Quote: "the problem is that we're not at the point where we can afford to have them do anything but what they're doing now. ... in some currently unrealizable utopia we would rather see them working better jobs and living fuller lives (though only because it benefits us)"The reason I have persisted with this conversation is to argue that the original piece, like this quote, presented a well argued and passionate statement of left wing Christianity, an outlook which is attractive and seemingly coherent as an ethical stance, but deeply flawed because of its reliance on a false class analysis which draws implicit inspiration from pernicious Marxist ideas. This quote, somewhat correctly, assumes a conspiracy stance on the part of the western imperial powers, designed to keep the poor poor. I say only somewhat, because the plutocratic politics of keeping the poor poor actually harms the interests of the rich. The idea that the rich world would lose if poor people got richer is beguiling but wrong. Economics is not a zero-sum game (win-lose) but a virtuous circle where growth in one place enables growth elsewhere (win-win) through trade. This is not utopia but reality. Oppression of the sort implied by the quote only undermines the security and happiness of the oppressor. The agenda should not be to overthrow the rich and replace the current system with one more redistributive, but to reform the current system through trade liberalisation to remove the oppressive protectionist distortions that the OECD countries have placed on the world economy.Remember, the poor are mostly better off now and conditions overall are improving. In 1800 in Europe the average life expectancy was about 30 years and child mortality was about 30%. Modern science and economics have dramatically improved life.Quote: "our ethical concern is for the lives led by those with "temporary" hardships ... the industrial system ... benefits us far more than it benefits them. But for the majority of them, taken as individuals, there is no real transition."This thinking is flawed, lacking in strategic and scientific vision. Look at the Asian economic tigers which have grown enormously and achieved stunning transition from peasant poverty to industrial powerhouses through the discipline of hard work, sacrifice and investment. The so-called 'ethics' you describe often give priority to consumption over investment, creating welfare dependency, lack of skill, demoralisation and stagnant poverty traps. As Ben Franklin said, paraphrasing Jesus in Matt 25:29, God helps them that help themselves.

Socialism is giving all workers - by hand and by brain - control over their output and environment.See Morris, Gorz, etc _________________________________________________________Il Sotto Seme La Neva

So it's quite possible that something like being forced to work two jobs is more likely to "crush the human spirit" than socialism. ay?

Debate about socialism is key to the paradoxical element in Christianity missed by McKibben - the compassion of the Sermon on the Mount is actually incompatible with socialist economics.Socialism has several meanings, ranging from the valid need to include the poor in democratic processes through to the invalid lies and stupidity of the socialist systems as practiced in the former communist bloc. Generally this range of meanings is held together by the idea of class struggle, that working people should unite to use the political process to advance their social and economic rights and transfer wealth from the rich. Socialist organisation can be a legitimate part of the democratic process, but problems arise when socialism becomes the basis of economic organisation of a state. It is here that my comments about socialism as corrupt etc apply. The negative methods of protest do not translate to the positive needs of state. Socialism is about wealth distribution, not wealth creation. The Marxist labour theory of value, with its claim that capitalism involves expropriation, ignores the role of money, ideas and risk-taking in creating wealth. Workers appear to be creating the wealth they produce with their labour, but the capitalist has given them the opportunity to work, and does much behind the scenes that is not seen by the worker. When capitalists bludge they generally lose their wealth.By defying market realities, socialism contradicts its rhetoric of support for the poor. Its practice has consistently reduced freedom and prosperity. Eg, privatisation often multiplies the value of an enterprise many-fold, increasing returns to the state even after sale, whereas the socialist idea of public ownership corruptly transfers economic rent to the small number of employees of the enterprise at the expense of the larger number of the general public who suffer inefficiency, high prices and increased unemployment. The competitive market is the fairest system, whereas denying an efficient firm the right to compete is unjust. Market failure can be addressed by state regulation and transfers, but this should not include socialist methods.I have just finished reading Mao - The Untold Story by Jung Chang. While Mao is an extreme case I have to say reading this book coloured my current views. The foul murderous tyranny practiced by Mao does not itself prove socialism is invalid, but the fact of current critical debate is that socialism is discredited as an economic theory. The ideological fanaticism and error of socialism created the susceptibility of places like China and Russia to the horror of Leninism. Sixteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall it is not surprising that wrong socialist ideas are again seen as attractive in some quarters, but education is needed to show how socialism has lost the battle of ideas.

I think you are even-handed. You misunderstand Marx just as you do the Bible.The theory of value proves that value is subject to the laws of thermodynamics - nothing created, nothing destroyed (in a closed system), and those who take profit for no labour input (shareholders etc) are energy losses in the system. For, as with any thermodynamic system, at every conversion of energy into a different form, there are losses.However, if you look above, you will see a generally accepted definition of socialism (accepted by socialists, that is, not those misanthropes who support capitalist exploitation). You will see that, far from being incompatible with the Sermon on the Mount, advice to the rich man, etc, it is, in fact, the embodiment of the same. _________________________________________________________Il Sotto Seme La Neva

