system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I think that fiscal conservatism and libertarianism are morally unjustifiable. CMV.

This view comes from the simple observation that, for whatever reason, our current capitalist economies tend to pay the people who do certain jobs less than they need to survive. In the United States, for example, a janitor is unlikely to be able to afford health insurance, and will therefore be ruined if she gets cancer. She will likely have to live in an unsafe neighborhood, and if she has children they will be very unlikely to be able to afford post-secondary education, meaning that they will be effectively sentenced to the same set of circumstances.

This problem can be avoided through the provision of tax-funded government services such as public health care, subsidized tuition, and housing policy. The conservative argument that such services should be minimized or eliminated altogether therefore implies that the janitor and her family *should* be subjected to these circumstances. In other words, that people who do certain jobs deserve to suffer for it. To my mind, any moral justification of conservatism needs to provide a defense of this point. Since this point is indefensible, the moral case for conservatism falls.

The first reply to this that I might anticipate is that nobody forced the janitor to be a janitor. If she wants to improve her circumstances, she should take night school, develop a skill, start a business, or otherwise work to improve her circumstances. This seems naive to me. If all the janitors did this, then who would clean the floors? We need janitors, and if they all decide to get bootstrappy and improve their circumstances, then we will have lost an important service. Why do the people who provide this service deserve to live in worse conditions than people who provide other services?

The second possible reply has to do with the ultimate impact of deregulation and the elimination of taxation. An unregulated economy, some people say, will reduce the prices of goods and services to the point that janitors are better able to afford them than they would have been with government assistance. My first response to this is that there is no real evidence that it is true-countries with more fiscally conservative policies tend to have worse social welfare for the working class, and pure libertarianism is a completely untested economic system. My second response is that even if this argument is correct, and conservative policies will eventually create a rising tide that lifts all boats, this still ignores the situation of the working class *today*, who would be effectively sacrificed in order to obtain these future benefits. This is not an ethical trade-off in my view.

Lastly is the moral argument that taxation is theft-an absolute moral wrong that should be eliminated or minimized regardless of what benefit it might bring. I think this argument fails to notice the social construction of wealth: infrastructure, the labour force, education, policing, national security, environmental protections, health care, and market policy are all part of a system we have created to facilitate the generation of wealth. Wealth is therefore socially created. In most countries, we have decided, sensibly I think, that it makes sense to award a greater share of the wealth generated by our system to those who have the skills and initiative to create and improve products and services-the CEOs, investors, and entrepreneurs of the world. But that is a consequences of the rules we have written for the economic game, not the consequence of some absolute moral law about who deserves to reap the greatest profits of capitalism. If we want to change the rules to allocate some more of that wealth to the bottom tiers, then we have that moral right. If you don't buy that argument, then I can make a simpler one: What is a greater moral wrong, forcing a billionaire to get by on a few hundred million, or forcing the aforementioned janitor to get by without health care or nutrition? I think the greater harm obviously rests in the latter case.

My burden of proof for this is not very high. I don't need you to convince me to *become* a fiscal conservative, only to concede that an ethical, rational person who is reasonably aware of the real world can be a fiscal conservative. Basically, prove to me that this is an issue on which reasonable people can disagree.
gpt
There is no social construction of wealth.  Every single dime of created wealth comes from the labor of individuals and the voluntary trade between them.  

The supports that you mention (education, infrastructure, police, etc) are only services.  It is a mistake to believe that without government these services would not exist.  Private schools continue to exist even though every family has a free public option.  The first fire departments were private services, and in large sections of the country they continue to be volunteer associations.  From the dawn of time up until roughly 60  years ago, people bought and paid for their own medical care.    Now many of these things have become government services, for better or worse, but that does not alter the fundamental nature of wealth.  

Wealth isnt 'assigned' to various people or professions by some society, it is built from voluntary trades.  The only rules are the same basic rules that apply for all men to live in peace... you cant hurt each other (murder, theft, fraud, rape, poisoning the well, etc).    There is not a set of rules about what each job is worth or how we will reward each type of work.   To try to create them (aside from being rife with corruption) would be an impossible task that required constant adjusting.   The market sets value based on supply and demand, and its remarkable efficient.  If a business can supply the best value it will succeed, and its owner may become wealthy. But there are no guarantees... many businesses fail, and their owner is left with even less than the janitor you pity.  Others barely break even and the owner's 16 hour days profit him only slightly more than the cashier he hired.   Certainly some succeed wildly and become wealthy, but their wealth comes from providing something of value to a market that craves it.   It is not a social construct, and it is not predetermined that they will succeed, or what their reward will be; and most importantly it comes only from creating value... from giving the customers something they value MORE than the money they spent.  Wealth is not zero-sum, and the success of a business harms no one (other than less efficient competitors). 

You casually toss aside the moral argument against theft, but its foundational to people living together without violence.   If we accept that others can take our belongings without our consent, we are no longer free and able to trust each other... but rather we are in a war of all against all.   May you always find yourself in the majority... because if the majority can take your money, they can take your house, your business, or anything else they want.  Its been tried,  the Soviet Union, and it failed miserably and painfully.  Theft is no small thing to be ignored, it is a real evil and poisonous to humans living together.

Finally, a word on your usage of 'force'.   You mention that 'forcing' the billionaire to pay taxes is not worse than 'forcing' the janitor to get buy on less.    You apply the word correctly the first time...  a government tax threatens real physical force against the billionaire;  but there is no force at all at work on the janitor.   Not an outside force anyway.  He is subject to the same natural forces that plague every living thing (hunger, thirst, mortality) but no one is threatening him with prison if he makes more or less money.   He is free to pursue whatever path is available to him, and make choices about how best to use his skills.  The threat of force is not to be done lightly.  Force is appropriate only in response to aggresion... not just because we want something someone else has. 

I dont think I've changed your mind about the value of fiscal conservatism, but hopefully I've shed some light onto the ethical thinking behind it.   When you view people as individuals rather than ants in a hive, the application of 'force' onto those individuals is a matter absolutely dripping with ethical and moral implications, that reasonable people can come to different conclusions on.