I suppose my question is mainly one of aesthetics. Is it beautiful and good to blatantly display one’s wealth in front of those less fortunate? Designer clothing, luxury cars, expensive jewellery, we show them off like peacock’s tails, but we live in Africa where people are dying of diseases which could be prevented at the cost of a few rand! Even if we aren’t willing to share our resources, it still seems to me that such displays are in bad taste.
thats where the human nature is, alas, most prominent.
the more you have, the more you want.
if you were living on the streets, and win the lottery tomorrow, you wont give a rat’s ass about your former neighbour when you cruise down the road in you hummer.
is it moral?
surely not.
in an ideal world, communism would work like a charm, but no human is immune to greed.
i have a pet-hate in government officials cruising around in helluva fancy cars, and live in mansions. they are supposed to be at our service. i have a problem with my tax money being spent or them living like superstars. they should be earning minimum wage, then maybe only those who are truly passionate about the wellbeing of our country, would want to be in that position.
Or we’d be governed idiots who had no competition trying to get to the “top” (in this case the bottom). People as a whole need some kind of inspiration to keep them going, a goal to work towards. I’m not one of the people shouting the evils of money, it has good characteristics and bad ones. One of the GOOD things about it is it drives us to be productive and move forward. Do you think a yob living in a council flat in the UK, earning an allowance from the state really has any drive to do anything productive for the human race? Well, the answer is clearly no because the number of spongers there just seems to be increasing.
SOME people, have ambition and drive, others just seem not to care. Part of that ambition is indeed to own that porsche or live in that mansion. Is it the fault of the successful person if he spent a lifetime accumilating, planning, working smart, and working hard… That a guy on the street does nothing every day and would never try to rise above his circumstance, is destitute? Is it moral to take what this person has built for himself away and give it away to those who didn’t? Is success a punishable crime?
This is why communism doesn’t work, No-one wants to toil and sweat for no reward whatsoever, if the bare minimum would do.
Agree BM, one should not be ashamed of the rewards of one’s efforts if these are duly earned on value added…what pisses me off is when the rewards are unduly earned through corruption, crime, patronage, politicking and tenderpreneurship on the basis of discrimination etc. To address Peter’s question re aestheics, I have yet to see the driver/occupants of a black Range Rover (or similar) with darkened windows stop to give a beggar a coin (I trust you get my drift); quite frankly neither should they on the basis of guilt (unless guilt exists)but only on the basis that it makes them happy to do so.
The gist of what I’m saying is that I don’t agree with Peter that people should make like Jesus said: sell their property and give it to the poor. However at the same time I’m also not saying that the system is perfect. In fact it’s pretty broken in some cases. There are people living in Africa who are being trampled upon by greedy bastard types. This has to be addressed. Some people do outsmart the system, and gain undue rewards, this too one can go about addressing, I guess. However consistently it has been shown that in economics, elevating the rich even higher has a overall positive effect on the plight of the poor. Rich people are the only ones that truly DO create jobs and improve an economy. However the lower classes (my own fate included) seem bent on demanding ever more of them.
Every other proposed system I’ve ever seen seems to lack more than it plugs the hole in existing one. One of the points Shermer raises in the “Baloney detection kit” is: if you have a proposed new theory, first make sure it addresses everything the existing theory addresses, then show that it plugs a hole in that theory. It’s easy to point out flaws in any system. It’s much harder to plug those holes without negatively affecting the rest of the system (as anyone in software development should know).
I’ve come to the conclusion that humankind will never reach an utopian state where everything just works perfectly. But we can work toward improvement, as long as it doesn’t destroy what we’ve already achieved (ex: Socialism).
Also a question mainly of aesthetics: Is it moral to be in glowing good health when working in or visiting a hospital’s terminal cancer ward?
'Luthon64
Again I agree BM…It was Ayn Rand who said: “Progress can only come about of men’s surplus, that is: from the work of those men whose ability produces more than their personal consumption requires, those who are intellectually and financially able to venture out in pursuit of the new.”(Rand, Collectivized Ethics,1963).
Jesus was a socialist,. Giving to the poor will only increase the number of poor. I have travelled and worked in Africa extensively and seen what unbridled greed and violence can do (I visited a camp of 6800 child amputees in Sierra Leone as an example). I have been involved in massive upliftment projects (US$196 million) in Eritrea and going back there have sadly seen no progress, primarily because the principle of relevant education/training was corrupted by socialist planning, centralised control of the economy etc.
i have been on the arse-end of poverty. i had been renting a room that had no ceiling, the matress has springs popping out all over the place, my car got stolen, so i had to walk to work. i worked at the local spur at night, and the mr price during the day. i started work at mr price at 7am. at 5pm, and walked to the spur where i worked till 2am. repeat.
on my feet, the whole day.
i ate left-overs off people’s plates. i walked home in the early morning hours, hoping not to be attacked and my little earnings stolen from me.
moral of the story. dont tell me you cant find a job. dont tell me you are having a hard time.
if i could find a job as a waitress/cleaner/packer/teller, then you can too.
go beg elsewhere.
i dont have tremendous aspirations to drive a porche or live in a mansion, but i would like to own a house one day, and drive a car i didnt get from my mother.
Digressing a bit but: I’ve also been to middle Africa and I’ve seen some things that are burnt permanently into the back of my retina’s, for better or worse. I wouldn’t want to make light of people’s suffering.
