So this guilt-inducing gadget tells us absolutely nothing.
Comment by sam — June 4, 2008 @ 9:42 am
But what is wealth in a country that comes with serious financial obligations? I’m not going to deny that having running water, indoor toilets, nutrient-rich food, reliable transportation, and general lack of danger aren’t huge blessings over the majority of the world’s population, but consider this: we cannot really choose to live without these conveniences in modern, industrialized society. Rent and mortgages costs hundreds or thousands more than they do in developing countries; you can’t find dwellings in an urban/suburban setting (read close enough to work) that *don’t* have running water or toilets; you *must* use some form of transportation to take you to and from your place of work, and you therefore need that money from your employment to pay your much higher cost-of-living obligations.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that wealth is really excess income after meeting basic financial obligations for whatever economic environment you find yourself in. My family and I live on a pretty bare-bones budget right now, but if we tried to live on the same budget in California, we would move from “lower middle class” to “poor” because our financial obligations would increase so much.
Comment by Observer — June 4, 2008 @ 9:44 am
Observer,
That’s true. If I tried to live without running water, CPS would be at my door so fast it would make you nauseated.
Comment by Jami — June 4, 2008 @ 10:09 am
Its not how much you have coming in that counts. Its how much you have going out that determines how rich you are.
Observer pretty much said it. In some places a person doesn’t have as many possible ways to spend money. Everything is relative.
Comment by Claudia — June 4, 2008 @ 10:45 am
How many points are you going to score at the next cocktail party by declaring “I sold the house and moved into my parent’s basement. I also cut my transportation expenditures by foregoing that partnership at the firm across town so I could work at the mini-mart around the corner. I am now rich.”
Comment by Peter LLC — June 4, 2008 @ 10:58 am
Thanks for the reality-check. I guess I shouldn’t lament all of our student loans and lack of retirement savings when we’ve got so much compared with the rest of the world.
Comment by Shelah — June 4, 2008 @ 11:55 am
If the calculator can’t distinguish between me and Bill Gates, then what is the point, exactly? That I’m closer to Bill Gates than to Ndugu? Thanks for the wake-up call.
Comment by gst — June 4, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
I was the ~47millionth richest person in the world, and am still in the top 1%.
Makes me wonder how they derive the wealth of the other ~6 Billion below me…
Comment by Matt W. — June 4, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
All of this talk of wealth reminds me of a few scriptures. Parts of Jacob 2:
12 And now behold, my brethren, this is the word which I declare unto you, that many of you have begun to search for gold, and for silver, and for all manner of precious ores, in the which this land, which is a land of promise unto you and to your seed, doth abound most plentifully.
13 And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they.
14 And now, my brethren, do ye suppose that God justifieth you in this thing? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. But he condemneth you, and if ye persist in these things his judgments must speedily come unto you . . .
17 Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you.
18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.
19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.
Comment by Stephanie — June 4, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
Like a few others in the post I question the accuracy of the survey. If I live in NYC with 100,000 income I’ll probably be ok, but a 50,000 income in NYC would leave me living on a shoestring (if not in debt) On the other hand, if I live n Utah with a 100,000 income I can keep myself in fine style, whereas a 50,000 income in Utah is quite management. The ability to afford the cost of living only decreases on those incomes once you start adding in dependent spouses or children.
Too much of the “income” estimation is based strictly on current income and income potential (i.e. education, location, and employment rates) whereas the “other 90%” we’re being compared to haven’t the same opportunities.
That being said, I will claim that I am very, very rich in opportunity.
Comment by Janell the Great — June 4, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
My two favorite verses above are Jacob 2:18-19. I admit that I am seeking to obtain wealth. I want to be really careful in how I share this story because my choices are mine, and I am not saying anything about anyone else and their choices (particularly whether to work or be a SAHM).
When I was finishing up my MBA, I was pregnant with my first, and my husband wanted to get a PhD. I had several great job offers. I had a hard time deciding what to do - should I work, or should I stay home? We would have a lot more money if I worked. If I stayed home, we’d be living on a small stipend and student loans for many years. A scripture similar to those above gave me my answer: Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
I decided to stay home, and because I was home, I was able to serve the church and community and my family in a lot of ways that I wouldn’t have been able to if I were working (I know there are some women who can do it all, but not me). We were also poor like I anticipated (not much change from before, except that now we had kids in the mix, and that actually is a HUGE change!) Now my husband has graduated, so we have a more comfortable income. I am seeking wealth. Part of it is that I was “poor” for most all my life and don’t want to go back if I can help it. Part of it is that none of our parents have anything saved (mostly just debt) and I am scared of having to take care of all of them plus my kids. But, most of it is that I really do “seek [wealth] for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.” My husband and I have a lot of goals about service we’d like to give, but they take money - a lot of it.
I’m not trying to toot my own horn. I guess my point is that IMO, the Lord tells us that seeking wealth and being wealthy isn’t bad if you are putting Him and His objectives (taking care of His other children) first.
Comment by Stephanie — June 4, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
Darn it! Another comment caught! Please release.
Comment by Stephanie — June 4, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
Jacob 2 is one of the chapters I find very fascinating as well. It is one I think is often misunderstood. Few people pay attention to the actual phrases of verses 18-19. We are blessed with the wealth for the purpose of building of building the Kingdom of God, which is accomplished by helping our fellow man (”clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted”). Given the amount of wealth we save for ourselves in our culture–by this I mean U.S. culture, including the culture of the members of the Church–I would say we are not hearkening to that principle. There are still thousands upon thousands in the U.S. who are inadequately clothed, homeless, in bondage to their economic circumstances, suffering from debilitating physical, mental, and emotional illness–let alone those suffering even worse outside the U.S. And yet our homes keep getting bigger, our driveways filled with more and bigger cards, our closets filled with more clothes, more toys, etc.
