[danaris]

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.

[golergka]

> 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.

[danaris]

> 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.

[golergka]

> 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.