An imaginary ideal society free of poverty and suffering

Gary M. Galles is a Professor of Economics at Pepperdine University and an adjunct scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is also a research fellow at the Independent Institute, a member of the Foundation for Economic Education faculty network, and a member of the Heartland Institute Board of Policy Advisors.

Question of the Month What Would Make The Best Society? The following answers to this central philosophical question each win a random book. The closest to perfection would be an interdependent Confederation of societies, each containing between one and two hundred citizens, depending upon factors such as location and climate. These villages would be more or less evenly distributed across the globe, having access to roughly equivalent amounts of arable land. Thirty per cent of all land would be designated wilderness, and no societies would be allowed to colonise these areas, but antisocial individuals would be free to inhabit the wilderness following a life-style of total lonesomeness. Each society would be run according to a consensus of members, on a Rousseauian model of full participation of all members over 14 and council decree. Dissenting members will be invited to move to alternative societies, set up their own on land proportionate to the size of the dissenting group, or to take to the wilderness. Councils may legislate on shared interests, but there will be no laws restricting private activities provided these do not infringe upon the same freedoms of others. Whilst each society would decide its own rules, the Confederation would respect a universal constitution according to which no-one can own anything they have not made. Communal products could be exchanged freely amongst individuals or between societies. There would be no money, and no hoarding of mutually-own...

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. This study investigates where religion stands in relation to economic life, characterised by meritocracy. To this end, first, the deeper logic of economic merit-retribution—which captures humans, as an ideology of everyday life—will be explicated through a cursory review of the metaphysical and religious grounding of economic life. Here, the paper discusses both the religious legitimation and critique of meritocracy by generating theological resources from the books of Job and Qohelet. The paper then draws on the historical archives and cultural memories of Ethiopians to illustrate how and why religion should be considered important for a deeper understanding of inequality and poverty. Of particular interest in this context are the oral poetic expressions of ordinary people suffering the consequences of drought and famine in Ethiopia. Such voices—usually passed unheard by authorities, whether governmental or non-governmental agents—are not only illustrative of the way the logic of merit/retribution is implicated in metaphysical and religious worldviews in Ethiopia (the metaphysics of fate/ idil), but also demonstrate a challenge to the religious...

Introduction Some people often consider and evaluate themselves to determine their social group in society. In sociology, there are three major categories of social class: the elite, the middle class, and the poor. It is typical of a human to have thoughts of advancing from one group to the next. There are vast variations in material possession, authority, and wealth in most cultures, contributing significantly to the stratification in a population. Social classes, therefore, exist because of the variations in socioeconomic capacities in the world; however, an ideal society can eliminate them. Learn more Key Components In sociology, the understanding of social classes is based on the perception of stratification and mobility. Social segregation represents a system of thoughts merged in social sciences and political theory based on societal categorization (Kincaid, 2015). The stratification describes the classification of people into groups based on social, economic, and political factors (Shavitt et al., 2016). Social stratification is, hence, the relative position of individuals within a given hierarchical societal category. Moreover, social mobility refers to the transition of persons either as a group or individuals to a different stratum. Social classes’ definitions are broad and span over various disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology. However, most of these definitions borrow extensively borrow from the theories of Karl Max and Max Weber (Shavit...

In his stories, Hans Christian Andersen often highlights the plight of the poor during the Industrial Revolution, with a particular interest in how this tumultuous period impacted the lives of children. In “The Little Match Girl,” he focuses on the titular little girl as she struggles for warmth while out selling matches in the bitter cold of New Year’s Eve. The story’s morbid ending (the girl dies from exposure after she uses all of her matches to warm and comfort herself) is presented as a welcome reprieve from the continued suffering of her existence as a child laborer. In portraying the innocent girl’s helpless, futile attempts to escape her difficult circumstances, Andersen shows that poverty is brutal, inescapable, and ultimately a worse fate than death. By emphasizing the contrast between the little girl’s bleak, hopeless surroundings and her imaginary visions of warmth and nourishment, Andersen draws attention to the stark divide between the lives of the poor and the upper classes. flames spark imaginary visions of comforts like a “big iron stove,” a “table spread with a damask cloth and set with the finest porcelain,” and a Christmas tree with “thousands of candles.” These are comforts that are available to the wealthier people who surround the little girl in the city, but she can only access them in her imagination. While these visions provide the little girl with emotional comfort, they don’t change the harsh reality of her life. The city’s callous fellow inhabi...

