Re: Einstein on socialism [was: Re: Dyson (Was: Paths to Uploading)

Mike Linksvayer (ml@justintime.com)
Fri, 08 Jan 1999 19:21:52 -0800

"David A. Kekich" wrote:
> Maybe he came to his conclusions because he never really profited from
> his grand discoveries, while lesser mortals got rich selling widgets and
> hitting home runs. A purely capitalistic economy would have enriched
> him. Then he probably would have been a capitalist. The inequality of
> the system might have simply pushed him towards socialism. Maybe he
> never gave it as much thought as most assume.

There is no certainty that a purely capitalistic economy would have enriched Einstein. Perhaps he would have found it easier to make lots of money. Producing "good stuff" isn't enough -- you have to get other people to pay you for your stuff. Discoveries in theoretical physics are pretty hard to leverage into a really large fortune.

Dick.Gray@bull.com wrote:
> If no objective standard is possible, how are we to come to any agreement?
> Fortunately, most of us are able to get along reasonably well with each
> other most of the time. Why is this, do you suppose?

Because there are many seemingly objective facts about our environment, including the fact that most of us hold similar, though subjective, opinions about what is right and wrong.

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