Notes for 7 28 26 radio show

 

I don't think capitalism is evil.  I don't.  I think it's essentially neutral, or that there is no essence.  Because it's so decentralized and uncoordinated - not completely, but to some extent, capitalism is just people doing things.  Different people, all over the world, doing all kinds of different things, somewhat spontaneously, on their own - not completely, to some extent that's an illusion, but to some extent it's real.  It's sort of anarchic, not anarchic, anarchists would be very mad at me for saying that, and they're right - but chaotic, sprawling, huge, not chaotic either, because definite patterns emerge.  And some of those patterns aren't so good.  And then there definitely eventually is planning, because people start to see the patterns and plan for the patterns.  But there's no one person in control.  It's very difficult to control, it's very difficult even to categorize, to understand what is going on here - it's so big, it's very difficult to put categories like "good" and "evil" - there's no moral reasoning behind it.  There's no one saying, "capitalism should do this now."  It's kinda just like, let everyone do what they're going to do, and let's see what happens.  It's too big for good and evil.  It's beyond good and evil, if you will.

Depending, of course, on what you mean by "evil".  How are we defining "evil," here?  Traditionally, people have used religion as a source for morality.  Now, of course, in for instance many Christian traditions, there's this idea of original sin.  We're deeply fundamentally sinful, in the essence of our being.  And so, if you just let people do whatever they want, this kind of moral relativism will inevitably end up turning to evil.  

And I have to say, I kind of... sympathize with that, to some extent.  I mean, you could look at it just as entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics.  Statistical mechanics.  There's just way more ways for things to go wrong than there are ways for things to go right.  If you randomly throw airplane parts into a hanger, it's unbelievably unlikely that they're going to bounce perfectly and spontaneously assemble themselves into an airplane.  So things tend to fall apart.  The center does not hold.

Darwinian pressure

So, there's a part of me that feels like - you know, I picture Socrates and his friends discussing - what is justice? and so forth.  That there should be some kind of moral reasoning about things.  Try to figure out what justice is, and try to live that way.  But capitalism says no, just let people do whatever they feel like, and see what happens.  I don't know.  It seems very reckless.

And then, the Bible itself: it's interesting.  Even though a lot of Christians believe in original sin, you won't find those words in the Bible.  Instead, we see this phrase, used over and over - for instance the final verse of Judges: In those days there was no king in Israel: everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

I see parallel between Plato and Bible: meritocracy - timocracy - plutocracy - democracy - tyranny.  Brahmin - Kshatriya - Vaishya - Shudra - Dalits

Eli's sons, Phinehas and Hophni.  Hannah - Samuel, then Samuel's sons, Joel and Abiyah. Saul - David

 

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