Andrea, Bard and others,
Thank you both for your reply.
Andrea:
>I'm not sure how long have you been reading the forum. In May through June there has
>been >plenty of posts on the issues that you seem to be wondering about (I'm
>referring to the >second half of your post, i.e., economics and intellect). This
>discussion is actually what >inspired Rog to post the link to the "political quiz".
Gerhard:
I hope I've been following the discussion from the start, but if I'm just repeating
something I've missed, please tell me. I hoped to give the discussion a new angle.
I've been thinking about this since Rog first post "In Defense Of Socialism?", but I
had some problems linking MoQ to political systems in the beginning. Hopefully I've
found some connection points by now.
Andrea:
>For what concerns the first half of your question, about "biological" pleasures, I'm
>not sure
>they are only biological, but that is an interesting question, especially for the
>"intellect vs
>society" thread. Of course society needs to control biological pleasures when they
>are
>socially dangerous or downright unacceptable. The standard MOQ position should be, on
>the other hand, that it should not control intellectual behavior
Gerhard:
Fully agree. My concern is if the freedoms preached by Libertarians are limiting the
intelectual behavior.
I have a picture of the society as a wagon carrying all the people in the society. To
acheive movement (dynamic values) to this wagon, it has to be pulled by the
individuals in the society in different dimensions of sociological and intelectual
qualities (art, litterature, music, philosophy, science etc.). The society also have a
basic need for food for the individuals in the society, and here the money comes in
(?). I think it is unrealistic to think that individuals in the society can pull the
wagon in all these dynamic dimensions, and that a Libertarian political philosophy may
limit the intelectual freedom and hence the dynamic qualities of the society. This is
only based on the simple idea that a person with great possibilities in e.g art, will
be limited by obtaining the basic biological needs. So instead of contributing with
highly dynamic values to the society, the individual will be working in a pizza
resturant for food. If the individual in the society is pulling in !
the "dimension" where they can contribute, it is my opinion that we acheive the
greatest possibilities for a dynamic society.
This is of course a simplification and only a picture but hopefully it gives an idea
of how I think about the matter. There is also the need for agreeing that Libertarian
ideas are on a biological and social level. I guess some of the participant on this
list is not going to agree on this idea.
Andrea:
>This nevertheless raises a problem:
>- who gets to decide what has intellectual value and what has "only" biological value?
>
>For example, a society may ban drugs and some thinkers may think there's most than
>just fun
>to drugs, i.e., that there is an intellectual "something" about them, or a
>"spiritual" something, where
>spiritual might be thought of as above intellect, by some. (I'm not necessarily in
>that camp, just
>arguing).
Gerhard:
Society should control the question if it is damaging to the biological individuals.
If it is not damaging to the biological individual, but may cause "insane" behaviour,
it should be the intellect that should control it if I understand MoQ correctly. I do
not have any intellectual arguments for or against the use of drugs, but society
should have more than enough pro and cons against drugs as it is. However, I do
understand that there could be a paradox, and I try to phrase myself in questions and
personal oppinions as I am not at all certain on how MoQ is to be appliedto this kind
of questions.
Bard:
> In response, I would progress one step further by suggesting that any social value
>that money
>seems to have is purely artificial. For evidence I would argue that many successful
>tribal societies
>flourished for millennia without even the concept of money. Prior to the Industrial
>Revolution, with one
>exception - the rise of the Bourgeoisie in middle Europe, money was almost
>exclusively used by the
>privileged class to negotiate among themselves, and with other nations to exact
>concessions, wage
>war, arrange marriages, etc... while 95% or more of the populations of these
>societies, conducted
>trade and paid taxes through the barter of crops, livestock, furs, meats, libations,
>services, textiles,
>and, to a lesser extent, land.
Gerhard:
Fully agree. And based on this I regard money to be an unnecessary necessity. I would
even claim that it had no value, but Pirsig states that if it has no value it does not
excist - and I agree to that.... so I guess it have to have some kind of value.
Gerhard
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