Below was my original response; but after thinking about it for awhile, I realized there were some things I wanted to add and change, and I feel that my initial reaction was based more on my instinctive distaste for collectivism rather than on an objective assessment of your statements. I leave the original as is in the interest of full disclosure, but more is below that.
There are BILLIONS of people incapable of satisfying their own basic needs? Well golly, I didn't realize.
Blah blah blah, altruism blah blah blah. What a horseload.
"Capitalism is an unmitigated evil." Lol. Every good thing you have in your life probably has a direct root in the capitalistic philosophy that reigned during the most prosperous times in every civilized nation in the world. Every success, every product, good and service exists today because of the idea of a free market with the free exchange of goods and ideas. Governmental interference of every kind (usually with some kind of "altruistic" motive) has created inflation, national debt, stagnant money-hole programs, wars and stifled trade. Maybe not the capitalism that comes to your mind when you see the word - the cronyistic monopoly-loving gilded age bullshit which more closely resembles a government-controlled market (socialism anyone?) but the capitalism of laissez-faire, which is the source and root of all prosperity in the western world. There's no hope for you at all if you can't see the truth in the never-before-seen-in-human-history prosperity that capitalism and its ideals have given the modern world. You need an education in Hayek, Mises, Adam Smith, Hume, etc.
Once more, with feeling: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
To be perfectly honest with you, I don't think we should be arguing. I doubt that our beliefs are that different; a prima facie would seem to suggest otherwise, but that is more a product of perception than of substance.
Men were not 'meant' for anything, so any discussion of what men are and aren't meant for is just a way for you to make your argument seem as if it follows from natural principles. The opposite is true, the idea of the community supporting the less able is one of the common trend of human societies reaching back through time.
We will disagree here. At first, you dispute the idea that people were "meant" for anything, but you then go on to state that there ARE things we were meant to do - like support the less able. Which is it? Are we or aren't we?
Regardless, the historical assessment is wholly inaccurate. History shows us time and again that the less able have been trampled upon by a myriad of forces; the machinations of evolution, the sovereignty of monarchs, the rule of the elite, etc. The "idea" of communities supporting the less able is a very recent one (though this in no way affects its legitimacy as a philosophy; age is only a number). That concept, though new in the human consciousness, has a point - individuals (and I, as an individualist) aren't nearly as successful and couldn't possibly be if it weren't for communities, states and nations full of other people. There is a certain amount of "collective capital" that we all share, made up of but much more than just the sum of human achievement and accomplishment; our science, medicine, technology and understanding of the universe are some of just the external components of the wealth of humanity we all share.
We have to face the situation that there are billions of people incapable of meeting their own needs and so compassionate, altruistic societies will create a governments that meets their needs whilst working for ways for them to help themselves.
We will disagree on some of that as well. While there are certainly billions of people in the world going without their basic necessities, this is not caused by capitalism nor is solvable with socialism. The vast majority of those who go to bed hungry, sick and with no roof over their heads in this world live in third-world hovels run by autocrats, warlords or tribal leaders. The bounty that free-markets and democratic governments have showered upon the first-world nations hasn't touched these relics of the past. They exist in collectivist squalor. What these nations of people need, what, for example, Africa needs, is stable democratic governments that are constitutionally limited from interfering the lives and choices of their citizens, so that their populous is free to pursue the success they all have a human right to strive for.
The benefits of science, medicine and technology are flowering in the first world because of the leaps made from the pre-Rennaissance to the Industrial era (not coincidentally, the same period in which laissez-faire was all the rage) - people were free to pursue success in any and all fields - in botany, biology, transportation, medicine, whatever. Humans have needs; luckily, humans are capable of creating ways to meet those needs. And because of our shared collective capital, anything/idea/process/technique that can fulfill the needs of one human can be known and available to all - of course, we don't live in a fantastical utopia, so those things which fulfill our needs don't appear from thin air. It takes work and human brainpower to create them. Those that do that work expect, and rightfully so, to be given what they feel is worth the work they've done. And thus, anyone who wants what they have created must have the means to obtain it - i.e., they must work to create something of their own. In our times, this means providing a good or service to others in exchange (whatever job you do, you are providing a good or service to others). Obviously, in order to make sure that these exchanges are fair we've instituted the concept of money to take the place of direct exchange, so that values are even and the same for all involved (this is the argument for a one world currency, a concept most other capitalists scoff at but I personally am willing to think about.) So anyone who wants to meet their own needs can and should. The only problem we run into is that, as we've been discussing, there are people "incapable" of providing any (or enough) of a good or service to obtain the most basic of their needs.
