Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: My answer to your questions

  1. #1

    Default

    I don't like constantly repeating and elaborating on arguments which seem, at least in my eyes, intuitive. So I decided I'd post this nifty essay of mine which will fully explain what I think, in abstract, people can, and have done, do to produce and maintain a successful society. I do not attempt to explain or take into account geographical/accidental factors, or those outside the human sphere, but merely comment on the origins of innovation, which is in essence, the study of societal success.

    This should answer questions in at least 3 topics pertaining to what I have termed 'Western values', and also provide a basis for understanding allusions I have made concerning technological development, and cities in particular. One aspect I don't discuss, but which is very important vis-a-vis Europe, and the ancient Mediterranean world, in particular, is geographical relationships between cities affecting intercourse-such things as rivers, of which Europe had many, many, and well placed too; and the suitability of land and sea transport around much of Western Europe-you will find mountain ranges such as the Pyrenees, and the Carpathians also mark important developmental borders.

    Allegations, which seem intuitive, but which are anything else, that colonialism spurred Euorpean growth are totally misplaced- European cities, and city development were the necessary preconditions for colonialism and not visa versa.

    Footnotes are numbered at the bottom.



    The creative process, the organic development or generation of new intellectual, cultural, technical or scientific material, is intrinsic to life; and is evident in the natural world and economies: the mechanisms regulating it are also very similar in both cases. It is an open-ended, self-organizing system of development and co-development without obvious direction. This generation of new information and techniques is fundamental to ensuring the long-term viability of human life, by limiting dependence on a single resource or fuel1, or increasing the efficiency of use. Innovation in arts, science or technical matters determines a society’s ability to withstand present and future difficulties and its ability to remain dynamic and progress. Inventiveness in commerce often translates to creative gains in arts and culture, whether through the indirect benefits of increased quantities of liquid capital; or through commercial developments which increase proficiency in arts such as the development of a new method for pulling wire, improving the consistency of notes played on a piano.
    Innovation is not always spurred by perceived need, but also by curiosity, accident, convenience, and the work of enterprising individuals who identify a previously unknown need. The development of a specific device, good, or idea often spurs co-developments, subsidiary products, services, or ideas whose conception is dependent on the existence of an earlier quantity. Jane Jacobs says in The Nature of Economies: “Differentiations become generalities from which further generalities emerge. In other words, development is an open-ended process which creates complexity and diversity, because multiplied generalities are sources of multiplied differentiations-some occurring simultaneously in parallel, others in successions.”2 Limiting the scope in which people exercise their talents and ingenuity shrinks future development possibilities. Free societies present the most favourable environment for creative growth because there is neither monopolization of direction, which could potentially ignore promising areas and ignores the huge variety of dispersed knowledge available to a society, nor are there limits to freedom beyond that which safeguards the population’s security and belongings.
    Freedom is a precondition for the production of original technical, scientific or cultural work; in order to capitalize fully on creative powers societies must also meet two other conditions: a largely urban population, and wide dissemination of information through education

