The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 2

Over on Paul's blog, Action at a Distance, I think we come across a key point that informs (often silently) the debate between conservativism and liberalism and libretarianism and neoconservatism and communism and all those other silly isms. The point is provided unintentionally by commentator Timmy:

"Broken into economics, if you have $11 and I have $3, liberals want to take $4 from you and give it to me so that we are both equal at $7 (regardless of who hard you may work or how lazy I may be). Conservatives on the other hand will say, "hey, there's more than $14 in this world. If you use your capital ($11) and I use mine (ability to work) we can both make more money and both be better off" and be able to move within the social structure based on what we do with what we've been given."

I think that perhaps a more fundamental question than questions about the proper role of personal responsibility or attempts to discern whether governmental structures or individual persons are more susceptible to the effects of a corrupt nature is a question that might be phrased about economic limits. Is there a maximum level of wealth? If so, how close are we (the world as a whole) to achieving that level of wealth? In other words, is economics really a zero-sum game or not?

In the past (i.e. in my conservative, World-Magazine-reading past, not my current politically confused state), I had not really considered the possibility that it is. However, I am becoming increasingly convinced that the world's economic system is essentially a zero-sum system (although I am not certain exactly where the limit at which the zero-sum effect would come into effect is).

This is what worries me about Americans being fat. Its not that I'm bothered or offended by fatness. On a person to person level, I find it more "too bad" or just something unfortunate -- certainly not something people should be berated for. Making fun of fat people is definently not particularly funny. What I am worried about, though, is that our being a fat culture is symptomatic of a real disease, a disease of overconsumption that is burning up resources so quickly that it will consign other generations to poverty. I'm not certain that this is the case (although I am pretty sure that overconsumption is driving us to spiritual poverty), but I think that it is a serious enough proposition that it should not be dismissed out of hand.

More connections could be provided if this is incoherent.

Posted by eatingbark at March 11, 2004 12:59 PM