Dear Wim,
I so value our exchange on this issue, as I am so intrigued by your social
quality views. Sorry if I am getting ahead of your responses. Feel free to
take your time.
WIM:
Whether you INTENDED to legitimize (in the sense of justify)
wealth or not, is not relevant for the question whether you did.
I had the impression you did (unintentionally?) and used that
impression to answer Platt's request to 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".
ROG:
It is just odd for me to assume it needs justifying. Legitimizing wealth (to
me) is like legitimizing consciousness or health. Wouldn't you say it says a
lot about both our views that you think it needs justifying and that I see no
such need?
WIM:
Both wealth and social quality are fine with me as container
concepts. It won't change my conclusions to use one rather than
the other.
We may agree on: Wealth (and social quality) is not immoral
(illegitimate) in itself, only its distribution is, when not in
proportion to individual effort.
ROG:
Again we fundamentally part ways here. Wealth is an extremely complex measure
of social quality. It reflects many things in addition to effort, and can
even run contrary to effort (for example, if one's efforts, products,
services or ideas are not valued or are viewed as harmful). To evaluate
wealth on one dimension seriously diminishes the pragmatic value of money as
a fungible measure of value and as a mechanism for conveying information
within a social pattern.
As an example, somebody can choose to toil all day at breaking big rocks into
sand, or they can choose to spend an hour a day singing for an audience. If
others value song and dismiss the need for sand, then they will value or pay
more for the former. This is how prices act as a mechanism of communication
-- they convey info on value. Your moral economic system (to tie wealth to
effort), taken to the extreme, would be the apex of immorality. It would be
disfunctional and would lead to very poor allocation of resources and, yes,
even poor allocation of effort.
WIM:
"If your products and services are not valued by others," not
only "the possibility certainly exists that they indeed HAVE NO
SOCIAL VALUE." [...snip...] Your "advice
is to do whatever is possible to change these self defeating
patterns". My advice to Platt (and you) "to try and see the world
from the eyes of people whose products and services are NOT
valued by others" was intended to help you see that they are more
often than not in a position in which they are simply unable to
change these patterns.
ROG:
Free enterprise will pay them to be creative to find a way out of the dead
end. My initial suggestion was that creativity and freedom are essential to
wealth production. I stand by this statement. (btw, I agree that healthy
societies should invest heavily in education, infrastructure and invest
modestly in protective safety nets. Compassion and empathy are good things.)
WIM:
They may even have to beat a military
superpower to do so...
ROG:
If a superpower is exploiting them, then they certainly have a right to do
so. In fact, we should help them in their struggle. But I fear your concept
of exploitation may be overextended to include "working voluntarily at a wage
that seems insulting to a Westerner." Please correct me if I am wrong.
WIM:
They are simply part of the pattern that
includes both wealthy and poor. In the rare instances in which
they manage to emancipate themselves, they do so at the expense
of others (outcompeting them in one way or another).
ROG:
I totally reject your zero-sum, win/lose, redistributive view of social
quality. The only way to create wealth is to create it.
Stealing/reapportioning wealth actually destroys value. I believe wealth
creation is cooperative and competitive, with each factor balanced by the
other to maximize its benifits and minimize its excesses. (But I already
covered this in my last post)
Let me know what I am missing. As always, I wish to maintain an open mind so
I can learn and share my knowledge with others.
Your friend,
Roger
Seeker of Value Creation
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