[FRIAM] capitalism vs. individualism

[uǝlƃ ☣]

OK. The only way I can make that work in my head is to argue that capitalism is not merely one of many things a capitalist can think/believe, but a kind of ethic or arching way of being ... a whole philosophy. *If* I can do that and claim that a Capitalist (big C) derives from the simple principles of methodological capitalism to a world-view, then it's reasonable to think the Capitalist believes capitalism answers *all* ethical questions (or at least a large enough share of them). And then it's reasonable to blame Capitalists for putting too much burden on what are really insufficient mechanisms for making the lion's share of ethical decisions.

A little C capitalist, who thinks capitalism is dandy for *some* social decision making, but irrelevant for most of them, would *not* rely on capitalism for other things (like science or how to vote on abortion). So, perhaps the article's author could make the claim that Capitalists and their over-burdening of Capitalism is a cause of "post-truth", but not capitalists and capitalism.

Your comment about many people being at their limit merely meeting their short-term responsibilities is relevant. I find a lot of people who put too much stock in their pet -ism, I suppose. And it seems some people might try to unify any plurality of -isms into a Grand Unified Ism (GUI - Ha!). I can't help but wonder if their inability to be/think pluralist is *incapacity* or simply laziness. It's like people who say they don't have time to exercise. Pffft. They're merely saying they don't *prioritize* exercise. I still tend to think everyone has at least as much energy and curiosity as I have, which prevents me from believing that very many people are simply *incapable* of thinking/being pluralist. Instead, they prioritize against pluralism and put all their eggs in their pet GUI.

On 11/4/19 3:40 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> I think the point is that organizations can't achieve goals if there is no overlap in meaning of the goals and mechanisms for achieving the goals.   Even if there are a few shared concepts, like money, that's not enough to explain why a transaction would be arranged in the first place -- two agents must have some overlapping reference frame beyond the cost and payment of the service performed.
> 
> There are kinds of truth that give near-immediate grounding  like fulfilling a delivery in a shared reference frame, or not, and then others that have less direct impact.    For many people the difficulty of meeting their short-term responsibilities take all of their attention, and so any obstacle to that (real or imagined) like carbon dioxide caps, is easier to throw into the Facts I will Deny category.   Increasing the space of deniable information makes it easier to anonymously externalize costs on others, and on a less obvious horizon, and decreases the cognitive loan on them for attention and reasoning.


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☣ uǝlƃ