I know I came off as cynical (because I am), but just because I'm a believer in capitalism in no way means I think we should ignore those people. I myself have received the benefits of what some might call 'socalist' governmental policies. I grew up, well, poor. Not because my parents were incapable of providing for the family, but because even working as much as they could, there wasn't enough money to for a family with several children. We received food aid from the state government tribe, which I'll be honest, really helped us get through some tough financial times when I was very young. What would have been more helpful though, would have been if they'd been helping with my father's college education (paying for college while working several jobs to pay for it and for the family's needs was why we needed the food aid in the first place!) In the end, my parents weren't incapable of providing for the needs of the family (they could have eschewed education in favor of working more), but that their "pursuit of happiness" needed a little financial backing in order to bear fruit in the future (which, luckily it has.) Certainly what we're talking about means simply those within our own nation (those beyond it are subject to the powers of their own governments, and will not experience change lest they destroy those oppressive governments). My objection is that it is not within the scope of our government (if we are mutually talking about the U.S.) to forcibly redistribute their taxed income to "meet the needs" of the incapable. Not only is the government shown to be incompetent in matters of money, and therefore certainly not the best option to be in charge of something so important as people's basic human needs, but they simply do not have the authority, vested in them by the people through the Constitution, to do such.
If that is to change (first and foremost the incompetency of our politicians), I am very wary of those so-called socialists who would take advantage of such an idea in such a way as has been done to, say, France and Germany. The spirit of capitalism is a absolute necessity in order for science, medicine, technology and business to continue to flourish and thrive (and in an increasingly globalized market, these successess will continue to overflow into many other nations, examples seen in the many industries and businesses with overseas branches, factories, etc. These not only bring wealth and money to the American business in question, but to those working in the other countries and the communities that receive tax monies from them.)
Right now, unfortunately, we still live in an age of finite resources. There will never be a utopia, of any stripe, while we struggle with our limited resources and waste them as we do today (yes, I'm a semi-conservationalist capitalist. It's not an oxymoron.) Luckily, science and technology allow us to wield greater and greater benefits from smaller and smaller amounts of resources, which is why it is in such fields our attentions must be focused. Certainly, we must do something in order to care for those incapable of doing so for themselves, but with the understanding that we do indeed have limited resources with which to do so. We can only do so much, and no matter how much we think we can "tax the rich" for the money, that isn't the solution.
First off, less taxes creates more money in society. The less taxes, the more money spent and invested. The more money spent and invested, the more money in the economy. The more money in the economy, the more jobs. The more jobs, the more workers. The more workers, the more people capable of providing for themselves (step 1 to solving the problem). The more people working, the more people paying taxes (the less we have to tax in order to be able to help the less forunate). Second, there must be clear and dinstinctive boundaries for what constitutes a person's inability to provide for themselves; this has its own set of problems of course, as a poor educational infrastructure leaves many without the education necessary. That is another area of focus that must be attended to before we can truly provide for those incapable of doing so on their own. Not to mention the egregious government interference into free trade which hamstring businesses from growth, which creates the jobs necessary for people to make their own money (not to mention whatever product or service the businesses provide, limiting who can obtain
those, etc etc. )
All in all, it's such a complicated issue that we must step back and look at what our real enemy is and where our real salvation lies. And when doing so, it is plain to see (for me at least) that socialism and its concepts of government-controlled markets, healthcare and infrastructure is the enemy, and that capialisms' concepts of free-markets, free exchange of goods, services and ideas is the salvation. While we pursue that salvation of course, you are right that we must tend to those who cannot strive with us in its pursuit. I realize that was all quite long-winded, but I wanted to cover as much as was possible to show that in the end, we both want the same thing. I just think I have a better understanding of what we need to do in order to reach that goal.
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