OH my dear Eris, this thread has become so littered by strawmen that I fear the whole forum will catch on fire if I drop a match...
I won't address them all, I'll just leave one important thought here for all to consider. I haven't seen it mentioned in the whole debate:
YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR SOCIETY AND HOW TO ACHIEVE ITNeither do I, of course. That is the point. The main one. Frame it and put it above your bathroom mirror.
You do not know.
Here we have this wonderfully complex and complicated web of interaction and interrelation of human beings, set in an equally complex biosphere. To think that YOU have the capability to process all of the necessary information and come up with the answers for what needs to be done to make everyone better off...is hubris, dangerous, arrogant hubris, which lies at the heart of the failings of our current system.
Actually, I have written about this topic beforeAn excerpt:
So you have thought about this and come to the conclusion that what is needed is to tax corporations. Pass laws against polluting the environment, against discrimination and for consumer protection. Raise the minimum wage, strengthen gun control, lower some benefits, raise others, add this, subsidize that, prohibit this, cut that or some other sort of arbitrary fix or tweak to the system. Now all we have to do is convince all these “apathetic voters” to realize the correctness of these solutions, vote in the “right people” into office and then everything will be much much better than it is today. I’m really sad I have to tell you this, but: you are not so smart. You may think you have figured out how exactly to change society for the better but that’s only because you haven’t thought deeply enough about the issue and you are probably vastly overestimating your ability to gather the necessary data, integrate them into a meaningful model of what is going on (by the way have you ever noticed that the map is not the territory and your model of what is going on is probably far away from reality?), correctly identify causal relationships within that model and estimate the effects of your desired changes, including all the unforeseen consequences. In other terms, you are probably way too arrogant in your supposed knowledge of where the problems lie and how to “fix them”.
There is one basic fact of history which all of these people seem to be happily ignoring; we have already tried all this. Countless times. Has it helped? What makes you think that this time it will be different? This time we will have honest politicians? This time we will pass the right laws and do the right things? I’m sorry to tell you that you have fallen prey to a grand idealistic utopianism – namely the utopian idea that it is possible to create a central government filled with honest people working towards the greatest benefit for all and actually accomplishing such a goal!
Do not fall prey to the Grand Utopia.
