What is Your Definition of A Fair and Just Society ?

[Martell Spy]

24 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Well yes, there are reasons why purely libertarian societies are hard to find. I just wanted to point out that this position exists and is mostly self-consistent.

It's possible, but once we start going down this path, there is no chance at all that everyone will agree the implementation is fair. The general problem is extracting discrete values from a continuum. Suppose we all agree to the idea of a penalty. In this case, what should the penalty be? Is it something like 5% of the cost or more like 50%? And in either case, why 5% and not 4% or 6% or why 50% and not 49% or 51%?

The same thing happens with the idea of determining responsibility: can we be absolutely sure that the smoking led to the lung cancer? After all, non-smokers get lung cancer too, just much more rarely. And what do you do with, say, kidney cancer, which is also more likely in smokers, but only twice as likely and not 20 times (the latter is roughly the number for lung cancer)? And of course smoking is not the only contributing factor. Are we going to construct some ridiculously large matrix of causes, degrees of responsibility and the like? To get a fair and just society this way requires something rather close to omniscience.

Yes, and when you open up this can of worms, you then have to start talking about regulating weight problems, which is both widespread in the U.S. and certainly adding big time to healthcare costs. I don't think many want to actually tackle this, but it's really not very fair to target smokers and not overweight people. Also, some private companies have begun to target both of these groups in their employees.

[OldGimletEye]

On 12/24/2017 at 1:08 PM, Martell Spy said:

Okay, I'll attempt to address this. No need for Kings and Lords, just a bunch of white men in nice business suits.

So, in Libertaria, roads and bridges can be handled by the states. Note, this does not mean a complete slashing of federal funds for roads and bridges. Just a lot less. Also, the funds are block granted. This is important, because then the state governments can even use the funds in other areas than infrastructure if they wish.

Federal funds for education are not block granted, but are severely slashed. Also, a lot less regulations are attached to the funds. And if things fall apart in state eduction, perhaps corporations or even churches can step in.

We'll likely have some initiatives for private-funded toll roads and bridges as well.

Man, I'm smellin' the "freedom" already, reading this.

Just add:replace fiat money with libertarian fairy dust, oversized texas belt buckles, and Bitcoin, and I think I'll just pass out, with this overdose of "freedom" going on here.

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Man, I'm smellin' the "freedom" already, reading this.

Just add:replace fiat money with libertarian fairy dust, oversized texas belt buckles, and Bitcoin, and I think I'll just pass out, with this overdose of "freedom" going on here.

Yes, I always equated freedom with shitty roads and/or toll roads as well. I imagine like good libertarians we'll have  Jeeps or something though, so we'll be able to off-road and stuff. Likely we'll feel pretty masculine as well while doing this.

[LongRider]

4 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Man, I'm smellin' the "freedom" already, reading this.

Just add:replace fiat money with libertarian fairy dust, oversized texas belt buckles, and Bitcoin, and I think I'll just pass out, with this overdose of "freedom" going on here.

 

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Yes, I always equated freedom with shitty roads and/or toll roads as well. I imagine like good libertarians we'll have  Jeeps or something though, so we'll be able to off-road and stuff. Likely we'll feel pretty masculine as well while doing this.

Don't forget the guns and alcohol.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

 

Don't forget the guns and alcohol.

I've always said, no occasion is complete without a bottle of booze and a firearm.

[Altherion]

5 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Yes, and when you open up this can of worms, you then have to start talking about regulating weight problems, which is both widespread in the U.S. and certainly adding big time to healthcare costs. I don't think many want to actually tackle this, but it's really not very fair to target smokers and not overweight people. Also, some private companies have begun to target both of these groups in their employees.

But it is also unfair not to account for the various self-destructive behaviors -- why should one person be forced to pay for something that another deliberately broke? There isn't really a right answer to this; the only way out is overabundance.

