Cooperative Individualism

[dairygirl4u2c]

some facts to consider given my quoted philosophy below regarding the working poor.
there is an island that is self sustaining. one hundred inhabitants. one of the inhabitatnts has 90% of the land, and has around 10 million dollars. there are some in the lower percentages who have jobs but only make 11000 a year, and are not lazy slackers trying not to advance and are just starting out in society, and they fall ill and need sustained medical care. the rest of the inhabitatnts do not like paying their bills. if these people had a little more wealth, they could have prevented the compromising situation they fell into, or if you don't want to burden the lowly business owners who pay him, if the government would intervene, they'd be okay. but, that one person at the top, and a few under him rank wise, think they are entitled to all that wealth. why you ask? because they got it first and the laws say it's theirs, even if that means the poorest can't take a basic cut.

the law of man might say that is true. do you all think this is the law of God? why and why not.

and if you didn't know, that hypothetical is reality here in america and other countries. look at it in terms of one hundred people instead of souless statistics, and you realize the unproportional nature of our current system.

here is an interesting link that sort of echoes my theories
[url="http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/georgism_01.html"]http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/georgism_01.html[/url]
[url="http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/heroes.html"]http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/heroes.html[/url]
cooperative yet individualism. describes my view of politics very well. i think these views actually exposes the artificial nature for what they are of hard core conservatives and liberals slash socialists capitalists.

[quote]QUOTE
the two theories that are the basis of my economic disposition are the following from my past threads.
i am aware of the flaws and limits of my arguments, but, i think the following shows there are flaws in justice with simply thinking let economics dictate, given our artificial society.


QUOTE
it's all about entitlement. what is everyone entitled to. whatever you work for, sure, to an extent. look at the indians. naturally, the indians should be able to roam free and grow things, but we with our artificial laws deprive them of God's bounty. i agree to an extent that God gives a certain amount that is inherently ours, and then some. the land you farm is yours and if you farm a lot it's yours. but with our technology, and fake laws, people start claiming and taking more. the indians can't farm and the poor can't take a basic share.
we've created an artificial society, but we should at least recognize it as such and allow people to have a basic amount. i don't claim to know what that is, but it should be something he can pull himself up from, not peanuts. "pull yourself up from your bootstraps" what if you have no bootstraps to pull yourself up from?

also, take the idea of a giant. he makes the masses fight for a good job. someone will be stuck at the bottom. does that mean they should have less than the minimum? sure evolution theory. but if they are willing to work 40 a week for a year they should at least get a minimum.



QUOTE
we could ensure that everyone got entitled an amount of land. but that would not be good as people would not like it, so monetary is an alternative. plus many people can't farm as our society is artifically not farming. so we have to recognize people are the consequence of our structure and switch from land thinking to other thinking.

i agree you're forcibly taking what's anothers, but you're also forcibly preventing people with laws and technology acccess to God's bounty. you may say... well they have that right, first in line etc. but i don't think they do. i think when it comes down to it, others have a right to take what you're using in excess to an extent. if we prevent them, we should make up for it in our laws. like i won't call that charity giving to them, i also wouldn't call it stealing from the other person. it's "justice"

if a rich man were to be in primitive earth and there was a farm of people, and the giant and the means to take and own everything, he'd argue it's his as he's got the mean and the law (of man). there's land simply sitting there waiting for the family to branch off into, but they an't take it, according to the law of man. the law of God is that they can because the guy's claim is artificial. it's not "stealing". it's taking what God has given everyone.



now, i realize that society itself is the perpetrator in my theories, and in a sense i shouldn't focus on the lowly businessman. in a sense, they are some of the last. but, i justify it as they are a part of society and are rich enough for a business, so they should at least be rich enough to pay substantially, and if they cna't then tough.
i'm an advocate of the rich paying more than a flat tax, so the lowly businessman isn't hurt as bad. and, i'm an advocate of giving tax credits to those who pay around minimum wage. while adjusting laws to the effect that they aren't manipluating that system too much.


there are several compoents to sound economic system that you have to build into the system.... freedom to fail, personal responsibility, but also the giant problem of the theories i described, and some other things i had thought of but can't remember.


and if you think the theories are just too complicated, do you agree there is a problem presented? and if so, how would you address the problem?[/quote]

[dairygirl4u2c]

to put it in persepctive a little more. the land is a football field. the top three people have 95 yards. the bottom ninety people have 5 yards to share. each person if i did my math right gets 7 inches, on average. really though, the people in the bottom also have to to fight over this five yards, and the median is probably much less. the majority might get an inch.

to be fair though for some liberals, often the case to use my analogy is.... give em an inch, and they'll take a yard.

