Posted on 02/02/2007 5:37:44 PM PST by shrinkermd
A writer calling himself "Adam Smith"--you'll see the irony in a moment--nuked me recently on my Forbes.com daily blog. He wrote: "You are too much of a materialistic person to understand the purpose of life. [You big mouths at magazines] find followers who want nothing but money, which they think buys happiness. It's not too late for you to drop your crap and look for the meaning of life--it is certainly not in making money. I wish you luck."
Sorry, Mr. Smith. I do not consider moneygrubbing the purpose of life. Never have. The use of God's gifts comes closer for me.
Still, moneygrubbing--a.k.a. the search for profit--has its purpose. Money (profit) is a tool. It is capital. Without capital there is no capitalism. Innovation starves. Prosperity weakens. Societies stagnate. God-given gifts wither. This is especially true for humanity's wonderfully zany outliers: artists, inventors, entrepreneurs. They need capitalism more than anyone.
Money is good, therefore, because capitalism is good. It delivers the goods, literally, and better--broadly and individually--than does any other system. Hugo Chávez would argue that point, but he's nuts.
Can we go even further and say that capitalism is good because it is moral? Following that logic, can we say: The purer the form of capitalism, the more moral it is? Is capitalism perfectly moral--enough to sustain itself over many generations?
Yes, say Ayn Rand's followers. But most of us would not go that far. We think a capitalism that lacks outside moral influences and pressures, restraints and safety nets would, sooner or later, fail.
Bill Ziff, a successful magazine capitalist who died last year, spoke for most of us: "[Capitalism] is not in itself sufficient to create values. It depends on what human and religious values we, ourselves, bring to our affairs. Insofar as those values fail, we would all descend toward a lawless, inhumane, cutthroat society that will no longer harbor our civilization."
Good Works or Redistribution?
Conservatives and liberals agree on little these days. But most agree on this: Capitalism works, but it is insufficiently moral. Conservatives--allow me to paint them with a broad brush--believe capitalism works best when it is spun with golden moral threads, when it weaves in those old values learned in church, charities, service clubs and the like.
Liberals are more skeptical. They know capitalism will produce losers as well as winners. They feel the winners must be forced into helping the losers. Forced help hurts everyone, say conservatives. Redistribution discourages winners from producing and losers from trying. It leaves everyone bitter.
Such is the national debate we find ourselves engaged in as the Democrats take power in the Senate and House. The minimum wage is a form of redistribution. It forces employers to pay workers more than their productivity merits, puny as those paychecks may be. Higher payroll taxes are also redistribution. Who believes higher payroll taxes will show up as higher monthly payments for the employee's retirement?
Restrictions on free trade are yet another form of redistribution, although you may not think of them as such. Tariffs imposed by the U.S. are usually countered by tariffs from other countries. That's what trade wars are all about--retaliation. Trade wars force American companies that are winners in the global economy--the IBMs, FedExes and Citigroups--to give up some of their winnings so that struggling domestic tool and textile manufacturers can stay in business. Trade protectionism asks California to subsidize Ohio and South Carolina.
Generally, Democrats favor forced redistribution more than Republicans do. Republicans--again, in general--would prefer to fix capitalism's shortcomings through good works and giving. This forces Republicans to higher standards of conduct, by the way. Bad people, in power, can redistribute as easily as good people. Only good people can inspire us to good works and giving.
Have Republicans succeeded in holding themselves to this higher standard? Hah! The top two Republicans in the House, John Boehner (Ohio) and Roy Blunt (Missouri), can't summon enough moral courage to say no to "earmarks"--a sneaky form of redistribution. Demo-crats are proud of redistribution. They have no need to be sneaky about it. Democrats will always play the redistribution game better.
Paging Adam Smith
What did Adam Smith--not my blogger critic but the real one--say about capitalism and morality?
The great Scotsman seemed to say two contradictory things. In The Wealth of Nations (1776) he wrote these famous words about self-interest: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages." This sounds like selfishness: Greed is good.
But Smith never believed that. In his earlier book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Smith defined self-interest not as selfishness or greed but as a psychological need to win favor within one's society. Smith revised The Theory of Moral Sentiments after he wrote The Wealth of Nations. He did not change his belief that moral sentiments and self-interest are the same thing.
Let's not forget our Adam Smith. When we do, capitalism loses its moral authority, and the redistributionists win.
Your definition of capitalism also fails. It is, essentially, the unrestricted trade between willing, non-coerced parties (IE - not under the threat of violence.)
What about that do you find objectionable?
It's kind of pointless to try and still attach labels to anything. 'Liberal' means whatever the person hearing it thinks it means. Getting into arguments about the historical meaning of a word is pointless.
I've yet to meet a liberal that's a business owner. Not saying they aren't out there, just that I haven't met one.
Thanks for the post #62. I never looked at money and the role it plays that way.
I'm glad you found it useful.
L
They feel the winners must be forced into helping the losers.My favorite line on all this, which I first saw right here on FR, is: If it's not your money, it's not charity. I would add that it's thievery.
Libs question the morality of conservatism and capitalism all the time, but what's moral about what they're doing?
Redistribution discourages winners from producing and losers from trying. It leaves everyone bitter.One hundred percent correct. It's certainly had that effect on me. Why break your back working hard when libs have stacked the deck against you?
