Bradley's Reviews > The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Though his views on this were stated quite some time ago, do you think they still hold true at all in contemporary society? Are they still relevant at large, or is the book now fairly dated?

Oh, no, they're still quite relevant but all his examples ARE dated for his day, of course. The extrapolations we take are the same ones we have now -- if we really think about them.

I mean, considering, there's nothing unique about any of them, but it still works.

Interesting!

"...people mistake their perceptions of the good for what actually IS good."

Your *main* critique of modern capitalism also applies to every realization of socialism, mercantilism, and fascism, which I'd argue renders it useless and banal.

Not picking a fight, but it seems as though you're holding up the *imperfect* version of capitalism in contrast with the *perfect* idealized version of whatever alternative you prefer. Which... Isn't that just the logical extension of what you say Smith argues against?

And yet, it doesn't change the reality of the fact that we're in the late stage cancerous stage of Capitalism, lol, and NOT a socialist state.

I was merely talking about Adam Smith's conceptions and how they would fall on our modern scale. It's good so far as we're all on the same page of increasing the wealth and happiness of everyone, but that is so obviously not the case we live in now.

So. What we should be doing is use quadrants that specifically show Capitalism vs Socialism and ALSO the rate that any particular location has succumbed to corruption. This requires a clear eye on what your subject actually IS versus what kind of political point you want to make, of course. And comparing, say, the United States against, say, Germany, shows just how off the rails in one direction it has gone.

You can't honestly blame a system for being too Socialist when almost everything that IS, fundamentally, Socialist within it has been or will soon be for-profit. USA is about to lose all its libraries, for example, to a for-profit model. But libraries were absolutely a win by the Socialists and NOT Capitalists. But then, that's how far down THAT road the USA has gone.

Honesty. Argue honestly.

That doesn't seem to address my key critique. Sure, we of course have a mixed economy in the US. Whether it should be more or less centralized, or if there should be more or less social welfare is certainly up for debate.

The critique which I do not think you've addressed is your comparison of the imperfect capitalism as it exists against a perfect imagined alternative—even though you appear to be claiming that's what capitalism apologists do.

Now, you obviously don't owe me anything and it's very possible we just have different priors that prevent us from seeing eye to eye on this. However, at the end of the day I think this internal invalidity undermines the meat of your review.

Let's go back to what Smith was saying. In a nutshell, any system is only as good as the good faith that is put into it. When people draw away from the good faith and game it or outright corrupt the system, it breaks down.

I argued that this is true for all of our systems as well. I also went on to say that we need to keep a clear eye as to WHAT kind of system we have, irrespective of WHAT has corrupted it.

This doesn't make my argument worthless, lol. I'm specifically saying that corruptions of different models are the actual evil.

I didn't bring up mixed models, but sure, let's bring it up now. Eisenhower raised the taxes of the super-rich to 90%, opened tons of NON-PROFIT schools, built roads, libraries, health services, and made higher education affordable to the majority of people.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but ALL of these services, including the post office, is Socialism.

Capitalism was NOT a model that would have provided ANY of this to the people.

When the argument since then has been to reduce the taxing of the super-rich and privatize all these Socialist services has then created the dystopia that we see now, it's disingenuous to blame Socialism for what is clearly a failure of logic in the drive to push Capitalism at all costs.

Look at us now. The rich are now richer than the royalty of pre-revolution France, and the poor in America are living on the equivalent of pennies, and that is entirely the consequence of relying on what the market can bear.

So. Let's go back to Smith for just a moment. For the system to work, the RICH needs to have a sense of conscience and moral obligation to PROVIDE the Socialist care out of their own hearts. It's not built into the Capitalist mindset. Of course, then you have the Marxist rebuttal that the poor will not put up with that for very long, and then the rich are either surrounded by pitchforks or they use their private armies to decimate the poor OR they are forced to provide living wages and minimal social services.

I think this is where the disconnect is happening. Capitalism is fine as long as it is fair. When it is not fair, it is amazingly corrupt because there is nothing but violence built into the system to correct the imbalance.

Smith addresses this DIRECTLY, of course before Marx, but the issues that both addresses are the same exact ones.

My arguments, and his, have nothing to do with centralized or non-centralized governments.

It *is* a question of class warfare complete with "Noblesse" distinctions and the forces of massive economic imbalance as well as keeping John Q Public happy enough to gaslight them further OR actually take care of their fundamental needs.

This is NOT something that Capitalism is set up to do EXCEPT in its non-corrupted form. And that is my argument.

Of course, if you bring up Socialism as being corrupt, etc, I do need to point out that there is not a single instance of Socialism out there without a massive component of Capitalism, too, and Capitalism's woes ALWAYS stem from the massive overaccumulation and focus of wealth in a few hands. The examples we have of Socialist history show us that all of those were, in fact, oligarchies. Just like America is right now.

I won't argue that we SHOULD have any kind of pure system. I wouldn't believe it, anyway. What I DO believe in is JUSTICE. I also believe that when everyone has a higher standard of living, then EVERYONE, including the super-rich, benefits. Having justice enter the equation again means that the laws will once again apply to the super-rich as it does to the poor, that the corruption must end, and that transparency must go into immediate effect across the board.

But that's just MY pipe dream.

You seem to have an incorrect understanding of what socialism is compared to what welfare is within a capitalist economy.

