# Was Mustapha Mond right? Is it socially dangerous for too many people to be smart? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 15, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352 "2013-12-15T03:27:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/41 "2013-12-17T21:44:21Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > You want a task done efficiently, you give it to a lazy person. That’s what I always say! ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/42 "2013-12-18T00:05:48Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > That’s what I always say! I never say that. Takes too much energy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/43 "2013-12-18T00:12:14Z")
> [@bump](#): > > There are different sorts of boredom and/or different ways of defining it. > > One kind is the “not having enough to do and staring at the walls” style, but another, more insidious kind is the “I have plenty to do, but everything I have to do is boring.” kind. As in, you constantly have a lot of monotonous, mind-numbing stuff to do, but none of it is challenging, interesting or piques your interest in the least bit. The kind of thing where despite having plenty to do, you find ways to shirk doing it because doing anything else is preferable and less boring. > > Employers frequently mistake the term “boredom” with the first one, when it’s usually the second type that loses them employees. > > Your sweeping job sounds like it had none of the first and a huge dose of the second. Thing is, if he deliberately put on a smiley attitude and showed zeal and enthusiasm and happiness in his work, the boss would probably interpret this as him not working hard enough. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/44 "2013-12-18T02:07:41Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > …Heck, for all I know Asimov presumed that it would require a robot elevator operator to automate elevators. Actually, this was the case in real life, except we didn’t put _humanoid_ robots inside elevators, we simply put computers in elevators that could directly control the elevator motion. There’s an interesting analogy in Star Wars - consider R2D2. He (She? It?)'s supposed to be an “astromech” droid, a robot that performs mechanical maintenance tasks on board starships like sealing leaks and replacing damaged power converters. We already have cars in RL that have maintenance equipment built in like Tire Pressure Sensors and computers that have a smorgasbord of sensors that they use to perform a tune up every minute or so by adjusting the air/fuel ratio or the ignition timing. Both of these are things we used to do at home or at a gas station or garage. With non-computer controlled cars, you would have to go to a garage every few thousand miles to get a “tune up” where they would check your gauges and settings and run a few tests or two with specialized equipment. Now, cars do that for you. Surely you can imagine a hypothetical SF work from the 70’s that put “automech” droids in cars that you could talk to and ask for a tune up and to please check the pressure on the front tires, they feel funny. _How is that different from what we ended up with?_ I would say that on a theoretical level, _it isn’t_. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/45 "2013-12-18T02:09:28Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > That’s what I always say! AOL! ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/46 "2013-12-18T03:10:38Z")
> [@bump](#): > > There are different sorts of boredom and/or different ways of defining it. > > One kind is the “not having enough to do and staring at the walls” style, but another, more insidious kind is the “I have plenty to do, but everything I have to do is boring.” kind. As in, you constantly have a lot of monotonous, mind-numbing stuff to do, but none of it is challenging, interesting or piques your interest in the least bit. The kind of thing where despite having plenty to do, you find ways to shirk doing it because doing anything else is preferable and less boring. > > Employers frequently mistake the term “boredom” with the first one, when it’s usually the second type that loses them employees. > > Your sweeping job sounds like it had none of the first and a huge dose of the second. The second kind of boring has been with us ever since humans started working Grueling tedium is still the norm for almost everyone in the world, regardless of talent or intelligence. I would still be sweeping streets if I hadn’t gone to college and collected the skills needed to do an office job. My nerves would be more frayed doing that kind of work and I would no doubt have a very low tolerance for funnel cakes. But my above-average intelligence wouldn’t prevent me from doing the work, especially if that suddenly became my own choice in life. Sure, I’d be sad at first because I’ve experienced a cushy job and I would miss it. But eventually, I would adjust and accept my life as a street sweeper. The history of humanity is full of examples of intelligent people being treated like dumb animals yet accepting it because that’s how they been conditioned. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/47 "2013-12-18T12:55:34Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Yes, but the last 50 years has seen that protectionist legal framework eroded. We are moving away from “some greed, in combination with generosity as a guiding principle” to “greed is the guiding principle”. The wealth disparity has widened a lot in the last 50 years. Greed as the guiding principle isn’t working. How is it eroding? In the past, when wealth came from the land, the way to get wealthy was to conquer land, or be granted a tract of it by another conqueror, and work the land with slaves. Now, wealth comes from ideas, and finished goods, neither of which is particularly easy to get by force. Our rich people are now people like Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates, not William the Conqueror or Leopold II. Not even nation-states are in the wealth-through-force game anymore, for the most part. Even at that level, wealth comes from trade, which means making things or providing services that other people want. The wealth disparity may have grown in the U.S. and a few other Western nations, but worldwide? I’m going to have to ask for a cite on that. Of course, disparity isn’t everything; I’d much rather earn $50,000 and see my neighbor pull in $500,000, then make $1,000 and be comforted by the fact that my neighbor was equally poor. > [@Farin](#): > > Greed includes power. It’s not just money. If Obama comes out tomorrow and says “I will take $1 per year in compensation if you make me your dictator!” would you consider him greedy? I would. The most common term for this is “power hungry” which is just greed for power. Here, again, self-interest is a tool that can be harnessed for the common good. Absolute power is great for the dictator, not so much for everyone else. Since the odds that _I’ll_ be the dictator are rather low, it’s in my self-interest to support a democratic government that protects human rights. > [@Farin](#): > > At the expense of others, you benefit. People get paid wages that are barely livable, even compared to other wages in the area. In general, the wages paid aren’t “Better” except in a very few cases, mostly to do with oil companies. Most companies will pay whatever the lowest they can get away with is. I don’t see, for instance, people in