Xero and Pragmatarianism Part 2

---In responce to my bringing up the paradox of tolerance, Xero said this,

I’m tolerating intolerance? Let’s consider what Kinsella wrote in that link you shared…

It simply means that the state-advocate does not mind the initiation of force against innocent victims — i.e., he shares the criminal/socialist mentality. The private criminal thinks his own need is all that matters; he is willing to commit violence to satisfy his needs; to hell with what is right and wrong. The advocate of the state thinks that his opinion that “we” “need” things justifies committing or condoning violence against innocent individuals.

You anarcho-capitalists are advocates for the victims. But who are the victims though? Taxpayers. In a pragmatarian system, if taxpayers felt like the IRS was initiating violence/force/aggression against them…then why would they allocate any of their taxes to the IRS? As Rothbard said…”In a profound sense, no social system, whether anarchist or statist, can work at all unless most people are “good” in the sense that they are not all hell-bent upon assaulting and robbing their neighbors.”
Regarding Mao, Hitler and Rothbard…who doesn’t have some sense of right vs wrong? The thing is… we are all touching different parts of an elephant. Therefore, no two people are going to always agree on right vs wrong. Therefore, the issue is 1. the willingness to make a decision for millions and millions of people and 2. our ability to truly understand the unintended consequences. As Milton Friedman strongly emphasized, “If we can’t persuade the public that it’s desirable to do these things, then we have no right to impose them even if we had the power to do it.” The difference between Rothbard and Friedman is the same difference between Conceit and Humility.
Regarding the invisible hand…you really don’t see Hayek’s partial knowledge in Buddha’s parable of the blind men and the elephant? It seems like they were both saying that we all have some information but nobody has all the information.
Consider this passage by Adam Smith…

The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder. – Adam Smith, Theory of Moral

Every single one of us has our own unique principle of motion. These principles of motion are determined by the part of the elephant that we are touching. Given that we are all touching different parts of an elephant…then isn’t it self-evident that we’re all going to have different principles of motion? Buddha didn’t need to say anything about an invisible hand because how could anything else follow from his parable? You’re certainly not going to get the visible hand from his parable. You’re certainly not going to get Rothbard or Hitler or Mao pushing a button to try and impose their ideal society onto everybody else.

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James Rick said 1 week ago:

We’re kind of talking in circles here. Being humble doesn’t mean you concede everyone the right to abuse you simply because you’re not enitrly sure that abuse is wrong.
Again its about the theft, not what it is allocated towards afterwards. If a theif came to my house, stole the money I was going to donate, and donated it himself anonymously, it would still be theft. If I had rather kept the money at home, well, then the theft is just more annoying.

And of course, if someone’s perfect system of governance is different than mine, I won’t attempt to stop them from practicing it themselves. When it involves unwilling participants is when it is a problem.
I’m certainly no chess master, nor do I ever want to be. I do, however, reserve the right to condemn the chessmaster who coerces his pawns into place. Its not a matter of pride, its a matter of decency.
How would Rothbard have been imposing his will on everyone else by pressing the mythical button? They would have been free to form a voluntary system of governance afterwards. By not pressing the button, he would have been, in effect, condoning the behaviour of the state.
And I have to say, this relateing Buddha to YOUR ideal system of government is nothing but pure sophism. Historically he has nothing to do with it. I understand the point you’re trying to make but you’re trying to connect a very broad idea to a very specific issue of justified aggression. It’s like me saying that because Jesus once said “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword” he must have been an anarcho-capitalist because he clearly opposed agression; in fact I may have more ground in my statement due to its specific nature whereas the elephant parable is open to much more interpretation. Both are, nonetheless, absurd.
This concept that no-one truly understands his own fallibility who doesn’t agree with pragmatarianism is itself one of the highest forms of arrogance.

