It was removed to save embarrassment.

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Your article you link to is not valid anymore. Where can we find it now?

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bjchip,

You can fill as many column-inches as you like attempting to justify forced redistribution, but what it all boils down to is that, since you believe the effects of redistribution to be beneficial, you are happy to oppress people’s property rights.

My position is that, even if I agree with you about the benefits, we don’t have the *right* to confiscate and give away other people’s earnings like that: They are supposedly free, not slaves.

By the same token, you and I may both strongly agree that the good society is one where Sharia law is implemented ruthlessly, gays are persecuted, and that Tasmanians are our slaves.
Why then, since we *know* it is for the greater good of society, don’t we use the power of the state to impose such conditions, just as we did when we allowed state confiscation of people’s earnings?
It is exactly the same argument in principle. The only difference is you don’t happen to agree with these particular sentiments so you don’t choose to oppress people in their name. If you did, then god help us.

I am talking about rights; you are talking about imposing your personal views on other people.

The state should exist to uphold property rights (amongst others), rather than being a vehicle for theft on a scale which makes the mafia look like boy scouts.

>> “The problem with that 65 Trillion analysis of yours is that it is based on things NOT voted on or for by the electorate. It isn’t a result of “greedâ€? of the lower classes trying to get more from the wealthy.”

100% Wrong. You are entirely misrepresenting the findings of the report.

These are promises made by candidates and by elected politicians. These are government liabilities. The fact that each and every spending committment wasn’t subject to its own referendum is a worthless argument: the process simply doesn’t work that way. Elected governments made these committments and could only make such reckless promises because they have, in the first instance, assumed the right to plunder other people’s earnings.

Imagine a situation where government spending was limited to the provision of public goods. In this scenario there could be no possibility of politicans committing the state to $65 trillion dollars of unfunded future liabilities.

>>> “let us take your example of growing your own food on your own land…”

The point being made was that redistribution is simply theft. Your reply, which craftily switches the topic to the provision of public goods, completely fails to address this.

And you keep going on about the ills of a non-representative government, whilst giving carte-blanche to a representative one. Just what is a representative government? One with 51% of the potential electorate? How many elected governments get that? Does the current NZ government qualify? And why does having 51% of the vote permit you to go ahead and plunder the other 49? It’s just mob rule.

>> “Your little gedanken experiment involving Uganda is wrong as well… again in regard to the formation of your little nation. For that association has to be voluntary.”

The example works exactly as intended. If a whole bunch of people I’ve never met get to deem themselves to be my “society” and vote to confiscate my earnings, why shouldn’t a wider group of people deem themselves to be a greater society and vote to confiscate *all* our earnings?
It is exactly the same principle in action. Neither is voluntary. If the former is legitimate (and you say that it is), then the latter is equally so: There is absolutely no reason why a self-appointed “society” should be limited to the small sub-set of people that you personally happen to have in mind.

>> “because if everyone in New Zealand voted one way and everyone in Uganda voted the other, the country you glued together is broken at the seam and is not coming back together.”

There are nearly 25 million people in what we currently call Uganda, compared to 4 million in the North and South islands. It would be an entirely representative democratic government if the former voted themselves to be the government of the whole. The fact that such an action doesn’t reflect historical patterns is entirely irrelevant: Belgium is a made-up country, and Canada might split in two any year now.

Your objections are based purely on automatic nationalistic assumptions and the selfish realisation that you would lose big time were your untrammeled democracy to be played out in such a manner.
The reality is, you are quite happy to use the ballot box to plunder other people when you think it benefits you personally, but you would man the barricades to defend your suddenly-discovered rights if it looked like you were going to be the one being plundered by your precious society.

artyone,

>> ” Wouldn’t it be far truer to say I was anti liberal?”

I may have misremembered, but I thought you yourself described your ideas as communist?

There is essentially no difference between fascism and communism, they are both evil systems of oppression and mass murder, but perhaps it would have been more correct to describe your ideas as “neo-fascist” rather than “fascist.”

>> “You say that industrialisation and capitalism have made us taller and stronger and wiser but maybe inspite of this it has been democracy and the rules it puts before industrial capitalism which have done this. Or maybe it was just evolution going about it’s business. Just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean they are directly related to each other. If you say they are simply because they do inhabit the same space you are making a hypotheses without regard for experiment to determine reality. But I don’t want to get into an argument about that. As I see it you are using an alchemical argument for effects that are obviously quantum.”

Are you are seriously suggesting that the recent phenomenal increase in life expectancy in wealthy countries is in fact due to evolution rather than a direct wealth effect?
Are you really suggesting that a random evolutionary genetic mutation which confers the benefit of longer, healthier lives just happened to spontaneously occur in hundreds of millions of unrelated people, but only in those living in wealthier countries?
More than that, that this mutation has a graded effect which – what are the chances? – just happens to correlate with the distribution of GDP-per-head around the world?
If your theory is correct, presumably the children of immigrants from poor countries – who presumably don’t have this mutation – will die young even though they grow up in a rich country. And even when a country starts to become rich, its people will still continue to die at 40 because, as we know, they lack this mutation.

No. I think we can be quite sure that wealth, not evolution, is responsible because it allows people to get decent nutrition and medical care and have a good standard of sanitation. It also lets people lead happier, more-fulfilled lives. They can also adapt more easily to any climate changes – natural or otherwise.
So, that being the case, capitalism – the engine of wealth creation – is the greatest lifesaver in the world and, happily, it also goes hand in hand with personal freedom.

Sam Buchanan,

>> “You still haven’t made a case for property ownership to be a human right”

If such a right does not exist, then there can be no theft: Taking stuff from other people is fine, since it doesn’t belong to them in the first place.

Am I right, then, in assuming that you have no possessions? Absolutely nothing?

Where do you live? In a tree? How are you managing to access the internet? On a naturally occurring computer via an organic network connection?

I suspect that, actually, you do own plenty of stuff and would be straight round the police station if you came home one day and found it all gone. What I think is that you work to obtain food, shelter and other belongings just like the rest of us.

Of course, if I’m right, then it means you have been talking complete student-level nonsense.

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Goping around in circles a bit now, but:

“Whereas your Muslim states argue the reverse; that the good of society obviously precludes any ridiculous ideas such as unfettered religious freedom or sexual equality, while issues like property rights are a given.”

Actually, no. Aside from the silly “your muslim states” bit (I’m an anti-state libertarian), actually Islam has a lot of rules about how people can use their property, including giving a chunk of it to the poor (this is one of the ‘five pillars of Islam’, it isn’t some sort of optional extra – of the “it’s up to you to give it if you feel like it” kind). Plus a lot about how business can be conducted, strictures against fixed interest rates etc.

“What, apart from a minor disagreement over the precise rights to be oppressed, is the difference between you? There’s probably an Arab blog somewhere with someone called Al-Buchanan patiently exlaining that of course women and infidels must be repressed and that a comparison with something important like property rights is just too absurd to contemplate.”

You still haven’t made a case for property ownership to be a human right – you just keep repeating it over and over again. If you think this is a “minor disagreement” you need to get some perspective.

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Hey Mouldwarp, not that I want to join in on the battle but I’ve just looked up fascism and it’s all about the party started in Italy during the 1st world war and was about patriotism and anti-communism… oh, and to the far right if that even needs to be said. Wouldn’t it be far truer to say I was anti liberal?
You see this is the problem I have with humanity and politics. I don’t want to be nailed down to an absolute position but it seems to be a requirement. Was Dr Suess a fascist when he wrote the star bellied sneetches? Is the story of the King’s new clothes written by a fascist?

You say that industrialisation and capitalism have made us taller and stronger and wiser but maybe inspite of this it has been democracy and the rules it puts before industrial capitalism which have done this. Or maybe it was just evolution going about it’s business. Just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean they are directly related to each other. If you say they are simply because they do inhabit the same space you are making a hypotheses without regard for experiment to determine reality. But I don’t want to get into an argument about that. As I see it you are using an alchemical argument for effects that are obviously quantum.

What really worries me is that humanity will argue right to the brink of disaster how best to itemise the possible effects of that disaster. Disaster rolls on unabated while we spend all our precious resource figureing out how to describe it. Commitees adinfinitum meeting to define the protocol of response.

Historically speaking New Zealand has hardly even happened. A bunch of people sailed accross the world and built a big garden to feed the people back home. Meanwhile back home they started making machines and they don’t need our garden anymore.. Those machines had actually been a big mistake because they ruined their own garden back home and they might just need our garden after all. Not only that but their machines are going to wreck most of our garden as well. Bugger!, shouldah seen that one coming but no we thought the machines were wonderful too and we’ve been piss assing about walking up and down the road showing off our wonderful machines feeling incredibly chuffed with ourselves. Oops. What shall we do? Well, maybe it’s not going to happen so let’s just carry on with the parade because it feels so good to feel important. But then this boffin chap comes along who says we should dismantle the machines we have and put them to other uses. Not only that but we should replant our gardens with lots of different plants and not just the ones that make shiny stuff for us.
Bugger that… we just want shiny stuff.

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Mouldwarp –

I might sympathize with you slightly if you recognized that YOUR points are being illustrated by comparing the situation in NZ with that in the United States. I merely pointed out that the two countries have rather different accounting systems, political systems and natural advantages. All of that first para that you take umbrage with, was to illustrate that there are MANY reasons and ways the USA is bankrupting itself and damned few are related to the NZ experience. If you “don’t know where I get that stuff” your knowledge of the US economy is rather a lot shallower than my own.

Which would be the case of about 99% of New Zealanders… it’s not a dig, I’m from New York.

The problem though, isn’t your knowledge, just that you aren’t picking a good example for your argument because it is impossible to separate the cause YOU attribute all those woes to, from the other causes for the slow motion train wreck of US economics. I am well aware of what the folks at the fed say, I get detailed reports and analysis on every word… but to say it is caused solely by the lack of limits on what people will vote themselves is less than half the truth.

What may the state take from the individual? What are the state’s duties TO the individual? What are the individuals duties to the state and what does the individual take from the state? There are 4 questions and you are fixated on only one part of the social equation that makes civilization possible. Until you understand the other parts.

You describe and attribute to government, a life of its own, separate from and unanswerable to, the citizens it governs. That is a great evil when it is allowed to occur. It is not related in any way to a real representative democracy balancing that four part equation I alluded to above.

You DO have a point about the ability of government to act in bad faith… and transfer wealth without consideration of individuals, but the usual path of such transfers is from the poor to the rich, not the other way round. Where wealth is actually used to the benefit of the poor and the society appears to give everyone a fair start the benefit to the society is enormous. When the wealthy live in enclaves, separated from the poor by the guardia, high fences and bulletproof glass, the nation is at risk.

Good government avoids that latter condition by equalizing things, and that is something it MUST do because the only thing the profit motive is able to strive for is profits. It is amoral and unfamiliar with the concepts of social justice and mutual benefits which underly good government.

The problem with that 65 Trillion analysis of yours is that it is based on things NOT voted on or for by the electorate. It isn’t a result of “greed” of the lower classes trying to get more from the wealthy. It isn’t based on the greed of the majority. You get partial credit for the understanding that power begets and abets power and that there is bribery going on, but the problems in the USA are not related to THAT effect at all. Do you realize that in terms of the Social Security portion of the US system it is within spitting distance of being in balance? That the people whose greed is bankrupting the system in your view, voted to raise taxes ON THEMSELVES to be sure to pay off enough that their children would not suffer? The dynamic you rail against, of people voting benefits to themselves to transfer wealth from one pocket to the other simply did not pertain. The dynamic that DID pertain was a far more insidious separation of those people from the reins of power and usurpation of power by the moneyed elite, who then abrogated their responsibilities and stole that money rather than pay more taxes themselves….

You’ve got a hell of a nerve talking about rose-tinted glasses Mouldy… the owners of the USA have managed to secure themselves from any interference by the state… but if you think that the medicare bill that Glaxo wrote and the President lied about to get passed is in ANY way related to the poor people of the USA voting themselves big benefits by taking money away from the wealthy, well you have blinders that’d stop a neutrino scan on you.

It’s funny. My regularly written opinions are described as pornography for pessimists and you think I don’t know that government is not to be trusted. The problem is that you are willing to trust businesses, or religions or simply individuals. I don’t trust them… and I don’t trust OTHER governments either… but you, for some reason, seem to think that we can get along quite well without one.

More precisely, we are taxed by some in “society� for their own benefit.

If the government is representative this is NOT true… and it if is NOT representative the Greens (and I) do not support it. One has to wonder from whence you get your ideas about our ideas. You surely aren’t listening to us.

Nobody here has argued that taxes should be 100%, or 95%. So let us take your example of growing your own food on your own land… simple as it is. Your land is protected from people randomly walking through it and taking what they want. Your ability to trade is supported by a massive amount of infrastructure. You receive advice about the weather and you have a place to go if you get sick If there’s a fire there’s the fire brigade, there’s a rescue helicopter, there are roads and railroads and scientific research going on to help you stay ahead of the pests that would eat your crops… there are all manner of things supporting you to make you more than a marginal subsistence producer. None of those things are free Mouldy, not one of them.

We decided in our collective wisdom that they were good ideas worth paying something for, and we taxed ourselves to pay for them… and to ensure that nobody freeloads on the rest of us, we did it with a tax, not a volutary contribution, to ensure that the burden is shared fairly.

Now you can argue with us about the degree of government services which ought to be in place, and you can argue about whether the taxes are actually fair, but you simply cannot make the argument that they are theft… nor can you argue that they lead inexorably to bankruptcy. Inequality does. NON-representative government does…. but the examples you give are devoid of any relationship with what has happened anywhere in any country on the planet. It isn’t the “poor” who steal from the “rich”. That’s just the arm-waving of the wealthy. The hand at the end of their other arm however, is firmly wrapped around your wallet.

Your little gedanken experiment involving Uganda is wrong as well… again in regard to the formation of your little nation. For that association has to be voluntary. You neglect that right at your peril, because if everyone in New Zealand voted one way and everyone in Uganda voted the other, the country you glued together is broken at the seam and is not coming back together.

You really have to do better, but there’s no way you can. You are wrong. I’ve gone the extra mile here to explain about the bits you’ve GOT to include if your analysis is to be taken seriously… again.. I don’t think I can trouble myself further over your misconceptions. You haven’t been offensive, and you get full credit for that, but I simply have too little time.

…and you do not understand our principles. Not yet….

sorry

BJ

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bjchip,

Allow me to respond to your previous posting before you flounce out.

>”Consider the kiwi a world “reserveâ€? currency? The concept probably has the entire forum ROTFL.. Did NZ drop interest rates and blow bubbles in every part of itsmarket. Does NZ use “hedonicsâ€? to lie about inflation and GDP? I could go on for a long time, but basically the two situations aren’t the same.”

Any and all of which is entirely irrelevant to what I was talking about. I don’t know where you get this stuff from.

The issue is how mob-rule overriding property rights – the ablity to vote yourself all sorts of goodies at other people’s expense – will inevitably bankrupt the state since there is no end to how much people will vote themselves and no end to the number of vile politicians willing to get themselves elected on that ticket.

> [I said] “the truth is that the long term security of western countries is threatened by the very fact that people can vote themselves a share of other people’s money” [to which you relied] ‘it’s NOT the truth. It is your opinion, and it is completely at odds with the historical record. Completely at odds with the real world’

Sadly, it is only too reality-based. Allow me to quote from a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank Of St Louis:-

“This partial-equilibrium analysis strongly suggests that the U.S. government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds.”

Could it really be any plainer than that? This is a Federal Reserve bank saying that political promises of redistribution may well bankrupt the country. It describes the scale of these political promises:-

“there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke…The Gokhale and Smetters measure of the fiscal gap is a stunning $65.9 trillion! This figure is more than five times U.S. GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one’s head around $65.9 trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying…The $65.9 trillion gap is all the more alarming because its calculation omits the value of contingent government liabilities and relies on quite optimistic assumptions about increases over time in longevity and federal healthcare expenditures…Countries can and do go bankrupt. The United States, with its $65.9 trillion fiscal gap, seems clearly headed down that path.”

http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/07/Kotlikoff.pdf

The only question is what is there about this disastrous scenario that was not completely predictable once you allow people to vote themselves all manner of “free” benefits without limit, and allow the state sector to grow without limit to form an unbeatable constituency for the politician willing to bribe it the most?
The point is that precisely this fate awaits all modern democracies, including NZ, Britain, France, Germany etc (and that’s without factoring-in the demographic time-bomb).
You may not like it, it might jar with your rose-tinted view of “society” and helping your neighbour, but this is the “terrifying” end-game of your state-sanctioned and state-enforced plunder.

> “We tax ourselves and we pay the proceeds out to benefit our society”

More precisely, we are taxed by some in “society” for their own benefit.

What is boils down to is that you support the state trampling of property rights because you personally happen to believe it is in a good cause and for the good of “society”.
The problem, of course, is that when we make other people’s rights disposable like this – even for the very best of reasons (indeed, these things are always done for the very best of reasons) – there is no end to it.
Do you not understand that any Mullah in Iran or Saudi Arabia is as *certain* of the necessity of oppressing women and infidels for the good of society as you are of the fact that it’s property rights which need to be sacrificed? Both of you allow yourselves to simply ignore those rights which you believe stand in the way of some greater good. It doesn’t bother you for a moment that you don’t have the *right* to indulge yourself like this, or worry your bullet-proof egos that maybe you *don’t* know what’s best for everyone else and that your personal beliefs should not be forced on them like this.

Now, given that there is a startling difference in the wealth and available opportunity for a “poor” person in NZ (one of life’s lottery winners, remember) and someone on $2 a day in Africa, the question must be just how enviably wealthy do NZ “poor” have to be before you would consider the notion that your misplaced priorities are costing millions of lives?
You brush of such a suggestion as being a futile attempt to “save the world” like these people are some sort of detail. We’re not talking about saving the world, just millions of people in it.

What possible objection could there be (other than the obvious one of venal self-interest) to the Green Party proposing that all taxpayers be allowed to designate where the redistributive portion of their money gets spent – Any registered charity, anywhere in the world?

Hell, I might even vote Green if they do that, and I won’t normally have them in the house.

Of course, it’s never going to happen. The money will continue to be stolen from the moderately wealthy to give to the ever-so-slightly-less wealthy in New Zealand – all in the name of compassion and the greater good, and with frequent obeisance to the word “society” – whilst the plight of the desperately poor and the dying get totally ignored by these politicians with their crocodile tears.

That, my friend, is Green Party policy. Kinda makes you proud, don’t it?

Sam Buchanan,

> “Once again, the argument is reduced to a claim that unfettered property ownership is a human right, as if the oppressing people for their sex, race, religion or whatever were the same as preventing people laying claim to ownership of the resources the whole population needs to access.”

Whereas your Muslim states argue the reverse; that the good of society obviously precludes any ridiculous ideas such as unfettered religious freedom or sexual equality, while issues like property rights are a given.
What, apart from a minor disagreement over the precise rights to be oppressed, is the difference between you? There’s probably an Arab blog somewhere with someone called Al-Buchanan patiently exlaining that of course women and infidels must be repressed and that a comparison with something important like property rights is just too absurd to contemplate.

And it didn’t go unnoticed that you entirely misrepresented the argument by describing it as “preventing people laying claim to ownership of the resources the whole population needs to access.”

What we are talking about is the right of people to keep the fruits of their labours. If you spend the summer growing food on your land then it is 100% yours. For other people to steal your food on a show of hands – you know, for the good of “society” – is what a legitimate state would not allow.
As it is, the political process rewards those who organise the most plundering. Witness Helen Clark.

Here’s a thought for you. Imagine that Uganda organised a ballot for all Ugandans and New Zealanders to elect a joint government. Why would that not be valid? (certainly there can be no argument from geography, seeing as how remote Alaska and Hawaii get to be part of the US, for example. And Indonesia is a positive rag-bag).
I can think of no reason why such a democratically-elected government would not be entirely legitimate, even if everyone in New Zealand voted against it.

They, with their greater numbers, simply deem that “society” now consists of all the people in Uganda and New Zealand together.

Surely anyone who preaches the virtues of “society” would be delighted? A bigger society!

Now, suppose that this legitimate government imposed 95% tax-rates on all earnings over $2000 a year (which effectively amounts to complete redistribution from NZ to Uganda).
This is all in accordance with your principles. You believe that one group of people can vote to lay claim to the property of another, smaller group of people by invoking the magic word “society.” Why would this not be a perfectly acceptable scenario for someone with your opinions?

artyone,

> “This little story is the basis for my ideas about how we could create a much more sustainable economy while also allowing for the ego and it’s need to create difference and individuality.”

Do you have any ideas that don’t involve fascism?

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Sam… I think I tend to argue as devil’s advocate quite often. But I also think it’s about collective responsibility. Even if I don’t believe in consumerism but belong to a society where it is the pervading ideology then I must be a consumer. Therefore I recreate myself as that character and write about myself from the perspective of my beliefs. If I’d been educated as a writer I could tell what tool I was using but as I’m a naive writer then I can only describe the tricks as I know them.

“promotion of consumer gadgets or otherwise engaging in the production of the vast screeds of propaganda that facilitates commodity fetishism.”

thats a lovely bit of writing there Sam. And thanks Eredwen.

I’m really pleased I’ve found this place because I’m a little at odds with society and always have been really. It does one good to be in a place where you can voice ideas and have people agree with them. I came to ideas about conservation and overuse of resources when I was young and not by the Green ideal so much as from being brought up working class and learning that if I wanted I needed to learn how to make for myself or improvise with substitutes. In doing that I realised it was the doing of things that mattered and not the outcome. Over time I realised that I could modify my needs and create that which I wanted with cheap and discarded materials. So I agree with alot of what the Greens want to acheive but I often see them as socially impotent in the wider sense. That said I also see the Marxists as enviromentally impotent. Why do I mention Marxism? I suppose because at heart I am a Marxist but I’m also highly critical of that ideology.
To put all this into perspective I’d like to tell a story I told to a tutor of mine when I spent a year at art school at the age of thirty.

“So the way to solve one of the problems we have with the motor car is to socialise the basic construction of vehicles. All cars have the same chassis,body and engine and they are made to last as well as be light and strong. But we still need to meet the ego requirements of humans and allow the race for prestige so we set up localised initiatives to build badges. The poor just get pot metal, if that, and really tiny ones whereas the rich get jewel encrusted big and shiny things to show off their wealth. Because the badges wouldn’t be very big then the cars would be tiny and mostly be single seaters to make the status of the driver that much more significant.”

This little story is the basis for my ideas about how we could create a much more sustainable economy while also allowing for the ego and it’s need to create difference and individuality. Food, shelter, clothing, transport and information technology should be completely communist but over that we would allow complete freedom of expression.

The left and the right can work together. They do in my brain.
Maybe you wanna see some of my art. Am I allowed to link?
http://reemergingartist.blogsome.com/

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Largely agree with your sentiments, Artyone, just one thing bugs me:

“We have set ourselves up in this mad cycle of material progress where there is little time left to care. It is so easy to forget, as we all rush to keep ourselves provisioned with all the new toys of material enlightenment, what really matters”

We? Who’s this we? I don’t recall ever advocating consumism. The vast majority of people aren’t in the habit of taking out TV ads for the promotion of consumer gadgets or otherwise engaging in the production of the vast screeds of propaganda that facilitates commodity fetishism.

Maybe you are part of the small group of ideologues promoting consumerist capitalism, but I doubt it.

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artyone says:

“Belonging. Feeling that the society we are a part of is a part of us. I say a part of us because we must be willing to give to society as much, if not more, than we are willing to recieve. If we don’t feel that society is something that will ever allow us to give as we are best able to then we will not feel that we belong. So if that belonging isn’t there then there is alienation. Poverty is a simple matter of alienation.”

This and the paragraphs which follow, take me back to the world of my childhood (1940′s/50′s) where “money” and “stuff” (and their resultant self-awarded status) had not yet caused them to become the “raison d’etre” of our society.

How refreshing!! and how true.

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This is a long one. Please feel free to cut me to shreds… or give constructive critisism. It’s how I learn.

The fact that people are rich usually excludes them from the act of giving. The reality is they have become rich because they don’t give. Any work done to relieve poverty should be done with the people who are said to be in poverty. This work, to my mind, would be a reasonably simple matter of people being given perspective on their situation and realising the possibilities available to them. In that respect teaching people to grow there own food is an important one… but only in the sense that it is about realising, being aware of, the real resources we all have as individuals. Poverty is a state of mind.

But then we encounter difficulties because educating people as to an awareness of their possibilities also raises awareness of the inadequacy of a consumer driven market and any battle to address poverty must also undermine the tenets of consumerism. Therefore, because the survival of consumerism is paramount, poverty will only become another motivating factor within consumerism to create employment for the educated.

I mean lets get real. Poverty is neccesary in consumerism. I’m not saying that people should starve but the basic ideology of consumerism, laise faire or some such, requires that there be a minority of people in need to keep employment buoyant. Maybe I’m blaming comsumerism unfairly when it’s possibly the “full employment” part of the economic question that is at fault.

But I personally think that poverty as regards materialism isn’t the big problem at all. The poverty of the spirit is the greatest poverty in modern society. We have set ourselves up in this mad cycle of material progress where there is little time left to care. It is so easy to forget, as we all rush to keep ourselves provisioned with all the new toys of material enlightenment, what really matters. And what does matter?

Belonging. Feeling that the society we are a part of is a part of us. I say a part of us because we must be willing to give to society as much, if not more, than we are willing to recieve. If we don’t feel that society is something that will ever allow us to give as we are best able to then we will not feel that we belong. So if that belonging isn’t there then there is alienation. Poverty is a simple matter of alienation.

Therefore poverty, be it spiritual, intellectual and/or material, is a state of mind, a matter of perception and perspective, that is based in and around a feeling of alienation.

The answer, as I see it, is for those in poverty is to be aware of their alienation and lift it from feeling into intellectual realisation. As a feeling the only results are sub conscious reaction to the hurts but if it is raised into the intellect then it is merely a set of problems to be solved. The feelings can then be channeled into caring for others who share the same predicament.

Why else is our modern society filled with so many artists?

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Artyone… in New Zealand it can be necessary to choose between eating and broadband…

On the other hand, a discussion of whether poverty in New Zealand exists and should be dealt with somehow, is probably best aimed at the folks as have more and will have to give some than the folks who need more and will wind up receiving… if anything effective is done at all… no?

Still, it’d be nice if the upmarket folks paid attention to the cost of bandwidth around here as I am nearing my cap and it’s only half the month gone

respectfully
BJ

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I haven’t read much of the above. Enough I suppose.
I went to the website to read the thing about poverty and saw it was a video.
Does anyone above even see the relevance of that?

I could see the video if I downloaded it for ages on my dialup connection but it’s kinda obvious to me that it’s really only for those who have broadband.

I was brought up in Mangere and live in Otara. I’ve never seen poverty. I’ve seen people without enough money and only enough to buy food from the local dairy because a taxi to the foodmarket is too expensive but that’s not poverty to me. Poverty is Africa and India. Because I don’t have much then I see poverty as having nothing at all, and more importantly, not having the chance to ever have much.

So a video on christian website may be about poverty to you. To me it’s about Sue Bradford making a living. She’s doing her job and I don’t have access to it unless I give up something else…maybe that’s poverty.

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“The key point is that you can’t pick and choose which human rights you will uphold; if it’s okay to trample property rights in the name of the good society then it makes equal sense to oppress non-believers and designated deviants for precisely the same reason”

Once again, the argument is reduced to a claim that unfettered property ownership is a human right, as if the oppressing people for their sex, race, religion or whatever were the same as preventing people laying claim to ownership of the resources the whole population needs to access.

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tochigi

His reeducation is a sisyphean enterprise. He thinks in some way, to educate us…. but for that he would have to be both smarter and wiser, and while he has some native cleverness it looks like it will be at least a decade before he can begin to accumulate wisdom.

I take your meaning though, I have no time to waste… and he is good at wasting time.

respectfully
BJ

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Sam Buchanan,

>> ‘One of the problems with arguing with fundamentalists is their insistence that if they’ve said something often enough, it must be true: “As I have repeatedly said, inequality is never a problemâ€?’

(I think you’re meant to attempt a refution at this point, not just prissily quote what I said.)

For those who still insist that inequality is a problem, imagine that everyone’s income and wealth doubled overnight. Whilst I would view such a miracle as an unalloyed good, it seems there are some who would regard it with dismay because of the inevitable doubling of inequality.
Likewise, if inequality is really a problem we could alleviate it by getting the top 5% high-flyers to leave the country, thus flattening earnings distribution. The sad thing is, I think this really would make sense to some people here.

So it is very easy to see that inequality is not the problem, although I can see how it can make for powerful rhetoric from those ambitious enough and unscrupulous enough to exploit the politics of envy (*cough* Green Party *cough*)

> “Have another read – I never advocated this – in fact I pointed out that I’m not one of the majority that considers the state to be legitimate.”

I apologise if I inadvertently misrepresented you.

>> “What I am pointing out is that a society can set is own standards and form a collective response to uphold them.”

Well here’s where you are fundamentally and absolutely misguided, simply because the consensus-driven type of society you advocate inevitably includes the slave-owning United States and Muslim countries which oppress women, gays, infidels and who knows what else. To name just two from a list as long as your arm.

What is missing from your sentimental view of societies is any notion of individual rights. Just because “society” decrees that women should wear the burkha doesn’t make it right. Just because the wider “society” deems gays to be criminals doesn’t make it right. And these societies are of course only too eager to “form a collective response to uphold” their “standards.”

The key point is that you can’t pick and choose which human rights you will uphold; if it’s okay to trample property rights in the name of the good society then it makes equal sense to oppress non-believers and designated deviants for precisely the same reason.
If you are okay with state-sanctioned stealing then you can have no *principled* objection to the legalised oppression of any minority for any reason, because you have reduced everything to a simple show of hands.

