Do we have the right to tax people in order to help the poor?

[Ned]

gary, to save you the trouble of finding the post, I am copying it here again. I want to make sure that everyone notices it, because it is such an important issue in the topic we discuss in this thread. As Skip asked on the first page:

How come there are poor citizens in a prosperous society and what is meant by 'helping'?

It is a very important question , concerning previous links in the cause-and-effect chain.

I would like to ask a question as a follow-up to the original question:

Does a citizen have an obligation to not be a burden on society?

For example, a mother and father that have 12 children they can't take care of financially... and yet they are pregnant once again. If we as individuals in society must work a percentage of our work week to provide food and shelter to the family, don't the parents have an obligation to minimize their burden on society?

Very good point gary, one that must be discussed, of course.

However, we have to look at more than one link in the cause-and-effect chain.

In a way, we are all victims to our circumstances.

Take the parents of the 12 children, that you mentioned, as an example.

I will make up a background to flesh out the picture:

They were uneducated young people, not too intelligent, who grew up in a trailer park, with alcoholic parents on welfare. The local priest beat into their minds from adolescence the sin of contraception and the need to obey 'god' by not killing babies with abortion. They were very young, much in love, sex was the only 'entertainment' they could afford. They were always worried about their circumstances, the possibility of losing their jobs and be thrown out on the street with their children, and the only relief they could find in their anxiety-ridden lives was sex and more sex. The result? 12 children.

If you think that this scenario is unusual, you are wrong. With different variations, it is played out all over the country, as we speak.

So, carrying back the cause-and-effect chain one step further: does society have responsibility for what they became?

You see, there is no easy and obvious answer, because you have to go back to bedrock: the nature of the social organization and the fundamental principles it is based on. I have addressed this issue at length in my other thread: "Proposal for a New Social Contract".

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=15487

[garygary]

Ned,

Thank you for the response. Your threads "Resolving conflicting loyalties,"Proposal for a New Social Contract," and this one are all related and actually very complicated. I have been doing some thinking on them. I know I owe you some responses.

They were uneducated young people, not too intelligent, who grew up in a trailer park, with alcoholic parents on welfare. The local priest beat into their minds from adolescence the sin of contraception and the need to obey 'god' by not killing babies with abortion. They were very young, much in love, sex was the only 'entertainment' they could afford. They were always worried about their circumstances, the possibility of losing their jobs and be thrown out on the street with their children, and the only relief they could find in their anxiety-ridden lives was sex and more sex. The result? 12 children.

So, carrying back the cause-and-effect chain one step further: does society have responsibility for what they became?

No. (not 100% sure of this) It seems that the church has some responsibility though.

But if the taxpayer must be responsible for them, wouldn't it be wise to have a welfare system that promotes responsible behavior rather than bad? For example, if you are on welfare, the more children you have, the less money you get?

[David Handeye]

Off -topic

How on earth did you get the idea that I disagree with yours?

Ordinary administration with Ned.

There is a personality clash and a difference in judgement, that's all
Anyway, enough already.

Ha "I do not intend to PM you" is just, just, well I have no words, o forse una... masterpiece

[Ned]

But if the taxpayer must be responsible for them, wouldn't it be wise to have a welfare system that promotes responsible behavior rather than bad? For example, if you are on welfare, the more children you have, the less money you get?

No, gary, whatever you do, it would be a band aid solution. If a body is diseased and you don't find the cause, you can't treat the patient, you can only try to suppress the symptoms. Fundamental structural changes are required if we want a stable, long lasting solution. Otherwise we will only keep pushing the problem around, from one area to the other. Have been doing it for centuries.

Do I have hope for an intelligent solution?

In my lifetime?

Not a chance.

But if the taxpayer must be responsible for them, wouldn't it be wise to have a welfare system that promotes responsible behavior rather than bad? For example, if you are on welfare, the more children you have, the less money you get?

You would end up with a lot more hungry and malnutritioned children.

[Skip]

I would like to ask a question as a follow-up to the original question:

Does a citizen have an obligation to not be a burden on society?

For example, a mother and father that have 12 children they can't take care of financially... and yet they are pregnant once again. If we as individuals in society must work a percentage of our work week to provide food and shelter to the family, don't the parents have an obligation to minimize their burden on society?

It depends on whether you consider minors the property of their parents or members of the society.
In the most primitive sense, every baby is potential benefit to the tribe. How we raise and educate our children determines how much of a contribution they make. If we let them grow up on the streets and become addicts, derelicts and criminals, they will be a net loss. If we take care of their physical and mental health, teach them useful skills and integrate them into the community, they will be a net gain.

Look at it another way. Suppose we have a society with complete reproductive freedom. No religious dictates, no stigma on childlessness; no rules against contraception, abortion or self-sterilization; comprehensive sex education; complete equality and autonomy of women. The birth-rate will plummet, right? (It has, whenever such conditions are even approached in modern states.) A much higher percentage of people will not reproduce at all, or have only one child between two adults. And those people will save a bundle on child-rearing. So then, why not use part of that saving to subsidize the willing incubators?

[Dalek Prime]

Skip, you're not suggesting a tax on childlessness in your last sentence, are you?

Http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_on_childlessness

[Ned]

Look at it another way. Suppose we have a society with complete reproductive freedom. No religious dictates, no stigma on childlessness; no rules against contraception, abortion or self-sterilization; comprehensive sex education; complete equality and autonomy of women.

As I said: structural changes are required to have a stable, sustainable solution.

[Skip]

Skip, you're not suggesting a tax on childlessness in your last sentence, are you?

NO!!!!
Plain old graduated income tax will leave the non-parents still with more money, as well as with more leisure time and more opportunities to contribute to the productive economy - better off.

Neither do I advocate draconian methods of population control, though it wouldn't hurt to stop touting the wonders of parenthood.

Just saying, there are different ways to look at an issue. I prefer to think of every citizen as having equal claims on the community, whether they entered through an airport or a tunnel. It's up to the society to earn the loyalty of both its children and its immigrants by treating them fairly. And that includes not punishing them for the shortcomings of their progenitors.

[Dalek Prime]

Cool. Just checking.

[Skip]

Prosperity, education, secularism and female liberation invariably result in lower birth-rates. *
Also, low standard of living and low expectation conditions tend to encourage high-risk behaviour in boys and young men, early reproduction in girls - which of course, leaves young women stuck with children they can't support. It's a life-is-short fatalism left over from prehistoric times.
If the children of those trailer park kids don't have a chance to get out; if they are not given a reason to plan long-term futures and defer pleasures, they will only perpetuate the pattern. (Plus, of course, a couple of them will break into houses and steal the property of the rich people who refused to pay for their schooling.)






(*Some public hand-wringing over this.... you have to wonder why.)

[Ned]

One of my arguments against the Randites says:

You have 2 options:

1./ Live in your gated communities, with your high tech security system, hire private guards to protect you and your possessions, be surrounded by pain, poverty, hate, envy, resentment, never quite sure if the revolution comes in your lifetime, or in your children's

2./ Subscribe to the "Noblesse Oblige" principle, once a question of honour and pride, and use your position to elevate the poor of your country out of their poverty and "quiet desperation".

To choose 1./ -- all you need is mindless greed and contempt for the victims.

To choose 2./ -- you need a lot more: intelligence, compassion, sense of justice, vision, imagination, courage and pride.

No wonder so many choose 1./ -- 2./ is a lot more demanding and challenging for the pathetic pleasure-seekers and hoarders of more and more possessions.

[Obvious Leo]

if you are on welfare, the more children you have, the less money you get?

How the hell could this do anything except make the problem worse? Surely it would be more humane just to send the kids off to the gas chamber.

[Skip]

Sounds like the kind of policy put forward by the same legislators who close family planning clinics.

Society is not about punishing one another for behaviour of which we don't approve. It's about creating the conditions wherein the lives of individual citizens and the life of the collective improve each other. If that means putting extra resources where the most urgent problems are, then we need to reallocate resources. If it means changing rules that are unfair, we need to change them. If it means curtailing the privileges of people who take more than their share, we need to put on a lid on them.

[Obvious Leo]

Sounds like the kind of policy put forward by the same legislators who close family planning clinics.

Society is not about punishing one another for behaviour of which we don't approve. It's about creating the conditions wherein the lives of individual citizens and the life of the collective improve each other. If that means putting extra resources where the most urgent problems are, then we need to reallocate resources. If it means changing rules that are unfair, we need to change them. If it means curtailing the privileges of people who take more than their share, we need to put on a lid on them.

Skip. I'm not convinced that common sense is ever likely to get a prominent seat at the table in such discussions.

[henry quirk]

"Do we have the right to tax people in order to help the poor?"

A group of people can attempt to do whatever they collectively like...not seein' why an appeal to 'right' is neccessary.

In the same light: another group (or just one person) can attempt to evade predation by the first group ('we, the people").

As for the poor: in my experience, most of them made -- and continue to make -- bad choices...not my job or obligation to shield them, or preserve them, from their rightly earned consequences.

If the poor eat at your conscience, I encourage you feed, shelter, care for, as many as you can manage.

Me? As I can manage it, I'll (continue to) do sumthin' else with my resources.

No cash for leeches.