[Werthead]

Quote

The quote that I most often remember by Margaret Thatcher: " The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people money"

Which was a pleasingly concise but ultimately meaningless soundbite. Conservatives in general, for example, have no problem using the average working person's money to subsidise not enforcing the collection of taxes on companies using UK territories as offshore tax havens, which is a vastly bigger problem than people using social services in times of need.

Historically the Conservative Party has also had no problem with taking taxpayer's money and using it to deliver boons for their paymasters through privatisation, tax cuts for the rich, hideously overpriced nuclear power stations and weapons we're likely to never use (to be fair New Labour didn't have a problem doing similar things as well, though, and actually did use them), not to mention undermining the NHS.

9 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

If I recall correctly the UK had about a 240% debt/GDP ratio right after World War 2. By the 1970s, before Thatchers', election that was down to about 50% or so. Now I think it was reasonable to assume that the UK was more "red", before her election. Not too shabby for a bunch of socialist.

An inconvenient fact, and one that always makes me chuckle, is that Conservative British governments have increased the national debt far more than Labour ones. It makes Tories splutter in incompetent rage when you mention that their claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility is pure horseshit, but it is nevertheless right there in the figures no matter if you go purely like for like (the Tories were in power for twice the length of time Labour was since WWII) or adjust for inflation. The figures even omit the post-2010 financial crash debt figures (since that was a global crisis rather than one originating solely in Britain) to show that the Tories are still less able to balance the books historically. If you include the post-2010 figures - and an argument is that you should to reflect the failure of the Conservative Party and the Coalition to get to grips with the situation and bounce back in the way several other economies did - then it gets far grimmer.

Quote

 

But it is also unfair not to account for the various self-destructive behaviors -- why should one person be forced to pay for something that another deliberately broke? There isn't really a right answer to this; the only way out is overabundance.

 

In the UK that is partly accounted for in taxation: smokers are endangering their own health and incurring a vastly higher cost to the NHS by smoking but they pay a substantial tax on cigarettes (which goes up pretty steeply every year), with the idea that it goes into extra NHS funding. The same with duty on alcohol although that is more modest (but then the health risks with alcohol are much less severe for most people).

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Werthead said:

Which was a pleasingly concise but ultimately meaningless soundbite. Conservatives in general, for example, have no problem using the average working person's money to subsidise not enforcing the collection of taxes on companies using UK territories as offshore tax havens, which is a vastly bigger problem than people using social services in times of need.

Historically the Conservative Party has also had no problem with taking taxpayer's money and using it to deliver boons for their paymasters through privatisation, tax cuts for the rich, hideously overpriced nuclear power stations and weapons we're likely to never use (to be fair New Labour didn't have a problem doing similar things as well, though, and actually did use them), not to mention undermining the NHS.

Man oh man. And I thought our conservatives (the US variety) were ridiculous. LOL (well they probably are worse).
 

23 hours ago, Werthead said:

An inconvenient fact, and one that always makes me chuckle, is that Conservative British governments have increased the national debt far more than Labour ones. It makes Tories splutter in incompetent rage when you mention that their claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility is pure horseshit, but it is nevertheless right there in the figures no matter if you go purely like for like (the Tories were in power for twice the length of time Labour was since WWII) or adjust for inflation. The figures even omit the post-2010 financial crash debt figures (since that was a global crisis rather than one originating solely in Britain) to show that the Tories are still less able to balance the books historically. If you include the post-2010 figures - and an argument is that you should to reflect the failure of the Conservative Party and the Coalition to get to grips with the situation and bounce back in the way several other economies did - then it gets far grimmer.

A few things.

1. I like this post just for the fact you used the term “pure horseshit”.

2. Thanks for that information. That’s an interesting bit.

3. As far as after 2010 goes, I think the austerity confidence fairy thing pushed by conservatives in the UK has largely been a disaster. From what I understand, the UK had a slower recovery from this last recession than it did in the 1930s, largely from the structural tightening. 

[GAROVORKIN]

7 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Man, I'm smellin' the "freedom" already, reading this.

