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Are Ideology and Morality like AIG and Citibank?



Are AIG and Citibank too big and complex to fail?

Can our high tech capitalism, where extraordinary power rests in ordinary hands, survive such a situation?

How can capitalism adjust?



Are ideology and morality too big and complex to be encompassed by science?

Can our high tech species, where extraordinary power rests in ordinary hands, survive such a situation?

How can the human species adjust?



I am really only interested in this later sequence of questions.

Eh? :-2

Darwin informs us that the species that fails to adapt to its changing environment will soon become toast. If we lack the intellectual sophistication required to make a science of these two concepts then we lack the sophistication required to adapt to our changing environment and thus will shortly become toast.

AIG and Citi are too complex to manage and succeed, but not too big to fail as long as such failure in undertaken in a measured controlled way which probably should (and will) be the case.

Capitalism has taken a bashing these days as a result of a few segments of the economy getting out of control.

Here is the traditional definition of capitalism from Wikipedia. I see nothing that tells me the fundamental structure of capitalism is faulted or that it provides less opportunity for innovation and wealth creation at all levels than other forms of government.

"Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are privately owned and controlled rather than commonly, publicly, or state-owned and controlled.Through capitalism, the land, labor, and capital are owned, operated, and traded by private individuals either singly or jointly, and investments, distribution, income, production, pricing and supply of goods, commodities and services are determined by voluntary private decision in a market economy. A distinguishing feature of capitalism is that each person owns his or her own labor and therefore is allowed to sell the use of it to employers. In a "capitalist state", private rights and property relations are protected by the rule of law of a limited regulatory framework. In the modern capitalist state, legislative action is confined to defining and enforcing the basic rules of the market, though the state may provide some public goods and infrastructure."

Quinnscommentary

I suspect that it is the self-regulatng aspect of markets that comes into disrepute.