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What is the Ethical Limit to Personal Wealth?
- Thread starter Martin Gale
- Start date
I find it tidy to use a functional definition: "ethical" == "legal". What is illegal is unethical, and what is legal is ethical. By definition.
Now the answer to "What is the Ethical Limit to Personal Wealth?" is simple: the ethical limit is the legal limit. Which, in the year 2007 is, in many countries, infinity. It is not illegal to posess infinite wealth; therefore it is not unethical either.
If you don't like it, work to change the law.
If you live someplace where it is impossible to change the law, either give up and learn to live with it, or take yourself elsewhere.
Now the answer to "What is the Ethical Limit to Personal Wealth?" is simple: the ethical limit is the legal limit. Which, in the year 2007 is, in many countries, infinity. It is not illegal to posess infinite wealth; therefore it is not unethical either.
If you don't like it, work to change the law.
If you live someplace where it is impossible to change the law, either give up and learn to live with it, or take yourself elsewhere.
It's not necessarily your wealth. You just have it. If the system is flawed enough, people will take it back from you no matter what you tell them. They are the judges.
I'm not necessarily talking dollar assets. Say your neighborhood's water supply is poisoned by a chemical plant. The company profits at your expense. Wealth is often accumulated and concentrated in our economic system in this way. Economists call it "negative externalities." The system is designed to conceal the links between profit and "victim" (as you put it) so that usually nobody is the wiser. Or it happens so gradually that people are lulled into complacency. But there are exceptions and limits. An exception would be the Love Canal water pollution case where society stepped in and redistributed wealth to those who were damaged. A limit might be reached with record corporate profits and declining wages and benefits. Or increasing payroll deductions for social security and medicare. Somebody's got to pay.
If you're wealthy, I suspect you'd still demand your social security benefits, because you'd feel you're entitled. If your house caught fire, you'd want the fire dept to put it out for you. If your company went insolvent, you'd want Chapter 11 protection. And so on.
This thread asks a simple question: Where do you draw the line?
I'm not necessarily talking dollar assets. Say your neighborhood's water supply is poisoned by a chemical plant. The company profits at your expense. Wealth is often accumulated and concentrated in our economic system in this way. Economists call it "negative externalities." The system is designed to conceal the links between profit and "victim" (as you put it) so that usually nobody is the wiser. Or it happens so gradually that people are lulled into complacency. But there are exceptions and limits. An exception would be the Love Canal water pollution case where society stepped in and redistributed wealth to those who were damaged. A limit might be reached with record corporate profits and declining wages and benefits. Or increasing payroll deductions for social security and medicare. Somebody's got to pay.
If you're wealthy, I suspect you'd still demand your social security benefits, because you'd feel you're entitled. If your house caught fire, you'd want the fire dept to put it out for you. If your company went insolvent, you'd want Chapter 11 protection. And so on.
This thread asks a simple question: Where do you draw the line?
Quote from nutmeg:
"Society should be judged,"
Who are the judges, since it is my wealth you want.
"If too many get too miserable, they will eventually get desperate enough to take what you think you've responsibly earned by exploiting a flawed system."
You will tell them --"it is a flawed system". They are now victims.
Quote from Martin Gale:
FF-
I assume you're joking. You can't distribute health, but you can distribute health care. Society should be judged, not on the welfare of the wealthiest / healthiest individuals, but on the welfare of the poorest / sickest. If too many get too miserable, they will eventually get desperate enough to take what you think you've responsibly earned by exploiting a flawed system.
A flawed system is a system where wealth is redistributed from productive individuals to people who produce nothing. Fair enough, you may label speculators as people who produce nothing but have a look at countries with large welfare states as well. A huge part of the population in those countries are either tied up as bureaucrats who distribute wealth or people who've been on the receiving end for two generations. A system where somebody is entitled to a monthly paycheck, merely for his ability to fog a mirror, is ill and requires a cure.
It's funny how you impose your own ideological spin because the scenario you propose is of course not what I suggested. I asked what are the limits. There's no need to create straw man arguments unless you can't come up with valid arguments.
Quote from FerdinandAlx:
A flawed system is a system where wealth is redistributed from productive individuals to people who produce nothing. Fair enough, you may label speculators as people who produce nothing but have a look at countries with large welfare states as well. A huge part of the population in those countries are either tied up as bureaucrats who distribute wealth or people who've been on the receiving end for two generations. A system where somebody is entitled to a monthly paycheck, merely for his ability to fog a mirror is ill and requires a cure.
Quote from Martin Gale:
It's funny how you impose your own ideological spin because the scenario you propose is of course not what I suggested. I asked what are the limits. There's no need to create straw man arguments unless you can't come up with valid arguments.
No, you argued that society should be judged according to how it treats its poor, so I responded by telling you how the poor are treated in large welfare states. They are trained to hold up their hand.
Quote from Martin Gale:
This thread asks a simple question: Where do you draw the line?
Wealth does not originate with redistribution, it originates with creativity. Therefore, a healthy society draws no line as to how much of the fruit of his own labour a person can keep. If someone stays within the law there is no reason to impose any limit on him.
And what are you trained for? Seriously. Do you pay into social security? Taxes? Have you ever received a corporate handout?
Capitalism privatizes profits and socializes costs.
Capitalism privatizes profits and socializes costs.
Quote from FerdinandAlx:
No, you argued that society should be judged according to how it treats its poor, so I responded by telling you how the poor are treated in large welfare states. They are trained to hold up their hand.
The whole legal = ethical argument is a joke. Slavery was written into the Constitution, women could not vote, etc. Do you really believe that the financial system is any more ethical? Hell, the so-called "free market" is managed by the Fed and the PPT to line the pockets of the bankers. There is no power above money and those who control it. That doesn't make it right. You can do better than that.
Quote from FerdinandAlx:
Wealth does not originate with redistribution, it originates with creativity. Therefore, a healthy society draws no line as to how much of the fruit of his own labour a person can keep. If someone stays within the law there is no reason to impose any limit on him.
Quote from Martin Gale:
And what are you trained for? Seriously. Do you pay into social security? Taxes? Have you ever received a corporate handout?
Capitalism privatizes profits and socializes costs.
I'm trained to enter into voluntary agreements with others in an electronic market place. I take my own profits and I take my own losses.