Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Re: Corporate Morality
I think it was the lab coat man that put me off track.;-)
He's an authority figure, which isn't quite the same as the herd instinct
pattern in my view.
> > > but then it fails to explain why 'democracies' have failed to bring into
being
> > > stricter employment laws to prevent such practices - assuming the majority
do
> > > really prevail in such societies. [...]
> > > That it is some sort of mass habit? (01)
This is herd instinct, and it genuinely might be the reason why the pattern
doesn't heal.
On the assumption that the majority support the pattern. (02)
Things get darker if you assume that the majority don't favour the pattern.
How then does it fail to heal? Then you have to start looking at the roles of
authority figures and wondering about their integrity, or whether the political
process just defeats things even if well intentioned folks have a significant
majority. (03)
'Moralität ist Heerden-Instinkt in Einzelnen.' Morality is the herd-instinct in
the individual.
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft ( (1882)) bk. 3, sect. 116
Nietzsche. (04)
By a strange coincidence, I have been reading the chapter on Imperfect Societies
in Plato's Republic today.
In his ranking, democracy falls just about tyranny in the hierarchy of society
types he gives - with tyranny being the worst of the five. But his argument
seems weak in that most of what he suggests as being bad about democracy
actually look like quite good things to me. Talk about historical relativism. (05)
And as fuel for your essays I would like to add two other things. One is a quote
from Gary Alexander's eGaia
(http://sustainability.open.ac.uk/gary/pages/egaia.htm) book, that to my mind
defines capitalism above and beyond mere trade exchange.
"Instead of being constrained and controlled by the needs of humanity,
much less the natural world, our modern globalised monetary system has
taken on a life of its own. Flows of money have become relatively isolated
from physical constraints. In 1995, only 2 or 3% of money flows were to
do with trade or investment. The rest were speculative - buying and selling
currencies." (06)
--
Peter (07)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Armstrong" <eric.armstrong@sun.com>
To: <ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org>
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Re: Corporate Morality (08)
> The reasoning off only with respect to "intent". The majority
> doesn't intend the consequences, but getting them seems to be
> built into the system.
>
> This whole line of thought has led to an essay titled "what's
> wrong with capitalism?" It plunged into my brain this morning.
> I'll try to get something on paper soon.
>
> But the question you ask raises a corrolary issue, "what's
> wrong with democracy?"
>
> (The titles are intended to be read ambiguously, as in "So
> what's wrong with a little capitalism?" (it's a good thing)
> in addition to "how do we fix this?".)
>
>
> Peter Jones wrote:
> >
> > Wow. That has to be the worst piece of reasoning I've ever published.
> > I'll try again later.
> >
> > "I cite having a bad headache by way of mitigation, your honour."
> >
> > --
> > Peter
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Peter Jones" <ppj@concept67.fsnet.co.uk>
> > To: <ba-unrev-talk@bootstrap.org>
> > Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 8:07 PM
> > Subject: Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Re: Corporate Morality
> >
> > > I did intend 'corporate morality'.
> > > Certainly the herd instinct theory does seem to explain matters in that
area,
> > > but then it fails to explain why 'democracies' have failed to bring into
being
> > > stricter employment laws to prevent such practices - assuming the majority
do
> > > really prevail in such societies. Does this mean that the majority
actually
> > > enjoy inflicting this sort of psychological torture?
> > > That it is some sort of mass habit?
> > > Scary.
> > >
> > > For those wondering about the background to this discussion, we were
> > discussing
> > > the content of www.faceintel.com
> (09)