In an essay titled
Freedom and Unfreedom, William T. Cavanaugh, the Roman Catholic theologian, attempts to deconstruct the ideology of the "free market." He takes his working definition of free market from Milton Friedman, a classical economist who draws heavily on free-market developer Adam Smith, who defines freedom as the absence of external coercion in the process of buying, selling, employing or working in the employ of another.
According to Friedman, so long as the effective freedom of exchange is maintained, the central feature of the market organization of economic activity is that it prevents one person from interfering with another with respect to most of his activities. The consumer is protected from coercion by the seller because of the presence of other sellers with whom he can deal; the seller is protected from coercion by the consumer because of other consumers to whom she can sell; the employee is protected from coercion by the employer because of other employers for whom he can work, and so on. And the market does this impersonally and without centralized authority.
So according to classical free market ideology, while a government may be necessary to maintain law and order and insure that coercion is not happening and that contracts are honored, no government may interfere into a market if it is to remain free. Friedman goes on to mention that a free-market economy "gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
Cavanaugh finds the key to free-market ideology here, in Friedman's understanding of freedom. Cavanaugh finds two necessary corollories to Friedman's view of freedom. The first is that this concept of freedom is purely negative, a freedom
from, and is "agnostic about the positive capacities of each party to a transaction, for example, how much power or property each party has at his or her disposal." Mere absence of external interference is enough to signify a free exchange. The second corollary is that this freedom has no end: it is undirected freedom.
And here is where Cavanaugh's argument really takes off, for Cavanaugh argues that for freedom to produce freedom, there must be a
telos, or end for such freedom. "The absence of objective goods [moral ends worth pursuing] does not free the individual, but leaves him or her subject to the arbitrary competition of wills." Said more succinctly, "In the absence of any objective concept of the good, sheer power remains."
It is this sheer power that the free market necessarily leaves unchecked, and which destroys the freedom of all other participants. Cavanaugh cites three examples of areas in which the free-market ideology actually produces what he calls "unfreedom," as consumers and even producers are carried along by the power of the market.
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Advertising. While free-market supporters laud the consumer as a chooser, corporations spend billions of dollars not only to persuade consumers to purchase their products over another, but to tie the consumption of goods to "goods that cannot be commodified, such as self-esteem, love, sex, friendship and success." What is more, corporations also invest in what GM calls "the organized creation of dissatisfaction," the means by which consumers are convinced that last year's model of car/television/computer/t-shirt was perfect
then; there's no possible way we could think they are enough now.
Citing Michael Budde's
(Magic) Kingdom of God, Cavanaugh compares making purchases in our free-market economy to playing poker against an opponent who has seen the cards you are holding in a slightly blurred mirror. "You still exercise free will," he writes, "but the dynamics of power have shifted because the situation is set up to advance the interests of others." How so? Cavanaugh cites two interrelated examples. Corporations have developed complex strategies to prevent consumers from finding out information about products, and has developed extensive methods for profiling consumers' purchasing habits, as exemplified by Erik Larson, who brought home his newborn daughter from the hospital to find a complimentary package of Luvs diapers on his doorstep, courtesy of Proctor & Gamble. What is more, advertising exists
everywhere, on virtually every space. "To pretend, as Friedman does, that the consumer stands apart from such pervasive control of information is to engage in fantasy."
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Asymmetrical power relations within companies. In 1980, the average CEO made 42 times what the average worker made; by 1999 that ratio had increased to 475 to 1. Why do CEOs pay themselves so much? To Cavanaugh the answer is clear: because they can. As the owners of capital gain power, labor loses power. This trend is largely tied to the capability of transnational companies to move production overseas, where they pay wages as low as 30 cents an hour, which gives employers the power to say to the workers of a community, "You can be happy with this, or you can have no jobs. Take your pick." Cavanaugh cites several horrifying examples of the lives of overseas workers for American and transnational companies, working sixteen hour days for wages that do not support their livelihood in dangerous and harmful conditions, often under armed guard. Why do companies do this? Cavanaugh again notes that it is because they can, but also notes that in many cases it is because they must, which brings us to the third aspect of the unfreedom that free-market ideology produces.
