----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Grimes" <cgrimes at rawbw.com>
While science and medicine, that is their knowledge and technique were limited, that rationalizing process was limited in both its conceptual grasp and its social authority. So, then as these limits dissolved, the presumption of social authority increased. At this point, considering the results of molecular biology I would say the presumption of that authority is boundless.
In terms of capitalism, I think we start somewhere in the 19c commodification of folk medicines, roots, herbs, and brews of various sort that are turned into patent medicines and bottled tonics----arriving today with state sanctioned corporate and private ownership of babies, whole organs, tissues, cell lines, right on down to DNA codes. The human body has been delivered by the state over to its economic regimes and authorities as a harvest crop for corporate profit.
Faced with all that, I can't imagine any personal moral or ethical dilemma that could rise above the ability of money to render meaningless.
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Can you say *The Matrix*?
Ian