Thoughts on Pragmatarianism with Xero

Here is a short Mises.org discussion between me and Xerographica about tax-choice or pragmatism. It was a doctrine I was largeky unfamiliar with. It insists that people must pay taxes to the state but that they may choose to what government programs those taxes are spent. It differs from anarcho-capitalism in that it still believes in the coercive authority of the state. We ended up getting into a discussion on the implications of "the invisible hand" and Xero tried to convince me that the person who truly understands human fallibility would be the one who continues to support the coercive authority of the state to exist. I took issue with this and here is the conversation to date:

James Rick said 22 hours ago:

I like the idea, and I would certainly promote tax-choice in politics but I’d like you to tell me exactly what the real difference between anarcho-capitalism and pragmatarianinsm is. Is it only a conflict of means towards the same ends?
By my thinking, the U.S. government would exist in an anarchist society much the way the Catholic church exists now. The Church used to have crazy powers over a lot of things but now has almost no coercive power outside of the Vatican and is an institution capable of promoting social good. Could not the same happen with the institutions of government. In “Alongside Night” the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre says that government institutions will likely become workers syndicates in an anarcho-capitalistic society (agorism vs. ancaps aside).
Is the difference between this and pragmatism simply that pragmatist institutions would still claim some sort of official claim as representatives of the people rather the worker’s syndicates? Because I believe such pretentions to authority, even if people have the right to opt out, can be dangerous.

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Xerographica said 20 hours, 25 minutes ago:

Here’s the main difference…
Anarcho-capitalist: the state is not necessary
Statist: the state is necessary
Pragmatarian: the state may or may not be necessary
Buddha, Socrates, Smith, Bastiat, Hayek all argued that our perspectives are extremely limited. For example, if you came to me with a business plan…I could give you my opinion on your business plan but I couldn’t truly say whether your business was or wasn’t necessary. The only way to figure out if your business is necessary is to start it and see if anybody purchases your product/service.
Pragmatarianism sounds like a ridiculously good idea to me. But if nobody “buys” it then well…the markets have spoken. Ideas can always be ahead of their time.
There wouldn’t be any pragmatist institutions though. There would only be institutions in the private sector and institutions in the public sector. Given how limited my perspective is…there’s no way that I…or anybody else…can truly know which institutions would be in which sector. That would be up to the market to decide.
What would happen in an anarcho-capitalist system if you felt that an institution was becoming dangerous? All you could do was encourage people to boycott it and start up your own institution to try and compete with the dangerous institution. It’s the same exact thing in a pragmatarian system. If you felt the Dept of Defense was dangerous then you could encourage people to boycott it and then start up your own organization that had none of the same flaws as the Dept of Defense.
Call your organization the Bleeding Heart Militia and use it to stop genocide in Africa and I’m sure some people would donate money to your organization.

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James Rick said 20 hours, 6 minutes ago:

Right, and I’m a big fan of all those guys and thats the number one arguement I have with statist friends: “How do you know all this when the market doesn’t?” It’s funny because most of them will agree with Socrates that “all that I know is that I know nothing” but they will still insist that they are right on social issues like gay marriage and deny others the right to choose.
I’m just not sure you could call a pragmatarian idea “The State”. Do I have the right to opt out of it entirely and make no contributions to any sector of it, whatsoever?
Also, if I think an organization is dangerous I would boycott it, but if I have to chose between government organizations and the choice to opt out entirely is removed, then it isn’t a true choice.
I don’t know if youre saying I would or not be able to opt out entirely, thats why I’m asking, but your site’s by-line “make all governmental donations tax dedecutable” sounds like you have to donate to something.
From what I gather though, pragmatarianism sounds like a great “middle-way” or “golden-mean”. I can see why you brought the Greeks and Buddha into this. Of course Bastiat and Smith are there because, well, we are still libertarians, right?

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James Rick said 20 hours, 2 minutes ago:

I read the discussion again and I’m not sure you gave a satifactory answer to the question, “why be taxed at all?”
Do we have to put some money in, or is it okay to do nothing? It isn’t truly voluntary if I have to put a certain amount of money into at least one of a certain selection of organizations. The power to choose between two master does not make a slave free.

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Xerographica said 19 hours, 8 minutes ago:

Why be taxed at all?
If I said that taxes should be optional then I would be saying that the proper scope of government does not include forcing people to pay taxes. But if I said that then I would just be an anarcho-capitalist.
As a pragmatarian I say that the proper scope of government should be determined by taxpayers. So if taxpayers do not feel that forcing people to pay taxes is within the proper scope of government then they would just boycott the IRS out of existence.
If you get a chance you should check out my post on libertarianism and the free-rider problem….and my post on anarcho-capitalism vs civilization.

