Well this was a scary read... I fully understand that it was written with the sole intention of being scary, but seriously...
"He argues that financial incentives ought not to matter in a mindful society and is confident that well-intentioned social engineers can suspend the laws of economics."
Yup... people should work to better themselves without regard for reward, but for the greater good of society. Marx would be proud, but unfortunately, human greed and other vices always seem to win. Case in point - USSR and the ensuing disaster of the 90s, replaced by autocratic oligarchical rule of the present day. (First hand knowledge - I grew up there...)
"Mr. Sachs is honest enough to acknowledge that the "rich" are not nearly rich enough to pay for his ever-expansive vision of government. We're told that "each of us with an above-average income" (i.e., $50,000 per household) must "understand that if we are prudent, we can make do with a little less take-home pay." "
Anyone tried supporting a family in California on $50k income? I'm hoping my family won't have to try this.
"Government must instead quantify "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" and set policies and goals accordingly. There was a science to satisfaction, Bentham claimed, and it was a puzzle that trained experts could solve."
I seriously hope this was yanked out of context in the book, because otherwise it's a call for complete lunacy. Soviets tried this in Russia and Mao tried this in China... results were cataclysmic for the respective societies. If I could transport the author of the book to Russia of the 90s, or better yet Stalin's era, he might be signing a different tune.
One more thought... one place we could learn from, however, is Scandinavian view on education - merit-based access to any level of it. In a nutshell, if you are good enough, society should give you a chance to get all of the education you need to realize your full potential and benefit the society, as well as yourself.
But then again, a system like this has to be entirely merit-based. At the scale of US (300+ million people), policing a system like that and ensuring fairness will be a disaster and it will likely fail. Throw in special-interests and affirmative action, and you have a mess no better and maybe worse than what exists today.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 19.7 ms ] thread"He argues that financial incentives ought not to matter in a mindful society and is confident that well-intentioned social engineers can suspend the laws of economics."
Yup... people should work to better themselves without regard for reward, but for the greater good of society. Marx would be proud, but unfortunately, human greed and other vices always seem to win. Case in point - USSR and the ensuing disaster of the 90s, replaced by autocratic oligarchical rule of the present day. (First hand knowledge - I grew up there...)
"Mr. Sachs is honest enough to acknowledge that the "rich" are not nearly rich enough to pay for his ever-expansive vision of government. We're told that "each of us with an above-average income" (i.e., $50,000 per household) must "understand that if we are prudent, we can make do with a little less take-home pay." "
Anyone tried supporting a family in California on $50k income? I'm hoping my family won't have to try this.
"Government must instead quantify "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" and set policies and goals accordingly. There was a science to satisfaction, Bentham claimed, and it was a puzzle that trained experts could solve."
I seriously hope this was yanked out of context in the book, because otherwise it's a call for complete lunacy. Soviets tried this in Russia and Mao tried this in China... results were cataclysmic for the respective societies. If I could transport the author of the book to Russia of the 90s, or better yet Stalin's era, he might be signing a different tune.
But then again, a system like this has to be entirely merit-based. At the scale of US (300+ million people), policing a system like that and ensuring fairness will be a disaster and it will likely fail. Throw in special-interests and affirmative action, and you have a mess no better and maybe worse than what exists today.