there have been two schools of thought, the classical school and the Keynesian school of thought.. the first argues over a free economy..where the market forces take command .. but to state ..during the depression period of the 1930's ..the classical prescription was not working..unemployment did not vanish..it continued to persist..there was fall in prices, thus fall in profits and investment.. why would you still support a free economy?
If market forces lead to unemployment and "recession" then let it be. We all know about "stock market correction" phases. We don't really meddle there. Why do we meddle in economy then? In free market scenario - there will be a point soon enough when recession leads to services becoming cheap enough. Which will again start the chain of investment. We meddle in economy because somehow we believe that we can control everything from a single point, and tailor make solutions. We don't realize that a large ecosystem is comprised of a magnitude of small components - each interacting with the other in a dynamic equilibrium. Its not a static equilibrium. Its like predator and prey balance. If one things goes to excess - it returns back to equilibrium. But the Keynesian way - of Govt meddling = fixing the predator and prey ratio. Which doesn't work as desired because the prey-predator equation changes with changing environment and time (say drought, famine, floods, etc). So you keep changing this ratio based on YOUR judgements (which are again arbitrary) The only reason why we all want control by someone else, some higher authority - be it govt or law or god - is because we don't like to lose. And we don't like our close ones to lose. Even though we may be weak and don't deserve to survive. An equal society promises comfort of survival to each one of us. So we embrace such a view. The only thing not working in this - is that all life forms are lazy and soon, in such a scenario lose their competitive edge. Good, enjoy equality and humanity and justness and fairness while the fun lasts. But when the adversity strikes - we will realize how many remain human, and how many believe in equality. No, we don't need to wait for a large meteor impact to see this adversity, the most simple example of this would be school examinations. If everyone decides not to study for the 12th exam - boards would be such a breeze. But does it happen? Same thing happens where you work. (Performance appraisals etc)
Because it deals with the same flaws that socialism deals with...you have to deal with the concept of attachment and accept that people will try to intervene and protect interests of people around them and not always purely in self-interest. The same way that socialism has to accept that self-interest will be present and will play a major role in the way people behave. Just to repeat myself because I think it's a great line: Let us not all pretend that we live by the laws of the jungle? It's a great argument, almost infallible except in its execution.
and it has been dealt with quite clearly in my earlier post (first para ... ?) . If this is happening purely because of "free market" sources, then let it happen. But then this is very dynamic. And what kind of protection for which ppl around you will be ever changing, based on situation. AND this is "decided" by the individual small components of the system. NOT by an single authority = govt, court, religion etc. Socialism is a very static concept, and tries to remove such favours = which creates equality. So again Socialism is = everything moves according to a written down rule imposed on each small component - and not letting each one to reach an equilibrium on its own. Regarding whether we are living by the laws of jungle - I have just given you an example of everyone's typical life: School. College. Work. Copulation. Luxury. Status. Competition. Why do I need to explain more about whether we are living by rules of jungle or not? Is there anything else other than competition that laws of jungle is all about? If we are not living by rules of jungle, then let us remove competition in each component of our day to day life too! And if we say that oh but some competition is good, but excess of it in everything is not Then, the definition of "some/excess competition" itself is very arbitrary and individually driven!
Our humanity is all in our head. It will always be the survival of the fittest, whether mentally physically or financially. The only difference is that as humans we have the power to rally together and fight against the situation if it is not in our favour. Complete social and financial equality will decay civilisation. Beyond the survival instinct there is only the reward and punishment mechanism to motivate a living being, whether it manifests as perceived 'selflessness' or 'selfishness'.
American spelling is not the only correct spelling. There will always be hard workers, smart workers, and non-workers. The system's natural order is to have people on both sides of the line. Artificially bring people back to the 'equal' centre (please check the dictionary, the spelling is correct) will (further) demotivate everyone. Even the "evil capitalist free market" is only as free and evil as the general population lets it be. People choose to remain ignorant of changes and then blame the system only after they've begun to affect everyone is. It's a little naive to expect the system to be fair of it's own accord - the whole point of democracy is to have your say in the working of the system; instead, everyone thinks that their job is done once they've cast their vote.
I might not have understood all of what you've said...let me know if I've gone off on a tangent somewhere. What you are saying is correct, to an extent, on the macro level....not so much on an individual level. This is where the inherent flaw in all social structures comes in where the interest of the self is almost never exactly aligned with the interest of the whole group. This causes imbalances and deems equilibrium impossible (without utter chaos which one might consider equilibrium, I imagine). I've been parroting this line about how competition and anarchy seems the ideal solution when you think of a faceless mass of people yet tends to not remain as effective when you consider situations you have personal involvement in. You also say that intervention is not a problem at a lower level. Why? It is essentially the same rationale. Trying to protect one's own. To use what you said against you, I think what you've said here is "Some intervention is okay but excess of it in everything is not" which is, once again, arbitrary and individually driver. I think a mistake you make in your argument is that the authorities you speak of are not single authorities. Governments compete with each other, religions compete with each other...I believe that if we had aliens in the neighbourhood and were competing with them for something, we would already have had a world government by now. Forming ourselves into units seems to be fairly commonplace in society...quite natural perhaps? To use what you said against you, I think what you've said here is "Some intervention is okay but excess of it in everything is not" which is, once again, arbitrary and individually driven. If I understand correctly, what you're questioning are the rules that are lay down within each of these societies (eg- rules for a country where the government or court is indeed a single authority) and saying that these are not in accordance with the rules of the jungle (correct me if I'm wrong). What I'm saying is that we tend to form herds and battle the jungle as a collective. However, within the herd, it is the rules of the herd that we live by and not the rules of the jungle. Sometimes these might be the same but I can think of a number of instances where they are not. It is within the herd that we crave equality and benefits and we do not want equality in the jungle. Your argument here is that why not have a jungle within the herd? Surely that will lead to a more efficient herd? No doubt it will...but I doubt that the point of the herd was efficiency.
Well-said. I'm not sure whether this was in response to something said or just your two bits but it's pretty difficult to disagree with what you've said....except that the power to rally together and fight is not specific to humans (though they probably do it better than most).
It was in response to the spirit of the thread in general. I was talking about the power to rally together and fight against the system, but yes, now that you mention it is not unique to humans, except the part where we can fight for something completely counterproductive to our own future/survival.
Can you think of an example of fighting for something counterproductive to one's own survival? Most things that come to my mind can be rationalized as being beneficial in the long run....the slave trade, for example. And really, the idea that the rationale behind all of my actions can be classified into one of survival, expectation of reward or fear of punishment is bumming me out right now. It will change tomorrow but I'll have you know, you ruined my evening.
Interestingly, I downloaded and watched Idiocracy today. People who haven't seen this movie should watch it. Honestly, I didn't like the movie but it had some good ideas....only not enough to justify the movie lasting 90 odd minutes. Idiocracy (2006) - IMDb
Affirmative action comes to mind. Why not accept the fact that we're human and flawed, be okay with it, and move forward from there? I've said somewhere before, our superior reasoning skills are our own undoing when we rationalise all our flawed decisions.