I also think we as a culture reconsider what it means when the Lord promises that “all these things shall be added unto you.” I’ve met far too many within the Church who believe this means that if we go to Church, pay our tithing, make our monthly HT (or VT) visits, and go to the temple, we are promised and justified in living an upper-class lifestyle (relative to the U.S.). I think the point of this very post is to show that if we live pretty modestly by U.S. standards–we have a small home, a few clothes, a nourishing amount and variety of food, decent health care (dubious in the U.S. today), and a little set aside to carry us through tough times, we could easily consider that we have been blessed with “all these things” which our Father has promised us.
Comment by Derek — June 4, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
I’ve been reading all of these threads about income and health care lately, and if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been pretty quiet. I haven’t quite known how to say what I want to say, but here’s a stab at it.
I’ve lived a pretty easy life. I grew up in an upper-middle class suburb of NYC, a couple of steps from the beach. I always had food on my table and doctors when I was sick and good public schools to attend. My dad lost his job for a year when I was in high school and things were very tight, but it was more tight in the sense that we could no longer afford for me to take ballet master classes or buy me a car. It was a long stretch, but we all knew that eventually, there’d be another relatively high-paying white collar job at the end of the tunnel. With the help of scholarships and summer jobs, I put myself through school, with virtually no help from my parents.
When my dh and I met, he already knew he wanted to be a doctor. Honestly, that didn’t sound too bad to me. While we’ve shouldered most of the financial burden of going through medical school, we’ve always known that his parents (and to a lesser degree, mine) would be there to help out if they needed to.
I trained as a teacher and was the sole full-time wage earner for the first three years of our marriage. It was tight sometimes, but we were able to get by. When we had our first baby, I switched to working part-time, which made us lose our health insurance. We took out student loans to pay for our health insurance, even though people recommended that we go on government assistance. We figured that we’d make enough money later on that the programs didn’t really apply to us, even though we qualified.
So now, eleven years after we married, my dh is fielding job offers in cardiology. I’m not saying this to brag, but they’re eye-popping. And if we chose to live somewhere less desirable, they’d be doubly eye-popping. So yeah, we have quite a few student loans, and we’ve barely scraped by for a lot of years of our marriage (the training years can be very lean, even though dh started making money after he graduated from med school). I feel sheepish about what he’ll be making, and don’t feel entitled to it for the years of sacrifice we’ve put in or whatever.
That said, there have been sacrifices. We’ve never been able to live near family, so when he’s gone, I’m on my own, which is a lot of the time. Our whole family trades time with him for the work he does (which he really sees as his calling, so I’m glad he does it). I have a good friend in my ward here whose husband is always taking her kids to and from school, always home for dinner, always around to let her take a break when she needs it. They struggle more financially, but money’s not the only thing, right? My SIL and her husband are both teachers, and they have the whole summer off to spend with their kids. It’s a huge event when we have a whole weekend to spend with my dh (and I’m not complaining, it’s just a trade-off).
From the (almost) insider’s perspective on the health care industry, yeah, there’s a lot of waste. My dh will come home talking about people dying of cancer, with a month or two left to live, who subject themselves to hundred-thousand dollar heart procedures, paid for by insurance. We’ve gone through our own health hell this year with my son, and without insurance, we’d be in a LOT of debt. The kind that it would take years to pay back, even on a cardiologist’s salary.
The thing is, I don’t have answers. I’m not even all that sure how I feel about making the salary jump. Right now we’re planning not to change our lifestyle and catch up on the savings we don’t have. But what I’ve read over the last few days has helped me make an internal commitment to increasing our donations and decreasing the things we think we need.
Comment by Shelah — June 4, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
The web site says:
“….we gauge how rich we are by looking upwards at those who have more than us. This makes us feel poor.”
I think that is a true statement. It has certainly been my experience. Anybody else notice that?
Comment by MikeInWeHo — June 4, 2008 @ 10:43 pm
MIke, Yep.
Comment by Ray — June 4, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
Top 0.77%. We are very blessed.
“We who were born in the west have won the great lottery of birth.”
May I use this, Quimby? Just as a sig or as my IM line? I can link back if I use it as a signature (on mothering.com).
Comment by Kermit — June 5, 2008 @ 9:06 am
There is a principle in rand’s work that seems completely lost here. Trends and the evolution of systems. Compassion aside, there is a general economic principle that if you subsidize something, it grows. My opposition to the welfare state has much more to do with marginal trends than a lack of compassion. Simply put, if you take aways (or minimize) the economic consequences of poor life decisions, more people will be prone to making poor decisions. For a society to work, there has to be rich and poor. Incentives and all that. You could do away with poverty, but the end product would be stagnant economic and technological development.
Do any of you even realize why the book was called Atlas Shrugged? because at a certain point, the philosophy that it is the responsibility of the collective to provide for under-performing individuals will lead to a world where a minority group of producers and acheivers are holding the rest of the world on their shoulders.
I firmly believe that if we hadn’t expanded the welfare state so much over the last 50 years, we would have far less people living below the poverty line today.
Comment by casper — June 5, 2008 @ 11:40 am
Good points, casper.
Comment by Stephanie — June 5, 2008 @ 11:45 am
Casper, that is the biggest problem with Rand. She and her advocates throw “compassion aside.”
Comment by Derek — June 5, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
Derek, you missed my point. If your compassion results in more economic depression, than it is not compassionate.
btw, I accidentally posted this in the wrong thread…
Comment by casper — June 5, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
Another good point, casper.
Comment by Stephanie — June 5, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
full disclosure, i spend about 20 hours a week volunteering for a community based mutual benefits organization that provides low income service workers with food, clothing, legal, and medical benefits. I am also a randian and a libertarian. personally helping others directly is compassionate; advocating for the government to do this is NOT compassionate.
