[MD] Pirsig on capitalism, socialism

[Ben Golden]

[Platt]
Arlo and I (and others) have been arguing socialism vs. capitalism for a 
number of years on this site. It all springs from Pirsig's comment in the 
Lila:

"From a static point of view socialism is more moral than capitalism. It's a
higher form of evolution. It is an intellectually guided society, not just a
society that is guided by mindless traditions. That's what gives socialism 
its drive.
But what the socialists left out and what has all but killed their whole 
undertaking
is an absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic Quality. You go to any 
socialist
city and it's always a dull place because there's little Dynamic Quality." 
(17)

I've been battling the static point of view ever since.

[Ben]

Platt, it seems that you mean to ground capitalism in Pirsig's writing, 
which I find surprising given this passage, wherein he associates value both 
with capitalism and socialism, albeit different kinds of value.  I would 
think that Pirsig's ideal economic system is some kind of compromise between 
the two.  Does Pirsig ever formally state a preference for the form of 
capitalism you support?  Was he actively political?  Are there other 
writings you can direct me to?

I would think that by the MOQ, the best government is one that best 
facilitates the creation/discovery of dynamic quality while preserving 
static quality.  It's a maximization algorithm, wherein preservation of 
static quality trades off with development of dynamic quality.

By this reasoning, I'd argue that taxation hinders the development of 
dynamic quality by reducing the economic incentive to innovate.  Military 
and police spending preserve static quality--law and order, security.  Thus 
your position that good government institutes taxes to pay for military 
spending can be justified as a maximization of total quality.

The problem you face if you accept my analysis thus far is that it opens the 
door to other policies whereby government can increase total quality.  
Taxation has a marginally negative effect on the creation of dynamic 
quality; one could argue that funding education has a larger positive effect 
on the creation of dynamic quality.  Or that funding libraries protects us 
from losing the static quality held in books.

_________________________________________________________________
Can’t afford to quit your job? – Earn your AS, BS, or MS degree online in 1 
year. 
http://www.classesusa.com/clickcount.cfm?id=866145&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.classesusa.com%2Ffeaturedschools%2Fonlinedegreesmp%2Fform-dyn1.html%3Fsplovr%3D866143