Okay. I was hoping for some sort of data showing the relative costs of unemployment benefits versus crime, but then I guess I forgot who I was talking to!
I can't find any data on that either, and I would guess that the reason for that is that crime and the effects of crime are very difficult to predict and even quantify. And in commercial enterprises that's not good. It's possible to do business in an unstable environment but it's much nicer to do so in a stable one. So there's that.
Correcto mundo! So in the absence of data, any claim that seeks to enforce intervention "for the greater" good is unfounded cannot be backed up by objective evidence and hence is immediately dismissed.
The default position in this case, is simply the absence of intervention or control, the natural state we are born in, if you will.
Which is why, when debating economic and ethical issues, you CANNOT quantify anything, and thus MUST debate from first principles and logic.
Remember the foundation of the "scientific" method is LOGIC and DEDUCTION. Otherwise any findings using empirical observation can be dismissed. Another point with the scientific method, is that the reason it is used is because of the consistancy of the physical world and that we can perform isolated experiments.
Since economics involves MAN, which unlike a rock can change is whim anytime he wants, AND it is not possible to make isolated experiments of the economy, you have to logically deduce everything.
I made a claim or statement of fact. I provided a logical reason to prove this statement to be true.
You cannot refute this. (Try
By trying you prove it!)
I'll give you an example of a self-detonating argument: "Language has no meaning." All you have to ask yourself is, did I understand what he said. If the answer is yes, then language has meaning.
LOGIC, try it sometime.
As for your suggestion about nice lifestyles, you imply there that crime stops being committed as soon as a certain level of lifestyle is reached.
Nope. Never made that implication. There are many things that influence crime, unless all those things disappear, you will have crime. One of those that seem to have an influence is poverty. But it is just one.
Central to this idea is the conviction that a person's morality is directly proportional to the amount of money that person has. A rather offensive point of view and also - completely wrong.
Nonsense... I SMELL A STRAWMAN! Actually see PD for my view on ethics, particularly my last post linking Stefan Molyneux's webinar.
Then you say that welfare will dissuade people from wanting to work, just after you logically 'prove' that people always act towards purposeful ends.
Yup. If they need something, they try and act to get it. If they don't then they have another greater need. Very, very few people work hard for the sake of working hard, I.E to feel good about themselves working hard. Incentives matter, sure that is not always financial, but when it comes to production and economic incentives, money tends to matter a lot.
But if people are living off benefits and avoiding work (as some people do) they aren't acting towards a purposeful end.
They are, their end is to be lazy and live off of others. So they don't do things like work, but they make sure they vote and cry and scream and stampede the minute you try take benefits away.
So either your logic is wrong or the welfare state is also a destroyer of logic, along with all the other evil that it causes.
Erm, no, you need to go take a course in logical deduction. People sitting on their ass all day, want to sit on their ass all day and do nothing. If they didn't want to sit on their ass all day, or rather if they had other preferences more important to them, they would act towards that.
Its kinda like a tribal Zulu King, sits on his ass with his millions given by the state (MY MONEY) doing nothing.
The main trouble though is that you show a very limited worldview. According to you hard work is always rewarded and poverty is only caused by laziness.
Nonsense, but if we don't produce food, we can't eat. So in order for us to be "materially" wealthy, we have to produce all those things. Anything that disincentives production does not help us achieve the goal of making enough stuff to go around.
Well - laziness or government regulations, of course. Which shows you're starting to get the idea that there are actually many, many reasons for people to be out of work, or poor, or simply not well-off enough to fund their full personal healthcare costs from their own savings.
Anything that disincentives production will have the effect of less production. It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to make that connection. And yes, some people aren't well off. Well guess what, I am not their slave. So you still aren't justified in using force and coercion to take my money to provide for other people.
But what your economic model seems to do is to discount those people and see them as a group who only costs money because they are given government assistance.
Nope. When a man voluntarily gives someone R2 for charity at the lights, he benefits as he feels better about himself, I.E. there is an altruistic gain from charity. And the guy at the robots gains R2, so it is a win-win.
When you have to take it by force, the guy who's money is taken views it as a loss (otherwise he would've given the money), and the guy at the robots has a gain. So its rather, I can demonstrate voluntary interaction and exchange enhances the wealth of society by demonstrating a win-win.
Where as you cannot demonstrate society is better off, because on the one side there is a gain and on the other a loss.
You don't say anything about the costs they would incur if there was no government assistance, and you cannot fathom the idea that looking after people might have benefits as well as costs. This is your major failing: that you don't take everything into account.
Actually I do. I don't need to measure every single financial cost, that implies that only money matters. Which is nonsense or that only money is valued by society, which is equally nonsensical. (Merely by arguing for the welfare state you reject this notion). All I know is that voluntary exchange = win, win. Coercive doesn't.
Sure there are consequences and costs of NOT giving up my money, but given the choice, since I am valuing those potential consequences, and VALUE IS SUBJECTIVE, by not giving up my money I am valuing the potential negative implications as less than giving up my money.
It's a big and complicated world out there, little buddy, and that's the way we like it because that complexity gives us the space and freedom to do what we want to do without having to constantly worry about the level of our bank balance.
Freedom = slavery
You are free because someone else isn't, the sooner you realise it the better.
It seems we all have an opinion and a solution. It's like screaming at the TV during a sports game.
