To: Wim
From: Roger
Pardon my selective quotations, but I need to reduce this to the essentials.
If I overly edited, just scold me...
WIM (to Platt):
You asked me 24/10 14:36 -0400 to prove my statement "that the
'free enterprise global economics' is a
system of ideas developed on behalf of the privileged to
legitimize their (my and your) privileges".
Which leaves the task to prove that this system of ideas can be
and is used to legitimize (for instance) my and Rog's privileges.
For this proof I only need Rog's e-mails:
Rog wrote 23/9 12:36 -0400:
"I agree that gross imbalances can foster very unhealthy power
imbalances that can lead to exploitation. ... I don't think the
problem is success, it is failure. My goal ... is to export
recipes for others to create similar wealth, freedom, health etc.
... wealth, health, technology and knowledge are not (primarily)
re-apportioned, they are CREATED. The solution to imbalance is to
show others how to create it. If they choose to not follow the
recipe, ... they better be prepared to live with the results"
My summary: "Being wealthy is legitimate. The problem is not
being wealthy and choosing not to follow the example of the
wealthy."
ROG:
"Legitimacy" or rationalizing wealth was never part of my conscious
intention. Wealth is one of many forms of social quality. It is just one
measure of one's power to influence the world. I am highlighting the
synergistic and creative aspects of social advance. I believe reducing
social quality down to the one dimension of "wealth" distorts this message.
(and if I was the one to give you this impression, then please accept my
apology)
My summary: "Social quality is primarily created rather than redistributed."
WIM:
Rog wrote 29/9 19:00 -040: "the true value of free enterprise,
which is that to make money, you basically have to offer your
self to the service of others. You have to make something or do
something that others value and will pay you for. Free enterprise
requires people voluntarily cooperating with each other in ways
that benefit both parties.
I work 40 hours because I value the reward more than my time. My
company pays me because they value my contributions greater than
the money My company makes products (with my help) that consumers
value more than the cost they pay for it So on and so on...
The brilliance of free enterprise is that it uses a distributed
control process that is extremely dynamic and responsive to local
conditions and values. Free enterprise does assume people know
best how to establish values and goals, and it is extremely
opposed to INTELLECTUALS that purport to know better than
everyone else what is the correct and incorrect amount of self
interest."
Do note Rog's subjectivist reasoning: as long as your wealth
derives from others valuing and paying for what you make or do,
it's alright.
ROG:
Again, I wasn't actually trying to legitimatize wealth (otoh, I don't assume
it is "illegitimate"-- do you?). I was explaining that free enterprise is a
creative, positive sum process that encourages decentralized cooperation.
WIM:
A system of ideas that legitimizes Rog's and my wealth
legitimizes anyone's wealth. Quod erat demonstrandum.
ROG:
Again, again, I never assumed it needed legitimizing. I am stating that free
enterprise decentralized cooperation creates wealth and that wealth is a form
of social quality. However, EXPLOITATION reapportions wealth and tends to
suppress the creation of social value. Free enterprise can create quality,
and exploitation tends to destroy quality.
BUT, to take the issue head on, I believe that stolen wealth is immoral, and
created wealth is moral. Of course, there are lots of other types of moral
social quality too (other than wealth).
WIM:
Do stay a proponent of capitalism and free markets. It is in your
very best interests. "Free enterprise global economics" is a
"true" system of ideas, i.e. it is consistent with your
experience.
Please don't accept my views just on my authority until you have
broadened your range of experience by stepping in the shoes of an
Indian debt-slave or an illegal immigrant in the U.S.A. who is
forced on pain of exposure to work long hours in abominable
circumstances for a low wage or a woman traded into prostitution.
ROG:
These are all forms of gross exploitation and are immoral. Free enterprise
requires sophisticated yet delicate systems and controls and codes and checks
and balances. I am not defending some type of maffia version of capitalism.
I am defending the sophisticated (yet still imperfect) brand of free
enterprise that has evolved (sometimes painfully) in places like the US and
Western Europe.
WIM:
In other words you might care to try and see the world from the
eyes of people whose products and services are NOT valued by
others and who consequently come to undervalue their very selves,
lose their self-respect, destroy themselves with alcohol and
other drugs and/or irrationally cling to any system of ideas that
promises to restore that self-respect. To them such a system of
ideas is consistent with their experience, not because it creates
wealth for them, but because it brings them something which is in
the end much more fundamental for a human being. Even suicide may
not seem too much of a sacrifice to attain it for some of them.
ROG:
Hold on there just a second, podner...
If your products and services are not valued by others, the possibility
certainly exists that they indeed HAVE NO SOCIAL VALUE. Of course, they may
have some other type of value, or the others may just fail to recognize their
social value. Free enterprise is far from perfect, it is just a lot better
than any other economic system. I can't defend irrational, self-destructive
thought patterns though. My advice is to do whatever is possible to change
these self defeating patterns and explore a more congruent belief system.
Easier said than done...
WIM:
A lot of these people have ages of experience with being unable
to compete on world markets, being of the wrong ethnic group to
share in the spoils of an imperial power in whose sphere of
influence they happened to find themselves and being at the
receiving end of wars against "terrorists", "uncivilized",
"infidels" and "barbarians".
ROG:
The free enterprise system pushes them to find a way to add value. (of
course, successful cultures build development processes to facilitate the
transission and safety nets to protect against setbacks.) Ethnic
discrimination and military conquest are both forms of exploitation and hence
immoral.
WIM:
Can you offer them a real
alternative to the systems of ideas they cling to or the alcohol
and other drugs with which they try to forget themselves?
ROG:
Yes. Clinging to poor quality is the worst thing they can do.
Let me close by saying that no economic or political system is perfect. Our
task is to find the best systems and continuously yet cautiously strive to
make them better. I am strongly supporting a system that maximizes freedom
and distributed control and that minimizes exploitation. A system that
fosters both cooperation and healthy (non-destructive) competition. That is
what tends to maximize social value. It also establishes the foundation for
intellectual value.
I may very well be wrong though...
Rog
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