MorgothBauglir
Community Member
"There's no such thing as free lunch"--Milton Friedman, Nobel-prize-winning economist. "If socialists understood economics, they wouldn't be socialists"--Friedrich Hayek, another Nobel-prize-winning economist. "Government...is but a necessary evil..."--Thomas Paine. These three quotes sum up my politics. I've defended Capitalism dozens of times here. It is time for me to bring up another defense of capitalism, the fact that every single great economist in history is a capitalist: Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Frank Knight, George Stigler, Gary Becker, and even John Maynard Keynes. Search them up. Read their writings. Trust these actual noble laureates and intellectuals, and trust what these experts say, about how Capitalism does truly improve the plight of the common man.
MorgothBauglir · commented on 28 posts
about 3 years ago
If you accept Kant's view that the Categorical Imperative, which is absolute, prohibits theft, then that stealing action is immoral. Kant's philosophy was merely a law by which we interpret and judge the morality of others, what ought to be. Nevertheless, Locke doesn't suffer from these limiations. If you accept Locke's view, that those who breach the social contract should be punished, then stealing is immoral. Regardless of which philosophy you choose, neither philosophy condones theft, and both regard it as a blatant infringement upon negative rights.
Apologies. Allow me to alter my views in accordance with your input (after all, such is the entire point of intellectual discussion). Nevertheless, accept either the Law of Nature or the Categorical Imperative; both declare that it is immoral to steal if you're starving.
MorgothBauglir · upvoted 12 items
about 3 years ago
Well, we're moving here now. In regards to the categorical imperative, the categorical imperative follows the law of nature, which is this: "...the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom: for in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom: for liberty is, to be free from restraint and violence from others; which cannot be, where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists: (for who could be free, when every other man’s humour might domineer over him?) but a liberty to dispose, and order as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property…and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own." I think I definitely can have it both ways.
Firstly, B is not being coerced as there is no active threat against him. He is starving. No one robbed him of his food. If he, say, accidentally burned it, would you call that coercion? The circumstance is unfavorable towards him, and compelled him to seek that trade. That is not coercion. That circumstance is not immoral. Accepting that trade on the breadseller's part is not immoral. If you were that breadseller, what do you think would be more moral: selling that bread, as he begged you to do, or don't sell him the bread? Secondly, let's use a separate example: I go to the bookstore and trade a dollar for a book I want. In this circumstance, is voluntary exchange and the subjective theory of value not creating wealth? Thirdly, your entire argument is a complete rejection of established economic fact; that is, voluntary exchange creates wealth, and wealth is subjective. If I don't understand Wave-Particle Duality, I still accept it, as it is established fact. If you don't understand economic fact, and refuse to accept it, that just ties back to my first comment so long ago: so many self-proclaimed "intellectual" college-educated millenials are engaging in the anti-intellectual of rejecting established economic fact.