Just add:replace fiat money with libertarian fairy dust, oversized texas belt buckles, and Bitcoin, and I think I'll just pass out, with this overdose of "freedom" going on here.

 If you took a country  according to  Libertarian principles, it would likely collapse  .

[GAROVORKIN]

This may sound a bit naive  and simplistic and unrealistic , so be it. But It would be nice if we could all simply learn to get along with one another.  I think alone would go a long way to helping creating more fair and just society.  Like that in that song Imagine by John Lennon.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

18 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 If you took a country  according to  Libertarian principles, it would likely collapse  .

I don't think you can sustain a libertarian system in a modern democracy. Eventually it would become apparent to the large majority of the population that they are getting seriously screwed over by the economic policies, and they'd start voting in representatives from other ideologies instead. This is arguably what is starting to happen in the USA right now, what with Trump and Bernie and everything, and that country is still quite far from being really libertarian. 

If you look back at the 19th century, when many Western countries were governed fairly closely to these ideas*, only the wealthy had full voting rights. 

 

*Well, when it came to economic policy at least. 

[felice]

On 24/12/2017 at 11:22 PM, Eggegg said:

The labour market isn't really that fair if talk about the value of the work. But then i don't see a better system than rewarding people on the basis of skill scarcity. Cleaning bins might be valuable to everyone, but its also a job literally anybody could do. Not very many people can be brain surgeons.

Do you think many people who're capable of being brain surgeons would rather spend their time cleaning bins? It doesn't seem likely to me. And just because (almost) anyone could do a job doesn't mean those who actually do it shouldn't be fairly compensated for their time and effort.

On 24/12/2017 at 11:22 PM, Eggegg said:

The ideal society would allow anyone to become a brain surgeon if that was what they REALLY wanted to do. At the moment there are too many obstacles in front of anyone wanting to do that, it requires already existing wealth or taking on massive debt.

Or at least give everyone the opportunity to try! Removing all external obstacles to study is great, but it's not possible to give everyone the type of brain and the physical dexterity required to succeed. But there are certainly people with the potential to be competent brain surgeons who are excluded from ever having the chance in our current society.

On 24/12/2017 at 11:22 PM, Eggegg said:

But also, some people simply don't want to work that hard, they want to enjoy their lives and maybe sitting around is about the extent of their ambition. Not due to depression, but due to them just not seeing the point of working. People should be allowed to do that, but it also shouldn't be something that is incentivised, and society shouldn't just enable that behaviour either.

That's a matter of what the society can afford. A UBI would have to be set at a level that doesn't remove the incentive to work to a point where not enough people are working enough hours to do what needs to be done. Though bear in mind that money isn't the only incentive to work.

 

On 25/12/2017 at 6:52 AM, Altherion said:

Well yes, there are reasons why purely libertarian societies are hard to find. I just wanted to point out that this position exists and is mostly self-consistent.

Flat Earthers and holocaust deniers also exist.

On 25/12/2017 at 6:52 AM, Altherion said:

Suppose we all agree to the idea of a penalty. In this case, what should the penalty be? Is it something like 5% of the cost or more like 50%? And in either case, why 5% and not 4% or 6% or why 50% and not 49% or 51%?

As Werthead mentions, tax on the source of risk, like cigarettes, seems rather more fair (since it's a matter of luck whether or not the people taking the risk get sick/hurt or not, and applying an additional penalty only to those who've already had bad luck isn't very fair). And deciding on rates is what democracy is for.

On 25/12/2017 at 6:52 AM, Altherion said:

The same thing happens with the idea of determining responsibility: can we be absolutely sure that the smoking led to the lung cancer? After all, non-smokers get lung cancer too, just much more rarely. And what do you do with, say, kidney cancer, which is also more likely in smokers, but only twice as likely and not 20 times (the latter is roughly the number for lung cancer)? And of course smoking is not the only contributing factor. Are we going to construct some ridiculously large matrix of causes, degrees of responsibility and the like?

