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Joe Palau's avatar

I’m teaching foreign students these days and they experience our attachment to market values as alien and alienating. They are especially sensitive to they way our culture sets one against another in a zero sum contest for the prize. No they didn’t articulate their culture shock in neo-Marxian terms but their palpable reactions to our brand of rugged individualism, marketplace competition and a blindness to community/social values and needs alarming. I respond with a dialectical “Yes” so I might learn what glimpses of metro NYC gave rise to their sentiments. For them it’s written right across our society. They rarely get the whole picture and the unwritten policies that divide us. They do get, whatever their take may be, that it makes them uncomfortable. As a society, we have plenty of work to do to realize money is but a means and ar from being an end in itself. We see it as a work-life balance. They see it as harmful and hurtful. Thanks for the post.

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Orion Hopper's avatar

Bravo! My father taught me many years ago to find work that I really enjoyed. In doing so, I would excel, and that financial success would follow. He cautioned me against pursuing money for its own sake, especially if that meant performing odious tasks. Better, he predicted, to be happy and comfortable than to be wealthy and miserable.

I am happy to say that I followed Dad's advice and pursued a career path that brought pleasure and fulfillment. He gave other important advice which I truly regret not having followed, but such is the lot of son's relationship with their fathers...

My father was perhaps my most influential mentor and I miss him dearly. He would have agreed wholeheartedly with you and Dr. West about the worth of non-market values.

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