From capitalism to communism, explained
Everything, from your clothes to your phone to the train you last caught, has gone through what economists call ‘the means of production’.
This is the way a commercial good or service is created and sold, all the way from its raw materials to how it arrives in your hands… or to your platform.
Most of these things (also referred to as capital) can only be created as a result of collective effort. No individual can reliably ensure everyone in a country of twenty-five million has a safe way to dispose of their waste or a place to go to when they’re sick. One person can’t even meet the most basic requirement of that population and ensure sure everyone is fed.
Of course, these things cost money to maintain. Whenever cost is involved, people want to know who pays. This is where it gets hairy. If one person owns ‘the means of production’, they have to pay for everything – and keep any and all profit made. If everyone involved owns ‘the means of production’ collectively, they share the cost – and any profit.
This is where the branches of different economic systems begin.
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic systemwhere the ‘means of production’ and resulting capital are owned by private individuals and businesses. It is based on voluntary relationships of supply and demand instead of centralised (usually government) planning.
This system is rooted in classical liberal philosophy and its conception of the rational, freethinking, autonomous individual. It claims market competition forces people to act in a way that benefits others, regardless of their intention.
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system borne out of opposition to capitalism where the ‘means of production’ are collectively owned and shared. It prioritises production for use rather than profit and achieves this through centralised planning – like a government.
The value of whatever is produced is determined by the amount of time and labour required, not market supply and demand. Socialism claims sharing resources and work according to need, rather than competition, creates a more equitable and secure society.
Communism
Communism is a utopian political economic system where a society is reorganised without hierarchy, states, money or class. The ‘means of production’ are shared communally and private property is non-existent or severely restricted. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the seminal political pamphlet on this, A Communist Manifesto in 1848.
Communism’s modern adherents claim it has not happened yet, while its critics cite Maoist China, Stalin’s Soviet Union, the Cold War, and many other historical crises to signal its danger.
Fascism
Fascism is an economic system based on self-sufficiency of the state, ethnic purity, and one-party ownership over the means of production. There’s usually a dictatorial leader and little to no tolerance of political opposition. Fascism claims the strength of a nation comes from unity and unity depends on fixed identities.
Though commonly associated with Nazi Germany, many other countries have been considered fascist at some point too, such as Brazil, Iraq and Japan.
Laissez-faire
Laissez-faire translates to ‘leave alone’ or ‘let them do’. Laissez-faire is an economic system that leaves transactions and trade free from government regulation, subsidies, tariffs, and privileges. It claims the economy is a natural system and the market is an organic part of it. Government interference hinders something nature can mediate.
Which economic-political system is best?
When discussing what economic system we prefer, it’s important to know what we’re talking about. The economies of most modern countries today are rarely pure capitalism or pure socialism. Most have a mixed capitalist system where private individuals or businesses make profit off labour, while operating within government regulations.
At the bare bones of economic theory, you find philosophy. Questions like ‘What is the purpose of government?’, ‘What is a human right?’, ‘What can we expect from our relationships?’, or ‘What does equality and justice look like?’ inform the different perspectives that manifest into policy.
Which one would you stand for?
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You don’t like your child’s fiancé. What do you do?
Your child is getting married. A mixture of pride, grief and trepidation have been gathering steam for a while now.
You don’t know how you’re going to feel on the day, but when you see your child go through one of the most ubiquitous rites of passage there is, you can’t guarantee there won’t be tears of love.
Except for one snag.
You don’t like their fiancé.
It’s heartbreaking. What should have been a moment of elation at your child’s joy is soured. You don’t understand why they’re making such a huge commitment to their partner or how you will live with that choice.
Perhaps you don’t think they’re good enough, or you don’t get along with them as much as you’d like. Maybe you see them bringing unhappiness into your child’s life – now or in the future. They might have strange attitudes to parenting or relationships. They might seem plain dangerous. Either way, there’s one question you’re asking…
What should you do?
In this situation, consider what a good parent looks like. Do they support, protect, and nurture their child? Do they allow them to make their own mistakes? Are they honest and fair?
