Re: Don't believe the offshore hype?
I'd argue that capitalist economists tend to value human nature as it is,What, me? Never! (Well, hardly ever).
while socialists generally would like to shape human nature into something
rather different that they value more.
To me, captialist economists seems more apologists for the way conservatives would like things to be than a universal description of human nature. The various schools studiously ignore the fact that capitalism is rare historically, and that all countries - not only most of the United States' alllies, but the United States itself - today have mixed economies that owe as much to socialistic as capitalistic thought. NWhen so much is overlooked, the claim that it describes human nature lacks credibility, I'm afraid. And the fact that capitalist theory is no better than other theory at predicting the economic behavior of indviduals or nations tends to support the impression that it's missing as much as Leninism is.
From my own half-baked perspective, part of the problem is that it mistakes the map for the territory. Yes, humans are motivated by reward, and economic returns are one form of reward. However, just because hard cash is the reward our culture emphasizes doesn't mean that humans aren't motivated as much, and often more by other rewards: recognition, status, meaning, altruism, and affection are all frequently more powerful incentives than economics. Of course, many capitalist economists claim that these things can be viewed as forms of economic activity, but they can only do so by stretching their definitions beyond the breaking point.
Finally, as an aside, I should also mention that the equation of socialism with totalitarianist communism is a little like assuming Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all the same religion (or even that a Unitarian is the same thing as a southern Baptist).
--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ROBOHELP IS THE INDUSTRY STANDARD IN HELP AUTHORING New RoboHelp X5 includes all new features such as, content management, multi-author support, distributed
workforce support, XML and PDF support, and much more!
Purchase new Macromedia RoboHelp X5 by March 31st and receive a $100 mail-in rebate. http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
Previous by Author:
Re: Don't believe the offshore hype?
Next by Author:
Re: Don't believe the offshore hype?
Previous by Thread:
Re: Don't believe the offshore hype?
Next by Thread:
Re: Don't believe the offshore hype?
Search our Technical Writing Archives & Magazine
Visit TechWhirl's Other Sites
Sponsored Ads