LW, unlike bb, unspun is not an avid reader. So far and for the next while, I've read your first and last paragraphs. Here's an answer from me, regarding your last:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/319415/posts
Capitalism and altruism are both wonderful modes of human behavior. I think the threat of a false and twisted idea of altruism which you must be referring to (or, The Tragedy of American Compassion, as it's been written of) has burgeoned and begun to fade in the 20th Century. I think a greater threat is a weird combination of false and superficial ideas of personal liberty and security. The roots that make this apparently conflicted set of desires exhalted as "uberprinciples" so weird are roots fed by such notions as man being merely a complex animal (a very unnatural concoction) and that private behavior has no universal consequences.
But there are answers to the bitterly cold, modern problems that we have had, if we would let our opaque and hardened shells be removed. There is light and there is warmth.
I gather somebody's been reading Lord Keynes -- and Ayn Rand -- 'way too long. Time perhaps to visit a far more interesting contemporary of Keynes'-- that would be one Joseph Shumpeter.
If anybody is interested in seeing how capitalism must incorporate some sense of altruisim just to survive in the first place, they ought to read Schumpeter's underappreciated classic: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
Schumpeter does take a rather dim view of the long run, however. He figures capitalism will ultimately become the victim of its own success....
Meanwhile, he esteems capitalism for putting silk stockings "within the reach of factory girls" as the very model, its basic justification and motivation -- not the making of yet "more silk stockings for queens."
Thanks for the "bump in the night," unspun! I do enjoy your posts!
You should have told me upfront. I wouldn't have wasted my time.
I think the threat of a false and twisted idea of altruism which you must be referring to has burgeoned and begun to fade in the 20th Century.
Hey, pay attention! YOUR national debt is nearly 7 trillion dollars! YOUR nation is bankrupt trying to pay for the socialist morass created by the altruistic philosophy. Do you have any idea what YOUR share of this insanity is? 90% of the states in this nation are dead broke trying to fund this insanity. Get a clue. It is a failed paradigm.
I think a greater threat is a weird combination of false and superficial ideas of personal liberty and security.
This is an irrational statement, not derived from reality.
The roots that make this apparently conflicted set of desires exhalted as "uberprinciples" so weird are roots fed by such notions as man being merely a complex animal (a very unnatural concoction) and that private behavior has no universal consequences.
This is an even more irrational statement (if there can even be such a thing) based upon no perceivable provable concept.
But there are answers to the bitterly cold, modern problems that we have had, if we would let our opaque and hardened shells be removed. There is light and there is warmth.
Oh, how nice and touchy feelie. How psycho babble fuzzy! Thanks for demonstrating exactly what I was saying about logic being abandoned for emotional mush. bye