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Dustin comments on Shut Up and Divide? - Less Wrong
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I never understood how this morality worked. The problem I see with this view is that you are double counting the value of money.
The $10 doesn't leave the system and everyone who touches it just killed a whole slew of people because they sent it somewhere other than aid. Why are you carrying the moral burden?
Even if you did send it to aid you can blame them for charging $10 for their work instead of $9. (Or whatever company that is selling the rice, nets, stoves, filters, bottles, condoms.)
You could even blame the person receiving the aid for using the aid instead of giving it to someone less fortunate. Or using less of it. Or selling it for $11 and putting the extra money back into aid.
Somewhere in here something goes horribly wrong and it gets ridiculous. Where did I misstep?
EDIT: I really don't want to give the impression that you shouldn't give money or help people less fortunate than yourself. I think these are great things. I just don't understand the jump from "I bought a latte" to "I killed people."
When your employer pays you $10, it's not as simple as him having $10 and giving it to you. You, in part, created that $10 out of nothing.
Otherwise, what would be the point of hiring you in the first place?
That doesn't really detract from his point.
It actually does. If you see wealth as zero-sum, then you start worrying about how to distribute it, as in the Zachary Baumkletterer reductio ad absurdum above (which was amazing).
However, if you understand capitalism and realize that wealth is positive-sum, and that when someone makes money, the world becomes richer, you can avoid making Zachary's mistake. In other words, you can help people by creating more wealth, not just by reducing your own.
Right, yeah, I ended up coming to a similar conclusion. (I think. Your input would be valued. :D )
I agree that understanding capitalism and the fact that wealth distribution is not a zero sum game help avoid Zachary's mistake. I actually thought that was the obvious moral of MrHen's example but in retrospect its probably not sufficiently obvious to everyone.
I wasn't trying to detract from his point. I was merely offering a clarification.