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I had a conversation the other night and although the other fellow was (sorta) joking, he did say and mean that since there is no money in world peace, he ain't interested.
Now, I think there's plenty of room to argue the world peace ≠ any money, but mostly I am unsettled by the idea that the only reason, ultimately, to do anything is to turn a profit. Is that really the best we have to aim for? Money?
Is that all life has to offer?
Well, I think most everyone does lots of things for reasons other than money. In fact I suspect status is a much stronger motivator than money, and even much of the apparent desire for money is really a desire for status. (And I think this even though I'm an economist!)
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ReplyDeleteYou've probably got something there.
Speaking of status and peace:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Country_of_World_Peace
So, synergy?
Seriously though, it might be interesting to see what would happen if an alien race wanting to speak with the leader of Earth ended up talking to the Maharaja of the Global Country of World Peace, instead of, say, The British Prime Minister.
sorry, an errant "/" keeps the last link from taking you here.
ReplyDeleteThe money motivator is actually a little short sighted. When you look at the workplace, an increase in pay only improves moral in the short term. While other motivators are far longer lasting. Additionally, it seems many people in this country are very willing to trade a lot of freedom for a little security. No, security isn't the same as peace.
ReplyDeleteNo, for most entrepreneurs, there is little money to be found in the peace trade. I think, though, if we look hard enough we'll find a motivator that will work with establishing a lasting peace.
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ReplyDeleteHappiness researches find that money-caused increases to happiness top out at about $75000/year.
I agree with Ed, and totally agree with you when you say that money should not be the ultimate motivator. But I have to ask, what exactly does this guy mean by saying there's no money in world peace? If he meant that you won't get rich running an NGO in Sudan or starting an orphanage in southeast Asia, then yeah, he's right.
ReplyDeleteBut if he meant you can't make a comfortable living at promoting world peace, then that's patently false. Become a diplomat. Work at an embassy. Do web development for high-level nonprofits. Work on technology innovations that maximize the usage of scarce natural resources. Seriously, there's all sorts of things one could do and earn a pretty penny or more.
But maybe he meant that world peace would be harmful to economic progress...? If so, that's an even weirder BS claim. I'm no economist, but I have read enough of the Economist to know that conflict and political/social unrest have a net negative impact on trade and economic growth.
So, my best guess is that this was just one of those throw-away comments where someone hasn't thought things through or doesn't feel like spending the time to figure out what he means to say before he says it.
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ReplyDeleteYou're exactly right. And it was intended jokingly. But the honesty behind the joke was unsettling.
To be honest, I think there's tons of money in world peace. Invent an efficient 20c solar-oven replacement for open fires, sell a billion in subSaharan Africa, make a fortune.
the only problem is, making the world a better place is HARD.
I want to stick up for money, which I think is misunderstood and often unfairly slandered.
ReplyDeleteClearly life is more than money. All of us have our own private value systems which inform our decisions and may run directly counter to our financial interests. For example, 'Spoza and I believe so strongly that it is best for society for children to be raised by a full-time mom that we forgo an entire person's income rather than outsource parenting. There are countless such examples of people making choices that show it is well understood that life is a lot more than money.
However, money serves a vital purpose: it bridges the gap between value systems by providing a simple, straightforward valuation that we can use to come to agreements, regardless of our diverse value systems. You and I don't need to agree ideologically in order for us to make a business transaction - we just need to settle on a price.
This is particularly important when it comes to making the world a better place. Many utopian experiments have been tried over the years, where people try to aim higher than money and make the world a better place. Necessarily, such experiments have been limited to small communities of like-minded people, since without money, it's impossible to agree on what should be attempted or how people should be rewarded for their work. Such experiments have not proven successful, and cannot scale to sizes that would really change the world. Ideologies are too diverse, they prevent us from banding together as a human race to do things, because we can't even understand one another's priorities.
