I my view, usually not a very good one. A revolution usually only results in a change of power. One authority taking over another authority.
Usually nothing gets solved. Just a different set of players at the helm.
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Eat the Rich
- Thread starter Secret Chief
- Start date
I my view, usually not a very good one. A revolution usually only results in a change of power. One authority taking over another authority.
Usually nothing gets solved. Just a different set of players at the helm.
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
Not sure about this. Two classic examples: the French and Russian. One may or may not like the outcomes but both fundamentally changed the political and social structure of their respective countries. It was not just a change of boss.
Sometimes it's like that, yes. But one has to ask why governments or capitalists would push things so far to the brink of revolution, at least in many cases.
Then you might want to correct the Wikipedia article on
the subject. It conveys the impression that there is still
the system of individuals acting in self-interest resulting
in the emergent property of markets...& that this is something
originating from God.
Of course, in that day & age, didn't they believe that everything
originated from God? Physics, chemistry, biology, etc.
Invisible hand - Wikipedia
Excerpted....
The Invisible Hand is an economic concept that describes the unintended greater social benefits and public good brought about by individuals acting in their own self-interests.[1][2] The concept was first introduced by Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, written in 1759. According to Smith, it is literally divine providence, that is the hand of god, that works to make this happen.[3]
By the time he wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, Smith had studied the economic models of the French Physiocrats for many years, and in this work, the invisible hand is more directly linked to production, to the employment of capital in support of domestic industry. The only use of "invisible hand" found in The Wealth of Nations is in Book IV, Chapter II, "Of Restraints upon the Importation from Foreign Countries of such Goods as can be produced at Home." The exact phrase is used just three times in Smith's writings.
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Kooky
Freedom from Sanity
Inasmuch as gravity was for Newton.
Kooky
Freedom from Sanity
Do you believe the way the current economic state of the world is correct and good and fair?
Because if not, then that's a rather significant point against that theory.
No, I think government interference is a major problem.
My point is that Bohr, Einstein, and many other physicists and mathematicians did seek to learn for the sake of learning in many cases, but their research and theories have ended up being immensely useful for multiple practical applications. The idea that learning for the sake of learning is useless or pointless seems to me to overlook history and focus only on the very short term. It might be pointless in very specific cases, but I don't think that it's pointless in general or even in most cases.
In my own field of study, computer science, formal logic has extensive applications. I don't think Aristotle or other Greek philosophers who spent years formulating logical arguments and codifying laws of thought foresaw that these markedly theoretical, abstract fields of study would have such practical uses two millennia later.
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "victimization studies," but in my opinion, it is crucial to study the social factors that have contributed to oppression and systemic discrimination targeting various groups at different points in history. The social and political sciences have their place just as the sciences do, and I don't see them as competing fields in a zero-sum game. I view them as complementary, useful aspects of human knowledge.
Augustus
…
I'd say it's significantly different to take a Providential view, whereby the world was designed in order to facilitate human happiness and this is why self-interest produces moral outcomes, compared to saying saying 'there is no purpose of direction to human society but self-interest produces moral outcomes'.
There are innumerable other considerations which serve to confirm the same conclusion. The happiness of mankind, as well as of all other rational creatures, seems to have been the original purpose intended by the Author of Nature when he brought them into existence. No other end seems worthy of that supreme wisdom and divine benignity which we necessarily ascribe to him; and this opinion, which we are led to by the abstract consideration of his infinite perfections, is still more confirmed by the examination of the works of Nature, which seem all intended to promote happiness, and to guard against misery. But, by acting according to the dictates of our moral faculties, we necessarily pursue the most effectual means for promoting the happiness of mankind, and may therefore be said, in some sense, to co-operate with the Deity, and to advance, as far as in our power, the plan of providence. By acting otherwise, on the contrary, we seem to obstruct, in some measure, the scheme which the Author of Nature has established for the happiness and perfection of the world, and to declare ourselves, if I may say so, in some measure the enemies of God. Hence we are naturally encouraged to hope for his extraordinary favour and reward in the one case, and to dread his vengeance and punishment in the other. A. Smith - Theory of Moral Sentiments
Also Smith did assume an essential goodness to human nature that would promote altruism. People would behave virtuously and this would help balance the system. So there was less need to purposely balance the system through calculated actions and human virtue would lead to charity and restraint.
Again this is based on a Providential view of human society.
Learning for its own sake can be fun. But those guys were
learning skills applicable in the marketplace. When people
accumulate knowledge with no practical application, they
better have a Plan B for earning a living. Einstein worked
as a patent clerk.
Aristotle was a wealthy man, & had the luxury of
devoting his life to something that didn't support him.
Modern students who need loans for school shouldn't
presume that what worked for him will work for them.
