Producers vs. Consumers

[Tahlan]

Here's the premise: We are all either producers or consumers.

Understanding that this is a broad generalization, and that as humans we are a bit of both, the question is: Is there a moral preference to being a producer or a consumer? Which is a different question than: Is it better to be one or the other? which can imply personal preference versus moral preference.

I'm deliberately not defining what a "producer" is or what a "consumer" is because I want to see how each of you define those terms.

So, here's my personal spin on the premise and question: I feel a moral compunction to make something of my life, to better the human condition by my contribution to it, to produce something of lasting good with my life; but, admittedly, I wouldn't be averse to winning the lottery (which I don't play) and spending the rest of my life consuming my winnings in the lap of luxury.

The premise is: We are all either producers or consumers.
And the question is: Is there a moral preference to being a producer or a consumer?

What sayeth the multifarious voices of SDNet?

[Admiral Valdemar]

Being a leech to society does, to many people, seem to be a bad thing. You'll always get scammers, those constantly on the dole and so on, but so long as there is a sense of duty, people will want to add to society rather than be a net drain.

[Starglider]

You can't (reasonably) have producers without consumers, so any moral argument that everyone should strive to be one or the other is inherently flawed. Your dichotomy is silly and broken; such Boolean thinking usually is in both morality and economics.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I think what he was asking was whether people feel compelled to be one or another, or just don't care. Obviously a society with only one or the other cannot work and is a black and white fallacy anyway. Still, do people feel the need to add to society, or simply prosper from other peoples' efforts and give little back? Service economy, anyone?

[Samuel]

Well, if you don't consume anything you starve to death. Can we have a more realistic dichotomy?

[Feil]

Furthermore, you can't very well make a moral judgment between two undefined terms. For all I know you could be asking us whether it's morally superior to photosynthesize or to eat other organisms. Or to make movies.

[Covenant]

A moral preference assumes a moral framework that supercedes an ethical framework, because ethics would show us that it doesn't matter if you consume or produce but what you consume or produce. Being a consumer who drives the economy as the member of a non-producing sector of an industry would not be worse off than a person who produces negligent products that get people killed, like Lead Pacifiers.

Furthermore, what's the difference between production and consumption? Producers need to get their materials somewhere. Is it better to bulldoze a mountain to get at coal and live in a cold climate, or to just say south where it's warm and not need to dig everything up? Morality is foolish to base life decisions on, since it's a set of abstract rules--and objective harm, the measure of ethics, makes it clear that it's what you're doing with yourself that matters most.

Someone who wins the lottery and just coasts by on his winnings isn't hurting society. Unless you assume that you're such a special person that you have to contribute to society or we'll all be worse off, all it does is take you from being a meaningless member of an office to being a meaningless rich person buying spinning rims for your hummer. Now, should you take some of your time and maybe some money to spend doing things to help other people? Sure. Is that producing? Only in the most abstract sense.

What you're really talking about is the decision of "doing anything" versus "doing nothing." I think most people will agree that doing something is better than never doing anything at all, so it's an absurd question. Consumption creates need for production. Production is honestly more destructive than consumption, but consumption a more readily accessible evil.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Here's the premise: We are all either producers or consumers.

Understanding that this is a broad generalization, and that as humans we are a bit of both, the question is: Is there a moral preference to being a producer or a consumer? Which is a different question than: Is it better to be one or the other? which can imply personal preference versus moral preference.

I'm deliberately not defining what a "producer" is or what a "consumer" is because I want to see how each of you define those terms.

So, here's my personal spin on the premise and question: I feel a moral compunction to make something of my life, to better the human condition by my contribution to it, to produce something of lasting good with my life; but, admittedly, I wouldn't be averse to winning the lottery (which I don't play) and spending the rest of my life consuming my winnings in the lap of luxury.

The premise is: We are all either producers or consumers.
And the question is: Is there a moral preference to being a producer or a consumer?

What sayeth the multifarious voices of SDNet?

Well my first claim is that you are manifestly an idiot. You have posited an utterly meaningless question. By not even defining your terms we are free to create any criteria for evaluation we individually wish, and thus there is no common basis for discussion. Without this no discussion we have can ever be meaningful.

Your false dichotomy is probably the worst part. Even in your personal example you are still, by spending lottery money producing something. You produce demand. Demand spurs on the production of goods and services.

In the real world, those that produce goods and services in turn require resources to produce said goods and services and to maintain their own existence. This creates a never ending symbiotic relationship between individuals. This in turn creates moral dilemma as we hand-wring over the consequences of economic exchanges and personal conflict.

In your little universe the produces create things of value to consumers ex nihlo, and distribute them free of charge to consumers who hole the items away somewhere and do nothing with them. There is no decision making and no conflict. Thus there is no capacity to engage in any kind of rational ethical discussions about the merits of being one or the other.

I hereby posit that you were stoned when you posted the thread.