Bureaucracy vs. humanity

I'm sure there are moronic conservatives out there who think big business is better, but I've yet to meet them. They may accept Wal-Mart's market efficiency, but that's because when given a choice, consumers prefer lower prices on consumer goods. If consumers prefer traditional farming and REGULATION makes it unprofitable, then clearly the government is destroying a business. But elsewhere you are calling for more financial regulation in the name of protecting consumers. Why are you criticizing the Europeans for protecting consumers?

It does seem that you're equating "big business" with "market efficiency". I've no doubt that many conservatives support market efficiency over other values. I can't think of too many, beyond the caricature of Alex P. Keaton, that support big business as a good in itself, though many are comfortable with big business when it promotes market efficiency. (And of course, there are certainly many professional politicians who are supportive of big businesses insofar as they're good at lobbying.)

I really can't think of any conservatives who would "sneer" at a regulation imposed by a largely unaccountable international organization that destroys market efficiency.

I thought I read Rod's comment as that many (not all) conservatives will sneer at such intangible benefits as the ones he listed, such as 'affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems' over the something that like market efficiency, that can show up on a balance sheet.

Indeed, I keep hearing prices (i.e. Walmart) being brought up AS almost synonymous with 'market efficiency', and there's probably little doubt that huge factory farms almost always have the edge there. If the price of the product when it hits the store shelves is the primary, or, indeed, the only consideration.

But if market concerns are in conflict with the principle listed by Rod above.. that of, for instance, choice and variety over enforced uniformity', which wins out?

Since nobody seemed to even notice that value at all, so far, its not unreasonable to suggest the former.

Oops my bad, that should read "sociologist" not socialists

N.B. perhaps the home-business internet traders are the missing 19% Rod ?

A native Pole here. As the Times article notes, 22% of Poland's labor force is in agriculture. This level is unsustainable in a modern economy. Clearly, this level must decrease dramatically as Poland narrows the wealth gap with Western Europe.

That said, many of my relatives in Poland have noted how so much of the food they get at the store just isn't as tasty as it was in the past. Modern industrialized food production has altered the way traditional specialties such as sausage, ham, bread, and pastries taste. There is a strong sense among the older generations that the Polish culture is losing some culinary treasures by entering the modern economy.

But I'm not sure there's much anyone can do here. Obviously, the farmers should fight harmful EU mandates, especially ones that discourage organic farming practices. But there are much larger forces at work here. American and Western European consumers are wealthy enough to choose to buy pricier organic food when they want. I'm pretty sure most Poles can afford the same lifestyle, although I would love to be proven wrong. Hopefully, those broader culinary trends Rod mentions could somehow stall this most unwelcome "progress" into the modern Western world.

A native Pole here. As the Times article notes, 22% of Poland's labor force is in agriculture. This level is unsustainable in a modern economy. Clearly, this level must decrease dramatically as Poland narrows the wealth gap with Western Europe.

Actually, one could argue that it's the modern industrial economy that is unsustainable.

but keep in mind that this same modern economy they criticize is that one that keeps them and their families alive until the ripe old age of 80 insted of 45,

I think this is questionable as well--a comparison between the life expectancies between inhabitants of rural areas as opposed to that of city-dwellers might be more illuminating, especially if what caused "early" death had more to do with poor sanitation.

The Poles have a real chance of skipping a "step" in the "modernization" myth. Instead of killing off their small farms in favor of agribiz and then going organic when they realize they are being poisoned by the resulting food, they could find a way to get the best balance of small organic farms right now. If anyone can do it the Poles can, if only the mighty EU will let them.

They might even find a way around breaking up their communities to have generations move to the city only to find poverty and alienation. Again this is skipping a step, thanks to the internet many city-dwellers are enthusiastically finding their way back to rural areas. Maybe the Poles can be spared the social breakdown of the rest of Europe, maybe they can find ways to prosper and keep their best traditions.

All the talk of the "newly acceded states" growing economically at the rate their older siblings in democracy had in past decades is just so much crystal ball gazing. The credit that fuelled the financial products and services industry "bubble" is statist and may not permit much more competition before it all goes poof! The Poles would do better to develop their own models for growth that encourage intelligent co-operation rather than a discredited variety of dog-eat-dog hardscrabble lobbying for publicly-assisted capital-currency speculation that has no domestic production component.

Franklin: "The capitalist emphasizes profit. The socialist emphasizes the human contributions at every stage of production to consumption."

This sentiment I understand, but the logic not:

__capital__ is value-neutral and may not reward sloth just because its American. Money's much quoted "liquidity" is only released when thawed out of a saver's ice-chest and flows as earnings for services rendered.

__socialists__ recognize no values and reward arbitrary whims of their GreatLeader of their MotherLand. Like an ice-cube tray frozen in the ice-chest of public finance coffers, which emphasizes a contribution at every stage of production, a worker receives whatever ration of ice resources determined by the government's tray-status committee, to consumption where proletariat are awarded defrost certificates for their years of loyalty to the Despotism Memorial Historical Association trade system that entitles them to request a quantity of freeze-dried resources, which may be exercised at an ice-box storage warehouse that will accept them, if yields on the Five-Year Plan created sufficient reserves in that location.

I know its not fashionable, yetlaissez faire means "lets make" not "let's pay no attention to what we need to make..." its not the enemy...

We people of faith have a very important role to play - we can supply the values vocabulary to the secular "value-neutral" markets debate for the institutions we manage (a stakeholding of land, family assets, the public or private corporations who need our skills, our children schools, our health-care systems, retirement benefits systems and our local, state and federal Government) and abolish the "socialist" Fed: their "invisible hand" isn't invisible its tyrannical -- some "insiders" obviously get to see it in advance of when it decides to strike.

And work to change hearts and minds of our lawmakers so that our currency and our legal frameworks are reformed to guarantee balance in the "caring-hand" that defends liberty. Enshrine natural rights "subsidiarity" as a legal principle of liberty: removes the bias for BIG institutions "homo economicus" where manipulation of the "process" for special interest gains presents alarming risks to the common good, and redress the balance in favor of local, smaller entrepreuneurs whose "homo socio-economicus" commitment to long-term personal success trough traditional inquisitive and intuitive creativity naturally limits the risk to the common good.

"Homo economicus rests on the silent premises that human communication today is no different than it was in Adam Smith’s day and therefore human beings relate to each other and to themselves no differently than 225 years ago. In essence, the development of the telegraph followed by the telephone, radio, television, fax, email, and internet have had no bearing on the way we think about economic agency. Homo economicus never changes. Proclaiming a requiem for homo economicus is more than just clever rhetoric. It is based on more than just expressions borrowed from other disciplines. The call is grounded in an understanding of human nature that surfaced with the development of electronic communication which altered our awareness of others and of ourselves and gave birth to the philosophy of personalism. Burying homo economicus and substituting homo socioeconomicus bring the basic unit of economic analysis out of the individualism of the 17th and 18th centuries into the personalism of the 20th century.

REQUIEM FOR HOMO ECONOMICUS
www.mayoresearch.org/files/REQUIEM.pdf
Edward J. O’Boyle, Ph.D.
Mayo Research Institute