ra: If someone supports a particular public policy, then that is by definition something they would also support if they were a dictator.
Which is exactly the same things because public policy and tyrant's policy a both coercive use of power to make people act in a certain way - unlike free market activity, persuasion or private association for charitable purposes.
I've never heard anyone say this kind of thing, except audience members from Jerry Springer.
Half of the US population are democrats, more are socialists and most of the Europe as well. I know reading their websites/newspapers is repugnant but you may wish to do so occasionally just to get an idea what they think and teach your children. Or listen to any political speech. Make sure to have a barf bag ready...
Montezuma: I don't know where you get your 'objective needs' language but just because someone is able to make money doing something does not mean that the act is virtuous or desireable.
If two people engage in a concenting informed transaction (which by definition excludes children and mentally disabled as not able to give concent and also fraud), then it is desirable for both of them.
There is no one else to make judgement on it's virtue and desirabliity and any words to that effect are pure meaningless metaphysics.
Sweat shops, herion dealers, loan sharks, and protection rackets are a few examples. If you think such things are desireable just because they let someone get rich then you are dancing around the golden calf with no concept of morality.
Sweat shops give workers a choice of occupation which is better than whatever else they have available - rural poverty and death of starvation in most cases. Closing such shops by decree or making them unprofitable by mandating minimum wage forces those people back into those terrible conditions but out of sight and out of mind of well-minded individuals like you. The capitalist can easier survive loss of profit from a lost sweatshop than a desperate worker can survive the loss of the only income he had available in his conditions.
Adults purchasing heroin from dealers know perfectly well what they are doing and the concequences of their acts.
Nevertheless, I was not really referring to the activities that our society outlaws but rather statements that people engaging in perfectly legal but vieved as not socially-beneficial - like sports, arts, finance, commerce, etc. should be financially punished of forced to work elsewhere - wherever an enlightened benefactor seems more appropriate.
Loan sharks is the same as any other commerce. A person makes a decision that not taking that loan is worse outcome for him than taking it. Unless you deny such person the right to reason and make up his mind - in short, treat him like livestock - you are not entitled to question his actons.
If you think such things are desireable just because they let someone get rich then you are dancing around the golden calf with no concept of morality.
Money is just an equivalent or an exchange medium of value. A person enters into any voluntary transaction because he gets more value out of it than he gives in return, otherwise he/she would not do so. So any fortune amassed through commerce/industry (as opposed through violence, fraud or government corporate welfare) means that equal or greater value was obtained by the customers.
Capital only has value/meaning if it is used to provide value to the people other than the owners of that capital. So it's the customers rather than the owners who are ultimate controllers of how capital is used in providing services for them. Forgetting that principle makes the owners lose their capital real fast.
Say, Mike Jordan gets 100,000 per play. That means people obtained satisfaction from his play they value at least that much or more.
The concept of "real value" is meaningless because it is completely subjective. I believe your expensive car is just a useless pile of metal while you may believe that my collection of books of equal cost is just a pile of dirty paper. Some other guy treasures his vine cellar which I would not taste for free while another buys an expensive home theater system to listen to the loud noise. Another guy just "wastes" a fortune on family vacation from which he will have nothing of "values" but the fading memories. One guys wastes hundreds of thousands on surgery to extend his life for a few years while another would rather leave that money to his children.
Even multiple items are of different value to the same person. I would pay dearly for the first bottle of water or can of ammo but would be really price-concious when being offered the second one.
Anyway, if anyone is interested in "subjective theory of value", he better refer to the Austrian/Chicago school of economics vs. the marxist "labor capitalist theory of value" or "'need determined by Leader's decree' communist theory of value".
miko
