Yes, it does. See, if I don't produce food, or in some way procure food for myself, nature will bite me in the ass - I will die. If I don't produce food, or in some way procure food for for you nature will do nothing to me - i.e. I won't die.
No we don't. I don't remember helping you write your book. I don't remember you being anywhere when I produced my wealth.

People produce their own wealth through their own abilities. If your ability happens to be producing food, and you do it better than I do, then I might try to trade your food for my production, but that doesn't mean you and I have collaborated in producing food. It means you produced food, I produced something else - both on our own - and we've come to an agreement as to how each our production is going to be used.
Okay. And what is this power bounded by? If it's justified for the government to force some of its population to act, would the government be justified in forcing some to, for example, grow food?
What biological changes would indicate an adaptation to civilization?
Is not "formal government" structured? Isn't "organized religion" structured? Doesn't your use of these systems - specifically your qualification that they be "formal" and "organized", respectively - imply structure is unnecessary, perhaps anathema, to our evolution? Doesn't civilization require structure? If we've not evolved to have "formal", "organized" systems which require structure, isn't this the same as arguing for society without structure?

If you're going to argue we are, or have evolved to be, social animals, doesn't that require structure? Isn't society a "structured community of people?" Doesn't the doctrine "share everything" imply structure enough to know what "sharing" means, what "everything" means, and to whom and what the doctrine applies?

I'm willing to take an early bet that our disagreement on this point is going to hinge on your definition of "civilization".

But you did, and I was. I don't know what you do for a living, but you probably produced something I needed or wanted during the time while I was writing my book, and you certainly produced something needed or wanted by someone who produced something I needed or wanted, and you certainly paid taxes which supported the society in which I live and wrote my book. I put more direct effort into it than you did, granted, but my efforts were not completely independent.

Solitary effort, and wealth produced by one individual alone, is an illusion. It is always a collective effort.

That needs to be decided on a case by case basis. I suppose if we had a really bad food shortage caused by the fact that nobody wanted to be a farmer, and there was no other way to solve it, that would be OK. I can't really see a realistic circumstance in which that would happen, though. The only comparable situation would be a major war in which the country was really threatened and the only way to meet manpower needs was through conscription. A hateful idea on the face of it, and justified only in a genuine emergency when there is no other good choice.

Good question. I can give you similar examples. If you compare our teeth to those of H. erectus, you can see that they are adapted to eating cooked food. They are smaller, and less powerful than those of animals that eat only raw food. In exchange, we have a more mobile mouth, better suited to using language. H. sapiens has always had the use of fire. It was invented by H. erectus, not by us. We inherited it. We also inherited the use of stone tools, although we improved their design dramatically, and we lost something in the way of natural weaponry (clawlike fingernails; our own fingernails are vestigial) in favor of greater manual dexterity.

I can only speculate as to what sorts of things natural selection would do to our genes in a civilized context. Perhaps most of the changes would be behavioral: a decrease of the instinct for violence, an increase in the instinct for cooperation, an ingrained tendency to obey laws and respect formal authority. Or there might be other things. Certainly we have not been civilized nearly long enough for any changes in our genes to happen. In terms of evolution, ten thousand years is the wink of an eye.

Yes, but so are informal government and informal religion. About the latter, I'm a Neopagan, so I'm very familiar with non-organized, non-formal religion, yet my personal version of it is highly structured -- it just lacks a formal hierarchy or priesthood.

Possibly, so I'll give it. "Civilization" means, classically, a way of life that includes the building of cities. As such, it also requires that the primary means of food production be agriculture rather than foraging and hunting, because foraging and hunting do not allow a large enough population to result in the building of cities. I believe the process whereby civilization was created went something like this:

1) Human population reached a point in some areas where foraging and hunting could not support it, and humans had spread widely enough that it was not possible to solve this problem by having some people migrate elsewhere.

2) To provide for the population, people turned to farming, which they had known how to do for a very long time, but never bothered with before.

3) Since farming, although labor-intensive, is far more efficient than foraging and hunting in terms of land use, a much larger population could be supported on a given amount of land than before. By competitive necessity, because this was possible, it became necessary -- without it, the more numerous tribe over the hill or across the river would stomp your ass.

