[ExI] Capitalism, anti capitalism, emotional arousal

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Sun Nov 13 17:03:02 UTC 2011


On 12 November 2011 20:43, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't know that it is always power that motivates billionaires...
> (though with Soros, one could clearly make that argument
> persuasively.) Some that I know personally (Not Soros, I don't know
> him) are motivated by the many people who depend upon their company
> for making a living.
>

Why wouldn't that be "power"?

I suspect that political correctness has imposed on most of us a *1984 *view
of power, where it would practically amount to one's ability to make other
people suffer in the death-throes of some or other unbearable oppression.

This in turn tends to *hide* the reality about that behind humanitarian
platitudes and the trust in blind mechanisms (as long as there is nobody
who decides and can be blamed for wrong decisions, we may well be doomed
but remain at least "morally" happy).

What is the reality? The reality, eg, is that governments used to... govern
in the XIX and XX century much more than they could ever do today, in spite
of over-regulation being much less pervasive than it is today, and were
much more answerable to elections and/or... revolutions. That in the
sixties, most children I knew aspired to be Einstein or Yuri Gagarin or
Barnard, and now would like to be a banker or a broker, something that is
very eloquent as to the respective social status of such roles. That in
Europe increasing resources are constantly being diverted from industry,
education, research towards finance and anything which can improve the
stock exchange results of next week.

Markets, far from being infallible, are nothing else than the sum of the
players therein, and say nothing about how their collective preferences
should be oriented. Accordingly, nothing in even the most radical form of
Libertarianism is a guarantee against collective suicide. At best, markets
may offer the most efficient ways to perform it.

And, yes, especially given that very little actual power remains in
political circles today mostly confined to ceremonial purposes, what is
called for is a cultural revolution, openly aimed at subverting the
dominant values and the increasing inertia of the status quo.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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