Category Archives: Philosophy

Meritocracy vs Capitalism

Philosophy, Socioeconomic, , ,

Lets be clear from the start, Meritocracy is a political philosophy and Capitalism is  an economic philosophy and that means they are not the same thing.  That being said it does not hold that they do not come into conflict.  The point I’m going to make here is that they do, sometime do come into conflict and this conflict happens just because they don’t care about the same thing.  They have different goals.

The conflict I want to point out is that Meritocracy holds power should be vested in individuals according to merit and in the economic sphere wealth can be used to represent power.  Unfortunately Capitalism isn’t the lest bit interested in where or how wealth is vested, only how it is increased, i.e. the rate of return.  See the conflict?  Meritocracy wants to use merit as the measure of where power is vested and Capitalism wants the only measure of merit to be the rate of return on investment.  See the trap?

If you don’t, here is a little thought experiment for you.

You have $1,000,000 to invest and two people have approached you with an investment opportunity for you.  The first person’s opportunity is to start manufacturing ZPM (a source of clean enegry) but the rate of return will take time, 5 to 10 years, to show up and will only be relatively modest 5% per anum.  The second persons opportunity is in Organlegging out of the country of ‘PeopleIDontKnowistan’ where the organs of convicted criminals are sold for transplants (currently the 3rd speeding ticket is a capital office in  PeopleIDontKnowistan) but the rate of return will start next quarter and run at 25% per anum.

See the problem?

According to Capitalism the more meritorious investment is the 2nd even though it’s business model is something many people find fundamentally abhorrent.   Therefor you should invest in the 2nd opportunity even thought the first is more meritorious in more areas of human endeavor.

Now the point I’m trying to make is this, Capitalism want us to only use a one dimensional measure of merit where Meritocracy works best with a multidimensional measure or merit.  So if we want to have a meritocratic society then we can not use just Capitalism’s measure of merit when judging the merits of business decisions.

Thank about it.

 

Langone & Pope Francis

Philosophy, Socioeconomic

LangoneAndPopeWhile I just love listening to a Wealthy Man try an scare this Pope with the threat of ending large donations to the Catholic Church I really am more intrigued with all the possibilities this opens up.  Let me be very clear, I am not talking about the relationship between Pope Francis and Catholic Billionaires.  I’m much more interested in starting a set of dialogues over the fundamental philosophy of capitalism and Christianity.

To start off with the apparent amoral position on all economic decisions, as expressed in the statement “It’s just Business”   and the classic Christian position  that all decision made by man must be moral.

Another is the relationship between capitalism and Christianity and Usury and/or greed and/or wealth.

All of these questions go to the root of the socioeconomic philosophy known as capitalism.

So to start this off let us first agree that capitalism is not   synonymous with ‘free market’.  That either one can exists with out the other. I submit for your consideration that ‘Capitalism’ denotes a socioeconomic system and ‘free market’ denotes an economic system and socioeconomic is not economic.

 

A Modest Proposal – With Appologies to Johnathan Swift

Philosophy, Politics, Socioeconomic

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick

Jonathan Swift

Inspired by Dr Swift I would like to put forward this modest proposal to help solve both our overclouding of our prisons and our devastating governmental budget deficit.  Consider, if you will, allowing anyone who kills, comets any form of unlawful homicide, to pay to the local, state, and federal government a fine equivalent to the expected taxes to be paid by the person(s) killed.  The benefits to the fiances of the government are immediately obvious to everyone.

The state would not only have a new, non-tax, form of revenue but also the state would no-longer have the expense of incarceration.  To make things even better we could make the alternate penalty, in lieu of cash remuneration to the state, the person convicted would be to be put to death as soon as possible,  to the date of conviction.  If upon conviction the person(s) in question now wishes to pay the state then all of the state’s expenses will be included.  This has the additional benefit of encourage the early, pre-trial, agreement to paying of the state the loss of tax revenue of the decedent(s).

It should be obvious to all that this system has the advantage of discouraging the negligent killing of the most productive members of society by making it prohibitively expensive.  Even more benefit to the government revenues by calculating the fee based upon both the taxes payed in the form of income, investment, and capital gains but also taxes such as sales and property taxes.  We could even include utility taxes just to make things fair.

People in ‘Stand Your Ground’ jurisdiction would be motivated not to act rashly as you would still be held liable for the death of another.  Police would be encourage not to use deadly force.  Doctors, Nurses, EMTs will be fully motivated to act so that the patient does not die.  Also they would be no question of ‘pulling the plug’ on someone as the person or persons would then be easily shown to be responsible for the death.

Another benefit is the creation of a new insurance industry, we would have ‘Death’ insurance to join ‘Life’ insurance.  In the case of ‘Death’ insurance, the buyer would be insured against being held responsible for the death of another.  As this would normally be a very rare occurrence the companies providing the policy would have a very nice profit margin.

The final benefit is society would now have an objective measure of the worth of each member.  No longer would there be any question of an individuals worth.  The worth of everyone would be know, in point of fact it would be in the governments best interest calculate everyone’s worth on a regular basses and for individuals to insure that this valuation is as high as possible.  People worth more would be encouraged to dress in a distinctive way manner that would not be simply or easily copied or imitated by those worth less.  New business would spring up to provide this service to the worthy stimulating the economy and providing gainful employment.

As has been shown here this proposal is a ‘win’ ‘win’ for all.

A Good Question

Philosophy, Politics, , ,

Tonight I heard a very good questioncomputer?: “Why should a person working full time have to live in poverty?”  For myself I feel that the answer is they shouldn’t have to live in poverty.

Now before we go any farther let me make something very clear.  I’m asking the question is “Why should a person, working 40 hours a week, be paid an amount that is less than the poverty line for a single person?”  I’m not even considering those people who are married and their spouce isn’t working.  Nor am I talking about a single parent.  I will leave these people out for later thought.  I’m just dealing with a single person working full time and they are being paid the national minimum wage and the poverty line for where they work is greater than their income.

I have yet hear anyone on the right give me an answer to this question.  Maybe they just haven’t heard if before, no mater how unlikely that might be.  Lets be generous and assume they haven’t and give them the opportunity to address this question.  Here’s your chance.  Please!  Give me an answer, I’d really like to hear it.