[QUOTE=carcarcargo;36386865]And under a proper free education system you could go to that college and get that degree even if you were poor. Of course America doesn't have a proper free education system which is a problem.[/QUOTE]
So you're arguing that in order to fit the regulations that the government place, we should pay more taxes to the government in order to obtain an education that allows us to fit the regulation and obtain the job?
[editline]18th June 2012[/editline]
That sounds strange, sorry if that was a bit of a tongue-twister.
[QUOTE=Zally13;36386918]So you're arguing that in order to fit the regulations that the government place, we should pay more taxes to the government in order to obtain an education that allows us to fit the regulation and obtain the job?
[editline]18th June 2012[/editline]
That sounds strange, sorry if that was a bit of a tongue-twister.[/QUOTE]
Well it's the best way of teaching people advanced skills so yeah, pretty much.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;36386784]Yes they'll educate people for lesser jobs, but when a poor person wants to say, become a lawyer, he's not going to stand a chance against those with more privileged private school backgrounds. Public schools are the only way of bring about some form of equal opportunity[/QUOTE]
You're just failing to see the mutual gain that can be realized in educating people. The main reason private education is so exorbitantly expensive is because it's not a competitive market: there's hardly any money in it because there's basically a state monopoly on education.
Let's say I'm really fucking good at educating people and making them employable. I can do it efficiently and quickly. I have a skill that is valuable to both uneducated people and potential partners of newly educated people. Since I'm so efficient at what I do I can afford to have competitive prices (up to the point where I don't feel the trade benefits me) which would be a requirement if there's more than one person offering a similar service to me. You know what prevents people from doing certain things, such as starting competing businesses? The state. In a free market nobody can stop you from doing something unless it's physical violence/threats thereof.
How wealthy you are will converge with how valuable other people find your labour. The only people who need to be worried are those who are incapable of providing society with the value of whatever wealth they want to accumulate, which is exactly how it should be.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;36386947]Well it's the best way of teaching people advanced skills so yeah, pretty much.[/QUOTE]
I really disagree.
I have learned MANY more skills outside of school than in. The internet provides a way to obtain any skill you want in a free manner.
I would say my most valuable skill would be the ability to program, and I haven't taken a single class in school for that. The majority of my mathematics was taught online as well. The thing is, I could gain money by putting these skills to work. I shouldn't be forced to go to a school to get a license to use them, although that's what's commonly happening.
[QUOTE=QuikKill;36386002]Why? Why do you have the right to spend my money?[/QUOTE]
While no one has the right to use your money, how do you get your money? Through your job I assume. How did you get your job? I suppose you got the education you needed. Where did you get your education - probably at a state-run school. I'm not saying this [I]necessarily[/I] is true for you, but it applies to MANY people. These schools are state-run, and thus they run on taxes. Now before you say "why should anyone use my money?", think about the costs of your education. Now, either from the education you got, or start paying that whole sum. That's a lot of money.
We have also seen that when nations really took off was when most people got an education - people not getting an education meant that the social mobility was very low, and that means that whatever job your father had, you got. This was't very competetive, and when the state started paying for it, not only did it get cheaper, it also got more widely available. By far. Now, look at the cost of American health insurance:
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Total_health_expenditure_per_capita%2C_US_Dollars_PPP.png[/img]
If that was made universal and not private, it would be loads cheaper for most people, and poor people would get better chances in life, thus further increasing socail mobility.
Just look at Sweden, despite having an incredibly high (by US standards) tax rate, they're higher on the World Economic Forums Global Competetiveness Report (page 310 for Sweden, 340 for the US): [url]http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalCompetitivenessReport_2010-11.pdf[/url]
Now, if you look on the US' scores, the main thing dragging them down are the basic requirements. These guys have got it down, and if they think that's a restriction for the economic, it most probably is. While it would cost a good deal, it probably wouldn't cost you much personally. And you already pay a boatload for all kinds of stuff you don't personally need anyway. And if you looked at the chart telling you about costs, you would see that it would probably benefit you more than anything. Especially considering that the US health care quality isn't even in top 10, it's number 24.
