Is The Pope A Commie?

[Epoetker]

Taking that which is another's without their consent is theft.

So, if a parent gives something to his children, then takes it away when they misbehave, is that theft? Before you start making judgments on actions, we need to hear judgments on actors, something which libertarians are generally much, much, weaker on than most.

[Joel]

Oh, good, I'm glad to hear that you are not denying God's ultimate ownership of everything. Do you acknowledge that God's ultimate ownership of everything limits the sense in which we can speak of man's ownership, hence man's ownership is not ultimate, unconditioned or absolute in the sense God's is?

I was more specific than that, when I said in post 57:

"Ownership is meant in different senses. Otherwise, it would always be false to say any man owns anything, because God owns everything. In which case the commandment "Thou shall not steal" would be meaningless. But ownership among men is meant in a different sense than when we say God owns everything. Consider a hammer; yes, God owns it in the ultimate, unqualified sense. But when we say a human, let's call her Alice, owns the hammer, we are talking about inter-human interaction. What we mean is that it is immoral (more specifically injustice) for another human to take the hammer from Alice without her consent. We mean that among humans, it is Alice who has the moral license to decide how the hammer is used. (Which of course could be preempted by God's explicit action, because of his ultimate ownership, at any time. But I've never seen that happen.)"

It is "limited" in the sense that it is restricted to referring to relations among men.

No, by no means do I think it is too early. Wouldn't you also say that the land was indeed a means of production? So, when you say that parts of the Garden could become owned by doing work upon it, are you saying that the worker gains (some?) ownership of the land?

I'd say a thing is not a means of production until it is used by humans for production (it isn't an inherent property of the thing). But perhaps that is splitting hairs.

But the reeds (in my example of someone who fashions unowned reeds into a net) came from the land, were unowned and unused, and the net is then owned, as I explained. So, yes, can become owned in that sense.

But perhaps you are asking about a fixed geographical location. Similarly, after Eden, when man had to till the ground, suppose someone clears an unowned plot of ground, tills it, fertilizes it, plows, plants, waters, etc, producing a fruitful field. That person then owns the field, in the sense that it would be theft for our hypothetical 'foreigner' to take it (acting as a kind of parasite, injurious to the fashioner of the field, as well as having no special claim to the matter--the original unowned plot of ground--over the fashioner).

[Joel]

So, if a parent gives something to his children, then takes it away when they misbehave, is that theft? Before you start making judgments on actions, we need to hear judgments on actors, something which libertarians are generally much, much, weaker on than most.

I was speaking regarding adults. Children create special cases of persons who are not fully capable of consent and reason, and have a guardian. And this may give rise to certain cases where a parent may override the child's desires for the child's own good, in ways that would be a violation of rights if done to anyone else. This raises a large discussion of its own.

Now "give" can refer to handing something to someone, without the intent to transfer ownership. But I assume you meant the parent transferred title (such as in the case of transferring funds to an account owned by the recipient). Then taking it would indeed be theft.

But then you might say, what if the child is, say, waving his object around dangerously (could damage property or injure persons). Well even in the case of adults doing such a thing, it would be reasonable to take the object or physically restrain the person. In that case we are no longer talking about a person peacefully owning property; we are talking about someone who has committed a crime: injuring or threatening another person's right to their life, liberty or property. In which case the culprit is thought to have, by such action, forfeited (proportionally) his own rights to his life, liberty, or property. This is not a limitation of property rights (which ideally would never be violated), but a matter of what happens when someone violates the rights of another.

[robrecht]

I was more specific than that, when I said in post 57:

"Ownership is meant in different senses. Otherwise, it would always be false to say any man owns anything, because God owns everything. In which case the commandment "Thou shall not steal" would be meaningless. But ownership among men is meant in a different sense than when we say God owns everything. Consider a hammer; yes, God owns it in the ultimate, unqualified sense. But when we say a human, let's call her Alice, owns the hammer, we are talking about inter-human interaction. What we mean is that it is immoral (more specifically injustice) for another human to take the hammer from Alice without her consent. We mean that among humans, it is Alice who has the moral license to decide how the hammer is used. (Which of course could be preempted by God's explicit action, because of his ultimate ownership, at any time. But I've never seen that happen.)"

It is "limited" in the sense that it is restricted to referring to relations among men.

More specific, but not what I am trying to get at. Let me ask it in a different way:

A lazy man inherited many orchards from his wealthy and pious father. Unlike his father, the lazy man wanted a bigger house, vacation homes, and many sports cars so he cut the wages of his employees from $10.10/hour to $5/hour. Later, he learned that he could employ illegal migrant workers for $4/hour and not have to pay FICA taxes to the bloated federal government. The lazy many became even wealthier and bought more and more orchards until he owned all the land in the area. Then progressively more desperate migrants come into the area and eventually some agreed to work for $.50 per hour. Then one of the fired workers with 10 children became truly desperate and agreed to work for $.45 per hour and got his old job back. After a couple of his children got sick and died of starvation, the worker hears the voice of God asking him if it is truly just for the wealthy owner of all the orchards in the state to pay so little to his workers while he is getting richer and richer? The poor man thinks long and hard about his love for God and his family and his obligation to feed his family, and says to God in fervent and humble prayer, "No, I do not believe it is just and I do not believe that you want my children to starve, what should I do?" He believes he hears God answer and tell him to take home a few pieces of fruit in his pockets every day to feed his children and keep them alive because this was not what He had in mind when he placed Adam in the Garden. A few days later, the manager of the orchard catches the desperate man stealing fruit but lets him go becaue he has compassion on him. That Sunday at Church the manager is filled with the Spirit of God and decides to pay the man more money per hour out of his own pocket so that the migrant worker will not bear the shame of needing to steal to feed his family.

