As a matter of physical reality, the universe owes us nothing. It was quite content to allow such things as the Atlantic slave trade and the Holocaust, which took people’s lives completely out of their own hands and utterly destroyed them. Were those people “entitled” to better? The question is, I think, utterly meaningless. Were these morally abhorrent events that should never be repeated? From my own moral point of view, and that of many other people, absolutely.
The effort of changing society to give more people more opportunity is generally undertaken on a moral basis alone. If you aren’t convinced by the premise, asking leading moral questions as if they have objective answers isn’t going to tell you anything you don’t already “know”, and it also isn’t going to provoke any kind of useful discussion around how we might implement real policies to this effect.
In the context of this thread, and in particular the top level comment you initially replied to, who do you imagine is suggesting we teach people that?
We have the rich who use the govt to oppress the people and preserve their wealth.
We have the poor who think the govt will help them
We have a large group of people who just want to work to survive
What rules would you put in place and how would you go about doing that to ensure the rich / powerful didnt corrupt the system ?
The US was designed with a constitution defining the rules a govt could work within and the bill of rights was added to ensure the govt didnt enroach on the peoples rights so they could control the govt
This design failed as did all the rest... why ?
Because people are inherently lazy and dont want to be bothered. So you think its better to simply feed these folks and ensure they are ok will somehow motivate them to work ?
Capitalism works better than most systems and in fact many of the so called socialist countries arent. They are capitalist countries that have strong social programs funded by said capitalism
Perhaps instead of letting the govt get away with violating the rules it was bound by we start enforcing the rules ?
> So you think its better to simply feed these folks and ensure they are ok will somehow motivate them to work ?
Care to show me where I said any such thing, or even implied it?
> Perhaps instead of letting the govt get away with violating the rules it was bound by we start enforcing the rules ?
To what end? I feel like you’re just agreeing with the sentiment of the top level comment, that we need to do a better job ensuring that social mobility is more than an illusion.
I also feel like you’re ascribing some rabid anti-capitalist sentiment to me and/or the top level commenter when, in fact (again), I don’t think either of us expressed any such sentiment, even implicitly. I happen to agree (?) with you that capitalism in concert with strong social programs to ensure the independence and mobility of labor (in economics I believe we may call that “liquidity”, which is said to increase allocative efficiency) is the right way to go.
The effort of changing society to give more people more opportunity is generally undertaken on a moral basis alone. If you aren’t convinced by the premise, asking leading moral questions as if they have objective answers isn’t going to tell you anything you don’t already “know”, and it also isn’t going to provoke any kind of useful discussion around how we might implement real policies to this effect.