Money is not motivation...

I haven’t made myself clear. How does a system that uses an abstract medium of exchange coerce more than one is coerced by what is required for humans to live? As far as I can tell, the coercion you claim existed before money, and money, by speeding progress and empowering humanity, has reduced the coercive effect of nature.

You say there’s no point in discussing this further, but you haven’t given any support for this claim; certainly such support is still worth giving. What about money do you assert exacerbates the suffering and agony that all animals experience?

money is a symbol of society. society is built only upon violent coercion and oppression. Also specifically for the benefit of few at the expense of the majority. You never addressed this topic but instead used weasel tactics to avoid addressing the issue at hand. Which is why me and walker stopped replying to this thread.

Then I posted that society is beneficial for you due to your personal agenda, whereas we dont see it as beneficial. It had nothing to do with the previous issue.

This occurs frequently on here where people dont seek to do philosophy to find truth, but instead use it to support their own biases. Typical gutlessness prevalent in a noxious society.

I apologize, it escaped me that we had moved on from money to money as a symbol for society at large. I assure you my weasel-ness is only a result of my ignorance.

I still disagree with your description, although perhaps I am using a different understanding of “society”. Can we agree that in simple, tribal societies, individuals are not violently coerced to participate, other than by threat of being left alone? Certainly a small band in a forest is unable to prevent the defection of every individual, and most individuals stay because the alternative, trying to survive on ones own, is worse? Humans are pack animals, and we benefit from numbers and coordinated action. Is this a point of agreement?

Even if you agree on that, we are unlikely to agree about the nature of modern, global society. I see the benefit of coordination and strength in numbers to be something that scales very well. After all, I am typing a computer manufactured on the other side of the world, designed on the west coast of the American continent and delivered to my home on the east coast, and communicating with you wherever you are. The science behind what I’m doing is a product of large scale cooperation, and the leisure of doing it is enabled by the massive efficiency that that cooperation has enabled. Certainly many people around the world working harder than us were necessary to afford such leisure, but the efficiency of even their work has increased, so that less sweatshop labor produces goes further than it used to.

Is our disagreement simply one of narrative, then? When one person has the upper hand in an exchange, I describe it as a voluntary exchange that benefits both parties, and you describe it as a coerced exchange in which one party is under duress. Are these descriptions mutually exclusive?

There is a huge difference between tribes of a few and the large-scale oppressive and violent imperialistic systems prevalent in the modern fascist states you see today.

I disagree. the distribution of wealth certainly doesnt indicate that. automating things and getting rid of need for human physical effort doesnt mean its not oppressive. In fact it allows it to be more oppressive where wealth can be controlled by even less people and non skilled labor specialists can be left to die off since less people are needed to run the system.

government on a large scale is not mutually exclusive it just is what it is. A symbol of violent coercion on a large scale. as opposed to violent coercion on an individual scale. I just see it as worse because industrialism and post-industrialism creates alienation between humans within societies, between humans and their labor, and technology creates more oppression because wealth and resources can then be controlled by even fewer people and more laws/controls are necessary to consolidate increased centralization.

plus I am an anarchist so I prefer the coercion on an individual or tribal scale at most as a personal preference.

I also lean anarchist. However, since the government we have arose out of the anarchism of the natural world, I see some form of government as inevitable. As I’ve argued, humans are pack animals; without a universal government, we will have gangs who will fight or compete until some gang grows so large and powerful that it becomes a de facto universal government. Since we will end up with some government anyway, the trick is to identify the best way to structure government to minimize coercion, and maximize prosperity. I think the anarcho-capitalists make a compelling case for the market as an anarchist system, though they would go farther than I think possible.

The important question is whether these non-skilled laborers would be better off in another system. After all, this is the majority of the population. If they could do better by returning to tribal, hunter-gatherer society, it at least requires an explanation as to why they don’t. Furthermore, it seems that when they do form semi-autonomous tribes, as in inner-cities, they still get more value preying on the excesses of society than they would e.g. by eking out subsistence living. Certainly, people are deluded, but with most of the worlds population increasing in prosperity as global trade increases, it seems like the reason they stay is not only delusion, but that, bad as this system is for them, it is still better than the alternative.

Because the government appropriates all land and most natural resources within a state and forces people to function within its economy to be able to gain food housing clothing etc.

Inner cities are forced into that lifestyle due to government coercion. I doubt anybody would choose to sell drugs and get shot mutilated or killed or prostitute themselves in order to survive if they really didn’t have to. They need it to survive on a daily basis. People who choose to fuck for money do porn they don’t go into inner cities to make a living.

