In other words, your opinion about the deservedness of how much people earn is solely based on your feelings and is not based on anything objective. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but it really doesn’t help the discussion any, does it?
Those stereotypes are old fashioned. The truth is that some people do not want to claw their way to prosperity. That type of aggressive competitiveness needs to come to an end for such individuals.
With the sheer grace of God, how else.
I don’t know what country your friend is from. I do know that the equivalent of $2 U.S. per day is considered a really good wage in some countries.
Then they should be content with their level of prosperity.Those stereotypes are old fashioned. The truth is that they do not want to claw their way to prosperity.
LOVE!
Before you were arguing about receiving what you deserve. Do not such non-competitive individuals deserve a modest amount of prosperity? It’s ultimately in God’s hands, and He uses certain individuals to actions that promote such prosperity.
The $2 a day is a really bad wage in his country, you will be lucky to find a place to live in a shack, barely feed yourself and hope you don’t get sick. But, there is not much he can do to better himself, schooling is not available, except to all but the best students. It is hard to raise capital to start a business when you have to spend most of what you make for food and shelter.
Mandatory education for children, along with job opportunities, is paramount to end this vicious cycle of poverty. It will take some investing (a redistribution of wealth) from governments and large corporations, but the eventual reward are potential workers who promote the larger economy.Isn’t God competitive though? And all his creation? Just look around you and see what is going on in nature, such as with plants and grasses… It’s the natural order of life -we compete with the elements to survive.What you’re describing is a very competitive person. What about all the people who do not value senseless competition such as what you describe? Such people, given they are of good moral character, deserve a fair amount of prosperity.
LOVE!
God is LOVE! This is what the Holy Bible teaches. Never did I ever read that God is competitive.
Societies based on cooperation will trump societies geared toward competition. I’m a research psychologist, and I can assure you that experiments have been set up that prove the efficacy of cooperation. Cooperation will lead too a much less stressful society.
Because we’re assuming that I don’t have the ability to feed myself. If I did, I wouldn’t be starving. I never said it was immoral to feed yourself, simply that it would be immoral to allow me to starve.
No, they’re both good. But if you have extra food that you could give to a starving person, then you are obligated to give that person your food. You cannot morally allow them to die while you eat more than you need.
It’s not immoral for you to desire things. It’s immoral for you to put your desire for “the sensations of eating” above my bodily need for nutrition.
Because in this hypothetical scenario, I am starving. It is not selfish to accept help that I need to live.
I mean, I certainly hope you would feel guilty about letting your neighbor starve to death. I know I would.
Their other option is extreme poverty. It’s fair if they agree to a job without being forced into it. But if they will not have their needs met without it and they don’t have another option, they’ve been forced into the job. It wasn’t really a voluntary exchange, and it wasn’t fair.
OK, I see. I do think the OP is sort of vague, though. The first post doesn’t use the word “forced”. I do think we have an obligation to provide for the needs of those who have less than us. It seems to me that the government is, more often than not, an ineffective means of fixing things, but that does not mean that we as individuals don’t have an obligation to help the poor.
Don’t God and the devil compete for souls? Didn’t God create a garden with forbidden fruit and a snake and a choice? It’s in the Old Testament.
I’m not familiar with any experiments involving a competitive-less society. Nothing like that has ever succeeded very long. It’s impossible because ‘competition’ cannot be eradicated fully. It never will because it goes against nature and natural law.Societies based on cooperation will trump societies geared toward competition. I’m a research psychologist, and I can assure you that experiments have been set up that prove the efficacy of cooperation. Cooperation will lead too a much less stressful society.
LOVE!
Just being honest with you. It is my opinion about government workers.
All individuals deserve what they work for and earn.Before you were arguing about receiving what you deserve. Do not such non-competitive individuals deserve a modest amount of prosperity? It’s ultimately in God’s hands, and He uses certain individuals to actions that promote such prosperity.
LOVE!
Obviously, you have a right to your opinion, even if it is not well thought out.
But you have already established that deservedness is a matter of opinion, so we cannot objectively determine whether or not someone deserves more or not. Either, deservedness is something we can measure and look at objectively, or is it a matter of opinion.
If the second worker can get $10 an hour for slacking off, why doesn’t he deserve the $10 an hour? In the market, it is all about what you can get away with. If I can hijack my boss and force him to pay me a lot of money for little work what business is it of anyone else whether or not he deserves what he makes?
I would argue that the wage rate is most likely fair when we have a competitive labor market. However, if the market is not competitive, for example if we have a monopsonist who artifically lowers wages because of his market power then the result would not be fair and workers would probably be receiving less than they deserved. For example, slavery was an example of an unfair labor market. The slaves agreed to work, because it was better than starvation and beatings, but they did not have the freedom to seek employment elsewhere, so they did not deserve their low wages, they deserved the opportunity to get a better wage.
So, hell. We have all earned eternity in hell.
Even if it meant that your own family would starve?
The issue is whether the needs of others is the first mortgage on my life and the moral purpose of my existence.
True, if you don’t have the ability to provide food for yourself or pay me for it…or consider it your “right” to my food.
No, not then, I don’t think. In that case the non-starving people have an obligation to help both of us, since our community seems to be in a very dire situation.
I don’t really understand this sentence, but I can tell you that Ecclesiastes ends with “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” And one of God’s commands is to help the poor, so I don’t think we’re living up to our duties if we refuse to do that. I don’t think that helping the poor is our only purpose, but it is something that we should do when the opportunity presents itself.
Well, I’m glad we got that sorted out.
My opinions are very well thought out. We can get into government employee wages and benefits in another thread.
You are hung up on my opinion of government workers. Remember I said they were OVERPAID. Nothing to do with what they deserve.
That is blatant theft.
Anyone who “agrees” to work is not a slave.
I can only make judgments based on the evidence that I have seen. And all you have done is give what clearly is your opinion that government workers do not deserve what they make.
No, you never said you thought they deserved what they earn. My specific question was: Do government workers deserve what they earn? And your answer was no.
No it is not necessarily blatent theft. If the boss knows that the worker slacks off and refuses to discipline or fire the worker, then it is not theft. I remember one person who hijacked his boss because the boss was over a barrel. The boss needed someone to come in for one hour, the worker refused unless he paid a full days pay for an hours work. The boss was stuck and he had to pay, but there was no theft involved.
If you take out the ability for someone to go elsewhere that is unjust.
I am not OK with people not having what they need. As long as they can’t provide for themselves or buy what they need and don’t consider their need to be a “right” to my benevolence.