There's an interesting column in the FT this morning considering the experience of Roger Angell of the New Yorker. The tale is worth reading.
More interesting is the reference to the longitudinal study of Harvard graduates of the 1940s (all male, so I accept all the limitations that implies) over succeeding decades, up to and including the present. The conclusion of this work (called the Grant study) seems to be this:
“What have you learned from the Grant Study men?”
“That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”
It could, of course, be said that many of us came to that conclusion long ago without the assistance of any such study. But it would be more truthful to say that society as a whole has not.
Neoliberal society worships the cult of the individual. Implicitly and actually it promotes isolation as a result. The consequence is it can treat many people with contempt. The whole purpose of a great deal of our media is to divide society by setting group off against group. In the process it seeks to destroy relationships, which are the very foundation of well being.
Inherently many of us know that such antagonism is corrosive of the soul. That's why moderating comments on this blog is so distasteful; the indifference of some persistent commentators to the human condition saps me, and it shows.
Time for two videos:
and
For the record, love is not all that you need: you need an income to. If you haven't got that income love is very hard. But it's individualism that's denying many that chance. And that's my point: it's our absence of compassion that is corroding the chance of many in life to fulfil their potential, and that it not by chance. It is the inevitable consequence of the culture of neoliberalism.
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I am off to hug a banker!! Obviously I cant do that around the office as there are laws these days.
Individualism has two meanings. Selfishness, and that which is the opposite of collectivism. The two meanings should not be confused. And it is the latter meaning which certain political theories advocate.
Individualism in its more classical meaning historically goes hand in hand with the emergence of democracy, self determination and human rights.
Adam Smith made the point that under the influence of markets, the pursuit of self interest means individual efforts would necessarily be channeled into things which benefit the community. He even went so far as to argue that by not following self interest but setting out to help people by going against the market is likely to achieve the exact opposite result.
First, you seriously limit your interpretation of Smith
Second, re neoliberalism I think you are just wrong. This is about selfishness
Perhaps one of the reasons neo-liberalism promotes individualism is that individuals are much more vulnerable than groups. Thus we work in groups as provider organisations, but are individual consumers/workers. The more the resulting imbalance of power is accepted in our culture, the harder it is for people to form effective unions, consumer buying groups, or community organisations. When combined with lightly regulated finance that invests for returns on capital rather than labour and you have the tyranny of the corporations and the banks we experience today.
Smith said “by pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”
Fairly unequivocal about what Smith was saying, I would suggest.
Of course, many disagree that this is true. But that is the practical moral defence of economic liberalism that is put forward.
Read all of Smith, I suggest
jame’s this is too simplistic. Smith clearly made a distinction between ‘productive’ and ‘unproductive’ Labour. he famously said about landlords, for example, that ‘they reap where they do not sow.’ So the expression ‘self-interest’ has to be embedded within certain caveats. people like Smith, Ricardo and JS Mill were clear that productive labour should create ‘wealth diffusion’. We have ample evidence from the last 35 years that this is not happening due to excessive economic rent from non-productive and positively destructive financialisation processes.
Sure. Of course have caveats. But the point Smith made was a general one and one aimed, even then, at the intuitive and dominant view that self interest in economic activities is an ethical problem and results in one person getting rich at the expense of someone else. He clearly not only rejected this but turned it on its head. This is the whole point of the invisible hand metaphor.
Also, what do you think Smith would have thought if he were transported to the 21st century? I’m sure he would have concluded that this invisible hand was even more beneficial to society than even he imagined. Simply because we live in a consumerist society where even the poorest today is immeasurably richer than the richest from his time.
So where has this invisible hand been in preventing flooding?
Or global warming?
Or poverty?
And did it deliver us paid holidays? Or equal pay? Or many other such things?
And why is it mentioned so rarely in Smith’s work if it is so important?
Seeing the beatles clips got me musing about the 60’s and how much of the so-called radicalism of that time was a result of the existence of economic safety nets (high levels of employment, growth etc). Compare that to now -30 years of economic safety nets being removed and the rise an rise of Oligarchy/Plutocracy and Boris Johnson’s ‘All you need is greed’ anthem. Where are the protests against the inhumane (that is what it is) treatment of sanctioned benefit claimants, the grotesque asset stripping by banks, the vilification of the poor? Did anything really change in the 60’s?
“Why is it mentioned so rarely in Smith’s work if it is so important?”
Well, Smith covered a lot of ground in a few writings, so I wouldn’t expect lots of repetition in the same way modern authors milk a couple of ideas for all they are worth. If anything these old treatises on economics cover a topic, say what they think, and move on. They rely on the eloquence of the moment rather than ramming the point home over and over. Are you suggesting Smith didn’t mean what he said, or somehow he did not mean it as an important message with in his overall philosophy? He wrote a book about how wealth is generated and a book about moral sentiments. So when he wrote statements about the butcher, baker etc. Relating these to both moral sentiments and wealth generation, it is clear that these are highly relevant to his works thematically and that he would have meant exactly what he wrote. It would take a highly selective reading to think otherwise.
I am saying you appear to know one tiny part of Smith rather well
And not the rest that had much to say about the problems of markets
And I wonder if you have read his Theory of Moral Sentiments