Comment by casper — June 5, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
I understand, Casper. But I also see that the philosophy of Rand inherently makes virtues of what we know to be sins (Think The Virtue of Selfishness), and that her theories directly challenge our divine mandate to help others. Until objectivist advocates can reconcile that contradiction, Rand and objectivism is only so much sophistry (2 Nephi 15:20)
Comment by Derek — June 5, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
Notice that objectivism (and the related Chicago-school theory of economics) not only criticizes government giving, but private giving for the same reason (it reduces the incentive for personal enterprise and industry). To criticize government welfare by saying we should give voluntarily, privately give is a fairly respectable argument; to criticize government welfare by resorting to Randian theory–what is essentially social darwinism–is inconsistent with the Gospel (Mosiah 4). That you yourself give a great deal of yourself to charity is very noble. You should make your intellectual arguments more closely match those of your actions.
Comment by Derek — June 5, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
Selfishness may be a sin on a PERSONAL level, but human beings are inherently selfish, and those tendencies drive society in a positive direction. The fact is, nobody is better informed to make a choice about MY life than ME. nobody is better qualified to make a choice about YOUR life than YOU. Millions of people making choices that are in THEIR best interest is what creates a benefit from selfishness. You are reading the word ’selfish’ and having a knee-jerk reaction without understanding the concept.
You will never do away with the fact that individuals tend to act in their best interest. Capitalisms taps this fact and uses it to the benefit of society as a whole.
Comment by casper — June 5, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
Ok, you are reading randian philosophy far more dogmatically that most randians. Very few mainstream libertarians, capitalists, anti-socialists, etc, will argue against private charity. In fact, most of us simply argue that private charity can effectively provide for societies most needy.
Comment by casper — June 5, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
No, I am using the real definition of the term “selfishness.” Objectivists are trying to twist the definition (calling evil good).
Yes, conventional capitalist theory does indeed tap into our natural tendencies. That theory embraces and encourages those tendencies. Those tendencies are what we call “The Natural Man,” and we are taught that we are supposed to conquer, not feed, the Natural Man. Worldly wisdom, such as objectivism, says otherwise, but are we not to be “in the world but not of the world?”
Comment by Derek — June 5, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
You’re right, few market advocates literally discourage private giving. But they rarely promote giving, and instead focus on market solutions, emphasize profit motive, and extol the virtues of “market successes”–those who make lots of money. It amounts to the same thing.
Comment by Derek — June 5, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
I submit that context matters and the term selfishness as it pertains to economic systems is being used in a different context than you are applying.
Like you, I consider charity a virtue, and i try to fight the tendencies of ‘the natural man’ in my personal life. But i do not try to force my values on the rest of the population through the inherently violent use of government coercion and force. You are conflating personal values and even religious beliefs with political philosophies and social policies. Being in the world, not of the world is a personal admonishment, I reject the idea that it can be applied to a society as a whole.
If not all libertarians actively promote private charities, I don’t see it as a fault against the political philosophy. It is an entirely different subject than what they are arguing. The truth is, economic freedom promotes better quality of life.
Comment by casper — June 5, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
I want to make part of that a little clearer, I’m saying i reject the idea that my personal moral and spiritual obligation towards charity, as well as my moral and spiritual obligation towards humble rejection of material and worldly gains, cannot be applied to society as a whole. I should have added, that those values cannot and should not be applied to society through the use of legislation.
It’s a wordy way of saying that we live in a secular society and the government has no business enforcing morality.
Comment by casper — June 5, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Some words do indeed vary a great deal based on context. I disagree that “selfishness” varies. Rand and her ilk were trying to rationalize moral relativism, nothing less.
I agree that government does not have a place in enforcing morality. It does have a place in maintaining a reasonably orderly society. When the needs of the poor are overly neglected, it often leads to rampant disease, civil unrest, and even revolution. Thus government has a role in promoting social justice and welfare when private efforts are not doing the job.
If libertarians who are moral people do not strongly express their personal morality, particularly on this issue which has very real social dynamics, then their position loses its validity.
BTW, I did not call you morally bankrupt on the other thread. I called your argument morally bankrupt when you resort to the morally bankrupt reasoning of objectivism.
Comment by Derek — June 5, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
Casper,
Please say you’ll email nb from the other thread and get on our ‘libertarian’ email list! You are a gem and very well thought out in your arguments.
Comment by Elise — June 5, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
elise, you want to talk ses?
here you go http://visitorscenter.wordpress.com/
Comment by mfranti — June 5, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Elise, I sure will, and thank you.
derek, it is still an ad hominem attack. Instead of directly addressing the substance of my arguments, you are calling the entire philosophy i advocate morally bankrupt.
I’m glad you dropped the pretense that your arguments are backed up by god, and switched over to sort of a role-of-government approach to welfare.
if you do accept that government has a place maintaining reasonable order, you could easily argue to maintain the status quo and stop the slide towards socialism since we DO have a reasonably orderly society. It’s similar to the healthcare argument. Many act as if the poor have NO access to medicine and treatment. This is simply not true. We take care of our poor NOW. What is your argument for more? People do not starve to death in america.
Comment by casper — June 5, 2008 @ 5:21 pm
woohooo… a SECS talk! Thanks M…
Comment by Elise — June 5, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
Elise, don’t tell me I didn’t direct you to the Visitors’ Center already!!! My bad.
Comment by MoJo — June 5, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
crazywomancreek, I never said that I am an Ayn Rand follower. I haven’t studied philosophy, and I hadn’t heard her name before the discussion. I don’t know enough about her or her ideas to say exactly how I feel about it, but based on this quote I found on wikipedia:
According to Rand, the individual “must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”
I am going to say no, I don’t step in line here, although I do like the basic premise of individual rights and free market economy.