    Cities are the germ of culture and commerce, and latin civitas, or city, is civilization’s root. They are the dominant cultural and economic engines of their parent societies because density inherent to them brings about economic specialization and rudimentary protection of properties. Lewis Mumford1 describes the process in City in History: “The many diverse elements of the community hitherto scattered…were mobilized and packed together under pressure behind massive walls of the city…The city was the container that brought about…implosion, and through its very form held together the new forces, intensified their internal reactions, and raised the whole level of achievement.”
    Greater specialization, achieved through access to a constantly growing number of more developed services, allows individuals to occupy themselves with those activities at which they are most proficient. Productivity gains ensue, and capital is often freed from less efficient uses to be diverted to new projects: investment in research and technology, arts or new enterprise.
    Density, a property implicit to cities, increases commercial efficiency through travel economies; and provides a larger market, attracting more diverse products. City markets are destinations where people can come to buy and sell in an atmosphere of greater security and comfort, thanks, in part, to the innovations of the service industry, another co-development. Cities are developed means to improved transportation, boasting roads, alleys, lanes, and sidewalks: infrastructure allowing easier, more direct access to businesses both by customers and employees. The development of improved forms and routes of transportation leads to creative new businesses such as sidewalk cafés.
    Cities concentrate labour, providing diversity in both quantity and quality. More complicated and innovative products or designs can be realized with this variety. Ingenious new co-developments such as businesses and publications partially or wholly devoted to uniting labour and capital ensue.
    Cities are highly competitive markets with thousands or millions of businesses bringing in an ever expanding number of imports. Exposure to luxury items, art, and niche goods and services which could not be affordably made available to residents of less concentrated areas introduces new ideas and technologies to city artisans and businessmen; this can lead to a process where new goods and services are developed or improvements to existing products are made. City businessmen, grown wealthy, patronize arts, as in Renaissance Italy and the Dutch Golden Age; and artists are attracted to cities where they may more easily sell their products and trade ideas or techniques in community, spurring creativity.
    Urban centres are ideal capital markets; the proximity engendered by them allows investors to gain easy knowledge of investment opportunities, and, through access to the latest fashions and culture, understand or predict trends more easily. Cities have the critical mass of expertise and information necessary to create organizations directed at uniting capital to the most productive, or potentially productive ventures. These systems ensure that capital will be made available to promising new ideas, or for innovation and generation of new material. People often move to cities lured by the promise of better life, but an equally important reason is that they can leave their past behind. Medieval peasants, or modern Indian villagers, moved to the city to escape stifling rules: the anonymity large cities afford is a primitve protection of freedoms.

    A free society is one where citizens have the freedom to act so long as they do not impinge upon the freedom of others. Implicit in this definition is government by law with the consent of the governed and minimal state intrusion in economic affairs.
    Freedom has shown itself to be a major decider in cultural success or failure. Its virtues lie in the diversity it promotes and the myriad combinations of knowedge, labour and capital it allows. These combinations produce unexpected results which prepare, in no way centrally organized, against contingency, obviating problems neither expected nor understood. We are unable to predict future events, but by fostering diversity we can in some ways be prepared for them, either to take full advantage or avoid the sting. Biological systems prepare for the future, guided by evolutionary forces, through varied composition. Often a handful of a species or part of an ecosystem will survive cataclysm. Human societies are most prepared for future calamity when they are as diverse as possible: nations dependent on single trade items or commodities, such as Uruguay, are a cautionary example.1
    The economic sphere drives human life, furthering technical and scientific knowledge and culture; the extra leisure time and capital generated by a thriving economy often are transferred to the arts where businessmen and merchants, such as the Medici in Florence, become patrons. During the 16th century a Parisian traveler to Antwerp, then Europe’s financial centre, observed that when businessmen became successful they supported charities and arts, served on committees and took up golf.2 More modern examples such as J.D. Rockefeller and George Soros are further proof of this phenomenon. Free societies foster diversity because they do not obstruct life, art, or commerce more than is reasonably needed to preserve the freedom of the whole. This is in contrast to totalitarian or authoritarian regimes which impede change or growth in numerous ways, limiting freedoms of expression, association or movement and rights to property, and imposing monopolies and regulatory barriers. Monopolies limit advances in the fields in which they operate by preventing competition, thus eliminating what Jane Jacobs calls ‘generalities.’ They often do not innovate because they are not threatened with dissolution should they lag behind.
    Of critical importance to a society’s success are free capital markets-in other words, an environment where there are no government imposed obstacles to people obtaining credit. Restrictions on the flow of capital can prevent the poor, or middle classes from opening businesses and deter entrepreneurship. One of the keystones to Florence’s success during the Renaissance was legislation that encouraged Jews into the city; Jews were allowed to lend money with interest, unlike gentiles. Suddenly merchants were provided with a new source of capital, and the city thrived. Antwerp, in Holland, and later Amsterdam became European banking centres and major cultural centres buoyed by the invention of a stock exchange, bank notes, and a vigorous trading culture. Commercial gains financed cultural achievements as wealthy merchants patronized artists such as Vermeer and Rembrandt; they also financed the most advanced shipyards in Europe.1
    The single greatest spur to commerce and the creative process is the assurance that we are entitled to, and will receive, the fruits of our labour. Most people make an effort proportional to the perceived reward; we are biologically hardwired to seek gain. Even unpaid volunteer work is engaged in to obtain rewards such as notoriety, work experience, a reference, knowledge or a chance to meet people. The right to private property guarantees the individual ownership of all that is presently and lawfully in is possession, and all that will be lawfully earned by him and his possessions. Taxes are a justifiable infringement upon property rights, in lieu of the services they finance; however if raised too high, they cease to be in the public’s interest. By lowering the rewards any specific activity may provide, they discourage commerce, particularly if business or work may be more economically conducted elsewhere.
    Inequality, the general result of freedom and law being applied equitably together, is essential to the development of new markets; it allows products to be tested, and used by those who could afford them, which would otherwise be too expensive to make it to market. When the wealthy buy these products, they provide inventors with capital and incentive to improve them in order to reach a broader market.2
    Patent and copyright protection are valuable extensions of property rights from the physical, assets, to the intellectual sphere, ideas. Without this framework in place, it is quite likely that inventors, and certainly authors would cease to publish their findings or original literature-if they did publish, it would be in regions where they could expect compensation for their work. Without the assurance that they could derive some profit from intellectual synthesis, many would be discouraged from using their skills to expand new ideas, and would find other was to get paid. Patents granting 10 years of protection reward both the holder and society by compensating inventiveness, thus encouraging it; and by making valuable information available to the public. The creative process is heavily dependent on old information, spread by education and curiosity. This gives rise to the axiomatic expression: “There would be no creativity in a void.”

