A new Revolution in America, how could it happen?
Although the current despair over the economy seems directly involved with the failure of the financial system to act rationally there is an underlying subversion of the entire capitalist system in the inexorable progress of technology. There is much talk of greed as a human disability undermining normal and civil capitalist activity but greed is the driving engine behind all businesses and is only counteracted by a market which limits the sale of the products of any individual participant by competition between producers in which the market fluctuates in favor of innovative and useful novelty. But the patent system has been so distorted that the temporary advantage granted innovative producers has been so distorted by extension that the purpose of the patent system has been used to create unending monopolies which defeats competition and becomes a disservice to the public. Nevertheless, any business that does not use all its capabilities to outcompete all others will fail in the long run. A prime factor in competition is to reduce production costs to a minimum and labor is one of the prime considerations here. Wages have, to a great extent in the USA, remained static while technology has granted business huge efficiencies whose benefits have accrued only to management which, in corporate businesses, must maximize profits for their investors. Along with resident technologies transportation technologies have made it possible to farm out production for maximum efficiencies. When that technology has permitted the bulk of actual production to take place outside of market areas the loss of local wages gradually destroys the viability of the market which is sustained by the ability of the workers to purchase what is produced. So now a huge percentage of the wages go outside the market area and, temporarily, the market is sustained by indebtedness which, in the end, is not sustainable for any length of time without wages.
But, in the long run, an even greater destruction of the system is in the making. As automation and artificial intelligence becomes more adept and economical even foreign labor will prove less and less necessary so the whole market-capitalist system will totally break down and that's where a revolution might generate.
But, in the long run, an even greater destruction of the system is in the making. As automation and artificial intelligence becomes more adept and economical even foreign labor will prove less and less necessary so the whole market-capitalist system will totally break down and that's where a revolution might generate.
Greed is Good.
If people were not selfish and acquisitive they would not build houses for themselves and their families.
ruveyn
But, in the long run, an even greater destruction of the system is in the making. As automation and artificial intelligence becomes more adept and economical even foreign labor will prove less and less necessary so the whole market-capitalist system will totally break down and that's where a revolution might generate.
Greed is Good.
If people were not selfish and acquisitive they would not build houses for themselves and their families.
ruveyn
They would, if they had a genuine wish to build a better future for themselves. And no greed is needed for that.
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"Purity is for drinking water, not people" - Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Selfishness is a genetically wired trait of our species (hominid 5.0). It is wired in by natural selection. Non-selfish hominids do not get the females as much, so they do not propagate their inherent altruism. Thank God (or whatever Being you thank). That is how we survive.
ruveyn
Selfishness is a genetically wired trait of our species (hominid 5.0). It is wired in by natural selection. Non-selfish hominids do not get the females as much, so they do not propagate their inherent altruism. Thank God (or whatever Being you thank). That is how we survive.
ruveyn
Individual desire and capability to survive and get as much as is possible is not bad until the most capable and greedy nail down almost everything and thereby destroy society. There seems to be a long range blindness to very selfish people who cannot see that their well being is tightly tied to the well being of the total culture.
The American Revolution went more among the lines of the Dutch Rebellion - so there is afterwards no big surprise that the Declaration of Independence of 1776 reminds very much in its wording on the Plakkaat van Verlatinghe of 1581: Could it be that Jefferson had anywhere a copy of the Dutch original in his library?
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Of the Founders the most likely to have access to that document were Jefferson and Franklin, both very well read men.
ruveyn
Selfishness is a genetically wired trait of our species (hominid 5.0). It is wired in by natural selection. Non-selfish hominids do not get the females as much, so they do not propagate their inherent altruism. Thank God (or whatever Being you thank). That is how we survive.
Too selfish humans got a kick-in-the-arse in the group and no woman at all.
Not really: The US-Declaration of Independence was 13 years before the start of the French Revolution. If they were influenced than by trying to avoid the unrest of French Revolution.
They were more influenced by the Dutch Revolution in the 1580s, when the Netherlands declared Independence from Spain. The wording of the US-Declaration of Independence goes quite along the lines of the Dutch Declaration of 1581. Even the argumentation is quite similar. The similarities go even further: The Staten-Generaal from 1581 till 1790 were a federal republic composed of two chambers as the legislative.
Last edited by Dussel on 30 Mar 2009, 7:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Musings on gender and language, brought to you by twoshots
Selfishness is a genetically wired trait of our species (hominid 5.0). It is wired in by natural selection. Non-selfish hominids do not get the females as much, so they do not propagate their inherent altruism. Thank God (or whatever Being you thank). That is how we survive.
ruveyn
Note the dichotomy between hominids and females.
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* here for the nachos.
Selfishness is a genetically wired trait of our species (hominid 5.0). It is wired in by natural selection. Non-selfish hominids do not get the females as much, so they do not propagate their inherent altruism. Thank God (or whatever Being you thank). That is how we survive.
ruveyn
Note the dichotomy between hominids and females.
Hominid is the biological phylum in which are species is located. It has nothing to do a particular gender. We are all hominids male and female human alike. "Man" is sometimes used as the general term for human and is not a particular gender.
The most successful human characteristic is being a prudent predator. That way one can have the best of both worlds, a. being a predatory opportunist and b. being smart enough to appear co-operative so as not to excite hostility. Prudent Predators are more likely to mate and pass their talent along to the next generation. Successful reproduction is all the nature "cares" about. Judgments associated with our moral quality is a purely social artifact and has nothing to do with our evolutionary fitness.
ruveyhn
Last edited by ruveyn on 30 Mar 2009, 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.