[QUOTE=Zally13;36387057]I really disagree.
I have learned MANY more skills outside of school than in. The internet provides a way to obtain any skill you want in a free manner.
I would say my most valuable skill would be the ability to program, and I haven't taken a single class in school for that. The majority of my mathematics was taught online as well. The thing is, I could gain money by putting these skills to work. I shouldn't be forced to go to a school to get a license to use them, although that's what's commonly happening.[/QUOTE]
This is a huge problem with higher education, too. I'm basically paying tuition fees just so I can access journals online and have someone relay the information to me in a lecture theatre (plus a piece of paper officially stating that I understand the shit out of all of these journals). If the information was freely accessible (which it really could be) we wouldn't have to pay £9000 a year.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36387024]You're just failing to see the mutual gain that can be realized in educating people. The main reason private education is so exorbitantly expensive is because it's not a competitive market: there's hardly any money in it because there's basically a state monopoly on education.
Let's say I'm really fucking good at educating people and making them employable. I can do it efficiently and quickly. I have a skill that is valuable to both uneducated people and potential partners of newly educated people. Since I'm so efficient at what I do I can afford to have competitive prices (up to the point where I don't feel the trade benefits me) which would be a requirement if there's more than one person offering a similar service to me. You know what prevents people from doing certain things, such as starting competing businesses? The state. In a free market nobody can stop you from doing something unless it's physical violence/threats thereof.
How wealthy you are will converge with how valuable other people find your labour. The only people who need to be worried are those who are incapable of providing society with the value of whatever wealth they want to accumulate, which is exactly how it should be.[/QUOTE]
No, an employer will not want to pay for peoples education. This might work in low level work, but when you get to higher level work like law, higher level business and what not, people are going to employ those who are already educated, not spend money educating someone who is uneducated.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;36387126]No, an employer will not want to pay for peoples education. This might work in low level work, but when you get to higher level work like law, higher level business and what not, people are going to employ those who are already educated, not spend money educating someone who is uneducated.[/QUOTE]
But why not?! You need to attack this premise: there is value in educating the uneducated, even in higher employment (doctors, etc). If there is value in it, it can conceivably be traded for, in a free market.
However I think the premise stands on its own. There's value in it because they want to be a doctor or whatever, and the world needs doctors.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36387149]But why not?! You need to attack this premise: there is value in educating the uneducated, even in higher employment (doctors, etc). If there is value in it, it can conceivably be traded for, in a free market.[/QUOTE]
There isn't if your doctors are willing to pay to educate themselves, meaning only those who can afford an education will get higher end jobs and thus poorer people will be confined to low end jobs.
If you desire someone to expend an absolute shitload of labour in educating you to be a doctor, and enable you to have this greatly sought after skillset to trade with, you should be willing to work your way up and make yourself valuable enough to entitle you to the labour required. I don't understand how anyone can feel [I]entitled[/I] to having so much labour spent on them without necessarily ensuring you're valuable enough.
Admitedly it's hard to imagine in todays society, and I agree, it wouldn't work without an absolute fucktonne of social mobility. But social mobility will be previlant only when [I]labour[/I] is the thing society values; not pieces of paper like money or property writs.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36387264]If you desire someone to expend an absolute shitload of labour in educating you to be a doctor, and enable you to have this greatly sought after skillset to trade with, you should be willing to work your way up and make yourself valuable enough to entitle you to the labour required. I don't understand how anyone can feel [I]entitled[/I] to having so much labour spent on them without necessarily ensuring you're valuable enough.