Being honest may mean causing great hurt. Being fair may mean accepting the consequences of your child’s independence. Protecting your child may mean treating your fears as truth. But to what end? And by what means?
Wedding dilemmas splitting you in two? Book a free appointment with Ethi-call. A non-partisan, highly trained professional will help you see through chiffon to make decisions you can live by.
On one hand, what actions present you as the person you want to be? Are they the actions of someone courageous, patient, and wise? Or someone petty, panicky, and controlling?
On the other hand, what actions risk damaging the relationship between you and your child? Or your future child-in-law? What situation necessitates speaking up? Or more drastic measures?
If you decide your concerns aren’t that serious, is there a way you could use this situation to build a stronger relationship with your child and a better understanding of the partner they love?
A lot of the time, when we are faced with an ethical dilemma, we see in binaries. Black or white, either or. Taking the time to slow down our thinking and consider the situation in different ways can help new pathways emerge – even if that means stepping back and living with the decisions another person has made.
So, before you end up expressing your reservations in panic, blame, and threats to boycott the wedding, take a breath. Step back, contemplate who you aspire to be as parent, what actions you feel are right and available to you and get creative.
If you or someone you know is experiencing violence and need help or support, please contact 1800RESPECT. Call 000 for Police and Ambulance help if you are in immediate danger.
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The moral life is more than carrots and sticks
Almost everywhere I go to talk about ethics, I face some variation of the question: ‘Why be ethical?’ The question flummoxes and depresses me.
That’s partly because I can’t help but feel the question is basically ‘What’s in it for me?’ dressed up with a bit of academic, devil’s advocate flavour. But it’s also because to ask that question at all, you’ve got to have a pretty bleak sense of who people, at their core, really are.
But all the same, there are lots of people who have set out to answer precisely this question. Most of them are somehow connected to the world of institutions — government, business, non-profits and so on. You know, all the groups who studies suggest are haemorrhaging trust.
There’s nothing wrong with answering this question per se — in fact, it’s an interesting and challenging project that’s challenged philosophers since more or less the time the disciplined divorced from theology. But the answers are leaving me more-or-less equally disheartened as the questions themselves.
One common answer has to do with trust. And the thinking fits pretty well into the carrot/stick dialectic. The carrot approach goes a bit like this: data tells us ethical organisations are more trusted by other stakeholders, recruit and retain better staff and might even make more money.
The stick approach goes like this: unethical behaviour leads to a decline in trust, which leads to increased regulation, reporting and accountability. It stifles innovation, restricts opportunities and costs money.
The second answer is alluded to in the discussion of trust: regulation. The reason you should be ethical is because if you don’t we’ll catch you and hold you accountable for what you’ve done. People can’t be trusted to do the right thing, so we introduce safeguards to stop them from doing the wrong thing.
These two arguments boil down to self-interest on one hand and fear on the other. They respond to the part of humanity that is self-interested, petty and manipulative. That’s not necessarily a problem — failing to manage this aspect of humanity usually leaves the most vulnerable to suffer — but it’s an incomplete picture of who we are.
“The more we conflate ethics with trust, regulatory standards or “enlightened self-interest”, the less space we allow for morality to play a salvific role — not just to stop bad, but to make good.”
About 250 years ago, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote The Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant, in his brilliant but not-very-pithy way, argued that the only thing that has true moral worth is what he called ‘the good will’. The good will is the desire to do good for its own sake — regardless of the effects. Here’s Kant at his most poetic:
‘Even if by some particular disfavour of fate, or by the scanty endowment of a stepmotherly nature, this will should entirely lack the capacity to carry through its purpose; if despite its greatest striving it should still accomplish nothing, and only the good will were to remain … then, like a jewel, it would still shine by itself, as something that has full worth in itself.’
I worry that the way we talk about ethics today makes the formation of a good will, or some variation on it, impossible. This is because for regulatory and trust-based approaches to ethics, there’s always something outside morality that serves as motivation. It’s Santa Claus for grown-ups: we behave so we get presents instead of coal. And I’m not certain it works — I’m not inclined to trust someone who has ulterior motives for gaining my trust.