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James Rick said 18 hours, 51 minutes ago:

Right, thats what I thought and why I’m definately an ancap. If some people donate enough to the IRS to keep it in buisness, those people are exercising coercive power over me and are essentially filling the role of “the secretive band of robbers” which Lysander Spooner talks of in “no treason”. They are the voting class which controls the non-voting class, except its not by ballot anymore.
That is if you believe the ballot actually did anything, but thats not relevant here. What is relevant is that you’re still giving power to a coercive, large-scale democracy.

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James Rick said 18 hours, 38 minutes ago:

I like pragmatarianism as a stepping stone, but I don’t support the right of some people to fund the IRS. They may fund the IRS voluntarily but the IRS will be securing funds from others involuntarily. Even if they choose where in government those funds go.
Quick thought on your anarcho-capitalism vs civilization: I think you’re taking a bit of what might be called an ethnocentrist view of civilization. Alliegence to a tribe or religion rather than nation is in no way inferior to what you call “civilization” which is just about the most subjective term on the market. I agree with David Graeber in that sometimes we make this “us and them” distinction between “civilized” and “non-civilized”. Why would allegience to extended kinship relations, tempered with self-ownership and propert rights, be an undesireable thing. Compared to nationalism, it rocks.
I actually think of myself as a human being first, a Rick (my family) second, Cathagnostic (agnostic who supports the Catholic church for social justice and social solidarity) third, and a whole bunch of things after that. I’d say “American” (which to me is someone who who was born on either of the American continents) is pretty low. Involuntary member of the tax farm known as America might be up there, but that title would be gone in an ancap society.

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Xerographica said 18 hours, 14 minutes ago:

It boils down to fallibilism. Having lived in a stateless society for a year my best guess is that a state is necessary. But I could be wrong. Are you willing to admit that there’s a chance that you might be wrong as well? If you’re not willing to admit that there’s a chance that you might be wrong…then how are you any different than a statist?
Again…here we see Hayek’s Conceit vs Humility and Buddha’s parable of the blind men touching different parts of the elephant. Rothbard said that if there was a button that would instantly and entirely abolish the state then he would push that button until his thumb blistered. But what if his theory was wrong? Do you think Hitler and Mao thought that their theories might be wrong?
Having studied International Development Studies at UCLA I can tell you for a fact that brilliant brilliant people have no idea why some countries develop and other countries do not. They have their theories…but time and time again their theories have been proved wrong. By saying that the state is not necessary you’re saying that you know better than all those brilliant brilliant minds.
Maybe you know something that none of us do. Maybe you can actually touch the entire elephant. Therefore, maybe you’re the only blind man that can actually “see”. But isn’t that what all the blind men think? Throughout history…the only people who could truly “see”….Buddha, Socrates, Smith, Bastiat, Hayek, etc…were the ones who fully understood just how little they could actually see.

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James Rick said 18 hours, 3 minutes ago:

You’re assigning some sort of confidence to me that I clearly don’t have. I don’t think my ideas are infallible, hell most of em can’t even be considered “my” ideas. But I don’t think democracy or a pragamtist idea of allowing people to essentially pick their poison is any less fallible. I admit my fallibility, in fact I’ll swear by it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take a stand on something I believe. After all, I could be wrong that murder is evil or genocide unacceptable, but that doesn’t mean I won’t stand against them with all I can.
In the same fashion I’ll stand against a coercion I think is wrong, though not to the extent that genocide is.
And the Rothbard, Hitler, Mao comparison is a little ridiculous. I get your point but try to use Hitler-relations sparingly.
Couldn’t we be wrong about “the invisible hand” anyway. Kevin Carson in “The Iron Fist Behind the Invisble Hand” how capitalism was largely a political change, resulting from the interests of the establishment, not a sponatneous market order. Sometimes libertarians do over-estimate our own liberal conceptions of the free-market and property rights or our ideas of “civilization”. Rothbard probably did. But couldn’t we be just a little wrong about how great the invisible hand really is. I mean Smith used the analogy like six times to mean six different things (I forget the exact number). Perhaps we shouldn’t base our entire moral philosophy on the idea that we are unworthy to have a moral philosophy?

