Simple question, If everyone on earth shared everything they owned, would everyone have it all? The same for knowledge, If everyone shared all they knew, would everyone eventually know it all? What is the opposite? If one person had it all, how could they enjoy it? Would they not have to build a prison to live in, to protect themselves for those that did not?
I dont really understand what you are getting at, but I’ll bite on the questions.
Sure. If property rights were abolished, everyone would in theory own “everything” legally. Now whether this is possible from a social standpoint is another question. I’m sure if I went out and carved myself a spear to protect myself from the anarcho-communists roaming the streets, I wouldnt like someone else coming over and asking to borrow or use it.
Isn’t this what has happened with the internet? So many people are sharing knowledge and so many more are recieving it. Take one look at wikipedia.
The problems for “everyone eventually knowing it all” are numerous, namely logistics of distribution and reception, and perhaps if those methods are perfected - biology. I’m fairly certain that the human brain despite its wonders has a knowledge capacity limit that cannot be exceeded. Now, when we get our cybernetic brains - thats another story. Long live the hive!
If one person had everything, that’d be quite a feat. Building a fortress is such a inefficient way to do this - we already have a better system in place… consent! Propaganda, social engineering, call it what you will. Throw the masses a bone once in a while to keep em off your back while they slave away - or whatever they would be doing if they truly had nothing.
“Everything” is a moving target. It includes potential. Today’s everything is nothing like tomorrow’s. You could split everything up today and the concept of everybody sharing equally would be obsolete by tomorrow. Things are produced. Things are created.
Things are horded by rich people…so expect to never find out the answer.
Why would they not share? They would have even more than they do now. AND they would not have to protect themselves from us poor people any longer. They could actually enjoy their weath, and enjoy the fruits of their labors, without being afraid. Do they enjoy imprisoning themselves? Maybe we should at least ask them. If we don’t, we will never know the truth.
That’s the thing though. No they wouldn’t be able to enjoy the fruits of their labors, because someone that didn’t labor for it would have walked off with it. This is why we have property rights - so that those responsible for production are the ones that get to utilize it.
If everyone shared everything, you would get a world where there is no benifit to working. Everyone would have a claim on the fruit of your labor by nothing more than wanting it. You would have no right to keep anything no matter how hard you worked. This is precisely why communism will never work: It punishes those who produce and rewards dereliction and parasitism.
If everyone traded everything, you would get, well . . . Ebay. The internet, the free market, ect.
Yes, we enjoy “imprisoning” ourselves very much. If we didn’t we wouldn’t do it invariably whenever and wherever free societies exist. Only fair exchange will function correctly without destroying the incentive to produce. Only trade will suffice, not sharing.
They do share, David. By producing. One earns a dollar by creating a dollar’s worth of value. It’s an even trade.
This thread is aching to be moved to Social Sciences.
Dunamis
Or we could let it die before Jerry starts sounding like a broken record again…
Would YOU stop working? I would think I would get bored if I did. Never mind, I manage my service center, I will try this out on a small scale.
I have plenty of toys to share with my buddies. Wonder if they will continue to work with me if I share my toys with them? Wonder if they will share with me? I am going to find out. If I fail, I can truly say it does not work, or is impossible. What if it does? What do I have to lose?
Not enough to stop me from trying.
Something is missing here. Am I understanding correctly? Greed is the only thing that holds our society together? Is it greed or “fair trade”? Is there a difference? What keeps this greed in check? No wait, greed is bad and fair trade is good. But they are the same thing!! ???
This is a nice theory but people just wouldn’t do it. If I gave you 5 million dollars you would buy 2 mansions, five cars and a yacht all for yourself. Then maybe you’d donate a Turkey to charity out of guilt and for tax deductions.
No, not the same at all. Industry and trade (and family and a whole lot of other things in the non-economic sense) hold our society together. People want and need things to survive and prosper. This alone isn’t greed. Greed is when you feel entitled to something that isn’t rightfully yours.
Which is greedier, giving your neighbor something in return for the services that he does you, and only taking what he is willing to give, or proclaiming that you have a right to his wealth?
Like Hell. If all the rich people shared everything they had, then all the people with nothing to share but an empty belly would come and take it all, with nothing to offer in return. If you are wealthy enough to use the internet, then you will be on the losing end of ‘everybody shares everything’, no doubt about it. It’s easy to say “We should all share” when you think you’re at the bottom looking up, licking your chops at what the rich man has. But if you’re reading these words, there are far more people looking up at you with hungry eyes.
