Hi Wim - just a couple of quickies (work is preventing me contributing quite
as much to the forum as I would like at present):
> As a Dutch saying goes: "De
> duivel schijt altijd op de grote hoop." (The devil always shits
> on the big pile.) There is a Bible quote saying about the same,
> but I forgot how it went and where to find it.
Mt 13.12 - "For to him who has will more be given, and he will have
abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away."
Is that the one you had in mind?
> Unlike Sam I think luck and merit are only marginally involved.
> It is not the virtue of me and my contemporaries that has created
> Dutch infrastructure that values (not causes) Dutch wealth.....
.......
> Those "values of allowing people to have the freedom and
> creativity to pursue their own interests", which you see as the
> root and legitimization of Western wealth, may rather be the
> result of the flocking together of greedy and resourceful people
> from everywhere.
This is an interesting point, from an angle I hadn't appreciated before. Are
you saying that valuing wealth is not a human universal? By that I don't
mean the idolatry of wealth, which excludes other values, but the importance
given to, eg an abundant food supply and clean water? Perhaps I'm conflating
two different things here, the wealth and what that wealth can provide, but
I would argue that all human societies place value on wealth *for what it
can provide* - and that therefore a system which fosters that will generally
be preferred by a majority of the human race. More fundamentally, the US
system doesn't preclude the pursuit of goals other than wealth - in fact it
allows more scope for alternative goals. Historically the pioneers in the US
and the puritan settlers (amongst others) were attracted because it allowed
for a different way of life compared to the old world (presumably a more
just and God-directed society).
So 2 things on this - 1. Those values do seem (to me) to work in most places
that they have been tried, not just in the Western world (eg Taiwan), and
they do qualify as virtues (eg hard work); 2. If you're going to object to
the points about luck and the geographical/ecological background, it would
be good to go back to the sources that I mentioned, and where I got the
perspective from, and point out why those authors are wrong (Jared Diamond
and David Landes). I'm very interested to hear you expand your perspective,
but until I can dig deeper into it, we're not going to get very far. It
sounds like you're arguing from a classical Marxist perspective, is that
right? (I don't mean that pejoratively).
Sam
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