Admitedly it's hard to imagine in todays society, and I agree, it wouldn't work without an absolute fucktonne of social mobility. But social mobility will be previlant only when [I]labour[/I] is the thing society values; not pieces of paper like money or property writs.[/QUOTE]
What? People need skills before they can be valuable and for the most part high end skills are acquired through education, if they can't afford this education then they can't become valuable. Companies will not pay to educate these people, they'll just employ people who's parents payed to have them educated privately.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;36387318]What? People need skills before they can be valuable and for the most part high end skills are acquired through education, if they can't afford this education then they can't become valuable. Companies will not pay to educate these people, they'll just employ people who's parents payed to have them educated privately.[/QUOTE]
Hardly anyone has no value. Even the least valuable people (excluding those with certain disabilities maybe) are capable of producing something another person wants. And if they can't even do that, what entitles them to have hundreds of hours of work off the backs of lecturers? They have to at least have the POTENTIAL for value, otherwise there's absolutely no point in trying to train them to do stuff. You could strike up contracts, like, "if I can make you employable as a doctor, you give me so-and-so".
Also, people who are uneducated will be easier to negotiate with. You could think of them as cheap investments, as opposed to those who have already received education and are therefore more valuable to society. If there's a way of making it valuable, someone will come along and make it so, if they're not being prevented from doing so. And if it can't be made valuable, it shouldn't be done in the first place.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36387466]Hardly anyone has no value. Even the least valuable people (excluding those with certain disabilities maybe) are capable of producing something another person wants. And if they can't even do that, what entitles them to have hundreds of hours of work off the backs of lecturers?
Also, people who are uneducated will be easier to negotiate with. You could think of them as cheap investments, as opposed to those who have already received education and are therefore more valuable to society. If there's a way of making it valuable, someone will come along and make it so, if they're not being prevented from doing so. And if it can't be made valuable, it shouldn't be done in the first place.[/QUOTE]
So essentially, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, as is always the case with the free market, where employers can pay heir employees pennies due to almost no regulation what so ever.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;36387498]So essentially, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, as is always the case with the free market, where employers can pay heir employees pennies due to almost no regulation what so ever.[/QUOTE]
Then the employees should go start their own cooperative, if they're the ones producing the valuable goods. If you're not being adequately compensated for your labour, stop labouring. People need to learn to fucking negotiate or they [I]will[/I] be exploited. That's life. If all of the labourers all recognise that their product is worth more than they're being given, they should tell whoever's negotiating their deal that they're not going to be compensated so poorly any more. Statism naturally alienates you from your product, which is terrible for you as a labourer. You own your labour: sell it for whatever you want.
An employer is powerless if the employees refuse to alienate themselves from their product. It's a negotiation.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36387591]Then the employees should go start their own cooperative, if they're the ones producing the valuable goods. If you're not being adequately compensated for your labour, stop labouring. People need to learn to fucking negotiate or they [I]will[/I] be exploited. That's life. If all of the labourers all recognise that their product is worth more than they're being given, they should tell whoever's negotiating their deal that they're not going to be compensated so poorly any more. Statism naturally alienates you from your product, which is terrible for you as a labourer. You own your labour: sell it for whatever you want.
An employer is powerless if the employees refuse to alienate themselves from their product. It's a negotiation.[/QUOTE]
They don't have a choice, people work to stay alive, which would be absolutely fundamental in a free market society like you're describing, meaning that if you won't work for that wage, chances are someone else will leaving you with no job. Do you honestly think that the people in Chinese sweat shops enjoy being exploited?
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;36387672]They don't have a choice, people work to stay alive, which would be absolutely fundamental in a free market society like you're describing, meaning that if you won't work for that wage, chances are someone else will leaving you with no job. Do you honestly think that the people in Chinese sweat shops enjoy being exploited?[/QUOTE]
Admittedly in cases like that they need some sort of simultaneous class consciousness; that will enable them to negotiate their compensation. But hey, I know what I'm proposing won't work without an intellectual revolution if a massive kind; I never pretended it would. They're selling their product for less than it's worth ultimately, though.
I envisage the employee/employer relationship being totally forgotten after a while in a free market, since cooperatives are the most rewarding, mutually beneficial business models. People just need to recognise that they own their labour, and the current economic climate does everything to alienate people from it.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36387751]Admittedly in cases like that they need some sort of simultaneous class consciousness; that will enable them to negotiate their compensation. But hey, I know what I'm proposing won't work without an intellectual revolution if a massive kind; I never pretended it would. They're selling their product for less than it's worth ultimately, though.
