"The opposite of poverty is justice"

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IlliniDave
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by IlliniDave »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 7:39 am
IlliniDave wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 7:30 am
Certainly the deepest form of poverty is heavy one-way reliance on others.
What about people with loads and loads of money but no skills? Where does Paris Hilton fall on the spectrum of poverty to self-reliance?
I don't know enough about Paris Hilton to answer that directly. But certainly one can posit a person immersed in wealth that is poor in the sense Campitor described. At the same time it doesn't mean that someone wealthy by windfall is necessarily poor because they can't go out and kill a buffalo with a bow and stone-tipped arrow. If there's active mutual reliance between a person and the universe of "others" (i.e., the person works to earn money to provide for his needs, or the inheritor of a fortune engages in a life of philanthropy and volunteer work) then the person is not deeply poor in the sense I meant. I don't think I'd even call the inheritor of a fortune who hides out in the musty upstairs room of his grandfather's mansion spending down the wealth of his ancestors deeply poor. It's possible he's quite poor in spirit, but the money he spends provides livelihood to others and is not taken from others by taxation or donation (though he is the beneficiary of intra-family charity, but that's sometimes what families do).

ThisDinosaur
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by ThisDinosaur »

Wealth is not measured in dollars but in time. (The number of years of expenses/resources you have currently saved up.) This is a basic insight of ERE but is not commonly understood in the outside world. The "Case for Reparations" link that scriptbunny posted has a very emotional historical explanation for why so few African Americans have wealth by any definition. There is only so self-reliant you can become when you can't really ever own anything without fear it will be taken away. Black americans are more aware than any other group that property rights are an illusion. Its a necessary illusion that holds society together, but still just an illusion.

IlliniDave
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by IlliniDave »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 8:27 am
Wealth is ... (The number of years of expenses/resources you have currently saved up.) ... property rights are an illusion. Its a necessary illusion that holds society together, but still just an illusion.
So wealth is an illusion? I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that--from a certain philosophical perspective. And also by extension poverty is an illusion?

I don't think things have to be absolute and permanent to exist, especially abstract things like wealth.

I would argue that there is no single definition of wealth. In the broadest sense it's relative to whomever it is applied to and has different facets, and is probably as much an emotional state as is it a quantifiable physical tally. The same is true for poverty. How many years you can get by with your accumulations is one measure of wealth, and of course is especially applicable to those who are looking to accumulate in order to live off the stash for a long time. I'm not sure that perspective is a unique insight to ERE, the uniqueness is more in the strategies developed for shortcutting the process to get "there".

ThisDinosaur
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by ThisDinosaur »

IlliniDave wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 8:51 am
So wealth is an illusion?
Kind of. Robert Shiller talks about how different financial products are "inventions" by humans. They are just different sorts of contracts, and a contract is only as good as the government that enforces it. If enforcement is unreliable, or there is a class of citizens who are subject to different rules, then no resource or instrument has an owner. There's a scene in Schindler's List where he's telling his jewish workers he wants to pay them in pots and pans. One of them says,"money is still money," and Schindler says, "no its not. That's why we're here."

The Old Man
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by The Old Man »

@Dragline

History is not Psuedohistory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudohistory

Edward Gibbon is my benchmark for how to do history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon
In this insistence upon the importance of primary sources, Gibbon is considered by many to be one of the first modern historians. Many people disagree with his conclusions, but they do not disagree with his methods or sources.

About the "history of white people," OK you have piqued my interest. What are some examples? Try to keep it to what historians would refer to as History and not as Pseudohistory/propaganda.

Campitor
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by Campitor »

What about people with loads and loads of money but no skills? Where does Paris Hilton fall on the spectrum of poverty to self-reliance?
People fall out of the 1% bracket more often than you think. American income ladders are very active - those who start poor seldom stay poor. And many in the top 1% get bumped down too.

Paris Hilton makes money via her branding/marketing. She used her notoriety and sexcapades to increase her name recognition which she leveraged to start a perfume line and make $275k per event as a celebrity DJ. I'm no fan of Paris Hilton but she's certainly producing goods/services that people are buying. A google search on Paris Hilton perfume reveals 2 billion dollars of fragrance sold over 10 years.