No need for a matrix, just put a tax on any activity/product that's considered excessively risky and reasonable to regulate. Deciding what those are is democracy again. We don't need a 100% accurate calculation of all possible risks and costs to be reasonably fair and just; it needs to be balanced against what's practical and not overly intrusive. Eg requiring a paid permit for mountain climbing to contribute towards potential rescue and medical costs might be reasonable, requiring a permit for climbing a tree in your back yard isn't.

[Werthead]

24 minutes ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

If you look back at the 19th century, when many Western countries were governed fairly closely to these ideas*, only the wealthy had full voting rights. 

Indeed. That was the root of the 19th Century laissez faire doctrine, which ended up killing a million people in Ireland. It's astonishing that the ideology has kept creeping back.

[GAROVORKIN]

7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Indeed. That was the root of the 19th Century laissez faire doctrine, which ended up killing a million people in Ireland. It's astonishing that the ideology has kept creeping back.

 

Old bad ideas never die, they just fade into the background until they get rediscovered and revived by  a new generation.

[DireWolfSpirit]

On December 18, 2017 at 8:23 AM, GAROVORKIN said:

And in this  age political polarization, is such a thing still even achievable anymore ? I know this  a very unexciting question but, given the types political dialogue and and opinions   that ive observed here and in other places , I figured that it might perhaps  be worth a topic thread.

Thoughts? 

 

 

What is Your Definition of A Fair and Just Society ?

A fair and just society should uphold its promises, keep its responsibilities in deals made with citizens. Millions of Americans have had their paychecks deducted for decades on the promise that their return would be S.S., Pensions and retiree Health Insurance. Now that that very sizeable bill is coming due, "theives in the night" are scheming over ways to break that promise, to get out of holding up that end of the bargain.

A fair and just society would not let them get out of upholding these responsibilities.

Is such a thing achievable? Absolutely, though I have my concerns over whether the countries PTB, have the desire or integrity to follow through and actually uphold the deal they made when they decided to enact the payroll taxes. Im not certain our elected reps desire to be fair and just, they seem more concerned with rewarding the donor classes.

^^^And for that I blame the citizenry that repeatedely voted these piece of shits into office. Any country that would elect these abominable cretins, abdicated its hopes for a fair and just society at the ballot box.

[GAROVORKIN]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

What is Your Definition of A Fair and Just Society ?

A fair and just society should uphold its promises, keep its responsibilities in deals made with citizens. Millions of Americans have had their paychecks deducted for decades on the promise that their return would be S.S., Pensions and retiree Health Insurance. Now that that very sizeable bill is coming due, "theives in the night" are scheming over ways to break that promise, to get out of holding up that end of the bargain.

A fair and just society would not let them get out of upholding these responsibilities.

Is such a thing achievable? Absolutely, though I have my concerns over whether the countries PTB, have the desire or integrity to follow through and actually uphold the deal they made when they decided to enact the payroll taxes. Im not certain our elected reps desire to be fair and just, they seem more concerned with rewarding the donor classes.

^^^And for that I blame the citizenry that repeatedely voted these piece of shits into office. Any country that would elect these abominable cretins, abdicated its hopes for a fair and just society at the ballot box.

Well said.

[Seli]

On 24/12/2017 at 7:08 PM, Martell Spy said:

Okay, I'll attempt to address this. No need for Kings and Lords, just a bunch of white men in nice business suits.

So, in Libertaria, roads and bridges can be handled by the states. Note, this does not mean a complete slashing of federal funds for roads and bridges. Just a lot less. Also, the funds are block granted. This is important, because then the state governments can even use the funds in other areas than infrastructure if they wish.

Federal funds for education are not block granted, but are severely slashed. Also, a lot less regulations are attached to the funds. And if things fall apart in state eduction, perhaps corporations or even churches can step in.

We'll likely have some initiatives for private-funded toll roads and bridges as well.

That is not libertaria. That is the US 'my community is better than that one over there' thing that is somehow called libertarianism. Which is doubly weird since it both gets to claim nationalism (states-rights) and deny the nation at the same time.

