Well, looking at what our society has done with liberty so far... it's shown a preference for entertainment over information, giving rise to politically saddled anti-journalism c/o the major news networks. It's chosen security over liberty whenever given the choice, and here we are with paramilitary polices serving no-knock warrants with grenade launchers and assault rifles to nonviolent offenders like drug abusers and tax evaders. We've given our executive license to do whatever they want and then not tell us about it as long as they promise it's for 'national security'. Thus for fifty years private entities have been employing the CIA through political contacts to assist in destroying functioning democracies in favor of corporate sponsored military dictatorships around the world. Indonesia to Afghanistan to Nicaragua to Cambodia have been subjugated by genocidal dictators on our dime. Not to mention smaller scandals like Watergate or the whole Karl Rove affair, or overt military action to set up puppet governments like in Cuba, Panama or today in Iraq).
So no I don't trust people with complete freedom, because they use it to infringe on my freedom, which means that the system isn't doing what it's supposed to - protecting each of us from infringements on liberty by others.
So the rights of a few are sacrificed for the many. This doesn't seem very fair to the few.
When it comes to the extremely wealthy, fuck 'em. Nothing they do or fail to do doesn't have impact on our lives in some fashion due to the sheer power they exercise. If they have the power to impact my life, I will use my power to minimize that impact, and in many cases that means taking away their power by restricting their wealth. To fail to act against them would be contrary to my own interests. As I indicated above, they exercise their power to coerce the government into spending tax money to enrich themselves at my expense and in conflict with my ethics, of course I'm going to try to take that power away from them.
it'd be pulling down the rich to feed the poor until they're all the same, which is horrible, because much of the rich have worked very hard to get where they are.
Fallacious on both points. For one thing, taking enough from the wealthy to provide for the most basic survival needs of the poor in order to make sure the poor have some shadow of a chance of amassing wealth is not the same as communism, giving everyone exactly the same regardless of the work they do.
On the other, the idea that rich people work very hard for their money is completely fallacious as well. First generation wealth typically does result from a combination of hard work, determination, and luck. But once a person becomes a net creditor (the value of his assets exceeds the value of his debts) his money grows automatically through no effort of his own, unless he's the sort that micromanages his investments rather than hiring a qualified professional. A comedian (can't remember who) put it best: "When you're in debt, you get charged for having no money [interest]. When you already have money, you get paid for having it [capital gains]." It's a very simple concept. Once a wealthy person reaches a certain threshold of wealth, he makes more through investments than 99.9% of the population of the world makes through wages and hard work, and he does it without lifting a finger.
Of course those investments play a critical role in a free-market economy and being worth a billion dollars isn't the same as having a billion dollars in the bank, but being an important part of a market economy is not the same as working hard for your money. The vast majority of people who do the most strenuous work, on the longest hours, do it for the lowest wages, and most of the people working intellectually, providing technological innovations, scientific breakthroughs, etc. do it for relatively modest money and are often not net-creditors for the better part of their lives. Many people who work very hard and do well for themselves have a peer who does half the work for twice the money. That's not to even mention the horde of wastrel rich brats born into plutocratic families who are insanely wealthy and do absolutely nothing to earn it or use it productively.
Everyone who has worked a while has had the boss who does nothing all day four days a week and shuffles some paperwork on the fifth, and collects twice the income. Usually in my experience these guys come from well-to-do families who put them through college, and have some sense of entitlement to an easy job that pays a lot because they hold a shiny piece of paper their parents bought. They're no different than the mooch milking the welfare system, each was born into a particular strata and did just enough to stay there without actually working. Economic status is a very poor indicator of productivity. It's partially because the market is not fully empowered to self regulate, but it's partially because social pressures override the best interests of a company. Especially in management there often exists a fraternity structure that makes a bad employee very hard to remove, and shit rolls downhill in any organization, resulting in highly productive people who rock the boat too much losing their positions to cover the incompetence of a superior.
It's really just not as cut and dry as "poor people are poor because they're lazy" and "rich people are rich because they work hard".
So! The question boils down to this: Is economic exploitation immoral: yes or no?
And of course, I'm not ready to answer that quite yet, I'll have to think about it.
Power is power is power. If it's right for the wealthy to exploit the poor, it's right for the smart to exploit the stupid and the strong to exploit the weak. There is no substantial difference in cause and there's no difference at all in the result.
