Posted by alexandra_k on November 28, 2005, at 16:05:17
In reply to Re: just one more... » alexandra_k, posted by Dinah on November 28, 2005, at 9:18:56
> Surely you believe that I don't want people living in poverty any more than you do.
I know you are a kind hearted person Dinah, please don't think I'm questioning that.
> Or that Bill Gates (as an example of an exceptionally rich man) doesn't want to see people in poverty any more than you do, for that matter.
I think that Bill Gates... Probably has enough money to meet the basic needs (of healthcare, education, food, shelter) of every person in a small country for a number of years...
While still having enough to meet his basic needs, the needs of his family and friends, and still continuing his company and going on to make... More money.
Yet he chooses not to.
Why is that?
Why is that?Does he perhaps have some greater good in mind?
Does he perhaps... Not think about it...
?> I think that goals are more similar than you do, in almost all people.
I think that our biology...
Gives us an inheritance where life is lived in the face of a conflict between two opposing forces:
Competition and Co-operation
Darwinists... Evolutionary theorists have traditionally emphasised the role of competition.
Competition is what propells us foward...
(This is the backwards idea of 'survival of the fittest' which is a very different notion indeed from 'elimination of the unsuccessful'. Because the idea of the former... Tends to be associated with the idea that the BEST people, the SMARTEST people, the HARDEST WORKING people DESERVE to be better off than others. The latter tends to be associated with the idea that WE ARE ALL SUCCESSES BECAUSE WE ARE ALL HERE!!!)
> Even if you don't believe that people genuinely want to help the poor, poverty isn't in anyone's best interests as an issue. TWhen I suggested about the government raising the minimum wage (which surely isn't interfering anymore than the interfering that was involved to set the present minimum wage) you said...
(something along the lines of...)
But some companies can't afford to pay people more than the minimum wage...
Think back...
A while ago now...
To the slave owners in the southern statesBut our companies / farms / whatever can't afford to pay the workers at all...
Is that acceptable?
Aren't both merely instances of exploitation?
Don't companies have a moral responsibility to consider the welfare of their workers? The workers spend a great deal of their lives working hard for the companies. And who benefits? The workers struggle to make their basic needs... The middle class make enough from their stocks to say 'but we can't raise the minimum wage or we would be worse off!' And the rich... Are laughing their way to the bank.
But thats okay because they are SMARTER and HARDER WORKING and they DESERVE to be rich.
I don't think it is about people caring so much as it is about people not really thinking about it.
And when they do...
When they do think about how much of a difference they could make in someones life for not buying that magazine or TV or CD that they will hate a couple months down the track... When they really think about it...They are so horrified they repress the knowledge...
And they continue on their merry way.But the middle class...
I'm not really trying to generate guilt for the middle class...
So much as I am saying that if that same situation happens with respect to the wealthy...
Then it probably is the case that...
People don't really care.Because most of us...
Are social darwinists.
Survival of the fittest.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:578654
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20051121/msgs/583047.html