> you can never have a right for someone else's labour.
The reason a human's productivity is orders of magnitude higher than that of a stone age person is the work of uncountable legions of dead people. Almost everything we have and know is due to network effects of humans working together in time and space. The current generation's productivity is almost all due to inherited tools and knowledge. You do live off of "other people's work", we all do. The amount that you yourself contribute, and that you are concerned about, is negligible in comparison to the inheritance. We can afford to be much, much more relaxed. You are not living a stone age life where your concern would have had merit, because most of what you achieve was indeed attributable mostly to yourself (although even then tools and techniques inherited from previous generations probably was a major factor).
If somebody is able to "make millions", or even billions, how much is only their own effort? Put a baby in a swamp and see what they can achieve. That billionaire is sitting in the center of a vast network of humans in time and space - most of it consisting of the dead who cannot be paid even if you wanted to. It's certainly good and necessary to have such people in central network locations, I just dislike when people think those guys are "self-made". I let you live alone in a remote forest, and even with all modern knowledge, where is your "self-made" empire? Same for a 50k/year job, who still is vastly more productive than a $100/year stone age guy not at all because of superior skills or effort. Your position in the space-time human network determines most of your impact.
So to what I quoted of your comment, that is exactly what we do, every one of us. Some just like to pretend that their own contribution is much more significant than it really is, because almost all of the productivity and possibilities are from the network and not from a particular person. So - relax! It isn't you who pays, it's the dead >99.9%.
This is true, and that's why you should advocate for charity - which is based on free will decision on controlling your own property and resources, just as all the interactions that make up modern world that you so thoroughly describe.
The "human right" concept, however, is entirely different: it is referring to use of the mechanism that has monopoly on violence, the state, to redistribute these resources, by the use of or threat of use of said violence, without any free will involved. This mechanism completely removes individual capability of making a moral decision, and uses morality as a pretext to obtain monopolistic, bureaucratic power.
In my view, this monstrous mechanism, which is capable of despotism thousands as bad as any other, should be only used for things that cannot be achieved without it, such as rule of law. Charity and helping others is a noble thing, but since it can be achieved without it, just through free individuals decisions, it should.
Using violence to collect taxes is monstrous but using violence to protect the property of rich people is right and just? In nature, a person cannot have infinite wealth. The idea that someone can have as much wealth as they want is a creation of the state and is enforced by violence.
I don't understand the argument against government violence. Violence has a very interesting feature by design: assuming you have enough force you can always resist it. There is some slack in the system that lets you change it under special circumstances. Compare that to other non violent ways of enforcing the law. In theory one could genetically engineer humans to always obey the government. There is no opportunity for resistance and even if by mere chance you do resist, you might be subjected to a drug or gene therapy that "fixes" you.
> In nature, most of children die in infancy, might makes right, murder rates are sky-high and starvation is a constant threat.
> So, if anything, using "in nature" is working against your case, not for it.
Total non-sequitur. The point is that the idea of unlimited wealth is an artificial construction.
> everybody should be able as much wealth as they have acquired through any kind of lawful exchange.
Any state that protects the property of wealthy people through violence can surely also put obligations on those people. In exchange for the state's violence, they must support a social safety net which gives the people who wealthy people are being protected from basic human necessities and dignity.
The state who gives an artificially constructed right to wealthy people (the institution of private property) can also give an artificially constructed right to poor people (basic needs and dignity).
> Total non-sequitur. The point is that the idea of unlimited wealth is an artificial construction.
But you're trying to reach some kind of value judgement from this point - as if "artifical construction" means it's bad in some way. It is not. On the opposite, these completely virtual notions of money and finance helped achieve modern-day prosperity that humanity enjoys.
So, yes, it is artificial, which makes it good.
> which gives the people who wealthy people are being protected from basic human necessities and dignity
So, pay off the potential looters and thieves to sooth them? You do understand that this is basically "might makes right" moral imperative and nothing more?
> The state who gives an artificially constructed right to wealthy people (the institution of private property) can also give an artificially constructed right to poor people (basic needs and dignity).
