What I find fascinating is that I feel a strong desire to respond to your statement, write out a long comment (which I've done and posted earlier on in this thread) explaining how I disagree, only to realize that it's really hard to get anywhere when our disagreement is so fundamental and complex.
I stopped to think where we disagree fundamentally, and I think it boils down to this:
Our technological, social, and economic developments, I believe, have led to crazy increases in wealth and comfort, and I suppose happiness too, at least in the West, but arguably even globally. I think we more or less agree on that.
I think we are also in agreement in many ways we're better off than we have been in the past.
We are somewhat less in agreement over the cause of this, and I suppose that could be a worthwhile conversation. I'm inclined to believe capitalism played some role in this, but that, from a 'social evolutionary' perspective, it's become, or turning into a malignant growth. I'd say technological developments play a much bigger role, and perhaps capitalism was just a mechanism that 'worked' to enable this. But I'm by no means certain of that, and it seems to me that there's no way to get anywhere on this subject other than sustained conversation where we move down to our most basic 'axioms' step by step.
Where I am more certain, and where I suspect we agree least, is whether the status quo is 'good enough' and by extension worth defending or 'fighting'.
I think it's not worth defending too much, primarily because I strongly believe that should be no reason whatsoever for us to be working as much and as hard as we do now. The 'general' increase in wealth and comfort pales in comparison to what would be possible if we had a fairer system in place, and I believe it is absolutely worth the effort to take a shot at creating such a fairer system. I think we've learned at least something from the past, and that we won't attempt to just implement a full totalitarian redistribution scheme.
And even if there's a significant risk of our efforts turning into another 'failed utopia', merely the rising social instability and the (I'd say) well-proven disastrous ecological developments are reason enough for me to take that risk rather than making some small incremental changes to our current system.
However, that would be outside of the confines of the discussion in this thread, and that's quite frustrating.
I guess what I'm saying is that without considering these more fundamental disagreements, our collective discussions in this thread are bound to frustrate and not really significantly 'shape' or change our views.
That said, I enjoy reading your views and I mostly just felt like writing this; it's not something 'aimed' at you in particular!
I stopped to think where we disagree fundamentally, and I think it boils down to this:
Our technological, social, and economic developments, I believe, have led to crazy increases in wealth and comfort, and I suppose happiness too, at least in the West, but arguably even globally. I think we more or less agree on that.
I think we are also in agreement in many ways we're better off than we have been in the past.
We are somewhat less in agreement over the cause of this, and I suppose that could be a worthwhile conversation. I'm inclined to believe capitalism played some role in this, but that, from a 'social evolutionary' perspective, it's become, or turning into a malignant growth. I'd say technological developments play a much bigger role, and perhaps capitalism was just a mechanism that 'worked' to enable this. But I'm by no means certain of that, and it seems to me that there's no way to get anywhere on this subject other than sustained conversation where we move down to our most basic 'axioms' step by step.
Where I am more certain, and where I suspect we agree least, is whether the status quo is 'good enough' and by extension worth defending or 'fighting'.
I think it's not worth defending too much, primarily because I strongly believe that should be no reason whatsoever for us to be working as much and as hard as we do now. The 'general' increase in wealth and comfort pales in comparison to what would be possible if we had a fairer system in place, and I believe it is absolutely worth the effort to take a shot at creating such a fairer system. I think we've learned at least something from the past, and that we won't attempt to just implement a full totalitarian redistribution scheme.
And even if there's a significant risk of our efforts turning into another 'failed utopia', merely the rising social instability and the (I'd say) well-proven disastrous ecological developments are reason enough for me to take that risk rather than making some small incremental changes to our current system.
However, that would be outside of the confines of the discussion in this thread, and that's quite frustrating.
I guess what I'm saying is that without considering these more fundamental disagreements, our collective discussions in this thread are bound to frustrate and not really significantly 'shape' or change our views.
That said, I enjoy reading your views and I mostly just felt like writing this; it's not something 'aimed' at you in particular!