Orwell said the only “ism” that had justified itself was pessimism…
“The socialist society would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.” – Robert Nozick
Man, I love still being young enough (22) to be utterly blindsided by the most obvious of notions.
Also, Joan Robinson said that “any government which had both the power and the will to remedy the major defects of the capitalist system would have the will and the power to abolish it altogether, while governments which have the power to retain the system lack the will to remedy its defects.”
Quite true—of all sorts of governments, no? Not to mention institutions (cough education system cough) in general. An argument for revolutions? I wish I were back in the Yale bubble where I could just perform a purely formal analysis (or something that pretended to be such) of how the author’s decision to vary the order of the words “power” and “will” not only enhances dramatically the rhetorical value of her argument but also alludes to a famous speech on government and power by some ancient Roman orator. (Now I’m in the penumbra of that bubble, the blogosphere, where I have to worry about the defects of capitalism but don’t yet need to do anything about it.)
on May 19, 2008 on 1:33 pm
[...] homesweetjungle wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt“The socialist society would have to forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.” – Robert Nozick Man, I love still being young enough (22) to be utterly blindsided by the most obvious of notions. Also, Joan Robinson said that “any government which had both the power and the will to remedy the major defects of the capitalist system would have the will and the power to abolish it altogether, while governments which have the power to retain the system lack the will to remedy its defects.” Quite true—of all sorts of governments, no? Not to mention institutions (cough education system cough) in general. An argument for revolutions? I wish I were back in the Yale bubble where I could just perform a purely formal analysis (or something that pretended to be such) of how the author’s decision to vary the order of the words “power” and “will” not only enhances dramatically the rhetorical value [...] [...]