Socratic questions: social, economic, political or ethical

I thought it might be interesting to put together a list of Socratic questions that highlight a contradiction in popular social, economic, political or ethical thinking, in such a way that it helps people think about complex issues.

Here are a few that I came up with. If you can think of any to add to the list, I would love to see them.

1. Why do labor unions insist that their employers "share the wealth," while they refuse to share in any of the losses?


2. If education should be free, why do teachers and their unions demand (and receive) such high salaries?


3. Why are the politicians who preach economic egalitarianism so strongly against a system with true political equality?


4. Why are parents chastised for not spending enough time with their children, while also being forced to send their kids away to public schools all day?


5. Since initiating force against another person is immoral, how can you justify legislating morality, since it requires force?


6. If people making over $200,000/yr are considered rich and evil capitalists, why are the public and union employees who make that much considered "deserving"?


7. Why does government expect us to obey the laws they pass, when they exempt themselves from many of them, and when they refuse to follow the Constitution?


8. How can government protect my freedom by violating my rights?


9. If more legislation is the answer, how much will be enough?


10. If money (or the love of money) is evil, why do you use it?


11. How many poor people have you ever worked for?


12. Why do so many Black Americans embrace Christianity, a religion which was imposed by force on their slave ancestors?


13. Why does getting elected to public office entitle elected officials to spend public tax money for their own personal holidays?


14. If equal pay for equal work is a good thing, why isn't it OK for someone not to be paid for doing nothing?

New Zealand isn't (very) socialist

After moving to New Zealand in Dec 2006, something I hear a lot from my friends in the US is: "why would you move to New Zealand? They're socialist!"  No, NZ isn't socialist. That's a common misconception in the US for some reason. They are really a mixed economy, much like the US, though arguably not nearly as bad.

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They do have government subsidized medical care. They are a parliamentary democracy, and members of government have a reputation here of being extremely open and honest, with a very low level of corruption compared to other western countries, including the US. Unemployment and inflation are both low.

They do have high interest rates here (banks currently pay 7.6% for a savings account), partly caused by an attempt by their central bank to tone-down the recent housing boom. They have somewhat high income taxes (19.5% to 39.5%) and a 12.5% goods and services tax (GST), but very few hidden taxes (the US has a million of them), no state taxes, zero capital gains tax on the sale of your home, no inheritance taxes and very very low property taxes. They have a simple tax code: their income tax form is only about 4 pages long. The government raised something like NZ$4B more in taxes than it spent last year. They are very anti-Iraq war (there was a big flap here a few months ago about Air New Zealand being used by the Australians to fly soldiers to Iraq), anti-nuclear and pro-green (members of the Green party have even been able to get elected to parliament).

It's not perfect, of course. I would prefer a totally free-market society, but such a thing doesn't exist. I'm still an American at heart, though. If the politics in the US ever returns to something close to free-market capitalism, I will definitely consider moving back.