First of all, the artificially constructed right of private property is given to all, equally. And second of all, while both of these rights are artificially constructed, one is moral, while the other is not.
Charity has been proven, time and again, to be completely inadequate to the task of providing for the poor and needy.
We live in a society. The rich benefit hugely from that society. It is their duty and responsibility to give back enough to help maintain and improve that society.
To say otherwise is, effectively, to say that it's OK to want everyone beyond the walls of your castle to starve.
> It is their duty and responsibility to give back
You cannot decide what other people's legal duty or responsibility is if they hadn't entered a voluntarily agreement with you. And moral duty should never be imposed by violence - it's always up to individual moral choice.
> To say otherwise is, effectively, to say that it's OK to want everyone beyond the walls of your castle to starve.
No. To say otherwise is to value individual choice and responsibility over the dictate of the masses.
> You cannot decide what other people's legal duty or responsibility is if they hadn't entered a voluntarily agreement with you.
You appear to be one of those who worship at the altar of inviolable individual self-determination.
That concept is antithetical to a functioning society.
I understand its allure—it seems to be a logical and empowering thing. But it's fatally flawed, because humans are not individual creatures, evolved to live out solitary lives creating our own path. We are social creatures. Thus, any philosophy that puts the will of the individual above all else will inevitably fail.
In my experience in practice, people espousing such a philosophy generally either are or believe they will be in a position to impose their will on others, and want a philosophical basis for claiming that as moral and just.
Note, please, that I'm not saying that individual self-determination must always bow to the will of the majority. That's also deeply problematic. Instead, I'm saying that no absolutist philosophy will provide you with the tools you need to create a world that's worth living in for everyone.
> You appear to be one of those who worship at the altar of inviolable individual self-determination.
Actually, the opposite is true. My ideal place to live is a commune without personal property, and I love being in such temporary environments in places like music festivals (local copies of burning man).
But I draw a very sharp distinction between society and state, and want to minimize the state's reach. All these ideals of sharing and charity should only be implemented through personal free choice, and never - through organization which has monopoly on violence.
For me, it's the basic security principle of separation between minimal operating system kernel and a fat application that manages all of it's features. The smaller the kernel, the less code there is to have vulnerabilities in, the less chance there is of compromise.
The less power the state has, and the more functions it gives away to society, the less chance there is that the state can be corrupted.
It seems that you're trying to frame my argument as if I wanted to abolish the state completely, but I have said nothing of the sort. Just as you're saying, the question is, in what form should the sate exist. And my answer is, in the most minimal form required to uphold the things that no other institution can.
The reason a human's productivity is orders of magnitude higher than that of a stone age person is the work of uncountable legions of dead people. Almost everything we have and know is due to network effects of humans working together in time and space. The current generation's productivity is almost all due to inherited tools and knowledge. You do live off of "other people's work", we all do. The amount that you yourself contribute, and that you are concerned about, is negligible in comparison to the inheritance. We can afford to be much, much more relaxed. You are not living a stone age life where your concern would have had merit, because most of what you achieve was indeed attributable mostly to yourself (although even then tools and techniques inherited from previous generations probably was a major factor).
If somebody is able to "make millions", or even billions, how much is only their own effort? Put a baby in a swamp and see what they can achieve. That billionaire is sitting in the center of a vast network of humans in time and space - most of it consisting of the dead who cannot be paid even if you wanted to. It's certainly good and necessary to have such people in central network locations, I just dislike when people think those guys are "self-made". I let you live alone in a remote forest, and even with all modern knowledge, where is your "self-made" empire? Same for a 50k/year job, who still is vastly more productive than a $100/year stone age guy not at all because of superior skills or effort. Your position in the space-time human network determines most of your impact.
So to what I quoted of your comment, that is exactly what we do, every one of us. Some just like to pretend that their own contribution is much more significant than it really is, because almost all of the productivity and possibilities are from the network and not from a particular person. So - relax! It isn't you who pays, it's the dead >99.9%.