St. Paul and I Agree...
Taxation is not theft: "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves." -- Romans 13 The key idea implicit here, and the one that turned me on the subject of whether or not taxation is theft, is that "every soul" owes obedience to the "governing authorities." Now, if that is a debt I truly owe , then, when those authorities levy the taxes they need to do the job of governing, I owe them those taxes, and attempts to collect them certainly do not constitute acts of theft. And obviously it doesn't matter at all, from this point of view, whether or not I "signed" any sort of "social contract." (In fact, the history of political thought since the Reformation can be read as an attempt to find a secular rep...
But is cultural debasement a normal good or an inferior good?
ReplyDeleteI typically roll my eyes at these debates, but I don't see how they've reached the moral basement. The question they're asking is simply "do people desire additional children of their own as they get richer, or fewer?" In using technical language to ask this question, they throw off unfortunate connotations: "children are infereior goods? How dare you???", but that's not itself a sign of moral depravity. You yourself have asked the same question with respect to your own preference, albeit not in these terms.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, few live up to their own high standards, but I doubt you think such a discussion was in the "moral basement". (I wonder if there's a "Moral Penthouse"...)
Silas, I don't think Gene is upset that someone might call a kid an inferior good. I think he's upset that someone might call a kid a good in the first place. As was I.
ReplyDeleteWhat Bob said, Silas.
ReplyDeleteSo because a topic makes you "queasy", it's therefore in the moral basement? I'm going to need a little more substantiation on this one.
ReplyDeleteIf you value your children, that *means* they're a good. If it makes you queasy, that just means you still feal some incongruity between the literal meaning of terms and your feelings about your choices.
lol @ captch: "tojew"
"If you value your children, that *means* they're a good."
ReplyDeleteIn the debased world of economism, it does. Well-adjusted people do not view other people as goods. Nor do some poorly adjusted people like me, who at least know who our moral betters are!
IF you value your children in terms of exchange value, or put a market price on them ("Well, I guess I'd turn him into dog meat for a billion dollars") THAT means you consider them a good.
That also means they are going to have pretty messed up lives.
IF you value your children in terms of exchange value, or put a market price on them ("Well, I guess I'd turn him into dog meat for a billion dollars") THAT means you consider them a good.
ReplyDeleteNot a requirement for a good. Again, you're just attaching connotations to economic terms rather than cashing them out to their ultimate meaning, and then beating your chest at how noble you can be for taking a superficially noble stance. Not helpful.