Senator
Allowing cheating is alright? At am minimum, I'd be cool with enough careful government supervision to avoid the corruption of weights and measures.Originally Posted by Samuel Adams
Supervision of the government too. I favor enough government control that would prevent most of us becoming serfs.
Senator
No, cheating is not moral. Not allowed in God's Kingdom principles....so people are not "free" to cheat. There would be a "cost" imposed upon them, if caught. We can talk about that later.
i am curious, though, how you define serfs, and what you suggest the government control would be to prohibit such a result? Thanks
Senator
Not to disrespect your question but this is one thought about modern-day capitalistic morality:
The Remoralization of the Market
The right response to economic populism.
By David Brooks
Jan. 10, 2019
Suddenly economic populism is all the rage. In his now famous monologue on Fox News, Tucker Carlson argued that American elites are using ruthless market forces to enrich themselves and immiserate everyone else. On the campaign trail, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are telling left-wing versions of the same story.
In an era of tribal emotionalism, you’re always going to be able to make a splash reducing a complex problem to a simple narrative that separates the world into the virtuous us, and the evil them (the bankers). But I’d tell a third story about our current plight, which is neither economic populism nor free-market fundamentalism.
My story begins in the 1970s. The economy was sick. Corporations were bloated. Unions got greedy. Tax rates were too high and regulations were too tight. We needed to restore economic dynamism.
So in 1978, Jimmy Carter signed a tax bill that reduced individual and corporate tax rates. Senator Ted Kennedy led the effort to deregulate the airline and trucking industries. When he came into office, Ronald Reagan took it up another notch.
It basically worked. We’ve had four long economic booms since then. But there was an interesting cultural shift that happened along the way. In a healthy society, people try to balance a whole bunch of different priorities: economic, social, moral, familial. Somehow over the past 40 years economic priorities took the top spot and obliterated everything else. As a matter of policy, we privileged economics and then eventually no longer could even see that there could be other priorities.
For example, there’s been a striking shift in how corporations see themselves. In normal times, corporations serve a lot of stakeholders — customers, employees, the towns in which they are located. But these days corporations see themselves as serving one purpose and one stakeholder — maximizing shareholder value. Activist investors demand that every company ruthlessly cut the cost of its employees and ruthlessly screw its hometown if it will raise the short-term stock price.
We turned off the moral lens. You probably know the example of the Israeli day care centers. Parents kept showing up late to pick up their kids. To address the problem, the centers experimented with fining the late parents. But the number of late pickups doubled. Before, coming to pick up your kid on time was a moral obligation — to be fair to the day care workers. After, it was seen as an economic transaction. Parents were happy to pay to be late. We more or less did this as an entire society — we switched to a purely economic lens.
A deadly combination of right-wing free-market fundamentalism and left-wing moral relativism led to a withering away of moral norms and shared codes of decent conduct. We ripped the market out of its moral and social context and let it operate purely by its own rules. We made the market its own priest and confessor.
Society came to be seen as an atomized collection of individual economic units pursuing self-interest. Selfishness was normalized. As Steven Pearlstein puts it in his outstanding book, “Can American Capitalism Survive?” “Old-fashioned norms around loyalty, cooperation, honesty, equality, fairness and compassion no longer seem to apply in the economic sphere.”
Anything you could legally do to make money was deemed O.K. A billion-dollar salary for a hedge fund manager? Perfectly acceptable. The Apple corporation exists because of American institutions. But, as Pearlstein notes, Apple parked its intellectual property in an Irish subsidiary so it could avoid paying taxes in America and support those institutions. It saved $9 billion in 2012 alone. This is clearly sleazy behavior. Apple employees should be humiliated and ashamed.
But today the amoralism of the trading floor governs corporate decision-making. Pearlstein quotes Carl Icahn: “I don’t believe in the word ‘fair.’” So Apple paid no reputational price when it stiffed its own country.
Social trust arises from a covenant: I give to my company, my town and my government, and they give back to me. But that covenant was ripped. Now the general perception is: When I give, they take. As we disembedded individuals from traditional moral norms we disembedded companies from social ones. Human beings are moral animals, and suddenly American moral animals found themselves in an amoral economic system, which felt increasingly alienating and gross.
We wound up with the secession of the successful, and in many parts of the country we wound up decimating the social trust that is actually a prerequisite for economic prosperity.
Capitalism is a wonderful system. The populists are perpetually living in 2008, when the financial crisis vindicated all their prejudices. They ignore everything since — the 19 million jobs that have been created, the way wages are now rising at 3.2 percent.
But capitalism needs to be embedded in moral norms and it needs to serve a larger social good. Remoralizing and resocializing the market is the great project of the moment. The crucial question is not: How can we have a good economy? It’s: How can we have a good society? How can we have a society in which it’s easier to be a good person?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/opinion/market-morality.html
Senator
Thanks Green Man, appreciate the Brooks article you shared. First, I didn't know Carlson's monologue was now famous, but am glad it's sparking some conversation that is needed. I had to look up the definition of 'economic' "populism", however. Populism, apparently means is a belief in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people? Not sure what economic populism means except that he is apparently contrasting it with economic elitism?
He encapsulates the issue in his last paragraph: "But capitalism needs to be embedded in moral norms and it needs to serve a larger social good. Remoralizing and resocializing the market is the great project of the moment. The crucial question is not: How can we have a good economy? It’s: How can we have a good society? How can we have a society in which it’s easier to be a good person?"
Not sure he understands the definition of capitalism, and I'm not criticizing him, as most do not as they criticize the system and confuse it with financialism. I agree that the question is how can we have a good society.
