One of the best books I've read on the theme of grand social dreams and what
happens because of them is John Gray's Black Mass. The simple words of Christ
led to huge persecutions; The Enlightenment led to chaos and the choppings of
many heads; the perceptions of Adam Smith justified the creation of vast city
slums; Marx's idea that workers should own the means of production led to
Stalinism; and the American dream of freedom and democracy has thus far led to
Iraq and Afghanistan. How we dream and how we behave because of those dreams
are two very different things.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sandwichman" <[email protected]>
To: "Keith Hudson" <[email protected]>; "RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME
DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 11:46 PM
Subject: [Futurework] In the name of charity
> Keith wrote: "Every conceivable type of government cares about
> unemployment, and has done so throughout history if it wants to
> maintain power and sleep easy."
>
> The semi-official conventional wisdom on unemployment is that it
> doesn't exist. If it does exist, it is voluntary. If it is
> involuntary, it reflects moral defects of the unemployed themselves.
> If it exists, is involuntary and not the fault of the unemployed it
> will soon be eliminated through the equilibrium of the market.
> Therefore it doesn't REALLY exist.
>
> So why should every conceivable type of government "care" about
> unemployment? There are, of course, plenty of lucrative swindles that
> can be engineered in the name of charity. Ray Harrell and I met up
> yesterday afternoon and during our conversation Ray brought up Herman
> Melville's "The Confidence Man." Government's care about unemployment
> the way the confidence man cares about... well, *confidence*!
>
> As for the efficacy of gold as a "real" monetary standard, it reminds
> me of Schumacher's quote from Gandhi about "dreaming of systems so
> perfect that no one will need to be good." Schumacher cited those
> words in the context of a discussion of the ethical flaw in Keynes'
> ironical argument that the "economic possibilities for our
> grandchildren" somehow depended on us continuing, for a few decades
> more, to "pretend to ourselves... that fair is foul and foul is fair;
> for foul is useful and far is not."
>
> --
> Sandwichman
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