Craig Haynie <cchayniepub...@gmail.com> wrote:
> When people > respect others, and do not threaten violence against them to achieve > desired social and political goals, then the resulting economic system > is capitalism. > I believe you are missing the point. I am talking about the future, not the present. At present, if you were to go to a farm and take away the crops by force, that would morally wrong. The farmer worked hard and risked his own capital to grow that food. So you are correct: capitalism is called for. The farmer should be allowed to sell the fruits of his labor on the open market. Now think about how the world will be in 100 years. There will be no farmers. All manual labor will be done by robots. There will probably be no farms; everything will be grown in indoor food factories. The cost of the food will be a factor or 10 or more cheaper than it is now. It will still be morally wrong to barge into a food factory and take what you want, because a corporation will have set up the factory, and invested capital and R&D in it. Now think about the world 200 or 300 years from now. The cost of building food factories will be far cheaper. Robots will not only build and maintain the building, and operate all of the equipment, they will also bring in raw materials from all over the solar system. Intelligent computers will design improved versions of the factories and equipment. They will build or upgrade as many factories as needed without human intervention. The production cost of the food will be as cheap per kilogram as tap water is today. When we reach that stage, charging for food becomes ridiculous. It would be like standing on a street today charging pedestrians for the use of the sidewalk or drinking fountain, in units of $0.0001. It is no longer a moral issue. After hundreds of years of development, the food factories have become standard and commodified to the point where there is no risk, and no profit. They might as well be run as public utilities, like today's water fountains or escalators in railroad stations. Grave moral problems in one era can become trivial technical issues in the next, thanks to scientific progress. A century ago, and even 20 years ago, it was difficult for us to provide all students with up-to-date textbooks. It cost society money, and it was a moral issue. Should we see to it that all children got the latest version of textbooks? Was it morally right to have some public schools in South Carolina with 40-year-old textbooks, while others had up-to-date textbooks? Now, with the Internet, we could easily give every child on planet earth the latest textbooks at a trivial cost. I expect the schools in South Carolina still use 40-year-old textbooks, but there is no technical reason why they should. There is no reason why we should charge the parents or schools or anyone else for these books. The authors and editors have to be paid, but we do not need publishers. The total payment for the author per book can be a few pennies. Excellent textbooks and lessons are available for free everywhere on earth already. See: http://www.khanacademy.org/ - Jed
