KMAN rightfully observes:
==============
LOL. There are societal consequences to such a "screw you" approach. No
wonder you are a gun nut. Your utopia would obviously be everyone
living in
a self-sustaining dwelling with a giant electrified fence to protect
them
from having to be in contact with other people or even - gasp - where
people
might care about each other.
===============
KMAN, as I type, I'm listening to an interesting CBC radio documentary
about Karl Polanyi. Polanyi's work is witnessing a resurgence as, for
example, "The Great Transformation" (1944) examined free market systems
and natural social reactions against such systems.
An interesting summary from
http://keithrankin.co.nz/nzpr1998_4Polanyi.html
"The social anthropologist understood that humans are fundamentally
cooperative beings, and that human societies naturally seek to form
institutions that confer social and economic protection. Protection
means supporting producers who are a part of one's own society. And
protection means security, including social security.
Unlike protection which is a natural human impulse, the market system
is an artificial construct of the human intellect. It eschews
protection and emphasises discipline. Competition is about discipline
and conformity, not freedom. The tyranny of the self-regulating market
can only become the central organising mechanism if it is intentionally
imposed on society by a government with dubious democratic credentials,
and can only survive for any length of time if such a government
resists the spontaneous human impulse towards protection.
Economic liberals, contrary to the way they portray themselves, are not
believers in small government. They are not akin to anarchists, as Marx
saw them. Rather they adopt a view of government that differs
fundamentally from that of social democrats. Economic liberals believe,
following Jeremy Bentham, that government means the "ministry of
police" (read Treasury in today's parlance) and not the "ministry of
welfare"
I doubt whether Scott Weiser has ever given thought to "The tyranny of
the self-regulating market can only become the central organising
mechanism if it is intentionally imposed on society by a
government...."?
Cheers,
Wilf