Was the lazy owner a good steward of God's creation? Was he justified in the eyes of God? When he dies and meets St James at the pearly gates (Peter was on a break), he's a little nervous and says he had always greatly admired St Paul's theology of sola fide and would rather speak with him. What should St James do? Go look for Paul? Wait for Peter to get back and ask him? But, wait, he's in luck, he sees his older brother Jesus nearby, playing with some very happy children on the playground just inside the gate.

[Joel]

More specific, but not what I am trying to get at. Let me ask it in a different way:

A lazy man inherited many orchards from his wealthy and pious father. Unlike his father, the lazy man wanted a bigger house, vacation homes, and many sports cars so he cut the wages of his employees from $10.10/hour to $5/hour. Later, he learned that he could employ illegal migrant workers for $4/hour and not have to pay FICA taxes to the bloated federal government. The lazy many became even wealthier and bought more and more orchards until he owned all the land in the area. Then progressively more desperate migrants come into the area and eventually some agreed to work for $.50 per hour. Then one of the fired workers with 10 children became truly desperate and agreed to work for $.45 per hour and got his old job back. After a couple of his children got sick and died of starvation, the worker hears the voice of God asking him if it is truly just for the wealthy owner of all the orchards in the state to pay so little to his workers while he is getting richer and richer? The poor man thinks long and hard about his love for God and his family and his obligation to feed his family, and says to God in fervent and humble prayer, "No, I do not believe it is just and I do not believe that you want my children to starve, what should I do?" He believes he hears God answer and tell him to take home a few pieces of fruit in his pockets every day to feed his children and keep them alive because this was not what He had in mind when he placed Adam in the Garden. A few days later, the manager of the orchard catches the desperate man stealing fruit but lets him go becaue he has compassion on him. That Sunday at Church the manager is filled with the Spirit of God and decides to pay the man more money per hour out of his own pocket so that the migrant worker will not bear the shame of needing to steal to feed his family.

Was the lazy owner a good steward of God's creation? Was he justified in the eyes of God? When he dies and meets St James at the pearly gates (Peter was on a break), he's a little nervous and says he had always greatly admired St Paul's theology of sola fide and would rather speak with him. What should St James do? Go look for Paul? Wait for Peter to get back and ask him? But, wait, he's in luck, he sees his older brother Jesus nearby, playing with some very happy children on the playground just inside the gate.

It seems like this is based on a bad understanding of economics. Presumably the wealthy father was paying the going market price for the labor ($10.10), where the economically savy father knew to adjust to the point where the marginal cost of labor equals the marginal revenue from labor.
So when the foolish son tries offering only half the going price for the labor, he finds that all his employees quit and go work for another firm that is paying the going market price. His productivity and income falls through the floor. He's forced to sell the orchards and he dies in poverty.

Just like a farmer planting corn, who decides to make more money by cutting costs by offering to buy seed at $2/bushel instead of the going price of $5/bushel. The result: no one sells him any corn.

Your story shows no understanding of how prices are determined in a market. It's not a matter of one buyer arbitrarily deciding what to pay.


All that aside, it seems that what you are trying to get at is that a person should not merely be just, but should also be charitable regarding property. Yes, of course.
But this doesn't oppose what I've been saying about ownership.
(I also don't see any reason why charitable giving must be via wages as opposed to a separate act, which in turn raises doubt that an employer would have any unique blame.)

[robrecht]

It seems like this is based on a bad understanding of economics. Presumably the wealthy father was paying the going market price for the labor ($10.10), where the economically savy father knew to adjust to the point where the marginal cost of labor equals the marginal revenue from labor.
So when the foolish son tries offering only half the going price for the labor, he finds that all his employees quit and go work for another firm that is paying the going market price. His productivity and income falls through the floor. He's forced to sell the orchards and he dies in poverty.

Just like a farmer planting corn, who decides to make more money by cutting costs by offering to buy seed at $2/bushel instead of the going price of $5/bushel. The result: no one sells him any corn.

Your story shows no understanding of how prices are determined in a market. It's not a matter of one buyer arbitrarily deciding what to pay.


All that aside, it seems that what you are trying to get at is that a person should not merely be just, but should also be charitable regarding property. Yes, of course.
But this doesn't oppose what I've been saying about ownership.
(I also don't see any reason why charitable giving must be via wages as opposed to a separate act, which in turn raises doubt that an employer would have any unique blame.)