Question of the Month What Would Make The Best Society? The following answers to this central philosophical question each win a random book. The closest to perfection would be an interdependent Confederation of societies, each containing between one and two hundred citizens, depending upon factors such as location and climate. These villages would be more or less evenly distributed across the globe, having access to roughly equivalent amounts of arable land. Thirty per cent of all land would be designated wilderness, and no societies would be allowed to colonise these areas, but antisocial individuals would be free to inhabit the wilderness following a life-style of total lonesomeness. Each society would be run according to a consensus of members, on a Rousseauian model of full participation of all members over 14 and council decree. Dissenting members will be invited to move to alternative societies, set up their own on land proportionate to the size of the dissenting group, or to take to the wilderness. Councils may legislate on shared interests, but there will be no laws restricting private activities provided these do not infringe upon the same freedoms of others. Whilst each society would decide its own rules, the Confederation would respect a universal constitution according to which no-one can own anything they have not made. Communal products could be exchanged freely amongst individuals or between societies. There would be no money, and no hoarding of mutually-own...

In his stories, Hans Christian Andersen often highlights the plight of the poor during the Industrial Revolution, with a particular interest in how this tumultuous period impacted the lives of children. In “The Little Match Girl,” he focuses on the titular little girl as she struggles for warmth while out selling matches in the bitter cold of New Year’s Eve. The story’s morbid ending (the girl dies from exposure after she uses all of her matches to warm and comfort herself) is presented as a welcome reprieve from the continued suffering of her existence as a child laborer. In portraying the innocent girl’s helpless, futile attempts to escape her difficult circumstances, Andersen shows that poverty is brutal, inescapable, and ultimately a worse fate than death. By emphasizing the contrast between the little girl’s bleak, hopeless surroundings and her imaginary visions of warmth and nourishment, Andersen draws attention to the stark divide between the lives of the poor and the upper classes. flames spark imaginary visions of comforts like a “big iron stove,” a “table spread with a damask cloth and set with the finest porcelain,” and a Christmas tree with “thousands of candles.” These are comforts that are available to the wealthier people who surround the little girl in the city, but she can only access them in her imagination. While these visions provide the little girl with emotional comfort, they don’t change the harsh reality of her life. The city’s callous fellow inhabi...

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. This study investigates where religion stands in relation to economic life, characterised by meritocracy. To this end, first, the deeper logic of economic merit-retribution—which captures humans, as an ideology of everyday life—will be explicated through a cursory review of the metaphysical and religious grounding of economic life. Here, the paper discusses both the religious legitimation and critique of meritocracy by generating theological resources from the books of Job and Qohelet. The paper then draws on the historical archives and cultural memories of Ethiopians to illustrate how and why religion should be considered important for a deeper understanding of inequality and poverty. Of particular interest in this context are the oral poetic expressions of ordinary people suffering the consequences of drought and famine in Ethiopia. Such voices—usually passed unheard by authorities, whether governmental or non-governmental agents—are not only illustrative of the way the logic of merit/retribution is implicated in metaphysical and religious worldviews in Ethiopia (the metaphysics of fate/ idil), but also demonstrate a challenge to the religious...

Gary M. Galles is a Professor of Economics at Pepperdine University and an adjunct scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is also a research fellow at the Independent Institute, a member of the Foundation for Economic Education faculty network, and a member of the Heartland Institute Board of Policy Advisors.

Introduction Some people often consider and evaluate themselves to determine their social group in society. In sociology, there are three major categories of social class: the elite, the middle class, and the poor. It is typical of a human to have thoughts of advancing from one group to the next. There are vast variations in material possession, authority, and wealth in most cultures, contributing significantly to the stratification in a population. Social classes, therefore, exist because of the variations in socioeconomic capacities in the world; however, an ideal society can eliminate them. Learn more Key Components In sociology, the understanding of social classes is based on the perception of stratification and mobility. Social segregation represents a system of thoughts merged in social sciences and political theory based on societal categorization (Kincaid, 2015). The stratification describes the classification of people into groups based on social, economic, and political factors (Shavitt et al., 2016). Social stratification is, hence, the relative position of individuals within a given hierarchical societal category. Moreover, social mobility refers to the transition of persons either as a group or individuals to a different stratum. Social classes’ definitions are broad and span over various disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology. However, most of these definitions borrow extensively borrow from the theories of Karl Max and Max Weber (Shavit...