I believe the answer is for the society to live according to Godly principles, as defined by God. Men defining godly principles is often the source of much confusion and lies, however, as Oscar and Sam Adams have seemingly pointed out. A big problem with a "secular" society, of course, is: who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? I'm pretty sure we cannot have everyone doing what is right in their own eyes and have a "good" society, to the chagrin of Oscar and Sam, presumably.
For example: God says interest collecting is unjust. Men have a fit. Should interest collecting be allowed in a "Just" society? Of course not, because it would no longer be just, nor fair, and the subsequent injustice and unfairness promotes resentment and discontent as a result. Not the 'soil' in which a healthy and good society prospers.
Senator
You've brought up many points I'd love to discuss. Still don't know how to use that multiple quote thing like you do so well, so will try to answer generally, however. It seems to me that we are all born into one 'system' or another, whether it be a place in this world ruled by communists, socialists, so-called capitalists, atheists, dictators...good kings, bad kings....republics of various stripes and definitions, democracies...whatever. A "good" system has a tendency to produce "good" people, whereas a 'bad' system tends to create bad ones.
God agrees with you, my friend, about starting with the tiny dents. He chose "Israel", small in number and ability and intended for them to show the way to the rest of the world how to organize a "society" that was good, prosperous and righteous, hoping that they would follow His ways, and others in the wicked world would see the blessings that a good society produced for its members, and desire to inquire why.
That 'experiment' hasn't exactly been successful yet, but the principle will work I am most certain. The problem, as Miradus pointed out, was that rather than desiring to be a light to the world, the Israelites at the time desired to be like the world, everyone having a king...etc., so they rejected God from being King over them and thought they could be "free" to do whatever was right in their own eyes. Foolish.
So, what we need to do to set up a 'society' that is righteous and prosperous is to simply follow God's instructions. Apparently you think those instructions are debatable? You seem to not trust governments or men in general, which is wise, to a degree, but how could you ever trust them to live "freely" knowing their nature? You talk of self-discipline, but whose discipline? When everyone in a society is their own god, deciding to do whatever they think might be "right", if right even enters into their 'discipline', there will inevitably be wars between the gods. And, it's hard to grow a garden in war time.
Judge
When you "quote" a post it begins with this bracket to tell the digital world that it's a quote of you [QUOTE=dmatic;2761710]. And the quote is closed with [ / QUOTE ] but without the spaces, I had to space the characters or the message would look like a quote without showing you how to quote.
The follow on lines of yours that I quoted we all know are yours so there is no need to continually identify you, so, I head each line with [QUOTE] , I've removed the "=dmatic;2761710" from between the brackets and ended the line with [ / QUOTE ] (but without spaces). And then preview to make sure I done it right. Stuff gets lost in the translations if the translations ain't done right.
We can't "start" a society. Father Did just this but apparently Satan's influence was more effective on the greedy, selfish, weak minded, amoral peepses ... OR, more likely, Father of Knew this would happen and Allowed for the peepses the opportunity for self correction, a "wheat from the chaff" moment.
We have this society you speak of but at the moment we are scattered about. Will we find each other? Maybe but not here. It's done, over.
We had our chance, numerous opportunities but the greed, the selfishness is too great to overcome by the average peep. Those who could have made a difference, those who proffered that they were ordained to inspire were also weak minded and selfish, succumbing to the "weakness of the flesh".
Self discipline? Inherently, All of us know right from wrong. For those of us teetering on the edge the TEN COMMANDMENTS were provided. Self discipline is is the act of resisting worldly temptations of which most involve doing harm to others in some form or fashion.
O.W.
Senator
Why not here? Do you think we can make a better world by working on the little dents or not? When people came over here, they thought to create a sort of kingdom of God, wherein dwelleth righteousness...Psalm 37:11 says, "The meek will inherit the earth and will delight themselves in the abundance of peace."When you "quote" a post it begins with this bracket to tell the digital world that it's a quote of youWe can't "start" a society. Father Did just this but apparently Satan's influence was more effective on the greedy, selfish, weak minded, amoral peepses ... OR, more likely, Father of Knew this would happen and Allowed for the peepses the opportunity for self correction, a "wheat from the chaff" moment.
We have this society you speak of but at the moment we are scattered about. Will we find each other? Maybe but not here. It's done, over.
I'm going to try to post this to see if I followed your instructions correctly....
P.S. Obviously I don't yet understand.... I click on the reply with quote button, then delete portions I don't want to yet comment on...oh well...Thanks for trying Oscar....there may be no hope for me....
Senator
I tend to think of "self" discipline as a fruit of His Spirit, where He teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts (For the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, IN THIS PRESENT WORLD. Titus 2:11,12) I am certain that He is not finished with us yet. I believe that He is in the process of reconciling the whole world back to Himself, through His Son Jesus Christ. This process takes some time....I am very hopeful in His ability to accomplish this reconciliation and restoration!
Judge
Ah, ya got it down.
This is the "inherent" part I mentioned.
No, He Isn't Done with us ... we're His Creation. But it is beyond our ability to create the Utopian Shangi La that many believe are capable.
So ... we should move on to other things. We're stuck with what we got and each other ... not good, not bad, just is.
Some horrendously horrible things are coming our way and individual preparation, as best as can, is paramount.
For example ... pain, misery, suffering, there'll be an abundance of and your loved ones will be victims while you get to observe.
Now, you'll be given the opt out option ... what decent human bean could stand and watch their babies tormented when there is a choice eh. You can guess the consequence for having opted out.
Nope, no Shangri La. Hell on earth is our due and the choices we make when overwhelmed in turmoil will determine our future.
O.W.
Senator
I have the same curiosity.........................
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