Cheerskep. Alright, I accept the criticism. But it's impossible to avoid the 'reification of abstraction' when making generalized comments about culture or, in the case at hand, capitalism. There will always be exceptions to any generalization and usually they are assumed. What counts is not the presence of exceptions but whether or not any of them are fatal, or game changers.
The supposed benefit of capitalism is that it is construed as amoral. Only the market counts. Good and bad actions may be intermingled with purely capitalist actions but for pure operation of capitalism they should be excluded simply because they are relative and usually serve someones self-interest and the expense of another's. For example fracking has become a hot-button issue and those on either side bring up its moral implications. Fracking will produce income and jobs, aid the economy for the common good, etc., but it may also harm the environment, and abuse the 'rights' of people to a enjoy a safe environment. If the issue is looked at from pure capitalist perspective, it is a matter of return on investment and the general notion is that if there is profit then it's ultimately a good. I'm a clear case of the suspicious capitalist. I have investments and I seek profits. I don't do very well at it. I have always been a member of the so-called management class in any full-time employment (beyond school day jobs). I have never belonged to a union or was ever a piece-worker, etc. I have hired employees. But I'm not a socialist proper by any means. I do think capital tends to pool up and ultimately dam up any dispersion. It needs effective policy to ensure spreading it out, not only to avoid excessive pooling but to 'water' the surrounding terrain, as it were. One important function of the State is to fairly disperse capital away from the centralizing pools. It's common sense. Adam Smith said it would happen naturally because people are always trying to attract capital to new empty pools and that takes capital away from the big pools already filled. Those natural workings were to him the 'invisible hand' that keeps fair play desirable...and moral. That does work to the large extent and your business was clearly an example. It was in your self-interest to treat others fairly and yet to explore new 'pools' where you could direct capital for hopeful profit. When it no longer works we find huge pools of excessive capital that is not being dispersed to 'water' other areas where capital is needed. Right now we are aware of big corporations that are holding onto big profits and not dispersing capital in the way of new expansion, jobs, etc, simply because of their political aims to further self-interest at the expense of the larger society. The same could be said about those who amass huge fortunes of billions of dollars, far more than they can ever spend to satisfy any self-oriented goal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Their excess wealth could be dispersed to everyone's benefit, even their own. My totally unscientific formula is that anyone is entitled to have a fortune of 10 million dollars in personal wealth. Above that, 100% tax or compulsory charity giving. What do greed-oriented purely amoral capitalists think will happen in a society when, say 100 million people are destitute and underemployed, uninsured, without hope and being told what to do and being surveilled day and night (for obvious intimidation)? They will do what they always do in those situations. Revolt with passion and unmitigated murderous rage. It is now happening all over the world in unstable regions where wealth has pooled to obscene levels among a few. It can easily happen in America, too. No society has ever withstood the gross divisions of haves and have-nots. No society has ever before had the technology now easily available to the dispossessed to organize destructive actions. Capitalism that does not always aim to improve the lot of the many instead of just the few is evil. ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wed, August 22, 2012 11:16:53 AM Subject: Re: Subjective - Objective I have to admit you're beyond me in much of what you've thought about in this subject, William. For example, I'm not familiar with Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand"; and the distinction between equality of "condition" and of "opportunity" is far from clear to me. Still, what I can see is that you tend to announce condemnations based on what philosophers call the "reification of abstractions", and an assumption of uniformity of performance within that imaginary entity. I'll give two examples. You say: "America has come to despise the old fashioned sense of morality and ethics, the real and visible hand, when it comes to the implementation of capitalist economics. Now it's proper to only follow the money, care about the money, ignore values that any society needs, and claim that unfettered self-interest is the only true and impartial way to manage wealth." When I first began to go abroad I was startled, aghast, and then angered by the assumption that "America" was a single, monolithic, homogeneous thing. Our publishing house had an author who regularly began observations with, "Like all Americans, youb&" She was a "successful" author, with large sales that were important to us because we were a small house just beginning to grow. It would hurt us financially if I were to alienate her. Nevertheless I wrote her, "Some Americans are smart and some are dumb, some are educated and some are ignorant, some vicious and some virtuous, some bigots and some devoted to human rights. The one thing we aren't is ALIKE." I reject assertions that begin, "America has come tob&", and I deny that any of the accusations in your paragraph above describe the way our capitalist publishing house did business. We rejected potentially profitable books we felt were "morally" deleterious, and we went ahead with the publication of books we were "warned" would bring dire repercussions upon us. And we certainly published books we felt deserved publication but which we knew would lose money. Once, we sold the Japanese language rights of one of our books to a Tokyo publisher, and we sent the authors their share of the advance. Three years later, that house sent us a large check for additional royalty-earnings. But by then the writers had split up and effectively disappeared. We took righteous pleasure in tracking them down so we could send them their share. Over time, as I came to understand our complicated industry-standard author-contracts more, I revised ours. I concede I took delight in watching agents squinting at the revisions, working to discern what new advantage I was trying to sneak in. In fact the revisions were largely devoted to eliminating contractually allowed intricate devices a publisher might cunningly use -- to the great detriment of authors. Throughout those years we, largely unprompted, increased the benefits to our employees. In sum, your assertion, "America has come to despise the old fashioned sense of morality and ethics," is false and nasty. The second example of reification I deny is this: "The inherent concept of capitalism ignores and actually discredits that idea of an overarching morality." There is no "THE inherent concept of capitalism". Whenever any speaker starts out saying, "I am now going talk about THE concept ofb&" you can know he is going to be wrong. Just think of how many "concepts" of "art" this forum has heard. None was THE concept, because (claim I) concepts are mental entities, and they are as various as the mental apparatuses and assorted experiences of the people who entertain them. To insinuate that all "capitalists" are the same is flatly wrong.