What’s more, it’s not clear how this approach to trust applies to groups who don’t need trust — think ‘too big to fail’ — and don’t have to fear regulation (perhaps they’re the ones who make the law). What reasons do they have for doing the right thing? And how might they define the right thing in a more morally sensitive way than pointing to their clean hands in the eyes of the law?
What is missing from this picture is anything that might generate a deep understanding — and love — of what’s good. The more we conflate ethics with trust, regulatory standards or “enlightened self-interest”, the less space we allow for morality to play a salvific role — not just to stop bad, but to make good.
I wholly understand the desire to minimise harm, prevent wrongdoing and serve justice. I also acknowledge the utility value in speaking the language of people’s desires — if people have been taught to think in terms of outcomes and self-interest, we may as well turn it to our advantage. But the more we do it, the more we entrench a mode of thinking that is at best narrow and at worst antithetical to the moral life itself.
It might still be that in the great moral trade-offs of life, protecting the vulnerable is more important that my high-minded philosophy. But we should at least know what we’re turning our back on — because in stopping people from doing bad, we might be preventing them from ever being good.
This article was originally written for Eureka St. Republished with permission.
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BY Matthew Beard
Matt is a moral philosopher with a background in applied and military ethics. In 2016, Matt won the Australasian Association of Philosophy prize for media engagement. Formerly a fellow at The Ethics Centre, Matt is currently host on ABC’s Short & Curly podcast and the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship Program Director.
Big Thinker: Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky (1928—present) is one of the foremost scholars and activists of our time.
With over a hundred books, thirty honorary degrees, and a generation of aspiring leftists behind him, Chomsky’s life puts a practical lens on the motto ‘protest is patriotic’.
The human tendency towards freedom
Chomsky earned a PhD in linguistics for his theory of “universal grammar”, a theory where all people are “born knowing” shared properties that underpin all human language. These properties, which create what he calls a “language acquisition device”, are what helps babies pick complex languages up instinctively.
According to Chomsky, while language’s laws and principles are fixed, the manner in which they are generated are free and infinitely varied. This view of human nature is one that runs through Chomsky’s attitudes to linguistics or politics: we must protect the innate human tendency towards freedom.
Pessimist of intellect
Chomsky’s opposition to war and totalitarianism started early. He wrote his first paper on the threat of fascism at ten. He opposed the Vietnam War while working at MIT, a military-funded university. He called Gaza the world’s “largest open-air prison” and said the US bears full responsibility for Israel’s war crimes.
Chomsky’s public denunciations of US foreign policy in Central America and East Timor, its interference in Middle Eastern elections and the shoot-first-ask-later’ type of diplomacy have drawn widespread ire and admiration. At the height of his fame in the 70s, it was discovered the CIA was keeping tabs on him and publicly lying about doing so.
Noam Chomsky’s consistent and vocal criticism of the US government comes from the belief that he, as a member of that country, holds a moral responsibility to stop it from committing crimes. That, and it’s far more effective than criticising a government that isn’t responsible for him.
“States are not moral agents; people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.”
Manufacturing consent
In what is arguably Chomsky’s most famous work, ‘Manufacturing Consent’, he outlined mainstream media’s complicity with government and business interests. He traced the capitalist formula of selling a product at a profit to the highest bidder in relation to the media. Here, people are the product and advertisers are bidding for our attention. Compare this with the monopoly social media has over our time and the ensuing competition for available ad space, and you’ll notice this line of argument growing in prescience.
Chomsky argued the advertising market is shaped by the external conditions of the state. It’s in their best interests to placate their ‘product’ and water down anything that would spur them to act against it. Any dissenting opinion is either ignored or presented as an anomaly. This is anti-democratic, said Chomsky, for a nation is only democratic insofar as government policy accurately reflects informed public opinion.
“If we don’t believe in free expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
Speak truth to power
Fred Halliday, an Irish academic, has criticised Chomsky for overestimating the power and influence of the US. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, Oxford historian Stephen Howe, and linguist Neil Smith, have called him a fierce and aggressive moral crusader, who dismisses critics as unqualified, mistaken, or even “charlatans“.
Today, Chomsky is outspoken on what he considers the two greatest threats to humanity: nuclear war and climate change. But with NEG scrapped, the Doomsday Clock inching to midnight, and Congress split, it looks unlikely that decisive action against either of these threats will be carried out anytime soon.
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Big Thinker: Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884—1962) was an American diplomat and longest serving First Lady of the United States, best known for her work on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
She was affectionately dubbed “The First Lady of the World”. The thread running through her massive body of work is the single idea: fear threatens our lives and our democracies.
To live well means to live free from fear
Roosevelt lived in a world reeling from fascism. Though the Second World War had ended, the horrors of Nazism, the Holocaust and Stalinism revealed the depths people would succumb to out of fear and insecurity.
It wasn’t your garden variety type of fear she was concerned with. It was the type of widespread fear that debilitates courage, rewards conformity and stifles “the spirit of dissent”. By succumbing to this immobilising fear, Roosevelt said, we waste our lives.
“Not to arrive at a clear understanding of one’s own values is a tragic waste. You have missed the whole point of what life is for.”
Roosevelt wanted all people to know their values. As an influential public figure and patriotic American, she especially wanted this for her country.
This wasn’t without reason. The growing fear of political others (McCarthyism) and racial others (the push for segregation) mobilised Roosevelt and emboldened her stance. She didn’t want conformity to win.
“When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your own surrender, less of a human being.”
Find a teacher in every person you meet
Roosevelt felt the danger of fear and conformity went beyond the trauma of war. It could quash “a spirit of adventure”, a way of viewing and experiencing everyday life that made you a better person.
She wasn’t talking about a thrill seeking, you-only-live-once, way of navigating the world. She meant close mindedness – denying your life experiences the opportunity to change your mind and mould your actions.
“Learning and living are really the same thing, aren’t they? There is no experience from which you can’t learn something. When you stop learning you stop living in any vital or meaningful sense. And the purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
Roosevelt believed that everyone has something to teach you, and you are the ultimate beneficiary. Your character, your actions and your democratic polity.
And some might find being motivated by self-betterment alone to be selfish. After all, shouldn’t we do good simply because it is good? Isn’t it more noble to be motivated by what Kant called “good will”, or a moral duty?
Even if it’s possible that realizing motivation from a place of moral obligation is a higher ideal, Roosevelt was grounded in the everyday. She wasn’t concerned with principles the vast majority of a traumatised, distrustful nation would find out of reach, so she focused on the individual.
A principled life
The most remarkable thing about Roosevelt aren’t necessarily her ideals. It was her moral gumption to act on them even if they were unorthodox for the times or grossly unpopular.
She lobbied for greater intakes of World War II refugees when immigration was not supported by many Americans still reeling from the hardships of the Great Depression. She criticised her husband, President Franklin Roosevelt, for a policy intended to address the post-Depression housing market crash that segregated black and white citizens.
She broke with tradition by inviting African American guests to the White House. She spoke out against the internment of Japanese soldiers to the very population grieving the 2403 Americans they killed at Pearl Harbour (in comparison, it’s reported 55 Japanese lives were lost).
Roosevelt’s reputation for loving all has not gone unchallenged. She has been accused of taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a way that contravenes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights she worked on. While famous for wanting to protect displaced post WWII refugees, who were often Jewish, she felt the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict was to resettle indigenous Palestinians in Iraq – the suggestion being she had a Zionist bias.
Roosevelt nevertheless maintains her name as a pioneer in humanitarian efforts who walked her talk. Fast forward to today’s polarised political spectrum, and her story reminds us the tools to make it through are there.
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The danger of a single view
There are times in the history of every nation when its character is tested and defined. Too often it happens with war, natural disasters or economic collapse. Then the shouting gets our attention.
But there are also our quieter moments – the ones that reveal solid truths about who we are and what we stand for. We are in one of those moments right now.
How should we recognise Indigenous Australians? Can our economy be repaired in an even-handed manner? How will we choose if forced to decide between China and the United States? How do we create safe ways for people seeking asylum? Can we grow our economy and protect our people and environments? These are just some of the questions we face.
And here’s another question. Do we have the capacity to talk about these things without tearing ourselves and each other apart? There are some safe places for open conversation about difficult questions. Twenty five years ago I began work at The Ethics Centre, a not-for-profit dedicated to creating such questions.
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas is one such place. This weekend, 1400 Sydneysiders will gather at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas – in a brand new home on Cockatoo Island – to explore different views and perspectives on issues surrounding truth, trust and the battle of polarities in our society.
Why host a festival to explore dangerous ideas?
Sadly, there is a growing ‘fragility’ across Australian society. The demand for crystalline ideological purity (you’re completely ‘with us’ or ‘against us’) puts us at risk of a fractured and stuffy world of absolutes.
Too often, I see conversations shut down before they have even begun. People with a contrary point of view are faced with outrage, shouted down or silenced by others driven by the certainty of righteous indignation. In such a world, there is no nuance, no seeking to understand the grey areas or subtleties of argument.
“Attempts to prove to people that they are wrong just leads to stalemate. Barricades go up and each side lobs verbal ‘grenades’. There is another way. “
This phenomenon crosses the political spectrum – embracing ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’ alike. In my opinion, it is the product of a self-fulfilling fear that our society’s ‘ethical skin’ is too thin to survive the prick of controversy and debate. This is a poisonous belief that drains the life from a liberal democracy.
Fortunately, the antidote is easily at hand. In essence we need to spend less time trying to change other people’s minds and more in trying to understand their point of view – by taking them entirely seriously.
Why make this change? Because attempts to prove to people that they are wrong just leads to stalemate. Barricades go up and each side lobs verbal ‘grenades’. There is another way. We could allow people to work out what the boundaries are for their own beliefs. Working out the lines we cannot cross is often the first step towards others and can only happen constructively when people feel safe. Giving people the space to fall on just the right side of such lines can make a world of difference.
So I wonder, might we pause for a moment, climb down from our battle stations and call a cease-fire in the wars of ideas? Might we recognise the person on the other side of an issue may not be unprincipled? Perhaps they’re just differently principled. Can we see in the face of our ideological opponent another person of good will? What then might we discover about each other; what unites and what divides? What then might we understand about the issues that will define us as a people?
Let’s rediscover the art of difficult discussions in which success is measured in the combination of passion and respect. Let’s banish the bullies – even those who claim to be ‘well-intentioned’. They have no place in the conversations we now need to have.
Follow the #FODI conversation on Twitter, and keep an eye on our Instagram for on the ground action at The Festival of Dangerous Ideas.
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BY Simon Longstaff
After studying law in Sydney and teaching in Tasmania, Simon pursued postgraduate studies in philosophy as a Member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1991, Simon commenced his work as the first Executive Director of The Ethics Centre. In 2013, he was made an officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the community through the promotion of ethical standards in governance and business, to improving corporate responsibility, and to philosophy.”
Ethics Explainer: Scepticism
Scepticism is an attitude that treats every claim to truth as up for debate.
Religion, philosophy, science, history, psychology – generally, sceptics believe every source of knowledge has its limits, and it’s up to us to figure out what those are.
Sometimes confused with cynicism, a general suspicion of people and their motives, ethical scepticism is about questioning if something is right just because others say it is. If not, what will make it so?
Scepticism has played a crucial role in refining our basic understandings of ourselves and the world we live in. It is behind how we know everything is made of atoms, time isn’t linear, and that since Earth is a sphere, it’s quicker for planes to fly towards either pole instead of in a straight line.
Ancient ideas
In Ancient Greece, some sceptics went so far as to argue since nothing can claim truth it’s best to suspend judgement as long as possible. This enjoyed a revival in 17th century Europe, prompting one of the Western canon’s most famous philosophers, René Descartes, to mount a forceful critique. But before doing so, he wanted to argue for scepticism in as holistic a fashion as possible.
Descartes wanted to prove certain truths were innate and could not be contested. To do so, he started to pick out every claim to truth he could think of – including how we see the world – and challenge it.
For Descartes, perception was unreliable. You might think the world around you is real because you can experience it through your senses, but how do you know you’re not dreaming? After all, dreams certainly feel real when you’re in them. For a little modern twist, who’s to say you’re not a brain in a vat connected up to a supercomputer, living in a virtual reality uploaded into your buzzing synapses?
This line of thinking led Descartes to question his own existence. In the midst of a deeply valuable intellectual freak out, he eventually came to realise an irrefutable claim – his doubting proved he was thinking. From here, he deduced that ‘if I think’, then I exist.
“I think, therefore I am.”
It’s the quote you see plastered over t-shirts, mugs, and advertising for schools and universities. In Latin it reads, “Cogito ergo sum”.
Through a process of elimination, Descartes created a system of verifying truth claims through deduction and logic. He promoted this and quiet reflection as a way of living and came to be known as a rationalist.
The arrival of the empiricist
In the 18th century, a powerful case was made against rationalism by David Hume, an empiricist. Hume was sceptical of logical deduction’s ability to direct how people live and see the world. According to Hume, all claims to truth arise from experiences, custom and habit – not reason.
If we followed Descartes’ argument to its conclusion and assessed every single claim to truth logically, we wouldn’t be able to function. Navigating throughout the world requires a degree of trust based on past experiences. We don’t know for sure that the ground beneath us will stay solid. But considering it generally does, we trust (through inductive reasoning) that it will stay that way.
Hume argued memories and “passions” always, eventually, overrule reason. We are not what we think, but what we experience.
Perhaps you don’t question the nature of existence at the level of Descartes, but on some level, we are all sceptics. Scepticism is how we figure out who to confide in, what our triggers are, or if the next wellness fad is worth trying out. Acknowledging how powerful our habits and emotions are is key to recognising when we’re tempted to overlook the facts in favour of how something makes us feel.
But part of being a sceptic is knowing what argument will convince you. Otherwise, it can be tempting to reduce every claim to truth as a challenge to your personal autonomy.
Scepticism, in its best form, has opened up mind-boggling ways of thinking about ourselves and the world around us. Using it to be combative is a shortsighted and corrosive way to undermine the difficult task of living a well examined life.
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Inside The Mind Of FODI Festival Director Danielle Harvey
We sat down with Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2018 festival director Danielle Harvey to take peak into the inspirations, motivations and challenges behind creating one of the most confronting and thought-provoking events in Australia.
1. It’s been said FODI was Australia’s first disruptive festival. What is it about the festival that resonates so strongly with audiences?
People want more than a headline. They want to hear more in depth analysis and a range of perspectives. To hear straight from the academics, scientists, researchers and not have it filtered, distorted. A live festival doesn’t get more direct.
2. There are so many different ideas, themes and perspectives out there that matter. How do you narrow it down to land this year’s line up?
A lot of vigorous discussion! Myself and the co-curators are always looking at the next thing that’s going to hit, we’ve been very good at looking at the horizon in past festivals, discussing things like Russia, surrogacy and banking all before a scandal breaks.
We also look to the superstars of the non-fiction world, the academics and researchers doing great work and are great communicators. And we look for a multitude of perspectives, beyond politics. A discussion that involves people from across disciplines, experts in their field that bring to light a focus on a particular aspect and when combined help to show the complex nature of many of our biggest ideas and problems.
3. The festival has been going strong for 9 years now. What gets easier, what doesn’t?
This is my 7th FODI. I feel very lucky to have been able to grow my own understanding of the world in a very public way! The easier and harder is the same – finding great people.
Easier because people around the world know about this festival and we have great alumni and reputation, harder because we’ve presented so many amazing people and so many ideas… I look forward to next year… 10 feels like a good ‘best of’ opportunity!
4. What does it take to be a great festival director?
Curiosity about the world. I’ve curated and created a number of festivals – FODI, Antidote, All About Women, BingeFest and Mardi Gras and they always start about thinking about audiences and what they should be able to see/hear/experience. I am insatiably curious and I love finding connections between things.
5. What’s it like to produce a festival like FODI? What does a typical day look like for you?
Talking. Talking. Appreciating the amazing team around me. (I have the best people who do so much). More talking. Noodling on the internet, reading, watching. Talking some more. (I talk to people from all different walks of life to hear what is interesting them).
6. What do you think sets the 2018 festival apart from recent years?
The island! The opportunity to fully immerse yourself in a program sans distractions. It’s all about the ideas and engaging with them deeply this year. The opportunity to include more large scale art and theatre has also made this a very different festival. We have the space and time to do these things on Cockatoo.
7. Why the move to Cockatoo Island and what are the challenges or surprises in setting up a festival in the middle of Sydney Harbour?
Everything has to be barged on! That’s the biggest challenge. It’s an amazing site, full of potential, but it is an island with no real infrastructure. The history of the place is incredibly evocative and any time we go there we are amazed at this little gem sitting on our doorstep. It’s a great place to let your mind and feet wander (and wonder)!
8. Finally, we have to ask. Which bit are you most to looking forward to? What are the must-see events?
That is tough, it will all be great! I am really looking forward to Chuck Klosterman, to Rukmini Callimachi and of course Stephen Fry! I think the ‘Too Dangerous’ panel will also be full of excellent take-aways.
I am also excited about the two art installations – ‘Submission’ and ‘The Hand That Wields It’ these installations are excellent opportunities to see ideas represented in a different way rather than via a talk.
Everything you need to know: The Festival Of Dangerous Ideas 2018
From sex robots to sex clowns, to tying yourself up in lies and rope, this year’s festival on 3 – 4 November takes you beyond the hype and deep into the issues that confront and divide us.
Embrace the festival experience on Cockatoo Island with one-day or full weekend passes. All passes include free return ferry transport.
Featured speakers include ex Westboro Baptist Church follower Megan Phelps-Roper, conservative historian Niall Ferguson; iconoclast Germaine Greer; rock star of AI Toby Walsh; micro-dosing advocate Ayelet Waldman; pop culture critic Chuck Klosterman; academic and activist Mick Dodson and so many more!
To crown FODI 2018, join Stephen Fry at a special event at Sydney Town Hall, where he will deliver an oration on the lost art of fabulous disagreement.
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BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
TEC announced as 2018 finalist in Optus My Business Awards
The Ethics Centre (TEC) is thrilled to be announced as a finalist for Training and Education Business of the year in the Optus My Business Awards for the second year running.
It’s an honour to be a finalist again after we were awarded winner of the category last year for our Ethical Professional Program.
The inaugural Optus My Business Award program reported record submission numbers this year, with leading SME’s across Australia vying for recognition in the 35 prestigious award categories.
This year we are proud to be finalists for our Ethi-call Counsellor Training Program (ECTP), completed by individuals hoping to become a volunteer Ethi-call Counsellor.
Ethi-call is a free national helpline available to anyone needing help to make their way through tough ethical challenges in their life. Made possible only through the support of volunteers who provide this service, this year we increased our capacity to deliver sessions by 300% through the ECTP program.
The eighteen-month program blends a diverse mix of learning techniques, resources and support networks to prepare students both emotionally and technically to handle the diverse range of calls received by the Ethi-call helpline.
Through an integrated learning program that bridges theoretical ethics with empathic counselling skills and practical delivery of the Ethi-call model, students are supported to develop the skills and understanding to develop as counsellors.
When asked what makes the ECTP so special, a recent graduate remarked:
“[TEC] Invest a great deal in this new Ethics Counselling Training Program to ensure callers to the Ethi-call service – who usually have extremely complex and often upsetting moral dilemmas in their personal and professional lives – receive the absolute best quality of service possible”
Program Manager Peta Andreone explained:
“Our duty is to ensure counsellors are capable to handle any type of call, and that our callers not only have access to a freely available service, but one that delivers the highest standard of care”
“Counsellors undergo intensive training to be registered through TEC, and participate in ongoing professional development to maintain their credentials annually”
The key innovation to the Ethi-call Counsellor Training Program is the Ethi-call Counselling Model, a working tool that has been developed and refined over the past 27 years.
An independent panel of judges will now review finalist submissions before deciding on this year’s awarded entries. Winners will be announced at a black-tie gala dinner on Friday, 9 November at The Star in Sydney.
Congratulations and good-luck to our fellow finalists in the Training and Education Business of the Year:
Code Camp
Engage & Grow
First Home Buyer Buddy
KICKBrick
Liberate eLearning
PD Training
STEM Punks
TCP Training
The Financial Fox
If you would like to train as an Ethi-call counsellor, send an expression of interested to counselling@ethics.org.au.
If you are facing a difficult ethical dilemma or decision, make a free appointment for a private conversation with an Ethi-call counsellor here.
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BY The Ethics Centre
The Ethics Centre is a not-for-profit organisation developing innovative programs, services and experiences, designed to bring ethics to the centre of professional and personal life.
Big Thinker: Adam Smith
It’s no exaggeration to say the ideas of Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723—1790) have shaped the world we live in.
By providing the core intellectual framework in defence of free markets, he positioned human liberty and dignity at the centre of trade and money – all for the common good.
Adam Smith, the pioneer
In the 18thcentury, the race to colonise as many resource rich places as possible meant powerful countries were often at war. Companies which added to the wealth of empires were protected by grateful governments, creating trade monopolies that seemed impossible to dismantle. This was the heyday of mercantilism.
Smith noticed how these actions created concentrations of wealth, benefiting the wealthy while the labour class struggled to survive. His first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, argued that the virtues of sympathy and reciprocity could tame greed.
His second, The Wealth of Nations, was about promoting a new way of approaching wealth that was as lucrative as it was just. The approach Smith adopted was multifaceted: economic, defensive, legal, and moral.
Smith argued that countries were competing for the wrong thing. Wealth wasn’t to be found in commodities like gold and silver. It resided in human labour and ingenuity. Smith encouraged countries that would normally look externally for wealth, suppressing the labour class and enslaving others, to look internally instead.
If the labour class could have the freedom to pick their job, all the while knowing the government would leave the money they made well alone, why wouldn’t they work hard at it? They would produce goods and services of even higher quality, and the government could buy these and trade them with each other. Everyone wins.
Collaboration would mean countries wouldn’t need to waste money on defence and war. They could save and accumulate capital, and invest that into better machinery, freeing people to work more productively. The labour class would grow richer, and so would the nation.
Smith stressed that in order for a free market to ensure fair pay for fair work, contracts had to be honoured, people had to keep their word, and governments mustn’t get into debt or take people’s property. Theft, negligence, mistakes, or irresponsible government spending must to be managed by the rule of law. And in the case of foreign powers, defence.
Thus, for Smith – a free market must rest on a sound ethical foundation. Given this, he argued for moral education of a kind that would lead people to be honourable and behave justly. This included the rich. Smith thought that an appeal to ‘enlightened’ self-interest might lead them to act honourably. By lavishing praise, accolades, and rewards on those who spend their wealth in charity, the rich gain the status and rank they really desire.
Adam Smith, the legacy
Claims of plagiarism, usury, inconsistency, racism, and all else aside, the major complaint directed towards Smith is his concept of the “invisible hand”. His observation that self-interested individuals end up benefiting the common good – that they are “led by an invisible hand to promote an end that was no part of his intention.” – has prompted some critics to label him naïve, idealistic, or even immoral.
The following quotation (misattributed to John Maynard Keynes) sums it up: “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the wickedest of men will do the wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone”. But that plays into the Smith = laissez-faire trap, and ignores the safeguards he proposed against human corruption.
Smith did not think greed was good, saying this removed “the distinction between vice and virtue”, nor did he believe business interests and the public interest necessarily coincide. Instead, his perspective was that market competition forced people to act in ways that benefited others, regardless of their intention. And when it failed to do that, an overarching authority should step in. For Smith, markets have no intrinsic value – they are merely tools for the betterment of life for all.
No doubt the world we live in now is vastly different to pre-Industrial Scotland. Mass media, the Internet, the textile industry, factory farms, surveillance, housing prices, offshore tax havens…much would have seemed strange and unfamiliar to Smith. But his work and legacy leave a lesson in economics, ethics, and politics – all the more prescient in a world where the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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