2 ms·
its probably best to simply consider it a convenient label i guess. i am not however thinking about 19th century socialists at all, even if they coined the term
by jheriko 13y ago
its probably best to simply consider it a convenient label i guess. i am not however thinking about 19th century socialists at all, even if they coined the term... it may not have had a name as such but there were people in the previous centuries who researched and promoted the philosophies. adam smith's wealth of nations comes to mind as a sort of canonical example of such work...
i'm sure it evolved organically in the sense that it happened 'naturally' but i do disagree that it is the default human position - its a recent fad. its taking natural behaviour to one extreme interpretation of it.
not being utterly self-motivated, or altruism, is a very well attested human trait and we have a lot of the vital aspects of civilisation and society as a result of that drive. the ideal of pure capitalism could utterly inhibit such things from forming at all imo...
- dragonwriter 13y ago> adam smith's wealth of nations comes to mind as a sort of canonical example of such work... You mean, the same Wealth of Nations in which Smith urges, in government affairs, particular suspicion of the proposals of the merchant class (because their interest are not aligned with the common good) and argues that the general interest is most aligned with the interest of the landholding class, not merely reflecting, but advocating the value of the even-then fading feudal economic land-tenure structure which capitalism displaced as the capitalist class became both landholders and merchants? Defenders of capitalism may like to quote Smith, but Smith was as much of a before-the-fact critic of capitalism (while certainly seeking change away from mercantilist protectionism) as Marx was an after-the-fact critic of it, and in many cases for similar reasons.