trc@houti.UUCP (06/17/83)
In response to Warren Montgomery on government and on inheritance: Your first proposal was to randomly select representatives for government. This would, perhaps, be a very good way to compose an advisory panel. However, I would prefer a system that gets the most capable people, and the most moral people, rather than the most average people. Perhaps a "ladder structure", in which one has to pass through all levels before reaching the top, with people voting on who has done the best job at each stage would be better. The better one is, the higher one goes, and the better the pay becomes. To get rid of politics almost altogether, candidates would only be able to run on the basis of their record, once on the bottom rung of the ladder. In order to avoid "popularity contests", there might be a rule that they could not hold two consecutive levels in the same area. To make it fair to the candidates, they would probably put their names into consideration in an area they think they could get elected in. In short, candidates would apply for a job, rather than be nominated for it. Your second point suggested that it is unfair that children inherit their parents wealth, on the basis that it destroys equality of opportunity. Children are not born rich. Their parents work hard and perhaps manage to save something. If they gave their children gifts while alive, you would not object. Why do you object that they leave behind a statement of their final wishes for their property? To assume that it is all right to take their property just because someone else "needs" it to be "equal" is wrong. Whenever someone comes up with this idea, I suspect that their real motive is not to insure "equal opportunity", but to "soak the rich". Children are not born equal, nor is there any any tradition or law that guarantees equal opportunity at birth. There is only equality of rights in the eyes of the law. One comment you made was that "a pure capitalist system appears to tend to become unbalanced after time." If you mean "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer", you are wrong. The working poor, at least, get richer as well - because goods get cheaper and new products come out that enhance their lives. Under capitalism, wealth is only gotten by the virtue of productivity, and can only be maintained in that manner. When they forget that virtue, the rich get poorer. If you mean that the system will collapse of its own accord, you are wrong. It is not only self sustaining, it allows controlled growth. It can be murdered by irrationality however. Tom Craver houti!trc