What is a fair society built upon?

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Tuesday October 04, 2005 18:47

by Eamon Ryan

The answer: personal freedom.

What does every human being want?
Not just water food shelter and clothing doled out to him by a beaucracy. The individual wants it on his own terms. To be truly satisfied the individual within society can achieve what he desires without seriously hampering the aspirations of his fellows.

A person works hard and deservedly gets paid for it - his wages are used to purchase water food shelter and clothing - when he has these they are his property that he can use as he wishes.
By this principle in order to take property from another you must earn it from that other person - by providing something in return - barter, labour or money.
The other person has the freedom not to part with his property or wealth if he so pleases if he is not satisfied with what he gets in return.
The system of exchange goes both ways.
If an employer or retailer therefore does not treat you honestly you can use the threat that you will work for a more honest employer or buy from another fairer retailer to force him to reform himself.
If an employee does not work honestly for the wages he earns or a buyer is not prepared to pay more, an employer or retailer can threaten than they will find a more honest worker or a buyer who is prepared to pay more.
This principle is the essence of competition.
The more competitive an environment is the greater motivation towards honesty efficiency and quality for labour or produce by both employers, employees, retailers and buyers.
Dishonest individuals can be punished reinforcing the motivation toward fairness and openess.
But none of this is possible unless there is personal freedom maintained by rule of law.
The employee demands the best wages he can for the least amount of work.
The employer demands the least amount of wages for the greatest amount of work.
The retailer demands the highest price for the smallest number of goods.
The buyer demands the lowest price for the greatest number of goods.
Neither can have it both ways so they MUST compromise(of course compromises are routinely dishonestly broken if there is no force that can binds them).
That is why each must have the maximum freedom to make that compromise unhindered as much as is practicable by the rest of society.
Of course the individuals in society have responsibilities greater than their own - they must pay taxes to pay for physical infrastructure and the institutions of accountable democratic government especially the law, health, welfare and defence. However the financial burden of these insitutions should not be so high that they hinder the economic activity of individuals in society.
Inevitable there are divisions based on social equalities - these arise often from the uncontrollable circumstances of reality not from an organised conspiracy by some divine or earthly puppetmaster/s.
To rectify the problems with knee jerk policies to punish entire classes of people for their success through the presumption that success flows from the misfortune of others is simplistic and ultimately stupid in the extreme.
By investing in education, maintaining low levels of tax, keeping public spending and borrowing to the absolute minimum, maintaining limited regulations but with teeth, equality before the law and enshrining personal freedom to the maximum these problems can never be totally eliminated but limited as much as is possible.
Utopia does not nor will never exist but the next best thing is a really possible.