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"Because we have to." In an economy of unbridled powers competing, managers and other employees often find themselves powerless to do the things they would want. Managers often lament having to close American plants to ship production overseas. "In a world of consumption without ends, it is assumed that the consumer will want to maximize his or her own power at the expense of the laborer, and the manager does not feel free to resist this logic, lest his or her own corporation fall victim to competition from other corporations that are better positioned to take advantage of cheap labor." The same situation is the case for farmers who find they must change to a single-crop income due to the demands of the market even as that makes them more dependent on the market and, hence, less free. The same is also true of consumers who might believe the sweatshops are unethical, but either do not know or could not imagine a way to purchase t-shirts, shoes or jackets that were not produced in them. In short, Cavanaugh criticizes the ideology of the free market by critiquing the concept of freedom that underwrites it, saying that "Giving free reign to power without ends is more likely to produce unfreedom than freedom."
Throughout his essay he also presents an alternative understanding of freedom that draws heavily on Augustine's understanding, and uses that not to abandon the free market altogether but to offer a possible account of it that Christians could embrace and work toward. But that will be the subject of a future post.
For now, let me suffice to ask the simple questions.
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Do you agree that the free market produces more unfreedom than freedom? Why or why not?
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At what points is it necessary for an authority to intrude on markets? To break monopolies? To protect the environment? -
If Cavanaugh's problem is with the undirected freedom of the market, what direction could we possibly give to a "free market"? -
Is there any sense in which our trust in "market forces" takes on a religious tone? If so, when? Is that ever problematic for Christians?
True
Comments (34)
The reason free-markets don't work is because humans are obsessed with maintaining our own stupidity and in giving other idiots power over us.
I love love love that Revelife decided to use a picture of William Cavanaugh for this post.
The ancient Athenians proved the incredible power of free markets over 2500 years ago. Low cost capital provided by a very wise patrician turned a hogwollow into the capital of the ancient world. Athens fielded a volunteer army when needed, but its real power came from its super charged free market economy. Greek culture, philosophy and language became the coin of a very large realm
As a Christian, I see capitalism as an image of the creative power of God. From nothing comes vast wealth, goods and services and a standard of living that allows for leisure time. From nothing to something is the definition of creation. Capitalism is pure creativity. In the hands of the Godly, creativity is awesome.
Every system has imbalances, however. We live in a fallen world after all. But the solution to the imbalances of capitalism are solved almost exclusively with education. One great bit of knowledge is that capitalism has to power to free the individual (the little guy) from domination by the sharks (the big guy).
Any person can take an idea and turn it into vast wealth. Any person can buy assets instead of material doodads and become insanely wealthy.
In short, the true imbalance in capitalism is the inbalance caused by an ignorant, listless population. Any motivated individual can live long and prosper in a free market environment based on Christian ethics.
Ugh, William Cavanaugh is a fool who cannot help but think that indivduals are weak and cannot choose for themselves. I am very well versed in Friedman's works, as well as the school of Austrian economics. One of the cornerstones of the Austrian theory is drawn from the Praxeological view that persons will most often and always do what they choose is in their best interest. IE: You can never do something you do not wish to do. Even should these choices be considered unwise or have negative reprecussions of any kind, free will is the ultimate culpirt. Therefore, you can never do anything you do not wish to do.
The problem with Cavanaugh is that he his views of economics have little foundation in economics and everything rooted in Judeo-Christian morality. Economics is about the free transaction of goods and services, not making every individual happy. However, producers who make people happy tend to rightfully have more success.
All people are not equally deserving or even deserving at all. Producers who create products of a desired type and quality at a freely negotiated price deserve success. Individuals who have the highest degree of skill/talent in a desired field deservingly have the greatest degree of employment options. It's all very simple.
Profiling is just a way to more accuratly target marketing. So long as the individual's rights are not violated, how is this a problem? Product information is typically hidden because the only regulatory mechanism out there is really the government which is easily purchased and manipulated. In its absence, a wealth of regulators would spring up, and it would be in their interest to do a good job because their life depends on their integrity and dedication to seeing products for what they are.
The argument that mega-corporations cannot be stopped is another lie foisted on the pretense of helpless masses. If people as a society or demographic stopped shopping at Wal-Mart for any reason for even just a week, Wal-Mart would be damn quick to step in line with consumer demand. There are plenty of other providers to fill the hole. Should people not come to a consensus to perform such a feat, then their needs are probably being met to a point where they arn't bother by X issue. That's the beauty of free will. I can't see how Christian "economists" can't recognize that keystone. Furthermore, where do you think Unions came from? They did some MAJOR good for the worker during the industrial era. Hell, they just finally killed GM. What more evidence do you need?
William Cavanaugh is just another pseudointellectual assuming that life is fair, that all people have equally valuable skills, talents, and abilities, that people are inherently weak and cannot choose for themselves, that I have a right to what is yours against your will, and that the most fundamental characteristic of Humanity--a free will, is worthless and to be disregarded.