Everything else follows from this. More people means more specialists. Farming means a permanent settlement. As population continued to grow, specialists lived in a large settlement of people which became a town or city. Someone figured out how to invent a written language, to work metals, and other technology. Competition and population pressure resulted in war. War resulted in slavery, and this coerced work force supported a class of hereditary nobles. One of them eventually became a king. And of course things went on from there with other social changes, also driven by changes in material circumstances, especially once you get to the industrial revolution.

The United States is a huge civilization, far, far too big to get by with informal government. We have to have a formal government with written laws, designated authority, and so on. A small forager-hunter band doesn't need all that, but it does need some informal (but still structured) ways of collectively making decisions.

Yet I don't think that if the government got out of education our children 2-3 generations down the road would be smarter than they are now.

To all of us ofcourse, either in lower costs or better results.

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When WW2 had ended everyone joined the resistance.

Cool! I've always wanted to write a book. When will you send me my copy? When you put my name on it, remember to include "the Younger". And I want it in 48pt Times New Roman - bold.
No, it's not. I wonder what produces this kind of desire to actually believe this to be true. Is it some sort of self-loathing which dictates there's no way you could be strong enough, smart enough, capable enough to do anything on your own? Is it something else? I mean, it's certainly not reality, so it has to be something created without reality (i.e. imaginary), can you help me understand? I realize that sounds rude, but I can't come up with any other way of saying it. So, please forgive my lack of a more PC way to communicate the idea.
Okay, so you really believe people exist for the survival of others. When does this end? I mean, if you exist for my survival, and I exist for your survival, do you just die if I die, or do you simply latch onto another host? What if that other host dies? What if there's only one more host left, and that host dies - will you then die?
That's not the point. The point is you agree it's morally okay to enslave people. If food is guaranteed by the government, and the only way to get food is to have some person(s) produce it, then the only way government can guarantee food is by forcing some to produce it. Interesting that you seem to think slavery in early America was morally wrong, but slavery in a "genuine emergency" (whatever that is) is okay.

I'm beginning to get a real clear view of your morality, TS. It's scary.
Hmmmm, maybe I'm missing something here. Aren't eating cooked food, using language and tools, improving tools, and greater manual dexterity all hallmarks of civilization?
Uhhh, didn't you argue last time that we have "[e]volved socially, yes; not biologically?" Doesn't evolving socially involve behavioral changes? If these behavioral changes can stem from genetic changes, wouldn't that mean we have adapted genetically to civilization?
I'm not clear what your defining characteristics are. Are they: cities, agriculture, and large populations? Must there be multiple cities? Does "agriculture" include raising meat? How large is a "large" population?

What advantage would those who have to pay for everyone else's food, shelter, education, and medical care derive? Or, are they simply not part of the "all of us" you reference?

1. The homeless don't exist then??

2. Just what in Hell IS the responsibility of the Federal govt, beyond spreading our wonderful and beneficent system worldwide at the point of a gun?

3. Some rather obviously cannot, or are we again denying reality as in the above

4. Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Iraq under Saddam, (before the sanctions) definitely not fun places to live but you'll not die because you lose your job and then catch an infection. My remarks here are to point out this is a big reason why those govts keep their people's loyalty, not to say they're a good thing.

If the Govts response to my grandma needing medicine neither she nor I can afford is a lecture on Constitutional law my most likely response is not going to be paean of praise to John Adams.

The fact that it IS true. Nor have you presented any reason to believe otherwise.

Not at all. Not, that is, if we're using "enslave" correctly. Slavery ALWAYS implies a power imbalance between two individuals, so that one of them owns the other (and vice-versa is NOT true).

What you have done, here and before on the Socialized Medicine thread, is to take one non-defining attribute of slavery (the requirement of work for the benefit of others) and make it a defining attribute. Slavery always does include the requirement of work for the benefit of others. So do many other things which are not slavery. Slavery also always includes ownership of one person by another. Nothing else besides slavery does. Ownership, therefore, is the defining characteristic of slavery, not the requirement of work for the benefit of others. Where there is ownership of one person by another, slavery exists (and the requirement of work for the benefit of others is implied). Where there is not such ownership, there is not slavery (and the requirement of work for the benefit of others is irrelevant).