[Aloysius]

temporary intervention of the government in order to set order right again is acceptable; the above described situation is a moral injustice. The government should not simply establish a siphening system whereby the wealth of the few gets given to the needy continuously, they need to take a wrecking ball to the system that caused those people to be so needy.

It's tricky because the government cannot simply go in and seize the rightful property of people, that's contrary to the Seventh Commandment. So what type of practical solution is there? Well, in such a lopsided system, it is clear to me that the evils of usury and fiat money fraud are responsible for a great deal of the hoarding of property; as those are crimes against nature and God, they ought to be punished in a way that sets moral order right.

But do not establish a system in which the poor people are dependent upon the government, nor a system wherein the government robs from the rich to give to the poor, establish moral order by making laws about the true right of every citizen, poor and rich, to private property; laws which make it illegal to hoard unused or unusable weath or to accumulate it through manipulation and fraud and usury; the government ought to break up monopolies and businesses that begin to exploit into smaller businesses which, though they can work together, are independently owned (and thus, the number of true capitalists exponentially increases)

[dairygirl4u2c]

at least you acknowlege the problems instead of ignoring them like many conservatives. and you have solutions to fix the situation.

[dairygirl4u2c]

to make matters worse, education system is messed up, too expensive too this and that. education is at least a great equalizer.
it needs fixed.
unfortunately, status quo pure consrvatives would say public education is a sin, you should teach your own kids. or, they don't want to take steps to ensure quality education.

[Aloysius]

how are they status quo conservatives if they're against public education? you really ought to get some of your labels straight... and it's [i]cumpulsory[/i] public education that traditional people would object to.

I think there needs to be an overhaul of the way we view education. For one thing, let's stop all this nonsense whereby the liberal arts degree has become an arbitrary benchmark on the way to getting a good job; it cheapens the liberal arts degree and puts a lot of people out of reach of good and better lives. you're not even considered for so many jobs without a college degree; you're not even considered for a great many more jobs without a masters. It's ridiculous, and it's aribtrary. Academia has become a joke in this regard.

I like the idea of apprenticeships for lots of jobs, not just trade jobs.

Anyway, tuition is absolutely horrendous; and it feeds a cycle whereby you have to give all this need-based financial aid from the government; but the more the government's willing to dish out in financial aid, the more the college is able to charge! if all government financial aid and all student loan systems suddenly ceased, not enough people would be able to afford the prices... there'd be less students... and the colleges would have to either lower their prices or go out of business. it's a terrible cycle, and it needs to be stopped (not saying need based financial aid shouldn't be available, it's just ridiculous how high its availability has actually raised the tuition)

I'd like to see the public school system be subsidized more; the money funding them from the government so that everyone has the availibility of a good education no matter what economic situation they come from is alright, but parents should have the option to switch from one school to another more easily, the structure of the school shouldn't be so rigid (allow things like cyber schools, or schools not based on factory-like days but simply have a staff of teachers who tutor the kids either at their houses or at an institution that isn't based on a 40 hour workweek).

[dairygirl4u2c]

status quo is a term of art i've defined which i assume people know.
it means, as a conservative, you believe whatever it is you have to be to conservative. instead of challenging the conservative status quo, the idea.
and the more conservative you are, the more status quo you are.
there are also status quo liberals.

good points, no compulsory education.
a status quo though would say, it's stealing from the rich, through taxes, to give to the poor in education.
i think it's stealing from the poor, if they can't get a basic cut/education etc, by denying them God's bounty with our arbitrary wealth scheme.

i like the idea of reglations of education. to prevent the tuition game.
of couse, a status quo would say, laissez faire, and then only the rich will be able to afford college.
then the stauts quo would contend, do good in school and get sholarships etc. not everyone is smart. everyone is entitled to an equal shot though. what if you just want an ordinary job? now if you have a degree you're above others.
maybe not completely, if you get an apprentice ship etc. but degree and apprenticeship is the game now, given the internships every seems to need now.
which, ultimately means, education needs regulated, and there's just no way around it.

on a side note, i've next to created a conservative archtype which is so extreme that next to no one actually embraces it. kinda random of me. i notice other people tend to create archtypes "the man" so i know i'm not alone but.
kinda like i've created an archtype protestant, a theretical prot that could sufficiently challenge the catholic theologies, which next to know prot embraces. like how you could form a reasonable faith works system at odds with teh CC etc. anyway just a tangent that needs more explanation to adequately describe.

Edited November 16, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Aloysius]

well, I do disagree with property taxes (which is where most funding for public schools currently comes from) because it is a continuous payment of money from something which is remaining the same, the land, and thus what it really is is rent, it is as if you are renting that land from the government which actually owns it; this is absolutely immoral.

but taxation on other things to generate funds for public education makes sense. it's not stealing from the rich to give to the poor if both the poor and rich are taxed; I am quite in favor of a sales tax replacing most forms of taxation in which case the money is simply generated by people buying what they want, the only reason the rich would end up paying more is because they wish to purchase more expensive goods.

but why should it be equally dispersed through a public education system, when it was not generated equally? because everyone benefits from the education of these people. the act of educating the inner-city youth is a service to everyone rich and poor, because without that education the inner-city youth is more likely to cause havoc for that society but with that education that inner-city youth is more likely to be a positive influence in that society. that's a service to everyone

I feel like St. Thomas More here totally reminds me of many of his points in Utopia.

of course, where this falls apart is the way public schools actually work: the service to everyone is actually in producing factory workers; that's exploitation, that's what the public schools were actually created for. Sure, there were the idealists who thought education was a general good thing, but the reason it was so readily supported in Congress was because factory owners saw their oppurtunity to make good future workers. So the service to all of society becomes an avenue of exploitation; on the one hand, you can clearly see that my point is validated that education is a service to all society, on the other, you can see that it ought to be a different type of service, a type which doesn't cause exploitation but lifts them up to be sulf-sufficient members of the society.

to me, when I hear "status quo conservative", I think of a conservative who simply wants to conserve the way things are. ie, a "neo-con" (yesterday's liberal is today's neo-con). there's an overlap to what you mean by the term but in some instances, ie here, they seemed to diverge.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i don't think i see a distinction between sales tax and property tax.
on second thought, i can see that you put effort into the products.
but on the other hand, it's still a sale on a, often, natural good.

the way i see it, property tax isn't necessarily aboslutely immoral as it's not much diferent than sales tax. and, it's a way to reflect the fact that private citizens dont own the land either, really. they only own an interest in the protection of their natural dignity to not be infringed upon which can only extend so far, given everyone is entitled to some land etc.
so maybe the logical conclusion is property tax for more excess land claims. to protect that natural dignity.

[Aloysius]

if there were a one time tax on the purchase of your property, that would be acceptable.

the fact that it is a continuously paid fee simply for continuing to own that land makes it immoral.

if it were a tax on that which the land produced (say you farmed the land), it would be acceptable, a certain percentage of what you're producing by the land goes to the government.

but that you continue paying on something which is not producing anything makes it impossible that you could ever own it outright, and that is an affront to your right to own property.

even it would be more moral if (though I wouldn't support this...) there was an immensely high amount of money you had to pay in taxes for owning a peice of land such that you would have to continuously pay towards that ultimate amount on a monthly basis. there has to be a theoretical ammount that, once you reach it, you have paid your tax for that property and it is now fully and completely yours.

property taxes as they are set up are absolutely and completely immoral, though. they require never-ending payment to the government just for the simple fact that you own a bit of land.

tax the purchase of property, okay, that makes sense. tax the state of owning property, you can't do that any more than you can tax someone for breathing, IMHO.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]licenses (tax for use of earth and things common to all) is collected for distribution and/or societal use, and the wealth produced by one's individual labor (directly, or indirectly, with the assistance of capital goods) is protected as one's naturally rightful property and not subject to taxation or other forms of confiscation.[/quote]

it's interesting to note the stark contrast between your tax system where labor is taxed (albeit not by income) and property is not, with the system of the link where property and other things common to all is taxed but labor is not.

as a matter of what makes most sense to me naturally to me, i like the link better.
but, the main advantage i see to your system is that you could essentially be able to become a hermit and not have to pay taxes if you are self sustaining.

i guess my solution would be to only tax land you ahve in excess. and maybe resulting goods in excess. that way you cold be a hermit as long as you're not being unreasonable in your takings.