Forum Post: Social Contract
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 12, 2011, 12:14 p.m. EST by captaindoody
(339)
from Elizabethville, PA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I think we can all agree that we are all covered under the social contract. It is right and proper for society to tax individuals for the betterment of society, including the direct transfer of wealth from one individual to another (for example EBT cards). How does an individual generate the money so that the government can collect a tax? By working. So it is right and proper for society to take labor from individuals - force them to work - and it is right and proper to force them to work for the benefit of other people.
SO, I was thinking, since individuals can be forced to work for the benefit of others and thus do not have a choice in what to do with their lives and time, why should women have a right to decide what to do with their vaginas? Shouldn't things like vagina be equally distributed as well?
I am amased at how Occupy works and would like to have your input on the movement to understand it better. It relates to the questions of its buttom line nature as a movement, so could be interesting for you too. Can you answer 10 questions, please. I am happy to send results if you are interested. Thank you! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q3NF7QB
Hi, troll. May I introduce you to irony? You have just described capitalism.
I'm most definitely AGAINST capitalism as an OWS member. Although I wasn't intending to describe capitalism, I was intending to describe the logical extension of the social contract.
You're a troll who opposes OWS. But I'm happy to have a substantive discussion about what capitalism is and is not with you, provided you won't run away and ask me to stop educating you like last time.
Maybe I am here to make you think. Maybe I am here to help you sharpen your thinking and argument skills so that when you are confronted by these questions/ideas in public you won't stand there with your jaw on the floor looking for the best name to call someone.
You're a troll. Do you want an education? Yes or no.
I am always interested in learning. Enlighten me, please. Start by answering my question above. I have to go to work now, but I'll be back later to respond. So don't feel like you have to rush an answer out. Take some time and think about it. I am honestly very interested to see how you answer the question posed in the OP.
The following is offered to educate you as to why your OP contains irony. You are, as we have established many times, a troll. So the principles you claim to support in your OP are obviously the opposite of what you believe. For example, you say "it is right and proper for society to take labor from individuals - force them to work - and it is right and proper to force them to work for the benefit of other people," but what you obviously mean by that is that it is wrong "for society to take labor from individuals - force them to work - and it is [wrong] to force them to work for the benefit of other people."
What follows is not intended as advocacy. It describes the mechanisms of capitalism and socialism in a way that clearly reveals their differences. The primary difference between capitalism and socialism is that capitalism violates--and is intended to violate--the principle that a person deserves to have the fruit of his labor whereas socialism adheres to--and is intended to adhere to--this principle. So if you believe that it is wrong "for society to take labor from individuals - force them to work - and it is [wrong] to force them to work for the benefit of other people," then you are actually advocating socialism and rejecting capitalism. This lesson begins with a desk.
Consider a man who builds a desk. It costs him $25 in materials and after he builds it he sells it for $100. That man has engaged in socialism. The $75 he earned is not "profit." It represents the value of his labor, and he keeps all of it. Now consider the same man who spends $25 in materials to build a desk, except that he finds he is unable to complete the desk because he lacks a certain expensive tool. His neighbor has the tool, and his neighbor agrees to lend him the tool in exchange for 20% of what he sells the desk for. The man agrees, finishes the desk, and sells it for $100. He gives $20 of that to his neighbor and so his surplus is $55. That $55 does not represent the full value of his labor, which is still worth $75 as he did the same exact amount of work as in the previous hypothetical. The neighbor, however, earned $20, even though he performed no labor whatsoever. The neighbor, therefore, received $20 in profit. And where did that profit come from? It came from the other man's labor.
Now consider this on a wide scale in which a society's productive wealth (capital) is concentrated in just a few private hands. This requires the majority of people to "sell their labor" in order to create wealth and sustain themselves. But they can never realize the full value of their labor because the people who control the capital will always be appropriating some of it in the form of profit. The more desperate the laborers become, the more fruits of their labor can be appropriated by the capitalist.
You may have questions. I have already had this discussion--using this precise example--with other purported capitalists who wrongly (and with immense irony) have described capitalism as if it were socialism. You should go here first and read through some questions that were asked of me and my responses to them: http://www.occupywallst.org/forum/why-do-you-believe-i-owe-you-anything/#comment-63005
The irony is that the most ardent capitalists here are the strongest advocates of socialism, you included. I don't care what you personally believe. I do care that people are confused about which is which.
Ha so true. People think that negative coercion or coercion by mindless market forces is fine, it's only coercion (i.e. an expectation of fairness) by the majority that they have a problem with. Sure would be nice if everyone was responsible for the common good and felt a duty to their fellow man so no coercion was necessary, but the past 40 years have proven that's just a pipe dream.
Well why shouldn't the 'common good' be extended to sex?
Another word for "coercion by the majority," incidentally, is democracy. And I agree that the trolls around strongly oppose democracy.
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
You are equating wealthy people being taxed to feed starving people with women being systematically raped.
If you can reallocate someone's money, why can't you rape them right?
doody=troll disregard all words
What is money and how did the person get it in the first place? In the case of most of society, by labor. So if you can steal labor from one individual, completely turning him into a dehumanized slave, why can't you steal the pussy as well? If the social contract can be made to produce slaves, why can't it be made to produce sex slaves?