So the question is this... if a supposedly vacuous blond with multiple sex scandals can generate a 2 billion dollar business, why can't a hard working minority leverage focused labor and education into a decent life and modest wealth? Spoiler - they can and often do.
There is only so self-reliant you can become when you can't really ever own anything without fear it will be taken away. Black americans are more aware than any other group that property rights are an illusion. Its a necessary illusion that holds society together, but still just an illusion.
Sigh - the wealth a.k.a property rights is an illusion narrative meant to placate underachievers and convince them that working hard for $$ has no benefit. What is wealth? Per Merriam Webster: abundance of valuable material possessions or resources; abundant supply; all property that has a money value or an exchangeable value; all material objects that have economic utility; especially : the stock of useful goods having economic value in existence at any one time national wealth. So by that definition property rights, albeit an illusion, has real value because it can be exchanged for goods/services.

Here is an article by The Economist that may add to the conversation in this thread: Middle-income blacks are downwardly mobile. Why?

A word on diminishing household incomes in the article above. As income levels rise, the ability to live independently increases so that a household of 4 can now become a household of 3 or 2 as others move away to enjoy living separately. This trend can be erroneously interpreted as a drop in the standard of living when in reality it could be a sign of increasing wealth since a household of 2 wage earners would have less money than a 4 person household where the individual residents earns less per person, i.e., 2 people earning 70k vs 4 people earning 45K.
Last edited by Campitor on Thu May 25, 2017 12:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

IlliniDave
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by IlliniDave »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 9:09 am
IlliniDave wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 8:51 am
So wealth is an illusion?
Kind of. Robert Shiller talks about how different financial products are "inventions" by humans. They are just different sorts of contracts, and a contract is only as good as the government that enforces it. If enforcement is unreliable, or there is a class of citizens who are subject to different rules, then no resource or instrument has an owner. There's a scene in Schindler's List where he's telling his jewish workers he wants to pay them in pots and pans. One of them says,"money is still money," and Schindler says, "no its not. That's why we're here."
Okay, I see what your saying. I would tend to say it more like wealth can be transitory. The possibility of it being temporary doesn't make it an illusion while it exists. The illusion would be a belief in its permanence since it may or may not be permanent on a timescale relevant to a person.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by ThisDinosaur »

Well, I guess I know less about Paris Hilton than I thought I did. That's my prejudice showing.
Campitor wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 11:05 am
Sigh - the wealth a.k.a property rights is an illusion narrative meant to placate underachievers and convince them that working hard for $$ has no benefit.
Not exactly. The Declaration of Independence says all people are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." Right there is where I call bullshit. Rights are a made up set of rules set up by a governing body. Some people had the right to own other people in this country 160 years ago. The governing body subsequently decided that that should no longer be a right. The form taken by property rights defines how an economy can function. If there is no legal justification for you saying you "own" something, then there is no legal consequence to someone else taking it without your permission. Someone could show up to your house better armed than you, and say its where they live now. No one would buy it from you if they could just take it. Fortunately, there is a police force, a court system, a system of electing people to vote on new laws.

Now, consider redlining, buying a home "on contract," jim crow, and voter intimidation practices. These all add up to the title of this thread: "The opposite of poverty is justice."

ThisDinosaur
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by ThisDinosaur »

@IlliniDave
Its not the resources/materials or even the money that is an illusion. It is the right of ownership that is an illusion. Wealth is the combination of the two.

Campitor
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by Campitor »

Now, consider redlining, buying a home "on contract," jim crow, and voter intimidation practices. These all add up to the title of this thread: "The opposite of poverty is justice."
The prior existence of jim crow and voter intimidation is a red herring used to justify underachievement and empower witch hunts that do nothing to resolve poverty while creating incentives for bad economic behavior. Not sure what you mean by buying a home "on contract" - do you mean a mortgage? Everyone has to pay a mortgage yet many create tremendous amounts of wealth on property that isn't even paid off. Property rights have always existed prior to the Constitution via implied violence. But is that any different than the implied aggression inherit in any market which can strip you of your capital just as quickly? You can be rich today but a stock market crash or a new product can bring your business to its knees overnight - look at Kodak and Blackberry.