You also again are not addressing the core critique. We've now reached the "no true socialism" stage where you dismiss previous instances of socialism as just *tainted by capitalism.* Which again, is a reversion to you implementing the same thinking you denounce among the defenders of capitalism.

You're redirecting the conversation away from the core critique here by Gish Galloping modern American factoids into the conversation. It's clear you aren't interested in answering my question, so I will have to assume you have no answer to give.

So? I'm trying to be less confusing while you are trying to introduce a different definition of Socialism into this discussion. What are you trying to do? Cherrypick examples and use those as a blanket definition? I can sense an agenda here and can almost hear a Fox News byline.

The fact is, the very topic of Socialism has been propagandized to an amazingly high degree in the States and most people would rather argue by emotions than facts.

You complain that I'm not addressing your core critique? You literally said in your first comment that I am cherry-picking Capitalist examples and holding up an idealized Socialist construct.

I never argued for either. I specifically rebutted that by holding up BOTH C and S as idealized structures that can BOTH be corrupted to varying degrees. I went on to bring this book back into the mix by showing how Smith mitigates corruption by Moral Sentiments. In other words, by being a Good Faith actor.

When I bring up S, I'm not referring to Communism. Let me be very clear, that I mean the mildest form, defined in wikipedia:

Specifically, in Germany, legislation, supported by Prince Bismarck, intended to improve the condition of the working man. Among the measures included was the insurance of workmen against accident, sickness, and old age, and the establishment of cooperative associations under state protection.

This is, in its pure form, a protection that is NOT provided for in Capitalism, and once the unscrupulous and the sociopathic get a little power, actively wipes away any of the good that Capitalism can provide.

And I AM a centrist here. Socialism also has Bad Actors. Once they get their own unscrupulous and sociopathic crowd, they can reach the point of nationalized services like transportation and commerce.

But here's where I find it all quite funny: Capitalist monopolies and Socialist nationalizations BOTH do away with the good of either.

There is no way we can separate the two from the real world, but this does not make the attempt to wrangle facts and try to find the truth any less meaningful.

I AM answering your question. Don't assume anything. If you have an ideology you want to push, then spill it and reveal the agenda you wish to push. I've read and thought about these a lot. Want to go into Mises? Chicago School? Marx? Lenin? American economic history by the decade and how it fared with each milestone? No problem. I'm there. But if you, say, bring up an obvious propaganda piece right out of McCarthy Era, refit to meet the stunted emotional needs of people unable to crack a book longer than a children's book, then no, I'm not going to argue in good faith to an obvious bad faith appeal.

No, you're quite literally pointing to an idealized form of "socialism" never implemented, held up against the current imperfect capitalism.

You definition would place states like Denmark in the "socialist" category when its leaders strongly oppose such categorizations. Socialism isn't just when the government does stuff.

What you're effectively doing is creating some "benign socialism," which definitionally cannot become corrupted. The problem with socialism in the form intended by *the creators of the concept* is that it is inevitably corrupted. You're pointing to this perfect version of socialism with *just enough* centralization led by philosopher kings etc etc, without grappling with the reality that this concept doesn't exist.

Centralization of power, as you briefly acknowledge, is inherent in any system and leads to corruption.

But your review and subsequent seems entirely intended to dunk on capitalists as if anyone ever pretended that the modern form is anywhere close to the ideal, and as though your preferred alternative has ever fared better at reaching its idealized form.

And in your final comment, you've betrayed the reality that you're more interesting in engaging in pissing contests than in engaging with critique. I don't care how much Lenin you've read when you so clearly misunderstand (or misstate) his thinking and definitions. *This,* rather than whatever McCarthyist strawman you think I'm arguing, is bad faith.

So whatever, have fun having the last word about how capitalism is bad without engaging in the fact that you could Ctrl-F replace "capital" with "social" in your review and it would remain true.

As stated previously, it's clear you're not interested in—or able to—provide an answer. But hey, when the facts aren't on your side, pound the table right?

Lol, I'm not the one arguing from anger, here. You seem to be doing all of that on your own. Just the fact that you're performing non-stop whataboutisms and trying to redefine the economic models despite the fact that I actually copied and pasted the definition kinda says it all.

I already addressed the issue of corruption and how it is always a factor no matter what system we used, but you insist upon the old acorn that "I can just replace socialism with capitalism" which *is* unfortunately, one of the worst arguments I've ever heard.

For example, stop me if you've heard this one before: "I hate Republicans but DAMN, the Democrats are SO much worse."

Do you see the fallacy? It literally ignores the full spectrum of everything, arguing from an obviously slanted, emotional, and probably disingenuous slant even before the first words are out of this theoretical belligerent debater.

It's the complete dumbing down of discourse for the benefit of *scoring a virtue-signaling point*. "Hey, look at me, where I won't be budged on my battlefield."

It's obvious you have a grudge against socialism and you've got a bone to pick with it for whatever reason. In other words, you're probably swimming deeply in the propaganda pool.

Well, have fun with that.

I'm the one with the bone to pick? Buddy you made your entire thread a rant against capitalism alone lol.

Asking for consistency is not whataboutism. You're searching for fallacy where there is none.

It's clear you're not interested in conversation so I'll let you return to your screed.

Have a good one.