It does have the advantage over libertarianism proper, because it is based on communities. It does seem utterly inefficient because it is based on the competition between communities, rather than communication.

[Martell Spy]

11 hours ago, Seli said:

That is not libertaria. That is the US 'my community is better than that one over there' thing that is somehow called libertarianism. Which is doubly weird since it both gets to claim nationalism (states-rights) and deny the nation at the same time.

It does have the advantage over libertarianism proper, because it is based on communities. It does seem utterly inefficient because it is based on the competition between communities, rather than communication.

It's very ironic we are discussing Libertarian societies in a thread of this title.

You are correct that this is not true, Libertaria. I'm sort of grafting it on the US states system. However, this has enormous benefits because it solves 2 major problems. One is the previously mentioned problem of keeping the peasants in line in Libertaria. And 2 is the problems any newly made country faces, as well as the problems poorly developed countries face. The US is a developed, rich, and semi-old country and already leans sorta libertarian. For what a tiny part of the populace Libertarians actually are, they have a ton of influence on how we all live here. State governments often lean pretty conservative, too, and thus libertarianish. This is even often the case in some blue states. 

And yes, I'm being pretty generous with having federal education and infrastructure funds at all. Maybe we can revert the states back to pre-union status, a confederacy if you will. My model, however, has the benefit of somewhat limited disruptions. The military, workplaces, and much of life goes on as normal, just with shittier roads and schools, and of course a shredded safety net.

Also, on the subject of keeping the peasants in line in Libertaria, I think some people greatly underestimate what it will take for American peasants to revolt in 2017 and going forward. Violent crime nation wide has been way down in recent decades. My theory is it's all the electronics, screens, and Internet do it. I think there's a sort of culture change too,

WorldViews
Liberland, a self-proclaimed country in Eastern Europe, hopes for recognition from Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/22/liberland-a-self-proclaimed-country-in-eastern-europe-hopes-for-recognition-from-president-trump/?utm_term=.90f8ea968fa0

However. We are are far less violent creatures than Americans of past decades, generally speaking. Yes I know that's laughable coming from the gun capital of the developed world with the mass gun killings. That is not the reality of America I'm familiar with though, it's something that I see in media. People are a lot less violent these days is my personal experience, at least in my region. So people should not be complacent about the Koch brothers and their ilk implementing their evil agenda, although we did see some limits of it with Obamacare repeal attempts.

 

 

 

[Isalie]

On 2017-12-24 at 6:40 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I think there are three ways to go:

Libertarian: where the individual is the focus of all rights and responsibilities and the collective is ignored.

Communitarian:  where communities are empowered and individuals have the ability to move between communities when they don’t care for the communities’ standards and controls.  This creates small scale collective action bit leaves the individual free to move between communities.

Collective: Where individual desires are ignored and the collective good is the sole focus of society.

Obviously there are sub permutations and combinations of each that could be made.

I don’t think any of them are perfect and all involve trade offs depending upon what the individuals and groups involve want.

there will always be tension between individual desires and collective action.

This is fine i guess, except for the idea that individuals would leave and be embraced in new communities, people are rarely welcoming towards outcasts.. Also, as far as individual freedom goes, om pretty sure your number three is way better than the other two.

[mankytoes]

On 24/12/2017 at 10:15 AM, Eggegg said:

If we were talking about extreme equality, where say if I worked my whole life to make a load of money but I cannot use that money to provide for my children or give them a head start, then would I have any incentive to work hard in the first place? Its very debatable, and I'd say no. 

If this is true, people without children should work significantly less hard than those with children. Is there any evidence to support this? There's still lots of reasons to work hard- material comforts, social status, desire to support partners, parents, etc.

There's no point in abolishing private schools, because most of the parents would just send their kids abroad. We would just lose out overall. But damn, I wish there was, nothing entrenches inequality like private schools. It's not just the difference in quality of education, but the segregating of society by class.