As long as society remains uncommual, what’s significant is not wether “everybody has everything” or not, instead, it’s wether everybody feels superior or not. You have a Benz, I have a Benz - is’not good enough for neither of us. You have a donkey cart, I have a bicycle - however, is good enough for me. I don’t need a Maybach to feel satisfied, all I need is the sense of being better off than you. This fundamental characteristics of humans, is a fundamental gurantee of our social security under capitalist democracy. Different levels of economical and political, spiritual and sexual needs and wants, possessions and acquisitions, harmonize themselves out under this contention for relativity. A weak man endures poverty in life by means of looking down on the weaker hence poorer man, and at the same time seeking the rich man’s existentiality’s sore point. If this man has enough ambition and dignity - enough will, so not to be content with this kind of means, then he strives upward the social ladder. When he reaches the top in a particular aspect, he wants no higher as he is content with being praised as gods - his will diminishes - he degenerates. Hence the top never stays the top; hence the sine wave of all social historical functions. The incredibly willful man - the Nietzschean man in one way or another - seeks ceaseless overcoming and rising; he fights an endless range of enemies and never be content with victories: he does not - look down - in which case he has overcame a basic humanity. He is apparantly of a rare breed; his existence alone makes revolution hence evolution possible. Nietzsche is not content with having a bike while being faster than your donkey; Nietzsche doesn’t even seek a Lamborghini Diablo. What he wants is to be a sprinter, one whose racers are none but himself. The man looks down on himself. This man defies materiality as opposed to spirituality, he ceased to be a social animal but returned to a natural one and lives in a higher sphere of materialism. He can reach this height in a medieval society, while the only hope for others to cultivate themselves in this fashion is to live in a commual society. Does, then, economic development for society matter at all for the individual? Obviously not his individual, this ubermensch. How about you? Is a job with a high salary, I mean higher than average, a priorary concern for you? If no, why not? The man has to be virtuous for the right reason. To you seek to improve your spiritual wealth in life at all? A christian seeks thus, but the christian is doomed to go round and round in a much limited domain, as long as he remains christian. I bet with you that no pope in Rome hiterto can be regarded as a model christian. A pope is more Nietzschean than christian, or at least more political than religious. What do you do, are you doing, in order to fertilise and widen the land of your existentiality? Anything at all? Reading and argueing about philoophers, be assured, is worse than getting laid. Especially a certain philosophy has got you under its hook, one such as Shopenhaurean or Kierkegaardian. Then your horizen is no different to a monk’s, while your chance for happiness might be even less. You consider indifferent to the social animals that are busily getting hold of women and cash, while not realising that your women and cash are merely transcended. Though the one can be a womeniser and a cashier and still be a richer man than you spiritually. Your philosophy has done little to rise you out of the herdish scope. Your wish can never be granted this way. Your wish, however, is granted instantly the moment you turn consciously and prudently to your real, true wish - your will to power.
No. Setting aside the fact that it will never happen. Saying that it does. Some humans are just less industrious than others (especially when given no incentive to do anything). So there would be people who would hoard and steel from others and it would create economic classes. People need a treat for when they do well and to deny a hard worker incentive only serves to make him into a lazy man.
Unless of coarse the world’s population was cut down by about 99%, then everyone could live in little communes. But it would onlybe a matter of time before a large, prosperous commune decided it needs to take over a few small ones.
This is why we do share our knowledge through communication and no one has it all.
Can I repost this in social sciences?
If Arabs were to share their oil, Mr Bush would be looking for a job soon enough.
But this is not the problem.
The problem occurs when Christians try to share their religion. History offers us plenty of examples of non-Christians who have got their “share” of Christianity, in the majority of cases by force.
Another problem occurrs when sharing the assets. The only way this will work at any time in history is if everyone agrees to share. Otherwise, the whole thing is useless.
But, even if everyone would agree to share possessions, so that all are equal. What next ?
We will be so bored with everything, that the very next moment we will start a war with our neighbour so that we may take his share.
Another discrepancy arises when thinking of children. Let’s say a man has a piece of land, exactly as much as all other people on the earth. That man has 6 children. When he dies, he bequeathes the land to his children. Now the laws of social equity demand that they possess as much as any other human being alive. But their father cannot give them more than he has, so they have to split the land in 6 equal portions, thus leaving each of them with less than the normal par.
What now ? A new distribution of land, so that it covers the new needs imposed by the rising number of the population ? Close to impossible. What then ? I guess a solution here would be sharing everything, even the children, so that every family is stuck with only one offspring. But this defies common sense.
Sharing knowledge is, basically, good. But it must be a dual process. The receiver must work as much, if not more, than the one who shares.
Other than that, merry Christmas
All property is theft. (Execpt for MY property, of course.) 