: : SDF: While at the same time you have nothing to say about impoverishment. What gives the impression that you don't care is that your ideal period of history was Victorian England: is it?
SDF: I saw this post, it's way down on the list: you praised Victorian England as a time and place when a worker got to "keep what he earned." Are you denying you said such things? NJ has cited this post several times.
: : The "free market" is not automatically going to give these millions something to trade.
: But their nature as reasoning humans does. They can work and learn.
SDF: It is that people are well-nourished that allows them to "work and learn," so this excludes 1/6 of the human race who is not well-nourished. People do not reason merely because of their "nature" -- they need food, clothing, (usually) shelter, etc.
: It may seem terribly unfair to have to struggle to work into a position of having enough bread to live. It is 'unfair' in some ways, but that is not carte blanche to bleed those who have more.
SDF: Yes it is. The above is merely the perspective of one who does not have to struggle thusly.
: : SDF: Maybe one of the main reasons is that if people are conditioned to believe in the "free market,"
: Ive never believed in the 'conditioned masses' arguments because masses are not masses, theyre individuals and each one I meet has divergent beliefs about a given subject.
SDF: Here we have a double standard: one is a "masses" if one is conditioned, one is an individual otherwise. Nope: one is a conditioned individual -- this is a major point of Krishnamurti's philosophy, that the path to liberation starts from one's understanding of the reality that one is conditioned.
: : they're likely to believe that charity is an unnecessary expense
: additional expense you might say. I think a dynamic exists where the "we'll take care of it" message given by so called nanny-state governmens leads to people thinking they have, via tax, already given more that enough.
SDF: This above statement says nothing to contravene my thesis that charity reduces the competitive position under capitalism of those feeling obligated to pay it, and thus is discouraged under capitalism.
: : So have you been to the slums of Sao Paulo to help those less fortunate? My guess is that you would be overwhelmed by the chaos.
: I expect I'd get lost and maybe into some dangerous situation. How would that change what I have said?
SDF: It would have made mincemeat of any assumption you might or might not have had that "individual charity" is the solution to the world's poverty problems.
: The 'practical answer' is not a dismissal out of hand, its an evaluation within the context of the the time frames and extents od damage.
SDF: Such as very large collectives, and not merely individuals, are capable of coping with.
: : SDF: So who holds that as his "sole goal"? All I've ever been arguing is that humanity would be happier and live longer if it made a SMALLER dent upon its planet.
: The extent to which the dent should be smaller is the inconclusive area.
SDF: Nope, it's not inconclusive that people should avoid huge oil spills, extinguishing important species, destroying rainforests, permanently altering global climate for the worse, etc.
None.
