Defending the indefensible was Re: FWD [forteana] Health Care: USA, Iraq & Canada

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Sun Aug 10 2003 - 11:15:30 MDT

  • Next message: Olga Bourlin: "Re: Why Management Seems to Hold the Cards (was FWD [forteana] Health Care: USA, Iraq & Canada)"

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Olga Bourlin" <fauxever@sprynet.com>
    To: <extropians@extropy.org>
    Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 1:26 AM
    Subject: Re: FWD [forteana] Health Care: USA, Iraq & Canada

    > From: "Damien Broderick" <damienb@unimelb.edu.au>
    >
    > > At 03:53 PM 8/9/03 -0700, Lee wrote:
    > >
    > > >It would mean [that] fewer people
    > > >would get fired. Like in 1830, the boss might come in
    > > >one day and say, "You are not working out. Either leave
    > > >or take a $15 per hour pay cut." Presumably the boss
    > > >also goes over to the next worker and says, "you *are*
    > > >working out here, I don't want to lose you, here is a
    > > >$10 pay hike".
    > >
    > > HAHAHAHAHA! You slay me, Lee.
    >
    > I couldn't stop laughing myself. Nevertheless, I managed to google
    through
    > my giggles to come up with some insights into the working conditions in
    the
    > 1800s and somewhat beyond:
    >
    > "... From the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, many young children in America
    > worked long hours in a variety of dangerous environments, such as
    > manufacturing and mining. Not only did they miss the opportunity to go to
    > school and receive an education, but some even lost their health and their
    > lives. It was because of these tragedies that U.S. child labor laws came
    > into effect.":
    >
    > http://www.njsbf.com/njsbf/student/eagle/spring01-1.cfm
    >
    > "With heavy labor came long hours and rarely did the pay increase despite
    > the grueling hours and often dangerous working environments. Over time,
    > Irish Americans banded together to organize unions and improve the working
    > conditions of all laborers. In 1879, Terence Powderly, a son of Irish
    > immigrants, was elected head of the Knights of Labor, a national
    association
    > of labor unions. Under his stewardship, it grew to include more than
    700,000
    > members....
    > With the increase in numbers, the unions' ability to facilitate strikes
    and
    > boycotts posed a real threat to industries. Soon negotiations were taking
    > place and the working conditions for U.S. laborers began to improve
    > dramatically.":
    >
    >
    http://www.immigration.net/lawyers/colum_article/articles/2001,0830-AILF.shtm
    >
    > "The mistreatment of child workers is not just a foreign problem. Since
    > colonial times, the U.S. has counted on children to lend a helping hand in
    > its fields and factories. In the 1800s, children as young as 7 worked in
    > textile mills for 12 hours a day. Bad behavior sent a child straight to
    the
    > 'whipping room' for punishment.
    >
    > In 1938 a federal law was passed that set child-labor guidelines, limiting
    > work hours for kids and requiring safe conditions."
    >
    > http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/magazines/story/0,6277,94603,00.html
    >
    > "Throughout the 1800s, women began to enter industry in large numbers.
    Their
    > jobs were primarily sex-segregated with most working in textiles,
    > manufacturing, and domestic services. These women worked in extremely
    > unhealthy, dangerous conditions for wages even worse than for their male
    > counterparts. In this climate, it was women who bore the triple burden of
    > exploitation by the factory owners, of having no voice in the government,
    > and of the attacks by many male workers and sexist unions that feared the
    > competition women represented. It was Lucy Parsons, the radical
    multi-racial
    > anarcho-feminist, who summed up the condition of women in the six simple
    > words: "'We are the slaves of slaves.'" :
    >
    > http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N10/col10brice.10c.html
    >
    > You get the picture. There's a *ton* of information about working
    > conditions (or working restrictions) in the USA during the 19th century.
    Go
    > ahead - anybody - defend them if you can.

    ### Let me try my hand at defending the indefensible.

    Lots of people are bad. They wouldn't share a surplus even if this meant
    others dying. In fact, in the absence of coercion, almost all people are bad
    in this way, including you, Olga. Since, as I presume, you have not shared
    all of your resources not crucial for survival with Sudanese slaves, you are
    bad too. There are people dying out there, but you are not helping them.
    And I am bad as well. The only non-bad person I know, is Eliezer, I think.

    So what's wrong with being bad, if everybody is doing it, while preaching
    for others to be good? Nothing. The word, as applied above, loses its
    meaning. The communal-sharing, or equality-matching relational schemata
    underlying the reasoning behind the injunction to share surplus and maintain
    equality, are ethically meaningless, once you start building ethical systems
    using logical means, based directly on volition, rather than an
    unquestioning carryover of specialized social schemata, which worked well
    for survival in the EEA, but now impede progress.

    Progress is good. Economic progress is good, since it gives humans a better
    ability to fulfill their wishes, which is the essence of doing anything at
    all. Any vestigial mental quirk, such as tribalism, income-egalitarianism,
    acceptance of authority, that limits economic progress is bad, because it
    destroys the coherence of our goal systems. Incoherent goal systems cannot
    be satisfied. If you covet the richer human's resources, but jealously guard
    your own from poorer ones, you will never move forward, and you will
    interfere with the progress of others.

    Economic progress must be maximized, within a coherent, volitionist ethical
    framework. This might mean using moral symmetry, Rawlsian reciprocity, and a
    few other heuristics which have been found to aid economic progress, while
    rejecting egalitarianism, tribalism, male/female chauvinism, taboos, and
    everything else that interferes with economic growth.

    It is good to be rich. Therefore, anything that interferes with the growth
    of the average sentient's income, is bad. It doesn't matter of you share
    with others, or if you hoard. The only thing that matters is how much you
    contribute to the average increase in wealth. Feelings of fairness, justice,
    are wrong, if they interfere with the growth of average income of the
    Rawlsian observer.

    All the emotionally rousing images you quoted, for the rational thinker, are
    yet another reason to support economic growth, while maintaining individual
    freedom. Henry Ford did more for American children than the nameless
    bureaucrats who drafted child labor laws. Once the children's parents became
    rich enough, children's labor stopped being a problem. World War II did as
    much for women as feminism - once women entered the labor pool, they learned
    that economic competition gives them the power that comes from financial
    independence. Technical progress did more for the Irish than the Irish
    themselves, and certainly more than the greedy labor unions, which later all
    but destroyed the automobile industry - now most Irish are many times
    richer than the Britons who oppressed them.

    To point at the misery of the 19th century, and claim that it is a good
    justification for laws which, as a side effect, may impede economic growth,
    is wrong. It is not the laws forced by the social progressives that are
    socially progressive, it was the growth of average incomes that is the
    source of true progress.

    The working conditions of the 19th century were wrong, because most people
    were then poor, and it is wrong to be poor. Concentrate on creating wealth,
    not righting wrongs, and all wrongs will right themselves.

    Rafal



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