From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 07 2002 - 15:10:14 MST
Alexander Sheppard quoted me:
> ### One question - what would you do to those who would produce
> things that matter, like bread, but wouldn't like to share them with
> those who decided to make things that don't matter, like an ISS?
> Would you take the bread away from bakers, and give it to the those
> who wanted to (quote)"achieve some other goal that people thought
> mattered <i>themselves</i>"?
and answered:
> Well, I don't think that anybody ought to be able to dictate to
> anyone else what they want to do. If the bakers just said, ok, we're
> going to destory all this bread (and hence kill everyone) unless you
> do what we want, that really is not acceptable to a free society,
> that's slavery. So yes, the bread would be taken--there's no
> legitimate reason why that shouldn't happen that I understand.
### First a technicality - please be so kind and clearly delineate the quote
from your own answer, and identify the author you are quoting from.
Now, a personal question - How old are you? I assume you are very young, and
I will treat this as a kind of a Socratic exercise.
But ad meritum - Let's assume that the ISS engineers would indeed take the
bread away from the bakers. Would you expect that the bakers, many of whom
might perhaps think little about the usefulness of the ISS to them, would
keep on baking bread? From my own knowledge of human nature I can assure you
that the majority would decide to pursue their own interests - Tibetan
philology, butterfly collecting, beer, chasing tail, etc.
Would you then force them to go back to the hot, dark bakery, to knead the
dough and lift heavy pallets of hot bread?
-------------
>
> I mean, resources aren't things you can "trade freely" in many
> cases--or, as I understand it, any cases, but certain ones are a lot
> more prominent--in many cases they are things you need to survive, or
> have a decent life, like food or a house. If someone takes all the
> food away, for example, you die--that's essentially equivilant to
> murder if the person is deliberately depriving you of food by force.
### Do you think that not baking bread is the same as taking bread away from
someone? Is it murder if I eat a piece of bread, instead of giving it to
someone else (who didn't feel like making bread himself, being too
preoccupied with building the ISS)?
------
> So, essentially the capitalist system is based on threats and
> punishment by the powerful, who control the resources that others
> need to live by force. The powerful threaten the weak with forced
> deprivation of resources, and the weak, fearing for their lives,
> enter into slavery for the masters.
>
>
### Where did you hear this story? Sounds very much like the 1st grade
primer I found in the attic at home. It was printed in the 1950's for use in
Stalinist schools.
Rafal
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