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Xerographica said 17 hours, 12 minutes ago:

Saying that you’re an anarcho-capitalist is signalling that the state is unnecessary. If you’re not confident that the state is unnecessary then why call yourself an anarcho-capitalist?
Don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying that Rothbard was the same as Hitler and Mao. The difference is quite clear. Rothbard never had the opportunity to press the button while Hilter and Mao did have the opportunity. Maybe if Rothbard had had the opportunity then perhaps he would have thought twice about pressing the button.
You’re not quite catching my drift if you solely associate the invisible hand concept with Adam Smith. He just coined the term but the idea is really no different than Buddha talking about the blind men and the elephant. We all have different values and access to different information. Bastiat’s Seen vs Unseen covered the idea of different values and Hayek’s Conceit vs Humility covered the idea of different information.
So it’s all the same idea expressed in different ways from different angles. We all have extremely limited but unique perspectives… therefore.. .tolerance… cause there’s a really good chance that we might be wrong.
Now…personally I’m not smart enough to go down the path of being wrong about tolerance. I’m just smart enough to understand just how little we can truly know. That’s what makes me a pragmatarian.

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James Rick said 6 hours, 45 minutes ago:

I am fairly confident the State is unneccesary, and even if I wasn’t, it is possible to be a pessimistic anarcho-capitalist. See Kinsella:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kinsella/kinsella15.html
The difference between Hitler, Mao and Rothbard has absolutly nothing to do with the abilty to press the button. It has every thing to do with the application of violence. It’s about morals, not goals. Means, not ends.
I’d just like to bring up Popper’s “Paradox of Tolerance”.
I’d say we’re both pretty humble people who accept a basic idea of the invisible hand that certainly transends Adam Smith (The problem is that in modern thinking the phrase is almost exclusivly associated with Smith and markets. Mostly becasue niether Jesus or Buddha ever actually said anything about an invisible hand. The ideas are applicable and worthy of thought, but they are still an idea, as infallible as the rest. Bastiat is a different story, and “the seen and unseen” is important here, but either way the invisible hand is percieved by most as a sort of Gordon Gecko “Greed is Good” thing).
Popper theorised that tolerance cannot completely by accepted because to do so would be to tolerate intolerance and hence, tolerance dies. The difference between us right now is that you are willing to tolerate some coercion. You will allow the taxpayer to choose to whom he is enslaved but he is still a slave. Therefore, I would say, in your humility, you are tolerating intolerance.
You are essntially, asserting your right to say that all people MUST donate to the state. This does not sound very tolerant to me. I don’t think there is any arguement whatsoever in the idea that a form of minarchism (like Pragmatrainism) is “more tolerant” simply because it allows the state to exist. That would be saying it is more tolerant because it tolerates intolerance, hence, Popper’s paradox.
It isn’t about our infallibility to know whether or not the state is neccesary, it is about our infallibility to control our fellow man through force and his infallibility to control us through force. I accept that Man is too infallible to do so, I also accept that it is deontologically, not just consequentialistly, wrong. I will not tolerate slavery simply because I may be wrong about the neccesity of it. As Stephan Kinsella argues in the link above, “crime may never disapper, but that doesn’t mean I have to support it.” (Paraphrase). It also doesn’t mean I have to tolerate it, due to my own infallibility.

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James Rick said 5 hours, 58 minutes ago:

Just a quick relation with the blind men and the elephant: (Although I remembered it as being mostly about religious tolerance, I looked it up again and realised it could be applicable to political theory as well):
A pragmatist is essentially saying, that because I know not the whole elephant, I must contribute my effort to support alternate interpretations of it. They would force the man who believes it is a wall to contribute to the man who believes it is a pillar.
An anarcho-capitalist would be saying, You should support others’ views of things, but no one is going to force you to.
It is the application of force which shows the governmentalist to be doing wrong, not the fact that I believe his social theory to be flawed.

Who Cares What Other People Think?