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Hi Sam and BJ,

For your reference, I would suggest you take another look at the latter part of this thread:
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2006/08/14/kiwi-made-kafuffle/#comments

Our friend seems only capable of baiting, straw-man arguments and ad hom attacks based on intentional misrepresntation of other people’s comments. IMHO, attempting a dialogue is pointless, but of course it’s up to you to decide for yourselves…

cheers,
tochigi

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OK Mouldwarp… I just wanted to see what kind of philosophy was driving you to expound such nonsense so insistently. Couching your argument in some specious moral attack on our support of our friends, neighbours and fellow kiwis was clever, but it cannot disguise the deep rift between your philosophy and reality.

Since you couch this in economic terms and compare it to the situation in the USA, you could pay closer attention to what is ACTUALLY happening in the USA… but in the end it is irrelevant. The two economies are so completely different that comparisons will only serve to lead you (or me) astray. Consider the kiwi a world “reserve” currency? The concept probably has the entire forum ROTFL.. Did NZ drop interest rates and blow bubbles in every part of itsmarket. Does NZ use “hedonics” to lie about inflation and GDP? I could go on for a long time, but basically the two situations aren’t the same.

On the contrary, the truth is that the long term security of western countries is threatened by the very fact that people can vote themselves a share of other people’s money

That’s a problem… because it’s NOT the truth. It is your opinion, and it is completely at odds with the historical record. Completely at odds with the real world… and in a cursory glance at Bastiat, I can see that you have only considered one side of what he proposed as a dual argument… I will have to read more to see it HE manages to understand that wealth does not reduce the desire of people to gain more wealth nor does it reduce their tendency to engage in plunder. You have clearly missed that particular message.

If you *are* going to steal money from people for redistribution then at least spend it according to need

We do so within New Zealand. That is proper usage for a nation. Your proposition is valid only for a global government, not a national government. We tax ourselves and we pay the proceeds out to benefit our society… and the idea that it is a massive “vote buying” scheme misses and distorts that moral point. To the extent that politicians DO manage to do that with the money, they are clearly at fault. That doesn’t change the principle, and since it is visible to all of us it is an issue which, among others, governs our individual exercise of the franchise. I don’t have a bone to pick about the problems that the current welfare system has, as it has plenty. The idea however, that it is wrong to try to make it right, and rather more useful to simply rely on voluntary charity, fails as soon as the equal education of poorer communities in remote parts of the country is considered important… and it IS considered important by most of the country.

As I have repeatedly said, inequality is never a problem; poverty is, and there are no poor people in New Zealand.

Wrong. Poor is a relative, not an absolute measure in the societal context, for a New Zealander it is relative to other New Zealanders not relative to the poorest people on the planet. What you may be examining is whether “poor” in New Zealand means dying of poverty, and that it seldom does. This does not govern the proper concerns of a nation. On an individual basis, if I choose to give money to charity, I do well to arrange it to go to the poorest as you indicate, as it will in that way do the most good, but for a nation, the goals are quite different. Charity/welfare is not for a nation, a matter of feeling bad or not, it is a matter of social stability and perceived inequity.

Anything that the people, in their wisdom, decide to do AS a government has to be alright unless it violates the terms of the constitution/social contract under which the government is formed and legitimized. So we tax ourselve, organize spending on ourselves and go to court when someone rorts the system.

The problem you face is that the system (or more properly lack of system) that you advocate, DOES NOT work, has never worked and cannot work in a society made of human beings, any more than a pure marxist communism can work.

respectfully
BJ

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One of the problems with arguing with fundamentalists is their insistence that if they’ve said something often enough, it must be true:

“As I have repeatedly said, inequality is never a problem;”

Another problem is their assumption that their opponents are all of a like mind and must believe in whatever it suits the fundamentalist to claim:

” if I told that I’d organised a show of hands and we decided that you have to give us 50% of your income? That precisely what you’re advocating.”

“You advocate that the state should steal money from your neighbour”

Have another read – I never advocated this – in fact I pointed out that I’m not one of the majority that considers the state to be legitimate.

>> “Your whole argument rests on first defining unfettered property ownership as a basic human right. It isn’t.�

“By the way, I’m coming round to take your car later in the week. Or should I call it “ourâ€? car? No objections I trust?”

None whatsoever (since I don’t have a car). Did you notice the word “unfettered” in the sentence before you got in a froth? I don’t lay any claim to your personal trinkets, or the things that make your life comfortable. What I am pointing out is that a society can set is own standards and form a collective response to uphold them. I suspect you will quake at the word “collective” and might think there is “no such thing as society”, in which case I’d invite you to examine human history and try and work something out that involves human beings, as opposed to polar bears (delightfully individualistic, at least the males, will kill their own kids to reduce competition).

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Sam Buchanan,

>> “Your whole argument rests on first defining unfettered property ownership as a basic human right. It isn’t.”

By the way, I’m coming round to take your car later in the week. Or should I call it “our” car? No objections I trust? And that touchingly bad picture of the cat your child painted at school yesterday? Mine.

>> “So actually, you’re saying its about the mob voting other people a share of its own money?”

