The anti-utilitarian nature of economic equality.

[theapportioner]

I used empirical fact to support my argument. At least one member in society has always seeked for more, or else no change would ever occur.

You wanted capitalism to -solve- the problem of desire, to reduce it in an efficient manner. You wanted people to be -happier-. Now you have 180'ed on your original points.

I did not say that desire is additive, I said that our desires can not be fulfilled. Humanity will always desire what it lacks. Capitalism just develops what we desire. Again, you have not proven that desire is inherently bad - in fact, I would refuse to live in a world without desire.

Dude. Stop shooting from the hip and -read- what I have to say. I already said that creation of isn't necessarily bad. Where are we now, 15 posts back in time???? Besides now you are conceding some of my points without due credit. Gimme what is my due, bitch.

It is far from "rediculous" to assume that certain objects are desired innately. You provide nothing to back up such a statement. After all, is not food an object which is innately desired?

Hunting for food and picking berries started before capitalism did. It is "rediculous" to say that we innately desire reality TV, or mobile phones with cameras, or Prada shoes, or titanium golf clubs, or 100 foot yachts. You pick the least relevant examples in your defense of capitalism's relation to 'innate desire'. There is no gene in my DNA that corresponds to "Prada shoe desire".

I find the neverending chain a beautiful creation that allows us to continually progress. How could you ever want to end it?

Yes, we have reached a summit with "Joe Millionaire". Thank you, Adam Smith.

Bullshit. Total crap. The need to 'look cool' is still a desire that was not created and was inherent. Again, the form of the object is irrelevant - it still remains that the object was desired, though perhaps not comprehended.

You can stick your pleasure unit in your inherent crap. OF COURSE the form is relevant; reality TV is a new "form", as is the automobile. These have only been recently desired (and sometimes, fetishized). Capitalism exploits and manipulates psychological drives by creating new objects and "forms" that are to be desired. But humans create objects of desire independently of capitalism or any other economic system. I'm arguing here not to totally dump capitalism, but to challenge your original point. Capitalism will only make people desire more and more. The agents of capitalism don't want you to desire less. Can desiring more be bad? Of course. Look at cigarette addiction. Or worse, heroin addiction. Can it be good? of course. Can it be ambiguous? Of course. Capitalism isn't interested in creating "good" desire over "bad" desire - capitalism is only interested in creating desire, period. And bad desire does not lead to happiness. *stomps foot down*

And to avoid confusion, good and bad here are in the moral or value sense of the terms. I am not talking about human mental health - as for that, one example that's close to home is the college admissions process. My brother just sent in his applications. My parents, in their desire for him to get into a good school, had went through a lot emotionally, let's just leave it at that. So, on instance where excessive desire does not lead to good mental health. Capitalism doesn't care either way.

And as an aside, 'looking cool' can't possibly be innate because the meaning of the term depends on the social context of its use. One desires to 'look cool' depending on one's social circumstance. I don't think a nun goes out of her way to 'look cool'. Or is 'looking cool' innate for some people and not for others? Or take heroin. I don't desire it. If I never did it, I won't desire it for the rest of my life. But if I shot up every day you bet I'd desire it. It may be said that we have a propensity for heroin addiction. But is that the same as saying my desire for heroin was innate? Absolutely not. Do you even know what you are talking about??? You are soooo far out of your league here.

Face it, your concept of human nature is trash.

According to your theory, there would be no way to quantify desire. Everything would be desired equally. But clearly this is not the case, because people desire things in different intensities and amounts. Sometimes, they do not desire things AT ALL. Clearly, certain objects can fulfill desires better than others, which makes them more profitable.

OF COURSE desire CAN'T be quantified!! It has no absolute values! It only makes sense to talk about it in relative terms (more than, less than). It only makes sense to talk about 'amount of desire' in a relation of comparison for a single person. You can't even generalize it to the population because the flows of desire are so subjective, complex, and dynamic. Even the assigning of say, degrees of depression from 1-10 is quite methodologically flawed, and there are a number of articles out there that show how so. And depression is a far simpler problem as there are a number of effects of depression that are conserved in depressed people. And if you tried to quantify desire, how would you know you had desire quantified? An all-too common error of social scientists and economists is the synecdochic fallacy. And finally, would this quantification be in any way useful in determining the amount of desire of a single person?

I only brought up 'pleasure units' to parodize your idea.

Futhermore, all that I said about the actions companies take is true - people within corporations do not just spontaneously come up with ideas, they recieve customer feedback and assign human resources appropriately.

The focus group was an invention of Robert Merton's, maybe 30 or so years ago. Are we to believe that ONLY NOW is capitalism working the way it should be??

You also have not provided anything through reason or fact to support your argument.

Wrong. I think you are just afraid to think about it.

Define reasoning, and then I'll dig in. We may be functioning under different operators. After all, doesn't that completely eliminate spatial reasoning?

I'll get to this more later. But reasoning entails understanding, and understanding entails assigning meaning. This isn't possible without language. And even a parrot that imitates its owners speech patterns cannot be said to 'understand'. As for spatial 'reasoning' (confused use of the word in this context), well, fish seem to know where to swim. Nothing special or uniquely human about it. Higher forms of spatial intelligence also depend on language.