[OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.

[Krsqk]

I think there's a (sometimes fine) line between greed and desire for improvement. There is nothing wrong with working to better your financial condition. When you put finances ahead of family, the law, etc., you've crossed the line into greed.

Actually, some would argue that most, if not all, bad traits are merely corruptions of good traits. I don't agree 100%, but it's an interesting idea.

[dogscoff]

I'm with krsqk on this one. Greed channeled into a force for good is not greed. I don't know what the word is but it has a different name.

However capitalism does operate on a foundation of greed- of acquisition for the sake of acquisition, both at the individual level (hey kids, buy this! You don't need it, you don't want it, but you have to have it) and at the corporate level. (companies expanding for no reason other than to expand- who are they doing it for? Companies laying people off even though they are in profit- just not as much profit as Last year)

[geoschmo]

Is self-interest the term you are looking for? You can find a different term for it other then greed if it makes you more comfortable. But's it's not really a different instinct, just a difference of degree.

It's not accquisition for the sake of accquisition. You always are accquiring things for some purpose. It may be just basic needs like food, shelter and clothing. It might be for wants, luxury items. Nobody really needs a fancy sports car. And for some accquisition may be simply for the power and status it gives you relative to your neighbor. Look how many zeros I have. But the accquisition is always a means to an end, never the end in and of itself. Even if the person is unaware of that conciously.

Geoschmo

[Krsqk]

I would argue that capitalism isn't necessarily motivated by greed, though it is an easy vehicle for greed to use. I believe that societal morality is thoroughly intermingled into economics. A free economic system, like a free political system, presupposes that its participants understand and accept the responsibility that accompanies freedom--the responsibility to do right with their freedom (basically the Golden Rule). Because some take advantage of their freedom to wrong others, we have had to restrict those freedoms to some extent. That is one of the legitimate purposes of government--to protect its people, whether from outsiders or each other. IMO, this is still capitalism in a reasonably "pure" form (I put utopian capitalism in the same Category as utopian communism--utopian dreams rather than actual politico-economic systems). It is when government attempts to shape the economic direction and structure that it oversteps its bounds and moves away from capitalism.

[Erax]

And that is the secret of advertising, make the customer need something even if he doesn't know what it's for.

Modern advertising exploits our subconscious reproductive circuits way too much, just take a look at how many ads there are with beautiful women, happy families or babies (at least that's what our advertising is like). I suspect all this consumerism came about because people were having less children - for those of us in our 30s, no children is becoming the standard - and had to compensate for it in some way.

[Cyrien]

I can't let the Fogel slide. Yes he has a nobel prize. But he is still an idiot. Having looked over his works and having given the math figures he uses to an accountant and asking the accountant what he thinks of this and having the accountant say if anyone ran their house this way they would be bankrupt... I can say that the slave system was not efficient despite what Fogel may say.

Fogel makes several key mistakes. First he uses only limited case samples of the very best top of the line self sufficient slave plantations in the south. This makes up less than about 1% of all of them. If I were to survey the top 1% in the United States and then draw conclusions on how efficient our modern economic system is I can assure you that it would be absolutly amazing. Ever met the man? If you attack his figures he doesn't defend them. He attacks you. One of the professors here at a seminar with Fogel where he was presenting his findings on the efficiencies of slavery questioned him on the use of the figures he used for the costs of operating the slave plantation. What did Fogel say? He called him a racist. The professor rightly got up and walked out as did several others. If you legitametly call someone on something in their research that seems to be in error and they can't defend themself except to call you a racist then their is something wrong.

I will admit to biase on my part against Fogel but that is all due to what I have seen of the slopiness or willfull blindness of his work and impressions on him himself. This is not a man I like and his work is slop, nobel prize or no.

You might say that his work is accepted in economic and historic circles, but that is certainly not the case. This is a case of someone who is good at self promotion and not the actual work. Several of his best known works have been heavily critisized by his peers and even discredited.

For me and many others any work that Fogel does is automatically tainted.

Oh yes... and those top 1% efficient slave works had a, according to Fogel, rate of profit just below that of the north at the same time. If you modify the figures based on historicaly proven data you get returns half that. For me the issue isn't what Fogels stance on how efficient slavery was. For me the issue is his methods and numbers. They just aren't credible.

[ May 16, 2003, 16:50: Message edited by: Cyrien ]

[teal]

Ok. Fogel is probably an idiot. I wasn't that familiar with his work and was merely trotting it out as an interesting aside. That said, he is not necessarily wrong. Just because one is an idiot and/or an ******* does not make them wrong on every issue.

The south had significantly less to work with than the north did. Thus anything even approaching parity would be a remarkable display of effeciency on their part. The argument (as explained to me by others) was not really that the south was actually an economic powerhouse, but that given what they had, they did remarkably well and probably better than if they had not adopted slavery. That said, I'm way out of my depth here...

Cheers!

[Cyrien]

The south worked on credit. If you look at the figures the south (later just before the civil war) imported large portions of their food from the north and manufactured goods.

To use a modern term the south was a bannana republic. They produced and sold cotton as an agriculture product and exported it to foreign markets. Most of it was sent to be processed into fabrics etc either in the north or most of it in England.

The economic collapse of the south was largely due not to the north or the loss of slavery but to the production of high quality cottons in Egypt and India by the British Empire which had been the largest buyer of southern cotton.

Regardless of the civil war or slavery etc the southern economy was on the very edge of collapse anyways, the above two just hastened it. In fact you can track the cost of cotton globally for the time period and see it decline as the English began production of it in their colonial holdings. They filled their own majority demand and that of many others at lower costs.

The southern economy was as efficient as any modern nation that specializes in a single export cash crop. The advantage the south had over todays modern nations was the fact that they weren't a nation specializing in it but rather half of a nation specializing while the other half was diversified (until the Civil War, then you can look at how efficient their single line economy was against the diversified economy of the north despite the south having the better military tradition and military commanders.)

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
I'm with krsqk on this one. Greed channeled into a force for good is not greed. I don't know what the word is but it has a different name.

Enlightened self-interest?

[Krsqk]

Or, socially responsible self-interest?