Rob

Say you're a student and you take on a job at Mackers so you can pay for your student loan. After a few months you've saved a bit of cash as you're still staying at your parents. One day while browsing the net you run into a whizbang waterproof kind of MP3 player that plugs into your iPhone, and you know all the boaties would love one of these.

You then order about 10 and sell them on ebay, and they fly out the door like hotcakes. You triple your order and soon you're renting a small warehouse and employing 5 people to help you get the orders out.

Suddenly you find yourself in the rarefied upper middle class where you can afford to buy your parents a small unit, pay off your loans, buy a modest waterfront house and a small fishing boat etc.

Now suppose some dole bludging 99%er stakes you out and while you're out playing golf one afternoon, he decides to take direct action to flatten the inequality gap between the two of you and cleans you out.

Now would you call that theft, or would you sing the praises of the thief who took affirmative action by using your private property to reduce the inequality gap between you (a 1%er) and himself, a 99%er?

Now please tell me when the disconnect or "credibility gap" occurred between your true understanding of morality, and the claptrap spouted by this envy-ridden malcontent.

Does good old common theft somehow get whitewashed when perpetrated from behind utopianist progressivist tripe and when rather than do it themselves they set about bribing demagogues to do it at their behest in exchange for their votes?

Since when has the unwillingness of the slothful to learn what it takes to support themselves become a valid claim on the property of those who have taken the action to live as honest moral beings?

Do you truly rate your fellow humans that low as to suppose that they wouldn't help out those who truly cannot take care of themselves by means of private voluntary charity, despite clear evidence to the contrary during events like the Qld floods or Katrina?

So why do you give this prof's poppycock any credence at all?

Rob

The 99%er/1%er equation is a typical leftist class war construct. Of course that 99% is split into the vague sectors of middle class, upper lower class and lower class.

Your posit of me suggesting that 99% of society are dole bludging thieves is absurd and insulting.

For you to then exonerate both the article and your glowing tribute as being free from the notion of coercion is beyond incredulous.

Are you intoning that force when initiated by government for the sake of stealing the private property of its citizens belongs to a different class of immorality than that of a common thug when stealing your wallet? Stupid question, of course you do.

Now when comparing the income disparity between a clubhouse cleaner and the CEO of a large mining or financial services company you'd have to conclude that the hard unthinking monotonous labor of scrubbing floors by hand produces negligible economic value or wealth, whereas the discipline and rigor of thought required for a CEO to successfully and profitably orchestrate both the economic and intellectual capital put at his disposal by the shareholders produces a quantum leap in the creation of wealth.

It's obvious then that the creation of wealth in a modern industrialized economy is directly proportional to your power of creative problem solving, i.e. your ability to reason. Now it is true that in the free market, the CEO of soft-porn magazine may make a lot more money than a manufacturer of microscopes or an emeritus professor for that matter, but thats not the point.

The point is this. Like all living beings, should we wish to live we need to produce our daily bread, and because our only survival tool is our power of reasoning and acting we need to be free from physical coercion, the only act that can negate our thinking and therefore our ability to survive.

That right there is the concept of individual rights or freedom as enshrined to some extent in the USA constitution and bill of rights (the right to the pursuit of life liberty and happiness). It simply means that we need to be free from physical coercion in order to not only survive, but to make our one life the best life it can be. This means that if we create wealth by means of voluntary trade on the free market we have the right to prosper and keep the fruit of our labor (private property)

So you can see that individual rights are not ordained by God or a pipe dream, it is a practical necessity should man be able to live a life worth living, and both in a private and social context. Thus the primary requirement in order for an economic system to be valid, moral and practical is whether it respects and protects individual rights, and so far the only system that could answer yes is Laissez Faire Capitalism . (Don't confuse it with the mongrel pressure group warfare of our mixed economy and crony capitalism we currently have)

So will free markets produce income inequality? No, but it would facilitate your free choice in this matter according to how well or how ineffectually you choose to serve it. So does government have a role in a free society? Yes of course, but only as a paid servant in the service of protecting our individual rights against physical coercion, either from criminals (by running a police force) or from invasion (by running an army) and by solving disputes amicably (by running a penal and legal system)

If man is to own his own life, his liberty and his private property then government has no moral or practical role other than to enshrine and protect our liberty. If government however decides to use the democratic process to trample these individual freedoms by coddling and buying votes from pressure groups (such as the egalitarians or Econazis or unionists or socialists or communists or feminists or farmers or lesbians or gays or aborigines or Islam or Catholics or Protestants or "working families" or "workers" or any other bloody mob,) real or contrived, then they are guilty of treason and have become an outlaw, ready to be overthrown by bloody revolution if required.

