Mati Palm-Leis stated April 14th: Can anyone explain to me what the NHS issue has to do with MOQ. I have patiently tried to see any relevance to this whole discussion to MD yet perhaps I am missing something?
Ant McWatt comments: Good question, Mati. To expand on Platt's and Ian's answers to you, I think it's an issue about how far society equalises healthcare provision (i.e. stabilising the biological level) so social and intellectual quality is maintained as generally as high as possible. Hence, my previous illustration of a town's librarian and Cadillac dealer. If both aren't taxed according to their ability to pay (as I would guess the income of a gifted car salesman can be much higher than a good librarian) then a situation could arise where a particularly talented librarian for a town becomes unavailable for work because s/he is unable to pay for their healthcare (let's say for heart by-pass surgery). As a gifted car saleman isn't of any value (as a car salesman) to the intellectual level, the MOQ implies that it is moral for a government to tax everyone (on a graduated system depending on income) to ensure the intellectual level is protected as far as possible from biological degeneration with a public healthcare service (similar to one the NHS used to be, pre-Thatcher). Arlo has pointed out that possibly other basics for biological integrity such as food should also be provided via general state taxation while, in addition, Platt has pointed out that general taxation should be used to provide an army and police services to maintain the integrity of the social level. As with healthcare, I think the MOQ supports both views because a high quality intellectual level requires _both_ social and biological stability. Best wishes, Anthony. www.robertpirsig.org . _________________________________________________________________ MSN Hotmail is evolving - check out the new Windows Live Hotmail http://get.live.com/betas/mail_betas moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
