Renegade

No, not quite. In the total absence of society there is no one to trangress your rights. You have the right to live, right to free speech, and even property rights, because there is no obstructions to those rights. Your example of "freezing wind" or grizzly's are invalid as either are inanimate or don't have the capacity to understand your rights, let alone respect them. Furthermore, even if you live in a society, freezing wind, will still freeze your ass to death, regardless if society grants you the right to live. It's one view, but it is not mine. Do you think in a society that accepted slavery as the norm, that the slaves had no rights to freedom because they weren't granted by that society's concensus? In fact based upon your description, I would say it requires force to "claim" and enforce "rights" in society it now exists. That is distinctly not my view of rights. Let me ask you a hypothetical. If two races coexist in one society, and Race "A" is the majority, and Race "A" decides that Race "B" should not have the right to live simply because they belong to Race "B". Can I assume that based upon your justification of how one accrues rights, that Race "B" has no right to live? Does it at all depend upon what Race "B" wants in terms of rights, or can they be "outvoted"?

Figleaf, I am going to stop addressing the other points because responses to the others are meaningless unless we have some concensus on this one. If "belong" is defined by society, then there is no limit to what can be taken from any of us at the whim of society. I believe property rights is a fundamental right of an individual and is not dictated by what society grants him. This is as much a fundamental right as an individual's right to live, or do you believe that too is granted at the whim of society?

August, while it is a good suggestion, and I'd be ok with just tax cuts, I don't think your statement "The interest you receive is roughly the same as what the government has to pay." is accurate. Whatever the government pays me in interest, they end up taking back 50% in taxes.

If by "justice" you mean dispute resolution mechnisms, then I agree. If by "justice" you mean a system of broader redressing of inequities then I disagree. Maybe you can specify which you mean. Again, only if you mean by "justice", dispute resolution. Even if we accept this statement at face value, the issue remains that those who are force to fund the equality of opportunity are not necessarily the ones who are the beneficiaries of the wealth enhancing activities. So why should they agree to do so? First, you assume that everyone if provided the opportunity will choose a course of action which makes the best possible use of their potential. This is simply not so. I know several people who simply work so that they can earn enough to bum around and travel until the money runs out. There are many other factors other than simply presenting people with opportunity. Second, you have not shown that the loss is outweighed by the cost of providing equal opportunity. Yes, the principal would have used coercion in your example. In your example is easy to justify coercion as it is applied to redress a greviance initiated by criminal activity. What would be the analogous criminal activity in society? This is the nut of the matter isn't it? My view is that earned wealth is the personal property of the earner. Your view is that it somehow belongs to society. All conclusions stem from that presumption. How do you prove which one of us is right?

I'm not convinced with this reasoning. Citizens of Dubai and Kuwait have a far better standard of living than here or any first world country I know. Their standard of living is based upon resource wealth not public social equity. I submit this to you because you cannot use high standard of living to show cause and effect. The advancement in standards of living over the last several centuries have been thorough the accumulation of technology and knowledge. It is only your assumption that it is because of an "extensive and equitable public system". You do not factor other reasons. The other thing I want to point out is that not everyone's standard of living got better. If we look at many thrid world countries, many of their professionals live a much more comfortable lives than a similarly employed professional in the "first world". For them, forcing investment in an "extensive and equitable public system" results in a lowered standard of living.

I struggle with it because the math is far from simple. Your analogy that government debt is cheaper than personal debt and so the government should apply any available funds to tax cuts is simplistic. Let's look at some of the implications. 1. People who have low or no personal debt don't really benefit from this reasoning. The interest rate they get on the money returned to them in the form of tax cuts is vastly less than what it costs government to service its debt. So for them, the analogy doesn't hold. 2. People who pay no or little taxes don't really get the benefit of the interest rate differential. In fact they are better off if the government pays down the debt as in the long term, as reduced debt leads to reduced interest payments, which leads to greater funds available for program spending. Don't misunderstand my points. I AM in favour of tax cuts. I am also in favour of some reduction in debt. I think a balanced approach makes more sense to address most objections. Yes, it may be better for your personal circumstance that you get a tax cut, however, it doesn't mean it is better for everyone. All I'm saying is you need to do some of each. Personally I'd agree with that approach. People who think it is a government duty to deliver program spending may disagree.

