There is understanding of deviations and marginal groups as of "obstacle" or the "burden" for economics, usually more left-wing thinkers understand that after temporary social assistance or care, it is possible to integrate marginal groups into the mainstream of economics development. What is Your opinion in this respect?
I think you will find an answer to your question in this article:
http://www.historytoday.com/lisa-pine/hashude-experiment-nazi-asocial-policy
I am more concerned that we have become too smart for our own good, and that this could lead us to accidentally destroy everything.
I would propose eliminating everyone with IQ > 130 as a safeguard against outsmarting ourselves, but I'd like to think that I might still have something useful to offer.
Love your neighbour. In a globalized world, we are all neighbours.
I with Nathan.W, 'Love Thy Neighbour rather than 'Beggar Thy Neighbour,' Karl Marx in in the preface of his first quoting Dante's poem-lines advocated the true fact that the isolated man has no significance; whatever the benefits are derived from group-living system must be distributed among all according to their ability and needs.
Arjun,
You are welcome to make that appropriation of the "slogan", but I was thinking about it as an extension from the moral philosopher, Adam Smith, who in the Theory of Moral Sentiments felt that early capitalist systems could have ethical structures because people in communities will be constrained by our senses of morality in how far the extremes of capitalist systems can go (especially now that we have abolished slavery, etc.).
When thinking "love your neighbour, in a globalized world we are all neighbours" I'm thinking more of mature and aware understandings of supply chains, where our awareness of, say, the Indonesian miners, Brazilian miners, etc., can lead us to appreciate the benefits that THEY can obtain as part of supply chains which we benefit from as consumers and investors.
I certainly don't think that this needs to be mutually exclusive with the explicitly Marxist slogan on "from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs". More explicitly, appreciating the various benefits throughout a supply chain does not preclude a basic social safety net to take care of the "to each according to their needs" part of the statement.
Clearly complications arise when thinking this through too far at the global level, particularly given that a lot of things work quite well under administrative structures of the nation state. So the basic idea is just to extend our sympathies in a globalized world, say, to be concerned about the working conditions of workers throughout a supply chain (as manifest through several laws pushed by the USA during the 1990s and even early 2000s with respect to child labour and corruption).
As for the initial question: it too easily lends itself to distasteful ponderings, and I suggest that some people should be very serious in asking such questions, in particular those whose genuine interest in broad social development should be a precursor to wanting them to be the people asking those questions. I would be careful in framing such questions so that the objectives or inferences will not be misunderstood.
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