[ExI] Capitalism, anti capitalism, emotional arousal

[Stefano Vaj]

2011/11/12 Giovanni Santostasi <gsantostasi at gmail.com>

> I give as an example the people in the lab where I work. People put an
> enormous amount of hours but it is not about power at all. Some people put
> the time and hours for power. These people should be not have power at all,
> in fact the greed for power should be a way to select people that should
> not have ever too much power. Power should be given to whom have a deep
> desire to lead by example and to sacrifice themselves for others. And
> people in power should relinquish it after a certain time.


I am not inclined to moralise about personal ambition, or will to power,
and I accept that this be a drive amongst other, and/or a generalisation of
drives only if understood in a very broad sense (including, eg, the quest
for status, technical perfection, fame, peer approval, greatness,
satisfaction of empathic feelings, etc.)

I agree however that maniacal craving for some forms of "power" may well
reflect socially dysfunctional features by the bearer, and that groups
should obviously select commitment to and identification with the group's
success rather than the opposite, if anything because those favouring
free-riders, "individualists" and parasites are ill-fated by definition,
pace Ayn Rand. As our own societies are in the process of demonstrating for
the umpteenth time...

But the real issue, as already discussed, is IMHO whether money, and the
availability thereof, should be the measure of all things, and the only
criterium by which power is allocated in a given society. This is neither a
universal nor an eternal truth, and certainly need not be the case for our
future unless we want it to be the case.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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