Comment by Stephanie — June 5, 2008 @ 11:24 pm
I can see why your head would explode, though, if I said I bought into thinking like the quote above and then denied being selfish. But, I don’t. You can put the duct tape away.
Comment by Stephanie — June 6, 2008 @ 12:03 am
Allayall wanting a libertarian (or at least “Conservative” before it meant Bushy) Mormon blog, there are plenty. Probably one of the most thoughtful and intelligent is Kiriath-Arba.blogspot.com.
Comment by hmm — June 6, 2008 @ 12:07 am
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Pingback by Like trying a swimsuit on, only in front of your realtor and your mortgage broker — June 6, 2008 @ 12:18 am
Casper, I have attacked the substance of your argument several times. I have pointed out that the objectivist arguments, both those to which you directly referred and others are the root of objectivism, are completely contrary to the teachings of the Gospel. They rationalize selfishness, plain and simple. If you choose to see critiques of your argument as ad hominem, there is nothing else I can do.
There is no pretense that my arguments are backed by God. They are backed by scripture, by prophets throughout all the standard works. If you believe those works to be divinely inspired, then yes, my arguments are backed by God. Taking care of the disadvantaged should be front and center in our social concerns. If private interests were taking care of the needs of the disadvantaged, I would most happily eliminate government involvement. When libertarian advocates show me how they intend to provide a comprehensive, voluntary method of caring for the poor, I will enthusiastically support them. Since up to this point, private interests have shown themselves woefully insufficient to care for the needs of the poor, and since there is, as I’ve shown, a legitimate role of government in maintaining order, I will continue to support government involvement. Since most libertarian thought glorifies enterprise, individualism, and profit, neglecting the concerns of the community and the disadvantaged, I cannot accept their reasoning.
I’m not going to play the ridiculous libertarian game of building the straw man of socialism. No liberal, here or in anything approaching mainstream U.S. liberalism, advocates the abolition of private property.
The poor do have some limited access to health care. We owe it to them to provide a system by which they have more comprehensive care. If we do not, not only do we fail our moral obligations, but from a government perspective, we risk compromising the order of our society. I see no way a free market will provide such a system.
I know a person with adult onset diabetes. She cannot get any sort of health insurance. Do you seriously expect me to believe that if we drop all government regulation and allow the health care industry to play in a free market, it will be more likely that a health insurance company (which, according to conventional free market and objectivist dogma, has no obligation but profit maximization) will take her on?
Comment by Derek — June 6, 2008 @ 10:54 am
hmm, you’re right, there are plenty of Mormon libertarian blogs out there. The one I find most refreshing is Simple Utah Mormon Politics, by Frank Stahelli. While I disagree with him in some fundamental ways, I find him reasonable, honest, and consistent with the Gospel than most.
Comment by Derek — June 6, 2008 @ 11:00 am
Derek, The problem with this whole thing is that I completely agree with you on your central philosophy. Yes, I believe it is a sin for a person to be selfish. Yes I believe the gospel teaches us to care for the needy and devote ourselves to the good of others. The problem is, I do not and will never view the government as an extension of the gospel, or a tool used to manifest our moral obligations towards our fellow man. The government backs up it’s policies with the use of force. I do not believe in forcing anybody to follow the gospel.
In as much as objectivism is applied as a personal moral system that directs my personal actions, yes it is selfish. In as much as it is applied as a social theory that directs public policy and legislation, I believe it is just, and therefore moral.
If you see someone suffering, such as your friend with diabetes, you may feel that the gospel compels you to help her, or to petitions others to help her. Instead you feel that the government should FORCE all of us to help her.
No I do not seriously expect you to believe that under a free market health care system she could expect to get insurance with a costly, pre-existing condition. I do believe that health care itself would be quite a bit cheaper if the industry were mostly deregulated. In that case she could perhaps afford to pay for care, or get an agreement with her provider to be on a payment plan with them. If she cannot afford this I believe private charity could raise the money to help her.
Comment by casper — June 6, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
Not looking at this philosophically, but just practically, casper, I don’t think it would happen. Simple deregulation doesn’t necessarily mean that a free market would exist. In fact, I think that in a lot of cases, proper regulation enables competition. I guess I just don’t feel that with the health care industry the way it is, simple deregulation would do much to solve the problem of skyrocketing costs.
Practically, how many people are there that would need private charity to raise money for them? If it were a few, it would happen. If it were an accident or a one-time event that elicits emotion, it would happen. But, for a chronic condition, I think she would run into “charity fatigue” rather quickly - particularly with the high costs, and particularly if a lot of people were doing it.
Looking at all of this from just a “what do I think would happen” point of view instead of a philosophical point of view (of which I have none) leads me to think that we need some type of universal provision here.
Comment by Stephanie — June 6, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
#57 Sorry- I knew you were not a follower, I was responding to your #304(?) I posted the links because I thought you were not familiar with Rand. I used to be a major Rand fan. Would it sound too snarky to say, “but then I turned 16″? Yes, yes it would! Sorry.
Comment by CrazyWomanCreek — June 6, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
Yeah, deregulation, baby. Reagan deregulated the entertainment industry, the savings and loan industry, and the airlines, among others. Thank goodness that led to SUCH grand social improvement for all of us (sarcasm alert).
Yeah, I know. It’s not supposed to provide benefit for everyone. It’s supposed to provide benefit for the survivors, for the successful, who the propgate their success genes to the next generation of Jungle alphas.
And doesn’t that sound JUST Like Jesus! It’s uncanny….
Comment by hmm — June 6, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
Yes, I can help my friend. Do you believe all of those in her circumstances, or those similar, will be caught solely through private means? Or even more than are caught now through government means? Are you willing to bet the lives of thousands upon thousands on your theory that government absolutely should not be involved because it relies on coercion?