I'm not saying there isn't racism and I'm not saying minorities aren't discriminated against but in aggregate we (i'm a minority) currently have everything that is needed to excel but many choose to remain poor by adopting beliefs that discourage diligent effort and encourage waiting for a monetary handout that most likely will never come or be seen in their lifetime. If I had $20 for every time I was called an Uncle Tom by my fellow minorities for working hard, I'd probably be a majority owner of a basketball franchise. Hard work and preparation, in America today, will do a better job of addressing poverty than any government handout. Handouts = being given a fish for today. Self reliance = learning how to fish. Hard work and Preparation = turning a 1 dollar fish into 10 Sushi rolls and selling them for $1.50 each.
Last edited by Campitor on Thu May 25, 2017 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Riggerjack
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by Riggerjack »

The Declaration of Independence says all people are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." Right there is where I call bullshit. Rights are a made up set of rules set up by a governing body.
:lol: Um, so you quoted the declaration of Independence, as BS, because rights come from Kings. Most of the time when you insist that Might makes rights, I just shake my head and move on, but this was just too precious. :lol:

IlliniDave
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by IlliniDave »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 12:33 pm
@IlliniDave
Its not the resources/materials or even the money that is an illusion. It is the right of ownership that is an illusion. Wealth is the combination of the two.
But it's the same thing with that too. Just because I might not own something forever doesn't mean I don't own it while I do. Maybe you mean something by "right of ownership" different than I mean by simple ownership.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by ThisDinosaur »

Campitor wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 1:16 pm
Not sure what you mean by buying a home "on contract" - do you mean a mortgage?
scriptbunny posted this article earlier in the thread:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ns/361631/
Its a little long. Here's the relevant part:
In a contract sale, the seller kept the deed until the contract was paid in full—and, unlike with a normal mortgage, Ross would acquire no equity in the meantime. If he missed a single payment, he would immediately forfeit his $1,000 down payment, all his monthly payments, and the property itself.
...
In 1934, Congress created the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA insured private mortgages, causing a drop in interest rates and a decline in the size of the down payment required to buy a house. The FHA had adopted a system of maps that rated neighborhoods according to their perceived stability. On the maps, green areas, rated “A,” indicated “in demand” neighborhoods that, as one appraiser put it, lacked “a single foreigner or Negro.” These neighborhoods were considered excellent prospects for insurance. Neighborhoods where black people lived were rated “D” and were usually considered ineligible for FHA backing. They were colored in red. Neither the percentage of black people living there nor their social class mattered. Black people were viewed as a contagion. Redlining went beyond FHA-backed loans and spread to the entire mortgage industry, which was already rife with racism, excluding black people from most legitimate means of obtaining a mortgage.
...
Redlining destroyed the possibility of investment wherever black people lived.
Essentially, black people were not legally permitted to have a mortgage until the civil rights reform of 1968. If they somehow purchased a home or even rented a home anyway, the entire neighborhood became uninsurable. This was federal law. If a black American had said "I have a right to get a mortgage" in that time period, they would have been factually wrong.
Last edited by ThisDinosaur on Thu May 25, 2017 2:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by ThisDinosaur »

Riggerjack wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 1:18 pm
The Declaration of Independence says all people are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." Right there is where I call bullshit. Rights are a made up set of rules set up by a governing body.
:lol: Um, so you quoted the declaration of Independence, as BS, because rights come from Kings. Most of the time when you insist that Might makes rights, I just shake my head and move on, but this was just too precious. :lol:
Without turning this thread into a theological discussion, I don't believe rights come from any kind of "creator."

Riggerjack, you said you'd see me on the other side of libertarianism. Guide me, papa bear. Where do rights come from if not the minds of idealistic people?

Riggerjack
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by Riggerjack »

I don't mean offence. I enjoy your bourgeois ethics. It reminds me that the are other viewpoints, that are different, but not wrong. I was just amused that you quoted a letter to the King, denying his authority, as BS, because rights come from Authority.

Yes, I get it, you think majority is the divine right behind Authority. How very Democratic of you.

I think this will probably be an area where we will just peaceably disagree.

