aquaticko

"I recommend observing real life and learning history. People have rarely been treated as inherently equal and yet it very often happened that "one person's agency or vision" was respected. Do note that people's capabilities vary greatly and reality doesn't care at all about equality or fairness."

That essentially relies on chance. A person's agency is most likely to be respected by me if, by chance, I see that person as roughly my equal. Most people don't worry about violating the agency of a dog nearly as much as they worry about violating the agency of another human (although this obviously depends on one's definition of personhood). The agency of African American people... (read more)

If people aren't treated as though they're inherently equal, then why should any one person's agency or vision be respected? If I'm not willing to abide by the obligation created by the existence of others' rights, what obligation do others have to abide by the existence of my rights? And if there is no obligation in either direction, to what extent can we be said to have or acknowledge the existence of rights? I think you'd agree: none at all.

"The point of that mention of history wasn't that certain people were ready to sacrifice themselves. The point was that they were perfectly willing to sacrifice others."

You've been pointing out, throughout much of... (read more)

"Nope. I think that you focused on, to quote you, "egalitarianism, equality, and communitarianism" to the exclusion of other values. Notice how the terminal desires that we've been talking about in this sub-thread do not include any of those."

As I said in the other comment thread, it's an issue of universalizability of moral laws. It's inconsistent to write a moral rule stating that any one person ought to be sacrificed for another against his/her will because it's not what I would consent to myself. Similarly, it's inconsistent with reality to state a moral rule saying that everyone ought to own an entire continent by themselves. Unless you start from a base of... (read more)

"May I suggest a review of the concepts of the map and the territory?"

None is needed; I'm pretty sure that I understand the use of the terms map and territory here. Maps are representations of reality, territories the correspondent reality. I don't argue against this term pairing, in fact I quite like it, and I'm pretty sure I haven't violated them in principle. I was just heading in the direction of arguing that all anyone can ever have is a map, so to speak--I'm fundamentally an epistemological idealist. But this is a discussion we could go on about to the end of time.

"I think I missed it completely. I just don't understand... (read 459 more words →)

"Really really :-) Political economy is a description of how the world works. Being a description, it is a map."

I've always thought that ultimately, description is the best that anyone can ever really do. We'll be getting into epistemology if we go down this route any further; your call on whether or not you want to do that.

"Let's do a little gedanken experiment. I hereby give you a piece of paper that represents a share, an ownership claim on your fraction of the global means of production. It is exclusive to you and you control it. Oh, but say you, it's fake, it doesn't represent anything! OK then. In the system which... (read more)

"Maybe not, but "wealth" is a very general concept. It can be defined as an amount of value where the value itself is defined as the quality of being wanted by someone."

All the more reason why it doesn't make sense to measure wealth in terms of profit or income.

"Well, then you probably should start by showing that your way actually does contribute towards these terminal desires. At the moment you just assert that this is so but do not show how and why."

So you really think that I've been speaking a nonsense through this whole debate? I'll never claim perfection, but that seems a little unfair.

"So I'll rephrase my suggestion: compare actual,... (read more)

"I don't think that's how it works in reality. To start with, consider the difference between elected politicians and the permanent government bureaucracy."

No disagreement here; but that's a matter of how a particular democratic system is laid out, not a necessary property of democracy.

"It's quite a bit more complicated. Let me do a short run through terminal desires towards which having a great amount of wealth contributes: •consumption: maybe I like to consume expensive things •freedom: wealth buys a lot of freedom, both positive and negative •safety: wealth buys safety as well, both directly and as a buffer against volatility in the future •welfare of children: a large inheritance lets you pass the benefits of wealth... (read more)

"Nope, the concerns of a political economy are irrelevant here. The contest is between a map and a territory and the territory always wins."

So, to be clear, you don't believe that political economy is part of the territory? Really??

"Yes, I know. But the argument to popularity is not a good way to evaluate forecasts :-/"

Some people appreciate an appeal to authority, but I don't need one to justify what I said. I'll respond differently to an announcement that you're going to twist my finger, if you tell me before doing so that you'll give me a lollipop afterwards if I let you, than I would if you simply told me you... (read more)

"I did not. You are making a logic error: thinking that { not(A) is_not (B) } necessarily implies { (A) is (B) }. That is not so. Here A="democratic system of governance" and B="public enterprise accountable to the public"."

Fair play, but I think I can clean up the mess I've made there by asking if you consider a democratic government to be a kind of public enterprise. To me this seems like a reasonable assertion: a government elected democratically is beholden to its shareholders (electorate), for whom it must produce a particular batch of goods and services at a particular level of efficiency. Any democratic government which consistently fails to do so... (read more)