From: Mark Walker (mail@markalanwalker.com)
Date: Tue Jul 09 2002 - 08:12:37 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Anders Sandberg" <asa@nada.kth.se>
>
> There is also cultural aspects; Sweden scored highest on Gert Hofstade's
> 'femininity' cultural dimension, meaning among other things that
> competition is viewed as inferior to cooperation - ideally everybody
> should win, or at least get the same amount. This makes the "I'm going
> to work hard to make myself rich" idea seem strange. I think this trait
> is something that has been strongly encouraged by the social democrats
> and their system, but it existed beforehand too. No wonder a lot of the
> discontents and entrepreneurs left for the US in the 1800's.
snip, snip, snip
> All in all, Sweden is a fairly nice place to live in. But it has a
> system, interlinked with culture, that is not very productive and
> absolutely refuses to deal with it. I worry that one day reality is
> going to
>
> --
Anders, I am not sure whether you are saying that Sweden has the wrong
values, or that they have been implemented wrong or inefficiently. In terms
of being productive of the types of values that social democrats would like
to see, e.g., liberty, solidarity, justice, it seems from your description
that Sweden is very productive of these sorts of values. Presumably, you
mean economically productive. Suppose it is conceded that one has to pay an
economic cost (in terms of gdp) for instituting these sorts of values. Are
Swedes mistaken for making this choice? As you say those who don't like it
are free to emigrate. It is a shame that interstate mobility is not more
common: it might help the political satisfaction meter jump. Given that we
have yet to find a perfect political system (assuming there is such a beast)
I am glad that we still have some alternate political experiments.
P.S. Happy birthday. Presumably someone your age will demonstrate good form
and express your age in scientific notation. It really doesn't sound that
old when you say "Three times ten to the first" :)
Mark
Dr. Mark Walker
Research Associate (Philosophy), Trinity College, University of Toronto
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Evolution and Technology, (www.jetpress.org)
Editor-in-Chief, Transhumanity, (www.transhumanism.com)
Home page: http://www.markalanwalker.com
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