Thoughts on working for the state

[andrew21594]

The actions of the state are immoral. However, it is not necessarily immoral to work for the state.

 

Let's say that the state expects to do X evil per year. 

 

If there is a job advertised by the state, then someone will get the job and the state should succeed in doing X evil that year. That someone then has to be exactly as productive as the employer expects them to be. If they are more productive, then the state will do X + x evil (where x is the unexpected contribution) that year. If they are less productive, then they will be replaced by someone who might be more productive than expected and, again, the state will do X + x evil that year. Alternatively, that someone could work their way up the ladder and fight the state from a position of power within the state, Ron Swanson style.

 

If someone creates a job within the state, then they require the state to mug even more money from the people and they contribute +x evil that year.

 

So if you work exactly as well as you are expected to or if you work your way up the ladder with the intention of fighting it from the top, then it is not wrong to work for the state. However, I don't think I could bring myself to do it. I'd feel too sick, especially if I was hands-on stealing/kidnapping/assaulting/killing for the state.

 

This is just a comment. Any thoughts on what I said?

[Daniel Unplugged]

To simplify the question, I think it is better to ask:

 

Is it immoral to trade in stolen goods?

And

Is it immoral to receive stolen money in exchange for providing goods or services?

 

If one is not aware that the goods (or money) are stolen, then no, it is not immoral.

 

If, however, one is aware that the money is stolen (such as when a person works for the State whilst knowing that taxation is theft), then I do consider it immoral. However, if working for the state is necessary for one's survival, such as in North Korea, then I am willing to forgive the immorality, just as I am when a person dying of thirst in the desert steals a bottle of water. Almost everywhere in the world, working for the State is not necessary to survive, so it remains immoral.

So if you work exactly as well as you are expected to or if you work your way up the ladder with the intention of fighting it from the top, then it is not wrong to work for the state.

I disagree.

 

You are using an ends justify the means argument here. Achieving good, by doing something immoral, doesn't change the fact that what was done is immoral. Be very careful about buying into an ends justify the means mentality - The entire State is based on variants of that philosophy.

[Libertus]

The state can't pay anybody unless it takes this money from someone else, first. The state can't "create a job", it can only "redistribute" funds. And it doesn't matter if it's "hands on" stealing, murdering and kidnapping, or there's a middleman doing the dirty work for you. I'd even say, if you choose to work for the state, then at least be honest with yourself and do the dirty work: become a goon. Don't hide behing a desk.

[WasatchMan]

As long as 1. the job would exist in a free society and/or 2. is not immoral in and of it self, earning a living funded by the state is not immoral.  They are the ones that have brought guns into the equation, not you.

 

We live in a statist society where almost all industries are heavily influenced by the state, and we are all forced to pay taxes to the state.

 

If you let them keep you from careers that you want to peruse just because they captured it, you would only be letting them win twice. 

 

The only caveat would be that if somehow the industry you were in began to de-regulate, you could not fight against the de-regulation in any way.

[J. D. Stembal]

I don't fault anyone for being a state employee, as I was one for nine years. When the employee is so heavily propagandized that they think it is morally superior or preferable to work for a public firm than a private firm, that's a problem. I've heard the argument that state funded science is morally preferable to privately funded science because research must be profitable in the short and long term for private firms to be interested. Ok, so how is research preferable when there is no profit in it? If there is no profit in fundamental science, what is the case for its necessity?

 

If you are accepting stolen money, and you are consciously aware of it, then at least have the moral stature to admit to it. Then, it is possible to develop a game plan for trasitioning out of the public sphere.