Vanity
The focus of all this was The Fable of the Bees. It is twelve pages of rhyming couplets with a heavy metrical swat. It sounds quite old fashioned but the topic is entirely modern. How does corruption, covert viciousness and crime mesh with a vibrant economy, society’s opulence, and its growth? Mandeville: there is no contradiction, they are a match.
Immorality, crime and wrongdoing all translate into business energy - exactly what a free economy needs to flourish. See that rascal selling stolen goods? See that tradesman cheating? See that flatterer ply his lies for gain? They all work so industriously. See that lawyer splitting cases to create more work and more enmity? It’s all business. It’s all good for the economy.
Mandeville saw society as an energetic hive of bees. Bees were thought to be selfish and gluttons for sweet nectar. So the more their industrious selfishness, the more the hive grew.
The hive contains the grubbing poor, unintelligent “wretches” who slave for a living, only want small pleasures and who are easy to exploit. And a higher class, the more intelligent, who manipulate appearances, flatter, and know how to use vanity and deception to become opulent. The rich browbeat the poor into making them believe their poverty is sinful.
Paradoxes are everywhere. There is a great show of Christian goodness which is never practiced. Observe the Bishop who pontificates on Christian humility. His own humility must be very ponderous if it needs that big coach and six horses to pull it around. Or the nanny who pretends to love a child she despises so she can keep her job. Thieves were even useful because they kept locksmiths employed.
Mandeville said, it is not civic commitment nor social pleasures that welds a community together, but vices. Civilized man has need for esteem, power and carnal satisfaction, and he covets what others have. It is as much envy and competition that keeps people together - and keeps them busy.
And what about the final arbiter, Justice?
Justice herself, fam’d for fair Dealing,
By blindness had not lost her Feeling;
Her left hand, which the scales should hold,
Had often dropt ‘em, bribed with gold.
In sum, a vibrant economy is driven by sin. Vice is given a social place.The poem fits quite comfortably over modern times. What if we were a community of people so well behaved on the streets there were no accidents? – the auto insurance industry would fall apart. What if everybody got along without quarrelling? – lawyers would go unemployed. A harmonious community is not a driven community. Its economy would falter and wilt.
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There is only one regular pattern in the life of all civilizations. They rise, then they fall. And they do not fall because bigger civilizations step on them, but because internal events bring them down. What looks like a spontaneous return to savagery is a predictable collapse, due to flaws within. (And we should concede to Ferguson the historical fact that all civilizations have died, except the present one.)
Here is the repeating cycle.
First, a small clan appears. It is the start. It is ‘rude’ and vigorous as it fights for a foothold. Whether it battles the elements, or takes new ground against neighbors, it is full of common purpose and it is tough, Spartan and scrappy. The people value courage above all. They will not submit to anything and they are naturally egalitarian. In fact, they are contemptuous of wealth and possessions because they slow you down. In these early times, ability is a virtue.
If the clan survives, it digs in. It starts to apply its energy to farming and building. Keeping weapons close, everybody pitches in to lay out fields and to plant. Then harvests come, so people have possessions. This is a free and equal group. If the group thrives, and if they stay this way, all seems to point toward democracy.
But over time, personal fortunes grow. There may be excess. Some people become wealthy. They can relax. Wealth catches the people’s eye.
Later, subtly, it is not bravery but possessions that attract attention.Excess is admired. Ornament creeps in. Subtly the standards shift and whereas hard work was everything, now repose is admired.
Social rank appears – it is connected to possessions. So people do work for possessions, but they also learn tricks at the market. Buying and selling increases, commerce grows. People seem to have ever-growing appetites for possessions.
But not everybody advances. Jealousy stirs.
**Laws are devised to **protect possessions.
The community swells. It will be a big commercial society. It will become a republic. It will become wide and picturesque, eventually it may become flamboyant.
And at this advanced stage, nobody admires hard work any more. The society takes pride in being polished. People dress conspicuously and imitate certain ways of expression.
It is the beginning of the end, says Ferguson.
The next stage is both unplanned and inevitable.
***Now the citizen rarely thinks about the whole. He becomes concerned with himself and where he stands. A certain despair sets in among those who have been left behind. Now inequality is conspicuous and everywhere. And the poor come to depend on the rich, and so are NOT FREE.
Not free and NOT Happy... Materialism...
Psychologist Jean Twenge, in her recent book Generation Me, reports on the generation of Americans currently growing up, and now in schools and colleges. She does a thorough job cataloging the new generation’s qualities. The young generation is confident, assertive and independent. It puts self first, puts personal happiness before the group, and before duty. People in this age group do what will make them feel happy. They are nonpolitical, they don’t follow the news, they don’t want to vote. Unconcerned with developing a personal philosophy of life, they seem primarily concerned with making money. They are materialistic(10) (and this is from an insider - Twenge is young enough to include herself as a member of the generation). Materialists act as if happiness lies in possessions, particularly money. Two facets are the belief that money can solve all problems, and the** equating of money and self esteem. **
http://www.g-r-e-e-d.com/GREED.htmHow much has becomes a measuring stick to determine the worth of a person's worthiness of life,and it has .
— in our world today — some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not.That is the ugly truth we accept live by but never SAY outright..
I ask who CHOOSES Whom?
Whose life is worth more who's is less?
Who Chooses this? By what STANDARD?
Why the wealthy create the standard tilted in their kind's favor and they hold all of us to that ethically bankrupted standard of their own selfishness.The rich and powerful never choose themselves unworthy or deserving work of course in our materialistic culture the rich do the choosing..
We say:
“All lives — no matter where they are being led — have equal value.”
What we really Practice (as a society):
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050710101547.htmAccording to the US Census Bureau, 35.9 million people live below the poverty line in America (
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/According to Unicef, more than 10 million children die every year — about 30,000 per day — from avoidable, poverty-related causes.
The poor die more..and suffer more.
http://recycledminds.blogspot.com/2007/10/poverty-sucks.htmlRich pull away from poor in the classroom
“If you have nominal parental choice over school admissions, but an under supply of good schools, you will find that **the sharp-elbowed middle-class **parents get access to excellent schools, but those trapped in deprived areas do not,”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3111427.eceThe minimum wage increases by 70 cents, to $5.85/hour––the first increase in a decade. While it ends the longest span without a federal minimum wage increase since the pay floor was enacted in 1938, it will have little effect on the rising costs of goods or services. According to estimates, the minimum wage would have to increase to at least $9.00/hour before low-wage workers would see a serious change in their material circumstances.
http://www.povertyinamerica.psu.edu/Poverty SUCKS!!!For the poor..
For the rich poverty must be kept at a distance.Far away poverty makes the rich feel they are better quality , more deserving sort of people.. who are entitles to have it all..
"The present system has enabled capitalists to make laws in their own interests to the injury and oppression of the workers. It has made the name Democracy, for which our forefathers fought and died, a mockery and a shadow, by giving to property an un proportionate amount of representation and control over Legislation."
The Greedy create the Needy.As long as the greedy are tolerated the poor will always be with us.
How does it feel?
My life as a "useless eater"..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1463990&mesg_id=1463990http://www.stopcovertwar.com/homeless.htmlhttp://www.picturethehomeless.org/http://www.myspace.com/homelesstentcitystpete
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