Consider the tax burden: 39% top rate for the Feds, another 10-12% in state income taxes, for a total of 51%.
But wait, that's not all: About one third of the cost to consumers of all the goods and services they buy is, in effect, a tax charged to companies and legally passed along by them to consumers; corporations don't pay taxes, people pay taxes.
So whenever we hear a socialist saying, "tax the corporations, tax the corporations!" they're really saying, "tax you!" 'Rats refuse, of course, to recognize this as a tax on individuals. But if it is a tax, and individuals end up paying it, what else do you call it? At any rate, we can add another 30% to our total tax burden, because it is a tax, for a total of about 80%.
But wait! We're not finished there either. There's a state sales tax for most of us, which is an additional 8% or 9% tax on almost everything we purchase. Let's say 7%. Now we're up to a total tax burden of 87%.
But wait! We're not done yet: There are property taxes, fees to hunt, fees to fish, fees to smog a car, drive a car, register a car or a boat, tolls to cross bridges, fees for a damned day pass to visit a damned park, unreimbursed mandated expenses like insurance, etc.... And a big, fat, juicy fine if you're late paying any of it! C'mon, that's another 5 to 10% at least for all those fees. That's being conservative, pardon the pun. Now we're up to a total tax burden of 92% to 97% for some of us. If you're in the lucky middle class, it may only be 85% WOOHOO, all you middle class people out there, don't you feel lucky?
Darn right people are unmotivated and bitter. I'm surprised anyone is giving anything at all to charity. Nowadays, when charities ask me for a donation, I'm always tempted to say that I give at the IRS. But anyway, libs tax us at 85-95% and then notice that charitable giving doesn't fill the need. Well, DUH! Their solution? Why, tax us even more to fill that need!
Sometimes I think it'd probably be best if we all just voted for democrats, actually let the libs take over the whole country and tax us at 150% (math is totally irrelevant to democrats and may actually be a hate crime) Then when they come for the clothes off your kids' backs and the food off their plate, maybe then people would finally be motivated enough to fight back.
Big sore point with me. Sorry for the rant.
I am an atheist. But thanks for exposing your contempt for the religious people. And please do tell, what is your problem with the Bible? It is a remarkable piece of literature.
Morality is rooted entirely in the presupposition that some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
Your definition of capitalism also fails. It is, essentially, the unrestricted trade between willing, non-coerced parties (IE - not under the threat of violence.)
So long as some one is willing to pay, there will always be someone willing to collect.
Wrong.
That's like saying the morality of Christianity is tainted because Tim McVeigh claimed to be one.
L
"Yes, and unfortunately it is more often tainted by those people who are envious of successful people..."
Spot on...
So for the second time, what is morality? Not what is it that you think it is rooted in. And can you proove that it is rooted in what you keep repeating it is rooted in?
And no, your definition of capitalism is incorrect still.
Right, and now we know his name.
>>Forced help hurts everyone, say conservatives. Redistribution discourages winners from producing and losers from trying. It leaves everyone bitter. <<
I cannot believe he was able to so succinctly verbalize my views here, right down to the core problem as stated in the four word summary.
Inasmuch, your comparison is completely wrong.
Thanks for trying...
I'll take this one.
Capitalism's "core beliefs" are left up to the market.
An individual who ignores the sacrament of "giving value" that the market demands will be found for the charlatans they are and excommunicated.
(or sit in jail next to the Enron boys)
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
Today, "morals" are a religious pagan philosophy of esoteric hobgoblins. Transfiguration is a pantheon of fantasies as the medium of infinitization. Others get derision for having an unwavering Judaic belief in Yahweh or Yeshua, although their critics and enemies will evangelize insertion of phantasmagoric fetishisms into secular law.
A greater number of "atheists" and "pagans" adopt the same hackneyed tenets of a faux Judaic-Christian ideal (golden calf). They also subscribe to the Judaic fetishism of "sin," but will fight to their death in denial of it.
Most of them are so wrapped up in their own polemics that they have become nothing more than pathetic anti-Christians with the same false hypocritical philosophy. They just slap a new label on it hoping nobody will notice - - they replace the idea of "avoiding sin" with "morals."
Plato’s Euthyphro is a great illustration (I fully know arguments from analogy are an informal fallacy). Socrates advances the argument to Euthyphro that, piety to the gods, who all want conflicting devotions and/or actions from humans, is impossible. (Socrates exposed the pagan esoteric sophistry.)
Likewise, morals are such a construction of idols used by the Left as a rationale for them to demand compliance to their wishes in politics, which most often are a skewed mess of fallacies in logic. Morals are a deceptive replacement for the avoidance of sin.
Any atheist who claims I am immoral is no different than a preacher or rabbi saying I am a sinner. Claims of morality is sophistry without some singular source defining what it is.
...and repeat it over and over again without understanding it or being able to explain it.
Logic defeats you.
And no, your definition of capitalism is incorrect still.
So long as someone is willing to pay, there will always be someone willing to collect...
Put that syllogism in a truth table (if you know how) and it proves true every time.
So does this one:
Morality and all of its associated ideals are rooted entirely in the presupposition some higher power defines what is correct for human behavior.
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