Rather, I am trying to determine if you see any actual consequences with respect to justice of your acknowledgment of God's ultimate ownership of all creation? Was the lazy son being just in God's eyes?

(By the way, it was a parable, not a lecture in economics.)

[Darth Executor]

It seems like this is based on a bad understanding of economics. Presumably the wealthy father was paying the going market price for the labor ($10.10), where the economically savy father knew to adjust to the point where the marginal cost of labor equals the marginal revenue from labor.
So when the foolish son tries offering only half the going price for the labor, he finds that all his employees quit and go work for another firm that is paying the going market price. His productivity and income falls through the floor. He's forced to sell the orchards and he dies in poverty.

Just like a farmer planting corn, who decides to make more money by cutting costs by offering to buy seed at $2/bushel instead of the going price of $5/bushel. The result: no one sells him any corn.

Your story shows no understanding of how prices are determined in a market. It's not a matter of one buyer arbitrarily deciding what to pay.

No, his story is entirely accurate. It's not a matter of arbitrary pay. The son can pay very little because the supply of unskilled labour is much higher than the demand. This is, in fact, what happens in real life, particularly in the modern United States where illegal immigration is rampant and outsourcing is easy (and only getting easier).

[Paprika]

No, I'm reasoning from the premise that theft is evil.
And the premise that "Taking that which is another's without their consent is theft."

To make it more explicit:

1) Taking that which is another's without their consent is theft.
2) Taxation is taking that which is another's without their consent.
3) Therefore taxation is theft.

And then.
1) Theft is evil.
2) Taxation is theft.
3) Therefore taxation is evil.

Thus it is a conclusion, not my premise.


No, my hypothetical scenario was to help provide you with possibly a way of explaining to me how taxation could be not-theft. If it's possible, there should be some way to get from that scenario to legitimate taxation. If there is, all you have to do is point it out. I don't see it.


That was my way of asking you to please show it to me, since you clearly know what it is. Don't keep it concealed from me.

I don't have to present from your scenario that taxation is not necessarily evil, I can give one of my own: The trivial refutation is that many people do willingly and cheerfully pay taxes, and thus it isn't theft from them.

Another is that many people work for the public good: eg clerks, judges, the police, those who maintain public property and so on. These people deserve wages for their work. Thus, there is a public obligation to pay them wages, and this often is through tax money.

This is of course in line with Paul's argument in Romans 13.

For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

That is, the authorities are the ministers of God, and deserved to receive wages for their work. Hence taxes are owed. And when you owe someone something, and refuse to hand it over, I submit that it isn't necessarily wrong for force to be applied to make that handing over happen, and that it isn't theft. Your premise 1) fails here, since it is possibly to physically possess something which you owe someone else.

I mean in the sense of one who breaks the eternal, immutable law of Justice. If you like, you can replace "criminal" with something more specific, like "thief". E.g.: How would you discern that one is ordained by God and the others are thieves? or whether they are all committing theft?

What is this eternal, immutable law of Justice that you are referring to?

[Teallaura]

I don't have to present from your scenario that taxation is not necessarily evil, I can give one of my own: The trivial refutation is that many people do willingly and cheerfully pay taxes, and thus it isn't theft from them.

Another is that many people work for the public good: eg clerks, judges, the police, those who maintain public property and so on. These people deserve wages for their work. Thus, there is a public obligation to pay them wages, and this often is through tax money.

This is of course in line with Paul's argument in Romans 13.

That is, the authorities are the ministers of God, and deserved to receive wages for their work. Hence taxes are owed. And when you owe someone something, and refuse to hand it over, I submit that it isn't necessarily wrong for force to be applied to make that handing over happen, and that it isn't theft. Your premise 1) fails here, since it is possibly to physically possess something which you owe someone else.


What is this eternal, immutable law of Justice that you are referring to?

^Amen!

[Joel]

No, his story is entirely accurate. It's not a matter of arbitrary pay. The son can pay very little because the supply of unskilled labour is much higher than the demand. This is, in fact, what happens in real life, particularly in the modern United States where illegal immigration is rampant and outsourcing is easy (and only getting easier).

For anything, the quantity supplied is higher than the quantity demanded only when the price is higher than the equilibrium (market) price.
So at best, given your supposition, Robrecht is supposing a situation in which the equilibrium price is $0.50/hr. Which is not realistic. At that price, the quantity demanded would skyrocket far above the supply. Even just around the home, average people would want to hire far more services for all kinds of things.

But for the sake of argument, let's suppose that the equilibrium and going price is $0.50/hr. That is, all the other employers are paying about $0.50/hr, and only the rich father was paying $10.10/hr. Now there are a few possibilities:
1) He was paying far more than the market value of the labor (thus taking a loss) as an act of charity. In which case it raises the question of how the rich father stayed rich in the orchard business while being unprofitable.
2) Or in order to not be taking a loss, he would need to reduce production and output by so much that the fruit sold is in such a low supply that the marginal revenue rises to match the $10.10/hr marginal cost for labor. The father would then only have a small orchard with little quantity sold. Not nearly as wealthy. And much fewer employees (thus more people working for others at $0.50/hr). And surely that would not last, because the high price for the fruit would provide incentive for new competitors to enter the market with their own orchards, until demand is satisfied again and the price driven back down.
3) Or the father was able to not take a loss because the high wages enabled him to be selective in hiring. It enabled him to hire the best, most productive workers, such that the market value of their labor is $10.10/hr instead of the usual $0.50/hr. In which case we are no longer talking about the same pool of low-skilled workers.