    The development of a society depends, in no small part, on the information available to it and the speed at which knowledge passes through it. The density produced by cities, when coupled with free unimpeded flow, plays a key role in determining reliability and velocity of information; but education, or the formal introduction and dissemination of knowledge, is the greatest single factor in preparing individuals for life’s deluge of information. A minimum of education is necessary in order for citizens to be useful in the democratic process, and arms them, to some extent, against dishonest information; however, the state may not be the most useful entity for the provision of such services. Milton Friedman shows in “The Role of Government in Education” that education could be paid for by government without government involvement in provision. Organizing education in that way would prevent the monopolization, by a single opinion, of an entire field of knowledge, opening up scholarly domains to more varied debate. With a single curriculum or agenda, a large part of the total information available to be taught must be ignored as irrelevant, superfluous, or as impracticable; the advent of multiple curricula would likely include enormous quantities of information previously overlooked, bolstering creative combinations.
    State schools restrict the free flow of information, particularly to the young, by presenting them from an early age with a unified front of ‘accepted knowledge.’ Alternate ideas or analysis are neither presented nor given credence. It is terrible that state schools provide a biased understanding or our world, but worse still that alternate knowledge is ignored. They can be a prop to freedom, or an impediment.1
    Government schools limit knowledge available to the student population and in doing so the population at large, inhibiting society’s ability to form fresh or sufficiently varied combinations of information, labour, and capital; this restricts the advancement of scholarship.

