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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (27074)	9/5/2009 2:42:30 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

"His thesis is really that the problem with economics is the irrationality of mankind" Well that may be. We notice firstly that people are relentlessly challenging the integrity of a system by whether or not it solves or resolves all human problems and predicaments. In other words, if hunger, poverty, depressions, social discord, housing shortages, or pink eye are experienced...then some major threads of the social tapestry must be the wrong cloth: Capitalism doesn't work, or THAT kind of capitalism doesn't work, or THAT type of socialism is faulty, or or or... But what is the truth? The truth is that all people can no more equally prosper at the same time than can the wolf and deer populations. People compete for food and other resources, most of which they have lost the ability or the habitat to pursue successfully. Nowhere do we have capitalism on this planet. so the causes of social problems are innumerable and impossible to delineate. However, if we did have capitalism we still WOULD have severe problems with hunger, poverty, unemployment and other human issues because many people cannot catch food well with their hands and they have little to trade to others for whatever it is they value. As well, it is a myth that ALL people can flourish under value for value. People with average and above average value to others can certainly meet needs and be comfortable, but to store a massive concentration of resources (money) in particular hands (let us say Wal-mart as one example), requires the honey from a lot of bees. And if you can't bring honey you can't even come to the hive. The only society where people could access resources on an equal footing would be a totally benevolent socialism where the leaders were uncorrupted and without any discrepancy in power. However, to lead you NEED power and you need to use it to protect your leadership from being usurped and so on and on. So the only human society where hunger and poverty are excluded is a society where FREEDOM is also excluded. We have read novels about those kinds of societies, haven't we?? Therefore, an ethic of compassion is appropriately at the behest of reason. It seems reasonable to me to support a philosophy of freedom and human reason and to make do the best we can with the poor, the sick, and the afflicted. Rand did not dislike the poor and neither do I. But they are not the "best" example of humanity and they have no claim because (many of them) have nothing to offer of free and mutual value. Their poverty is not a badge of merit. Apparently, in your case they are offering you a sense of meaning and value when they permit you to assist them or protect them in some way, so you are trading a value (perhaps a can of beans and a shirt) for a sense of meaning. I would certainly rather help someone work at unnecessarily tasks for his food than have to feed him (and his jailers) in jail or have him entering my property (or yours) when we are away to steal food and anything else he can turn into food or other values. That is a rational take on providing some social assistance. Then there is innate compassion and benevolence which is the selfish joy I take in being someone capable of making a difference in a human life.Life would be bleak if we chose not to lavish any kindness on anyone. Both Existentialism and Objectivism believe that man must create his values. Both say we must decide on certain values to live in the real world with freedom and meaning. Objectivists know that survival, freedom, and meaning requires us to rationalise reality (you don't kill a deer by shelling a pea). The difference is that objectivism recognizes a tool for making decisions of that sort while existentialists deny the tool they use to make those decisions and they deny the tool they are denying with....