Who Cares What Other People Think?


He does too.





So I'm reading through Hodgskin's "An Essay on naval Discipline" and within the first few chapters he discusses what exactly "Fame" is. He defines it as a pursuit of the praise of other to such an extent that the recipient of that praise becomes conscious of his superiority of others and, because man is naturally disposed to seek praise, it is one of the principle motivators of people to action.



Adam Smith in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" stated similar ideas and given the two thinker's close proximity to each other in time and theory (Hodgkins was a follower of Ricardo whose ideas on the Labour Theory of Value) are often lumped together with Smith's, although there are distinctions).



I can easily think of many Americans who have that mentality of "Keeping up with the Joneses" which so influenced the song "Grand Illusion" by Styx,



"Welcome to the Grand illusion
Come on in and see what's happening
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show
The stage is set, the band starts playing
Suddenly your heart is pounding
Wishing secretly you were a star.



But don't be fooled by the radio
The TV or the magazines
They show you photographs of how your life should be
But they're just someone else's fantasy
So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because you never win the game
Just remember that it's a Grand illusion
And deep inside we're all the same.
We're all the same...



So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because your neighbours got it made
Just remember that it's a Grand illusion
And deep inside we're all the same.
We're all the same...



America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition
Get yourself a brand new motor car
Someday soon we'll stop to ponder what on Earth's this spell we're under
We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are."



Sometimes, capitalism is criticised for inspiring a pursuit of wealth with little to no self reflection, an obsession with the material that takes hold of our lives and destroys social solidarity and leaves the great majority of us feeling unfulfilled and left behind.



But, by my observation, it is instead the pursuit of the praise and admiration of our fellows that we seek material wealth so vehemently, only to squander it on things we would be perfectly happy without (as long as the Joneses didn't get one).



Why then do human beings seek praise so much? The raw pursuit of admiration doesn't seem to have any immediate benefit to either the individual or collective (particularly when that admiration is derived exclusively from the acquisition of material wealth and the squander thereof). Sacred cows, unholy pigs, love of pigs, the obnoxiously fierce concept of masculinity; all of these can be at least partially explained by what might be called materialistic theories but I cannot see a materialist reason for the rise of our obsession with each other's praise (besides the basic need of humans to work together, which can be solved much more easily than a devotion to spending and wasting more than anyone else).

Marvin Harris, one of the leading anthropologists in America argues in his book "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches" that all human culture stems originally from some concrete place or need. For instance, those societies that would need some sort of redistribution of wealth, but do not have the appropriate social structure to maintain it, may have some sort of a potlatch. During this the individual gives away as much food as possible, for the perceived reason of making everybody love him. The answer is evolutionary in nature; those societies full of affable people willing to give food away and receive love will survive while those that aren't will not.

While I accept Harris's solution for the Native Americans who practice the potlatch, I'm not sure how well it applies to modern America. Perhaps it is simply left-over from before, when a voluntary redistribution of wealth was more necessary (though I would argue it is very necessary now). The problem is that our pursuit of admiration doesn't always lead us towards altruistic pursuits but often selfish ones (Is this because of the "invisible hand, Mr. Smith?).

This question is one that has always peeked my interest and my own emotions as I, like anyone, pursue the good opinion of my peers. I will no doubt consider to ponder this question, but for now I am left in mystery as to the origin of our obsession with proving ourselves worthy of extravagance. I only know that for our society to advance into a more equal, free, and voluntary form we must overcome it.    

The Stealth of Nations; Robert Neuwirth.

(Robert Neuwirth, journalist and author, has written two books--Shadow Cities and The Stealth of Nations-- about the informal economy that so many members of the human race work, shop, and survive in.)

