Hey Jay -

Cool with the footnotes going directly to links. Really didn't need to
footnote "objective". I agree that it is necessary to put our resources to
work for us in a planned fashion, and will grant that your claim that the
earth is close to, or over, carrying capacity is probably true. However, to
liken Marxism (which is essentially a method of taking the lessons of
history and using them to accomplish what you advocate) to the magical
belief in the market that is the official line right now puts you further
from a solution to the problems you describe (and trust me, it is only a
line...all this crap about competition and free access to markets, etc.,
etc., is for public consumption. ZILLIONS are made handling mergers;
governments spend a hell of a lot of time manipulating access to markets,
restricing the right and/or ability of workers to come to the table and
bargain freely, etc., etc.)  And what is with your aversion to naming the
beast? Capitalism, not "neo-classical economics" or any other pseudonym.

Don DeBar

----------
> From: Jay Hanson mailto:[log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: THE FATAL FREEDOM (was Re: definitions
> Date: Friday, May 02, 1997 1:38 AM
>
> At 05:59 PM 5/1/97 -0400, Don DeBar wrote:
>
> >> Studies show that most people are not rational.
> >
> >OK, let's grant that. Hopefully, most people here will also concede that
we
> >are the sum of what is called in short-hand "nature and nurture". Since
we
> >are capable of doing and or learning many "rational" things, including
> >systematically building an understanding of the world and the universe,
we
> >must have some capacity for being "rational". Wouldn't it follow, then,
> >that our irrationality may be rooted somewherein our socialization? And
if
> >so, wouldn't the appropriate remedy be to construct a "rational" social
> >order that promotes the "rational" deelopment of "rational" human
beings?
>
> I think "rational" (as I have defined the word) decisions are, for
> all practical purposes, beyond individuals.  People do not calculate
> probabilities except in special cases. However, institutions DO
> routinely make "rational" decisions by using experts and technology.
> The trick is to make our most sophisticated institutions -- the
> corporations -- work FOR humanity instead of AGAINST humanity.
>
> Let me put try to put the issue into a wider context so you can
> see where I am going.  I am essentially arguing that humanity
> desperately needs a new worldwide "organizing principle".
>
> Here is a list of some of my assumptions:
>
> A. Our present organizing principle is the Neoclassical
>    Economic normative [1] which claims that people are
>    "better off" through "maximum efficient consumption".
>
> B. Modern evolutionary theory has shown that humans have
>    evolved for deception, self-deception, and exploitation.
>    My essay, "The Fatal Freedom" [2], builds on these
>    insights and shows how humans, under laissez-faire
>    ideology, [3] will ultimately self-destruct.
>
> C. The earth is now far over carrying capacity and may have
>    as little as 35 years before the "functional integrity"
>    of the ecosystem is destroyed. [4]
>
>    Billions of people could die this coming century from
>    starvation and disease (called "crash and die off"
>    by ecologists, it is common in nature). [5]
>
> D. Carrying capacity is an "aggregate" problem.  An aggregate
>    problem can only be addressed on the "aggregate" level:
>    some sort of worldwide central planning.
>
> E. My normative claim is that human "crash and die off" is
>    the WORST possible outcome for humanity.
>
> Therefore, I suggest that we adopt a new worldwide organizing
> principle that attempts to "minimize human suffering" [6] by,
> among other things, requiring economic activity to serve
> social ends.  Moreover, this new principle MUST be based on
> objective [7] measures of human welfare, otherwise political
> accountability is not possible.
>
> I think that's most of it.
>
> Jay -- http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/
> -------
> Notes:
> 1 Neoclassical economics admits to NO objective measures
>   of human welfare.  Thus, the economist's claim that
>   economic growth makes people "better off" must be seen
>   as only a political ideology.
>
>   Here is an example of Nobel Prize-winning politics:
>
>   "Adam Smith's key insight was that both parties to an
>    exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation
>    is strictly voluntary, no exchange will take place
>    unless both parties do benefit." [ p. xv, FREE TO CHOOSE,
>    Milton Friedman; Avon, 1980; ISBN 0-380-52548-8 ]
>
> 2 http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/hanson/page79.htm
>
> 3 Laissez-faire ideology is like Marxism in that they
>   are both ideologies masquerading as science.  See:
>   http://www.soros.org/personal.html
>
> 4 http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/hanson/page5.htm
>
> 5 http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/hanson/page14.htm
>
> 6 "Animal lovers and professional biologists should be able
>  to agree on the ultimate goal of game management: to minimize
>  the aggregate suffering of animals. They differ in their
>  time horizons and in the focus of their immediate attention.
>  Biologists insist that time has no stop and that we should
>  seek to maximize the wellbeing of the herd over an indefinite
>  period of time. To do that we must 'read the landscape,'
>  looking for signs of overexploitation of the environment by
>  a population that has grown beyond the carrying capacity.
>
> "By contrast, the typical animal lover ignores the landscape
>  while focusing on individual animals. To assert preemptive
>  animal rights amounts to asserting the sanctity of animal life,
>  meaning each and every individual life. Were an ecologist to
>  use a similar rhetoric he would speak of the 'sanctity of
>  carrying capacity.' By this he would mean that we must consider
>  the needs not only of the animals in front of us today but also
>  of unborn descendants reaching into the indefinite future.
>
> "Time has no stop, the world is finite, biological reproduction
>  is necessarily exponential: for these combined reasons the
>  sanctity strategy as pursued by animal lovers in the long
>  run saves fewer lives, and these at a more miserable level
>  of existence, than does the capacity strategy pursued by
>  ecologically knowledgeable biologists."
>                                              -- Garrett Hardin
>
> 7 "Of or having to do with a material object."