On 07 Nov 2013, at 03:32, Chris de Morsella wrote:
The problem of any system ever devised is that eventually it will
become corrupted – through one path or another corruption will
become endemic and increasingly it will parasitize the system until
eventually the empty husk of the hollowed out society collapses as
all the illusions and Ponzi schemes become marked to market and no
one is buying into it any longer.
Systems are human creations and suffer from all the pitfalls and
blindness characteristic of our species. A system organized around a
Party or a Church will end up creating the same social structure of
a corrupt class of successful crime families becoming entrenched at
the vertices.
OK. But it is always due to factual precise fact, some of them
encapsulating the departure from honesty, like the closure of Plato
academy in theology (and this explains a lot of our human problems
today), or the prohibition in modern times, which violate the US
constitution, and announces all the other violation.
In Roma there is a saying that translated more or less: “The first
generation are bandits; the second generation are bankers; the third
generation are politicians; and by the fourth generation a Pope.” Or
the Anglo saying “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime”
I think that this is misleading, as it gives the idea that money is a
problem. Money is just the best way to distibute work, and enrich
everyone, ... when playing with the rules.
But then big amount of moeny is an incentive for unscrupulous bandits,
and if they rob the society, we are soon or later in a big mess. Then
we are living earth gloablization, and the bandits use it to
consoldiate their business. A large part of the middle class is
hostage of that situation.
I think it is important to look at how even a system dedicated to
the principle of wiping out class has invariably spawned various
nationalistic red bourgeoisies (the Radish communists – red on the
outside white on the inside) Look at the princelings in the PRC; or
the weird family dynasty in the PRK… or the Stalinist bourgeoisie of
the former USSR. Or conversely how a system purporting to be based
on the teachings of Jesus Christ resulted in the sordid history of
the Papacy.
It does not matter much what the superficial forms of a system are,
if the end outcome is invariably the same – that is the society
becomes dominated by a small entrenched elite that enjoys
disproportionate benefits and is concerned only with its own self-
serving interests.
The US constitution was well thought, and the founders were aware if
how it could be violated. In particular, some of them said explicitly
that prohibition would end America.
I am optimist. We just need to educate people so that they understand
that prohibition is a criminal technic to steal their money, and
nothing else, right at the start. We light just need to better
educate people (invest in school and teaching).
It will take time. In my country, the "green-youth" have proposed that
the green became officially anti-prohibitionist, but the old green
were just horrified, and put the proposition under the rug. But most
and most young people get the point.
As long as we tolerate things like prohibition, there is just no
politics at all. Prohibition is a middle-term social suicide. Like
institutionalized religion is a long term spiritual suicide.
We will learn.
Bruno
-Chris
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com
] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 2:24 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote:
On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money,
and that's the case today.
There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an
ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of
power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia)
then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where
there is government, the police protect their property and the rich
attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying
influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a
different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively
diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that
the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth
and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit
wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something
to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of
wealth.
I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce
more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly. Once a few "fake
money" (based on a lie) appears, it corrupts the whole system, and
the society get pyramidal, with a higher gap between poor and rich,
and eventually this crush down.
We must think about a way to prevent that. Some state can play a
role. But we have to get rid of the bandits first, and there is an
easy way: legalize all drugs. Regulate them, and tax them
proportionally by the "real" harm (that is measured by statistics no
more confusing a -> b and b -> a) they do.
May be that is not enough. Prohibitionists should be judged. We have
to get spiritual or mature enough to understand that.
The state must ensure the fairness of competition among products,
their traceability, the presence of notice with the secondary
effects, etc. But the state has nothing to say about what is good or
not for any one. That's between you and you, with the help of your
shaman if you decide so, but it is your decision, to say "yes" or
"no" to this or that shaman.
Stopping prohibition will not solve all problems. But continuing
prohibition aggravates the situation, ... except for the super-
riches and the bandits.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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