XPost: alt.philosophy, alt.politics.socialism, alt.politics   
   From: plato5@dreft.org   
      
   mark.evins@gmail.com wrote:   
   > On Jul 2, 2:53 pm, Roger Johansson  wrote:   
   >> On Jul 2, 9:11 pm, J.H.Boersema wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> Money does not cause violence, money is being stolen because it has   
   >>> "value." If you remove money, other things would still have value,   
   >> If everybody has equal right to value we will all own the same amount   
   >> of value.   
   >> You may want a very big and valuable house, somebody wants a big   
   >> sailing boat he can live on, I may want a small apartment in town and   
   >> a nice summer house and a small sailing boat, and we can all get cars   
   >> of different values for free, but we cannot register more property   
   >> than anybody else, the same maximum limit for everybody.   
   >>   
   >>> these will be stolen. Money is a tool that makes trade more easy:   
   >> Trading is not a good idea to base a society on, because some people   
   >> have nothing to trade with. There are people in Africa who suffer from   
   >> horrible deseases and cannot get the medicines they need.   
   >>   
   >> If each of them owned 100 kg gold today, they would get the medicines   
   >> they need within 48 hours.   
   >   
   > Trade is inevitable because it's necessary.   
   > The theoretical idea that everyone "owns" the same "value" of property   
   > doesn't speak at all to what any person posesses at any given time. If   
   > my neighbor is a furniture craftsman and I need a chair, do I simply   
   > walk over and take a chair?  He can't "own" any more value than anyone   
   > else, so he... what?... only makes furniture specifically for someone?   
   > Can't practice his job after he has produced a set limit of goods   
   > until enough people come and take things away? Keeps practicing his   
   > work and builds up a huge volume of inventory, thus having material   
   > far in excess of his "limit"?   
      
   In real life building your stock up to high would be expensive and unwise.   
   I was a jewelry maker once, I know.   
      
   >   What if he makes crappy furniture that no one wants? Does he get   
   > additional real estate to house all of his finished works?   
   >   Who do you "register" property with, who administers this   
   > registration and who enforces the limits and by what authority?   
   >    If everyone can do what they want, then there is no authority to   
   > enforce limits; that would infringe on people's right to "do whatever   
   > they want". If people have the right to "do whatever they want",  who   
   > justifies interfering when someone decides to take over someone else's   
   > land in order to put in a swimming pool? Or have a larger garden?   
   >   
   >   Let's say the pot smoking guitar player wants a particular guitar   
   > but he already has his limit of property. What then? Who prevents him   
   > from going and taking that new guitar? On what authority? He can do   
   > whatever he likes and no one has a right to interfere with him, right?   
      
   So long your freedom and rights is not placing limits on the freedom and   
   rights of others you free to do as you please.   
      
   > Let's say that what I really need is some antibiotics, and my neighbor   
   > three doors down makes them. But he doesn't have any that he's willing   
   > to give away.   
      
   The ancient Greeks went through this.   
   " A doctor must help a sick person even if that person has no money to   
   pay him ".   
   If a woman falls down would you help her up only if she is young and   
   good looking?   
   Ethics is about doing the right thing even if there is no personal gain   
   in this.   
      
   Once I was hungry and a passerby took note.   
   He bought me some food.   
   I wanted to repay him somehow.   
   He said I don't need too but if some day I met some hungry person and I   
   was financially better of then now I should do to him as he did to me.   
   By him some food.   
   I think thats what social consciousness is about.   
      
   > So I persuade him to let me have some antibiotics in   
   > exchange for a lab bench made by my furniture making neighbor, and he   
   > agrees to make one in exchange for the materials to make it, being as   
   > he has reached his limit in "property value" and cannot (for some   
   > reason) get the materials to build the lab bench for the chemist so   
   > that I can have some antibiotics.   
   >   By the time that's all worked out, I'm either well without the   
   > antibiotics or dead from the disease.   
      
   We do need money or something similar to exchange goods and services.   
   I draw once my own money but nobody wanted to participate.   
   There are people with alternative money in Australia and elsewhere but   
   from what I know this only works up to a thousand people.   
      
   >   AND, your description of Utopia would appear to make the whole set   
   > of trades necessary for me to get the antibiotics "against the   
   > rules",  which are administered in an undefined way and enforced in an   
   > undefined manner.   
   >   
   > I think you need to be more clear in what it is that you want, how you   
   > want it to work and how it's to be administered. Just saying that   
   > society ought to abolish money and laws in favor of everyone doing   
   > what they want to do and pronouncing that it would all work out is   
   > juvenile at best.   
   >   
   >>>  We need to deal with free-loaders.   
   >> No, because who knows who is a freeloader?   
   >> Some young guy who spends all his time playing the guitar and smoking   
   >> pot, is he a freeloader? How do you know if maybe in the future he   
   >> will be a world famous guitarist who will make billions of people   
   >> happy?   
   >>   
   >> There are already billions of "freeloaders", who do nothing useful at   
   >> all.   
   >> The world gets along fine anyway.   
   >>   
   >> how do you propose we should force chess players like Kasparov and   
   >> Karpov to do some useful work, in a mine or building roads? Would you   
   >> use a whip, or threaten them economically, like you will have to sleep   
   >> out in the snow and you won't get any food unless you do what *I*   
   >> consider to be a useful work?   
   >>   
   >>> What will happen then, in Moneyless-Utopia ? We'll start posting besides   
   >>> the shops, looking out for the free-loaders, right ? But free-loaders   
   aren't   
   >>> stupid, they drive past 1,000 shops in a week, take a fair amount   
   >>> in all, ending up with mountains of things.   
   >> We are only allowed to own as much value as everybody else, so there   
   >> is no use in amassing things. You would need to hide it well, far away   
   >> in the woods, and always be afraid to get caught, so how much fun can   
   >> you have with your riches under those circumstances?   
   >>   
   >> Most people will choose the easier way and be content with the same   
   >> value of property as everybody else.   
   >>   
   >> --   
   >> Roger J.   
   >   
   >   
      
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