The world traveling journalist, Robert Neuwirth, has opened up the pages of a largely ignored narrative in world economics. In his book "The Stealth of Nations" released this past year; Neuwirth takes the reader on a journey through various shades of grey in all sectors of the world's informal economy. With the dramatic effect that the informal but not illicit. (Neuwirth distinguishes the two with the former being the subject of this book. Informal being all of the actions which would be legal if the merchants simply were licensed by a government to do their work and to pay taxes.) This informal economy he calls "System D" (a term which was first coined by anthropologist Keith Hart) he explains as,

a slang phrase pirated from French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean. The French have a word that they often use to describe particularly effective and motivated people. They call them débrouillards. To say a man (or woman) is a débrouillard(e) is to tell people how resourceful and ingenious he or she is. The former French colonies have sculpted this word to their own social and economic reality. They say that inventive, self-starting, entrepreneurial merchants who are doing business on their own, without registering or being regulated by the bureaucracy and, for the most part, without paying taxes, are part of 'l'economie de la débrouillardise.' Or, sweetened for street use, 'Systeme D.' This essentially translates as the ingenuity economy, the economy of improvisation and self-reliance, the do-it-yourself or DIY economy.

            Seeking in part to bust the myth that those who work outside of the formal sphere are untrustworthy, he tells the story of many entrepreneurs who provide services to their people when the government cannot or will not and has spent years traveling across the globe seeking out the people who run businesses and markets outside of the overarching arm of governments and bureaucracies. He spends much of his time in the third world; referring often to time he spent in South America and Africa, particularly the smuggling of Chinese goods into Nigeria, but he is no stranger to System D entrepreneurs in America. Neuwirth sees and notes that States' are strangling their people's ability to prosper and do business and is aware that today's notion of neo-liberal capitalism is geared to favor massive international conglomerates. He even quotes Murray Rothbard several times, but while this may seem like the Agora from "Alongside Night" Neuwirth is clear to distance himself from any anarchist sentiment and seems to be more focused on what policies governments can implement to uses System D to build a better world though he does acknowledge the large role that System D will play in the world's future and is optimistic that it will be good for the people.

            He ends on a positive note by saying that despite the inequality and unfairness generated by the current system that the answer to what he considers the two biggest economic problems facing the modern world--unemployment and inequality-- will come not from the privileged halls of academia but from the storefronts and underground traders of System D and I agree with him. What he doesn't note is that the very existence of such an extensive System D is a syndrome of a form of capitalism that artificially favors the elite. When the competitive but regulated marketplace is skewed in favor of the biggest and most connected, the smaller or the new will leave the competitive but regulated market and form their own alliances, and establish their own de facto rules of trade. The book is able to go into this well and provides plenty of wholesome food for thought. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the future of Liberty and of mankind itself. The future lies with System D.

One Man Alone or Follow the Flock

Many an astute thinker has noticed that fourteen men in a room will come up with fourteen different solutions to any given problem and none will agree with another. Forgetting for a moment that fourteen men in a room will more likely come up with three solutions, four or five "big-men" and a couple of factions, lets assume for a minute they are right.

 Lets think that as K says in Men in Black that a person is smart but people are stupid and that one man is usually a better descision maker than a community. There is anthropological support for this idea, as even in  early egalitarian societies a "big-man" often was the final arbiter of all actions.

We also know that one man cannot possibly comprehend all that happens in a society or an economy, particularly in our modern age. The intricacies of human interaction defy the social sciences and laugh in the face of central planning, leaving mankind to wallow in his hubris and folly. One person cannot plan it all, and still less can a bureaucracy (The bureaucrat is always for sale, and never knows the full extent of his actions.)

Eliminateing the democracy, the autocratracy, and the bureauacracy for their ineffectiveness, we are left with the Smithian conclusion that every individual is most fit to run his or her own affairs, and perhaps have a say in the affairs of those closest to him (by voluntary choice such as friends and the family unit.)

If each individual is to run his or her own affairs in an economy that we do not wish to be stagnant, it would seem to me that stored capital, private property, and the profit motive are all necessisties.

Denying property would lead to stagnation and would deny Man's nature as a manipulative being that survives by hand and mind. Denying the accumulation of capital would impead progress and cause consumption to dominate production, which benefits industrial economies in the short term, but the whole of Mankind cannot survive as consumers only. To deny the profit motive would be to tell the individual that he has no buisness caring for himself and that someone else is better suited to it.

We must allow the individual to progress, in turn allowing society to progress. As a strictly utilitarian arguement, I cannot see any one man is fit to run society nor any society fit to run one man.