Whichever way you look at it, it doesn't make much sense.

Rather, I am trying to determine if you see any actual consequences with respect to justice of your acknowledgment of God's ultimate ownership of all creation? Was the lazy son being just in God's eyes?

(By the way, it was a parable, not a lecture in economics.)

Social democrats use similar parables to reach all kinds of bad conclusions, based on lack of understanding of the laws of economics. So you will have to excuse me for wanting to ward off those commonly made errors.

As I've said, yes God's ownership has consequences. I've said that although Alice's ownership of her hammer means no other human may take or use the hammer without Alice's consent, God may still, of course, take or use the hammer without Alice's consent. God could, too, if He wished, come down and announce verbally to Alice that He is transferring her title to the hammer to someone else.

As for the justice of the son:
First of all, I've never understood why poverty is so often blamed on employers. For the sake of argument, let's suppose that the market price for the low-skilled labor in question were $5/hr. So the employer is paying a guy $5/hr, and the guy is poor, and let's suppose that no one is giving charitably to him. Why should the employer, who is paying the man a wage, be considered more guilty than every other person in the world who are giving the man nothing at all? If the employer is guilty and everyone else is not, then the employer can eliminate his sin by firing the worker, and thus the employer would join the morally-neutral ranks of everyone else in not giving the man anything at all. But that is absurd. And if anything, we see that the employee would be even worse off unemployed, thus he is net benfitting from the employment. Thus the situation is that the employer is the only one in the world economically benefitting the guy. Thus if anything he should have the least blame of all!

If however, we were going to blame everyone equally for not giving charitably to the guy, and we suppose that the employer were inclined to give charitably, there is no reason at all why the employer ought to give charitably via the paycheck for the labor services. It need not have anything at all to do with the exchange of labor services for money. The employer, as anyone else, may do his charitable giving to the guy as a separate gift, clearly identified as a gift.

As for the exchange itself, of labor services for money, if the equilibrium market price is $5/hr, that would imply that hiring the employee for an extra hour of work would add $5 to the owner's revenue. For the employer to pay more than that, say $6 would mean taking a loss by paying $6 for $5 of revenue. Thus knowingly paying this extra would be a $1 act of charity.


So then, was the son being just? Well, assuming the son did not take or damage anything owned by another human, and did not physically infringe upon anyone's person or liberty, and the exchanges were all consensual, and he gave to each what is due (i.e., $5 for $5 of productivity) then the son clearly did remain within the bounds of justice.

If the son sinned, it was not in lacking justice, but in lacking charity. The two are not identical (though the latter seems to imply the former).

[Carrikature]

Joel, I think you have a fundamental mistake in how you approach wages. The idea of wages having a market value sounds nice on the surface, but it doesn't work that way in practice. In practice, the employer pays their worker as little as they can get away with, and actual wages vary from person to person. Highly skilled employees have some degree of negotiation ability, but even that is within a range of what the employer is willing to pay. Low-skill workers do not have that luxury. If they aren't willing to accept a position for a given sum, someone else will be. Their relative needs are also greater. Where the high skill workers aren't working solely for food and clothing, the low skill worker definitely is.

Moreover, the quantity of employees can change when the overall rate is reduced. I can employ twice as many people and pay them half as much for the same total cost. My productivity goes up, especially when dealing with low skill laborers who (barring a few outliers) by and large produce about the same rate regardless. Where 'market value' may be $10/hr for a position, most people would be willing to accept half of that if it meant a difference between a job and no job. That's especially true for those living near poverty level (read: migrant workers).

Next, unless supply and demand is in the hands of a single individual (or possibly a very select group), an owner does not have the ability to limit production in the manner you suggest. However, your responses in post #85 assume a near parity between gross income and total overhead (including wages). This is seldom (if ever) the case. Rather, a rich owner could still make a significant profit even while paying his/her workers more than the average. The higher wage rate does not eliminate profits, it merely reduces them. Further, looking back at the 'twice as many workers for same cost' idea mentioned earlier, the increased production levels would mean the owner realizes even more yearly profits.

Finally, even supposing that competitors will eventually try to edge their way in, that does not mean they will be successful. It's common enough practice for a large corporation to buy out a smaller company to reduce competition. In the case of orchards (or any land-intensive product), there may be very little opportunity to purchase the resources necessary to even get started. On top of that, any group with significant productivity could lower margins enough to where smaller companies simply can't make a noticeable profit due to lack of volume. Even if the small company manages to get established, by the time they begin to make a dent in the corporation's profits, the corporation is already extremely rich.