China getting paid about half of the US minimum wage. If you made Chinese wages, you’d make [$675 a month](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/04/04/u-n-shocker-chinese-workers-underpaid/). They are only getting paid what is absolutely necessary to retain workers. If they could pay every worker assembling widgets 1c per day, they would. > > But the corporate greed gave you a cheaper widget, so…it’s a betterment? As they benefit at my expense. So it goes, trade only occurs when each party values what they other has more than what they have. Cite that factory wages in China aren’t superior to farm wages? People aren’t leaving the countryside to make themselves worse off. Workers try to maximize their wage, employers try to minimize costs, and there’s a point of equilibrium. Everyone benefits. > [@Farin](#): > > As a simplistic picture, recall olden scientific progress and the Enlightenment in general. A lot of our progress came with the fabulously wealthy would support scientists and artists (in a very few cases, royalty founding and then funding academic institutions for some number of years) and let them design and invent. In some cases, great inventions came out, in other cases, they got nothing much. It wasn’t two lines on an expense sheet and attempting to drive an ROI out of the expense. > > People used their wealth to advance science and art in addition to a harem of cyber sexbots bent on their personal pleasure. > > But now? Most researchers fight tooth and nail to get funding out of the grant system in the US and personal/corporate donations for research are about getting them increased ROI. > > Shareholders and Stock Brokers constantly groan and moan and complain when a company misses their target stock price by even a penny. Speaking only for myself, that’s not a very compelling case. I’d rather not return to science and the arts being novelties for the idle rich. An eye to practical results has, again, produced the golden age of humanity. > [@Farin](#): > > That’s not true. Most inventions in history are made to solve a problem. Need to water crops? Hauling a bucket sucks. Digging irrigation ditches with a gate next to the river makes it better. Need to dig a lot of irrigation ditches? A hoe helps out immeasurably. Need to dig way more/way bigger irrigation ditches? A backhoe really hits the spot. Inventing is only part of the process. Production and distribution are equally important. It does me no good at all if the next town over figures out the concept of the backhoe and builds one. It does me a _tremendous_ amount of good if I can drop by the farm-supply store and buy a backhoe, because some greedy industrialist is manufacturing them. If Ford and his contemporaries were unable to make money on cars, do you think we’d have abundant, inexpensive, high-quality cars today? > [@Farin](#): > > As a society we are focused on greed and self-interest. What will this X bring me? Income? Wealth? Power? Women/Men? A Hawaiian Island? That is how people approach their life, and it shows in our culture as a whole. Caring about others has overwhelmingly become something that happens when others are around to watch, but not when they aren’t around. That’s human nature. We’re driven by the pursuit of reproductive success, which means looking out for ourselves and our families first. The trick is to harness it for the common good, as in a market economy, not pretend people can just switch it off and that failing to do so is a moral failing. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/48 "2013-12-18T14:42:58Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > How is it eroding? In the past, when wealth came from the land, the way to get wealthy was to conquer land, or be granted a tract of it by another conqueror, and work the land with slaves. Glass-Stegall was repealed, allowing our rich banking overlords to be reckless with money they are keeping for us. We then pay ourselves to ensure that our funds are good to go. The technology bubble happened, ripping off the majority and helping the people that saw it coming. The housing bubble happened, ripping off the majority and helping the few that saw it coming. And then society bailed out the rich companies and (by proxy) the individuals that ostensibly led the markets to the crash happening in the first place. Greed led to the crash. There are constant calls for backing off/lowering or outright removal of the minimum wage. WalMart, by being greedy, has barely offered anything in the way of useful wage or benefit while it’s owners are among the 400 most greedy people. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Now, wealth comes from ideas, and finished goods, neither of which is particularly easy to get by force. Our rich people are now people like Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates, not William the Conqueror or Leopold II. > > Not even nation-states are in the wealth-through-force game anymore, for the most part. Even at that level, wealth comes from trade, which means making things or providing services that other people want. And this means what, exactly? That being greedy to amass resources is “better” now because they manage to do it without bloodshed? To go into hyperbolic territory, It seems to me that if that’s your main criteria, then your neighbors can rob you blind as long as they don’t kill you and it’s no big deal, right? Heck, they can do it when you aren’t home so it’s no big deal. That’s the ultimate reflection of “greed” and it goes on every single day through digital means. Your details are bought, sold, sold again, and then used to try and get money directly from your wallet. Is it so okay, that the lax privacy laws US citizens currently have in place are good? Should we make them less stringent and simply make everyone’s life public and every move an open book to any who want to see? > [@Human\_Action](#): > > The wealth disparity may have grown in the U.S. and a few other Western nations, but worldwide? I’m going to have to ask for a cite on that. Of course, disparity isn’t everything; I’d much rather earn $50,000 and see my neighbor pull in $500,000, then make $1,000 and be comforted by the fact that my neighbor was equally poor. [China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_China), [and](http://southasia.oneworld.net/archive/Article/india-still-suffers-from-huge-income-gap#.UrGotvRDvIY) [India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India). Both places that are getting “richer” but mainly for the ruling/elite classes. Note that wages are going up just enough that there are something like [16 other countries](http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/pc16-identifying-chinas-successors) that companies are looking at moving to just to escape the “high” wages of the Chinese. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Here, again, self-interest is a tool that can be harnessed for the common good. Absolute power is great for the dictator, not so much for everyone else. Since the odds that _I’ll_ be the dictator are rather low, it’s in my self-interest to support a democratic government that protects human rights. A democratic government can be one of those situations where you are claiming self-interest, but it can also be equally claimed societal interest. It’s a collision of needs between the two, which makes it a bad claim for the superiority of either side. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > As they benefit at my expense. So it goes, trade only occurs when each party values what they other has more than what they have. > > Cite that factory wages in China aren’t superior to farm wages? People aren’t leaving the countryside to make themselves worse off. Workers try to maximize their wage, employers try to minimize costs, and there’s a point of equilibrium. Everyone benefits. That’s comparing apples to moons. When you live on a farm, you have a place to live, food on your plate (baring a bad harvest), and potential income when you go to sell your excess. When you live in an industrial city with barely breathable air and are making just enough to cover living and eating, you are living equivalently, even if your wages are “higher” than on the farm, you are no better off. As for your “point of equilibrium” - that can only exist when the free market is in balance. It’s not. It’s completely and totally titled toward the employer. It’s why places like the US have a minimum wage law. Wal Mart would, in a heart beat, pay it’s workings 1 cent an hour to maximize profits if they could. Or, even, pay them in WalMart Dollars that can only be redeemed at walmart. All of this has happened before, which is one of the reasons we instituted labor laws in the first place. When you are trying to keep a home in a city, you need a way to pay for it. You MUST take that job or you don’t have a home anymore. You MUST pay for your groceries as the vast majority of homes have no way to support growing your own food at a sustainable level. And most of the US has laws mandating electrical and water services (to keep builders from making a bunch of boxes on land somewhere, selling them all and then laughing gleefully as they go to the bank and the new owners live with sewage…more greed, in other words) so you MUST pay for your water and electrical usage. Most of these laws were passed at a time when it was important to help the downtrodden. Now? Manufacturers and Builders will build just long enough to escape a warranty period and then when everything breaks, it’s caveat emptor. I see this sort of response to all sorts of things. “You should have done more to secure yourself against this.” > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Speaking only for myself, that’s not a very compelling case. I’d rather not return to science and the arts being novelties for the idle rich. An eye to practical results has, again, produced the golden age of humanity. The golden age? Cite please. Wealth disparity is growing worldwide. Especially if you look at the wages of the rock-licker-level of poverty to the Forbes 400. For example, [2.4 billion people lived on less than US $2 a day in 2010.](http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview) Also, you missed the point. Once those rich people had generations of their family covered financially, they gave back to the community in many ways. Academics, scientific research, and so forth. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Inventing is only part of the process. Production and distribution are equally important. It does me no good at all if the next town over figures out the concept of the backhoe and builds one. It does me a _tremendous_ amount of good if I can drop by the farm-supply store and buy a backhoe, because some greedy industrialist is manufacturing them. > > If Ford and his contemporaries were unable to make money on cars, do you think we’d have abundant, inexpensive, high-quality cars today? You are mixing “production and distribution” with “need”. Had Ford not spent a metric boatload convincing people that the car was the only thing that mattered, it would have probably always been a novelty, outside of war and transport. After all, why does every family need five cars? Why don’t we have integrated public transit in the US while Europe does? Well, our cities were mostly designed around having a car, which made it far more difficult to put in reliable alternative transit methods. And, when it was decided by the motor car manufacturers to remove competition, [it was done](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy). Greed actively impedes progress to allow for more wealth to be accumulated by the minority at the expense of the majority. Electric streetcars as shown above are an example. Time Warner/Comcast trying to block a la carte television and streaming shows is another. I can just keep going with examples of companies maximizing their own agenda and profits at the expense of workers, consumers, progress, or all three. And, if the next town over invented a backhoe, you could go learn how to construct your own if it benefited you. The cheap and easy route of having 150 Caterpillar machines lined up at the dealer doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > That’s human nature. We’re driven by the pursuit of reproductive success, which means looking out for ourselves and our families first. The trick is to harness it for the common good, as in a market economy, not pretend people can just switch it off and that failing to do so is a moral failing. My point is for people who have already achieved " looking out for ourselves and our families first". Do you think that Charles and David Koch or Jim or Alice Walton have any legitimate fear that they and their families won’t be provided for for the foreseeable future? If you are barely scraping by and you get a $100 bank error in your favor, by all means - be greedy. If you are making more than enough to support yourself and your family - why is additional greed the goal? ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/49 "2013-12-18T15:53:56Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Glass-Stegall was repealed, allowing our rich banking overlords to be reckless with money they are keeping for us. We then pay ourselves to ensure that our funds are good to go. The technology bubble happened, ripping off the majority and helping the people that saw it coming. The housing bubble happened, ripping off the majority and helping the few that saw it coming. And then society bailed out the rich companies and (by proxy) the individuals that ostensibly led the markets to the crash happening in the first place. > > Greed led to the crash. There are constant calls for backing off/lowering or outright removal of the minimum wage. WalMart, by being greedy, has barely offered anything in the way of useful wage or benefit while it’s owners are among the 400 most greedy people. Ok, we aren’t speaking of the same thing. I wrote about a framework by which wealth comes from providing goods and services, as opposed to conquest, and how this causes inherent human self-interest to benefit other humans. Investments that go bad, or a bubble in stock prices, is activity within that framework. Sure, some of it doesn’t actually work out and benefit people; companies go broke and people lose money. It happens. More often (considering GDP growth), it works out. > [@Farin](#): > > And this means what, exactly? That being greedy to amass resources is “better” now because they manage to do it without bloodshed? Well, yes. I consider someone, greedy or otherwise, who got rich selling hamburgers morally superior to someone who got rich by conquering his neighbors, or enslaving serfs to work his lands, and would rather live in society where the former is possible and the latter impossible (or at least very difficult). I happen to like hamburgers, and am glad they are cheap and