    The organization of a society decides the difference between its success and failure. Factors such as protection of property rights, free capital markets, presence of cities, inequality, and the form educational infrastructure and provision takes rejuvenate or doom societies.
    Rural India, and most middle eastern nations, have not substantively met the criteria necessary for creative growth. Scattered population, oppressive culture, and woeful ignorance have ensured their stagnation. Many Indian cities, though hardly beacons of freedom, are quite successful. Bombay is a vibrant, wonderfully creative city largely because the anonymity it provides has allowed peasants to escape the regressive caste system.2 Middle eastern cities, intellectual and commercial centres during the middle ages, are shackled by religious regimes and despotic government. In Saudi Arabia and Iran, muslims are prohibited from engaging in numerous activities by religion as well as by the state. The restrictions on women’s freedoms have prevented women from realizing their potential in economic and cultural life.
    Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, the United States, and most EU nations are relatively free. Government intervention in economies and the arts in Canada, Japan, the United States and Europe, and federal intervention in cities in the United States, has certainly had negative effects on creativity as a whole. Canada’s stale media point to the damage a federal regulatory body can do, and nations such as Taiwan and Singapore, which are lightly regulated, have made tremendous developmental leaps when compared to the heavily regulated west. Regulation, correctly applied, increases general freedom; it becomes dangerous to development if it prescribes standardized means for such activities as construction, design, or water treatment, rather than standardized ends: in such cases it impedes innovation of better techniques.
    The three most vital components to a creative society, cities, freedom and education, have seen increasing intrusion from western governments in the last 50 years. Although some leaders, Reagan and Thatcher prominent among them, have stayed and even reduced state influence, it continues to grow: courts arrogate the power to make arbitrary judgements, rewriting laws; bureaucracies create new layers of regulation; schools and university campuses are strangled by orthodoxy or extremists; and cities suffer from the legacy of federal housing and highway subsidies. Reform is needed to ensure that not only are Canadian, European and American cities creative, but that they are as creative as possible so we may fully enjoy the benefits of new technologies, knowledge and further developed arts.

    1 Diversification from wood as a primary fuel source to charcoal, coal, peat moss, whale oil, fossil fuels, and finally wind power, solar energy, tidal generators, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear power.
    2 Jacobs, Jane. The Nature of Economies. Toronto:Vintage Canada, 2001.

    1 Mumford, Lewis. The City in History. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1961.

    1 Cattle: increased competition from Argentina and New Zealand in the 1960s caused prices to drop stupendously.
    2 Hoye, Bob. An Address to the Fall Dinner Meeting Committee For Monetary Research & Education: Political and Monetary Reform. Institutional Advisors, October 28, 2004.

    1 Dutch shipyards often used windmills to drive sawblades, ensuring that boards were cut five times as quickly and to much more demanding specifications. Ships were finished up to six times faster in Dutch yards than they were in English ones.
    2 e.g. the telephone, the automobile, CD-ROM technology, computers and air travel.

    1 The debacle concerning Larry Summers at Harvard is the most high profile case right now.

    2 Has ensured many forms of work in India are not properly developed because they belong to ‘untouchable caste.’ Similar to the way slaveholding in Rome and the American South discouraged investment in labour saving devices and precluded technological improvements in work conducted largely by slaves.


    In Patronicum sub Siblesz

  2. #2
    Civitate
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Nottingham, England
    Posts
    2,727

    Default

    Very interesting and well-written, and answers several questions. I haven't seen capitalism (or, the benefits of a free market and society) explained so eloquently before. Kudos to you, Aristophanes. Unlike many essays about the benefits of a free society, it combined historical precedents with modern relevance, and I do agree with much of the sentiment expressed in it.
    Under patronage of: Wilpuri

  3. #3

    Default

    Originally posted by KingOfTheIsles@Apr 19 2005, 02:24 PM
    Very interesting and well-written, and answers several questions. I haven't seen capitalism (or, the benefits of a free market and society) explained so eloquently before. Kudos to you, Aristophanes. Unlike many essays about the benefits of a free society, it combined historical precedents with modern relevance, and I do agree with much of the sentiment expressed in it.
    Thank you, I thought that might be more successful than any more intellectual bullying. I managed to pull my knuckles off the floor long enough to pen that about 3 months ago for an essay competition at George Mason University in Virginia - needless to say I didn't win - they probably looked at my 'credentials' and did the 'duck and run.' After all, I have one incomplete year of university to my name, with a mark range from 90s-70s as the year progressed and I found myself bored to death.


