News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Unnecessariat by sokoloff on Wednesday May 25, 2016 @07:24AM (#11768968)
IMO, capital income does come from work; it's just that the moment of income is divorced from the moment of work. That could be by a year, a decade, or a century, and it could accrue to the individual who personally did the work, or to someone to whom they traded, gifted, or willed the capital.

I believe that an individual should be allowed to save the results of their work and consume the benefits later. I believe that they should be allowed to gift (or share) these savings with someone of their choosing. I don't believe that these allowances should be voided by death.

From that, I conclude that if my wife and I die with $2MM estate and give $1MM to each of our children, that they are entitled to the income from that capital, but it doesn't change the fact that that income originated from (my wife's and my) work.

Re:Unnecessariat by vintermann on Wednesday May 25, 2016 @08:06AM (#11769138)
In any case, they don't come from your kids' work. So you have to go back to arguing for voluntarism (step two of the carousel) rather than desert in order to justify your children enjoying something they didn't work for.

And the problem with that is that it really relies on a "facts on the ground" view on property entitlements. If our laws about property are man-made and supported with force, why shouldn't we change how they can be transferred (or possibly voided in case of death?). You can disagree, and you certainly can fight it, but you can't really morally condemn anyone for trying to take it from you.

Re:Unnecessariat by sokoloff on Wednesday May 25, 2016 @09:10AM (#11769469)
My beliefs include that I'm able to share or gift my surplus capital as I see fit (and said so explicitly above).

You can disagree, you can certainly fight it, but you can't really morally condemn me for sharing my earnings with my family.

Re:Unnecessariat by vintermann on Thursday May 26, 2016 @02:26AM (#11775989)
That you're able to isn't much of a belief, the question is whether you should be able to. Yes, you said so explicitly, and I acknowledged it.

But you're, as I said, not justifying it with desert now.

You think you deserve to be able to do as you wish with your money. But why do you deserve that? It can't be because you worked for it, because in giving money to people who didn't work for it (e.g. your kids), you acknowledge that having worked for it isn't important to you. And I guess you think that your kids, too, should be allowed to use the money you give them as they see fit.

Apparently, having the money ("facts on the ground") is sufficient for you to think you should be allowed to do with it as you please. That sounds like might makes right to me...

I'm not condemning you for "sharing your earnings with your family", but I'm certainly condemning your deficient justification for it.

Re:Unnecessariat by sokoloff on Thursday May 26, 2016 @04:24AM (#11776459)
Inherent in a property right is the right to give or trade it to someone else.

If I have property rights over a steak or a measure of rice, I can cook it and share it with my family. Likewise with my house, car, or abstract medium of exchange (money). I don't see that as "might makes right", but rather as "that's inherently what property rights are".

Re:Unnecessariat by vintermann on Friday May 27, 2016 @07:39AM (#11785297)
It's easy to imagine countless non-transferable or otherwise limited forms of property, and our societies have always had them, for entirely understandable social reasons (e.g. primogeniture, instituted for social stability reasons). Property rights don't have to be unconditional in my dictionary.

But let's use your dictionary where property rights are always unconditional. In that case, we have never had property rights and it doesn't seem like a good idea to get them!