From: lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk)
Subject: Re: Health Care Rights?
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 05:26:01 GMT

dege@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dege Jeffrey Charles) writes:

>>Who decides who is to give and who is not to give?  Who decides how much?  Who
>>enforces it?  Who will be given the power to TAKE what is needed?  Are we
>>to replay the Robin Hood Syndrome all over again? >>--Rob

Hey, why not?  It got good film ratings, so why not replay it? :)

>    Are you saying need does not impose an obligation upon those who are not
>in need?  That is morally unsupportable.  You DO have an obligation to help

I believe you fail to see the lack of morality in Objectivism.  Objectivist
goals define no morality.  That is, you have no obligation to do anything
whatsoever.  Whether you see yourself as requiring to do something is up to you.
Thus, you build the morality that suits your tastes, instead of requiring to
have one specifically.  Thus, nobody has the RIGHT to be helped, but there
is no OBLIGATION to help anyone specifically.  That is, your tax dollars
would not go to any "charity" -- you'd have to pay for those yourself, and be
free to select which ones you support.

The only personal obligation it has is taxation for the purpose of government
services in terms of national and local security (military and emergency
services).  One would also include public education and, essentially, child
welfare under Ayn's ideal, I believe.  Plus, I believe, common services such
as road maintenance.

>   As I said, you have an obligation to help those who are less fortunate than
>you.  But you also have an obligation to feed your family, to help your
>grandmother put up her storm windows, and to do many other things.  Most of
>us are always facing simultaneous conflicting obligations, with no way to
>fulfill all of them.  Who decides which ones to meet?  You do.  Based on
>your own personal values.

This is not true for all people.  Recall Dickens' "Ebineezer Scrooge".  He
felt no obligation to help people ("Let them die then and decrease the
surplus population").  

Your last statement implies lack of moral imperitive, that is, you are not
slave to others' needs.  In this case, one questions whether there is any
"requirement" to help others.  That is, if you deny people help based on your
personal values, then you are saying that some people do not deserve help,
and thus employ the same moral relativism as in Objectivism: no moral absolute.

>    Society as a whole has an obligation to help those in need.  The amount

There is a good social reason for people to help society.  The more people
invest in society the greater their eventual return for their investment.
To put it simply, if I invest in cancer or heart/stroke research I may
reduce medical bills as better treatments are found, I may extend peoples'
lifespan and thus help them benefit society, I may even save my own life one
day if I suffer a heart attack, stroke, or cancer.  In another example, say
you invest time in a clean-up campaign for your neighborhood.  Then you invest
more time in getting to know your neighbors.  You have a cleaner friendlier
neighborhood (hopefully -- one never knows how an investment will turn out)
which will tend to reduce crime and promote a greater community spirit, which
will benefit the entire community.

>the society, based upon the values of that society.  Your question as to
>whether a society is justified in using force to extract resources from
>its members to use to provide that effort is one I hadn't addressed at all.
>Mainly because I haven't really made up my mind.

As far as I can tell society does have a right only to extract from people the
amount needed to pay for its operation of public facilities.  That is,
anything that is generally available such as welfare, schools, road
maintenance, armed forces, emergency services, and your local government
information centres, are all legitimate costs of "society".  Goverment, in
essence, represents that which is freely given to all, and paid for by all.

Note: In my opinion "Robin Hood" tactics are only justified in cases of
violation of rights or fraud.

> <passage about bureaucracy deleted>

Bureaucracy is an interesting development of society.  The sheer volume of
people requires entire offices all over the country, which have to be
co-ordinated somewhere along the line, etc. etc.  Generally it's sort
of like IBM.  Unfortunately, unlike IBM, governments will not go belly-up
if they spend too much money or they develop an organization with the
maneuverability and agility of an 18-wheeler like IBM did.

Hopefully as computer technology and office automation improves, we will
be better able to reorganize government as an organization suited to
providing effective services with low cost and little bureaucracy. Note:
In my opinion, this is where the Robin Hood tactics come in...

The problem with government is that in and of itself it provides services
generally without public consent and at the same time has no incentive to
achieve low costs and also forces the public to pay for its services.  If
IBM could do this (and it could way back when it cornered the market) it
would (and did) make a real profit and expand.  The problem is while we have
competing policy people (in our case the Conservatives, Liberals,
New Democrats, and Reform Party; in your case the Republicans and Democrats)
we have no competition to government itself.

Now THAT's an idea: have each person fill out a yearly form which indicates
which country he wants to pledge allegiance to.  In return, he gets all the
benefits of that counntry's policies, for a nominal fee and taxation rights.
Now wouldn't that be fun: trying to keep track of all of your citizens in
a "global community"...

					Michael Lewchuk
					lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism