Utilitarianism: "do everything you can to prevent it from spreading."
Deontology: "do everything you can to prevent it from spreading."
Virtue Ethics: "do everything you can to prevent it from spreading."
Deontology: "do everything you can to prevent it from spreading."
Virtue Ethics: "do everything you can to prevent it from spreading."
Now is not the time for moral weakness. Times of crisis are not times to let things casually slide and priorizing our petty pleasures over our civic duty. Do not go out unless you need to, practice social distancing, wash your hands after everything. Carelessness will kill people, and pandemics must be slowed at the beginning, not at the end. Follow the WHO guildlines on how to protect against coronavirus.
Oh, and if you lost your income from the pandemic, you should not be paying rent. Workers can't be the only ones to have their savings wiped out from a public health crisis. When all is said and done we have to reflect on what caused us to be so unprepared to organize society to act on everyone's behalf (hint: it might have something to do with having all of our institutions based solely around enriching the property owning elite, but hey, who knows).
Oh, and if you lost your income from the pandemic, you should not be paying rent. Workers can't be the only ones to have their savings wiped out from a public health crisis. When all is said and done we have to reflect on what caused us to be so unprepared to organize society to act on everyone's behalf (hint: it might have something to do with having all of our institutions based solely around enriching the property owning elite, but hey, who knows).
Now is not the time for moral weakness. Times of crisis are not times to let things casually slide and priorizing our petty pleasures over our civic duty. Do not go out unless you need to, practice social distancing, wash your hands after everything. Carelessness will kill people, and pandemics must be slowed at the beginning, not at the end. Follow the WHO guildlines on how to protect against coronavirus.
Oh, and if you lost your income from the pandemic, you should not be paying rent. Think about organizing with your follow tenants to go on a rent strike. Workers can't be the only ones to have their savings wiped out from a public health crisis. When all is said and done we have to reflect on what caused us to be so unprepared to organize society to act on everyone's behalf (hint: it might have something to do with having all of our institutions based solely around enriching the property owning elite, but hey, who knows).
Oh, and if you lost your income from the pandemic, you should not be paying rent. Think about organizing with your follow tenants to go on a rent strike. Workers can't be the only ones to have their savings wiped out from a public health crisis. When all is said and done we have to reflect on what caused us to be so unprepared to organize society to act on everyone's behalf (hint: it might have something to do with having all of our institutions based solely around enriching the property owning elite, but hey, who knows).
In 1844 Marx wrote "Rent of Land", talking about how landlords are more or less vampires on society, taking a percentage of all value created on their land simply for owning it.
However, as you can see if you read it, it is more or less just quoting Adam Smith and agreeing with him, with minor squabbles. One of the large motivations for Adam Smith writing The Wealth of Nations was to convince people to try to move capital away from the unproductive landlords (who at that time were mostly comprised of very wealthy landed English gentry) into the hands of entrepreneurs and workers. He noticed two things about landlords, first, as he puts it "The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the earth."
That is to say, they demand a percentage of what is extracted from their land, despite having done no work themselves to create that value. Adam Smith was more concerned with landlords that extracted a percentage of money from businesses than individuals renting houses, which at the time added up to a much larger amount of money being drained away (probably still true, but less so). He gives an example of the sudden discovery that a certain type of seaweed was useful in the production of alkaline salt. Landlords whose land happened to neighbor the sea where this type of seaweed grew immediately increased their rent, despite having done nothing to earn such money. They didn't even own where the seaweed was extracted, being in the ocean, but the adjacent land was needed to extract it, so they could blackmail entrepreneurs who used the seaweed for rent extraction.
The second thing he noticed about landlords is what they do with the money they extract. Unlikely entrepreneurs, they don't reinvest it into productive activity. A farmer, with their profits, tends to use a good portion of the money to improve their farm. They buy newer, more efficient machines. They hire help. They purchase seeds, they try to improve the soil, etc. All of this, over time, amounts for greater total production and a wealthier nation. The landlord who owns the land that the farmer rents from however, has nothing to improve. He makes money from taking money from the farmer, because he owns something. So what they tend to do was spend the money on themselves. Landed gentry in England would spend their money throwing fancy balls and purchasing luxuries. Entrepreneurs would spending their money to improve production. Therefore, he argued, if more of the money was diverted away from landlords, production would grow at a faster rate. In fact, Adam Smith noticed that the main way land increases in value is for other people to build things around it. For example, if a train is built next to a plot of land, suddenly the landlord will find his land more valuable, despite no effort of his own, and increase rent.
In this way Adam Smith thought that at least, while landlords produce nothing and contribute nothing and are generally a drain on society, their interests are at least aligned with society because they have a general interest for society to improve, since any improvement around them improves the value of their own land. This is where Marx disagrees, because despite this fact landlords will always have an interest against their tenants, in that they want to take as much value as possible from their tenant, so their interest in general run opposite society. This can be seen today in that landlords have a general interest for housing prices to rise continuously, whereas it would be better for society in general if housing prices fell continuously, so people could afford homes. This is why landlords will be extremely politically active to fight against any measure to make housing affordable, because it will decrease the value of homes and ultimately rent.
In short, when someone tells you that you are a dirty communist for saying landlords contribute nothing and merely drain society, remind them
However, as you can see if you read it, it is more or less just quoting Adam Smith and agreeing with him, with minor squabbles. One of the large motivations for Adam Smith writing The Wealth of Nations was to convince people to try to move capital away from the unproductive landlords (who at that time were mostly comprised of very wealthy landed English gentry) into the hands of entrepreneurs and workers. He noticed two things about landlords, first, as he puts it "The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the earth."
