I don’t mean to mislead you. It was very long, but very very relevant. It was written by Oscar Wilde in 1890, yet the ideas concerning the human condition and how a political economy must be built around each ‘perfect’ individual, are still pressing today, something I don’t believe we have fully acknowledged over 100 years down the line.
It’s not to be taken lightly that Wilde showed absolutely no interest for economics, and didn’t even begin to explain how to distribute the property of the nation. Also his aesthetic rantings may seem entirely off the subject, but if a state when developing a political economy always had in mind, the need for all people realise there own personality and their own perfection, then there’d be no excluded people who could potentially backlash on the state.
It seems to be more of a conceptual argument than practical one, but it holds many ideas and principles that need to be applied to real life. I personally read this essay as a way of looking at the left/right argument from an entirely different angle, an angle which is possibly more relevant than before.
i don’t think everyone should be included in any society or economy, for instance prison is the isolation from society as punishment, if you included prisoners they would effectivly have no punishment, just a job.
exclusion of certain sectors of society is required if society is to survive. another example is the restrictions placed upon immagration to proctect the economy from a excess supply of workers. protection of society is vital for it to exist, otherwise it will just break down.
you’re completely right. yet i have a feeling that all of these restrictions and exclusions are symptoms of an unhealthy imperfect society.
prisoners are excluded because they cannot be trusted not to harm other people. but why are they in the position or in the state of mind to harm anyone in the first place? i know criminals will always exist, but a political economy can often promote their existence, by denyng them the opportunity to realise themselves, as they are so busy (literally) and so enraptured by the idea of having to survive.
as for immigration, it is right that their presnece could create excess supply of labour. in countries like ireland at the moment, there is excess demand for labour, and the growth of their economy is only being maintained by a massive influx of immigrant workers. ireland throughout its history has been very keen to maintain the white catholic majority in all areas. it has oftenm been accused of being ‘pathetic, monoethnic, monocultural and sectarian’ - david trimble. i’ve always considered ireland to be almost the perfect nation. there is a culture of acceptance and love of what ‘is’, of their nation. they have the most vibrant language i have ever heard, constantly churning out a wealth of superb literature. it will be interesting to see how they react to the changes in its ethnic makeup. will it ‘freak out’ like britain has in many instances. …
restrictions might be necessary to avoid a society breaking down.
does it break down when it draws in other cultures and changes its ethnicity?
from what i have herd from my family ireland is coping well. but that seems to be attributed to many of the new workers comming from the UK, future changes such as wokrers from the middle east or south america could cause clashes, but sadly when 2 distinctive cultures mix there will always be clashes, working through them is hard but when successful the re-wards are great.
[This message has been edited by macca (edited 09 April 2002).]
just a question for you budding capitalists, how does pure-capitalism go about fixing market failure?
i’m confused cos the government can’t intervein to rectify the situation, and market failure usually doesn’t rectify it’s self…
Define market failure in a capitalist context? Under capitalism, there can be no failure. Yes, under other regeimes the market will fail, but under capitalism, it is a mere impossibility.
“The ONLY way that the free market can be ‘flawed’ is if one considers the individual decisions about each individual’s wants and desires to be ‘flawed’ - for that is all the market is, the sum total of all those decisions.”
"a market can only “fail” if it is supposed to achieve something beyond the trades made by the individuals who make up that ‘market’. Since a market is only the sum of all trades being made by individuals voluntarily, then there is no possibility for “failure” unless you consider it a “failure” when people engage in voluntary trades amongst themselves. "
To use an example:
“If Bob has what I want and is willing to trade for what I have - great. If Bob has what I want and is not willing to trade (for whatever reason) - then fine. If Bob is willing to trade, but I don’t have what he wants - oh well. And if no one has what I am looking for - too bad. In each instance, and in any other instance you can concoct, no market ‘failure’ has occurred. Such is exactly the way the market is supposed to function. If individuals can agree to exchange or interact voluntarily, they do. If they cannot come to such an agreement, they do not interact or trade.”
So you see, capitalism has no need to cope with market failure, because under it, there is none.
surely the absence of trade is market failure.
i thought that monopoly was technically market failure? (this isn’t an argument against anything anyone said… i’m just guessing)
in most cases a monopoly is market failure, but a monopoly in some cases can be the only way the market can ‘work’, eg. defence.
Long Live Capitalism! Long live the proserity it has brought to the nations that have implemented it! Until a better system has been developed, then the best will remain, Capitalism! People of the the proserous nations unite and sing the joys of Capitalism.
have you no idea of the poverty capitalism causes? south centeral? the bronx? the depression? etc etc
MACCA just read one of your posts stating that Russia was Communist not Socialist. WRONG. It had never reached the point of communism as there was central government allocating resources for publically owned factors of production. Jesus man socialism is, according to marx, a necessary step on the way to communism and Russia was in this transitional socialist stage. Get your facts right.
no the USSR was communist up till the death of Lenin, when he died it became a dictatorship with Stalin at the helm.
if you want to know about Socialism read more up to date sources than Marx, Socialism has evolved. it is no longer a step towards communism, as communism is dead, it’s over and won’t come back in it’s orriginal form. socialism is now an entirely different form of governship. if you knew what you were talking about you’d stop putting your foot in your mouth.
