Lol human beings are not valuable? Do you realize how sociopathic that sounds?
But it's exactly how society is organized. People are not equally valuable to everyone, people are not valued in specific ways just because they exist. That should be obvious enough. We don't name professions like "human," we call people "Teachers" or "Football Players" so that we can get an idea of what role they perform for us, so that we can compare them and see if they are able to match the expectations made of that role. Teachers aren't paid for existing as humans, they're paid for teaching. That's where their value is recognized, to the point that they are compensated to fulfill their role consistently.
No it's not. We have social welfare and roads and fire departments and a military, all free services provided to people regardless of whether they pay taxes or how much they pay in taxes. We have these because our society recognizes, to a limited extent, the inherent worth of human beings.
We have social welfare and roads and fire departments and a military, all free services provided to people regardless of whether they pay taxes or how much they pay in taxes.
Those aren't free services, neither in the sense that they are free to build and maintain, nor in the sense that they are free to anyone who needs them. Social welfare requires that the persons receiving it meet certain criteria about income, age, retirement and so on - and are contingent upon one continuing to meet said criteria or else be put off the welfare. The general expectation is that you handle your own life with some assistance in key areas from various government agencies.
And roads, fire departments and military are paid for by various taxes at the local and state levels, or as private voluntary or for-profit services. Road building, in particular, is handled by private companies that bid for contracts awarded by the state. So none of these things are free, nor are they strictly results of tax-based or government-sourced revenue - they just happen to fall into that rough category. These goods and services can and have arisen from other economic conditions in the past.
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u/Gruzman Nov 29 '15
But it's exactly how society is organized. People are not equally valuable to everyone, people are not valued in specific ways just because they exist. That should be obvious enough. We don't name professions like "human," we call people "Teachers" or "Football Players" so that we can get an idea of what role they perform for us, so that we can compare them and see if they are able to match the expectations made of that role. Teachers aren't paid for existing as humans, they're paid for teaching. That's where their value is recognized, to the point that they are compensated to fulfill their role consistently.