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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (630306)	10/3/2011 11:43:39 PM
From: SilentZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577939

>That's what the social contract is supposed to safeguard. It's not meant to be used to redistribute wealth, or pay down a deficit that is in large part due to said wealth redistribution programs. Depends on what you call the social contract. And the part about the deficit being in large part due to "wealth distribution programs" is blatantly untrue. >If you can't see how her quote has more in common with Karl Marx than with Adam Smith, I don't know what else to tell you. Well, she's just channeling Marx, who said this: The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion -Z

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (630306)	10/4/2011 10:07:39 AM
From: Alighieri	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1577939

If you can't see how her quote has more in common with Karl Marx than with Adam Smith, I don't know what else to tell you. You mean the Adam Smith who believed these things? This is exactly what EW believes... Smith also warned that a true laissez-faire economy would quickly become a conspiracy of businesses and industry against consumers, with the former scheming to influence politics and legislation. Smith states that the interest of manufacturers and merchants "...in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public...The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention." Sorry, I just think that you are misinterpreting and distorting her views....with flawed come backs by the way. Al

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (630306)	10/4/2011 10:42:08 AM
From: Alighieri	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577939

Free market capitalism, whose very foundation is based on being able to keep what you make. BTW, that is total BS...I don't get to keep what I make...you can't live in any society I know of and get to keep what you make... Al

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (630306)	10/4/2011 1:01:31 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1577939

"That's what the social contract is supposed to safeguard." Wrong. The social contract ISN'T about defending capitalism. It's more about defending citizens from the excesses OF capitalism. This flavor of the 'social contract' inspired our founders: en.wikipedia.org John Locke's Second Treatise of Government (1689) John Locke's conception of the social contract differed from Hobbes' in several fundamental ways, retaining only the central notion that persons in a state of nature would willingly come together to form a state. Locke believed that individuals in a state of nature would be bound morally, by "The Law of Nature, not to harm each other in their lives or possession, but he recognized that, *without government to defend them against those seeking to injure or enslave them, people would have no security in their rights and would live in fear.* Locke argued that individuals would agree to form a state that would provide a "neutral judge", acting to protect the lives, liberty, and property of those who lived within it. While Hobbes argued for near-absolute authority, Locke argued for inviolate freedom under law in his Second Treatise of Government. Locke argued that government's legitimacy comes from the citizens' delegation to the government of their right of self-defense (of "self-preservation"). The government thus acts as an impartial, objective agent of that self-defence, rather than each man acting as his own judge, jury, and executioner--the condition in the state of nature. In this view, government derives its "just powers from the consent [i.e, delegation] of the governed," in the language of the Declaration. For Jefferson, as for many of the American Founding Fathers, Locke was the most important and most esteemed author on political philosophy.