Scriptbunny asked that we keep this on topic, and this is most assuredly a big enough topic to take up elsewhere.

Campitor
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by Campitor »

ThisDinosaur wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 12:33 pm
@IlliniDave
Its not the resources/materials or even the money that is an illusion. It is the right of ownership that is an illusion. Wealth is the combination of the two.
Right of ownership has always existed. Right of ownership was established when the first prehistoric monkey gave a hairy backhand to his fellow simian for trying to eat the food in his tree. Was the hairy knuckle to the face an illusion? Was the defeated monkey's eye tricked into swelling by a dream sequence of primate savagery? Didn't the victorious monkey declare his ownership via the slap heard across the world? - Cue the Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra music.

Just because the right of ownership is transferred (via violence or peaceful agreement), doesn't make it an illusion in the true sense of the word - it's more accurate to say that ownership is a temporary state, with subjective utility, and vulnerable to external forces. But it's very real, has always been real, and will continue to be real as long as there is sentient life. Its transitory state makes it no less real than the fog hovering in the air that eventually dissipates in the heat of the sun.

But for the sake of argument lets say it is an illusion - this doesn't discount its utility or ability to generate real wealth. We all know that this "ownership rights illusion" narrative is mostly seen in arguments trying to dissuade others from achieving or to justify the forced relocation of capital.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by ThisDinosaur »

Riggerjack wrote:
Thu May 25, 2017 2:22 pm
I don't mean offence. I enjoy your bourgeois ethics. It reminds me that the are other viewpoints, that are different, but not wrong. I was just amused that you quoted a letter to the King, denying his authority, as BS, because rights come from Authority.

Yes, I get it, you think majority is the divine right behind Authority. How very Democratic of you.

I think this will probably be an area where we will just peaceably disagree.

Scriptbunny asked that we keep this on topic, and this is most assuredly a big enough topic to take up elsewhere.
No offence taken. And I think we are still very much on topic.
Scriptbunny asked us to consider the claim :"The opposite of poverty is justice"

I submit the following:
1)The opposite of poverty is wealth
2)wealth = ownership of resources
3)ownership is defined by law
4)law is made by people, not creators

One could add:

5)justice is the fair application of laws
6)fairness is subjective

I'm going for maximum bourgeois ethics right now. Which part did you disagree with?

Riggerjack
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by Riggerjack »

OK. Compitor beat me to it. But here goes.
4)law is made by people, not creators
This is incomplete, but a common enough shorthand for the bourgeois, for whom law is nearly equal to right is nearly equal to conformity.

I would restate that as Law is made by Enforcement. And trust me,
the minds of idealistic people
have absolutely nothing to do with enforcement. In fact, those same idealistic people are often horrified by enforcement, and have to separate their thoughts and actions from enforcement.

I thought I made that clear when I spelled out in detail how creating a paid parking system WILL result in jailing poor people for parking tickets, in the libertarian thread.

A great example would be the variation in enforcement described in scriptbunny's link. The wording of the law didn't change, the enforcement did.

The difference between your approach and mine is awareness of enforcement. Yours is a very common viewpoint, one shared by the majority who were schooled, got a job, followed the path laid out for you, and eventually die, peaceably. The path of conformity.

You look at enforcement when you are peripheral, when you blaze your own trail, or you are in a community that is commonly used as an example of enforcement.

TL;Dr: it's all illusory until you're screaming out "Don't taze me, Bro!" after exercising your "right" to free speech.

Riggerjack
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by Riggerjack »

BTW, this is why I have used increasingly harsh terms when you say things like:
Yes. Politics and economics are two sides of the same coin. Just human beings imposing rules on eachother and reacting to incentives.
or there was another place where you referred to the carrot or the stick, in terms of equality ( can't find it, but I over reacted)

Trust me, the donkey knows there is a very big difference between a carrot and a stock. As a reasoning, moral person, you should, too.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: "The opposite of poverty is justice"

Post by ThisDinosaur »

I dont know, Riggerjack. It kind of seems like we are saying the same thing. One question, though. Whats the difference between Might = Right, and Enforcement = Law ?

Also, i dont think that carrot/stick thing was me.

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