[Joel]

I don't have to present from your scenario that taxation is not necessarily evil, I can give one of my own: The trivial refutation is that many people do willingly and cheerfully pay taxes, and thus it isn't theft from them.

Of course it isn't theft from them, because they consented. In which case taxation was unnecessary (superfluous). It becomes a gift and loses its nature as taxation. In fact, if everyone individually consented to give, then taxation would be completely superfluous. The government would be funded via voluntary means instead of by taxation which is, by nature, compulsory. The only point and essence of taxation, vs voluntary means of funding, is that it is the taking of that which is another's (of some nonzero set of persons) without their consent. And that's theft.

Another is that many people work for the public good: eg clerks, judges, the police, those who maintain public property and so on. These people deserve wages for their work. Thus, there is a public obligation to pay them wages, and this often is through tax money.

That's putting the cart before the horse. You are first supposing that an agreement to exchange (services for money) was made, without first having the ability to pay, and then because there is no other means to pay, you are supposing that it must therefore be acceptable to steal from everyone to fulfill the obligation that had been formerly accepted. That seems hardly an acceptable moral justification. It would also have crazy implications; it would imply that anyone who starts doing such things have the same claim, e.g. if any random person decides to start their own police/defense force.

Now you might try to shift your argument and say that these are jobs that just need to be done. In which case you are making my earlier point, that you must rely on some overriding necessity. In this case either you can find voluntary ways to fund the jobs, in which case no taxation needed. Yay! Or you can't, and you are faced with the decision of whether to force all your neighbors to pay. That is, you are faced with a choice of the lesser of two evils: forgo the work being done, or use force on innocent people to take their money (i.e. theft) to fund the work. So we'd be back at my lesser-of-two-evils point. And then, again, the argument would justify equally any random person who decides to do the same thing.

You might try another approach and argue that because the work in question benefits everyone, that it is fair if everyone pays. What this amounts to is saying that the work has positive externalities (that people other than the direct actor(s), such as the buyer and seller, benefit). But this doesn't actually make it not theft. There are positive externalities with lots of things. E.g., if I make my front yard beautiful, it is enjoyed by all my neighbors (and may improve their property values). But that doesn't give me the right to forcibly extract payment from my neighbors. That would be theft. The only way it would be not theft is if my neighbors consented to give a donation or voluntarily contracted ahead of time to pay me in exchange for my doing the beautification project. So here to, the existence of positive externality does not justify taxation.


As for Romans 13, if the old TWeb hadn't been destroyed I could point you to a thread where I discussed it in depth. It's clearly talking about people bearing the sword to enact justice and thus serving God. Paul indicates that a good reason to pay is that the recipient is bearing the sword to enact justice and you are not. And then there's an imperative to do justice: render to all what is due them. We might be able to infer from their combination that he is saying that if you aren't doing justice via the sword, then you should do justice by paying those who are, thus fulfilling your obligation to do justice. But then it's not clear that it must or ought to be a legally compulsory thing. Do you not agree that a voluntary system, if possible, would be superior, and that compelling all your otherwise innocent neighbors is a less desirable option? It also seems to leave open to our judgement who to pay, what to pay, etc. As you too agreed that it is not an obligation "to pay all taxes". It is certainly not talking about all cases of positive externalities, but only about justice enacted by the sword.

It's also interesting that the verse instructing to render to each what is due is immediately followed by "Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another ; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." It seems that better than paying people what you owe them is to not get into such an obligation in the first place. It may not be as necessary as it at first appears.

Your premise 1) fails here, since it is possibly to physically possess something which you owe someone else.

The premise is: "Taking that which is another's without their consent is theft."
In which case the thief would then possess that which is another's (and thus owes the other). Forcing the thief to return the thing is not theft, because it is not the thief's but the other's. Thus the premise holds.

Likewise, if you have a contractual obligation to deliver property (such as money), and you retain it past the due date (at which time it becomes the other's property), then you are in possesion of another's property without their consent and thus a thief. Again the premise holds.

What you are actually trying to do here is argue against premise (2): "Taxation is taking that which is another's without their consent." Your argument would be that taxation is the ruler taking what is the ruler's, and not taking that which is another's. Perhaps, but then that raises all the questions I raised before, and more: How do you discern who if any among possibly numerous claimants has the true claim? Why not every random person who decides to start enacting justice by the sword? What or how much is rightfully his? How does this change in rightful ownership arise? What if a person is already fulfilling his obligation to do justice in some other way?

And if you are going to argue that it is (or is akin to) payment for services rendered, then we can go back to how our discussion started:

If we are agreed that under general Christian social policy, the state uses force to ensure tax monies are collected, can you give a reason why some of it shouldn't be used to help the poor?

So then your question assumes a bad way of looking at things, I think. It should not be a matter of: Step one confiscate a bunch of money from people, and then Step two decide what to do with all this money.