World peace is a great example: there is tons of money in world peace. The economic ties that bind China and the US make it much less likely that we will engage in open warfare with each other. We have become interdependent and have vastly enriched contact between our societies, all motivated by financial interest. And all this is a powerful force for world peace. But it comes indirectly though economic activity. Solving problems like world peace needs to be done indirectly, since confronting conflicts head on only tends to worsen them. This is because we can't agree on what world peace even looks like as a human race. Does Israel get to exist? Who gets to make these decisions?
The beauty of money is that all this ideology about how to go about making world peace is unnecessary. We just focus on our own profit interests, and after several years we find that Taiwan and China have opened up direct flights between their countries after 60 years of hatred - because it's profitable for them to do so, and their business ties transcend decades of mistrust and accumulated insults.
Money is distasteful, it oversimplifies everything to a one-dimensional number, it breeds greed, envy and pride while destroying the environment and beggaring neighbors.
But it also is the only way we have managed as a world to escape from poverty, which I mean in a real sense (ie, food to eat). The rise of China is a profound testament to the capacity of capitalism to change the world for the better. And this change has come about through the selfish pursuit of money. The beauty of this system is that everyone is free to figure out the best ways to serve the people they're working for, thereby increasing both their own compensation as well as the value they provide to others. This is a virtuous cycle. It is a transformative engine which is directly responsible for the comfortable lives that you and I lead, filled with food, shelter, and interesting ways to spend our time.
I think it's worth pondering the transformative, miraculous changes the pursuit of money has brought to our lives, before we dismiss money out of hand.
I also want to point out this article again, which speaks to the idea that a business career can be just as noble as any other life calling.
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2009/01/where_goodness_lies_an_open_le.html
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you, RC. Dismissing money is nearly as shortsighted as making it one's lifegoal. I think that capitalism has accomplished great good in the world and while I have no great drive for wealth, I think wealth for the world as a whole is good. The more the merrier. Let's all be rich! That, it seems to me, is much of what King Benjamin promised. And what Zion does as well. First, preZion, the world needs a nice big middle class.
Sorry for the extra comments, Google kept giving me errors, so I thought my comment hadn't been submitted.
ReplyDeleteHere's the link I tried to include earlier.
And I totally agree that preZion, the world needs a nice big middle class.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great link, RecessionCone. It highlights the tendency to select data that reinforce our current opinions about business/goverment/non-profits, good or bad.
ReplyDeleteHowever, some complaints can be valid; systemic problems can exist. An example: a system where CEOs depend on quarterly results for job security and receive stock-options for most of their compensation with no restrictions on selling off those shares promotes a focus on short-term revenue as opposed to long-term sustained growth. If you look at Argentina from the 30's until the Falklands (or las Malvinas), the people in charge were overthrown repeatedly, but the structure remained the same, and so the results were the same.
I'm ok with money, as it seems to be a time-tested way of transferring goods and services. However, the pursuit of money as seen in the neo-liberal worldview carries with it some serious structural implications. RC makes a good point saying "it breeds greed, envy and pride while destroying the environment and beggaring neighbors."
I would argue that as disciples of Christ, we ultimately want our hearts to change such that we don't envy and we don't worry about making more or less than others. As proselytizers we actively seek to help others have that change of heart too. But we have to accept that people are going to prey on others, and set up systems that minimize possible exploitation while we go about bringing about Zion.
Also, as for peace, I'm for it. Love and happiness too. Free speech only matters if you have food and water first, and temporarily condoning human rights issues in China seems like an ok way to bring about societal change. It's certainly seems preferable to having a war, and lots of people get lots of money from wars, so we should be very careful about letting anyone talk us into a war, even if it does serve the financial interests of the United States.
With that lengthy disclaimer, the lamb hasn't yet lain down with the lion, and I'm glad that we don't have a peaceful relationship with the Confederate States of America.
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ReplyDeleteIf insurance companies weren't stressed about quarterly profits first, we would likely have much better preventative medicine. I imagine.
My two cents... I totally agree with ed and rc. Status is a greater motivator than money, and money has probably done more to create structure and peace than anything else I can think of. Without money (or equivalent trade), it seems to be the pattern that we revert to weapons.