    In Patronicum sub Siblesz

  4. #4
    Profler's Avatar Shaving Kit
    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1,076

    Default

    [QUOTE]The development of a society depends, in no small part, on the information available to it and the speed at which knowledge passes through it. The density produced by cities, when coupled with free unimpeded flow, plays a key role in determining reliability and velocity of information; but education, or the formal introduction and dissemination of knowledge, is the greatest single factor in preparing individuals for life’s deluge of information. A minimum of education is necessary in order for citizens to be useful in the democratic process, and arms them, to some extent, against dishonest information; however, the state may not be the most useful entity for the provision of such services. Milton Friedman shows in “The Role of Government in Education” that education could be paid for by government without government involvement in provision. Organizing education in that way would prevent the monopolization, by a single opinion, of an entire field of knowledge, opening up scholarly domains to more varied debate. With a single curriculum or agenda, a large part of the total information available to be taught must be ignored as irrelevant, superfluous, or as impracticable; the advent of multiple curricula would likely include enormous quantities of information previously overlooked, bolstering creative combinations.
    State schools restrict the free flow of information, particularly to the young, by presenting them from an early age with a unified front of ‘accepted knowledge.’ Alternate ideas or analysis are neither presented nor given credence. It is terrible that state schools provide a biased understanding or our world, but worse still that alternate knowledge is ignored. They can be a prop to freedom, or an impediment.1
    Government schools limit knowledge available to the student population and in doing so the population at large, inhibiting society’s ability to form fresh or sufficiently varied combinations of information, labour, and capital; this restricts the advancement of scholarship.[/QUOTE

    Although I do not agree with an absolute dependence on a curriculum (recent reforms in UK Primary schools have shown me that total standardisation stifles additional knowledge and is quite often wasted on children who have been failed by an earlier system or come from households where education is simply considered unimportant), I am concerned about the potential effect of multiple curricula and not being familiar with Friedman's work on the topic, I must ask to what extent your proposed curricula would deviate from each other.

    Would for instance one theory be favoured over another (effectively as happens now), or would a number of prominent theories be covered by a curriculum, but in less detail?

    What amount of freedom would be given to schools and their chosen curriculum, would for instance English Language remain a required subject, or would schools be able to teach solely a foreign language? Would subjects such as Science, Mathematics and History still be required, or would schools be free to omit them at their choice? Obviously, I'm generalising with these questions but I would be interested to better understand the practical application of the system (though this may well require a seperate thread if this one is to remain uncluttered)
    In patronicvm svb wilpuri
    Patronvm celcvm qvo Garbarsardar et NStarun


    The Bottle of France has been lost, the Bottle of Britain has just begun...
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    "Mr. Speaker, do you approve of donuts?" - Hon Eric Forth MP (deceased)
    "You might very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment" - Rt Hon Francis Urquhart MP

  5. #5

    Default

    [quote]Originally posted by Profler@Apr 19 2005, 02:59 PM
    The development of a society depends, in no small part, on the information available to it and the speed at which knowledge passes through it. The density produced by cities, when coupled with free unimpeded flow, plays a key role in determining reliability and velocity of information; but education, or the formal introduction and dissemination of knowledge, is the greatest single factor in preparing individuals for life’s deluge of information. A minimum of education is necessary in order for citizens to be useful in the democratic process, and arms them, to some extent, against dishonest information; however, the state may not be the most useful entity for the provision of such services. Milton Friedman shows in “The Role of Government in Education” that education could be paid for by government without government involvement in provision. Organizing education in that way would prevent the monopolization, by a single opinion, of an entire field of knowledge, opening up scholarly domains to more varied debate. With a single curriculum or agenda, a large part of the total information available to be taught must be ignored as irrelevant, superfluous, or as impracticable; the advent of multiple curricula would likely include enormous quantities of information previously overlooked, bolstering creative combinations.
    State schools restrict the free flow of information, particularly to the young, by presenting them from an early age with a unified front of ‘accepted knowledge.’ Alternate ideas or analysis are neither presented nor given credence. It is terrible that state schools provide a biased understanding or our world, but worse still that alternate knowledge is ignored. They can be a prop to freedom, or an impediment.1
    Government schools limit knowledge available to the student population and in doing so the population at large, inhibiting society’s ability to form fresh or sufficiently varied combinations of information, labour, and capital; this restricts the advancement of scholarship.[/QUOTE

    Although I do not agree with an absolute dependence on a curriculum (recent reforms in UK Primary schools have shown me that total standardisation stifles additional knowledge and is quite often wasted on children who have been failed by an earlier system or come from households where education is simply considered unimportant), I am concerned about the potential effect of multiple curricula and not being familiar with Friedman's work on the topic, I must ask to what extent your proposed curricula would deviate from each other.