No, because a mob doesn’t have any money. Only individuals have money. How would it be if I told that I’d organised a show of hands and we decided that you have to give us 50% of your income? That precisely what you’re advocating. The only difference is who we choose to include in our definition of “the mob”: You choose anyone within a geographical area known as New Zealand; I choose the rest of the losers propping up the public bar of the Pig And Whistle with me any workday afternoon (oh, and you, of course. We choose to include you in our mob whether you like it or not. How else could we legitimately take your money?) The principle is the same.

A legitimate state is one which upholds the rights of the individual. When the state itself is the aggressor then it loses all legitimacy, no matter that a self-interested majority may support it. This is an argument from principle here, not “might is right.” The early slave-owning United States was legitimate by your standard, purely on the grounds that the majority supported it (and benefited by it).
You advocate that the state should steal money from your neighbour because he has a slightly higher income. Another guy thinks the state should steal from your neighbour because he’s a Jew. Where’s the difference? The victim still has his rights oppressed. Where does it end?

Henry,

> “Property investment gurus talk about “wealth creationâ€?. To me it seems like “wealth aquisitionâ€?. Their wealth comes from the poor suckers who pay the rent.”

The “poor suckers who pay the rent”? Presumably nobody put a gun to their head and forced them to sign the contract? Presumably they valued having somewhere to live in preference to the money? So why are they “poor suckers”? I’ve rented in the past. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement between me and the landlord. He didn’t exploit me and I didn’t exploit him (apart from that stain I never told him about).

And property investment is indeed not wealth creation. Building and development, on the other hand, is.

bjchip,

> “Can New Zealand can save the rest of the world…. well actually no… we can’t. We could save a small piece of it for a while, but only someplace as isolated as we are… and we cannot justify doing so at the cost of our own survival as a nation and as a society. THAT is what you position continue to demand.”

On the contrary, the truth is that the long term security of western countries is threatened by the very fact that people can vote themselves a share of other people’s money in the form of handouts and benefits-in-kind.
By some estimates the United States should already be considered bankrupt because of its liabilities in the form of medicare, medicaid, social security etc. In Britain it is reported that public sector pension liabilities “dwarf” the national debt at more that 700 billions pounds and rising by some 35 billion pounds a year. Political promises all, and the politicians that made them will either be dead or comfortably retired on a gold-plated pension before the bill for all their promises arrives.

Exactly the same will happen in New Zealand.

This has all come about because the mob is able to vote itself other people’s money. That being the case, politicians know that the only way they can attain the power they crave is to continually outbid each other in the extravagance of their promises – the cost of which won’t come home to roost for decades in some cases (one popular way, of course, is to increase the size of the public sector and buy its votes). Witness Labour’s bribefest at the last election.

So if it’s national security and survival you are interested in, you should perhaps reconsider your assumption that overriding individual rights is the way to go. I would argue that national security itself only has any merit as a means to maintain the rights of the individual and is not an end in itself.
The end-game of all these self-serving political promises will be very painful, very ugly and very probably disastrous for all except the self-serving politicals.

> “Taking money from OUR poor and giving it to some poor people elsewhere in the universe makes OUR society more unequal and much more fragile. Siphoning money from our infrastructure development puts our physical survival at greater risk.”

As I have repeatedly said, inequality is never a problem; poverty is, and there are no poor people in New Zealand.

It is said that some half the world lives on $2 a day or less, including one billon on less than $1 a day.
*That’s* poverty. *Everyone* in NZ is rich by comparison and is presented by a wealth of opportunity in a working market economy. The way you people preach about the “poor” in New Zealand makes me think that either you don’t have the faintest clue about the suffering in the real world, or you are cynically using a false argument to garner votes.

If there is to be any moral argument in favour of stealing people’s money it would be to help people in poverty. What is most definately not moral is to steal people’s money under that pretext and then, ignoring genuine, widespread and extreme poverty, to spend it instead on reducing very minor domestic inequalities in order to achieve political power. That is theft and corruption pure and simple.

> “But as soon as the insistence that we give money away to people we don’t know in places we’ve never been is out of your mouth you insist that we mustn’t collect money to assist anyone in New Zealand.”

I thought I was perfectly clear. If you *are* going to steal money from people for redistribution then at least spend it according to need rather than simply using it as a huge slush-fund for buying votes domestically.
You yourself admitted that you can’t do this because it would be political suicide. Well, maybe it would. But the answer is to fix the system, not simply shrug your shoulders and join everyone else at the trough.
And your objection to sending money to “people we don’t know in places we’ve never been” obviously precludes domestic redistribution as well, unless you know everyone and have been everywhere in NZ?

> “You may not understand this, but it isn’t any more wrong to pay taxes to have government than it is for us to help each other by organizing to collect money and distribute aid.”

Actually, it is very wrong and very different. One is state-sanctioned plunder for the benefit of special-interest groups, the other is voluntary giving of one’s own money for the benefit of the needy. And even if the state were to spend the money according to humanitarian rather than political priorities, do you really believe that some nine-to-five state bureaucrat could possibly spend your money more wisely or more efficiently than you could, or have any notion about what *you* consider to be the most pressing issues?
You seem to think that anything the government does is legitimate because, er, it’s the government. It is a naive and worrying belief.

> Which leads us to this question…. what is it you reckon is the right thing for us, as a society, to do?”

I would direct you in the first instance to Bastiat’s “The Law”…

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

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