Geoffrey, you reasoning would imply that the government should take on MORE debt, pass the money on to the citizens so that they pay off their personal debt. Let's look at this situation in the extreme. Let's say ALL personal debt was transfered to the the govenment. If I had debt, but was paying little or taxes this would be a great situation for me, as essentially I have passed on my debt obligations to my fellow citizens. Similarly if I had no debt but was paying high taxes, the situation would be absymal. I would essentially be paying interest on eveyone elses debt. Personal and government debt cannot be mixed because the commitments have been made by different entities, so the logic you use cannot apply as it would result in huge inequities.

I don't see any factual basis for your claim that available evidence comes from political history. History of society has been a history of communities which have provided unequal access and that was accepted as the norm. Check the social structure of monarchies, of feudalism, of societies which condoned slavery, of imperialism. In fact virually all societies and their political structure have been based upon class hiercharcies which have provided unequal access. Economic Theory is just that, theory, and not evidence. You claimed you had looked at the evidence and that was the basis of your statement. You have yet to provide any of that evidence. Let me save you some struggle. You cannot come up with evidence to support your statement becaue it is an impossible question. The answer to the purposes of society are philosophical and subjective and cannot be supported by evidence, similar to asking the question, "what is the reason for my existance?". Here's what I mean by arbitary and why I use it in that context. link It doesn't completely clear things up. "observed to have been acceptable" to whom? eveyone in society or just some? See my response to the first quote, it applies here as well. People in society may have goals other than wealth accumulation. (For example they may value happiness, they may value freedom). If you justify the structure of society simply along optimization of wealth, you will ignore those other goals. All this to say, that there are many factors which are at play in justifying the existance and structure of a society. Some will conflict with others. There needs to be a balanced approach in order to address the multiple goals. Anything he chooses to do will be wasteful because it may ignore some skills to the benefit of others. He may be simply maximizing his happiness. It is simplistic to say that "wasteful" is bad and any other course of action is "good". If denied their opportunity of choice, people don't just sit around and do nothing. They maximize the opportunities available to them. You need to show that their production in what they end up doing, is significantly less than the opportunity they are denied. Your statement above is based upon an assumption that they otherwise would sit idle. You are back to the same obscure argument you made at the beginning about "political history" and economics being the basis of your statements. Be specific on what evidence backs up your claims, othewise you are just evading the point. OK, I can accept that, but your answer shows that the ends are subjective. I consider it an injustice to extort money to fund programs. My desireable end would be to minimize the coercion involved in society. I didn't phrase that well. I mean they "should have the right". Of course since the money is forcibly taken from them, it is unlikely that those doing the taking, pay any heed to what the suppliers of the funding ask. Your question on how they can justify deny paying, leads back to my early comment on the purpose of society. They should be allowed to deny paying if it is not a goal of society to provide equal opportunity. Of course a society which forcibly extorts funding is not easily going to deny the victims of its extortion a means to escape.

As I said to Figleaf you need to show that what is generated by the pool of "possibility" is greater than the cost. It cost a huge amount to give everyone equal opportunity. Moreover the cost is not borne equally. So those who bear the cost have the right to ask, why am I paying, and how does the benefit flow to those who pay? You haven't answered the question. Sure knowledge flows between generations, but you are advocating equal opportuities today. It is not like someone with advantages will create some great advancement, and you are willing to wait until the next generation of the disadvantaged makes use of it. So I ask again. Why not apply that logic to Canadian Society? Let those with advantage create advancements and once they do, share those advancements with the disadvantaged?

Yes, that's one option, however some of the benefits of a single payor system is that costs are controlled. If we can still do that we may have the right mix of choice and efficiency.

