> Limitarianism is the view that no-one should enjoy more than an upper limit of some valuable goods or resources
> Plato's Socrates identifies the ‘endless acquisition of money’ (Plato, 1997b, 373d) as the main cause of civil unrest and war.
> In his last dialogue, the Laws, Plato gives a more or less complete limitarian account with a specification of both a lower and an upper threshold. According to this account, ‘extreme poverty and wealth must not be allowed to arise in any section of the citizen-body’ (Plato, 1997a, 744d).
> Many theories of ethics and theories of political morality invoke a principle of sufficiency–the idea that no-one should suffer because of poverty or destitution. Generally, this view entails a lower threshold level above which every member of a society should be raised (necessaries), but in some cases it also involves an upper threshold above which individual property should be redistributed in one form or another (superfluities).
There are a few people that are especially good at generating wealth by producing products that are a net positive for society. It's important that no limit is put on their ability to acquire wealth since it's a benefit to society and it motivates the individual to continue producing. I say that there should be not be a limit on what they collect over their lifetime.
But at their death there needs to be a way to fairly distribute their wealth thru society without destroying their contribution to society. They should not be able to leave all of it to their heirs since the enormous wealth is really earned by everyone in society that helped create it.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 20.9 ms ] thread> Plato's Socrates identifies the ‘endless acquisition of money’ (Plato, 1997b, 373d) as the main cause of civil unrest and war.
> In his last dialogue, the Laws, Plato gives a more or less complete limitarian account with a specification of both a lower and an upper threshold. According to this account, ‘extreme poverty and wealth must not be allowed to arise in any section of the citizen-body’ (Plato, 1997a, 744d).
> Many theories of ethics and theories of political morality invoke a principle of sufficiency–the idea that no-one should suffer because of poverty or destitution. Generally, this view entails a lower threshold level above which every member of a society should be raised (necessaries), but in some cases it also involves an upper threshold above which individual property should be redistributed in one form or another (superfluities).
But at their death there needs to be a way to fairly distribute their wealth thru society without destroying their contribution to society. They should not be able to leave all of it to their heirs since the enormous wealth is really earned by everyone in society that helped create it.