Let’s be completely candid for a moment. The argument you’re trying to make, without actually saying, is that, in the event of hoarding in the above situation, because a bunch of poor people will inevitably rob, maim, and lynch the hoarder, their actions should at least pass without judgment (or are even possibly vindicated) given their situation. (There’s a Georgist who pops up on this forum from time to time who’s made the same argument, but even he wasn’t completely forthright about it).
Now, if I were a derelict, would I participate in the mob? Probably, if I knew I could get away with it. Self-interest, you know.
That said, the feeling of desperation of a mob member (or of sympathy in your case) should not be confused with a justification. The fact that he cannot feed his family, pay the rent, or falls into some other boring sob story may be sufficient reason for action (robbing and killing), but I insist that it is not sufficient reason for him to feel self-righteous about it.
Ah yes, the fallen state of man and all that. What you say is surely true of Protestant perspective; however, unless I’m mistaken, they tend to believe that you will be evil despite the extreme effort you are obliged to put forth towards being otherwise.
“Be perfect”, said Jesus. The amish are not even supposed to raise a hand in self-defense, and, by and large, they do not. When that psycho blew away a bunch of amish schoolchildren and was later shot, the amish attended his funeral. Unless you’re a Cathar, your faith does not give you license to evil; any evil you are aware of in yourself, you should strive constantly to cleanse. You will never be perfect, but you can get closer than you are now.
There is a free market solution that really works. It is called profiteers. The moment prices shot into the sky businessmen will encounter a huge opportunity and start bringing the desired good, water in this cas, to the place it is in high demand. Now, the place gets swamped with water and prices will drop heavily again. The other solution, which would be government coerced rationalizing of water will, remember FEMA and New Orleans as a not to past example, does no such thing. All a non free market solution can ever achieve is the management of increasing scarcity.
Another free market example that shows what usually will happen if a catastrophic event happens and the government keeps its useless agencies out of the already big enough mess was Hurricane Katrina as well. When heard about the news, bad capitalist Wal-Mart not only gave their local Managers a carte blanche to support the local citizenery, but started immediately to stock up trucks with drinking water to send it down to the area and to provide it for free.
Like to know what happend? The FEMA stopped them to go into the area.
Why would the bad capitalist Wal-Mart do such a thing? Because , if not for charity, because out of sheer profit expectations. Because a dead customer is no customer at all. And that little… uhm credit … in free drinking water is made up for sure by keeping furture customers, the souce of profits, alive.
On the other hand, FEMA has no such benefit at all.
Bottomline the free market is a better safeguard, even in desastrous times and circumstances as any governement protection plan.
Hm. Suppose he were wealthy due to being productive, frugal, whatever. Why should he be punished for it? In fact, if you’re going to argue that in emergencies social ethics cease to apply, one can argue equally well he can do whatever he wishes to acquire whatever he wants from others and likewise can quash any attempts they make to take his holdings. It goes both ways.
So property rights cease to be legitimate when it is convenient for you? Does that apply to other people too? For example, if you were somewhere, say Africa, and you had some food, would it be legitimate for starving Africans to take that food from you by force?
It would seem we could take this principle even farther. All criminals would simply have to make themselves poor just before they committed a crime, perhaps by giving it to a close friend, then it would be justifiable and legitimate. Then they could have the friend buy them things to enjoy the fruits of their criminal actions, only to momentarily transfer them over to the friend just before a crime is committed so they could use the JCFolsom poverty defense if caught.
And buying by the government doesn’t disrupt the market?
Why in the world would someone who is rich (whatever that means) buy up all resources if the usual scarcity of that resource is so low, that, after the temporary shortage is resolved, the price will go down to its usual range?
Let’s suppose in a specific area water, which tends to be very cheap, becomes scarces because of a decontamination of the existing resources. What happens now? People will first decrease their usage of water, maybe to a point where it is only used for drinking. Those in excess possession of water might start selling it to ever increasing prices. This in turn will draw businessmen from other areas to enter that “market” in hope of a great opportunity. The result is, that the scarcity of water declines with every bottle that comes from the outside. Or to rephrase it, the supply side increases which in turn will put pressure on the price until it will level off a little higher than before the shortage took place (because of increased transportation cost).
Now, given this scenario, which is, in my view the only realistic scenerio, what could be the benefit a so called rich man could possibly have to buy all water, knowing if he wants it for personal use he would enter a very expensive insurance deal? Now, if the rich man hopse to sell the water for a profit, he has to hurry, because his competitors are already on the scene and will very soon underbit him. He is in a clear loose-loose situation. What any decend man will do is to buy as much water as he needs and can effort for his own support over whatever time he thinks the crisis will extend.
If the government provides water for the poor, whatever that means, than there is no incentive to either increase the amount of water significant nor to fix the problem as fast as possible. Another loose-loose game me thinks
If they could, I could not blame them for robbing me to feed their families. Who would do differently? Doesn’t mean I won’t resist.
“In a world where retards rule…” Dude, we have laws on the books right now that make exceptions for duress, and people don’t go around deliberately putting themselves in life-threatening situations just to legitimize violence, and if they did and one found out about it, you could refuse them the defense.
What does it matter whether they act out of desperation or act in spite of being prosperous? From a rational point of view the two are no different. You may feel more sympathetic toward one than the other, but don’t conflate that with their moral standing.
That’s simply because the laws will not be enforced as they are written. I was examining your principle, so I assumed that you would have your rules actually be consistently instituted, rather than being arbitrary and whim-based.
Yes, because having a rigid and absolute set of rules is far better than actually making decisions based on the particular circumstance involved. What was I thinking?
If your rules are employed arbitrarily, at the whim of whoever is considering the case, then what stops anyone from deciding the current United States as a just system? Or the Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany, for that matter. If nothing is “rigid and absolute” then why even have rules to begin with? As guidelines for judicial whim?
Attacking another person to take what they have is a very serious act, and I would evaluate it by characterizations: was it greedy, cruel, et cetera. These are the ways one determines if a serious action is a crime. What were the virtues of the act? The rule “don’t lie” clearly can be stupid or even cruel at times. “Don’t kill”; what if they’re trying to kill you or any old innocent on the street?
Name me one absolute rule, one rule that operates independent of context or circumstance. Then start your hyperbole about Nazis. We are always, everywhere, dependent upon the rational actions of others for our safety and the conduct of affairs. The writers of the Constitution tried to make some hard and fast rules, and they have been rendered almost meaningless at the time, and were quite meaningless for some people right from the start. Unbending, simplistic rules are for the lazy and arrogant who are unwilling to look at each case on its individual merits.
Rules don’t operate, people operate on rules, so I don’t quite follow, but I would say the Non-agression principle ought to be followed independant of context.
How about “don’t rape”? You think we could handle that as an absolute rule? “Don’t murder” seems to be one we can handle being absolute too. I would say the non-aggression principle should be absolutely followed. I think “don’t lie” is a legitimate absolute moral rule, though I don’t believe that should be legally enforced. And so on. There are plenty of rules which work independent of context and circumstance.
Entirely arbitrary and constantly shifting rules are for the lazy and fraudulent who are unwilling to follow their principles to their logical conclusion and don’t wish to deal with the internal contradictions of their belief systems.