We will certainly see but I see society growing more and more desperate based on what I see in daily life and reading news/media, etc. I think people just now see the system as not being worth the effort anymore based on cost-benefit analysis. hunter-gatherers/pastorals worked less and had alot less daily stress/conflict also.

Two thoughts:
First, if it weren’t for governments and the economic markets they create, people would need to make their own clothes, grow their own food, build their own houses, or trade their skills for these goods directly. In other words, these are goods that only exist because of the global, coercive, violent government that enables the rich to oppress the poor into making them.
Second, in an anarchic world, nothing would stop government from doing the same thing. There is no universal law, so the actions of government are exactly those of any powerful coalition that would form in the absence of government.

The conclusion that I draw from this is that, taking the coercion and violence of government as a given, people choose to be the bitch of society rather than to go against government. By and large, it’s better to be the lowest member of the in-group than any member of the out-group.

There is the question of whether there should be such an in-group, but I think it’s moot: there will be, no matter what. The best that can be hoped for is that the largest most powerful group include as many people as possible, and regulate itself to prevent abuses.

There does seem to be a revolution stirring, but I predict it will not be a very destructive one. I foresee a peaceful transition of power out of the first world into the developing world. Already, much discontent in the first world is over the deceleration of growth relative to the developing world, as it’s fine being the bottom of an ascendant society, but when that society as a whole stagnates, the poorest members are falling. The trend will continue, but it will ultimately empower many more people than it dispossesses, and produce more value that it destroys.

I disagree but if you want to use that as an excuse go ahead. the reality is that they are coerced into it which is obvious there are no real legitimate opportunities in the inner city.

I wonder. If a substitution takes place so utterly and completely as to render the two indistinguishable in common thinking I’d say it is possible for money to be a motive factor.

This notion of value as being somehow the absolute is not in this thinking reasonable given today’s commercial manipulation of valuation. What is a value and what that value equates to is manipulated by commercialization quite commonly. One could ask what’s the motivation to manipulate valuation if it isn’t the profit in it?

Absolutely, and excellent post. Greed is the driving factor here, no use in trying to deny that. Just lay it bare out like a raisin in the sun.

This sounds a lot like, but perhaps less elegantly composed:
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

I heard a statistic once that is difficult to grasp, that less then 5 percent of the population of the colonies actually participated in any direct way to fighting in the revolution that established these United States as independent from Britain. It is depressing to think if I would have raised a hand in the abolishing of the forms we are discussing to which I have become accustomed. It really sort of drives home the point that the true struggle is a very individual and personal one, not unlike the mythology comparison presented by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

Sheeple, the masses, the herd and the hoard, are merely a backdrop to those independent doers of great thoughts and great deeds.

What power hath word and thought compared to the deeds of oppression?

The notion of risk. Certainly a common enough argument. But it must be looked at in terms of what is at risk. The private non-corporate entrepreneur has many faces. Some of those faces have a boat load of inherited funds backing them up. What sort of risk is a hundred thousand dollars compared to a couple million? Some of those faces have the benefit of investor backing who are actually taking the risk not the entrepreneur, again, what’s a hundred thousand compared to a couple million. And some of those faces are common folk who take out a second mortgage on personal property to fund their enterprise. To use the argument of risk without mentioning the many faces and their circumstances in not likely an honest argument.

I don’t think it a valid argument to use these sorts of varied risks under the common banner of defending the economic circumstances in play. Now what sort of risk would we see if looking upon the other foot. The risk to the individual employee can likely be summarized overly dramatically by stating life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Lets look further into this notion of risk to the employee by reminding you of the deaths in the mining and oil industries within that last few years by taking that job from unscrupulous employers. The entrepreneur has a few hundred thousand at stake and given the industry the employee has their life at stake. Risk?

“If I offer this guy the money and resources with which he can profitably use his skills…” Technically I believe that the definition of profit, is revenue over and above cost, and is mistakenly applied within the argument when referring to a salary paid as compensation for work performed by an employee, particularly if the compensation offered doesn’t meet the obligations of provision a wage earner in a household of a family of four is facing and when the face of the employer is found driving around in 50,000 dollar car, takes 30,000 dollar vacations and lives in a mansion on the waterfront with a yacht and a pool. Somehow I do not think the profits from the work the employees are performing are being equitably distributed even when a more realistic appreciation of the ‘risk’ involved are assessed. Until the business machine provides a spot free record of zero employee life lost or injured, it has a lot of balls to be talking in terms of risk as justification for the way its profits are distributed.

