Re: The Calculus of Hedonism

["ÁÎ×Ó¹â Henry C.K.Liu ¹ù¤l¥ú" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve:

In Chapter 3: The Calculus of Hedonism, you discuss the relationship
between individual utilitarianism and society.

On the question of whether "society is more than just the sum of the
individuals in it", Chinese political ideology has a history of
protracted contest between the
vision of Da'tong (General Harmony) and the pragmatism of Xiao'kang
(Individual Contentment).  In contemporary political terms, it is a
struggle
between the noble grandeur of communal socialist vision and the
utilitarian
efficiency of individual private enterprise.  Mao's political rise had
been
predicated on his ability to skillfully manipulate the contention
between
these two ideologies for the benefit of an evolving new social order,
and his
post-humous fall was related to his failure to balance the same in a
changing socioeconomic post revolution context. Deng Xiaoping's ideology

is officially based on Xiao'kang.  When Mao accused Deng of being a
capitalist roader, he was not wrong.  I may add that in four millennia
of recorded Chinese history, the coincidence of prosperity and cultural
flowering with periods of Da'tong greatly outnumbers those of Xiao'kang.

On the other hand, it is an insight of irony to note how the despicable
savagery of murder on an individual scale can be magically transformed
into the nobility of military glory through mass slaughter in the name
of organized warfare. Civilization does not deliver man from evil.  It
merely makes evil tolerable through the development of fine style and
high purpose.  It is no fantasy that the market place is often referred
to as a battlefiled, except that instead of two opposing armies fighting
for high purpose under accepted rules of war, the market place is often
a battlefield for thousands of small bands of raiders in which survival
is the only rule or purpose.

Reverse examples are the building of medieval cathedrals, a task of
protracted commitment that spanned centuries, requiring selfless
individual sacrifice and unfailing cohesive communal spirit, with no
tangible economic purpose.  The alternative would be each individual's
quest for a private castle on the hill.  Yet when applied to mass
markets, the vision of Mounts Vernon leads to the depressing results of
Levitt Town.

As for Bentham's pleasure and pain assertion, pleasure is seldom
measurable in pure material terms.  This is reflected in your example of
ascetic academic economists who voluntarily take lower pay to pursue
intellectual interests.  When it comes to money, the pleasure of excess
soon leads to the excess of pleasure.  The utility of money beyond
personal consumption transforms into power which most intelligent
persons know can be achieved more effectively through other avenues
besides riches.

Your expose of the basic building blocks of economic concepts by
revealing their conceptual inconsistencies and application limitations
is informative.  Yet the problem goes deeper to the very attempt to
define and isolate complex phenomena such as price, demand, consumption,
etc.  Presumably, such attempts aim at providing precise and measurable
tangibles to analyze basic components that can affect the general
welfare of the "economy".  Yet a healthy economy is like a "good"
marriage, the definition for which is complex and elusive.  Or like the
issue of health.  As you have pointed out, the rejection of non
materialistic concerns as beyond the boundary of economics makes the
struggle futile before it begins.  It is not much use having a finely
tuned race car, if all it does is go around the track. In surgery, the
syndrome is summed up in the saying that the operation was a success,
but the patient died.

Henry