Casper, I’m sure you are a moral person. And I agree that we should not use government as an extension of religion, or to enforce religious obligations. But I believe you are cannot separate personal and public morality quite as distinctly as you are trying to do by justifying public objectivism. There are fundamental moral obligations which transcend religion, and which are necessary for a functional society. If we do not maintain those obligations, society devolves into chaos. To prevent that, we must surrender some of our personal liberty. A certain level of social justice is among those. And if you, as a representative of the libertarians, want to convince us that the level can be lower, you must first provide us some assurances that the libertarian movement takes those obligations into consideration. Because too many of us have seen the libertarian/objectivist ideology used to rationalize far too much neglect and even abuse of the disadvantaged by the powerful.
Stephanie, I appreciate your objectivity (hate to use that term considering the related term we’ve been throwing around…) and honesty in making that recognition that regulation is necessary, in recognizing some weaknesses in relying upon private means (the “charity fatigue”), and that some sort of universal provision is necessary. We may not agree yet on the levels or particulars, but now we’ve established a framework for meaningful conversation on solving the problem (because I’m sure we denizens of FMH can come up with a solution when all the politicians and professionals cannot…
).
Comment by Derek — June 6, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
Derek, we aren’t subject to the same conflicts of interest as many politicians (wouldn’t it be nice if all politicians just did what was in the best interest of their constituents)? But, we can write to our congressmen with our ideas, spread them around, perhaps influence someone still mulling things over (hearing opposing views has helped me). Plus, who knows if some of us “denizens of FMH” aren’t/won’t be politicians and professionals? Times and seasons . . .
Comment by Stephanie — June 6, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
hmm, deregulation of the savings and loan industry is one major reason we are in the mortgage crisis today (I’m sure you know that based on your comment - just wanted to point it out).
crazywomancreek, it wasn’t actually the “selfish” part of #304 that I was responding so vehemently to. (no matter now)
Comment by Stephanie — June 6, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
selfish part *in* 304 (but really - I just want to let it go. Thanks for the links for the Rand stuff)
Comment by Stephanie — June 6, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
I am sorry, but this is eating me up, so I have to spit it out. Derek, this comment
because I’m sure we denizens of FMH can come up with a solution when all the politicians and professionals cannot…
is belittling. I know you know it is, which is why you put the smiley-face there. What you mean is, “We may not agree yet on the levels or particulars, but now we’ve established a framework for meaningful conversation on solving the problem but it’s really not important because who are you anyway? Not a politician or a professional or someone important who has a valid opinion.
I’d love to have you tell me I am taking it too personally and overreacting because it reminds me of when I chose my major, and I introduced myself to the class the first day in the introductory course. In front of the whole class, my professor said, “I think you chose the wrong major. You need to choose a different one [you small, stupid girl]”. I went home swearing under my breath, vowing that I would prove him wrong. And I did. He was the same professor who recommended me for the top scholarship/honor my senior year (which I got).
To me, comments like this (and a similar one directed to me on another thread that said something like, “Well, if a housewife in Texas could figure it out . . . “) are the epitome of misogyny. It is rather disappointing that I would encounter them on a feminist website because these are the kinds of comments that make the feminist in me rise up.
I’m going to assume you were just being cute and let it go. Just wanted to give you a heads up about saying stuff like that, or I’ll . . . umm . . . call you a name on the bloggersphere.
Comment by Stephanie — June 6, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
I’d be careful about that perspective, because it does skew perceptions. In my experience, residents and their families get extraordinary health care. Hospital staff suck up to residents almost more than attendings because they know they will want a favor later.
Resident families never have to wait two months to see a specialist the way I did, even with my gold-plated health insurance. Doors are opened to them, samples fall in their laps.
It really is a shame, because they don’t have an accurate idea of what it is like for the rest of us to negotiate the health care system.
Comment by Naismith — June 7, 2008 @ 6:48 am
Yeah, that’s the problem. Someone pointed out the Walmart clinics on another thread, as the “cure” for the health care system. Well, the article was already outdated.
About two dozen of the Walmart clinics have already closed, because they couldn’t make a profit.
Comment by Naismith — June 7, 2008 @ 6:52 am
Naismtih, I never said it as a ‘cure - all’ I said it covered the BASICS that many on here were saying they couldn’t get such as immunizations and asthma meds cheaply. It certainly does cover the ‘BASICS’..
The article was from 5 5/27/08 days ago on MSN money. It was just written and addressed this notion. 24 Walmart clinics have not closed, at least within the last few weeks (I did a check)…. so I”m not sure where you got your info from… but here is a CURRENT and direct link I post before…
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/LetWalMartFixUSHealthCare.aspx
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 8:02 am
Stephanie, I’m sorry you were offended by the silly aside. The statement was not in any way meant as a statement on you personally, the women on this group, or women generally. Remember, I said “we denizens…” That includes me as much as you. I put it in as a tongue-in-cheek sign that I recognized the previous statement “We may not agree yet on the levels or particulars, but now we’ve established a framework for meaningful conversation on solving the problem” was in one sense rather pompous. To think that we here discussing the issue in a heated series of comments FMH are going to solve the incredibly complex problem of just and compassionate health care when nobody else has in about a century of trying would be a bit arrogant, wouldn’t you say? It was not a misogynistic statement; I would have thrown in the same disclaimer on any blog. I have no doubt that members who participate on this blog could very well contribute to the solution. But we need to lighten up about it. That is all the parenthetical clause was trying to say. It may have done a poor job of making that point, but I stand by the advice–to myself as much as anyone.
Comment by Derek — June 7, 2008 @ 8:36 am
Well now that we have established that casper lives in some sort of dream world…maybe we can just ignore him. People don’t starve to death in America?
Seriously? Wanna tell that to people are starving in America??
