Dear Sam,
Thanks for finding the Bible quote I had in mind: 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."
I must confess I already expected you to find it for me when
referring to it, having noted that you are a professional in that
trade. (Early Quakers would have called you a "hireling
minister", someone getting paid for interpreting God's will for
others. They DID mean that pejoratively. Quakers trust that
people can interpret God's will for themselves. Well, my father
is one too. I defected from his brand of Christianity after
leaving home to study in Amsterdam.)
By the way, I agreed with your four theses of 17/9 10:35 +0100 to
such an extent, that I felt it less urgent to comment on them. I
would only prefer to substitute "intellectual pattern" in your
theses with "system of ideas". You can find the difference (as I
see it) in my 23/9 23:51 +0200 posting: An "intellectual pattern
of values does not consist of one system of ideas (developed by
either a privileged or an underprivileged group of people) but it
consists of all the systems of ideas developed in that (part of)
society, the pattern being their correlation with social roles
and positions. On a somewhat larger scale one can even speak of
an intellectual pattern of values as the pattern of similar
(parts of) societies developing similar sets of systems of ideas
by privileged and underprivileged groups in those (parts of)
societies." Cf. a table is not an (inorganic, biological, social
or intellectual) pattern of values; it is a social pattern of
values that artifacts which elevate a roughly horizontal surface
between 0,5 and 1,5 metres from ground level tend to be used by
humans to deposit things on to save them the trouble of stooping;
a table is an element in that pattern.
I'll (try to) come back to your request to expand my perspective.
You can guess that as a development economist I devoted quite a
lot of energy to the roots of "The Wealth and Poverty of
Nations". I haven't had the time to read all recent books on the
subject, but from the references I read, I think I can guess
fairly accurately where to locate Jared Diamond and David Landes
in the spectrum of answers to Rog's question of "why free
enterprise democracies have been so successful since their
creation": not on the side of the systems of ideas developed by
or on behalf of the underprivileged (to legitimize
redistribution). I have studied quite a bit of that spectrum,
including the neo-Marxist part, but exposing my conclusions and
why I wouldn't call myself a Marxist would take too much of my
time now.
In short only:
You write "Those values [freedom, creativity etc.] do seem (to
me) to work in most places that they have been tried, not just in
the Western world (e.g. Taiwan), and they do qualify as virtues
(e.g. hard work)". Don't you agree that those places correlate
fairly well with places where greedy and resourceful people from
elsewhere have flocked together? Couldn't BOTH wealth AND
overvaluing wealth (so not devoting your energy to other causes
once you have enough of it) AND those values be a result of that
flocking together rather than those values being the root of the
wealth?
You write "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 do agree that both luck and
virtue are important as original sources of unequal distribution
of wealth. I only stated that they explain a small part of the
present inequality.
With friendly greetings,
Wim Nusselder
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