Instead the focus should be on: what is it that makes the specific sum of money rightfully the ruler's? Your argument here does not imply that the ruler is owed a certain sum of money no matter what, that the ruler may decide to spend as he pleases. Rather it would be a specific amount owed for a specific service provided. And then because it's a compulsory obligation (as opposed to consensually entering into a contractual obligation), and because, as I said, this only could arise as a matter of necessity (to do enact justice by the sword) it should be only what is necessary, and nothing more, and should be done as efficiently as possible. And if the 'ruler' is able to enact justice with less effort (or less is needed, say because crime rates drop) then surely less would be owed for lesser services rendered.

So then, as I said in that same post to begin with:

If you can divert tax money from project A to project B, then presumably the level of taxation for project A wasn't as "necessary" as supposed, and thus did not morally justify that level of taxation to begin with [was not owed]. Thus the mere fact that you were taxing at that level certainly does not imply that taxing for B is morally justified, since justification of the prior taxation level is already suspect.

What is this eternal, immutable law of Justice that you are referring to?

Do you not believe in justice? I ask, because from the context of the discussion you seem to perhaps think that it is "defined by whatever law is in effect" making it arbitrary and making every statute just by definition, as opposed to statutes being just or unjust (subject to the judgment of justice) and thus prior to human-invented statutes.

Or are you shifting the discussion to new ground, and asking me to specify the content of justice, perhaps because you suspect that we disagree on that point? Which is fine. In which case I would start by saying that justice is what is referred to in Romans 13. It is the matter of against what is it morally acceptable to "bear the sword" (i.e., when is physical force/violence against fellow men acceptable). Justice is to "render to all what is due them". Paul lists specifics "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and it is doing "no wrong to a neighbor". Paul also points out that justice is included in (and implied by) loving your neighbor. (But I would say that love and justice are not equivalent. Love includes justice, but it goes beyond justice too.)

[Darth Executor]

For anything, the quantity supplied is higher than the quantity demanded only when the price is higher than the equilibrium (market) price.

For labor (which is not the same as products because the supply of people is not based on data emailed to manufacturing by the marketing department) the quantity supplied is higher than the quantity demanded whenever the demand for products is reached without needing to employ them all. This is increasingly common in a world where manufacturing/transportation are getting cheaper and more effective every day.

What happens if you overproduce perishable food items? We can discard giving them away, but companies don't like to give away extra food because it lowers the price for the products they actually sell to customers. But you can't keep them, because they take up space and jack up your electricity bill via refrigeration. So you get rid of them, or maybe sell them to a farmer to use as fertilizer.

Now, we could put on our Aspergers hat and use your formula on people. The result wouldn't be much different, with the exception of the fertilizer part because the employer doesn't actually own the workers.

Of course, in real life people aren't like apples, so if they have no jobs (or welfare, like libertarians demand) they tend to apply their skills in ways libertarians wouldn't approve of, like bashing libertarians over the head with a club and stealing their wallet. Or voting for Hitler. There is, after all, a sudden demand for income, no matter the source.

Social democrats use similar parables to reach all kinds of bad conclusions, based on lack of understanding of the laws of economics. So you will have to excuse me for wanting to ward off those commonly made errors.

The parable sounds more like a paleocon parable. Social democrats, like libertarians, are busy trying to flood the first world with every rapist, murderer and barbarian they can get their hands on, albeit not entirely for the same reasons. And from my experience libertarians usually understand the laws of economics, then fail to apply them in meaningful ways because they don't understand people at all.

[Joel]

Joel, I think you have a fundamental mistake in how you approach wages. The idea of wages having a market value sounds nice on the surface, but it doesn't work that way in practice. In practice, the employer pays their worker as little as they can get away with,

No more so than every buyer of anything seeks to pay as little as possible for the same good, just as much as every seller of anything seeks the highest price he can get. Far from destroying the law of supply and demand, it is what implies the law of supply and demand. It cannot be escaped.

Over 100 years ago, the theory was proposed that labor services are somehow different and that wages get driven down to bare subsistence. This has long since been debunked, logically (by the law of supply and demand) and by history, in which average wages have, in fact risen greatly over time, adjusted for inflation. Average living standards have risen greatly. The vast majority of wage earners receive in the market a wage above the legal minimum.

and actual wages vary from person to person.

Sure that happens. Economically speaking, that's because labor is not a homogeneous good. For example, different people have different abilities, thus making their services be considered different goods. Lower skilled workers may be more homogeneous.

The point remains that if a particular person's particular labor services for an hour has a market value of $5, say, then no one will pay more than $5. (except perhaps as an act of charity)

Highly skilled employees have some degree of negotiation ability, but even that is within a range of what the employer is willing to pay. Low-skill workers do not have that luxury.

Yep, that has to do with the size of the market. A person selling or buying a Rembrandt likely has room to negotiate. A person selling or buying bushels of corn has little to no room to negotiate. Likewise the buyer, as well as the seller, of low-skilled labor services has little to no room to negotiate, since the pool of buyers is large too.

Moreover, the quantity of employees can change when the overall rate is reduced. I can employ twice as many people and pay them half as much for the same total cost.

The first sentence is true. The second is unlikely. From the equilibrium wage, in order to hire more people, you have to increase your wages, to attract more workers, while lowering your wage would likely result in workers leaving. Or more generally speaking, when the demand for something goes up, the price goes up, all else being equal. And yes, hiring more workers will tend to increase total output, but marginal productivity will decline (law of decreasing marginal utility and law of decreasing returns) and could even go negative.

