Helen got no responses to her question over at MinnPost, maybe we can give it a try. Now my first impression is that she is a somewhat deranged socialist who dreams of the masses overthrowing our capitalistic society and replacing it with a place where a wise entity sets all of our wages based on some community determined value determination, but I am curious what others think?
"Why should economics be divorced from morality?
It shouldn't, it isn't, and it can't be. However, one of the most usual moral criteria applied to the question:
- "How much should the people at the bottom of the wage system be paid?" is "They can't be paid so much that they're raised to our level." ("$50 an hour"?)
Questions or observations about this moral assumption are rarely raised in these discussions. Questions like:
- Why is work organized the ways it is, with arbitrary judgments about the economic value of different jobs?
- Why are making decisions about the value of other people's work financially rewarded at so much higher a level than the actual work of the economy: building, nursing, customer service, educating, making deliveries, inspecting, maintaining, cleaning?
- Who has decided that women's home and child raising work has no economic value at all?
- Why are some communities condemned to chronic poverty?
- Why is there a belief that a poor class ("the bottom of the wage system") is NECESSARY to our capitalist system?
I heard in this discussion troubling assumptions about the ability or willingness of us ordinary citizens to understand complex or even simpler political and economic issues, a distrust of direct democracy as OPPOSED TO representative democracy (they can and do coexist). I know that many of us don't trust our own abilities, either.
This can be changed, by trusting ourselves to understand even complex issues, by caring enough to find out facts and history, by trusting that even though the present system makes it hard for us to feel like important members of our semi-democracy, WE DO get to choose how much we know and how we involve ourselves in what is after all our own lives."
12 comments:
Why should economics be divorced from morality?
It's hard to imagine what an economics divorced from reality might mean in human terms, assuming economics is the study of people who take moral considerations into account when making decisions.
You could divorce morality from economics if you were studying the actions of amoral beings, such as animals, but even there, you find behavioral norms that in people, would be seen as serving a moral function.
--Hiram
Why is work organized the ways it is, with arbitrary judgments about the economic value of different jobs?
Of course, there are lots of answers to this question. In general, there is a lot of inertia in economic systems. People go to the same job every day. But as it happens, we live in a time where so many business patterns are disrupted. Jobs that had existed largely unchanged for hundred of years have suddenly disappeared. In order to compete, many businesses are in a continual state of reorganization with all kinds of arbitrary judgments being challenged.
--Hiram
Why are making decisions about the value of other people's work financially rewarded at so much higher a level than the actual work of the economy: building, nursing, customer service, educating, making deliveries, inspecting, maintaining, cleaning?
Because those in charge of assigning value to work have a human tendency to assign a great deal of value to their own. And also because there is no effective governance limiting the value they assigned. The Wells Fargo executive in charge of the recent frauds, was given a hundred million dollar exit package. The obvious conclusion is that it was worth a hundred million bucks to the company to make her go away. What are the moral implications of that? What was her value to the company as compared to that of the guy who cleans the bathrooms?
--Hiram
I am copying this here because it seems related.
"Our country has survived world wars, great depressions and many other challenges bigger than having Clinton or Trump in the White House
I am sure that's what they said in Rome too. That Donald Trump is taken seriously is evidence of our national decline and a powerful suggestion that our country may not survive."
--Hiram
I find the concept of "moral" fascinating.
The Liberals seem to identify "moral" as everyone is owed a base standard of living whether they work or not, make good decisions or not, spend or save, etc. And they think it is morally acceptable to just take personal property from one citizen and give it to another.
And they seem fine with people from other countries illegally entering our country in order to attain that base standard of living, whether it harms American citizens standard of living or not.
The Conservatives on the other hand seem to identify "moral" as those who work, learn, save, invest, make good choices, etc over their life and generations should keep the rewards that their choices have earned. And they believe that these people will make a good choice to give to productive charities.
With this in mind... What is "our national decline"?
Is it that the "rich rule and the poor suffer" as the Liberals believe?
or
Is it that the "the poor and illegal aliens are stealing ever more from the working classes" as the Conservatives believe?
It is an interesting topic. Both do seem to be happening, so it seems both extremes have a reason for being unhappy.
And don't forget the other moral / logic aspect. Many people in the USA want high incomes based on global standards, and yet they refuse to buy products and services that cost more from American employers... They want low cost goods and high compensation... And then they want "someone" else to pay the difference...
With this in mind... What is "our national decline"?
In my view, a nation that takes Donald Trump seriously is in decline.
--Hiram
Now Hiram, You must have some rationale for this belief?
Many politicians over the centuries have been self centered folks who love power and blowing smoke. I mean Bill Clinton earned his name "Slick Willy" and yet he was an okay President.
And of course there is the very questionable alternative in this race. I am betting that over half the voters will be voting against the opponent instead of for a candidate... I mean even Cruz says he will cast a vote against Clinton. (ie for Trump)
You must have some rationale for this belief?
Sure. We are about to elect someone as president who has shown no understanding of what that means. What does that say about our country?
--Hiram
To me it says that our traditional politicians and 2 party system are doing a very bad job at representing the wishes of a large portion of the citizens of the USA. And that they are happy to try someone who does not fit the mold of a typical modern politician.
"In my view, a nation that takes Donald Trump seriously is in decline."
Could not the same be said of Obama? Voters elected that charlatan TWICE. Electing Trump once is at worst only half as stupid.
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