[Platt]
Arlo and I (and others) have been arguing socialism vs. capitalism for a
number of years on this site. It all springs from Pirsig's comment in the
Lila:
"From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism. It's a
higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just a
society that is guided by mindless traditions. That's what gives socialism
its drive.
But what the socialists left out and what has all but killed their whole
undertaking
is an absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic Quality. You go to any
socialist
city and it's always a dull place because there's little Dynamic Quality."
(17)
I've been battling the static point of view ever since.
[Ben]
Platt, it seems that you mean to ground capitalism in Pirsig's writing,
which I find surprising given this passage, wherein he associates value both
with capitalism and socialism, albeit different kinds of value. I would
think that Pirsig's ideal economic system is some kind of compromise between
the two. Does Pirsig ever formally state a preference for the form of
capitalism you support? Was he actively political? Are there other
writings you can direct me to?
I would think that by the MOQ, the best government is one that best
facilitates the creation/discovery of dynamic quality while preserving
static quality. It's a maximization algorithm, wherein preservation of
static quality trades off with development of dynamic quality.
By this reasoning, I'd argue that taxation hinders the development of
dynamic quality by reducing the economic incentive to innovate. Military
and police spending preserve static quality--law and order, security. Thus
your position that good government institutes taxes to pay for military
spending can be justified as a maximization of total quality.
The problem you face if you accept my analysis thus far is that it opens the
door to other policies whereby government can increase total quality.
Taxation has a marginally negative effect on the creation of dynamic
quality; one could argue that funding education has a larger positive effect
on the creation of dynamic quality. Or that funding libraries protects us
from losing the static quality held in books.
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