Hi Wim,
>...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....
!!! This touches on a huge difference between a broadly Catholic/tradition
based understanding, and a broadly Reformed/individualist based
understanding. The contrast is invariably overdone, and is lessening with
time and dialogue, but the difference is a real one. This isn't the forum
for pursuing it though - I'm sure our differences will emerge (have emerged)
over time! The one thing I would mention, though, is that the
Reformed/individualist emphasis provided the theological and moral framework
for industrial capitalism (Calvin and the Protestant Work Ethic etc - I'm
sure you know more about that than I do). Any comments, given your criticism
of what that framework has produced? (And by the way, are you familiar with
the work of Alasdair MacIntyre?)
>
> 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"....
I'm happy with that revision. Your expansion of that point put me in mind of
some of the more esoteric interpretations of quantum physics (eg Fritjof
Capra) In other words that all of reality is flux (maya) and we can cut and
slice it in all sorts of different ways. These count as metaphysics, and
they are at root a form of poetry. (As an aside, if I ever get a few days
free to work on it, I want to do a paper comparing Wittgenstein and Pirsig
on metaphysics, I think there is a compatibility there, relating to
metaphysics as a degenerate activity. I think both shared a common
dependence on William James. But that is taking me a long way from this
post)
>
> 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.
I'm sure you've categorised Landes accurately; not so sure about Diamond, as
he is coming at things from a rather different background (he's a doctor and
evolutionary biologist, not an economist). To my mind his argument is
established (and I think validated) by looking at the period before c. 1500
when modern capitalism got going. Now it's perfectly possible to say that he
is conditioned by the dominant culture within which he is trained, but his
work does make a strong case. I wouldn't have thought that Landes would say
anything that would be novel to you, but Diamond *might*. Of course, it
might just be reheated left-overs given your background.
> 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?
I'm still digesting this (very provocative) point, but a philosophical
question might help - what would count as a disproof of your thesis? I would
guess that there must be a way to investigate whether there have been
transfers of population towards wealth centres (that doesn't seem
controversial) but the question is how to characterise the nature of the
people who have so migrated - or is it axiomatic that people who desire
wealth are greedy/resourceful? (in which case your argument becomes a
question of definition rather than empirical evidence - not necessarily a
bad thing, as it reflects a moral assessment of the situation, but I'm
trying to clarify what your perspective is).
The only substantial work that might be related to development economics
that I have read is Narindar Singh's Economics and the Crisis of Ecology,
which I greatly enjoyed. Do you know it? If so, you could probably give me a
very quick indication of where you are coming from on this if you told me
what you thought of it. Otherwise, is there a good introduction to
development economics that you could recommend? (I do have some background
in mainstream economics; equivalent to about one year of a UK university
degree - not sure what that would represent in Holland). And for the record,
I think Marx had a lot of very important things to say, which haven't been
understood, let alone absorbed, in Western society. He also had some
overwhelming faults, of course...
> 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.
Again, I think I can agree with that. Would you say that a positive feedback
mechanism (the ability of capital to reproduce itself in greater
concentrations) accounts for most of the present inequality?
With apologies for the plethora of brackets and name dropping....
Sam
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