ReplyDeleteOur core nature is to ensure security through the illusion that we are in control. When we feel like things are out of our control, we go to great lengths to either delude ourselves into security (flight), or change the conditions that make us feel like we're losing control (fight).
Status, by definition, is a condition where we have enough influence to maintain a sense of control.
Therfore, no amount of money will ensure peace, because we are people with different ideals, all trying to maintain a sense of control. One's idea of a controlled envionment may be completely different from another's. And so the conflict is perpetual as each struggles to assert.
Peace occurs only when humankind shares the same set of ideals.
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ReplyDeleteOne story I found particularly interesting in Friedman's The World Is Flat was that when India and Pakistan were grandstanding with each other, holding nukes and growling, the US said, Hey! India! Don't even think about it or we're pulling all our companies out. Suddenly, India was all propeace.
So I agree with you --- money has a knack for creating a common ground. If we had India-like relationships with Iraq and North Korea and Palestine and Yemen and Iran, the world would be a very different place.
So while love of money may be the root of all evil, cautious respect for money's probably okay.
Two more links from the WSJ on related topics:
ReplyDeleteCapitalism Saved the Miners
Ken Langone: Stop Bashing Business, Mr. President
Those two links are pretty blatant misleading political rhetoric. Failing to renew the Bush tax cuts will not cripple the American economy. They will reduce profit margins for successful businesses. I fail to see how giving preferential treatment to businesses and their owners over their own employees is going to benefit American society. Are people who want to make a lot of money are going to stop doing that because their marginal tax rate is higher? I personally think they're just going to complain more, because they're of the class of people that believes their actions can influence the world around them. And it might work, so more power to them (literally).
ReplyDeleteThe American economic model is capitalism (albeit with socialized protection for businesses that are too big too fail, lol wut?). I agree that over-regulation is a serious problem, as regulation agencies seek to prolong the life of the businesses they are regulating (to keep their own jobs) and generally do a very inefficient job of regulation. Leaving enforcement to the public isn't any better. From some NPR story: when a customer requests a handicap-accessible room from a hotel in California, many now say that their are none available, because the risk of being taken to court over an ADA violation isn't worth the business they lose by not renting the room. In this way, the ADA actually hurts people with disabilities due to its complexity and reliance on lawsuits to enforce compliance. "Ever-rapacious trial lawyers" are a problem caused by laws and a legal system that reward such behavior.
Health Insurance costs are a huge problem, especially for small businesses. Maybe the insurance model isn't appropriate, and we should all agree to pool together to pay for health care for everyone for the benefit of society so that small businesses don't have to should that cost? ;)
I also agree that the vilification of industry and business is troubling, and speaks to puritanical guilt over enjoying the benefits of a system that is fueled in no small part by greed. Many actions fueled by greed do produce results that greatly benefit society, but the claim that because self-interest is the motive for an action, that action will end up working for the public good is absurd. (by the way, there are many who argue just that, so I'm not pillorying a straw-man here).
Stock options rules might refer to the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 which was a response to Enron. It kept small businesses from going public, because the regulations don't apply to private companies. This mainly makes investment bankers upset because they have fewer IPOs to take advantage of, but private investors can still fund businesses they believe in, public or private, and VC goes on.
"ooh, why are you obsessing over repealing tax cuts for 'millionaires' when there are more important things to worry about?" strikes me about as valid an argument as "going to church isn't as important as being a good person."
-said the angry man on the internet
Sorry, that was a little ranty.
ReplyDeleteI agree with some points in those articles (I pointed out as much), but I got a little riled at the sophistry.
Government regulation and involvement attempts to smooth out extreme economic fluctuations (while it siphons off resources :() So, if you think about it as a control algorithm, you must try to understand the underlying process and apply relevant controls. Someone smarter than I could take that analogy a little further, but I must away...
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ReplyDeleteMoney's not zero-sum of course, but as wealth accumulates at the top, they have more than they can possibly spend, so they take it out of circulation and the trickling slows down. The middle class compensated by sending women to work, then by working longer hours, then by going into debt. But one by one we cleaned out those resources.
What do we do now to maintain our standard of living?
What options are left for the bulk of the middle class?