It’s been a while since I've seen a thread this interesting. Well, I think I’ll add my own two cents too.
This question is, above everything, a moral matter. We are not discussing whether money accumulation works or not – it’s undeniable that it does, economically speaking – but if it is an acceptable policy to rule the world by. Is it functionality enough to erase, minimize, or even simply justify the imperfections that prospers within this structure?
In a close second, comes a structural question: It works, but for how long? Is this sort of idiosyncrasy the kind of pressure that can break the present system down?
Those are the questions that I saw in the original post, and they require very careful propositions (as I don’t dare to call my divagations “answers”
.
About Justice:
Despite this is not THE question proposed, I guess that defining “justice” is instrumental when dealing with such matters. This is not easy task, thought. In my first year in Law School, it took me 25 pages of digressions in a monograph just to realize that I was not more able to define it than I was when I begun… But I’ll refrain from such exaggerations in this forum and keep it small.
This is “justice” according to the
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
Pronunciation: 'j&s-t&s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English & Old French; Old English justice, from Old French justice, from Latin justitia, from justus
Date: 12th century
1 a : the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments b : JUDGE c : the administration of law; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity
2 a : the quality of being just, impartial, or fair b (1) : the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action (2) : conformity to this principle or ideal : RIGHTEOUSNESS c : the quality of conforming to law
3 : conformity to truth, fact, or reason : CORRECTNESS
As you all can see, it is very vague. However, I’ll highlight the word “equity”, that finishes the proposition number one. This is the aspect of justice that matters in this discussion.
A Working Society:
When we stick to political studies, we learn the fundamental reasons why the society even exists. Philosophically, it goes like this: Every person in the world is equal and born free to do whatever he/she pleases. That freedom, however, is false, because equally, all others are free to do the same. Soon enough, the limited materials to satisfy the ever growing demand will generate conflict of interest, and that, in an environment that possesses no notions of morality (not necessary until that point) will became prodigious in unrelenting and unreasonable struggle, violence, bloodshed.
Society, as an (semi)organized entity, not only provides minimal standards of behavior (traditions, rules, laws, etc…
to minimize such confrontations, but it also provides the means to keep what’s unavoidable in sustainable degrees, thus allowing people to prosper.
By all this, my point is that society, in all it’s aspects – economic aspect included – has a fundament, an ultimate goal, and that goal is to provide the well being of their citizens… ALL of them, even if some are better at this than others.
We then fall in the deeper aspect of the question: Is it acceptable that society uses unfair means (such as unequal distribution of wealthy, as in the case “
in locu”
to achieve this general well being?
Well, the very concept of society is that of people giving up some prerogatives in the interest of personal participation in a good greater than his/her own (as Thomas Hobbes said, giving up freedom to join the Leviathan). Theoretically, then, the imposition of a personal gain that is inferior to the personal production can be acceptable, as long as, in the big picture, it generates the well being of the citizens in this society.
This was the point of a few of the previous posters, that expressed concepts such as “the accumulation favors the investments and helps to keep economy growing”, or “the huge amount of money possessed by few does not mean they are out of the market, since it is flowing in the bank system and helping the economy”, or even “the riches are richer, but so are the poor, even if in a small scale”.
This view, I agree, is pretty functional, and the more accurate description of how our society works presently. I however, have to disagree completely with the implying that this is a good, natural and desirable thing, within the boundaries of the proposed question.
As I stated above, the original proposition regarded the acceptability of such thing, not it’s functionality (to resume, does it matter, or does it not?). Arguing its functionality (as even the original message did) is, IMHO, escaping the subject. It is like asking if raping is a moral way of achieving sexual thrill, and have a rapist saying “well, it is pleasurable”… maybe, but that’s
not the question.
So, consider this: No one can get *rich* outside a society. Not only we are hopeless against assault outside its protection (it’s impossible to stay permanently alert), but also it’s impossible for a single man to achieve, without benefiting from other people works, the kind of fortune we see people having today. Therefore, it’s safe to say that, in many aspects, society is the cause of such prosperity.
A person that is able to be super-productive deserves, no doubt, a bigger piece of the pie. No one can deny that people who have made great achievements does deserve to benefit from those. I, however, ask this: Is this possible for a man to be worth, alone, as much capital as, for example, Bill Gates? Of course not.
Without any personal attack on him, and even recognizing his great talents, a single man cannot single-handed generate so much wealth. Therefore, he is benefiting from wealth that is generated by others. Some will say that he deserves such, because he is an enterpriser, he had vision and competence to create his company and to invest and to be a leader, etc… I won’t oppose to that arguments, I won’t even disagree, since that is, as I said above, the way the logistic of how our system works.
Everyone please note that the idea of man, for one reason or another, benefiting of the sweat and blood of others is nothing new, and is not a prerogative of capitalism. There has never have been a single society where it didn’t happen, for assorted reasons, such as being the “voice of god”, being “the king” or “the nobility”, being a part of the “communist party” or “being a successful enterpriser” as we accept today in the rule of a capitalist economic model.
My point is that in the past, reasons such as accident of birth or political ascendancy were considered valid, fair reasons to allow some aristocracy to have common people providing their surplus-value to this dominant, privileged class. Such reasons are, today, considered odious, while the reasons that fit our model are not. Nonetheless, these are not intrinsically more “unfair” than the modern take, they are just old and out of fashion.
There is, in the present days, the myth that every rich person in the world is so because he has a kind of vision and competence and working skill that is unparalleled by the common man, and so, they deserve such life of privilege. In the past, people that are “better” were recognized by their bloodline. Today, it’s by their bank account.
I’ve seen plenty of support for such inadequacy, as I read many times arguments like “envy for those who did better” and “If you don’t have it, is because you didn’t deserve” (what implies that the “
contrario sensu” is true). People seen to be willing to completely validate the exploration that capital owners impose on working classes.
I do not hate the bourgeoisie and in fact I can appreciate their role in the world. I also do not fall for the fool line of arguing that every rich man is mean. But it’s undeniable that they are beneficiaries of a perverse infrastructure, and that it’s not right to give that class complete moral redemption, as some here seen to have done.
So, despite the fact that competence
does deserve recompense, when a society, which’s ultimate goal is to serve equally all people, will allow in it’s mechanics that some person uses his/her edge (be it nobility or competence or whatever) to achieve a part of the cake that is not simply the expression of their (eventually greater) productivity, but also the part that belongs to others due to
their own productivity, it
is failing it’s basic goals, because it’s allowing a subtle but institutionalized version of the primal predicament of man abusing other man, the very thing it was created to avoid – and worse, providing them unparallel power that makes the abuse even more invasive.
There is no one so special and talented in the world that can be fairly blessed with money enough to buy whole countries, no matter the flaws in economy theory that allows some to do so. Such accumulation is a distortion of values and an exaggeration of their merits and the fact that the poor have had slight improvements in their conditions does not change that the slightest.
So, my answer to question number one is
yes, that it
is unfair, and it
is a problem to have an income inequality, especially one that is increasing as we all seen to agree here.
(to be continued)
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