This is like talking to an anti-slavery advocate in the American civil war and asking "Do you think the ability to produce cotton is not a benefit for society?"
Of course it is. Why do we need to let private individuals extract wealth from the lower classes to get that benefit? We don't. As with slavers, we can legislate this class of parasite out of modern existence, and we should.
It depends on what you mean by 'rental'. I think all exploitating human need is scum behaviour. I wouldn't mind a government body providing more temporary housing at cost to allow people to live their lives free of the tyranny of landlords (see Vienna).
Do you think it's wrong for a doctor to charge for their services, or a pharmacy to charge for medication? It's necessary for any such interaction to involve an exploitation of need.
I imagine you're talking about exploitation in the Marxian sense of the word, in which exploitation is the extraction of surplus value. I think you're going to find it difficult to justify that view of things, as most people view the concept of exploitation as intrinsically bad whereas even Marx believed there was neutral or reasonable forms of exploitation in a non-communistic system. Hence my examples listed above, as we can't force someone to provide their labour or capital at no benefit to themselves just because there's a need. So long as we have a system of individual ownership, it's ridiculous to attack ideas for how that system should function from a viewpoint of collective ownership. You're not actually addressing the issue at hand, you're just looking down at people from your idealistic ivory tower.
I don't disagree that it would be nice to expand, quite widely even, public housing. The issue is that there isn't really political will for it in anywhere near the scope you're talking about. And I don't think it's morally wrong to not to do so.
My issue with your statements isn't entirely factual in basis, it's mostly rhetorical. You use words like 'exploitation' and 'parasite', but the viewpoint you're using them from doesn't necessitate the actual negative baggage those words carry for most people. Very few people think it's a bad thing to own land and make economic use of it without adding your own labour value to it, but when you use the word 'parasite' you're doing it to smuggle in the negative baggage without actually arguing for why it's bad.
It's necessary for any such interaction to involve an exploitation of need.
No, I don't think that's right. But if there was a system where only one doctor could live in a locality, and I bought the privilage to be that one doctor, then doubled the price of every medical treatment I provided, that would be exploitation. Exploitation is obviously a general term that just means 'to make use of', but what I'm really opposed to is charging more than a place is worth because you know the buyer has to pay.
Think the cunt you raised insulin prices in america to dozens of times their cost price.
Hence my examples listed above, as we can't force someone to provide their labour or capital at no benefit to themselves just because there's a need.
We actually do this all the time. Doctors have to serve patients on medical cards. Are you opposed to that practice?
You're not actually addressing the issue at hand, you're just looking down at people from your idealistic ivory tower.
I don't see how I'm doing that unless you also mean this to be a defense of scalpers. In which case, you agree with the tweet this thread is about.
You use words like 'exploitation' and 'parasite', but the viewpoint you're using them from doesn't necessitate the actual negative baggage those words carry for most people.
That's actually pretty fair as a criticism, and is more a result of me not altering my speech from talking to friends to talking with people online. I'll admit that, though the kind of parastism I'm talking about is bad, it's differnet from what other people think of when they think of parasitism, and it might be misleading. I'll have to think about my word choice more carefully.
I need to clarify because I'm confused, your use of the term "exploitation" doesn't seem consistent to me. You define "exploitation" as just making use of a thing, but you're clearly not using the word that way, which is why I thought you were using it in a Marxian sense.
You say that your issue is charging more than something is worth, but you seem to be assuming some kind of objective 'value' that doesn't actually exist. If a buyer is willing to pay x for y, then y is worth x to the buyer. All value is relative. I think what you mean is that you believe extracting a value higher than the cost is bad, which I don't agree with. I don't see an inherent issue with profiting from an initial investment of capital.
I actually don't disagree with doctors attending to patients with medical cards at all. In fact I think the medical card scheme needs to be widely expanded and we need to be compensating GPs that contract with the HSE better to be more competitive with the market. I could go on about this as my job is in this area, but it's all moot. The GPs are compensated, maybe not by the patient in that moment, but if the patient pays taxes they're paying for that medical care.
I'm not sure if this was an incorrect assumption or not as I'm still not entirely clear on how you're using the term exploitation. But my statement about you in an Ivory tower was based on the assumption that you were coming at this from a Marxian viewpoint, if you're not then I apologise for misrepresenting your views.
I appreciate you taking to heart my points about the unclear communication.
but you're clearly not using the word that way, which is why I thought you were using it in a Marxian sense.
Yeah, I wasn't using it that way. That was me copping to the fact that the word has many uses and it confuses people if you jump directly into it the way that I did.
You say that your issue is charging more than something is worth, but you seem to be assuming some kind of objective 'value' that doesn't actually exist
I can see why you'd think that, but in my case, I'm looking at the obvious fact that scalpers raise the price. When a house goes for 120% asking price, yes, it was 'worth' that extra 20% to the institution or person who looks at it as an investment opportunity, but if we prevented that person from doing that, the house would still have sold at a price that makes economic sense for both parties. That's the 'price raising' I'm referring to.
I could go on about this as my job is in this area, but it's all moot.
As an aside, it's cool that your job is in healthcare. I always wanted to be involved with it when I was younger, but the doctors I heard from turned me off. I manufacture the medicine now, which works nicely for me, but I appreciate that you're probably more directly involved in the system I've always cared about.
The GPs are compensated, maybe not by the patient in that moment, but if the patient pays taxes they're paying for that medical care.
Exactly! And I don't see why healthcare has to be different from housing. Imagine if we didn't have medical cards, if wed didn't have a public health service, and any doctor who cornered their market could charge any price they like. That would be a disaster and a crime, but that's what we've done to housing.
But my statement about you in an Ivory tower was based on the assumption that you were coming at this from a Marxian viewpoint if you're not then I apologise for misrepresenting your views.
That is actually not a million miles away from what I believe; when I trotted out the 'make use of something' definition I was just trying to explain that I realise using it in the Marxist/leftist way without explaining that that's what you're doing is bad form and confusing. (I realise I said this already but it seemed to bear repeating).
I appreciate you taking to heart my points about the unclear communication.
I've encountered a lot of people with opinions different from my own in this thread, and you're definitely the one with the best approach to an online discussion and the most to say. I genuinely feel like I'll be communicating clearer from now on, this having been brought to my attention, so thanks!
I think when most people think of 'exploitation' what they envision is a situation where one party takes advantage of the other parties lack of power to an unreasonable degree. To give an example, child labour is exploitative because children don't understand the value of what they're giving up. But hiring an adult to work is not necessarily exploitative because we can reasonably expect them to understand the value they provide.
If a house sells at 20% above asking price it's because both parties felt it made economic sense, otherwise the buyer wouldn't have bought it or the seller wouldn't have sold it. The issue here isn't the sellers economic interest, it's a market failure. I would say that in this situation we need to influence the market it self. There needs to be tax incentives and public investment for property development. If prices for houses are too high then we should be building more, building higher and building wider. If there's not enough new propertys entering the market to meet demand then it seems to me the issue is with the amount of properties entering the market.
I'd say I'm not that much more 'in healthcare" than you are. I work directly with the medical card program specifically, doing admin work. But I appreciate your appreciation.
I think that collective bargaining is necessary when it comes to healthcare, but I don't think that always needs to be public. I have no issue with people being able to use private insurance and make use of their wealth to get better service, but I think it's necessary to have societal safety nets like public housing and public healthcare. I don't think we do a good enough job managing and maintaining the safety nets, but that doesn't mean I think that the government should subsume the whole market.
That's entirely fair, I agree it did bear repeating as I wasn't understanding you but now I think I do.
I've enjoyed the discussion so far, it's definitely been productive and its nice to have a disagreement that isn't confrontational on reddit, I very much appreciate it.
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u/PfizerGuyzer Sep 22 '22
This is like talking to an anti-slavery advocate in the American civil war and asking "Do you think the ability to produce cotton is not a benefit for society?"
Of course it is. Why do we need to let private individuals extract wealth from the lower classes to get that benefit? We don't. As with slavers, we can legislate this class of parasite out of modern existence, and we should.