November 30, 2005
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Topic: The relationship between money, counsumption, economics, and materialism
“Materialism should not supplant compassion towards those less fortunate.”
This quote was a comment made by Bethany regarding the various issues currently being discussed on this site, notably money and happiness (both as individual entities and the real or non-real relationship between the two).
I think that quote ties in with something I was thinking this morning, and something I’ve thought about for years. The idea that economics is based predominantly on consumption (please expand on that since that’s probably not 100% the case). Also, the idea that economics reveals something about the “health” of our society.
The last part I think most people will be able to pick apart. Clearly, the “health” of a society is a subjective term, and economics alone does not determine whatever it is we want to define as a “healthy nation.” However, to some extent, a strong economy tells us something about our society. The following list I know will be incomplete and likely inaccurate, but, my understanding is that the economy does tell us things like how many people are buying homes, how far people’s incomes are going in terms of their power to purchase things, how many people are working or unemployed, how our currency compares to the currencies of other countries, how well people who own securities like stocks and bonds are doing…
So…to try to get to the point, I see economics as two things. The second thing I just described, and that is that economics can tell us certain things about what I guess I’ll call the “financial health” of the country. The first thing I see in economics, is what I’ll call the forces that drive the economy. What causes fluctuations in the number of people buying homes, what causes flucuations in incomes and buying power, what causes unemployment to go up and down, what causes currencies to fluctuate, what causes the moves in the stock and bond markets.
Obviously…economics is a deeply complex topic, both understanding what drives the economy, and in interpreting economic data.
- However…to tie this back to Bethany’s comment, what role does materialism and compassion have in economics?
- To what extent are the financial health of a country like the US tied to materialism?
- Is it fair to say that the US, being a capitalist economy (and the overarching question being…what is the importance of a healthy economy?) is dependant on the growth of businesses?
- To what extent should the gov’t intervene, through tax policy, subsidies, regulation, and in other means, in order to support the financial health of a country?
- In what ways are the health of major corporations such as General Motors, IBM, and the oil companies, tied to the health of low-income and middle-income America? Is the answer different for different companies or industries?
- It seems that most major financial decisions, such as those relating to taxes and interest rates set by the Fed (which sounds like a small and obscure thing, but essentially the Fed rate has an affect on interest rates for all banks, which affects credit card rates, which affects spending, which affects people buying new homes…a huge ripple effect) have a profound affect on how people consume. To what extent is consumption tied to these gov’t and financial institutions?
And finally…since I didn’t talk much about the compassion side of Bethany’s comment, and to address something less technical and more on a human side, in what way are companies, government, non-profits, political leaders, working towards making compassion as relevant as materialism to the “health of a country.”
Feel free to comment as little or as much as you like.
Comments (6)
I guess I mostly like studio photography, including fashion, portraits and so. But then being in this school makes me discover all aspects od photography and who knows if I won’t end up on the field, being a reporter…
I’ve heard ‘capitalism with compassion’ encouraged, which would seem to cover several areas; in economic systems like communism mercy is consistently overridden by justice.
I found your site when doing a Xanga search for ‘Outward Bound’, actually… I went on one of the expeditions last year and was wondering who else on Xanga might have done the same at some point. I saw you work/have worked for OB? At the moment I’m taking a gap year between college and work, living in Holland with my family… it’s a good life. What about you?
Good topics you have here
“What we see is what we get.” I have to say that I can’t agree with that anymore. Certainly, our interpretation of what we see exists. Ask several people how they saw the same event, and you will get as many answers as people. Does that mean only one of the interpretations is correct and “real”? Of course not. Every experience is real and “exists” for the person who experienced it. Books are real. But we don’t literally “see” the events or arguments within them. All we see are black figures on white paper. The words may be “real”; the rest is imagined. And what is imagined while reading a book (whether fiction or nonfiction) is the most memorable part of the experience.
I’ll leave the economics alone.
Hmm, looks like I’ll have to decide between that course in Minnesota or the Frederick 1/2 Marathon. I’ve done a course like that before (in NC), though, so I know it’d be worth it.
Thanks for the tip.
~Bethany
Aaach, reading! This isn’t something that I want to address “front page” on my site, so I’ll just comment on it here. You’ve opened up my homeschooling can of worms. I got into homeschooling because of the reading issue, when I wasn’t happy with how my daugther’s reading experience was panning out in school. Almost three years later, I’m still waiting (often with much parental anxiety) to see how this homeschooling experiment with reading is going to turn out. It has not resolved itself yet. Andrea still dislikes reading. And as an English major, one who remembers taking out her first library book at the age of seven and reading vorasiously (sp?) every since, I have a hard time with the fact that my children are not yet turning out the same way. They LOVE stories and books of any kind, will listen to them for hours, but neither one is rushing to read them for herself.
One homeschooling philosophy says that there is no age at which children are supposed to learn certain things, like reading. Some children begin reading at three or four, others as late as thirteen, and there is nothing wrong with that. The ones who read later usually catch up and often surpass school children once they do begin reading. A twelve-year-old in one family we know didn’t take off until about nine, and he was soon reading scientific magazines. He now knows more than most adults about technological things. He’s has the largest vocabulary of just about any kid I know.
So my oldest daughter is now nine, and I’m still waiting for her to take off. She’s still dragging her feet. Is this due to leftover negative feelings from school? Is she just not ready yet? I don’t know. She has always been slower to mature in some ways than other children her age. I can’t see sitting her at the kitchen table every day and forcing her to read in order to aleviate my own fears that she will never be good at it. Of course she will learn, and she has plenty of time to do so. She does read on occassion, and she has a tutor now, but I am seeing little progress so far. I may take her for extensive vision tests at some point soon to see whether she might benefit from vision therapy. But mostly I’m trying to stay out of the way of her natural learning processes, that hunger that each of us has to learn competence in life.
So I can’t give any advice on this issue. I’m still waiting (more and more impatiently) for my experience to play itself out. Give me another year or two and I might have something really intelligent to say, based on my own experiences.
Regarding this topic, I have some responses/points rolling around in my head, but it may take me a while to get them posted here. Quite busy.