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agreed on the lament about us getting away from distinguishing productive/unproductive uses (an argument i've made a lot and am glad to see getting more light o
by clairity 6y ago
agreed on the lament about us getting away from distinguishing productive/unproductive uses (an argument i've made a lot and am glad to see getting more light of day), but your critique sounds overly pessimistic about marginal utility, which is a fairly value-neutral concept that's been pressed into the service of politics and ideology.
value will never be purely objective (at least not in our lifetimes or many, many after), but we can ground it in bedrock shared values like fairness and industry.
- SkyMarshal 6y agoPerhaps I should have clarified, my comment above is 100% paraphrasing what is written in the book. It’s not my critique, but the author’s.
- clairity 6y agokinda figured, but by submitting the link and quoting it that way, it seems you agree, or at least are pursuaded somewhat? or have different takes on these things? a lot of politicoeconomic theory over the last many decades has been a one-sided push to justify rentierism, consolidate wealth/power, and corner sources of wealth extraction (e.g., globalism, trickle-down, labor movement vilification, etc.). it's a slow boil toward fascism, which is concerning to say the least.
- SkyMarshal 6y agoI agree with the book’s analysis of the problem. Not sure about the solution yet, which I think will need to incorporate and extend marginal utility rather than discard or replace it.