Platt,
Marco:
> > I'm trying to understand what's wrong. We both are using the
> > same words each against the other...
Platt:
> What I see as the basis for our disagreement is our differeing interpretations
> of what Pirsig means by human rights. You seem to interpret his view
> of human rights to include the right to a free lunch. I interpret his view of
> human rights to free association, freedom of expression, freedom of
> speech, etc. In the quotation from Lila that we're both using, I see no
> mention of a right for one person to claim a portion of the productive
> work of another. Do you?
Marco:
Sorry, but would you like to quote where I've written that someone has the right
to claim "a portion of the productive work of another". That's incredible!
Unless you think that taxation is a always robbery.. (anyway in this case
there is no "someone").
Marco:
> > Eureka! You seem to say that the market is not a social pattern! You say it
is
> > immoral for a government to control an intellectual expression. I say that
ALSO
> > for the market it is immoral. But you even don't see the market. You seem to
> > hold the idea that the market is freedom itself. That every rule about the
> > market is immoral. Is it so?
Platt:
> You agree that it is immoral for government to control the market?
> Eureka! At last we're on the same page. The only rule that holds in a
> free market, whether a market of goods or of ideas, is freedom from
> government interference. That's the definition of "free market."
Marco:
There's a huge misunderstanding. I was meaning that ALSO for the market (social)
is immoral to control intellectual expressions.
And your definition of free market is IMO absurd. Example. We make a deal: you
sell me your Ferrari in change of 100,000 USD. I pay you with false dollars. You
denounce me and I rightly get enclosed in a Siberian Gulag :-) Is this
application of the law an immoral influence of the government? The market is a
set of rules, written or not it doesn't matter. An unruled market is a nonsense.
Then, we can argue to what extent the static rules have to influence the
dynamism of the market. The perfect balance of static and dynamic is not very
easy.
I think your is the typical mistake people make considering *order* as the
opposite of *freedom*. The opposite of *order* is *disorder* (Diana taught me
that!). Freedom is possible only in presence of a basic order.
Marco:
> > Everything gets more clear. That's why you take money as the only parameter.
> > Actually, I say "equal opportunities" and you read "equal salary"; I say
> > "colonialism" and you read that I suggest that the natives should
appropriate
> > the property of another. I say it is a sort of MOQ blasphemy to state that
> > money can measure art, and you don't answer.
Platt:
> When we're speaking of markets--the buying and selling of goods and
> services--I know of no other medium of exhange besides money that
> preserves dynamic freedom. What's the alternative? A government
> bureaucrat determining that the food I've worked hard to put on my
> table belongs to somebody else? I don't know where in the MOQ you
> find the basis for distributing the products of intellect and labor by
> government edict. As I've asked before, how to you propose to provide
> "equal opportunity" by means other than force? Do you think it's
> possible to persuade the masses to become Christian monks and
> nuns?
>
I don't deny the role of money. It's the blood of the Giant. It ensures the life
of the society. But, also, I don't think that taxation is a rubbery. IMO a
taxation IS moral, up to the extent it does not destroy the market, and IF the
government uses money to ensure equal opportunities (not equal salary, read well
please! ) to people. An example of equal opportunity is a free school for all
the children. Free does not mean necessarily public. It can also be a private
school, so there can even be competition and pluralism; but IMO it is moral that
the nation pays the school (in part, at least) for all the children,
independently of the richness of the family.
Now, tell me where do I contradict the MOQ.
> As for the value of art, I value a crayon painting by my grandchild as
> priceless. But you wouldn't give me a Europenny for it. So the market
> value of that particular piece of art is zero. Money measures the market
> value of an artwork, not its value to you or me personally. If you ask me
> what's the value of painting by Jasper Johns, I would say two cents
> whereas in the market his paintings are worth millions. But by what
> right do I have to impose my art valuations on others through some tax-
> supported government art council? None that I can find in the MOQ.
> Do you think the MOQ decrees that government should support the
> work of some artists and not others?
Again the fixation of the government! I have said, and I repeat, that in order
to be artist, money can't be the main goal. I've said that by means of money you
can possess a masterpiece (and there's nothing wrong in it), but you are not an
artist.
> >
> > And that's why you go on blaming me of communism, when I spend my words for
the
> > defense of the individual from the strong market influence. You don't see
the
> > need of any defense. Religious fervor.... Siberia, European socialism: you
go
> > on putting into my mouth things I've never mentioned.
> >
> > Is it so, Platt? Isn't market a social pattern in your MOQ? Is the market
> > freedom itself? Is any weak criticism to the market a terrific sign of
> > Stalinism?
>
> Yes, the market is a social pattern, dynamically influenced as Pirsig
> says by "fame and fortune." And yes, any interference by the state in a
> free market presents a potential danger to freedom and dynamism.
> Every government incursion into the private sector is done in the name
> of the "public good" including Hitlerism and Stalinism. We should
> never forgot in this discussion of intellect over society that the Nazis
> and the Marxists were intelligent. Pirisg's whole point is that intellect
> based on a subject-object metaphysics where values are considered
> irrational and subjective is ill-equipped to control society. I agree.
Ok. A SOM based intellect is a danger. Nazism and communism are a danger. What
you are failing to see, IMHO, is the simple fact that Nazism and Communism are
mainly social patterns. Right, Communism arises from the intellectual idea of
equality, but then it became merely another social pattern. I read here a
certain confusion between intelligence and intellectual level. Of course Nazis
and Marxists were intelligent, but it does not mean that Nazism belongs to the
intellectual level.
But, if you agree that market is a social pattern (and, by definition, a free
market is more dynamic than a controlled market), I really don't understand why
ANY hypothesis about an even weak intellectual control over the market is wrong
per se. Like to say that to build a city is immoral if you destroy a jungle.
Society over biology is moral, if only the society does not destroy the
ecosystem; similarly, I guess the intellect over the social (market included)
can be moral, if only it does not destroy the economic system.
> > Tombola!
>
> Sounds great. But, what's the English translation? Would it be OK to
> say, "Tombola to you, too?"
>
[Hush! It's the secret word for the members of the European Communist Secret
Sect. I have revealed it to you so you will not be packed off to Siberia. :-) ]
Really, it means Bingo. But "Tombola to you too" is very funny.
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