plentiful; I benefit from greedy restauranteurs. The world, thanks to more powerful and stable governments, has tilted sharply toward rewarding the hamburger-monger instead of the warlord. > [@Farin](#): > > To go into hyperbolic territory, It seems to me that if that’s your main criteria, then your neighbors can rob you blind as long as they don’t kill you and it’s no big deal, right? Heck, they can do it when you aren’t home so it’s no big deal. No, theft is no good either. It doesn’t benefit me, commerce benefits both parties. > [@Farin](#): > > That’s the ultimate reflection of “greed” and it goes on every single day through digital means. Your details are bought, sold, sold again, and then used to try and get money directly from your wallet. Is it so okay, that the lax privacy laws US citizens currently have in place are good? Should we make them less stringent and simply make everyone’s life public and every move an open book to any who want to see? I don’t know what you’re referring to here. > [@Farin](#): > > [China](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_China), [and](http://southasia.oneworld.net/archive/Article/india-still-suffers-from-huge-income-gap#.UrGotvRDvIY) [India](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_India). Both places that are getting “richer” but mainly for the ruling/elite classes. Any cites with numbers that go further back? The first just goes to 2005, the second to 1996, and the third to 1999. That makes discussing the impact of what we’re discussing rather difficult, as the changes were already well underway by then. > [@Farin](#): > > Note that wages are going up just enough that there are something like [16 other countries](http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/pc16-identifying-chinas-successors) that companies are looking at moving to just to escape the “high” wages of the Chinese. Good! More people will be uplifted. > [@Farin](#): > > A democratic government can be one of those situations where you are claiming self-interest, but it can also be equally claimed societal interest. It’s a collision of needs between the two, which makes it a bad claim for the superiority of either side. That balance is what I am advocating. Again, self-interest isn’t inherently good or bad, it simply _is._ It’s part of being human. We can turn it to our advantage, or not. For the most part, in the Western world, it’s been turned to our advantage. > [@Farin](#): > > That’s comparing apples to moons. When you live on a farm, you have a place to live, food on your plate (baring a bad harvest), and potential income when you go to sell your excess. When you live in an industrial city with barely breathable air and are making just enough to cover living and eating, you are living equivalently, even if your wages are “higher” than on the farm, you are no better off. You must know better than the actual people facing that decision in China do, then, as they are [fleeing farms in droves](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_in_China) for the cities. They aren’t guaranteed a better life, but they’re moving the cities and staying there, so it sure seems like most of them are finding a better life there. > [@Farin](#): > > As for your “point of equilibrium” - that can only exist when the free market is in balance. It’s not. It’s completely and totally titled toward the employer. It’s why places like the US have a minimum wage law. Wal Mart would, in a heart beat, pay it’s workings 1 cent an hour to maximize profits if they could. Or, even, pay them in WalMart Dollars that can only be redeemed at walmart. All of this has happened before, which is one of the reasons we instituted labor laws in the first place. Company dollars was only possible where the mines (or whomever) was the only employer in town. Again, there’s a framework, and competition is part of it. Also, it’s not the case that everyone was toiling for a penny a day before minimum wage laws, there’s always an equilibrium point. > [@Farin](#): > > When you are trying to keep a home in a city, you need a way to pay for it. You MUST take that job or you don’t have a home anymore. You MUST pay for your groceries as the vast majority of homes have no way to support growing your own food at a sustainable level. And most of the US has laws mandating electrical and water services (to keep builders from making a bunch of boxes on land somewhere, selling them all and then laughing gleefully as they go to the bank and the new owners live with sewage…more greed, in other words) so you MUST pay for your water and electrical usage. > > Most of these laws were passed at a time when it was important to help the downtrodden. Now? Manufacturers and Builders will build just long enough to escape a warranty period and then when everything breaks, it’s caveat emptor. I see this sort of response to all sorts of things. “You should have done more to secure yourself against this.” As for everything being better-built in the good ol’ days, some things were (often overbuilt), and some thing were not. If life on the farm is so wonderful, why did people during the Industrial Revolution leave the farm? Why are they doing the same thing now in China and India? It’s well and good to say people _should_ be better off on farms, but the actual people making the decisions evidently feel otherwise. > [@Farin](#): > > The golden age? Cite please. Wealth disparity is growing worldwide. Especially if you look at the wages of the rock-licker-level of poverty to the Forbes 400. For example, [2.4 billion people lived on less than US $2 a day in 2010.](http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview) It not now, when? From your cite: > [@](#): > > According to these estimates, 21 percent of people in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day. That’s down from 43 percent in 1990 and 52 percent in 1981. I’m not saying now is the best things will ever be, that’s obviously untrue (barring alien invasion, supernova, etc). _But it is the best things have ever been._ If you dispute that, please supply the metrics on which you base this belief. > [@Farin](#): > > Also, you missed the point. Once those rich people had generations of their family covered financially, they gave back to the community in many ways. Academics, scientific research, and so forth. Do you suppose academia and science was _better_ funded pre, say, 1900 than it is today? > [@Farin](#): > > You are mixing “production and distribution” with “need”. Had Ford not spent a metric boatload convincing people that the car was the only thing that mattered, it would have probably always been a novelty, outside of war and transport. Seriously? > [@Farin](#): > > After all, why does every family need five cars? Huh? What percentage of families has five cars? 0.01%? > [@Farin](#): > > Why don’t we have integrated public transit in the US while Europe does? Well, our cities were mostly designed around having a car, which made it far more difficult to put in reliable alternative transit methods. And, when it was decided by the motor car manufacturers to remove competition, [it was done](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy). Because Americans could afford more cars earlier, and preferred cars to public transport, and because American cities are typically more sprawling, being newer and space being more abundant. Did you actually read that article? The idea that GM’s activity _caused_ the decline of streetcars is