Posted on Jul 16, 2007

i3 monthly 2007 SUMMER EDITORIAL
by Margaret Chen, Editor-in-Chief
June, July and August 2007

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WHAT IF . . . tomorrow morning you woke up to find that you are no longer allowed to choose what to wear, or what you will eat for breakfast? Instead, you eat what everyone else eats and wear what everyone else wears.

Some would call this a Perfect World, . . . a world where EVERYONE IS EQUAL.

“no more choices”

At last count the earth’s population was estimated at over 6.3 billion people. That’s a huge number of people waiting in line for their share of the world’s produce, a staggering number of people needing “the basics” like clean water, clean air and food.
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FROM SPICE MARKETS TO STOCK MARKETS

As early as 4,000BC (that’s 6,000 years ago !), trade of silks and spices, produce from farms, livestock, shells, precious stones and metals all happened at bazaars and marketplaces where buyers and sellers bartered and haggled over how much to pay. We still do that today, but now we also have much more complex systems of trading and bartering than merely dragging your prized camel, your brightest bushel of corn, your silks and spices across great distances to the marketplace, hoping the auction or sale goes in your favor.

Click here for more about the history of trade on the SILK ROAD

Today there’s eBay, an internet auction market that brings together buyers and sellers from all around the world.

And then there are the more complicated markets like the stock market, the commodities, bonds, & options markets – markets that deal in future earnings, good will and that test your keen investor’s eye.

It’s a lesson in humility when we think about all the ways throughout history that humans have found to distribute available resources, to people living together here on the planet at any particular time. The task has always been a difficult one, even when cities only had a few hundred thousand inhabitants, much less now when most cities have a few million!
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THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL . . .

There are misguided, well meaning people who say things like ”[the love of] money is the root of all evil”, or that accuse corporations of psychosis for perpetrating greed/evil upon mankind, as if money and corporations have a will of their own. While it may be true that both have been known to induce people to commit crimes that have hurt many people, Remember This : money and corporations are as capable of doing good and of being generous, as they are of doing evil and of being greedy.

It is absurd to “throw the baby out with the bathwater”, to ask – for example – for a ban against LOVE because love is known to cause “crimes of passion”! Likewise, it is absurd and unbelievably simplistic to imagine that by destroying things like money and corporations that we will stop Evil in its tracks and insure that suddenly all humans would live in peaceful coexistence for all of eternity.

click here for an interesting blog on ‘money is the root of all evil’ quote
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ECONOMISTS – & ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS – RULE THE MATERIAL WORLD

Adam Smith, the Father of Economics, wrote his groundbreaking An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776 which established “economics” as an autonomous subject and introduced the economic idea of Free Enterprise.

Smith was a professor of moral philosophy and in his earlier book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759 he paints a positive view of rational self interest and believes that men are generally good natured. His book The Wealth of Nations is still relevant today, and is required reading for Economics majors as it is the foundation upon which all other economic theories rests. As such, it should also be required reading for all people who 1.) believe that Capitalism, Corporations and Money are evil, and, 2.) are in the business of ADVERTISING – the business of manipulating Desire.

Click here for an analysis of ‘invisible hand’ in Wikipedia

Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) is the patched-on solution to address the excesses some businesses have permitted for themselves in looking out for their bottom lines. Without the ingenious messaging, as with the greatest advertising campaigns, to put back the “rational” in Adam Smith’s idea that “rational self interest” is the best engine for fair and free growth, CSR’s will likely remain one department within the corporate engine, where it needs now to be the fuel coursing through those engines and driving change.

(Click here for an analysis of ‘invisible hand’ in Wikipedia)

And for a gentle introduction to economic thought, click here for Brenda Li’s ‘Economists and Their Significance’

Margaret Chen
Editor-in-Chief, iCubed.us
16 July, 2007