the morality of owning a Leica

[pgs@thillana.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Sobalvarro)]

I'd been staying away from this discussion of the morality of possessing
expensive objects like Leicas, because it struck me as a can of worms, but
on further thought it seems to me that issues like this are important and
interesting, so I guess I'll help open the can.

First, some facts: Oddmund said that most people on the planet do not earn
as much in their lifetimes as a Leica costs.  This is not true.  A new
Leica M6 costs about US$2500.  Yearly per capita income in China is about
US$400 on an exchange rate basis; in India, about US$250; in Mexico, about
US$3500.  Purchasing power parity estimates, taking the cost of housing,
education, and food into account, make these numbers increase
substantially, but since we're talking about Leicas, the exchange rate
basis makes more sense.  Certainly there are places in China and India
where yearly per capita income is less than US$100; but these are not the
majority, and even so in an average lifetime wage earners would make more
than the cost of a Leica M6.

I'm just pointing this out because often people in the developed world
indulge in the sloppy habit of saying absurd things like this.  I do not
claim that a Leica M6 is something that an impoverished farmer in India can
or should buy; just that there are facts about even such sentimentally
loaded topics as poverty, and it isn't the case that any impressive
statement one makes up will magically turn out to be true.

Second, on the issue of the morality of possessing expensive objects.  I do
think there are two sides to this, because with respect to economic issues
I am what would be called a leftist in the United States.  For example, I
favor such things as national health insurance and public education; and I
believe that we have a moral obligation and also an interest in helping
those less fortunate than ourselves.  However, I have come to believe after
seeing a number of examples that the quality of mercy is not strain'd, at
least not profitably beyond a certain point, so that if I were taxed to a
level that made it impossible for me to have a Leica I might well be less
productive at my work, thus reducing my contribution to the larger society.

From what I can tell, this does appear to be a general rule.  If you allow
people a means of enriching themselves, their productivity increases, and
the entire society is enriched.  If you take away their ability to enrich
themselves, for example by taxing them beyond a certain point, you kill the
goose that lays the golden eggs.  As a result, I think that the view that
the lot of poorer people can be improved by making richer people poorer is
not generally true.  Some means of helping people through misfortune is
both moral and prudent; but wholesale leveling of incomes will impoverish
us all.  I think a mean can be struck, as it has been in most of the
developed world, somewhere between capitalisme sauvage and socialism, and
that people prosper about this mean.

This is not to say that injustices do not exist.  Why should I be so lucky
as to have had the education that allows me to produce work for which
people pay lots of money, when others don't have enough to eat?  It's
unfair.  On the other hand, impoverishing computer scientists or sending us
out to cut sugar cane will not help others get more to eat in the long
term, so fairness is not necessarily the best policy in this case.

Another injustice comes in the form of deliberate actions by powerful
groups in developed countries.  Third-world countries have been and
continue to be manipulated by governments and corporations in developed
countries like France and the United States.  The results of such
manipulation, for example in Angola and Rwanda, can be absolutely
devastating to the societies in question.  I believe we have a moral
obligation to fight the power groups in our countries that support corrupt
and murderous regimes, and to try to help the people who have suffered as a
result.  I don't see, however, that this has much to do with whether I own
a Leica.

- -Patrick