Comment by Julie — June 7, 2008 @ 8:53 am
Julie,
They don’t Starve to Death, that’s different than going “hungry”.
There are multiple missions, multiple food banks, multiple places for the starving to do.
The only ones who DIE from starvationi are those babies and old people neglected by their caretakers. You will not hear of any homeless who have DIED from being hungry because that doesn’t happen in the U.S.
Casper is correct.
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 9:28 am
I’m amazed at how quick everyone is to attack Casper and others… Casper didn’t say people aren’t “hungry” in America, Casper said people don’t die from it. - which is true.
I think the meanness level is really high again on attacking… Julie could have said she disagreed, but to start personally attacking Casper about living in a dream world (when Casper is technically right)… wow…
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 9:32 am
You are probably correct, Elise. While many suffer hunger, I doubt there are many in the U.S. who die of starvation (there may well be a fair number of those who would die of starvation if other aspects of homelessness, such as exposure to the elements, didn’t kill them first…). It is unfair to conflate the two in attacking Casper.
I wonder how much the currently minimal number of starving would rise if the government safety net programs, which help prevent a great number of people from being at risk of hunger and starvation, were to eliminated as per libertarian ideology.
Comment by Derek — June 7, 2008 @ 10:15 am
Derek, yes, I went to bed thinking I had overreacted. I didn’t follow my rule #2 - seek not to be offended. I don’t know that the health care problem has been the exact same problem with the exact same solution for the past century. I suspect that if we had stuck with a more traditional insurance model (catastrophe) instead of going to managed care, that the costs would have remained lower, that fewer people would view ALL healthcare as an entitlement, and there would be fewer barriers to entry at this point so that we could have a more free market. So, I think we are cleaning up more messes than just solving a basic problem.
Comment by Stephanie — June 7, 2008 @ 10:36 am
Derek,
I’ve been thinking all week about this argument - (MoJo has helped tons). Let me propose something a bit abstract and see what people think.
First, let’s assume that all welfare/needy are people who are innocent of where they are at (I don’t assume that in real life, but for the sake of this exercise let’s give them ALL the benefit of the doubt.)
Second, let’s prioritize what is the most important… I acknowledge BOTH aspects are important, so it’s a matter of deciding what is MORE important…
That stated… see what you think of this…
Is it not allowable for people to die due to the not helping / (lack of charity) of others? Yes or No.
Is it SO ‘not allowable’ for people to die that we must FORCE all of society to not allow any people to die due to not helping / (lack of charity) of others? Yes or No.
It is my premise that while it is painful and very hard for our Father in Heaven to ‘allow’ people to die due to free agency of others, it happens all the time in the world. (Darfur/Holocaust/Ethiopia etc etc) He doesn’t STOP or prevent others from having agency and if they are callous and watch someone die, it happens… and they will be held accountable for it in the eternities. Christ spoke often about Giving freely and the need for Charity and Love. If Satan had his way, no one could starve… no one could sin… no one could CHOOSE to ignore helping another. Compulsory and Force… they don’t teach any one anything morally. If it’s deducted from my paycheck without me even seeing it or having the choice to donate it… have I learned anything about Charity?
Do you think HF and Jesus want others to force others to support the poor? Is compulsory anything what HF and Jesus are about? I think it was HF’s intention we LEARN what Charity means and do so freely, willingly, and those who are ’scrooges’ obviously will be held to that. - Unless, through AGENCY, they change their hearts and wallets. Obviously, HF knew that people would suffer because of Free Agency, but It is my belief that Free Agency of humans is SO IMPORTANT that HF decided that would be the price for it. Free Agency and not forcing anyone to ‘be charitable’ is more important to the ‘Plan’ than suffering watching suffering get ignored and die. Free Agency is the SOLE purpose we are here (other than to get a body).. and if one says it is more important that others not suffer than have agency, I would say… Lucifer would agree with you.
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
I need to clarify an end sentence I wrote…. here’s what I meant…
Free Agency and not forcing anyone to ‘be charitable’ is more important to the ‘Plan’ than forcing others to assist others.
It sucks.. that people can suffer in this life… it sucks that others can ‘ignore’ their pleas for help… but HF allows it to happen and doesn’t ‘force anything’ because in the end, that’s what this ‘test’ is all about.
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
What you are describing is what I think of as “minor” care. Yes, such clinics can provide such services in a timely manner to the public (even though sometimes it is inappropriate, such as people who insist on being seen for a sore throat immediately, even though their doctor said wait three days and see).
But I don’t consider those “basic” services. Basic services include physicals and routine screenings, which generally involve lab work, and thus are not provided by retail-based walk-in clinics.
The downside of those clinics–and why they are not a real solution– is that they have a very limited menu of services they offer, and they don’t keep comprehensive records. They often don’t look out for patterns of diagnosis or possible drug interactions–or if they do, they accomplish it by pestering your primary care doctor for information, who likely doesn’t have time to donate to answer questions from someone who is being paid to take care of you (!). So it might save time for individual consumers, but is more costly to the health care system.
I have great admiration for Jim Jubak when it comes to economic matters. He has literally helped me earn thousands of dollars with his stock market advice.
But health care is not his area, so I wouldn’t take one article as the final word.
Because of my paid work, I read a lot of health policy reports and blogs, and there has been discussion of these clinics for years, so I am not sure where I got the info but… before Walmart opened its own clinics this years, there were clinics in Walmart stores operated by health care companies. It is some of those clinics that were closed.
And the challenge to provide care and make a profit is not something new to us LDS. Back in the 1880s, the Relief Society opened the Deseret Hospital, which had to close its doors just a few years later due to financial woes.
Comment by Naismith — June 7, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
Naismith,
Perhaps you haven’t read the article, but Walmart, along with Google are attempting to do what ‘government’ has been
promising for a long time. Bush said it was a goal back in 2004
they want to have COMPRESENSIVE MEDICAL RECORDS available digitally. That would mean no more pestering anyone. Medicines taken at the touch of a button. Walmart is the first, along with Google to use digital records stored digitally. No more paper records at some office somewhere. This alone will save so much time and expense and make you be in charge of your records… not your doctor.
Also, by 2010, Walmart will open hundreds of more clinics, they’ve been in trials in a few states and met with success there. (Perhaps those other companies just don’t know how to keep it cost effective - but Walmart is the ruler in that dept.) They have 350 medicines available for $4 - generics on most popularly taken meds from diabetes to asthma to Birth Control.
Anyway, if my sons records are accessible to me at the touch of a button (with encription like most banks have for online banking) then it will be very easy to access history, check for patterns and also know drug interaction issues and potential abuse of medicines like antibiotics.
People here were complaining that easy “minor’ care, as you call it isn’t available cheaply. I’m showing that is a myth… and not only Walmart is seeing the need, but now King Soopers and also Walgreens are jumping on the competitive ‘minor’ care clinics.
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
The whole healthcare issue is far too complicated to be solved by anything mentioned (except Wal-Mart). I work in one medically-related field and have worked in an opposing one in the past and I have long said that what is needed is Wal-Mart General Hospital & Clinics.
That said, health insurance itself (NOT deregulation, as was previously stated but I forget by whom) is what’s at the base of the crisis (and yes, I do agree it’s a crisis) for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that it completely bypasses a market system of determining prices.
For instance, if you go to the ER and your bill is $1000 (arbitrary round numbers for the MoJo chick who needs a calculator to add 2+2). You have your co-pay of $100 and the insurance company pays its contracted rate of $400, making that visit a whopping $500.
If you go to the ER without insurance and your bill is $1000, your responsibility is $1000. Period, end of story. Now, you may choose not to pay it or to pay a portion of it, because they canNOT turn you away, but you don’t get that $500 discount the insurance company gets.
That has nothing to do with healthcare. It has to do with an insurance company playing both ends against the middle–and succeeding.
The other major problem I see (having worked both sides of the medical malpractice aisle) is that oftentimes, a doctor–and, by extension, a patient–is hamstrung by what insurance is willing to pay for. As long as bean counters make the decision on what care can be dispensed, they are making medical decisions and should be held accountable for such. In my opinion, this BS would stop if the bean counters were sued for medical malpractice AND charged with practicing medicine without a license. /rant on pet peeve
Wal-Mart General Hospital & Clinics would put paid to quite a few of the problems that health insurance causes simply by making healthcare costs transparent and equal. If Wal-Mart did it the way they do everything else, no one would stand for the prices having to be charged by the clinics and hospitals and they would not bother with insurance.
This comprehensive digital health care record is a long way off at the moment for a variety of reasons, but I’m not a fan of that, either. Feels a bit too Big Brotherish for my tastes.
Comment by MoJo — June 7, 2008 @ 2:48 pm
Please keep this civil and remember our comments policy. Calling into question the righteousness or gospel understanding of another commenter is NOT acceptable — even if you do add ’smileys’ after the fact.
Comment by Not Ophelia — June 7, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
Not Ophelia, if you’re referring to me, at no time did I mention anythign about someone’s righteousness… I use the term “you” generally… perhaps if you’d prefer “one” instead… I can try to remember… to me.. you and one can be used interchangable as they mean the same thing. Also, my argument was completely esoteric… and I stated as much.
Perhaps if I had say… If ‘one’ would prefer that all spirits were FORCED to care for eachother, then they might be agreeing with Lucifer.
Anyway, I don’t have nearly the animosity some due towards Lucifer, I rather understand him and believe he is Loved just like the rest of us..
(and I add smileys to almost all my posts..)
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
Heck.. reading back.. I DID say one… lol…
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
I’m not getting back into it, promise - but that is the scariest thing I have ever heard. Why in the world would I want a conglomerate like Wal-Mart to have my entire medical record available at the touch of a button?
I am working very closely at the moment with privacy concerns in health care. When I think of the way Wal-Mart could (and would) exploit those records for their own profit - perhaps selling portions of them on, definitely not securing them properly so that anyone who wanted to open them up could do so, even if they weren’t in the pharmacy section, definitely targetting their advertising at me because of my medical records - how is that possibly a reassuring thought or a “step forward” in anyone’s minds?
Really. If you believe that’s a good idea, you really need to research medical privacy a bit better. It’s damned scary.
Comment by Quimby — June 7, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
Bush’s goal is for the government to have it, not Wal-Mart. I’d trust WM before I’d trust Uncle Sam. Currently, WM isn’t the threat, Google is.
This isn’t a new idea; it’s been floating around since the social security number was introduced, to keep complete dossiers on American citizens. We’re just now seeing it because we now have the technology to implement it.
One of the problems I see with social programs is that one’s liberties are increasingly infringed along with the monies available for individual subsidies.
One hand giveth and the other taketh away or, as my dad used to say, “You live in my house, you play by my rules.” There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Comment by MoJo — June 7, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
Here’s what I don’t get: we (in the US at least) have a government that is designed with checks and balances, including some form of “democratic” say on specific policies in certain cases. And the libertarian types seem to imply that this is a LESS trustworthy caretaker than WALmart?
Walmart? Seriously? Walmart?
Comment by hero — June 7, 2008 @ 3:32 pm
You know, I don’t usually take potshots at people, even in passing or by inference. I don’t care to have them taken at me.
I was going to let this pass, but since Elise got called on the carpet for taking a swipe, I think it’s only fair.
If you work with health privacy issues, you would have known about Google’s datamining of health patient information and a patient’s obligation to OPT OUT if they don’t want it published.
I find it far scarier that you claim to be working in such a field, but you don’t know this.
