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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I will respond to your three responses below.  Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

1. Yes, money and education are proxies.  By themselves, they likely provide necessary but not sufficient public and private goods to nourish a healthy and vibrant society.  Having a society that is institutionally designed to prize just money and education is in my opinion hollow.  If what you propose is true, then the country should just be a plutocracy.  I don't think that was the design envisioned in the American experiment of governance.[/quote]

The evidence is contrary to your claim that money and education are poor/hollow proxies by themselves. The the strength of the US comes from our system of laws and government that effectively nurture the right kind of money and education. Whereas people in a corrupt country may get rich mostly through criminal acts, embezzlement or abuse of the rights of others, people in the US mostly get rich through hard work, taking on well calculated risk, and conducting their business in a legal and ethical manner. Similarly, the US system of education is of very high practical quality and our network of public and private colleges/universities are sought after for the prestige they bestow on their alumni. The value of these degrees are directly the result of the rigorous and high quality curriculum delivered by these institutions.[b] In short, in the US, with minor exceptions, there is a strong correlation between rich and well educated, and being a person with integrity, character, and a sense of contributing to a greater common good. [/b]The important distinction here is that these are natural and organic manifestations, rather than artificial ideological mantras that we've seen fail miserably in history.

[quote=Anonymous]2. I didn't say that integrity, character and caring for others and self were more important than other things, but that they are necessary components in good institutional design that are less and less valued by current US society relative to money and (in pedigree obsessed DMV) education.  Just because it is more difficult to measure, and i suspect, to show off to others, as well as less remunerative in a lot of cases, it shouldn't be ignored.  Certainly i didn't say that money and education are inherently hollow.  It is the pursuit of these by society without good judgement, character, integrity and caring that is hollow.[/quote]

Okay, thanks for clarifying. I read your initial post differently. I would offer that the reason money and diploma are offered as proxies because they are good quality proxies for how well a person is doing in life as I argued above, and also because these are metrics that have specific and well understood measurements. There are many different ways that someone can exhibit integrity, character, and caring for others, but it's rather difficult to measure these traits directly, much less put them into a table for analysis.

[quote=Anonymous]
3. I think you're arguing a straw man here because i never suggested that ideals should be substituted for pragmatism.  Money and education again are necessary but not sufficient.  Models of socioeconomic status presented here show dimensions only along money and education.  That is an institutional design that herds people into pursuing those stated goals.  Many people will realize that they need more to be fulfilled in their lives, but the way that they actualize this won't be along social norms because there is no explicit prescription for it.  [/quote] [b]The pursuit of money and education in the US occurs within a frame work that rewards integrity, character, and caring for others.[/b] The American model is that you work hard, treat others fairly, care for your family and community, and you will be successful. In other words, these characteristics make up the framework within which the pursuit of wealth and education take place. [/quote]

I think we end up agreeing in many respects except probably in the two points that you made and that I bolded above.

1. You say evidence exists that there is a strong correlation between money/education and integrity/character/caring, etc.  Seems inconsistent to state that these things correlate and at the same time argue that the latter are difficult to measure.  The evidence would need to show that this correlation is higher here than in other countries.  Please provide citation for this evidence.

2. I think that the practices that led to the near collapse of the financial system in 2007-2008 argue strongly against your thesis.  Mortgage fraud, securities fraud, rates/labor fraud have resulted in hundreds of billions in legal settlements.  That is still a small fraction of the harm imposed onto people from the subset of acts that were successfully prosecuted.  Highly educated people argue that tobacco, asbestos, chemical spills don't cause harm to the public explicitly for money.  The market is replete with failures that require regulatory intervention to cure the effects of incentives people have to screw others for money.  The US system is one where you are free to innovate ways to screw people until you meet opposition that is sufficiently well funded, politically strong and with a sufficiently compelling moral basis to stop it from continuing.  Otherwise it just keeps plugging along.  This happens everywhere in the world.  It's a little pollyannaish to think that it doesn't happen here.  It just happens that it occurs here under a veil of respectability and in much greater scale.[/quote]

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