Imagine a society where one person produces all the value. Their job is to do highly technical maintenance on a single machine that is basically the Star Trek replicator: it produces all the food, clothing, housing, energy, etc. that is enough for every human in this society and the surplus is stored away in case the machine is down for maintenance, which happens occasionally. Maintaining the machine takes very specialized knowledge but adding more people to the process in no way makes it more productive. This person, let’s call them The Engineer, has several apprentices who can take over but again, no more than 5 because you just don’t need more.
In this society there is literally nothing for anyone else to do. Do you think they deserve to be cut out of sharing the value generated by The Engineer and the machine, leaving them to starve? Do you think starving people tend to obey rules or are desperate people likely to smash the evil machine and kill The Engineer if The Engineer cuts them off? Or do you think in a society where work hours mean nothing for an average person a different economic system is required?
For something to be deserved, it must be earned. What do these people do to distinguish themselves from The Engineer’s pets? If they are wholly dependant on him for their subsistence, what distinguishes him from their god?
To derive an alternate system you need alternate axioms. The axioms of our liberal society are moral equality and peaceful coexistence. Among such equals, no one person, group, or majority has the right to dictate to another. What axioms do you propose that would constrain The Engineer? How would you prevent enslaving him?
Hey, dude. How does someone earn value once automation does all the work? Earning the right to a share of the resources when resources are derived from automated labor is such a thoroughly pathological concept that I'm not sure we're communicating on the same planet.
Same way everyone has earned value from the beginning of time: negotiate with others. We are all born naked and without possessions. Everything we get, from the first day of our birth, is given to us by someone else. Our very first negotiations are simple, we are in turns endearing and annoying. As we grow older they become more complex. All I’m saying is that these interactions should be maximally voluntary and nonviolent.
> For something to be deserved, it must be earned.
Eeeeeerrrr, wrong! This is garbage hypercapitalist/libertarian ideology.
Did you earn your public school education? Did you earn your use of the sidewalk or the public parks and playgrounds? Did you earn your library card? Did you earn your citizenship or right to vote? Did you earn the state benefits you get when you are born disabled? Did you earn your mother’s love?
No, these are what we call public services, unalienable rights, and/or unconditional humanity. We don’t revolve the entire world and our entire selves solely around profit because it’s not practical and it’s empty at its core.
Arguably we still do too much profit-based society stuff in the US where things like healthcare and higher education should be guaranteed entitlements that have no need to be earned. Many other countries see these aspects of society as non-negotiable communal benefits that all should enjoy.
In this hypothetical society with The Engineer, it’s likely that The Engineer would want or need to win over the minds of their society in some way to prevent their own demise and ensure they weren’t overthrown, enslaved, or even just thought of as an evil person.
Many of my examples above like public libraries came about because gilded age titans didn’t want to die with the reputation of robber barons. Instead, they did something anti-profit and created institutions like libraries and museums to boost the reputation of their name.
It’s the same reason why your local university has family names on its buildings. The wealthiest people in society often want to leave a positive legacy where the alternative without philanthropy and, essentially, wealth redistribution, is that they are seen as horrible people or not remembered at all.
> This is garbage hypercapitalist/libertarian ideology.
Go on then, how do you decide what people deserve? How do you negotiate with others who disagree with you?
> examples above like public libraries
I agree! The nice part about all these mechanisms is that they’re voluntary.
If you’re suggesting that The Engineer’s actions should be constrained entirely by his own conscience and social pressure, then we agree. No laws or compulsion required.
These examples aren’t generally voluntary once implemented. I can’t get a refund from my public library or parks department if I decide not to use it.
The social pressure placed on The Engineer is the manifestation of law. That’s all law is: a set of agreed-upon social contracts, enforced by various means.
Obviously, many dictators and governments get away with badly mistreating their subjects, and that’s unfortunate, shouldn’t happen, and shouldn’t be praised as a good system.
I think you may be splitting hairs a little bit here and trying really hard to manufacture…something.
Slavery was (is) also an agreed upon social contract, enforced by various means. What makes it wrong? You clearly have morally prescriptive beliefs. Why are you so sure that your moral prescriptions are the right ones? And that being in the majority gives you the right to impose your beliefs on others?
What if you are in the minority? Do you just accept the hypercapitalist dictates of the majority? Why not?
Law is more than convention. What distinguishes legitimate from illegitimate law?
The only way for people who disagree axiomatically to get along is to impose on each other minimally.
You sure seem to know a lot about what people 'deserve' so I'm not sure I can hope to crack the rind of that particular coconut but I will leave you with this: Humans, by virtue of being living, thinking beings deserve lives of fulfillment, dignity, and security. The fact that we have, up until present, been unable (or perhaps unwilling) to achieve this does not mean it's not possible or desirable, only that we have failed in that goal.
Everything else, all the 'isims' and ideologies are abstractions.
> Humans, by virtue of being living, thinking beings deserve lives of fulfillment, dignity, and security.
You wanting people to have that doesn't mean that people deserve to have that. Fundamentally, no one deserves anything. We, as a species, lived for a hundred thousand years with absolutely nothing except what we could carve off the world by ourselves or with the help of small groups that chose to work with us. Everything else since then is a bonus (or sometimes a malus, but on average a bonus).
Also, as much as it sounds nice to declare such things as goals, deserved or not, it is indeed impossible, and probably not desirable, since, for starters, you can't even define what those things would be like. Those aren't actionable, they're at most occasional consequences of a system that is working to alleviate scarcity of resources.
Unfortunately, we're nowhere near that replicator.
In this society there is literally nothing for anyone else to do. Do you think they deserve to be cut out of sharing the value generated by The Engineer and the machine, leaving them to starve? Do you think starving people tend to obey rules or are desperate people likely to smash the evil machine and kill The Engineer if The Engineer cuts them off? Or do you think in a society where work hours mean nothing for an average person a different economic system is required?