[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by slowmover

If the chart is vague, you should point out where.

The lack of any numbers is glaring; or not defining "prosperity"; and the missing part that shows how all other variables were controlled to show the corelation is due to the suggested causation.

No, it's testament to profit being a greater perceived good than human welfare, dignity and the rest.

Are we a society based on property, or on people? You should read more deeply into this. The poor society -- in all it's aspects -- is the one you describe. It misses the purpose of government altogether.

I'm with you on the profit comment. I spend a good deal of time trying to figure out how one can grow a vastly profitable business while remaining ethical and treating people as an end to themselves.

Unfortunately, most individuals are increadibly selfish. The only way a company can survive is to respond with its own self-interest. These competing self-interests bring about a ballance. Imagine for a moment, a business that is run entirely by democracy; the workers themselves voting for their own wages. Would such a company survive years down the road, or even just a day?

Do you set the rules to benefit a minority, or is your idea of a just society based on maximizing opportunity for all?

My philosophy is old-school and not popular amoung our progressive society. The justness of an action is intrinsic to the motivation behind the action, not the outcome. This idea is a bit abstract, but let me put it this way; robbing Peter to pay Paul does justice neither to Peter nor to Paul.

To answer your question, rules should be set such that reward is proportionate to the value of the labor and talent that one contributes. This is justice, and it has nothing to do with majorities or minorites.

Do not confuse opportunity with assets. Opportunity is not tangible. Maximizing opportunity for all - means having a universal set of laws that do not discriminate based on race, gender, or creed.

Native Americans are the most subsidized group in America, and the poorest. They are given more "opportunity" (assets) than other groups, but achieve the least with what they are given.

The Peak Oil connection to any of this is: At a time when the economy is in the toilet (in no small part due to speculators and the capture of government by giant private forces), Americans (among others) will have to make changes in their lives where -- for the first time in about 300-years -- there is not cheaply-acquired energy as a sop, a backstop to expensive changes. Individually or societally. Whether the economy stumbles along (reset, reset, reset) the costs will continue to rise (not just inflation). There will come a point where what people are able to pay for energy -- and what is available at a price they can afford -- will diverge.

Prosperity and consumption go hand in hand. If availability of consumables decreases, so must prosperity.

Originally Posted by jamesqf

But we have already foregone art and music. Little if any has been created in the last century, and we can nowadays put most of what there is on a good hard drive.

As much as I appreciate form following function, it saddens me that we don't give more attention to asthetics. When we vacation and want to see magnificent works of art, often we flock to the old things; the Sistine Chapel, for instance.

My hometown has beautiful government buildings made of marble and gold, but if new facilities were constructed today, people would be outraged if it were made of anything other than steel and drywall.