The point here isn't that no one should major in victimization
studies, women's studies, or art history...it's that they should
give thought to how they'll earn a living to pay back all those
student loans.
I learn about hugely unproductive things too. But I don't
make this my profession. I also learned some trades to
support myself.
In short....
Be useful & self supporting.
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I don't share all of Smith's assumptions about humans.
Nonetheless, his work illuminated the idea of emergent
properties arising from uncoordinated individual interactions.
An analogous understanding of kinetic thermodynamics was
being developed in this age too, ie, that interaction of molecules
just bouncing around against each other & against container
walls resulted in the emergent properties of thermodynamics.
Of course, God was behind all this too....but as with economics,
thermodynamics provided better understanding of the system.
Smith, like Clausius, Carnot, Boltzmann, etc, aren't saints who
handed us The Truth. They're just guys who advanced understanding.
So if they believed in this or that sky fairy, it shouldn't make their
contributions false or irrelevant.
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Heyo
Veteran Member
Not that, but unlike Carnot and Boltzmann, Smith rested his hypothesis on a false assumption, that people would be both altruistic and competitive. Both assumptions are false and that is why the hypothesis of the regulating power of the "invisible hand" is falsified.
Augustus
…
It doesn't make his contribution 'false', but given his ideas were explicitly based on a Providential understanding of human society, it is certainly relevant to consider how we understand his ideas in a non-providential human society.
The idea of Providence was not incidental to his ideas, it underpinned them. If humans are not inherently good and society was not designed for human happiness, it does not necessarily follow that pursuing self-interest alone will produce moral good.
The assumptions aren't fully false.
People just exhibit a wider range of behaviors.
This is when some regulation becomes useful, eg,
preventing monopolies, licensing professions.
The "invisible hand" is still an emergent property of
individuals acting in self interest. But it's more complex
than he thought. So it has been with any science.
I don't dismiss Newton just cuz his work was found to
be a special case of General Relativity.
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Analogy time....
Darwin believed in God. But he also saw the mechanism
of evolution. Evolution is a great theory regardless of
whether one believes that it originates with God's creation
or if there are no gods at all. (Or would you say that the
theory of evolution is falsified by Darwin's religious beliefs?)
The concept of markets emerging from individual interactions
is similarly useful. This atheist rejects divine influence.
And despite his affliction (IMO) with sky fairy belief, he still
came up with the idea of economics as a stochastic process.
The theory is useful regardless of whether an atheist or a
believer discovered it.
Are you arguing against the idea that market forces are an
emergent property of individuals acting in self interest?
Ref...
Emergence - Wikipedia
Stochastic process - Wikipedia
It wouldn't necessarily make the theory false, but in the absence of any divine influence or intervention, it eliminates any moral imperative Western capitalists might use to justify themselves - and their characterizations of other economic systems.
Reagan called the Soviet Union the "evil empire," not the "poverty-stricken empire." Capitalists want people to think that they're morally superior, but that's not true. That's part of what the Moral Majority and the religious right were preaching, using it as a justification for their moral judgments, sanctimony, and an overall supercilious view of the rest of the world.
Heyo
Veteran Member
I'm OK with that view. But most right-wing pseudo economists still tout "the invisible hand" like an absolute law. I just want to hammer the fact in that it is far from that.
Augustus
…
Darwin didn't explicitly note that god ensured balance in the system leading to moral outcomes though.
No I'm pointing out that Smith's idea of a self-correcting market that produces moral outcomes if left alone made certain assumptions about human society that a) are non-trivial and b) may not hold true in a non-providential universe.
If you do not hold to a Providential worldview, then you have to do more to demonstrate that moral outcomes are indeed achieved when people act in their own interests in a world not designed for human happiness and where many people are not virtuous and will use their power to exploit the system to the detriment of others if they can get away with it.
Moral imperatives are over-rated.
Consider the fans of socialism...they believe it's moral,
unlike capitalism. Yet all attempts to implement socialism
have been less moral than typical capitalism.
I look at how economic systems perform in the real world.
Empirically, capitalism suits me better cuz of more liberty
& prosperity. But I can see how socialists would prefer
more security & control over the populace. To each his own.
Meh....socialists think they're morally superior & more efficient.
They're neither.
I recommend not trying to make economics into a morality play.
Otherwise we'll see that one poster who always harps on how
Jesus wouldn't be a capitalist.
WCWJWD
(Who Cares What Jesus Would Do)
The Moral Majority....they remind me of socialists.
Too full of themselves, thinking they have The Truth,
& are better than everyone else.
It is a law....like Boyle's Law.
Neither is ironclad, but both have explanatory power.
Smith's work was a precursor to modern behavioral economics.
Darwin preceded modern evolutionary theories.
So we can refer to both Smith & Darwin as representing
more modern lines of thought.