    Would for instance one theory be favoured over another (effectively as happens now), or would a number of prominent theories be covered by a curriculum, but in less detail?

    What amount of freedom would be given to schools and their chosen curriculum, would for instance English Language remain a required subject, or would schools be able to teach solely a foreign language? Would subjects such as Science, Mathematics and History still be required, or would schools be free to omit them at their choice? Obviously, I'm generalising with these questions but I would be interested to better understand the practical application of the system (though this may well require a seperate thread if this one is to remain uncluttered)
    It wouldn't be up to me or the state to supply curricula, although certain minimum standards would have to be enforced to ensure that students could take their appropriate place in society.
    Every student needs to have a basic understanding of economics, history, civics, logic, language[of country where school is located], mathematics, and probably a grounding in the sciences. Especially in later years, there would be a huge amount of latitude available as per curricula; I am confident we would see more schools emerging teaching advanced trades, skilled labour, or focusing on specific subjects such as chemistry, english/journalism/writing, or mathematics. Right now, in Canada at least, there is a lot of room in present school schedules taken up by bogus classes such as lifestyles, sex ed, social studies, native studies, etc... The current class structure is too rigid and confined.


    In Patronicum sub Siblesz

  6. #6

    Default

    I have one incomplete year of university to my name, with a mark range from 90s-70s as the year progressed and I found myself bored to death.
    Not unheard of..but a true pity. Quite a waste of potential. Not that one cannot learn outside of a University, but I think you understand.

    Cheers to the essay,

    NM
    Former Patron of: Sbsdude, Bgreman, Windblade, Scipii, Genghis Khan, Count of Montesano, Roman American, Praetorian Sejanus

    My time here has ended. The time of the syntigmata has ended. Such is how these things are, and I accept it. In the several years I was a member of this forum, I fought for what I considered to be the most beneficial actions to enrich the forum. I regret none of my actions, and retain my personal honor and integrity.
    Fallen Triumvir

  7. #7

    Default

    Originally posted by GodEmperor Nicholas@Apr 19 2005, 03:10 PM

    Not unheard of..but a true pity. Quite a waste of potential. Not that one cannot learn outside of a University, but I think you understand.

    Cheers to the essay,

    NM
    Thanks, I'm going back [I'm 21] after a 2 year break and money earned, and taking commerce. I'm going to major in accounting, although I've considered actuarial training. My theory is that my accounting skills will be marketable in the investing world, and that I can eventually get a job working for a guy like Eric Sprott in Toronto, or Warren Buffett.[haha]
    If I end up being a mere accountant, I'll continue saving and be retired by 35, free to write and absorb as much knowledge as is possible within my human limits. Maybe I'll write ornery letters-to-the-editor until the end of my days!!!


    In Patronicum sub Siblesz

  8. #8

    Default

    I actually run a georgetown club that is involved in investing for the schools endowment. It attracts just tons of members we are all interested in Investment banking and mutual funds, so if you want a summer internship next year I could definately help with that.

    Cheers,

    NM
    Former Patron of: Sbsdude, Bgreman, Windblade, Scipii, Genghis Khan, Count of Montesano, Roman American, Praetorian Sejanus

    My time here has ended. The time of the syntigmata has ended. Such is how these things are, and I accept it. In the several years I was a member of this forum, I fought for what I considered to be the most beneficial actions to enrich the forum. I regret none of my actions, and retain my personal honor and integrity.
    Fallen Triumvir

  9. #9

    Default

    Originally posted by GodEmperor Nicholas@Apr 19 2005, 03:19 PM
    I actually run a georgetown club that is involved in investing for the schools endowment. It attracts just tons of members we are all interested in Investment banking and mutual funds, so if you want a summer internship next year I could definately help with that.

    Cheers,

    NM
    It's on!!! Live from Saskatoon, SK!!!


    In Patronicum sub Siblesz

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •