Title: Mcgowanjm Wire 2012 Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Feb 26, 2012 Author:Various Post Date:2012-02-26 09:15:13 by A K A Stone Keywords:None Views:1462518 Comments:2390
Bankers also respond to strong dis-incentives, and will alter their behavior if those rules are enforced. For example, fraud and inordinate risk-taking on Wall Street would all but disappear if We The People carried out a few televised public executions, making sure to precede them with lots of very painful torture.
However, the liberal economist would be upset by the uncivilized lengths we might go to to discourage further rip-offs of American citizens. He believes in the rule of law and due process. Unfortunately, once again, these civilized procedures do not apply to Wall Street bankers, who own (or rent) the people who might bring them to swift justice.
Diogenes of Sinope, also known as Diogenes the Cynic, lived in 4th century B.C.E. and died in Corinth in 323.
Diogenes is especially scornful of sophisms. He disproves an argument that a person has horns by touching his forehead, and in a similar manner, counters the claim that there is no such thing as motion by walking around...
Diogenes’ talent for undercutting social and religious conventions and subverting political power can tempt readers into viewing his position as merely negative. This would, however, be a mistake. Diogenes is clearly contentious, but he is so for the sake of promoting reason and virtue. In the end, for a human to be in accord with nature is to be rational, for it is in the nature of a human being to act in accord with reason.
[My note: I'm afraid Diogenes has got this last part exactly backwards. Otherwise we are in complete agreement.]
Diogenes has trouble finding such humans, and expresses his sentiments regarding his difficulty theatrically. He is reported to have lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about—
I am searching for a human being
(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, Chapter 41).
