[dagss]

"Justice" means upholding laws?

Most of the world has signed conventions that makes basic livelihood a right -- and puts it on the state to ensure this.

Perhaps you don't agree with these laws and conventions. But please consider that the very concept of "ownership" and "property" is also something that is only upheld by laws.

Also on a pragmatic level, why should those without property acknowledge and support a state which doesn't look out for their basic livelihood? A state that does not at least try to make sure everyone has a livelihood is a sure path to social unrest / revolutions that causes problems for rich people as well.

You should turn around and ask: Why should people support the notion of property?

Property is part of the social contract in much the same way that human rights (everyone having a livelihood) is part of the social contract.

[grondilu]

> to social unrest / revolutions that causes problems for rich people as well.

Some problems for sure, but it's probably manageable. Poverty is not and should never be an excuse for crime. Rich people can build as many prisons as necessary.

[sgt101]

This did not work out well in France in 1793.

Or Russia in 1917.

Things were close in the US in 1932 - hence the new deal.

Poverty isn't an excuse for a crime, but people with children to feed can be used as a tool by revolutionaries very easily. One revolution often leads to another (France and Russia also Germany saw this) as the faction in power loses it's grievance and acquires shiny things.

The problem is that this precipitates economic collapse and therefore more poor people.

"Managing" the problems isn't cheap either; thugs, cameras, guns, torture, prisons and PR are not free. There are a variety of costs, including the personal ones when the children of the rich discover that Daddy or Mummy spends half their weeks chainsawing people's arms off.

And Jesus, what's the point? I mean, isn't it just better to have a world where you can go out for a latte or buy a pair of pants in a store without being afraid ?

Technically we can say that equilibrium is that the rich support a welfare state and the poor do not use the rich to decorate lamp posts. Some players have forgotten this, they are irrational, but that doesn't change the game and in future iterations it will return to it's balanced state.

[Mouse47]

>Poverty is not and should never be an excuse for crime.

If I'm starving to death and you're hogging the bread, I'm taking it from you. The law is not morality. At some point (I don't think we're there yet today, but we're heading in that direction) I think crime - stealing in particular - is more excusable when the rich have stacked the deck.

[kelnos]

How can you possibly believe that a society where a large percent of people are in prison is a healthy society?

[grondilu]

If they committed crime, they should be in prison, regardless of how numerous they are.

[dagss]

You keep defining crime as it suits you.

You want to define one set of laws you agree with "justice" and another you disagree with "charity". That is namecalling and intellectually lazy.

The same state and body of laws that define property also defines taxation.

Without a social contract, there is no property. Property isn't obvious! My viking ancestors considered it good and noble to pillage Englishmen.

The social contract you live in happens to define property, but also define taxes and redistribution to the poor. It gives the poor rights. Not charity.

You seem to consider property more "natural" or God-given or such than taxation and everyones right to eat. Why?

[kelnos]

How is that even remotely the point? If you have a huge prison population, your society is unhealthy. Full stop. Even if those people "deserve" to be in prison. If they do, that's the society's failing in successfully educating and raising people to be productive members of that society. It's rotten to the core.

[dagss]

To be clear, would you morally condemn someone for stealing if they would otherwise starve?

It seems like you think the right to "property" is somehow above the right to life. In most of the world BOTH of those are guaranteed by the same laws and the same social contract.

[eli_gottlieb]

>Some problems for sure, but it's probably manageable. Poverty is not and should never be an excuse for crime. Rich people can build as many prisons as necessary.

You are one of the people for whom they build gulags.

[chii]

More correctly, he builds the gulag for the rich.

[halfteatree]

That went pretty well in venezuela.