Getting back to the original question - I don’t think anybody can be blamed for their good fortune, be it in health or wealth. Particularly in South Africa, this is something I have thought about a lot. I, for example surely benefited a lot from the apartheid regime, because my parents and their parents etc had money, education, a nice house etc. I did not, however, have anything to do with the regime, which I believe was immoral and wrong on every possible level (I was 5 when Nelson Mandela was released from prison - so there’s really not much that I could have done for the struggle) Should I feel guilty that I was born into privilege thanks to a messes-up political system? Surely not. I am not about to go and give all my money (which is not much anyway) and earthly possessions to the ‘previously disadvantaged’. I may, however, think twice about flaunting whatever assets I may have in the presence of those who do not possess such assets, simply because nobody stands to gain from such an action.
I am not going to try and discuss Nietzsche with a bunch of people who are mentally retarded, or with a bunch of grade 3 scholars, because they do not have the knowledge on the subject that I have nor the capacity to understand what I am saying. That would simply be flaunting my ‘superior intellect’. Similarly, I am not going wear designer clothing if I go and visit a homeless shelter.
Hey, thanks for all the responses. ;D
Nah, I’m not endorsing any kind of monetary system. I’m talking more about social norms. I’d like to live in a world where people look down on those who show off their material wealth instead of idolising them.
Neither do I, that would be silly. I do think that hanging on to more than you can need or use is equally silly.
Can one give away excess health? Would it help the cancer patients if one did?
Then one’s surplus ought to be invested in progress, not wasted on useless displays.
We may be entering a very VERY grey area, here - how useless is useless? I mean, technically I don’t need a car, for example - I can walk to the shops and more or less get to work by bus. So, my car is ‘surplus’ and I should sell it and invest the money in education or whatever, and spend 3 extra hours per day travelling? Why? I like the luxury of having my own car. And I work damn hard to be able to pay for it (even though it is a piece of junk) Similar example - is having park distance control or climate control ‘surplus’? I don’t think its fair to say that everything that is fancier than that which addresses the most basic needs are ‘useless displays’ :-\
Then I also have to ask: Would you rather see the engineers, designers, and factory workers creating all these cars without jobs?
EDIT: By proxy, investing in a luxury car IS investing in people and education and progress. Today’s luxury model is paying for the research that will advance the car of the every man 5 years down the line.
That would be impractical. It would probably be cheaper to keep your car.
I would say so yes, but that is just my own subjective assement.
Agreed, but just because we cannot draw a definite line between them doesn’t mean we can’t quite easily identify extreme excesses when we see them.
No, but presumably they could make less expensive cars.
Well, I doubt everyone will have a car in just five years but I get your meaning. This is not something I had thought of. Can we be sure of this? Couldn’t selling more of the less expensive cars pay for the research?
Obviously not in the same direct and immediate way one can simply hand over a wad of excess cash. But through various donorships – blood, marrow, organs, etc. – one can give of one’s “excess” health so that it may transiently improve the health of a terminal cancer patient. Or, much less directly, one can use one’s health to study and to work towards a cure. Or one can simply give of one’s time and energy to improve those patients’ conditions slightly or help them in some or other way. I’m sure there are other possibilities that haven’t occurred to me. Thus, both the question and the point behind it remain: It is absurd to fell a moral judgement over the mere fact of someone’s being healthy and/or wealthy in a world amidst much misery. Of course, maliciously rubbing people’s noses in it is an entirely different matter but very few people deliberately do that.
'Luthon64
Ooh, good point! I’m also in favour of people giving blood.
Here I have to disagree, people do exactly that. If the only reason people bought these flashy toys was to satisfy some deep personal angst I wouldn’t really have a problem with it, but most of these cars are actually designed to inspire envy. People buy them specifically for the effect they have on others. The same can be said about clothing, jewellery, even cellphones. I am largely immune to these effects, but I see them reflected in the eyes of street kids. Jealousy and anger aren’t healthy emotions for society.
So it’s the quality you have a problem with, but quantity is OK? I don’t see how that’s any different from the basic ideals of a communistic society, and if I recall, history has shown that that is not such a healthy idea (nor can it possibly work, as GCG and some others have pointed out earlier)
I do not donate blood, I am severely anemic and my bloodstream does not absorb enough iron. Is this my fault? No, it is a condition I was born with. If my blood is drawn, I feel the after-effects for hours, and its not pretty. One cannot blame people for keeping what they have and not giving what they can’t or don’t want to give, be it material/monetary or health-related.
The last statement I agree with, entirely, but I am sorry to say I think they are emotions we have to learn to deal with, because getting rid of them does not seem likely.
Expensive things aren’t always good quality. Many of the most expensive things we buy are not built to last as there is always something newer and better available a few months down the line. I think it should be possible to manufacture good quality products cheaply.
If you don’t have the blood to spare then you shouldn’t give away what little you have. Giving blood is a good thing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that not giving blood is bad. My blood is full of THC so I doubt anyone wants it.
This is exactly my point. We can’t get rid of the feelings of jealousy so why not try to avoid behaviour which causes it.
We can't get rid of the feelings of jealousy so why not try to avoid behaviour which causes it.
Now you are getting very close to sounding like a clergyman.