Money is the root to all evil...yay or nay?
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Money is the rootof world piece. We don't go to war with our economic partners.
[QUOTE="-Sun_Tzu-"]That's largely irrelevant. Yes, the trade disputes by them self act as a proximate cause for wars like the Opium Wars, but the ultimate cause of the Opium war was the opium trade itself.[QUOTE="fat_rob"] But in those cases it's the disruption of trade that causes the problem, not trade itself.fat_rob
And to repeat what I said about the definition of peace and how the presence of justice is necessary for peacefulness to be present - sure, "justice" can sometimes be hard to determine, but were the African people who were going through the Middle Passage experiencing the joys of peacefulness? Of course not, and if that can be agreed upon then you can't really equivocate trade to peace.
Using justice as part of the definition for peace seems silly. I'd need to see a fairly persuasive argument that justice needed to be included as a requirement of peace (how is justice defined, how does it operate, where does it rest ontically, etc). And your missing the whole point of the "trade=peace" idea. When people say trade=peace, they are speaking about successful trades. The better phrasing of the idea comes from Bastiat who said "Where goods don't cross borders, armies will." Well, if you are going to say that justice is irrelevant when it comes to peace, then are you willing to say that the African people who were crossing the Atlantic ocean during the slave trade were in a state of peace? By ignoring justice when it comes to defining peace, the concept of peace loses a lot of its moral force - it's not as desirable as it would otherwise be, it doesn't really deserve the positive connotation that it exhibits, and by extension, neither does the concept of trade when you equivocate it to peace. So when you are trying to prove that money isn't the root of all evil because some form of money is needed for trade, and you justify the virtuousness of trade by equivocating it to peace; if peace isn't that great a concept (because awful things like slavery aren't necessarily going to be prevented by trade) then you prove nothing with respect to money and its relation to evil. If anything, trade can then be used as an example to affirm the evilness that begets money, because it is the desire for money (i.e. greed) that leads to awful things like chattel slavery and coerced prostitution.And I'm not missing any point. If you are going to say that trade equals peace, then wars such as the Opium Wars shouldn't have happened. I've already granted the fact that trade can lead two or more countries to a peaceful coexistence, but that's not the only possibility, and by qualifying the claim so severely by restating it as only "successful" trades lead to peace, then you are essentially conceding my point that trade doesn't necessarily lead to peace - it can, but it's not always the case.
Using justice as part of the definition for peace seems silly. I'd need to see a fairly persuasive argument that justice needed to be included as a requirement of peace (how is justice defined, how does it operate, where does it rest ontically, etc). And your missing the whole point of the "trade=peace" idea. When people say trade=peace, they are speaking about successful trades. The better phrasing of the idea comes from Bastiat who said "Where goods don't cross borders, armies will." Well, if you are going to say that justice is irrelevant when it comes to peace, then are you willing to say that the African people who were crossing the Atlantic ocean during the slave trade were in a state of peace? By ignoring justice when it comes to defining peace, the concept of peace loses a lot of its moral force - it's not as desirable as it would otherwise be, it doesn't really deserve the positive connotation that it exhibits, and by extension, neither does the concept of trade when you equivocate it to peace. So when you are trying to prove that money isn't the root of all evil because some form of money is needed for trade, and you justify the virtuousness of trade by equivocating it to peace; if peace isn't that great a concept (because awful things like slavery aren't necessarily going to be prevented by trade) then you prove nothing with respect to money and its relation to evil. If anything, trade can then be used as an example to affirm the evilness that begets money, because it is the desire for money (i.e. greed) that leads to awful things like chattel slavery and coerced prostitution.[QUOTE="fat_rob"][QUOTE="-Sun_Tzu-"] That's largely irrelevant. Yes, the trade disputes by them self act as a proximate cause for wars like the Opium Wars, but the ultimate cause of the Opium war was the opium trade itself.
And to repeat what I said about the definition of peace and how the presence of justice is necessary for peacefulness to be present - sure, "justice" can sometimes be hard to determine, but were the African people who were going through the Middle Passage experiencing the joys of peacefulness? Of course not, and if that can be agreed upon then you can't really equivocate trade to peace.
-Sun_Tzu-
And I'm not missing any point. If you are going to say that trade equals peace, then wars such as the Opium Wars shouldn't have happened. I've already granted the fact that trade can lead two or more countries to a peaceful coexistence, but that's not the only possibility, and by qualifying the claim so severely by restating it as only "successful" trades lead to peace, then you are essentially conceding my point that trade doesn't necessarily lead to peace - it can, but it's not always the case.
The slavery example is a very bad example. Slavery is not bad merely because it's an injustice. Slavery is bad because it a coercive action and it limits the choice and autonomy of the enslaved person. The enslaved Africans were not at peace because they were subject to coercive forces. Merely calling something an "injustice" does not do proper intellectual work. Second, your conflating the word trade with things that are the absence of trade. For if an exchange does not take place, then it is not a "trade". The opium wars are not the result of trade, but the result of what happens when trade breaks down. And saying that the wars wouldn't have happened without the prior existence of trade is kinda silly. The wars didn't happen till trade ceased. The people traded for opium because they valued it. When trade took place, no wars were fought over opium. If trades never took place to begin with, then the wars would have started earlier (had people still valued opium as a normal good). Without trade, the Opium wars would have happened sooner. And people do awful things absent the desire of money. Hell, people do awful things in the pursuit of holiness, but that doesn't make religion evil. The problems tangentially connected to money and trade exists because people, in general, lack a fundamental respect for other humans. Money and trade operate best in worlds where people respect the lives of other persons. It's not the fault of money or trade that humans fail in this respect. Trade breaking down and degenerating to war is a human failure and humans bare the brunt of responsibility. Not the institution of trade. We could eliminate trade and money and nothing would change. Goods are scarce and require some form of rationing. If it's not done through trade, it will be done through war.The slavery example is a very bad example. Slavery is not bad merely because it's an injustice. Slavery is bad because it a coercive action and it limits the choice and autonomy of the enslaved person. The enslaved Africans were not at peace because they were subject to coercive forces. Merely calling something an "injustice" does not do proper intellectual work. Second, your conflating the word trade with things that are the absence of trade. For if an exchange does not take place, then it is not a "trade". The opium wars are not the result of trade, but the result of what happens when trade breaks down. And saying that the wars wouldn't have happened without the prior existence of trade is kinda silly. The wars didn't happen till trade ceased. The people traded for opium because they valued it. When trade took place, no wars were fought over opium. If trades never took place to begin with, then the wars would have started earlier (had people still valued opium as a normal good). Without trade, the Opium wars would have happened sooner. And people do awful things absent the desire of money. Hell, people do awful things in the pursuit of holiness, but that doesn't make religion evil. The problems tangentially connected to money and trade exists because people, in general, lack a fundamental respect for other humans. Money and trade operate best in worlds where people respect the lives of other persons. It's not the fault of money or trade that humans fail in this respect. Trade breaking down and degenerating to war is a human failure and humans bare the brunt of responsibility. Not the institution of trade. We could eliminate trade and money and nothing would change. Goods are scarce and require some form of rationing. If it's not done through trade, it will be done through war. fat_robYou are beginning to construct false dichotomies. Slavery is unjust because of the fact that it is a coercive action that severely limits the autonomy of the enslaved individual. The reason coercive actions and restrictions on autonomy are bad things is because they are unjust - it's a distinction without any real difference. You're right, the African people were not at peace because they were subject to coercive forces - there is nothing about the concept of trade that inherently eradicates coercive forces, and so you can't equivocate trade to peace if you are going to define peace as the absence of coercion.
And as I said earlier, the opium trade was the ultimate cause of the Opium wars. The trade disputes that occurred later are a more approximate cause for the Opium Wars, but the opium trade itself still remains the ultimate cause. Had it not been for the opium trade there wouldn't have been the Opium Wars - maybe there would have been a different war, fought for different reasons, but it wouldn't have been the Opium Wars, and you certainly can't say that the Opium Wars would have happened sooner had it not been for the opium trade.
Now, I'm not saying that trade necessarily causes war, but trade doesn't necessarily beget peace either, which is implied when you equivocate trade with peace.
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