unsupported balderdash. > [@Farin](#): > > Greed actively impedes progress to allow for more wealth to be accumulated by the minority at the expense of the majority. Electric streetcars as shown above are an example. Time Warner/Comcast trying to block a la carte television and streaming shows is another. I can just keep going with examples of companies maximizing their own agenda and profits at the expense of workers, consumers, progress, or all three. Except for all the times when greed _causes_ progress. Your view is entirely too simplistic. > [@Farin](#): > > And, if the next town over invented a backhoe, you could go learn how to construct your own if it benefited you. The cheap and easy route of having 150 Caterpillar machines lined up at the dealer doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. If that strategy - progress through benevolent, profit-free sharing - works, why hasn’t, you know, _actually worked_? Why did the explosion of rapid progress and human comfort only come after the rise of banking, commerce, property, and the other aspects of the framework I mentioned, and then only in those nations with said framework? Is it a massive coincidence? Here’s a short piece by Milton Friedman that I rather enjoy that illustrates some of what I’m referring to: > [@](#): > > Look at this lead pencil. There’s not a single person in the world who could make this pencil. Remarkable statement? Not at all. The wood from which it is made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down in the state of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw. To make the saw, it took steel. To make steel, it took iron ore. This black center—we call it lead but it’s really graphite, compressed graphite—I’m not sure where it comes from, but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, this eraser, a bit of rubber, probably comes from Malaya, where the rubber tree isn’t even native! It was imported from South America by some businessmen with the help of the British government. This brass ferrule? I haven’t the slightest idea where it came from. Or the yellow paint! Or the paint that made the black lines. Or the glue that holds it together. Literally thousands of people co-operated to make this pencil. People who don’t speak the same language, who practice different religions, who might hate one another if they ever met! When you go down to the store and buy this pencil, you are in effect trading a few minutes of your time for a few seconds of the time of all those thousands of people. What brought them together and induced them to cooperate to make this pencil? There was no commissar sending … out orders from some central office. It was the magic of the price system: the impersonal operation of prices that brought them together and got them to cooperate, to make this pencil, so you could have it for a trifling sum. > > That is why the operation of the free market is so essential. Not only to promote productive efficiency, but even more to foster harmony and peace among the peoples of the world. > [@Farin](#): > > My point is for people who have already achieved " looking out for ourselves and our families first". Do you think that Charles and David Koch or Jim or Alice Walton have any legitimate fear that they and their families won’t be provided for for the foreseeable future? Intellectually, I’m sure they know they’ve no worries ahead. But humans are emotional creatures, and propelled by built-in drives. In any model for human society, these drives must be accounted for, because we don’t know how to change them. It’s fine to theorize that a person might work long, hard hours toiling over a new discovery, or trying to knock the distribution costs for food down a few cents, out of sheer benevolence to his fellow man. But if, in fact, people _won’t_ do that, then your society has a serious problem. The Soviet Union made that assumption, and they had to make [being bad at your job a crime to keep things running](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_(Soviet_crime)), and had to contend with a massive black market. Human nature always wins. > [@Farin](#): > > If you are barely scraping by and you get a $100 bank error in your favor, by all means - be greedy. If you are making more than enough to support yourself and your family - why is additional greed the goal? To restate: greed isn’t a goal or a moral good, it’s part of human nature. Recognizing this as a human trait, rather than a moral failing, means being able to use the greed of others to benefit oneself and everyone else, through peaceful commerce. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/50 "2013-12-18T18:34:37Z")
It seems the Alphas in the book only rose up due to the inequality in the arrangement. Those who had the best jobs fought to keep it, and those who didn’t fought for them. A more optimal arrangement would equalize the Alphas and they would take turns being on top and on bottom, so that one Alpha didn’t have to look forward to a lifetime of being below another. There’s no intrinsic reason mankind couldn’t all be smart, they just have to be balanced against their base desires and feel that their situation is the best that can be. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/51 "2013-12-18T18:45:57Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Actually, this was the case in real life, except we didn’t put _humanoid_ robots inside elevators, we simply put computers in elevators that could directly control the elevator motion. > > There’s an interesting analogy in Star Wars - consider R2D2. He (She? It?)'s supposed to be an “astromech” droid, a robot that performs mechanical maintenance tasks on board starships like sealing leaks and replacing damaged power converters. We already have cars in RL that have maintenance equipment built in like Tire Pressure Sensors and computers that have a smorgasbord of sensors that they use to perform a tune up every minute or so by adjusting the air/fuel ratio or the ignition timing. Both of these are things we used to do at home or at a gas station or garage. With non-computer controlled cars, you would have to go to a garage every few thousand miles to get a “tune up” where they would check your gauges and settings and run a few tests or two with specialized equipment. Now, cars do that for you. Surely you can imagine a hypothetical SF work from the 70’s that put “automech” droids in cars that you could talk to and ask for a tune up and to please check the pressure on the front tires, they feel funny. _How is that different from what we ended up with?_ I would say that on a theoretical level, _it isn’t_. Of course it’s different! How can built-in maintenance devices provide plucky comic relief, let alone develop self-awareness and turn against their creators?! Huh?! How?! ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/52 "2013-12-18T21:31:08Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Actually, this was the case in real life, except we didn’t put _humanoid_ robots inside elevators, we simply put computers in elevators that could directly control the elevator motion. But that was my point. Asimov didn’t foresee a fairly simple computer device adequate to do the programmed job of stopping at an indicated floor. For some reason, he could envision a “positronic brain” capable of strong AI, but not the equivalent of jellyfish-level automatic responses. In fact, in one of his novels he has a character explain why they _didn’t_ have built-in robot brains piloting automobiles for example: since the positronic brains are all or nothing, it makes more sense to put them into general purpose bodies (i.e., your standard two-armed two-legged robot) and have them operate manual controls. The near-total failure of classic science fiction to predict non-AI automation was one of its biggest shortfalls. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/53 "2013-12-19T02:30:11Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Ok, we aren’t speaking of the same thing. I wrote about a framework by which wealth comes from providing goods and services, as opposed to conquest, and how this causes inherent human self-interest to benefit other humans. Investments that go bad, or a bubble in stock prices, is activity within that framework. Sure, some of it doesn’t actually work out and benefit people; companies go broke and people lose money. It happens. More often (considering GDP growth), it works out. The housing bubble wasn’t engineered by trying to rig profit using shady instrument ratings? > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Good! More people will be uplifted. At the expense of the progress the Chinese have made. Development money will slow to China and increase to some other third world. And China is still largely not “uplifted”. The ruling class and the government got most of that influx. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > That balance is what I am advocating. Again, self-interest isn’t inherently good or bad, it simply _is._ It’s part of being human. We can turn it to our advantage, or not. For the most part, in the Western world, it’s been turned to our advantage. It has been turned to the advantage of those at the top, primarily. [quote=“Human\_Action, post:49, topic:676352”] You must know better than the actual people facing that decision in China do, then, as they are [fleeing farms in droves](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_in_China) for the cities. They aren’t guaranteed a better life, but they’re moving the cities and staying there, so it sure seems like most of them are finding a better life there. ]/quote] They get higher “Wages” in the city is a comparison of no wages and self-subsistence to getting wages with no self-subsistence. It’s comparisons between two different things. And you are saying that those wages are worth the crap that comes with industrialization? Would you like to work for $652 a month and work 12+ hours a day? > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Company dollars was only possible where the mines (or whomever) was the only employer in town. Again, there’s a framework, and competition is part of it. Also, it’s not the case that everyone was toiling for a penny a day before minimum wage laws, there’s always an equilibrium point. Yes, the minute the company had a chance to screw it’s workforce it took it. And that never, ever happens, today. Right? > [@Human\_Action](#): > > If life on the farm is so wonderful, why did people during the Industrial Revolution leave the farm? Why are they doing the same thing now in China and India? It’s well and good to say people _should_ be better off on farms, but the actual people making the decisions evidently feel otherwise. No, it’s because of the parallel reason we have high unemployment now: There is no new land to settle farm land to settle on. So they need something to try and call their own. People migrate because there is a promise of something that is rarely delivered upon. Sure, you get work, but you get a whole host of societal problems to go with it. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > It not now, when? From your cite: > According to these estimates, 21 percent of people in the developing world lived at or below $1.25 a day. That’s down from 43 percent in 1990 and 52 percent in 1981. > > I’m not saying now is the best things will ever be, that’s obviously untrue (barring alien invasion, supernova, etc). _But it is the best things have ever been._ > > If you dispute that, please supply the metrics on which you base this belief. I am sorry, but moving from 2.59 billion people in 1981 to 2.44 billion people in 2010 making $2 a day and claiming it as a victory is not. It took 29 years to drop 5.8% of the people affected by complete poverty. Note that I don’t use the $1.25 metric because most people moved to the $2 band by increasing by about a quarter a day, which isn’t enough to make a significant difference (although it does make some.) > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Do you suppose academia and science was _better_ funded pre, say, 1900 than it is today? Once again, I’m talking about the behavior that is focusing the wealth at the top of our economy and not how well funded arts and sciences are. Today: The majority of the wealthy keep it and try to make even more money with it. In the past: After your major (and some bling bling) needs were provided for, you’d spread a good portion around. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Seriously? Honestly? > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Huh? What percentage of families has five cars? 0.01%? Sorry, my apologies as that was a typo and/or brain fart. TWO cars. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Because Americans could afford more cars earlier, and preferred cars to public transport, and because American cities are typically more sprawling, being newer and space being more abundant. Yes, but they are more sprawling because if you have a car you can drive a long distance, so building tight knit buildings around a core “residential area” was taken off the plate. It was marketing and it made a lot of companies rich. And, of course, the descendants of those original planners are paying the price. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Did you actually read that article? The idea that GM’s activity _caused_ the decline of streetcars is unsupported balderdash. No, it’s not. The government paved the way for this via the Public Utility Holding Act, and GM et al went to work. Granted, a few people were frothing lunatics, but the nicest view of the situation is > [@](#): > > “Clearly, GM waged a war on electric traction. It was indeed an all out assault, but by no means the single reason for the failure of rapid transit. Also, it is just as clear that actions and inactions by government contributed significantly to the elimination of electric traction.” Or, to paraphrase, “Yeah, they definitely tore those suckers down…but it wasn’t the only reason it happened!” > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Except for all the times when greed _causes_ progress. Your view is entirely too simplistic. Greed doesn’t cause progress. Greed causes efficiency. Competitiveness will drive progress, which is a sister component of greed when it’s suitable. But Greed will take the fastest way to the most benefit. If you can pay a senator $1 M to get a law passed that says you are the only one to supply some part of a market, it’ll get jumped on. We have entire industries built around lobbying this way. Why? Because competition is harder. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > If that strategy - progress through benevolent, profit-free sharing - works, why hasn’t, you know, _actually worked_? Why did the explosion of rapid progress and human comfort only come after the rise of banking, commerce, property, and the other aspects of the framework I mentioned, and then only in those nations with said framework? Is it a massive coincidence? Progress has continually accelerated as humanity progressed through civilization. Many inventions moved from place to place with and without warfare for most of our history. Our progress moved slower ten minutes ago than it will ten minutes from now, and there are fairly few periods of human history that that wasn’t also true. One of our greatest strengths as a race is idea synthesis: We hear that a stick can move dirt better than hands. Then we notice that the wider a stick, the better it moves dirt. Then we find out about metals and that they don’t break as much, making the dirt moving easier and so on. (And then we find out that shanking animals is easier with metal. And then realize that people are fleshy, too. etc etc etc) As a result of this, we only stop innovating when the ideas stop floating around. But there have been very few incidents of this kind identified as happening in human history. Even in the midst of old timey war, information made the rounds. The concept of giving nothing to the enemy is fairly recent, historically speaking. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Here’s a short piece by Milton Friedman that I rather enjoy that illustrates some of what I’m referring to: I am not attacking the free market. I am attacking the greed and self-interest as the driver of the free market. You may have the opinion that self interest is the only thing that can drive it, but I disagree. You can have as many participants in the free market if we shift to a mental mindset of generosity instead of greed and self-interest. Let’s put it this way (car analogy warning): You love your car. Your brother takes your car and runs it into a wall. Who or what do you punch in anger: The car or the brother? > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Intellectually, I’m sure they know they’ve no worries ahead. But humans are emotional creatures, and propelled by built-in drives. In any model for human society, these drives must be accounted for, because we don’t know how to change them. It’s fine to theorize that a person might work long, hard hours toiling over a new discovery, or trying to knock the distribution costs for food down a few cents, out of sheer benevolence to his fellow man. But if, in fact, people _won’t_ do that, then your society has a serious problem. Accounted for? Yes. Assumed that since people are naturally that way that we should allow it as a society? No. If that’s the case, then why should a trade be fair? I gave you sixteen cents, some already-chewed gum and then forced you to sign your house over to me. A trade was made, right? It’s not outright theft. That’s the position that the current crop of people at the top of our free market are in. They can force low wages and not allow an equilibrium to come to pass. It’s only when you get to highly skilled positions where you have a choke hold on the numbers available that an equilibrium can even be approached. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > To restate: greed isn’t a goal or a moral good, it’s part of human nature. Recognizing this as a human trait, rather than a moral failing, means being able to use the greed of others to benefit oneself and everyone else, through peaceful commerce. Realizing that it’ll happen is one thing. Just accepting that greed will be greedy and we should do nothing about it is bunk, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/54 "2013-12-19T04:57:34Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > The housing bubble wasn’t engineered by trying to rig profit using shady instrument ratings? Like I said, it’s not foolproof. But letting people own houses, lend money, invest - the ingredients for the bubble - did much more good than the bubble did harm. > [@](#): > > At the expense of the progress the Chinese have made. Development money will slow to China and increase to some other third world. And China is still largely not “uplifted”. The ruling class and the government got most of that influx. Not necessarily, it depends on where China goes from here. American labor was once cheap. Japanese labor was once cheap. If China can be similarly productive and innovative, and I believe they can, they will continue to prosper. > [@](#): > > It has been turned to the advantage of those at the top, primarily. Meh. The powerful will always come out on top, because the powerful make the rules, and that goes for electorates as well as dictators. Under the right structure, though, the average laborer can live a life that would shame the kings of a few centuries ago. > [@](#): > > They get higher “Wages” in the city is a comparison of no wages and self-subsistence to getting wages with no self-subsistence. It’s comparisons between two different things. Sure. And the choice the actual people involved are making is rather clear, is it not? From the article I linked to: “In the 30 years since 1979, China’s urban population has grown by about 440 million to 622 million in 2009. Of the 440 million increase, about 340 million was attributable to net migration and urban reclassification. Even if only half of that increase was migration, the volume of rural-urban migration in such a short period is likely the largest in human history." > [@](#): > > And you are saying that those wages are worth the crap that comes with industrialization? Would you like to work for $652 a month and work 12+ hours a day? Yes, it’s worth it. Pre-industrial life is _awful_. It entails working sunup to sundown, for a lot less than $652 a month. That’s why people abandon it whenever and wherever they’ve gotten the chance. You seem to believe that people are tricked into thinking cars are useful, or that they can have a better life in the city than stooped in a rice paddy. People actually can and do make rational decisions as to their own well being. > [@](#): > > Yes, the minute the company had a chance to screw it’s workforce it took it. And that never, ever happens, today. Right? I haven’t said anything remotely like that. Of course it happens…when the framework isn’t in place. > [@](#): > > No, it’s because of the parallel reason we have high unemployment now: There is no new land to settle farm land to settle on. So they need something to try and call their own. People migrate because there is a promise of something that is rarely delivered upon. Sure, you get work, but you get a whole host of societal problems to go with it. [Statistics on land use don’t back this up.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use_statistics_by_country) If wages and living standards are climbing in areas that are urbanizing, and they are, how can you say the promise of a better life is rarely delivered on? Can you honestly say Americans would be better off if 90% of them were still farmers? And sure urbanization has problems association with it. So does agriculture. So does most any human activity. TANSTAAFL. > [@](#): > > I am sorry, but moving from 2.59 billion people in 1981 to 2.44 billion people in 2010 making $2 a day and claiming it as a victory is not. It took 29 years to drop 5.8% of the people affected by complete poverty. Note that I don’t use the $1.25 metric because most people moved to the $2 band by increasing by about a quarter a day, which isn’t enough to make a significant difference (although it does make some.) Of course it’s a victory! Those sums are peanuts to you, but life-changing for the people who live on it. Also, note that it only took 20 more years to reduce it by 22%. The pace is quickening with increasing globalization and industrialization. Golden age, baby! > [@](#): > > Once again, I’m talking about the behavior that is focusing the wealth at the top of our economy and not how well funded arts and sciences are. Today: The majority of the wealthy keep it and try to make even more money with it. In the past: After your major (and some bling bling) needs were provided for, you’d spread a good portion around. Do you have cites for this, or is it just your impression? > [@](#): > > Honestly? I honestly think it’s absurd to suggest that, but for Ford marketing, the automobile would be a novelty. My cite is the **1 billion** automobiles in existence. I don’t even really know how to address such a claim, it’s one of the more bizarre things I’ve ever read. > [@Farin](#): > > Sorry, my apologies as that was a typo and/or brain fart. TWO cars. Very well. It’s not a question of needing two cars, but of wanting them. As people are generally free to spend their money as they wish, they serve wants and needs. My girlfriend and I both have cars, and it’s worth the expense to have that flexibility in transportation. > [@](#): > > Yes, but they are more sprawling because if you have a car you can drive a long distance, so building tight knit buildings around a core “residential area” was taken off the plate. It was marketing and it made a lot of companies rich. And, of course, the descendants of those original planners are paying the price. People live the way they want to live, or as close to it as they can manage. I don’t know what else to tell you. > [@](#): > > No, it’s not. The government paved the way for this via the Public Utility Holding Act, and GM et al went to work. Granted, a few people were frothing lunatics, but the nicest view of the situation is > Or, to paraphrase, “Yeah, they definitely tore those suckers down…but it wasn’t the only reason it happened!” That quote has it right. GM accelerated a trend that was already in effect, they didn’t cause the trend. > [@](#): > > Greed doesn’t cause progress. Greed causes efficiency. Competitiveness will drive progress, which is a sister component of greed when it’s suitable. But Greed will take the fastest way to the most benefit. If you can pay a senator $1 M to get a law passed that says you are the only one to supply some part of a market, it’ll get jumped on. We have entire industries built around lobbying this way. > > Why? Because competition is harder. Again: framework. Greed can absolutely cause progress. Do you believe that not a single human advancement owes its origin to someone’s self-interest, in seeking a great return on what they’ve developed? > [@](#): > > Progress has continually accelerated as humanity progressed through civilization. Many inventions moved from place to place with and without warfare for most of our history. Our progress moved slower ten minutes ago than it will ten minutes from now, and there are fairly few periods of human history that that wasn’t also true. > > One of our greatest strengths as a race is idea synthesis: We hear that a stick can move dirt better than hands. Then we notice that the wider a stick, the better it moves dirt. Then we find out about metals and that they don’t break as much, making the dirt moving easier and so on. (And then we find out that shanking animals is easier with metal. And then realize that people are fleshy, too. etc etc etc) > > As a result of this, we only stop innovating when the ideas stop floating around. But there have been very few incidents of this kind identified as happening in human history. Even in the midst of old timey war, information made the rounds. The concept of giving nothing to the enemy is fairly recent, historically speaking. So, are you going with “massive coincidence”, then, as an explanation for the relative trajectories of nations that wound up with free market, capitalist frameworks and those that did not? > [@](#): > > I am not attacking the free market. I am attacking the greed and self-interest as the driver of the free market. You may have the opinion that self interest is the only thing that can drive it, but I disagree. You can have as many participants in the free market if we shift to a mental mindset of generosity instead of greed and self-interest. I can imagine few tasks more difficult. It entails tackling the ‘problem of biological individuality’, the basic fact that we are all individuals who can prosper or suffer, reproduce or not, live or die, individually. Best of luck, I suppose. Genetic engineering/transhumanism might make it possible someday. > [@](#): > > Let’s put it this way (car analogy warning): You love your car. Your brother takes your car and runs it into a wall. Who or what do you punch in anger: The car or the brother? Depends: is my brother, are all men, hardwired to drive cars into walls? > [@](#): > > Accounted for? Yes. Assumed that since people are naturally that way that we should allow it as a society? No. That’s what I’ve been writing about: the framework that makes greed work for others. > [@](#): > > If that’s the case, then why should a trade be fair? I gave you sixteen cents, some already-chewed gum and then forced you to sign your house over to me. A trade was made, right? It’s not outright theft. That is robbery, actually, by any definition I’ve read: the use of force or the threat of force to deprive others of property. > [@](#): > > That’s the position that the current crop of people at the top of our free market are in. They can force low wages and not allow an equilibrium to come to pass. It’s only when you get to highly skilled positions where you have a choke hold on the numbers available that an equilibrium can even be approached. I’m not seeing it. What force or threat of force accompanies trades in the Western world? Certainly there are criminals and robberies, but they are few, and it’s not the way wealthy people get that way, anymore. > [@](#): > > Realizing that it’ll happen is one thing. Just accepting that greed will be greedy and we should do nothing about it is bunk, in my opinion. Not nothing: the framework. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352/55 "2013-12-19T05:20:48Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > I am not attacking the free market. I am attacking the greed and self-interest as the driver of the free market. You may have the opinion that self interest is the only thing that can drive it, but I disagree. You can have as many participants in the free market if we shift to a mental mindset of generosity instead of greed and self-interest. Sorry, I must have glossed over this part. Are you sure you aren’t attacking the free market? Because it only functions due to self-interest. The whole concept of a market is that people voluntary exchange something they have for something another person has, because they value it more than they value the thing they already have. It literally cannot function without self-interest, because every market transaction is the result of self-interest. A free market based on generosity is oxymoronic, such a thing isn’t a market at all, it’s something else: a clearinghouse, a command economy, whatever term you like. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-mustapha-mond-right-is-it-socially-dangerous-for-too-many-people-to-be-smart/676352.md?page=2)