Quoting Ben Golden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > [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?
No, no and no. In fact, according to Ant McWatt who wrote a thesis on the MOQ and knows Pirsig personally, he is a Democrat and would probably agree more or less with your assessment of his position above. > 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. Yes, I agree. I think you've presented the case for limited government clearly and succinctly. > 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. Yes. That's the argument of many who find that government does wonderful things. But private education has for the most part done a better job than public schools, and libraries are now being replaced by the Internet which does a better job of making information accessible. (I believe it was the military that created the Internet.) Boiled down, my major premises are borrowed directly from the MOQ. 1) The highest value of all is freedom, and 2) the free market promotes DQ, the creative force of life. From these premises, my politcal philosophy of limited government is derived -- a philosophy you eloquently summarized above. But, I could be wrong. ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
