Should people pay for their atoms? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14808914
Now I am officially charging $20 for every O2 molecule that anyone who makes over $200k/year breathes in and donating it to the poor. We would reach income equality within milliseconds. :lol:
#14809036
Thomasmariel wrote:Should people pay for their atoms, because the human body needs atoms? Food, shelter and healthcare have to be paid for, because the body needs those things


It should be kept simple. At the end of the financial year we should have to stand on a scale in front of government officials, and pay per gram. The procedure should then evaluate how the individual justifies their existence. Those deemed unfit for a liberal-progressive society should have their possessions confiscated and then be farmed out to various state enterprises where they will learn the true meaning of life.
#14809599
I assume OP is some sort of libertarian trying to troll us about social programs like universal healthcare, so rather than try to offer any talking points about public goods and like, I'll refer you to Adam Smith's discourse on the relative value of water vs diamonds, and see if that rings any bells:

What are the rules which men naturally observe in exchanging them [goods] for money or for one another, I shall now proceed to examine. These rules determine what may be called the relative or exchangeable value of goods. The word VALUE, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called "value in use;" the other, "value in exchange." The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarcely anything; scarcely anything can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarcely any use-value; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.

-- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
#14809638
Libertarianism is just a slightly more extreme example of the phenomenon noted by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

"It is this accursed practice of ever considering only what seems expedient for the occasion, disjoined from all principle or enlarged systems of action, of never listening to the true and unerring impulses of our better nature, which has led the colder-hearted men to the study of political economy, which has turned our Parliament into a real committee of public safety. In it is all power vested; and in a few years we shall either be governed by an aristocracy, or, what is still more likely, by a contemptible democratical oligarchy of glib economists, compared to which the worst form of aristocracy would be a blessing."
#14809651
quetzalcoatl wrote:Libertarianism is just a slightly more extreme example of the phenomenon noted by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

"It is this accursed practice of ever considering only what seems expedient for the occasion, disjoined from all principle or enlarged systems of action, of never listening to the true and unerring impulses of our better nature, which has led the colder-hearted men to the study of political economy, which has turned our Parliament into a real committee of public safety. In it is all power vested; and in a few years we shall either be governed by an aristocracy, or, what is still more likely, by a contemptible democratical oligarchy of glib economists, compared to which the worst form of aristocracy would be a blessing."


Libertarianism is a morally bankrupt ideology, as it simultaneously expects freedom from interaction and the presence of interaction. Right-wing libertarianists will go on about freedom, but they also expect people to become soldiers and politicians, which is a double standard
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