In light of the Washington Navy Yard shooting last Monday on the 16th various questions about governmental responsibility have been raised. These have most frequently revolved around the protocol and processes involved to get government clearance in certain jobs. Since that doesn't directly apply to anyone reading this blog I'd prefer to focus on something more relevant to a wider array of United States citizens. Two hot-button issues in US politics are about guns and healthcare. In both cases it seems like no one even wants to bring either subject up. However, both of these issues, and specifically the gun control and mental health care debates, can be tied into a larger issue about how governments and their coffers work.
The safety of a society is dependent on many variables but almost all of them can be traced back to the amount of money being spent to support programs. It seems that the various authors we've been reading in class differ as to what they believe money should be spent on or what should be manipulated in the market. On one side, Smith outlines three manipulations of the market and determines how or if they benefit society. On the other side, Marx doesn't seem to really analyze where money is coming from to fund society but rather suggests that everything involving personal finances be abolished and consolidated in the hands of the state.
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I'm wrong, but I believe Karl Marx was all for an agricultural society like in South America and stuff. In Communism, I think it'd be hard to handle the diversity of jobs in the market AND to allocate those funds to the State -- take a look at China. It seems that they have to take a capitalist stance for some industries within their market in order to make it palatable to the consumers. I don't think Smith was prepared for the advancements of the the 21st Century hahah
Steven
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ReplyDeleteI really liked how you brought in the thoughts of Karl Marx and wrapped those thoughts into what happened with the shooting. Questions will always be posed and its nice to get a point of view thats not biased with the 21st century views.
ReplyDeleteThe question of what, if anything, Marx really wanted remains a complex one. For that reason, most people tend to focus not on trying to glean some specific path forward, but instead focus on deriving some general principles. What might those principles be as applied to gun control? What would the Marxist or Smithian approach to such events be?
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