Robert Tulip: Yes, you are right, but my point is that we need axioms in ethics, such as that survival is good, otherwise we are left with relativism or nihilism.Correct, but I think we should also be honest with ourselves in conceding that our axiomatic basis for determining ethics will always be grounded in values that are determined alogically. This is not, as you have said, reference to facts, unless by facts you mean the facts of our own deeply-seated preferences.Human thought is a highly complex piece of stardust in which the universe has explicitly formulated its own laws.Now you're getting into epistemology, so I have to warn you that I've spent most of my adult life looking into the problems of knowledge. The universe does not explicitly formulate its own laws in human thought, and I can hardly imagine a way in which you'd justify that sort of claim. Human thought attempts to frame natural law in terms to which the human mind is adequate. There's no garuntee, however, that the laws derived by human thought in any way correspond to the actual state of natural law.Beyond which, I fail to see why that reflection of natural law, whether real or supposed, should confer any sort of ethical status on human consciousness. The best argument I can think of to support that claim is merely that we value consciousness and the grandeur of human achievement, which puts us right back at square one.I feared that calling faith a virtue would wind you up because I would expect you to regard faith as a vice (a la Dawkins).I'm not offended, but I will caution you that our discussion is likely to go much smoother if you don't assume too much about what I believe. I am not par for the BookTalk course, to say the least.The problem is that our world system accepts the sovereignty of governments who are incompetent. It is these governments which borrow from the World Bank, and tell it lies about their commitment to sustainability.This sounds rather dubious to me. Do you have evidence to support the claim that world governments are lying about their commitment to sustainability? And if it's common knowledge that such governments do so, isn't the World Bank culpable for not putting upon them a greater onus to regulate?No

Quote: ADO15 "You misunderstand Marx just as you do the Bible. The theory of value proves that value is subject to the laws of thermodynamics - nothing created, nothing destroyed (in a closed system), and those who take profit for no labour input (shareholders etc) are energy losses in the system." Thermodynamics is not relevant. All increase in wealth results from investment. Value and energy are different. To see why Marx's labour theory of value is completely incorrect, please read www.free-market.net/resou...y-val.html Edited by: Robert Tulip at: 11/4/05 8:08 am

Mr. Tulip, do you think there will ever be a global revolt against corporate greed? Why?Why not?

Quote:MA "our axiomatic basis for determining ethics will always be grounded in values that are determined alogically. This is not, as you have said, reference to facts"You misunderstand my point. I think we agree that the alogical ground of ethics is not based on facts but on faith

Robert Tulip: However, I argue , that upon the alogical ground we can build a system of ethics in which values do rely entirely on facts.How can values be both alogical and grounded entirely on facts? The very decision of which facts should form the basis of a value is, itself, a judgement of value. It looks to me that you're only asserting secondary values. But you can't build a universal ethics so long as there is room to dispute the primacy of your basic value. And though it may sound odd to you, I think that there is clear evidence that some people do not hold "the goal of human flourishing" to be the primary value upon which ethics ought to be based. Until you can find a way to establish that as a ground level value, the search for secondary values is only useful to those who happen to be like-minded.In a simple real sense, our thought is therefore a fractal reflection of our solar system, being a natural part of it, just as a leaf is part of a tree.That doesn't stand to reason. Human thought may very well reflect some portion of the environment in which it developed, but there's no logical reason to assume that it reflects the whole, or even that it accurately reflects some significant portion. The pressures that immediately shape human thought will have a disproportionate effect on its form, disproportionate, that is, to the whole universe. That means any attempt to see the whole of the universe reflected in something as specifically located as human thought is bound to be faced with a great deal of distortion.Your scepticism is admirable but too arid for me.You'll have to excuse my aridity. I reserve the more humid thoughts for fiction.I do believe that the laws of thermodynamics and relativity are absolutely true within set domains. Perhaps this is another of those virtuous articles of faith.I think you'd do well to read some Jacob Bronowski, or John Ziman's "Reliable Knowledge".And yet your argument above could be taken as a refusal to accept that human life has intrinsic worth, because such a claim would require faith?You're free to take it as you will. I think a rather quick scan of other threads that I've participated in would reveal that I put a great deal of stock in faith. It might even show that I'm as much a humanist as anyone here.Sadly yes, there is too much evidence.Again, it's interesting to me that so many of your resources for this sort of information come not from independent research foundations but from explicitly capitalist investment interests. You can see how those resources would be biased towards argument that support a lassez-faire capitalist structure, can't you?A second point of concern would be that of how comfortable investing entities like the World Bank may be with continuing development in nations they know to have a lax commitment to sustainability. Some effort to enforce sustainable methods is, of course, commendable, but if it is only a gesture towards placating the outcry of concerned parties rather than a genuine interest in maintaining the well-being of second and third world populations, it isn't likely to serve as more than a palliative.Yes, true, but my criticism of McKibben et al is that soft theology fails to appreciate the neoclassical economic research which shows that working for your own benefit is often the best way to help others, except where market failure is demonstrated.McKibben doesn't seem terribly interested, in this article, with the subject of neoclassical economic research. He's interested in whether or not modern Christians are adhering to the actual doctrines of early Christianity, and I think he's right in concluding that, by and large, they aren't.As for your point, it has been pointed out that the neoclassical economic research derived from the lassez-faire school of economics popularized by Adam Smith is largely skewed. Edward Hallet Carr has done an excellent job of demonstrating why that is so, and rather than continue paraphrasing him I'll simply point you to his book, "The Twenty Years' Crisis", particularly the section concerning Realism and Utopianism.Sorry, but I find this hard to understand. The World Bank report Assessing Aid, What Works What Doesn't and Why (econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE...7,00.html) argues for example that if Zambia had followed good policy