Book: Moral Calculations by Lazslo Mero

I just finished this book and it's the nuts and probably would be a big hit among the likes of minds that hang around 2+2.


It's not a humor book, not by the longest stretch, but it does have one little gem worth sharing:


The basis of capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and with socialism it's just the opposite.


Tommy

The basis of capitalism is the induction of cooperation by withholding and granting claims on propery (whether you call it "several" property or "private" property). Without a moral framework that enables you to deny or grant something to your fellow man, the only means of acquiring cooperation is force.


Through several property, each man has a handle, and a check, on the aims and ambitions of others. Through the price system, each man has a telecommunications system by which he can discover the aims of others, and harness them to realize his own aims better than he could acting on his own.


Through capitalism, the greatest possible realization of human aims by each person, through choices between alternative activities, and not at the expense but to the benefit of other people, is discovered. Capitalism is the only information-dissemination mechanism by which individual people can figure out how to dovetail their plans with the needs and wants of 10 billion faceless strangers.


eLROY

As an aside, I recently visited a web-site at lucifer.com.


The proprietors held to the illusion that a moral framework can be designed - calculated in effect - as a product of human reason.


But the system encompassing multiple human beings is so complex that no individual can foresee, analyze - or therefore choose between - the consequences of his "alternative" moral behaviors.


All efforts at moral calculation throughout history have merely deteriorated into the application of force by leaders, on minorities, in response to least-common-denominator mob aims. Moreover, the mob calculation was irrational, so their aims were not realized even at the expense of the lives of minorities!


No amount of human reason can ever calculate how to coordinate and intertwine human activites for maximum mutual gain. Moreover, the only morals which survive are those which, in no foreseeable way, promote the survival of the society which transmits them.


So, for instance, "Don't be fruitful, and don't multiply" is a conceivable "calculation." But it can probably never be a "moral."


eLROY

The quote is the exact opposite of reality. Socialism exploits, capitalism does not. Capitalism does not use force to get people to produce, buy, or sell. Someday we might even try capitalism.

On this page, the book is promoted as explaining what we can do when self-destructive moral systems are unleashed:


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...15#reader-link


But in reality, no human reason is needed to resolve such systems - as they self destruct, and have no reason to ever even be examined except as laboratory oddities to titillate intellectuals in the course of selling books.


leroy

And no central authority can ever discover even a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the positive-sum cooperation opportunities presented through the reassignment of private property rights - such as to the product of individual labor - through the unfettered associations of atomistic individuals.


leroy

Sorry, but you are wrong.


In a true socialist model, noone would ever be exploited.


It's just getting a true socialist model to work has proved impossible thus far.


Keith

The reason socialism has never worked, and never will, is because people have no idea what to do.


So someone has to


1) figure out for them what to do, and

2) get them to do it.


But, by definition, there is no way of getting them to do it by paying them - because the worker is never given a means to communicate what he wants in return!


So with no means of discovering (and disseminating) what an individual wants - whereby his cooperation could be induced - the community (meaning the coercive authority in whom they have vested coercive powers) has no option but to tell someone "You're going to do this, and take what you get, and like it."


The only reason it cannot accurately be termed "exploitation" is because, for it to be so, somebody somewhere would actually have to somehow get what he wants at the end of all the misery. And apart from a few elites for a brief period, that never happens.


eLROY

No, a true socialist model inherently exploits people. This is because labor and production springs from the mind. Thus, everything we achieve is a product of the mind. It is a fundamental human right to own the product of one's mind and effort. When that effort is hijacked by others, whether they mean well or not, it is the most intimate violation that can happen to a person. It is no coincidence that socialist governments must try to control thought. I would also submit to you that the Soviet Union was true socialism.