The reason why a coal miner might get paid half as much as some other job X is because there is half as much demand for coal miners at that price point.

The question what should be done with people who cannot make ends meet doesn't really enter into it.

If you artificially raise their wage, then you might as well just hand them the difference between what they would have been paid and what you think they ought to be paid. At least that way the market correctly reflects the price of coal miners.

But all you are doing is handing them welfare through the government then, so you are achieving the same thing with more side effects and extra steps.

That is why I posted that graph.

If a community wants to take care of some person who cannot find work, go ahead and do so. But should the solution be to force everyone to take care of that person?

If beggars can die in the street, I guess it's a responsibility everyone has (and wants) to change that, be it only that society is a multiplayer game where one can't always control the circumstances one ends up in.

If people feel that responsibility there should be no reason to force them.

And if they do not, they relinquish entitlement to demand the same of others.

But the addition of coercion adds nothing moral to it.

I doubt you should be allowed to likely kill somebody by taking their last valuable, but that's just me.

Who is taking it?

A refugee? A citizen? A real shitbag person you wouldn't want near your house? A white male? You know the problem with intersectionality is that this is suddenly supposed to matter - in a democracy.

Then again, I'm as lost as you in this discussion, yes.

No, I don't exactly understand the scenario you are trying to bring up.

You referred to killing someone.

Kill them through inaction?

I am not sure what you mean.

If there is no coercion, you are not killing anyone.

Well my point was more about "killing" someone through removing them from the little they had. Closing the mine, the asbestos factory, the sweatshop, the mental asylum. But I might make too big of a leap here, am I conflating two distinct issues here? In fact, I'm not sure I can tell why this seems so obvious to me.

Even if we accept all of that as true, I don't think that obfuscating the issue through a sort of price fixing is the right solution.

We settled that earlier, didn't we.

If we concluded that it was immoral and society at large should ensure their continued livelihood, then one can explore solutions such as a loan or financing social security, or Milton Friedman's negative income tax.

now we're talking!

But by mandating this social responsibility you are not proposing a solution much different from holding a gun to my head to enlist me to carry your spouse up a hill.

Let's address the moral mechanics of it:

Let us say your spouse needs to be brought to a hospital up a hill. You cannot carry her alone. I come by.

If you had a way to coerce me, such as a gun, would it be moral for you to force me to help you?

I don't know. I happily accept the responsibility the way things work where I grew up. But why? No clue, tbh.

Regardless of why, you do so willingly. But what if you didn't?

And if you had some responsibility, through some sort of debt, for example, how should it best be enforced?

I don't take the position that the state is useless. I am not a complete anarcho-capitalist.

> how should it best be enforced?
Cannot tell. Apparently western democracies seem to show quite some variation in this concern, which is what makes this topic interesting, I guess.

Let's steelman your argument then, or the position I think you're taking:

Let's take my view to the most unfavorable degree.

Let's say that I am an incredibly wealthy person, a billionaire. You have a starving mother.

If you take just a tiny fraction of my wealth, through a means that does not even do physical harm to me, you could save your mother.

Would it be moral?
Would you do it?

(BTW, I would do it, but for reasons I will explain after.)

> be it only that society is a multiplayer game where one can't always control the circumstances one ends up in.

What would I think of you, the shitbag billionaire you'd be, if you didn't?
If you want a society that sustains billionaires, you'll probably have more than one starving mother. That's just how a society goes, I guess.

Yes, a pretty shitty society it would be.

But what is that society then? You allow people to steal, as long as they think they can do more good than you with what they stole.

To what degree does that rule hold? Do we not end up with a Sorites Paradox?

It is, that's why western societies vary on these terms so much, I guess.

||My bike was stolen today...||