[ExI] Social right to have a living

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:30 PM, Damien Sullivan
<phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

> important.  And "free societies" certainly produced lots of hungry.
> When they don't, it's largely because of gov't programs to give food to
> the poor.

### Most of the "hungry" in America exist because of various
government programs (the ones that killed Detroit and feed
out-of-wedlock babies).
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>
> Also the idea that anyone with gumption can get ahead is pretty
> ludicrous when unemployment is persistent and widespread.

### Unemployment in the US exists mainly because of government. Check
out the PSST theory of Arnold Kling.

You consistently confuse cause and effect. No wonder your solutions to
problems are guaranteed to cause even more problems.

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> Point is, there'd be a floor on the poverty.  No able bodied citizen
> would have a reason to beg for help, because every able-bodied citizen
> would have land to work.  (Being simplistic, this ignores crop
> failures.)  If you don't like the jobs, you can support yourself.

### I mean, really? You think having the option of *subsistence
farming* is the answer to the problem of poverty?

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>
> A claim for which you have no evidence, because what I describe has
> AFAIK only been done by one Chinese dynasty.  It's certainly nothing
> like Communist collectized farming, which was, after all,
> *collectivized*.

### Yeah, well, there you are: One Chinese dynasty. That sums it up.
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>
>> Most of that money would be wasted. Without morals and education, you
>> might as well just give the $100,000 directly to the Columbian drug
>> lords.
>
> Wow, lot of contempt for your fellow people, there.

### Accusing somebody of being contemptuous is a neat rhetoric trick.
But rhetoric doesn't work against reality, and Kelly is just being
realistic here.

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> Well, in my thought experiment, starvation would be an option, if
> someone sat on their butt and refused to work.  And you could feel
> justified in letting them starve, because you would know that they had
> the means to work.
>
> Vs. the real world, where one may grow up without good nutrition,
> education, or working capital of any kind.

### No, in the real world, every "poor" in America has access to about
400,000 $ worth of capital. The calculation is based on the comparison
of wages of able bodied, smallish (not well nourished) and completely
uneducated Mexican immigrants before and after getting smuggled to the
US.

Really, *every single* able bodied, sane individual who grows up in
America *can* support herself is she wants to, even despite having no
land grant. This means that every single one who claims they need
support, doesn't deserve it.
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>
> Remember that the Luddites, contrary to reputation, weren't irrationally
> anti-tech.  They were skilled workers who were losing their livelihoods,
> without compensation, due to automation.  Lacking capital or any defined
> right to livehood, they existed only by their utility to capitalists.
> Had society had some way by which those losing their jobs could partake
> meaningfully of the benefits, there'd have been less violence.

### PSST. Really useful to add it to your mind's toolbox.

Rafal