Is living a life of luxury while others starve immoral?

[OldTrees]

If you're paying for anything you don't need, then by definition you are allowing others to starve while not acting to prevent it when you could help to prevent it without losing anything you need.

So what do we really need though?

Preface: I am not being sarcastic or mocking or ...

Do we really need life? By living, pre post scarcity, we are denying others.

[Essence]

Hell, with our current economic model, even post post scarcity, we'll still end up denying others.  The doctrine of FARTS (http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html) says so.

[johannhowitzer]

Using the means you are given is not immoral, unless you are using them to immoral ends (such as paying a hit man).  It is not the same thing as stealing, for sure.  Speaking from an economic standpoint, it's a question of exchange.  If X person is willing to pay you Y to do Z, and then you give M money to N person for goods R, no immorality has occurred - unless any one of the individual links can be considered immoral.  (you lied about having done Z, or Z involves theft or murder, or goods R are heroin, etc.)

We do not say that because Mother Teresa wasn't sleeping in a gutter, she was therefore not giving all she could to help others and therefore lived immorally.  This is because morality is very simple - those who make it more complex are introducing factors that are actually irrelevant.

[artimies7]

Short answer: Only if you're not doing a little to amend the starvation with any surplus you have, instead of springing for the 'deluxe edition' on something.

[Jangoo]

Using the means you are given is not immoral, unless you are using them to immoral ends (such as paying a hit man). 

What if rich people actually are paying loads of hitmen without even knowing about it?

If luxury is above all characterized by the consumption of certain goods, is the rich man
obliged to learn all he can (and more) about those goods before he consumes them?

And what about the people that provide those goods and consequently get rich in doing so?
What if riches are aquired by means even rich people can hardly trace in their entirety anymore?

Is an entrepreneur obliged to run a clean business and foresee any global implications his business may have?


Luxury-goods, well goods of any kind I guess, are problematic in themselves already.
I am pretty damn sure, that the minute you buy that bigass-car, that diamond, that box of caviar
or even just a plain sausage you are paying a hitman in some way or another ... There is just
too much money in the business for having nobody fight for it. It just doesn't happen where you,
the ignorant rich buyer, can see it because that is considered part of the service. It happens in
some far flung place where people are "weak" and have problems "their government" cannot
solve because it is "incompetent".
It has always been like this and will always be ... back in rome, the rich folk didn't have an idea
what had to be done where exactly for all those slaves and fabric and precious stones and and and
to end up in their palace. Nowadays the rich folk in the Hilton aren't any better than that ... but they
are still paying.
And the best part: By global standards, just about anybody posting in this thread is living in a Hilton. 

[johannhowitzer]

What if rich people actually are paying loads of hitmen without even knowing about it?

What if the money I spend at the supermarket finds its way into the hands of the mafia seven transactions down the line?

If luxury is above all characterized by the consumption of certain goods, is the rich man
obliged to learn all he can (and more) about those goods before he consumes them?

All he can... and more?  So we must do the impossible to satisfy morality?

Luxury cannot be characterized simply by the consumption of certain types of goods.  One might be especially fond of avocados, and buy several million of them and eat them every day.  Are avocados a luxury?

And what about the people that provide those goods and consequently get rich in doing so?

Every transaction in stores will be redistributed proportionally to every one of the world's charities, except the portion which is required by the store owner for minimum sustenance.  Thus if you buy an apple for 35c, the soup kitchen down the street will receive 0.0000....1c after all the paperwork is filled out.

Is an entrepreneur obliged to run a clean business and foresee any global implications his business may have?

Selling pet butterflies in China causes tsunami in New York!

(I can see part of where you were going with that one, though - what about the diamond trade, which is allegedly supported by people working in unsafe/hostile conditions in mines in Africa?  The person running the immoral diamond-mining operation is acting immorally, but people buying diamond engagement rings are not - they may choose to spend their money elsewhere out of disgust, but they are not morally obliged to.)

This reductio ad absurdum brought to you by a volunteer worker of the lower middle class.  I myself may not be starving because you bought a Rolls, but I stand by my previous post.  A moral life is a simple one, not one of paranoid constant analysis of all possible consequences of your actions.  I do not believe purchasing "luxury" goods to be immoral of itself.  Many actions of high moral fiber have had unforeseen negative consequences, but this does not corrupt them.

[Neopergoss]

What if rich people actually are paying loads of hitmen without even knowing about it?

What if the money I spend at the supermarket finds its way into the hands of the mafia seven transactions down the line?

If luxury is above all characterized by the consumption of certain goods, is the rich man
obliged to learn all he can (and more) about those goods before he consumes them?

All he can... and more?  So we must do the impossible to satisfy morality?

Luxury cannot be characterized simply by the consumption of certain types of goods.  One might be especially fond of avocados, and buy several million of them and eat them every day.  Are avocados a luxury?

And what about the people that provide those goods and consequently get rich in doing so?

Every transaction in stores will be redistributed proportionally to every one of the world's charities, except the portion which is required by the store owner for minimum sustenance.  Thus if you buy an apple for 35c, the soup kitchen down the street will receive 0.0000....1c after all the paperwork is filled out.

Is an entrepreneur obliged to run a clean business and foresee any global implications his business may have?

Selling pet butterflies in China causes tsunami in New York!

(I can see part of where you were going with that one, though - what about the diamond trade, which is allegedly supported by people working in unsafe/hostile conditions in mines in Africa?  The person running the immoral diamond-mining operation is acting immorally, but people buying diamond engagement rings are not - they may choose to spend their money elsewhere out of disgust, but they are not morally obliged to.)

This reductio ad absurdum brought to you by a volunteer worker of the lower middle class.  I myself may not be starving because you bought a Rolls, but I stand by my previous post.  A moral life is a simple one, not one of paranoid constant analysis of all possible consequences of your actions.  I do not believe purchasing "luxury" goods to be immoral of itself.  Many actions of high moral fiber have had unforeseen negative consequences, but this does not corrupt them.

The whole system of buying and selling as it is currently set up is immoral because it is destroying the planet (if you consider preventing harm to future generations through excessive pollution a moral obligation, as I do.) The profit motive is unaffected by such considerations, so they are routinely ignored.