The real problem that people are usually getting at is the existence of unemployment: the supply exceeding demand. In which case you have a "buyer's market". In that case, if employers hire additional labor, it will tend to decrease unemployment, rather than drive up the price. Or employers could reduce wages (downwards toward the equilibrium).

But as I said, unemployment is caused only by the going price being higher than the equilibrium price. In an unhampered market (which we do not have) wages would quickly be driven toward the equilibrium price, eliminating involuntary unemployment. And employers won't go below the equilibrium point.

Next, unless supply and demand is in the hands of a single individual (or possibly a very select group), an owner does not have the ability to limit production in the manner you suggest.

Exactly my point. My point was that was not a reasonable possibility. I was listing all the possibilities in that scenario and explaining why each was unreasonable to suppose.

However, your responses in post #85 assume a near parity between gross income and total overhead (including wages). This is seldom (if ever) the case.

In an unhampered market, profits tend toward zero. And marginal cost and marginal revenue tend toward each other. That's not to say that they equal each other, but that that is the direction things move, and it's likely to be a moving target, in the constantly changing market.

Rather, a rich owner could still make a significant profit even while paying his/her workers more than the average. The higher wage rate does not eliminate profits, it merely reduces them.

Businessmen think on the margins. E.g., what is the effect of increasing (or decreasing) labor services by one unit (whatever unit the businessman is concerned with at the time). If hiring an additional hour (say) of labor will add $5 of revenue, then paying $6 for it is taking a loss on that transaction and is not worth doing (regardless whether the firm as a whole is making a profit or loss).

If $6 is the going rate, then the businessman will want to downsize because each hour reduced means cutting total cost by $6 but only reducing revenue by $5, thus each hour not cut means a loss of $1. He (and all businessmen) will want to keep cutting until the marginal revenue and marginal cost become equal (e.g., where the additional revenue is $5 and the going wage rate is $5).

Likewise in the other direction, if the going wage rate were $4, then the businessman will want to expand production by hiring additional labor, because each additional hour costs $4 but brings in $5 of additional revenue. They will want to keep expanding until marginal cost and marginal revenue are equal (e.g., increased demand for labor drives wages up to $5). And all employers are doing this at the same time.

Thus in either direction, marginal cost and marginal revenue are driven toward each other. And it is this that determines wage rates. It's not a matter of employers arbitrarily deciding what to pay. It's determined by laws of economics.

Finally, even supposing that competitors will eventually try to edge their way in, that does not mean they will be successful.

Eventually? All the other businessmen in the world seeing the chance to make $10.10 per $0.50 (a 2020% return on investment)? They will jump on the opportunity as fast as humanly possible. The very attempt will drive down prices, and at least some will tend to be competent and succeed.

It's common enough practice for a large corporation to buy out a smaller company to reduce competition.

That's not as feasible as you'd think. In this case, the rich father wants to keep marginal revenue at $10.10, so he has to keep buying out (and shutting down) all these competitors as they rush in, while at the same time maintaining the small output that maintains the enormous incentive to keep new competition flooding in. That's not sustainable.

Around 1900 in the U.S. there was a huge upsurge in mergers and buyouts in an attempt by big business to reduce competition and control the markets. Perhaps the biggest such movement ever. And it didn't work. Competition in every industry continued to grow like crazy. That's when big business turned to pushing for the creation of the federal regulatory state to achieve their goal of restricting competition and controlling the markets.

Even if the small company manages to get established

Who said small? We are talking about every businessman in the world being drawn by the opportunity to make a huge return. The one orchard owner in this case is likely to get quickly dwarfed by the combined competition (composed of varying sized firms).

For labor (which is not the same as products because the supply of people is not based on data emailed to manufacturing by the marketing department) the quantity supplied is higher than the quantity demanded whenever the demand for products is reached without needing to employ them all.

The demand for the product is a curve, not a single specific quantity. It is, for practical purposes, unlimited with respect to quantity. There is no foreseeable end to human wants. And the potential want for additional labor is enormous.

The demand for factors of production (such as labor or iron or tools or seed) is, like anything else, determined by supply and demand. In a free market, if a factor of production goes unused its price would drop toward zero increasing the quantity demanded until the quantity of supply and quantity demanded were equal, or until the price hits zero and nobody can use any more. The latter would happen only because some other factor(s) of production is too scarce and is a limiting factor. Otherwise it's profitable to make use of a productive factor with a price of zero.

And that's not really the case we are seeing. We don't currently have unemployment because the price has hit zero. We have unemployment at nonzero prices. It can only be because the price is above the equilibrium price. Which does not last in a free market (which we don't have). With unhampered markets, prices quickly correct toward equilibrium eliminating involuntary unemployment and shortages. If you prop the price artificially up, that doesn't solve anything. It just causes unemployment.

And the evidence is not that the equilibrium wages (or incomes) are falling toward zero.

