From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lee@piclab.com)
Date: Fri Jun 07 2002 - 11:42:53 MDT
> >--but I want to /earn/ it, not take it by force.
> >"Need" and "deserve" are empty, meaningless concepts.
>
> How can one make sense of the term `earn' unless `desert' is also part of
> the package? I'm less sure about the, um, need for `need', but if you don't
> *deserve* a certain recompense for your efforts (according to some agreed
> calculus), how can you be said to have *earned* it? Isn't the difference of
> desert just that between (a) holding someone up and stealing their money,
> and (b) working to earn it by providing them with a service they seek from
> you?
>
> Damien Broderick
To my ears, "deserve" smacks of the labor theory of value: the silly
idea that someone who works harder should earn more. "Earned" wealth
is that gained by voluntary exchange from others, and in proportion
to the values /others/ directly place on your work, as evidenced by
their paying for it, not by some nebulous concept of "desert" as a
feature or work in its own right. Yes, I suppose the concepts are
related and one could certainly define "desert" in a capitalist way,
but most of the folks I hear using the word don't.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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