Nope. Humans had all of these things long before we were civilized.

Yes, but not behavior changes written into our genes. To give you an example of the difference, consider language. As a human being, I have a genetic predisposition to learn and use language. But as a child, I learned to speak English, and I am currently learning to speak French. The genetic predisposition to learn language is inborn; my mastery of English and rudimentary understanding of French are not inborn but acquired.

Civilized behavior is also acquired, not inborn. When and if it has become inborn, we will have evolved genetically in this way.

Agriculture inevitably leads to large(r) populations, and yes, at least one city to be properly called civilized. Thus, most of the North American native tribes were what I call "protocivilized" before Europeans came, meaning they farmed, but had not built cities yet; the Indians of Mexico were civilized, meaning they lived in cities; a few tribes on the West Coast and in the Amazon jungle were precivilized, meaning they still lived by foraging and hunting.

A city-state constitutes civilization, so multiple cities are not required, no.

How large a population? Large enough to build a city.

I did not advocate socialized food or shelter, see my post earlier where I said that.

Our society has progressed so much economically because of education for everyone, and it will also benefit from universal healthcare.

It's not just smart risk-taking investors and managers who make our economy great, it is also the entire social structure and human capital that enables them to do so. Investors owe their succes to both society and their own effort.

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When WW2 had ended everyone joined the resistance.

How is this a fact? I've presented a great deal of reason to believe otherwise - 1) I'm making money right now, and you're not here - in fact, you have no concept of what I'm even doing. 2) I never wrote one single word of your book.

Here's some more: were it not for individual effort, there would be absolutely no wealth - regardless of how many people actually believe they created it.

Is it that you want to believe you're being productive by just existing in a society?
You'll have to redefine the word better than that. You left me an opening. Wouldn't you agree there's a power imbalance between the government and any individual under its purview?
Wouldn't that make it a defining attribute? I mean, if it's a requirement - a characteristic of the thing - doesn't that make it a defining attribute?
What does it mean to "own" someone else? What would be the defining characteristic(s) of "owning" someone?
Really? So humans could be said to be civilized without these things?
And what would be "civilized behavior?"
Sure they had. The Pueblo Indians of the Southwest had cities built from mud and into cliff faces; the Northwest, Northeast, and Southeast indians all had large communities with numerous buildings. All of them had some form of agriculture.

Regardless, we've been living under these characteristics for at least 7,000 years; at least a thousand generations. Shouldn't we have either 1) died off long before now given we're not (according to you) adapted to live like this, or 2) actually adapted to living like this?

Well, we can make the argument that anything will benefit society. In fact, Hitler made the same argument when convincing his fellow Germans to imprison all the ne'er-do-wells. His policies certainly weren't advantageous to the Jews, but they were advantageous to German society. Is that the type of "advantage" you're talking about?

No you didnt!

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

If the government guaranteed everyone food, healthcare, shelter and whatnot, why would anyone with a marginal income bother to work at all? If I were making 7 bucks per hour mopping floors for a living, eating Sphagetti-O's and living in a dump, I would love this plan. I'd simply eat government-O's, live in a government sponsored dump and not work. My conditions wouldn't change, but at least I wouldn't have to do anything. Or, alternatively, I could drop down to part time employment and spend what money I did make on booze.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Geez.

When you start giving these things away, you remove the motivation for people to work to have them.

My mortgage is $1,600.00 a month. Hell, if the government is going to give me and my family a place to live, fuck it. Why should I bother making mortgage payments?

They're gonna' make sure I have food? Sweet! That'll mean I can save several hundred dollars a month on groceries. Not only that, but they're going to make sure that I have health coverage and an education, so I can get a better job, get paid more, and not have to spend my money on anything.

When you don't work for something, you don't appreciate it nearly as much as if you'd worked hard for it....

I don't think the one who said this ment "giving it away for free", Steve and DrGoodTrips.

Ok so supporting universal education automatically makes me want to exterminate the Jews. Now I see why the left is anti-semitic. I never understood that till now but thanks to you I totally get it now!

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When WW2 had ended everyone joined the resistance.

So then, the government wouldn't actually be guaranteeing it for all citizens, which would render this entire discussion pointless because that is exactly how our current system functions - most people have it and a few do not.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson