Saint-Simon

An economist that once lived had said that the roots of backwardness is found in social structure, thus any attempts to stop and reverse the discourse of social and economic backwardness must mean a deep rooted upheaval of one's social structure. Saint-Simon, the said French economist, observed that wealthy individuals did not care for the development of a society, indeed that is how they would have initially acquired the wealth, but rather they only care for further increase in its volume (the wealth i mean). Now this might sound a little brash to say in this time and place, especially with the endless activities of philanthropy taking place in the world (will the real Mr and Mrs Gates et al please stand up?), but I have a sneaky suspicion that philanthropy has moved away from the lonely millionnaire who loves children and thus builds an orphanage, to a properly modern phenomenon where good deeds grow in almost direct proportion to the mass media.

(To elaborate), without the prying eyes and sniffing nose of those with less cash (or more time) upon the rich and famous (neither of these terms seem to exist without each other's modern hand-in-hand relations), the need for philanthropy wouldn't exist, or rather, the term would cease to be so popular. Even this government's getting in on the action; who can ignore the Freedom of Information Act, which we urgently and desperately needed, just to see what people really spend their money on (okay, it may have other uses but isn't this what it's mostly being put to use for anyways?). And just to push the envelope a bit further, so they say (what does that even mean? it's like 'the whole nine yards'...this will bug me now...), such philanthropic gigs may only exist because the philanthropers needed a cause to throw money at, and be photographed by OK! while they're at it. We all know who does it shamelessly...but this isn't such a blog, tut tut.

Waves of democracy, capitalism, modernisation and globalisation has taken place around the world, or even shoved down the 'third world' throats, on the backs of wars, blatent looking-out-for-our-backs multilateral deals, corporation reigns and consumer gluttony. So, in a way, such high profile 'deeds' are a very expensive 'sorry' note, for the millenium. (Yes I'm a little heavy on the quotations, brackets and dots....apologies if they're making you lose your train of thought...only they let me keep them!)

I may be stepping on philanthropy's very big and pedicured toes, so let me re-direct this rant. Saint-Simon had furthered his thoughts towards the industrialists, academics (maybe...), working class heroes and entreprenuers as the sources of modernisation and the solution to this very structural problem. They had the ambitions and the desires that so lacked in the wealthy, and so to finance these grand ideas of industrialisation, Saint-Simon's most important claim, banks were the utmost integral part of an economy. Now, coming from the championer of the not-wealthy class, banks would seem like a very capitalist excuse for a cop-out. However, he thinks that banks should be the source of building industries rather than consumer credits, but with the fat cats' funds!

Wealthy people apparently likes to keep their money safe and secure and in banks, hopefully making a small income on its own, whilst the not-so-wealthy needs to borrow. In the past such deposits were usually not available for private loans (not particularly individual lonas, but ones that finance an industry or a mine) mostly due to large scale state interventions that re-directed them to other activities or even more likely, such intermediary banks with lending services on a large scale did not exist. So this savings and borrowings...not such a revolutionary idea, but it is...when social structure is involved.

The twentieth century economists may have talked about structure (Lewis, Rostow and Gunder-Frank, either supporting it or criticising it) but Saint-Simon was way ahead of (or could it be behind?) his time. He felt that society must adapt to a structure that enables development, in any possible way. This approach must be flexible-a concept that modern economists couldn't reach because it was all about structure and theory...typical male pattern of thought dare I say. Saint-Simon is categorised within French Utopian Socialism in the economics discipline. The thought that such idealism is dismissed as a utopian, and thus just utopian, just goes to show that we are still backward and nowhere near development. The world has already been taken over by realists and capitalists.

I don't consider myself as a socialist because I have better things to do; and this in no way suggest that socialists are dossers (although the thought has crossed my mind), only such categorisation is the example of what a messed up world we are living in, where everything is boxed and clearly labelled. Surely, instead of forcing every 14 and 15 year olds to study 'general studies' or 'religious studies' (i have a personal bad taste towards the latter, mostly due to being thrown out of my RS class for suggesting all religion is bollocks), philosophy will allow them to see thing differently? That's just a suggestion, Minister of Education.

The world would be a better place to live in if we don't subject ourselves to camps, which ultimately creates sides, for issues that clearly has none. Sometimes it just feels like there's this very big playground where, technically, we can all have a go on the round-about, but only with our own friends. I may have this 'lets-make-love, not-war' attitude because i'm attending a very socialist, tree hugging and religion/culture loving educational institution; or because it's an easy way out of a difficult issue (and thus i can only project it onto my blog rather than in the classroom....f*** classrooms!); or because i'm wearing my imitation-of- John-Lennon-t-shirt-that-i-bought-in-Chicago's-MoCA-gift-shop-with-the-slogan-COME-TOGETHER.
I do like an excuse to expose my materialistic side, even alongside such a topic as above, which just goes to show that even a tee can make things happen!

I have a lot to thank for to my lecturer of one of my courses (which i'm re-taking btw) who has managed to do the near impossible: inspire a jaded student in the subject of banking and finance, and made her realise why she must keep going, as well as how quickly she must learn French (apparently there aren't many English translations of Saint-Simon's work).
Some questions: does that mean what i've ramble on about what may not be the accurate thoughts of Saint-Simon? Is Saint-Simon a backward bigot himself for talking about class structure so much? And am I just a new-age hippie?

p.s. i did say i'll post about my holiday, but an amazing amount has happened that it's a near impossibility to write them all. however, i will. promise.