Yes, if they can afford it. What they can afford is not the issue. Obese people may not be able to afford paying more, so neither should parents of disabled children. Of course, I'm being facetious to illustrate a point. What point is that? The same principal applies for obese and for disabled. If the premium required by an individual for being obese was affordable to them, they should pay it.

Yes, if they can afford it.

What I'm pointing out is that there is no "obligation" for society to provide equal opportunity. It creates a minimium level based upon on practical considerations about the tolerable level of taxation which can be used to fund the system. When it reaches funding limits, it easily set aside "principles" to accomodate the tolerance of the taxpaying population. How is it we don't want to apply that reasoning to within society? (ie let the wealthy and those with opportunities discover better practices and then share them with the rest of the community). I'll tell you why, it's because no matter what lip service we pay, we still want to maintain that competitive advantage.

What if we took this further. For example, what if we tested kids at an early age for intrinsic abilities. Then only invested in those who demonstrated those abilities. If we adopted this approach we may be overall more productive as a society, but at a cost of creating a huge split in the population between those we choose to invest in and those we don't.

I've already told you. My objection is that I see no basis for your contention that "acceptable level ofnjustice is one of the primary roles of society". You've said it is based upon evidence. Show me that evidence. If there is no objective definition for it, it is then subjective. I call it arbitrary, because subjective criteria are by definition arbitrary. Clarify please -- What do you mean by 'it'? You have made the statement that reason for mitigating injustice is to "minimize inefficiency resulting from conflicting methods and incentives". From where do you draw this conclusion? How do you measure efficiency and productivity of a society to determine if it is productive. If an individual has a great talent for carpentry but chooses not to do it because it doesnt' give him job satisifaction, would you consider that wasteful? No, you're correct, longevity doesn't disprove conflict, however it was not intended to present as proof. It is simply one characteristic of a stable society. I know of no society which has no conflict. I also know of no just society. Lack of conflict doesn't prove efficiency. That is only your theory. How do you know what those people would do? How do you know if it is any different that the course they actually followed? Bottom line is you don't. It is again nothing but an opinion on your part without supporting evidence. Even if you could quantify the loss, you would also have to show that the loss is greater than the investment required to give everyone the same opportunity.

Go ahead, present the evidence you draw your conclusion from. Then it is arbitrary and subjective and what I may construe as acceptable may not be to another. But it is only your theory not fact. In theory a socialist system, making eveyone equal works well. In practice, it falls apart. So if it is you contention that it minimizes inefficiency by providing equal opportunity to all, prove it. Me either, not as an absolute measure of a successful society anyway. I merely point it out to show that even in "unjust" societies internal conflict isn't inevitable. Show me how you know what the optimal productivity of all the others is, and how you know they would have succeeded.

In a sense we do concentrate resources on a select few. We use the public elementary and high school system to filter out who those few are, and then invest higher education in the select few. As I pointed out before, what you call "equal opportunity" has the distinct goal of giving the Canadian population an advantage. It is an oxymoron to call a system who's goal is to create a privileged population, "equal opportunity". It would seem that as a population we are only for "equal opportunity" when it gives us an advantage.

Is your supposition on the role of society opinion or did you derive that from somewhere? Define "acceptable". If the purpose of mitigating injustice is to minimize conflict, then it is simply sufficient to provide enough access to justice so that people don't revolt. Many societies which you would percieve as unjust have lasted far longer than our modern society without revolt. One reason is that people didn't expect equality, so that when they didn't get it, they were less inclined to revolt. I have a hard time giving credbility to a hypothetical example to support a hypothetisis. The real example contridicts your argument. In the real world there are numerious examples of successful individuals who succeeded despite the numerious obstacles you feel should be equalized. (Some theorize that experience in overcoming obstacles actually better prepared them for success than if those obstacles were not present).

You assume that society has obligated to fulfill a role as arbiter of individual justice. Of course it isn't "fair" for one individual to have greater opportuity than another, but I don't see it as society's role to be the equalizer. Interestingly for many proponents of "equal opportuntiy", the "equality of opportunity" ends at Canada's borders. They support investment in programs such as subsidized education specificly in order to differentiate Canadian workers from those in the rest of the world. Their principle of "equal opportunity" stops when it providing foreign workers the same "equal opportunity" to succeed as would a Canadian. How many of you support the funding of foreign workers so they come up to the education standards of the average Canadian. As far as the "greater good" is concerned. I would say that the system of providing "equal opportuity" is more wasteful. If we take education as an example, we invest a lot in providing eveyone a relative uniform standard of education. Assuming finite resources, greater overall efficiency can be achievied, by concentrating the resource investment on the few who are most capable, but that would run counter to "equal opportunity" Success is not binary. By whatever criteria, success is measured on a graduated scale. To look further to your example, Mozart is exactly NOT an example of equal opportuity. He was born to a musical family that heavily invested in his musical abilities as soon as he showed promise. Had Mozart been born today and was forced into the same generalized training as everyone else, he may not have ended with the same achievements. I've stated it as my opinion. It is just as much an article of faith, without any particular claim on credibility to state the opposite. I have not stated that opportunity plays no part. What I have stated is that society are not obligated to provide equal opportunity to everyone.

This is more in line of my definion of "sufficient". This means, it is fine that some people have better access than others, as long as everyone has at least whatever we decide is the minimium level. Whenever society tries to "mitigate the negative effect of other factors" it seems to get in trouble. View affirmative action programs as just one example.

Reread my response. What I said was that they are prerequisites, but more doesn't necessarily lead to proportionately more success. There is no godlike creature which determines equality either. If we take education as an example, are you saying that we should ban private schools and tutoring so that eveyone ends up with "equal" opportunity? In addition we don't make a determination of what is "sufficient" on an individual basis. We make it on a generalized basis. We collectively decide that 12 years of education are "sufficient" to enable one for life. This may or may not be true, but we don't in advance determine that person A needs 13 years of mandatory education, and person B only needs 10. In the end both "sufficient" and "equal" are judgment calls.

I'm aware of the decision. It basicly said that the govenrment could not ban private healthcare if it couldn't itself provide adequate care. The decision did not say that the government was obligated to provide that care, only that it couldn't do both (ban private offering of the service, and not provide timely access to the service).

What I said was that I wasn't present and party to the agreement. I am well aware of the circumstances around the implemntation of healthcare. In addition what as the norm in healthcare then is vastly different than the norm today. Healthcare costs have escalated considerably. In the 70s and 80s governments went into debt to finance social programs. Much of the "agreements" you refer to, were done without adequate forsight on the costs. You are quite wrong on this. I don't believe that there is anywhere in the constitution or charter which guarantees that medical care should be provided to a certain level or guarantees about how it is funded. If you have a cite refuting this, I'd be interested to see it. As far as I'm aware, a change only requires a simple act of federal and provincial legislature. Yes the US has some aspect of the system I describe, but it has other deficiencies. I don't think it is necessary to move to effect change. Once there is enough acceptance of it, change will happen. The SCC has already ruled that private systems must be allowed where the government cannot provide adequate access. It is simply a matter of time before private parallel systems will be available in Canada.

In the absence of evidence, I'd have a hard time believing that. Single parents is more the norm now then 40 or 50 years ago. Personally I see just see it as a variation of family. I'm not sure that it being the norm has significant influence. I don't mean it to be. I'm not saying that familes which fall on hard times beyond their control should be ripped apart. My statement was for parents who despite circumstances make irresponsible decisions. In my view, being a parent is a responsibilty. That responsibilty includes providing sufficiently for your kids under forseeable circumstances. If one can't do that, one ought not to be a parent.

Yes but these don't affect success equally. IMV, drive, personal ambition, and work ethic which you class as "personal input" affect it far more then the others. Others factors such as education. which you classify as "opportunity" are simply prerequisites. I disagree. I think that condition to be met is that "opportunity" is provided in sufficient measure. It doesn't necessarily have to be in equal measure.