That is to say, they demand a percentage of what is extracted from their land, despite having done no work themselves to create that value. Adam Smith was more concerned with landlords that extracted a percentage of money from businesses than individuals renting houses, which at the time added up to a much larger amount of money being drained away (probably still true, but less so). He gives an example of the sudden discovery that a certain type of seaweed was useful in the production of alkaline salt. Landlords whose land happened to neighbor the sea where this type of seaweed grew immediately increased their rent, despite having done nothing to earn such money. They didn't even own where the seaweed was extracted, being in the ocean, but the adjacent land was needed to extract it, so they could blackmail entrepreneurs who used the seaweed for rent extraction.
The second thing he noticed about landlords is what they do with the money they extract. Unlikely entrepreneurs, they don't reinvest it into productive activity. A farmer, with their profits, tends to use a good portion of the money to improve their farm. They buy newer, more efficient machines. They hire help. They purchase seeds, they try to improve the soil, etc. All of this, over time, amounts for greater total production and a wealthier nation. The landlord who owns the land that the farmer rents from however, has nothing to improve. He makes money from taking money from the farmer, because he owns something. So what they tend to do was spend the money on themselves. Landed gentry in England would spend their money throwing fancy balls and purchasing luxuries. Entrepreneurs would spending their money to improve production. Therefore, he argued, if more of the money was diverted away from landlords, production would grow at a faster rate. In fact, Adam Smith noticed that the main way land increases in value is for other people to build things around it. For example, if a train is built next to a plot of land, suddenly the landlord will find his land more valuable, despite no effort of his own, and increase rent.
In this way Adam Smith thought that at least, while landlords produce nothing and contribute nothing and are generally a drain on society, their interests are at least aligned with society because they have a general interest for society to improve, since any improvement around them improves the value of their own land. This is where Marx disagrees, because despite this fact landlords will always have an interest against their tenants, in that they want to take as much value as possible from their tenant, so their interest in general run opposite society. This can be seen today in that landlords have a general interest for housing prices to rise continuously, whereas it would be better for society in general if housing prices fell continuously, so people could afford homes. This is why landlords will be extremely politically active to fight against any measure to make housing affordable, because it will decrease the value of homes and ultimately rent.
In short, when someone tells you that you are a dirty communist for saying landlords contribute nothing and merely drain society, remind them
"Good job showing your Stoic virtue, but caring about the sport so much that you sacrifice your body and mind to try to win, but then don't care enough to be upset when things go wrong."
Stoic ideals have an interesting relationship with sports, in that the philosophy naturally lends itself to sports training, but is very much at odds with the sports cultures themselves when it comes down being a fan of and playing in the actual games.
For example, many highly successful coaches (like Nick Saban for example) are particularly obsessed with the idea that we should only worry about the process which leads to success, and not be worried about success itself. That is to say, in Stoic terms, we need to only worry about cultivating our virtue towards being a good athlete, by practicing the way we should, making decisions the way we should, and always doing what is best for the team. We should not worry about whether or not we win. This is because you can do all the right things and still lose anyway, either because your opponent is simply better than you, or merely because of chance. This means that in order to become the best athlete or team, you need to intentionally ignore the outcome, and focus merely on what you can actually control, namely the process. A great example is when Bill Belichick was asked if he regretted going for on fourth and 2 after the call failed and he lost to the Colts in 2009. He responded that of course he didn't, because he still believed that choice led to the greatest chance of success.
However, this creates a strange dilemma. If all that matters is your virtue in moving towards the best chance to win the game, and the outcome doesn't matter, why play the game at all? Why not only practice? Not only that, but in a very real sense, the Stoic ideal of accepting that your opponent might be better and that you did all you could goes counter to the very desire to win, from an existentialist perspective. An existentialist would have no problem saying that, in fact, you want to suffer when you lose. What we desire out of sports isn't the lack of suffering, or even happiness, it is winning alone that is the goal. Many athletes would only accept that they would suffer if they lost a big game, but in a way they would even desire to suffer. Not only that, but many would willingly accept suffering in order to win, so the idea that suffering should be avoided by consoling ourselves that we were virtuous is absurd, from that point of view. That's because all they really want to do is win, or, in the words of the greatest existential coach of all time, Al David, "winning isn't everything, it is the only thing."
For example, many highly successful coaches (like Nick Saban for example) are particularly obsessed with the idea that we should only worry about the process which leads to success, and not be worried about success itself. That is to say, in Stoic terms, we need to only worry about cultivating our virtue towards being a good athlete, by practicing the way we should, making decisions the way we should, and always doing what is best for the team. We should not worry about whether or not we win. This is because you can do all the right things and still lose anyway, either because your opponent is simply better than you, or merely because of chance. This means that in order to become the best athlete or team, you need to intentionally ignore the outcome, and focus merely on what you can actually control, namely the process. A great example is when Bill Belichick was asked if he regretted going for on fourth and 2 after the call failed and he lost to the Colts in 2009. He responded that of course he didn't, because he still believed that choice led to the greatest chance of success.
However, this creates a strange dilemma. If all that matters is your virtue in moving towards the best chance to win the game, and the outcome doesn't matter, why play the game at all? Why not only practice? Not only that, but in a very real sense, the Stoic ideal of accepting that your opponent might be better and that you did all you could goes counter to the very desire to win, from an existentialist perspective. An existentialist would have no problem saying that, in fact, you want to suffer when you lose. What we desire out of sports isn't the lack of suffering, or even happiness, it is winning alone that is the goal. Many athletes would only accept that they would suffer if they lost a big game, but in a way they would even desire to suffer. Not only that, but many would willingly accept suffering in order to win, so the idea that suffering should be avoided by consoling ourselves that we were virtuous is absurd, from that point of view. That's because all they really want to do is win, or, in the words of the greatest existential coach of all time, Al David, "winning isn't everything, it is the only thing."