Your post seems to indicate that you think I don't care about unemployment or that I think it's no big deal. On the contrary, I agree that unemployment is bad, and that is one reason I favor free markets.

Social democrats, like libertarians, are busy trying to flood the first world with every rapist, murderer and barbarian they can get their hands on, albeit not entirely for the same reasons. And from my experience libertarians usually understand the laws of economics, then fail to apply them in meaningful ways because they don't understand people at all.

I don't know what you are talking about. Libertarians want rapists, murderers, vandals, etc. punished severely and prevented from harming anyone.

[Paprika]

Of course it isn't theft from them, because they consented. In which case taxation was unnecessary (superfluous). It becomes a gift and loses its nature as taxation. In fact, if everyone individually consented to give, then taxation would be completely superfluous. The government would be funded via voluntary means instead of by taxation which is, by nature, compulsory. The only point and essence of taxation, vs voluntary means of funding, is that it is the taking of that which is another's (of some nonzero set of persons) without their consent. And that's theft.

This is just bizarre. When you make an voluntary agreement with another person, that you will exchange money for his labour, your giving him the agreed money isn't a "gift".

That's putting the cart before the horse. You are first supposing that an agreement to exchange (services for money) was made, without first having the ability to pay, and then because there is no other means to pay, you are supposing that it must therefore be acceptable to steal from everyone to fulfill the obligation that had been formerly accepted. That seems hardly an acceptable moral justification. It would also have crazy implications; it would imply that anyone who starts doing such things have the same claim, e.g. if any random person decides to start their own police/defense force.

No, I am supposing a scenario in which all the people involved agree beforehand to pay a certain group money in return for the group doing work for the public good.

I'm going to ignore the paragraphs starting with "you might try" because they're not really relevant to my stance.

But then it's not clear that it must or ought to be a legally compulsory thing. Do you not agree that a voluntary system, if possible, would be superior, and that compelling all your otherwise innocent neighbors is a less desirable option? It also seems to leave open to our judgement who to pay, what to pay, etc. As you too agreed that it is not an obligation "to pay all taxes". It is certainly not talking about all cases of positive externalities, but only about justice enacted by the sword.

I don't see how the issue of whether taxation should be "legally compulsory" has any relevance to whether it is necessarily evil.

What you are actually trying to do here is argue against premise (2): "Taxation is taking that which is another's without their consent." Your argument would be that taxation is the ruler taking what is the ruler's, and not taking that which is another's. Perhaps, but then that raises all the questions I raised before, and more: How do you discern who if any among possibly numerous claimants has the true claim? Why not every random person who decides to start enacting justice by the sword? What or how much is rightfully his? How does this change in rightful ownership arise? What if a person is already fulfilling his obligation to do justice in some other way?

These are good questions, but they do not necessarily invalidate my stance, just as questions of moral epistemology do not necessarily invalidate a stance of moral ontology that there exists objective moral standards.

Instead the focus should be on: what is it that makes the specific sum of money rightfully the ruler's? Your argument here does not imply that the ruler is owed a certain sum of money no matter what, that the ruler may decide to spend as he pleases. Rather it would be a specific amount owed for a specific service provided. And then because it's a compulsory obligation (as opposed to consensually entering into a contractual obligation), and because, as I said, this only could arise as a matter of necessity (to do enact justice by the sword) it should be only what is necessary, and nothing more, and should be done as efficiently as possible. And if the 'ruler' is able to enact justice with less effort (or less is needed, say because crime rates drop) then surely less would be owed for lesser services rendered.

So then, as I said in that same post to begin with:

If you can divert tax money from project A to project B, then presumably the level of taxation for project A wasn't as "necessary" as supposed, and thus did not morally justify that level of taxation to begin with [was not owed]. Thus the mere fact that you were taxing at that level certainly does not imply that taxing for B is morally justified, since justification of the prior taxation level is already suspect.

You seem to be objecting to certain levels of taxation which you think unjustified. Which, of course, does not mean that all taxation is evil.

Do you not believe in justice? I ask, because from the context of the discussion you seem to perhaps think that it is "defined by whatever law is in effect" making it arbitrary and making every statute just by definition, as opposed to statutes being just or unjust (subject to the judgment of justice) and thus prior to human-invented statutes.

Or are you shifting the discussion to new ground, and asking me to specify the content of justice, perhaps because you suspect that we disagree on that point? Which is fine. In which case I would start by saying that justice is what is referred to in Romans 13. It is the matter of against what is it morally acceptable to "bear the sword" (i.e., when is physical force/violence against fellow men acceptable). Justice is to "render to all what is due them". Paul lists specifics "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, YOU SHALL NOT STEAL, YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and it is doing "no wrong to a neighbor". Paul also points out that justice is included in (and implied by) loving your neighbor. (But I would say that love and justice are not equivalent. Love includes justice, but it goes beyond justice too.)

You are the one who brought up "Justice" with a capital J. Naturally, I am curious as to what you mean by the word. Now Paul doesn't explicitly say that "justice is to "render to all what is due them"", so I would be interested in how you exegete a standard of justice out of the passage.