Democratic Morality (?)
The advancement of any field for its own sake is an immoral act.
Since each society determines its morality, one can easily draw the conclusion that the value placed by the masses (society) act as a moral enforcer, restraining what is not wanted and encouraging what is wanted.
I'll call this democratic morality, morality of the people enforced by the people.
It is not a gross morality in that the price of an object is not necessarily the moral indicator, that role goes to the frequency, the more often an object is bought the more likely it is that it fits the moral parameters of its society.
An expensive item is therefore likely to be immoral in that its expensiveness is likely a reflection of infrequency(rarity, unattainability etc) and might be interpreted as the rejection of this item by the many.
Conversely, the cheaper and more widely available and utilized an object is the more likely it is that it is positively viewed by the society.
In this way money is a moral indicator not only in price but frequency, what one man values is odd but what every man values is right.
I think one might even be able to argue through this that the democratic morality is enforced on the economy (art and science) since only that which is morally accepted is mass consumed and thus profitable.
Thoughts and critiques?
I am not an economist nor is this some definitive statement, it is just an idea that I fel might have merit and would like to discuss and refine. Thank you.
Since each society determines its morality, one can easily draw the conclusion that the value placed by the masses (society) act as a moral enforcer, restraining what is not wanted and encouraging what is wanted.
I'll call this democratic morality, morality of the people enforced by the people.
It is not a gross morality in that the price of an object is not necessarily the moral indicator, that role goes to the frequency, the more often an object is bought the more likely it is that it fits the moral parameters of its society.
An expensive item is therefore likely to be immoral in that its expensiveness is likely a reflection of infrequency(rarity, unattainability etc) and might be interpreted as the rejection of this item by the many.
Conversely, the cheaper and more widely available and utilized an object is the more likely it is that it is positively viewed by the society.
In this way money is a moral indicator not only in price but frequency, what one man values is odd but what every man values is right.
I think one might even be able to argue through this that the democratic morality is enforced on the economy (art and science) since only that which is morally accepted is mass consumed and thus profitable.
Thoughts and critiques?
I am not an economist nor is this some definitive statement, it is just an idea that I fel might have merit and would like to discuss and refine. Thank you.
Comments (2)
I have just read your thread discussion. I am wondering if you are criticising the underlying ethic of consumer based systems of economics. It is bound up with value systems, and there have been critiques of such values, such as that offered by E F Schumacher, who looked at other alternatives, including smaller community based ways of living. I find these alternatives to be interesting, but it is not always that easy to translate into practice. However, I do believe that it is worth thinking about the values and ethics underlying mainstream economics.