We're talking about a North American style of policy right here. This would never occur in Africa, firstly.
You're confusing what I said. I said that if you are so concerned about the "poor", why not look to the TRULY poor people in Africa and help them out? Why should people in the US who have shelter and electricity get the rich people's money over people in Africa who have NOTHING?
My point is that if you're going to make an argument based on morality, you should apply its consequences fully, and look at the extreme situations.
OK, so basically you argue that work would then be reduced and people wouldn't work as hard. Unfortunately, they would get fired, so there is still an incentive to work. Ultimately, when all of the people in the society have met a minimum standard of living, then society would be better off.
Who is going to fire the entrepreneur? He is going to "fire" himself, sure, but that is value lost for the economy.
I'm not saying that people are going to work less hard at whatever job they take, I'm saying that they will take jobs that are lower value (and lower paying) because there is no incentive to work hard at a high value job when you don't get additional rewards (more money).
Secondly, we agree that CEOs work very hard to provide for some economic stability. We also see that CEOs such as Bill Gates have redistributed their money to the poor and helping up and coming businesses to succeed. We think that there's a moral imperative that comes with being rich to give some of that money away and we don't think that imperative is being met.
Why is there a moral imperative? Why is it not currently being met through the heavily progressive tax system? Why don't YOU count as a rich person, since you have a computer, shelter, electricity, etc?
Next, to your argument that the money will disappear suddenly, I think this link will provide a good explanation:
http://economics.about.com/cs/finance/a/money_lost.htm
This article doesn't really disagree with what I said. It's a good illustration. Yes, whoever sold you the stock that was about to go down was the "winner" if you take a broad view. But to the single person who lost all their wealth, it simply evaporated - note that at the moment he buys the stock, he is not poor. It's only when the price goes down that he becomes poor - so no one is stealing his money. That's all I was getting at.
That money does end up go somewhere, and the person that it goes to can be the company, or it can be another person, but the fact is when this is accumulated to an individual person or company they become rich.
The person who sold the stock at the top didn't become rich when the price went down though, he became rich when he sold the stock (unless you are talking about short selling, but whatever). I don't remember what the original point of this tangent was.
OK, so moving on, we don't think that everyone who will be receiving this money will be literally dying. What we do think though, is that everyone who receives this money needs the help of it. Think of the single mother who has to work two jobs for her son who she never sees. Think of the family on the street who has no standard of living, who's children have no chances of receiving education and will ultimately be a proponent of this vicious cycle. We don't think it's correct for the fundamental right of these human beings to be taken away.
How do you determine who "needs" the money?
I also don't see any rights being taken away in either of the situations you posit. Yes, some people wish they could have more stuff, but they are still better off than all those people in Africa that have NOTHING.
Also, how do you feel about all the future people that are going to become poorer when this policy stymies all economic growth?
And then you make the analogy of theft. We don't think this is a theft, we think that it's taking away someone's yacht to make someone's life better.
This is the definition of theft. If I come to your house and take your computer, I am making my life better. But that doesn't make it ok to do.
We think that theft is basically taking away something illegally without the consent of a person, and usually it's selfish.
It's not selfish to want to take someone else's stuff just because you don't have as much?
In any case, we think that the legal way of redistributing wealth is much better than having theft occur anyways. There's no doubt in my mind when I say that the people who we will be redistributing money to will have to resort to theft anyways to try and get out of the vicious cycle, and for the poorest people in society, to stay alive so this legal means of redistribution is a much better alternative to true theft anyways.
So, because they are going to steal anyway that makes it ok? I also definitely disagree that all people are going to steal anyway.
Lastly, we don't really think that your argument about the contradiction of utils really works because in this case, that 200,000 dollars for a yacht will be redistributed in a way that helps the most amount of people reach a certain minimum standard of living; that's where we think the line should be drawn because when we give an excess amount of money to someone, they'll spend it on luxuries and the whole argument loops so the only logical way to do it is to set a minimum standard for how much money is given and then move onto the next person.
Luxuries, minimum standard of living, it's all relative.
My point was that your statement of utilitarian philosophy doesn't make sense.
Anyway, I don't think it's possible to make utility comparisons between people.