@Magniloquentia@xanga - Your understanding of economics is quite realistic! Leftists like Cavanaugh masquerading as Christians are terribly transparent.
I'm contemplating getting my graduate degree in Economics, and I agree with the concept of the beneficial free market, so this looks interesting. About Advertising: As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent." Advertising is an attempt at persuasion, but it does not force the consumer's hand. Ultimately it is the consumer who chooses to look at the ad, agree with its message, and buy the product.
And about asymmetrical power relations within companies: Some CEOs do earn more than their value, but if one overpays themself, he or she does so at the expense of the company and therefore indirectly (or sometimes directly) pays the consequences. I can explain more. As for the sweatshot example, many third world employees aren't forced to work in one. They choose it because although uncomfortable, it's a better alternative than working in the fields under the sun all day or prostituting oneself at risk of diseases and death. I've never heard of "under armed guard" but a company refuses to let their employees leave, that infringes on their rights and should be addressed legally.
1. Do you agree that the free market produces more unfreedom than freedom? No, because (long story short) as long as one person's acts may not infringe upon another person, everyone still retains freedom of choice, speech, press, religion, etc.
2. At what points is it necessary for an authority to intrude on markets? Antitrust laws to prevent cartels from driving up prices, mostly. But I don't think many laws are necessary because if a company makes bad or dangerous products, they will usually suffer the consequences and go out of business. As for the environment, if waste does not affect other people's water supply or health and the affected area is owned by the business, dump away. Haven't given this subject much thought yet.
3. If Cavanaugh's problem is with the undirected freedom of the market, what direction could we possibly give to a "free market" Undirected freedom as in no limits? If such a market exists, individual rights need to be enforced so others cannot infringe upon them.
4. Is there any sense in which our trust in "market forces" takes on a religious tone? I've seen a lot of people, Christians and atheists alike, support or oppose something because it appears to be either good or immoral - sweatshops, minimum wage, outsourcing, private for-profit companies, etc. But almost every judgment they have against a concept seems baseless once the concept is studied. People who oppose outsourcing on moral grounds, for example, think it robs Americans of jobs and cheats overseas workers. But companies that outsource their jobs to lower-cost production hire twice as many employees at home. And the sweatshop argument above can be applied to the "cheated" employees: not a fun job but it's the best alternative and improves their living conditions.
I'm anticipating flak for this comment.
I really don't understand how the Republican party gains supporters with its hypocritical policy--and this seems to be what the final question is aiming at. Individuals such as these often cry out for capitalism and the protection of our economic freedoms, not caring about the negative repercussions it may have on the environment or on the poor (i.e. healthcare). It seems to me that Christianity would advocate things like not polluting the planet and trying to help the lower-class, but evidently this is not so. People claim that the difference is "Well we shouldn't be forced to do those things", which is all well and good, but apparently we need to be forced to do those things to make it happen. If every Christian--no, every human--were really as morally upstanding as we wish they were, we wouldn't have these problems to begin with.
Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating socialism...just pointing out the hypocrisy of the Republican party. I acknowledge that Democrats can be equally hypocritical, and that's why I really hate the two-party system. We need to think critically about all politics, and never subscribe to a single party.
Sorry if that's a tangent, but the fourth question just seemed to be begging to go there.
All in all, an intriguing concept...
I already posted on this before it was featured. I just wanted to say that I'm glad to see, this time around, more thinking in the critiques.
I really like this post.
I definetly feel the same way, that a free market results only in oppression. Freedom isn't anything if it isn't bound by love, and sweatshops, targeting consumers, and inequality among wages isn't love.
Love is freedom, but America has taken all love out of the equation.
Great post!
I used to disagree with some of my capitalist friends as they defended capitalism. They were pretty speechless when the economy tanked as I said it would. I wasn't happy. I never said to them, "I told you what was going on" but I saw that look of "how did you know?".
It's not because I worked for one of the top investment banking firms on Wall Street, although working in that world made the coming collapse more obvious. The decision makers certainly knew the collapse was coming long before the population. From their vantage points at the top, while seeing the cliff ahead approaching fast they continued to tout how great their firms were doing, internally posting record gains while at the same time and to the shock of employees layoffs were beginning to take place, those being laid off told in secret the companies were in dire straights. Others were still seeing the happy face projected by from the top. Then there was the instances of executive bonus dates being moved up in hopes that those on the top would get their money before everything went to hell.