I envisage the employee/employer relationship being totally forgotten after a while in a free market, since cooperatives are the most rewarding, mutually beneficial business models. People just need to recognise that they own their labour, and the current economic climate does everything to alienate people from it.[/QUOTE]
Education aside, this doesn't justify a private healthcare system where people are left to die ifthey can't pay for the needed drugs.
Well many people don't believe someone else's unrelated misfortune justifies theft.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36388350]Well many people don't believe someone else's unrelated misfortune justifies theft.[/QUOTE]
It's not theft, and since it's for a good cause I feel it is wholly justified.
Of course it's theft. It's appropriation of resources through means of physical coercion. What else is theft, if not that? How about if 5 people all need replacement organs or they'll die, but there's no organ donors available. A doctor realises one of his healthy patients has all 5 organs, but he has to kill him to harvest his organs. Only 1 person dies, as opposed to 5 people. Do the ends justify the means in this instance? If not, how come they do in the case of money reallocation?
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36388567]Of course it's theft. It's appropriation of resources through means of physical coercion. What else is theft, if not that? How about if 5 people all need replacement organs or they'll die, but there's no organ donors available. A doctor realises one of his healthy patients has all 5 organs, but he has to kill him to harvest his organs. Only 1 person dies, as opposed to 5 people. Do the ends justify the means in this instance? If not, how come they do in the case of money reallocation?[/QUOTE]
Well no they're paying for the various services provided by the government such as roads, sewage systems and other essentials. As for your analogy, nobody is dying in regards to universal health care so there's no moral reason not to have it, bar greedy privileged twats who see their money as more valuable than people.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;36388601]Well no they're paying for the various services provided by the government such as roads, sewage systems and other essentials. As for your analogy, nobody is dying in regards to universal health care so there's no moral reason not to have it, bar greedy privileged twats who see their money as more valuable than people.[/QUOTE]
Just because they're being given something it doesn't mean it's not theft. That's like me kidnapping you and expecting you to pay me for the food I've given you. It wasn't supposed to be an analogy to healthcare. It's an argument designed to question why certain resources can be reallocated (money, in the case of taxes), but others can't. You have to either agree that harvesting the man of his 5 organs is just, or find a reason why money reallocation should be treated differently to organ reallocation.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36388567]Of course it's theft. It's appropriation of resources through means of physical coercion. What else is theft, if not that? How about if 5 people all need replacement organs or they'll die, but there's no organ donors available. A doctor realises one of his healthy patients has all 5 organs, but he has to kill him to harvest his organs. Only 1 person dies, as opposed to 5 people. Do the ends justify the means in this instance? If not, how come they do in the case of money reallocation?[/QUOTE]
Theft is OK as long as it's justified. Fuck static moral codes. Let the old world, and it's primitive system of moral codes crumble down.
It's OK to steal $1000 from a very rich person and use this money to buy some food for a starving person.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36388350]Well many people don't believe someone else's unrelated misfortune justifies theft.[/QUOTE]
I think taking a small portion (and it is scaled to be fair if the system isn't broken) from someone who has either earned, cheated or obtained a massive fortune, to feed it into a system to ensure that people who either cannot do this, or have no chance of doing it survive, is entirely justified. Keeping people alive at the minor expense of a collective income is hardly an atrocity. Letting them die because they don't have money? Yeah, that's pretty despicable.
Even in your "perfect" systems where a company may have a option for lower incomes, it doesn't mean that everybody could afford it still. The money spent on an emergency surgery could well be the money a family needs to live off of. Where the money taken in small amounts (relatively) through taxes means they could still get that emergency surgery, but have money to put food on the table. Sure taxes might mean less money overall in the long run, but people can adapt their spending for that kind of circumstance and survive, a sudden loss of masses of money on the other hand cannot be adapted to as easily.