Comment by MoJo — June 7, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
WM has no power to imprison me if I don’t comply with its policies. I’m not forced to give them money. I’m not forced to use WM at all and I mostly don’t when I don’t have to. I will go so far as to say that I pay MORE to shop at Target just to avoid WM, but that’s another issue.
Furthermore, we are not a democracy. We are a representative republic with fewer and fewer diverse choices as to the quality of the people we have to represent us, and further, who have specific agendas that have nothing to do with the people’s needs or wants.
WM can, at the very least, be trusted to give the consumer what it wants at a reasonable price. And I already said I didn’t want such a record anywhere. I wish people would read what is said instead of skimming and assuming and assigning motives that are incorrect.
Comment by MoJo — June 7, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
I’m implying nothing of the sort… I’m saying while Bush promised it years ago… all the red tape of government and how costly it was slowed it down. Walmart and Google are leaps ahead technological and have resources to invest in the infastructure.
It has nothing to do with LIbertarianism, it has to do with efficiency and capitalism. And if you read up on Google, I think it’s really cool that they are jumping ahead with this, because in the end, it will benefit all and medical costs completely.
You know what? The fusion reactor at the CERN is getting all these people saying it will destroy our world… Scary Scary… Throughout history EVERYTHING new was ’showcased’ as a danger or bad thing… I even remember someone saying how solar energy is horrible because it heats up our atmosphere…
before you freak out about what is down the pipeline, really research it… digital medical records WILL HAPPEN… whether by private (regulated) companies such as Google/Walmart or by the U.S. gov hiring such companies to do it. It will save so much money in health costs.
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
MoJo.. EXCELLENT point
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
1. Elise brought up Wal-Mart, not Google. Had she brought up Google I would’ve mentioned Google.
2. At no time was I even talking to you.
3. But now I am: I am so sick and tired of people making the wrong statement, “But we’re a Republican, not a democracy.” We are a respresentative democracy and a republic. Go back to Political Science 101.
4. And now I’m going to enjoy the rest of my long weekend and ignore this entire post.
Comment by Quimby — June 7, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
Elise, you said
Do you find any inherent contradiction between your assertion that you don’t give Those Who Lack a blanket benefit of the doubt in real life, when in your statements on the other post, you appeared to assume that Those Who Have do so as a result of honest work, and appropriate sacrifice? Do you not think it is equally as likely that Those Who Have arrived at their fortunes because they have a lower ethical bar regarding economic activity than others, or are just plain lucky? If we assume that the captain of finance and the poor pre-school teacher are both being justly rewarded for their decisions, effort, and sacrifice, Is this not a subtle–doubtless subconscious–social Darwinism?
In real life, aren’t we warned by King Benjamin about dire consequences of not giving the needy the benefit of the doubt?
You raise some very good points in your position about liberty. Liberty is indeed one of the most crucial aspects of the Gospel. But I believe you frame it inaccurately when you present it as such a dichotomy. Nobody is claiming we should, or even can, force exact equality in regards to social welfare or economic opportunity. No one is claiming that liberty is inconsequential. But we recognize that we sacrifice liberty whenever we are a part of any community. I am “forced” to pay for a number of items I may never directly use, from which I may never directly benefit, or which I may never consciously choose. We permit this for the good of society. I believe that the government has a legitimately strong (though not all-encompassing) role to play in such life-and-death issues as hunger, homelessness, education, and health-care. And don’t mistake, we are talking about life and death issues here. The conditions in the Gilded Age, when the nascent roots of Objectivist ideology were predominant, were deplorable. I see little reason to believe it would not become so again if libertarian-style politics were again to become ascendant. We can never eradicate suffering, but I believe government is justified in taking some basic steps to reduce it.
Comment by Derek — June 7, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
We are not A Republican, I agree.
Comment by MoJo — June 7, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
Quimby,
If you read my original post I said.. “Walmart, along with Google…”…..
And we are NOT a Democracy… if we were, the majority would have silenced the KKK, and we could have voting on who we want to kill. —- no, we are a republic where the rights of the minority will always take precident to the ‘desires’ of the majority.
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
Yes, Google and Wal-Mart have the resources to invest in the infrastructure. They also have an incentive to externalize their costs, ultimately on the rest of us, focusing on shareholders interest to the exclusion of all other stakeholders (and, particularly in the case of Wal-Mart, they have quite a track-record of doing so).
Comment by Derek — June 7, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
I know we aren’t a democracy, or Al Gore would have been president. That’s what the quote marks were for in my post up there. Quote marks indicate not fear, not sarcasm, but quotation, as in, SOMEbody says this, but I’m not claiming it. Like the phrase airline “food” or for that matter, “President” Bush.
Ah the nuances of punctuation….
Comment by hero — June 7, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Derek,
Here’s the beauty of capitalism costs vs. government costs… Guess what? You don’t have to shop at Walmart, nor are you charged for anything Google related. In fact, if you wanted to, you could hole up in a bunker with your guns and food storage and not contribute to any of the expense at all if you CHOSE… It’s again about Choice.. not force…
Hero, The democracy remarks were from Quimby’s posts, not yours…
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 4:07 pm
Indeed. Quimby was (mis)quoting me.
Comment by MoJo — June 7, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
Actually… in most cases you can… Unless you are talking about staples such as bread and eggs (which I could technically grow myself) I do not have to buy anything ‘corporate america’ tries to sell me on.
I have freedom to decide what I choose to buy or not buy. And if I think something is overpriced, such as a Walmart product, or DSL line… I need not buy it. No one (such as government) is twisting my arm, although they certainly beg. i.e. Bush begging us to buy American Cars after 9/11.
Comment by Elise — June 7, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
No one chooses the costs corporate entities externalize on them.
Comment by Derek — June 7, 2008 @ 4:40 pm