We have enough understanding of human nature that most of us don't question the necessity of supporting law enforcement and justice systems yet many of us didn't think we needed to regulate our financial system. In 2001 an investment bank executive was quoted as saying, "Finally government is staying out of the business sector. Government is allowing business people to do what business people do". It didn't take long for them to do it. Human nature is such that when we are given free reign to do anything to make profit, that's what people with little other values will do. Also, we like to say we have a free market economy but we don't really. Much of our economic restrictions are based on social and/or religious values. To look at the obvious we can take the porn industry. Prostitution is highly profitable for some people but our society does not allow it for moral reasons. My understanding is that there is legal prostitution in Las Vegas but it is highly regulated. I've never actually looked into it but that's what I've heard. The question is not whether or not we should have a free market economy. It's how much do we want to allow ourselves to suppress or even harm others in order to make sums of capital for ourselves?
Another example, the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry knew smoking was harmful and addictive decades ago but it was more profitable to hush that bit of knowledge up than to make it public. It took years of lawsuits and battles in Congress before the tobacco industry finally gave in, finally stopped (for the most part) targeting children in order to guarantee a growing marketshare. One can say that in the end it was for financial reasons (lawsuits) that the tobacco industry backed down but that would never have happened if not for public and government concern, concern not based on profit but on a value in human life.
It is well known that there is a very profitable market for selling childrens' organs and that children are killed everyday in places like Brazil so that their organs can be sold. To most of us that is horrible beyond anything else we consider horrible. What makes it revolting to us is that we overlay our values, values that give children the right to be safe, nurtured, and treated with dignity but to the people involved at every level of that industry murdering is a right to create capital for themselves and they truly believe that any government that gets in their way is infringing upon their "free market" rights.
Enough with the "rights" of free market economics vs human values in the most obvious of scenarios. For 1 1/2 years I was a salesperson for a corporation. In the training program I learned about "the gray area", an area in which truth in advertising is muddy at best. We were trained to use the gray area whenever we needed to avoid being honest with our potential clients in order to secure their business. I've always been an advocate of honesty. A dishonest person might make the sale but in doing so, he or she damages the fabric of our society. Sure, once the customer realizes he's been duped he will go elsewhere next time but that act of dishonesty perpetrated on the customer doesn't stop there and this is why. Look at the reputation of the used car salesman. Justifiably or not, used car salesmen have a reputation for being people you cannot trust. Yes we have carfax now and the carfax ads depict the smart consumer refusing to buy a used car from a sleazy salesman until he produces a carfax, which of course he doesn't want to do. Knowledge is bad for business. So we have the smart consumer who has been burnt or knows someone who has been burnt but what about the honest used car saleman? Everybody walks onto his lot with the presumption that he is dishonest and out to rip them off. All of this mistrust grows out of behavior of the not so honest salesmen, the salesmen who live and breath in the gray area which brings us back to Wall Street. Wall Street execs knew they were in trouble in 2007, perhaps even earlier.
What we call our free economy is not really a free economy. It is guided and molded by people with agendas of their own. It is oversight that keeps them honest whether that oversight fights against the exploitation of children for financial gain or stops the financial markets from putting other people's money into risky derivatives, which unfortunately did not happen.
Btw, anyone who passes criticism of "free market economics" as based simply on Judeo-Christian values might be better to take a broader and deeper look. The continual growth of human values based on mutual respect and the dignity of life spans the globe. Of course these values are steeped in religions and philosophies but they are proven or disproven by individual experience. It's a process and I believe the American public has been given a view through the looking glass at what takes place on Wall Street.
I believe that Bernie Madoff says to himself, "Damn. If only the economy hadn't collapsed".
Most countries with more government involvement in their economy do not prosper as much as those without as much government involvement. It's simple: the government cannot spend the taxpayer's money as efficiently and wisely as the individual, and is usually worse at making decisions for people as well.
Prostitution is only harmful because of the black market effects of being illegal. In Nevada where it is legalized and regulated, there has never been a single case of HIV. I wrote a blog about that on my site if you want to read more about it. As for the child-murdering-for-profit, that's neither beneficial nor capitalistic because people are infringing on the rights of others (the child's right to live). And if companies that lie or hide information hurt their customers, they will lose business because their services do not meet expectations. Sort of an economic karma.
What about freedom of choice? The tobacco company makes harmful products but doesn't force anyone to buy them. People buy cigarettes because they value smoking more than their long-term health, for the most part. I don't want anyone banning an industry because they don't think I can make my own choice about it.
@Ex_Adyto_Cordis@xanga - Thanks for your response and questions.
To your first point, I lived in Munich, Germany and I've gone back there many times since, usually for 6 week stays. I moved there with the German woman I married. She had a PhD, spoke 8 languages fluently even though language was not her major, and did runway modeling in the summer months between semesters at the University of Munich. I must admit that I went there with a bit of a superiority complex because I'm an American. The experience was a real eye opener for me. I found that overall the standard of living was much higher than what I was used to, having grown up in the burbs of Long Island and having lived in Manhattan.
One thing Germans are known for is being hard working people. They are also known for the high quality products they manufacture. Their highways, called collectively "The Autobahn" are amazing. They are built more like racetracks than anything I had experienced back home with smooth pavement and banked turns. They have a very good national healthcare system with coverage for all that would have included me if I had needed it. They have quite a social net that as far as I can see doesn't leave people destitute and homeless, quite a difference from walking 5 blocks on the affluent upper east side of Manhattan and being asked for spare change 5 times. Munich was clean to the point where once I took notice of just how clean it was I started looking for pieces of paper on the ground and couldn't find any, literally, and yet there was not a garbage can on every corner as I found whenever I had something in my hand that I wanted to throw away. If you've ever been in NYC one of the first things you might have noticed is how much garbage is blowing around in the street and on the sidewalks and how dirty it is even though it is considered the economic capital of the world (if it still is) with much more wealth floating around than in Munich. The Subways in Munich have always been clean. I felt like someone could invite a date for dinner in a subway and every time I've gone back they have new brand new more technically advanced subway trains.
I often stayed in a town about 40 kilometers from Munich called Landshut. I was amazed that the train from Landshut back to Munich came from Yugoslavia and yet you could set your watch to when it pulled into the station in Landshut exactly on time. That was the same for not only subways in Munich but also busses. I often wondered how busses could be exactly on time because there is a lot of traffic in Munich.
I could go on about other things but on top of everything that seemed to work flawlessly, the people had much more time to enjoy their lives. Their work weeks were a few hours shorter and the sun was out in the summer you'd think nobody worked because so many people were out in their central park drinking beer in the biergartens. It can rain for 2 weeks straight in Munich making the sun a welcome commodity.
I've been in several European countries and have found similar standards of living, not everywhere of course. I've never been to Norway but I hear theirs is very high, consistently ranked near or on the top.
I've always been lucky with women and have never found the desire to go into a strip club much less be with a prostitute. I have no problem with prostitution where all parties feel content with what they are doing but as you point out, there is regulation in Nevada and I think that is a good thing. As for companies lieing to customers, as I pointed out with the tobacco industry, they never would have come clean if not for the growing concern of people seeing their loved ones dieing sooner than they should have and it was out of human concern, not economic, that the tobacco industry's feet were held to the fire. I agree with you that if someone wants to smoke they should be able to. I haven't been back to Munich in a few years but last time I was there people could still smoke in bars and restaurants. Maybe that's changed since. We can't in NYC, the capitalist capital of the world. People have to go outside to smoke. I understand that because other people's health is being affected.
When I worked for the investment banking firm I once overheard a banker tell his underlings, "Never let legalities keep you from closing a deal. Let the legal department handle that". That in itself is an indication why these corporations pay sums of money on their legal departments.
About the right children have to life, I couldn't agree more but that is based on our value system. Not all people have the same value system. The mafia has their own free enterprise system going and they have over the years felt justified in murdering anyone who they was a threat to their enterprising.
What we are looking at are degrees of freedom and unfreedom. I really need to get going but there is one more incident I want to shine light on. A couple of years after 9/11 the investment bank I worked laid off a massive number of employees in waves, without warning. After each wave everyone was assured that would be all of the layoffs but it had all been planned and executed behind the scenes...in India. The work those people were doing was outsourced to India in complexes that had already been carefully planned and set up. At the end of that year the CEO's bonus jumped from $17 million to $22 million because he had saved the company money. The executives all saw their bonuses jump as well.
Two things I'll point out here. One is that this and the other corporations that did the same had been given tax breaks and other financially incentives by the City of New York (and probably the State) to stay keep their headquarters in NYC because it meant jobs and people spending money in the NYC economy....take lunch for example. Most people in that industry get their lunch from local restaurants. Suddenly tons of jobs were lost and I don't think anyone from India traveled to NYC for lunch.
The second thing is, outsourcing actually cost the company more money and here's why. Those of us left in my department continued doing our work but we had to also quality check all of the work that came back from India before it went to the client. Even though there were supervisors in India who had been trained to quality check the work before sending it to NYC, the work almost always contained errors and often had to be redone altogether by us. We were in effect getting paid to do the work over. We were not allowed to tell clients their work was being done in India and of course morale was somewhere in the sub-basement. I'm not saying people from India are stupid but they were given 6 weeks of training before replacing people with 5, 10, and 20 years of experience with the firm. What my department did was highly technical, required a mastery over about a dozen complex programs or more and we were required to produce precise and flawless work. Nobody with 6 weeks of experience could do what we did. To add to that, every six months or so, there were new Indian names on our contact list and the old names were gone. The reason was that after getting some experience under their belts they went shopping for better jobs. In some cases they might have been fired and in some they might have decided this industry wasn't for them. So every 6 months there was another cycle of 6 weeks of training and new people trying to do the work.
My point is that the people who stood to boost their incomes spun outsourcing as a company-wide cost savings when in reality it was the opposite. They got their bonuses while the rest of us got stuck with the headaches and we were not allowed to so much as complain. "It's what the company is doing and there's no sense complaining about it". It's what happens when short-term profit is the goal. Companies notoriously make cuts in quality whenever they think they can get away with it. The execs are not hurting right now. I read that one CEO sold his sprawling Florida estate to his wife for $100 so that he wouldn't lose it as his company went through bancruptcy court. In the meantime a friend of mine in the midwest is letting her parents and sister stay with her because they lost their jobs. We have to look at our society with a bigger picture in mind. Greed is a social cancer and short-term profit doesn't cut it.
oh boy...one last thing lol. My mom recently changed her bank account and had to get inform the 2 places that automatically deposit money in her account. First she called Social Security. She spent 4 minutes on the phone and it was done. I happened to be there and she got off the phone surprised at how easy it was. Then she called the insurance corporation where she had worked most of her life and from which she draws a pension. She wasn't on the phone for long but was told they would send her a form in the mail that she had to fill it out and send back. Two weeks passed and the form didn't arrive so she called again, spoke to someone else who promised the form would be sent out. That time it was and she received it in 3 or 4 days. Corporate bureacracy is not great either.
About outsourcing, not everything about it is good. People do lose their jobs and the local economy suffers (until a new company builds in the other one's place) , but it is beneficial in the long run. If the employees in India weren't meeting expectations and performing without errors, they should've been replaced. I also think the company was stupid to lay off such experienced employees (unless they were performing subpar) because they knew how to do their job better than those in India.
I think in your situation, the CEOs were to blame. Instead of taking that money saved by outsourcing and investing it in the company (expanding, hiring new employees, raising wages, etc.), they paid themselves more. Unless they are really worth their salary, they hurt the company. You mentioned the company went through bankruptcy court. Greed is defined as "excessive desire to achieve something, often by taking more than one's share." Greed is not the same as ambition, and these employers made selfish choices at the expense of everyone else.
I'm not sure what the point is of your last paragraph. Could you clarify your intention?
@Ex_Adyto_Cordis@xanga - Damn you I'm trying to get out the door. lol.
I agree with you. As for my last post I'm assuming you are referring to the edit I made, the last paragraph. If so, my point is that there can be as much bureaucratic molasses in the private sector as there is in the government sector. The smaller companies have less to manage and therefore bureaucracy is not so often a slowdown but large corporations have a lot of bureaucracy to go through. Also there are human beings working in both sectors, efficient and "less than" efficient to put it kindly in both sectors.
It's funny. My first trip through Europe was with the All Nation Choir, made up of the best high school level singers in the 50 States. We performed in 5 countries. It was a great experience but Germany was not one of those countries. I never had the desire to visit Germany but once I was there, I didn't want to leave. A lot of people say German is an ugly language but I love speaking it. Bavarians speak their own variety that even northern Germans can't understand. So I learned German, arrived in Munich, and hadn't a clue what anyone was saying. lol. Luckily they all know how to speak hochdeutshe as well as English. My wife had unusual talent for language but her English was better than mine.
Ok I have to go. Thanks for the intelligent discourse. I hope you get the opportunity to immerse yourself where you can use your German. Make lots of friends when you're there.
i've become much more of a socialist as i've gotten older. when 99% of the wealth is owned by 1% of the population, we have some serious problems. economies cannot sustain themselves for very long on that kind of imbalance. and i'd rather have a politician than a CEO... at least i can vote the politician out of office.
@TheSutraDude@xanga - Haha hey, I can wait until you get back.
That is a good point about "bureaucratic molasses." Could it be made more efficient?
I never understood why people think German is an ugly language. Yeah it's gutteral, but I love it.
than freedom? Why or why not?
I disagree. It is not the market that produces unfreedom,
but sin in man. A free market neither
produces nor hinders any morality, but allows the prevailing morality to
continue to prevail. The issue is not
the free market, but the state of mean’s heart who participate in the market.
At what points is it necessary for an authority to intrude on markets? To break monopolies? To protect the environment?
One of the founding fathers said something to the effect of, “We have given you a free country should you choose to keep it that way,” and “The price of freedom is vigilance.” Those who would give that responsibility of vigilance to the government give up that very freedom to it as well. If the people don’t want corporations to kill that freedom, they will pay the higher price of the up and coming competitors to insure it.
The only time the government should step in is when one group of people hinder, by violence or property destruction or the threat thereof, another person or group from doing business legally.
If Cavanaugh's problem is with the undirected freedom of the market, what direction could we possibly give to a "free market"?Cavanaugh is wrong, therefore, the question is moot.
Is there any sense in which our trust in "market forces" takes on a religious tone? If so, when? Is that ever problematic for Christians?
Christianity is about loving the way God loves us. He doesn’t control our abilities to do good or evil. He enables us to do good by offering reconciliation, redemption, and love to all of us. Some receive and participate. Others choose to ignore it and suffer lovelessness as a result.
If we are to be like our Father in regards to markets, they should be free and restricted only by those who participate in it.
It is obvious to anyone who takes the time to think it through that a free market distributes the greatest wealth to the most people. Sure, a Keynesian market ensures everyone but the controlling elites have the same amount of wealth, but that amount has been shown to be significantly less than what the vast majority of the people whose countries participate in free markets accumulate.
Your choices are these. Employ a Keynesian market and eliminate competition as well as motivation to produce. Good will toward one’s fellow man will only take sinful humans so far. Or employ a free market which will create far more wealth and distribute more to more people until man’s sinfulness, through lack of vigilance and through greed, brings the system into the same sort of totalitarian system that Keynes sought to produce in the first place.
@Ex_Adyto_Cordis@xanga - Thanks for waiting lol.
You probably know this but there are about 1,000 words in common usage in the German language compared to close to 10,000 in common usage in English. The thing that kills me is the whole der, die, das, dem, den thing. It kills me!
I believe that not only bureaucracies but every aspect in any workplace can be made more efficient. It is a stretch for many people and a slow process but I believe that as our collective values continue to mature this will become the solid foundation on which to build a strong society. It has everything to do with interpersonal relationships. I think I can best explain with a personal example.
Before working at the investment banking firm I was a production shift manager at a graphics house. When I started the job another manager gave me a heads up about one of the employees. He told me the guy had a tendency at times to hide himself somewhere to avoid work. I shared some of my shifts with this manager and the employee in question worked on both of our shifts. This other manager was a good guy and while he was often pleasant to work with at other times he could be heavy handed and could lose his temper with the employees at times. You never knew which side of him was going to show up at work. He had a bit of the law of the jungle attitude. He would lord it over those under him and kissed the butts of those above him. Thankfully he wasn't as bad as some I've worked with but the tendency was there. I consider that attitude a weakness.
My way of dealing with people is to show them respect. I listen to their ideas, get to know as much as they care to share about their lives and never make them fear punishment for sharing their grievances. I regard them as friends. After all if I'm going to spend more time with my coworkers than I do with my wife why should I make them and myself miserable? I can make my wife miserable just fine. /sigh
So I started asking the employee in question how he was doing or if he needed help. If I had the time I would jump in with him to get the job done, taking some pressure off of him. We'd inevitably chat and joke around. In less than a month he started behaving differently. He would finish a job quickly, and he was very good at what he did, then he'd come to the office and ask if I had anything for him to do. He basically did a 180 in his behavior. Even I was amazed. I was also touched. He actually helped me do things when he had downtime.
Of course dangling the possibility of a pay increase in front of people is an incentive and a necessary one because it is also a way of showing appreciation but money alone doesn't grease the wheels of a workplace. If people enjoy their workplace, their skills...if they feel respected and enjoy their teammates that department is going to hum like a well tuned Ferrari. The opposite occurs when people are not happy. People have to show up at work because they need the job but they tend to do what they can to make it through the day with the least amount of interraction and danger possible, danger in this case being a fear of messing up. That's another thing. I've never chewed someone out for messing up. Everyone messes up. I find that telling the person "Don't worry about it. Let's fix this" has a much more positive effect in the long run. The person will, unless perhaps it's someone with a mental disability, be more mindful of their previous screw up than me but more importantly they won't be so stressed out with fear the next time they have to perform the same task.
Sorry I type so much. :P Well there it is.
@TheSutraDude@xanga - That's one thing I like about English, no genders.
I agree; I think a lot of inefficiency in the workplace is due to poor interpersonal communication. I wish more employers had your personality and used a positive approach to problems rather than negative ones. I worked with troubled kids and although I'm no supervisor and have no kids of my own, encouragement works wonders.
I use the same "management" methods with my pets. I learned in psychology that it's better to use positive reinforcement than only punishment because 1) the subject learns what to do instead and 2) the situation ends on a good note. My cat used to scratch the sofa, so I squirted her with a bottle. She would run away but always come back later when she wanted attention. Then one day I guided her to the scratching post after spraying her and when she put her paw on it, I praised her (for going in the right direction). When she scratched it, I gave her a treat. After I repeated that a few times, she never went back to the sofa. I also praise her at random times for scratching the right thing so she continues doing it. I've learned that positive reinforcement works wonders on kids and adults too.
@Ex_Adyto_Cordis@xanga - Working with troubled kids? My hat off to you. That is a challenging job for sure and often a life saving one.
Your cat story makes for a perfect example, or should I say purrfect!
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
I'm remembering times like when someone would misread the instructions and finish a job with time to spare but oops....it wasn't what the client requested. We'd go into panic mode and as many of us that could be spared would jump in to get the job done by deadline or as near to it as possible. The tension would be so high that we'd break out laughing but once we got it done the team feeling was absolutely great, high fives and all....before we collapsed in the office to take a breather lol. I think those were the moments that bonded us together the most as a team.
@Ex_Adyto_Cordis@xanga - Btw, thank you and you seem to have a great personality too.
I couldn't find your blog on prostitution. :(
@Magniloquentia@xanga - You're absolutely right that Cavanaugh's critique is not an economic but a theological one. I imagine that's why Revelife - surprisingly - chose to feature it. In the same way, I have a problem with Clausewitz's concept of war as "continuation of politics by another means," but not because I don't think he knew how to wage a war.
Cavanaugh's point isn't that the free market doesn't "work." From a point of view of simple utility, it may "work." But is it an acceptable structure from a Christian theological perspective? That's the question for any self-serious member of the church, and that's the question that Cavanaugh is working through. The fact that the free-market ideology has to be underscored by the statement that "All people are not equally deserving or even deserving at all" illustrates exactly why Christians should have problem freely embracing the free market.
That aside, I think Friedman's view of human motivation is naive, probably intentionally so. He argues, for instance, that advertisers "would not" create artificial desires in consumers, as it would "surely" be more efficient to appeal to real desires than to create artificial ones. That an advertiser might appeal to real desires that a product does not actually deliver on (belonging, for instance) does not seem to enter the equation.
Wow, I love all the debating going on! I will let you all know off the bat that I'm a liberal and don't agree with giving the "market" free reign. In a perfect and truly just society that would be fine but we don't live in one...yet. Someone mentioned education as a solution to inequality and I agree but what do we do with the system we have? It seems as though the unrestrained free market has not given us a uniformly good education system. Poor school districts can't adequately prepare students for college whereas wealthy districts can. College itself, very much a necessity these days, is becoming unaffordable for many, many families and individuals. As for ancient Athens we must remember that philosophy and art helped build it as much as the volunteer army and free market. We also can't forget slavery which was a major economic force (free labor) in the ancient world. What about equal access to resources? We go around the world taking resources from local populations, denying them opportunities to develop on their own, opportunities like we had due to America's natural abundance (which we took from the natives). How can we say that a generally exploitative system is so great? Sure, it leads to some great innovations and general rise in standard of living but is it worth more than a human life? All so we can have our iPODS and sushi and drive our fancy cars? I don't think so, but I also believe that all humans are equal and priceless as individuals, even though we all have differing talents and ambitions. What do you think?
@Ex_Adyto_Cordis@xanga - hmmm. odd when i click on your blog from my email it takes me to a blog page but when I click on your name in this thread it takes me to another which is apparenty yours as well. Still no blog about prostitution though. Let me know tomorrow if you can.