I worked for an Ad agency when I got out of college, I got paid 3.75 an hour. Got the opportunity to see a bill of services rendered to a client for an ad campaign that I had worked on solely. My time was billed out at 89.00 per hour. I immediately went to the boss and asked for a raise, (he was not aware I had seen the bill) and his response was sorry we just can’t afford it right now, then left work to attend a political fund raiser to the tune of a $1,000 a plate. This was no corporation, it was a small entrepreneurial shop of 13 people. To be fair I don’t know if all companies are run this way but If I were guessing I’d say it is likely a majority that have survived past start-up.

To include role, “that actually thinks with a brain” in a hypothetical example, is not in this estimation good argumentative form. The offer of employ is coming from thinking with his pocket book and the employee is likely thinking of his family and how is he ever going be able to put two kids through college, pay off the mortgage, pay for health insurance and still have anything left over to take his wife out to dinner on valentines day.

Something about this is just plain fishy smelling, Is there really nothing wrong with offering a bad deal. I guess you can make that as a claim but it seems to fall into the realm of personal opinion to a much greater degree than cold hard fact. Isn’t ethics a branch of philosophy too?

Actually, I do it so I got something to put into the coffee vending machine, otherwise it is a long wait for it to drop and fill a cup.

I wad reading this thread, with the usual look of disapproval I have on my face. Then I came to this part,

and puked a little bit in my mouth.

Money equates to buying power. It doesn’t have some sort of social meaning.
Who ever has the most money gets to own the most resources, usually either more than he needs, or less than he needs.

A fair society would pay everyone enough for work, not too much, not too little.

I think your mind’s a little disoriented here. It’s unethical to offer a bad deal? Why? The person you’re offering it to can just say no. I don’t see why presenting them with an option is a bad thing, even if they don’t want that option. Every time you go into a grocery store, there are bad deals all over the place – things you don’t want being sold for more than you’d want to pay for them. There’s always going to be things that you don’t want to pay for. There are always going to be bad deals. Even in the most ethical world.

To the contrary, making the claim that it’s unethical to offer a bad deal falls into the realm of person opinion. “Bad” isn’t a cold hard fact. “Bad” is the personal opinion. Your position is the opinion. So, no, I think it’s fair to say that I can offer whatever deal I like to whomever I wish, and as long as they have the option to decline the deal, there’s nothing unethical. I can offer to buy their car for 1 dollar, and as long as they can say “No, my car’s worth more than that to me,” there’s nothing wrong with my offer.

The only way to remove all bad deals would be to take away trade altogether. Ironically, most people prefer trade, so offering them the deal of, “We cab take away all bad deals, but we must also completely dismember society and trade and you have to go back to living in the wild” would be the ultimate bad deal.

You can’t have trade without bad deals. There will ALWAYS be bad deals. There will always be one person selling a car for more than another person wants to pay for it, there will always be one person selling food for more than another wants to pay for it, there will always be people who just don’t want to pay for what other people are offering. That’s not unethical, that’s just normal, that’s just life. I don’t go up to every person whose offering something that I don’t want and say “You immoral bastard!” and I doubt you do either. I sincerely doubt that you actually believe bad deals are unethical.

I think it is unethical if the person has to accept the bad deal.
For example only a hand full of people sell water, but charge very much for it.
That’s just an example. Water isn’t monopolized.

But if something like water got owned by someone, all of it, then they sold it for too much, that would be a form of exploitation.

i agree. hence me saying this:

“I think your mind’s a little disoriented here.”

You are too generous, this mind is greatly disoriented here.

“It’s unethical to offer a bad deal?”

When I read just the above, I get the impression the person extending the deal has made the moral judgment the deal is a bad one. They have made the offer of the deal and the judgment it is a bad one. That does sound unethical to me. The offer hasn’t even reached my senses in its entirety for my judgment to come into play regarding its equability or its subjective moral nature. The word “deal” itself has a connotation of being good, as in the expression that was a real deal. If the person extending the offer has reached the moral judgment it is bad, it rather negates it as being a deal.

My confusion, was in regard to where the moral judgment took place. If an offer of employ is extended and I judge it to be lacking in mutually equitable benefit then I would not likely consider it a deal and that perhaps could be defined as a difference in opinion, in which case negotiation could take place to meet more equitably in the middle of our opinions.

In consideration I think I’m perhaps less disoriented then you have assessed. On the grounds alone that everyone does it has little to do with whether it is ethical or not. Perhaps you have pointed out where within our trade practices room for improvement resides.