The Health of the People is the Supreme Good: Economic metrics fail to capture the most important aspects of cultural and social health — in many ways they detract from it.

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[–]Jacinda[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

SS: This blog was taken down by its author Nathan Smith after his opinions were deemed to be unacceptable in contemporary New Zealand. It doesn't however mean we can't appreciate some of his thinking here.

Likebulb:

Submitting to mechanisms like GDP is a terrible formula of governance and a vacuum for beauty. Nothing beautiful can be created by machines since they have no other purpose than to perpetuate themselves. If the machines say the GDP must go up, then the machines will collaborate to tell us that a rising GDP is important.

At the dawn of the age of statistical government, Carlyle asked about the “condition of England” and realised the answer can’t be captured by any statistic. Health is fundamentally aesthetic. I look around today and see ugliness everywhere. If I could send a drone through a time machine to a random street in 1920, I would see a bunch of things that look to be doing pretty well which in 2020 are almost entirely broken.

[Snip...]

And yet, while the economy gets better at satisfying desire, it gets worse at something else that matters, although we don’t remember how to articulate it. Our leaders have forgotten “Salus populi suprema lex esto" (Latin: "The health of the people should be the supreme law"). The point of this principle isn’t just biological health. It means the spiritual health, the condition, of the people.

German historian Oswald Spengler described the condition of the people as being like the condition of a racehorse. Is the racehorse fat from eating oats all day, or is it ready to run a race? If you give the horse a choice, it will eat nothing but oats. But that doesn’t mean it is healthy. [Cont...]

I haven't gone through his posts to find out what he said that was so offensive but I rather wish he had left his blog up.

Apart from being somewhat of a free speech absolutist, blogs, at least for me, seem to exist somewhere between speech and published writing — they are somewhere where people can try out ideas and discuss them, modifying them if they seem fit. Creating an environment where ideas cannot be tolerated, no matter how well articulated, is a loss of one of the driving forces of the West.

[–]Nombre27 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/think-tank-editor-runs-far-right-blog

In the piece on the "(Jewish) question", he alleges that Jews are to blame for anti-Semitism, echoing a white supremacist trope which asks why Jews were expelled from so many countries in medieval times. The implication is that they deserved it - something Smith says outright.

"The answer to why Jews keep being kicked out of Christian countries is Jewish behaviour. Any time anti-scapegoat laws are overturned, society becomes enslaved by Jews. You think Christians were hard taskmasters? Read the Merchant of Venice to see how the Jews rule with the scapegoat mechanism."

https://archive.is/8sSop

[–]Jacinda[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Good find...

Definitely some intemperate remarks there as he attempts to develop his metaphysical explanation for the Jewish Question. It reads as though he was drunk (or had one too many cups of coffee) when he wrote it.

Likebulb:

But just as not all Muslims are suicide bombers, yet all suicide bombers are Muslim, there’s something about subversion that always reveals a Jewish person, even while not all Jews are subversives. Subversive means corrupting people to go against their moral instruction so they act against their group interest, while the subversive person gains power.

So, while not all Jews encourage immoral behavior (from a Christian perspective), most people who do tend to be Jewish. Same with influential positions in the West. Not all Jews are in those spots, but nearly all those spots are filled by Jews. [Cont...]

I personally would have toned it down. A quote like that is going to play out badly in the national press.

The question to me is — 'is this a fireable offense?'

Ironically having written about scapegoating, Nathan Smith has perfectly fulfilled that role himself, being cast out of polite society after being transformed into the ultimate villain — an evil white supremeist Nazi so beloved by the press.

Meanwhile Islamic terrorist wannabes receive counseling from their local Imam — no scapegoating there.

I have no idea what Nathan Smith was like to work with but, assuming his performance is acceptable, I would love it if one of these organizations said something along the lines of, "While we obviously do not condone these views X is entitled to his own opinions out of work hours."

I am not sure if Smith's musings are salvageable (or even if I understood them) but an essay on Judeo-Christian metaphysics should be possible in a mature society.

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Headline reminds me of this Bloomberg article

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/living-standards-better-growth-gauge-than-gdp-davos-forum-says

[–]Jacinda[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Developed and developing countries alike should emphasize living standards over absolute growth as the best measure of economic performance, according to the organizers of the annual World Economic Forum.

It sounds great but I can't imagine the Davoscrats coming up with much in the way of solutions. There will be a slew of position papers, peppered with SWPL buzzwords, but business will go on as usual.

Apart from directly impacting on their own financial interests, as the OP points out, economics almost by definition is interested in things it can measure, while things like spiritual health and aesthetics are largely intangible. We don't know how to quantify a 'good life' yet although everyone has some idea of what it means to them.

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I wonder if prevalence of things like depression, drug use/abuse, suicide, etc., could be used as surrogate markers.

[–]Jacinda[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Social trust would be another good one.

I am sure some brainy people are working on some indicators. The fact we collectively are apparently becoming progressively more stupid is a worrying trend for me.

[–]TheJamesRocket 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is it. GDP and GNP are not an indication of the wellbeing of a nation, especially when there is huge wealth inequality (as in the U.S.). The World Happiness Report surveys the happiness of citizens from every country in the world: They placed the U.S. at a rank of #19. This is very low for the country that claims to be 'the greatest in the world.'

[–]Richard_Parker 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Which is why things like McDonald's, Coca Cola, porn should all be banned!

[–]Jacinda[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I have often pondered the global hysteria caused by the COVID outbreak and the governments utter supineness as people eat themselves to death on the tainted products that corporates are keen to sell us.

Obviously the consumer also bears some responsibility but the almost universal subsidization of unhealthy food and promotion of policies that favor big-box supermarkets also plays a part.

I have often wondered what society would look like if a nation put its people's health uppermost.

[–]Nombre27 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There's definitely a path of least resistance effect. Instead of choosing an ascendant path during the WW2 era, the world chose to cater to the lowest common denominator.