Re: Craig Erb's query.
Mati Palm-Leis asked 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 commented April 16th:
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.
Craig Erb then asked April 16th 2007:
Ant,
You have your values & others have theirs. Shouldn't we look for a win-win
situation? You live according to your values without forcing them on others
& they live according to theirs without forcing them on you.
Ant McWatt comments:
Good point Craig. How far a society uses general taxation to pay for a
national health service, public libraries, the police etc., is a
static-Dynamic balancing act which is always going to be open to debate and
negotiation. As such, I think Robert's "Rules of Order" that Pirsig
mentions in Chapter 17 of LILA is worth keeping in mind when examining this
issue:
"You can see that where political institutions have improved throughout the
centuries the improvement can usually be traced to a static-Dynamic
combination: a king or constitution to preserve the static, and a
parliament or jury that can act as an Dynamic eraser; a mechanism whereby
new Dynamic insight can wipe out old static patterns without destroying the
government itself."
"Phædrus was surprised by the conciseness of a commentary on Robert's Rules
of Order that seemed to capture the whole thing in two sentences: No
minority has a right to block a majority from conducting the legal business
of the organization. No majority has a right to prevent a minority from
peacefully attempting to become a majority [e.g. through debate and the
ballot box]. The power of those two sentences is that they create a stable
static situation where Dynamic Quality can flourish."
In the abstract, at least. When you get to the particular it's not so
simple.
It seems as though any static mechanism that is open to Dynamic Quality
must also be open to degeneracy-to falling back to lower forms of quality.
Case has also made some good points (e.g. having too much individual freedom
could put us back in the cave) related to this issue in his recent posts to
you.
Best wishes,
Anthony
.
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