Don’t insult me. The USSR was NEVER communist that is why it was the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics even under Lenin who followed Marx and his ideology, understood Dialectic Materialism and the fact that Communism was a “higher phase” which lies in the future. The “Communist party” was so called not because it was communist but to distinguish itself from France’s Socialist Party under Louis Blanc. I know what i’m talking about.
Pangloss,
you say “socialism, communism, whatever you want to call it” as if the two were the same. I must warn you that many political science majors make that mistake, the two are quite different, many students have big problems differentiating the two and lose grades on their tests. Although, it is true that communism is just the step above socialism should socialism work.
You also say that the chief advantage of socialism is that we would not have to live for others. You than draw a contradictory example of how presently scarcely one of us escapes living for others. Quite the other way around. Presently, the majority only care about themselves, there is less teamwork, they all just go to work and do what is expected of them so they get their wages, but nothing more. In socialism people helped each other, and the primary focus was work and not getting through your day as fast as possible to get to a bar and drink (as many do or talk about).
But Socialism was very much living for everyone else. Originating from a socialist country I was given the right to work, this right means I MUST work or else I go to jail. This very same right is responsible for eliminating completely the factor of unemployment. The country I speak of so everyone can check up on me is Czechoslovakia (or what it was prior to 1992). I have read so many posts from other discussion forums, I have heard on TV and radio, I have read essays, and I have talked to a plethora of people about unemployment - they all say the same thing - they say “unemployment can’t be solve”, they are also all North American. The propaganda that goes on here is enormous. Unemployment can be solved and has been solved in a few regions in the past. North America has to keep to it’s promise of freedom and liberty, in order to do that they can’t force everyone to work. Than, to make an excuse for the large amount of unemployment they make the problem an enigma for their society and claim it can never be solved due to myriad factors.
The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody. In fact, scarcely any one at all escapes.
School was free in socialist countries, even University, unless it was a specialized school (some school needed money to apply or a connection - but these schools were rare). These schools had only certain courses/programs available that the government needed workers in. Once you finished school in major ‘A’(whatever you majored in), you would get out of school with an automatic placement in occupation ‘A’, but no other.
This is not freedom and it is not working for oneself, it is working for the government so the whole society can be well off. And I’m sure you have heard about the equal distribution of wages, ie. person ‘A’ could be a garbage man and person ‘B’ could be a lawyer and they would have wages that differently very slightly. I digress, in socialism you make money for the government who in turn distributes it to the many, so you are not working for yourself but for everyone.
I hope this clears things up.
What’s your take?
that form of Socialism is dead. it does not work, it does not deliver the advances in technology, culture, society, etc etc that a less restricted system can easily bring about. the socialism i was referring to is technically not socialism but for lack of term i called it socialism. neo-socialism maybe a better term. under the socialism you described there is no democratic means of removing the socialist government, this is wrong. neo-socialism works on very similar principles but it’s driving force is the incorporation of the free market and democracy to a far greater extent. trying to restirct the free market to the extent that you describe is only detremental, in the same way that the lack of goverment intervention is detremental. if society can harness the free-markets powers to the benefit of the whole of society rather than a select minority then a muich fairer system of rulling will be achieved.
i will try to write a more indepth post at stage when my brain doesn’t want to shrivel up and die from lack of sleep.
all your criticisms of that essay are valid. it is not a genuine attempt at finding a workable political economy for the real world. it is an aesthetic document. clarifiying the state of mind (as conditioned from above) that is needed for an artist. it is worth noting that when oscar wilde wrote it, he was deliberately siding with the socialist movement because it was the anti-establishment movemtn of the time (along with women’s lib …).
wilde was merely setting out a vision of society, in which every person realised their own persoanlity, and felt perfect. i found it interesting, because it identified (for me) the source of all conflict, and confirmed me as a liberal. go to the “perfect world” topic, for more on that.
the climactic end to the essay was cut off unfortunately, when the boards were updated. it is worthwhile (even if you’re not of an artistic persuasion) reading it sympathetically, before criticising it.
i did not write it. read my post after it.
i wasn’t criticising the essay as i have yet found time to read it (it is a bit of a mega-post), i was criticising the conventional form of socialism as it just doesn’t work. to have a society where everyone realised their own potential and felt perfect is an impossibility because there will always be people who to realise their potential will require other people not to.
that was exactly my point, on the ‘perfect world’ topic. the emphasis therefore has to be on the individual, and the way each individual achieves their own perfection. a way which does not overlap with that of other people. the problem starts with
read the ‘beliefs/assumption:a new moral axis’ topic for my latest thoughts on the subject.
socialism spouts the view that people will (somehow) find their own perfection from having equal property. it overemphasises the importance of sharing wealth to achieve this goal. equality of outcome goes against the idea of indivudals finding their own perfection, because it demands a certain level of conformity.
if your one potentially disputable assumption is that conflict is a bad thing (because it undermines the perfection of other people), then you are a liberal.
ugh ignore me for abit i keep reading and answering instantly, it’s this damned urge to avoid revision.