[QUOTE=GenPol;36388669]Theft is OK as long as it's justified. Fuck static moral codes. Let the old world, and it's primitive system of moral codes crumble down.[/QUOTE]
I hate moral codes as much as the next guy. I'll stand up and say I'm basically a moral nihilist. I don't think theft is wrong because of some ethical theory I adopt. I just think it's irrational to think the theft of your labour can be legitimate. No ethical theory to speak of.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36388668]Just because they're being given something it doesn't mean it's not theft. That's like me kidnapping you and expecting you to pay me for the food I've given you. It wasn't supposed to be an analogy to healthcare. It's an argument designed to question why certain resources can be reallocated (money, in the case of taxes), but others can't. You have to either agree that harvesting the man of his 5 organs is just, or find a reason why money reallocation should be treated differently to organ reallocation.[/QUOTE]
Well it's not theft because it's taxes, which is why they're two separate things, but regardless of semantics taxes are absolutely justified since without them society could not function. As for Organ reallocation, a person dies, that is why it is wrong, nobody dies during the taxing system.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36388705]I hate moral codes as much as the next guy. I'll stand up and say I'm basically a moral nihilist. I don't think theft is wrong because of some ethical theory I adopt. I just think it's irrational to think the theft of your labour can be legitimate. No ethical theory to speak of.[/QUOTE]
"I just think it's irrational to think the theft of your labour can be legitimate."
This means that you place an infinitely negative value on theft during your moral analysis. My value of theft would be a negative but finite value. I would say it would be OK to steal $1000 from a rich person, buy food supplies with it, and then give it to a starving person.
Theft can be fully justified. And if you don't believe it can be, that's OK. One can't argue over highly subjective values too much.
I mean under this logic private health care is also theft, since the person is forced to either pay for the treatment or die.
[QUOTE=hexpunK;36388699]I think taking a small portion (and it is scaled to be fair if the system isn't broken) from someone who has either earned, cheated or obtained a massive fortune, to feed it into a system to ensure that people who either cannot do this, or have no chance of doing it survive, is entirely justified. Keeping people alive at the minor expense of a collective income is hardly an atrocity. Letting them die because they don't have money? Yeah, that's pretty despicable.
Even in your "perfect" systems where a company may have a option for lower incomes, it doesn't mean that everybody could afford it still. The money spent on an emergency surgery could well be the money a family needs to live off of. Where the money taken in small amounts (relatively) through taxes means they could still get that emergency surgery, but have money to put food on the table. Sure taxes might mean less money overall in the long run, but people can adapt their spending for that kind of circumstance and survive, a sudden loss of masses of money on the other hand cannot be adapted to as easily.[/QUOTE]
I've said it before and I'll say it again: What's wrong with voluntary taxation? You pay the tax, you get healthcare should you need it. Why should you be entitled to something if you're not willing to invest in it? It boggles my mind that someone can feel so entitled. Why should someone spend their life training to be a doctor, thousands of hours training and educating themselves, hours and hours preparing/conducting surgery, if they're not being compensated? Likewise, why should somebody be forced to pay a doctor through those thousands of years of labour?
I really don't think the world would be "better" if such entitlements are given by default. Voluntary taxation would spread the cost of healthcare, etc, out among everyone consenting to it in exactly the same way national theft does, and it wouldn't have to do it with physical violence.
[QUOTE=Robbobin;36388817]I've said it before and I'll say it again: What's wrong with voluntary taxation? You pay the tax, you get healthcare should you need it. Why should you be entitled to something if you're not willing to invest in it? It boggles my mind that someone can feel so entitled. Why should someone spend their life training to be a doctor, thousands of hours training and educating themselves, hours and hours preparing/conducting surgery, if they're not being compensated? Likewise, why should somebody be forced to pay a doctor through those thousands of years of labour?
I really don't think the world would be "better" if such entitlements are given by default. Voluntary taxation would spread the cost of healthcare, etc, out among everyone consenting to it in exactly the same way national theft does, and it wouldn't have to do it with physical violence.[/QUOTE]
But the doctors are compensated with their rather hefty wages which they still have under a universal healthcare system, it's just not extortionate like when you leave it to the free market.
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