Of course these are the factual principles behind the whole convoluted mess representing our morally bankrupt political system and culture. It's merely an ideal to strive for.

BTW, if you put the top 10% wealthiest US individuals through the spin drier, the wealth you'll collect will only run the US government for 18 days, and the ratio is similar here.

Rob

I can see you are afraid to death of being labelled extreme or radical, despite the fact that "extreme" in this context means no more than being consistent.

Thus I beg you to be consistent, albeit for the sake of preserving your self respect.

Either you recognise that a mans life and private property belongs to him by right, or you consent to the notion that mans life and property belong to the tribe and may be expropriated for experimental reasons in the name of some fallacious "public good" of the moment, such as "equality" or "Gaia" or that illusive exemption from reality, i.e. the desire for a truly classless society.

If you propose that the needs of "the poor" or "the previously disadvantaged" poses a valid claim on the lives of men, have the good grace to call it by it's name, i.e. slavery.

If however it's simply a case of you not wanting to be unpopular among your leftie educators and conformist buddies, then maybe the following quotes by P.J O'Rourke may have some merit and relevance here. Please wear the shoe if it fits.

The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things.... It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.

I wonder how many of the people who profess to believe in the leveling ideas of collectivism and egalitarianism really just believe that they themselves are good for nothing. I mean, how many leftists are animated by a quite reasonable self-loathing? In their hearts they know that they are not going to become scholars or inventors or industrialists or even ordinary good kind people. So they need a way to achieve that smugness for which the left is so justifiably famous. They need a way to achieve self-esteem without merit. Well, there is politics. In an egalitarian world everything will be controlled by politics, and politics requires no merit

Ahh, Polarization, how terrible (wringing hands in abject fear and trepidation)

Lefties the world over seem to use the terms "polarization" together with "extreme", "radical" and of course "racists" as a kind of "argument from itimidation" to shut up all dissent, and you have the temerity to suggest that it is I who has drunk too deeply from some or other coolaid?

Is the term "polarization" intended to hide and obfuscate a clash of fundamental political principles here perhaps? Is this term used together with me being painted as "angry" as a sort of intellectual package deal that will invalidate any credibility my argument could have had?

PS! And you thought this was a safe place to suck up to this dear old prof :)

So Mike, how does the following paragraph of mine lead you to conclude that I bag 99% of society for being dole bludgers? Are you "gramatically challenged"? Can you honestly not see that I infer to a singular dole bludger from among the the lefts newly coined "percenter" class war?

"Now suppose some dole bludging 99%er stakes you out and while you're out playing golf one afternoon, he decides to take direct action to flatten the inequality gap between the two of you and cleans you out."

As for me being an "extreme Randian libertarian wing nut", so be it for those who are clueless as to what Ayn Rand was on about, but tell me honestly now, do you have the reasoned argument with which to debate me or do you normally take the cowardly route of spraying the messenger with ad-hominem attacks as is the modus operandi of your ilk?

C'mon. lets hear your argument for why it's OK to have government initiate the use of force against the citizens whose freedoms it has sworn to protect? Explain to me how you can from behind the auspices of any idealogy countenance the spectre of envy-ridden mobs in cohoots with powerlusting pollies trample the freedoms all individuals require for the sake of having a life worth living?

I have to give you a hat tip Rob. You are certainly one of the most civil opponents I have yet run into. Wish all of you had a similar disposition to debate, and apologies if I appeared too passionate. It's in my blood.

Amanda. Please "Illucidate"* me as to where and how I have been guilty of these heinous debate crimes. I was simply pointing out to Rob that if we are to have a civilised society, it is the initiation of force (governmental or otherwise) that we have to ban from social relationships.

Now please you impatient student you, how would you validate and justify the act of treason that occurs when government uses the public legislature and armoury to initiate the use of force against its own citizens at the behest of a mob (and in exchange for their votes of course)

Is the envy ridden leftist notion of "tall poppy bashing" or egalitarianism sufficient moral validation for this act of violence and theft against the citizens of our country?

*(from the Aristocats movie)