----------
>From: "Durant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: Irish Workfare
>Date: Wed, Jul 7, 1999, 10:14 PM
Thomas:
First, this is not my writing, but a quote typed from a book - a book
written by a popular author in 1912. They used different forms in writing
than what we use today, so, sometimes you have to work a little to get the
idea behind the cumbersome style.
>
>> The problem turns, remember, upon the control of the means of production.
>> Capitalism means that this control is vested in the hands of few, while
>> political freedom is the appanage of all. It this anomaly cannot endure,
>> from its insecurity and from its own contradiction with its presumed moral
>> basis, you must either have a transformation of one or of the other of the
>> two elements which combined have been found unworkable. These two factors
>> are (1) The ownership of the means of production by a few; (2) The freedom
>> of all. To solve capitalism you must get rid of restricted ownership, or of
>> freedom, or of both.
>>
> Eva asked:
> What political freedom?? (and what the *^%$* is appanage, the
> dictionary didn't find any means to connect it to your sentence.)
Thomas:
Yes, I stumbled on this word appanage too when I was transcribing and I was
tempted to subsitute the word "appendage" but decided that perhaps I just
did not have enough education, so I left it as written.
Now, as to political freedom. Belloc maintains in greater detail in other
parts of the book, but alludes to it here in the phrase, "this anomaly
cannot endure" his perception of the basic contradiction between belief
systems. On the one hand, the belief that democracy gives individuals
freedom by allowing them to choose who represents them and how they will be
represented by the political platforms of various parties - and I agree,
this is a very questionable freedom - and the anomaly that allows those with
capital to monopolize the means of production and thereby derive others of
their economic freedom.
Eva continues:
>
> Your premise is false. Capitalism doesn't mean political freedom,
> most of the time not even nominally. Economic unequality
> cannot provide political equality, when economic power means
> political power.
> Therefore there is no reason why
> non-capitalism should lead necessarily to non-freedom.
Thomas:
You have prefectly made Belloc's point. Capitalism is the antithesis of
political freedom, which is why he argues that the dominance of capitalism
will lead to slavery. The anomaly between the two belief systems is that
you cannot have capitalism and freedom or you cannot have freedom and
capitalism.
Eva continues:
>
> The conditions needed for
> a successful/democratic socialist transformation were missing
> in the historical events so far. This is straightforward analysis
> of historical data. A successful transformation has not
> happened yet, which does not mean it cannot, when the conditions are
> right. New systems have this nature of not yet ever being around.
Thomas:
Again, you must be studying Belloc in your spare time. He would have no
trouble agreeing with your conclusions and the difference between 1912 and
1999 is just history. We are still stuck with capitalism because it
successfully buys the collaboration of each elected government. The
socialists have never had the capital to compete for the politicians support
and only occasionally, as at an election time, have the politicians had to
defer to the will of the people. But Belloc's observations and conclusions
are frightening. We either have capitalism with slavery or we have
democracy without capitalism. Given the brainwashing that we have all went
through from our culture, it is inconcievable for any new thought to gain
sufficient momentum to introduce change.
>
>
>> Now there is only one alternative to freedom, which is the negation of it.
>> Either a man is free to work and not to work as he pleases, or he may be
>> liable to a legal compulsion to work, backed by the forces of the state. In
>> the first he is a free man; in the second he is by definition a slave. We
>> have, therefore, so far as this factor of freedom is concerned, no choice
>> between a number of changes, but only the opportunity of one, to wit, the
>> establishment of slavery in place of freedom.
Eva says:
>
> You suggest, that people are "free to work" at present?
> Because you are wrong in that case. Nobody, who
> HAS TO get up and go to work for an income that
> is necessary for living a life that is considered to be
> satisfactory in the given social/cultural setup, is free.
Thomas:
NOT ME! People have to work - or starve. The difference in my lifetime is
that we have moved from a workforce in which the government supported me
while my skills could not be used by capitalists until those skills were
needed again, to the present concept which is that my skills are irrelevant
and that I must work at whatever is available. In the first instance, I
felt a considerable degree of freedom, in the second instance, the full
weight of the state and my personal survival is dependant on doing any work
I am directed to do. I agree with Belloc, in the first instance, I felt a
free man, in the second instance, I feel a slave. When the only option is
starvation for non-complaince, withholding my labour becomes a pointless
option.
Eva stated:
>
> The wast majority of us are wageslaves, whether we are
> happy with our particular situations/conscious of it or not.
> The state is an instrument of the status quo, it exist to
> enforce our status as wageslaves, and maintain the status of the owners of
> the means of production (private property).
>
> If we were free, no enforcement/state would be necessary,
> as we would work because we see the need for it or because we enjoy it,
> or both.
Thomas:
Again, Eva, I am total agreement with your statements. That is why I see,
though my answer may not be the only one or even the best one, that the
concept of a Basic Income is the device that would give me back my freedom
from capitalistic slavery.
>
>> Such a solution, the direct,
>> immediate, and conscious reestalishment of slavery, would provide a true
>> soltuioh of the problems which capitalism offers. It would guarantee, under
>> workable regulations, sufficiency and security for the dispossessed. Such a
>> solution, as I shall show, is the probable goal which our society will in
>> fact approach. To its immediate and conscious acceptance, however, there is
>> an obstacle.
Eva comments:
>>
>
> This is indeed, frightening. Especially as it seem to be
> repeated more and more often; the gist of it being, that
> democracy is mob's rule of the great unwashed, when
> clever, benevolent technocrats could govern us ever so well.
>
> Capitalism hasn't got the economic mechanism to provide
> continuous security for anyone - and last of all for the
> dispossessed. No form of government can change this.
> Hitler needed an artificial market (military/public work)
> and a war, to re-kindle the failing machinary. If you follow through your
> thread of thought, this is where you get.
> There is no capitalism
> with a human face, whether based on allegedly benevolent
> dictatorship or democracy. It hasn't got the economic machinary to
> support it other then for relatively short periods. That's why
> it is outmoded and all attempt of it's further zombification is
> madness, when we now have the conditions to do better.
Thomas:
True!
>
>
>> Thomas:
>>
>> The following article is an example of a State moving slowly towards
>> slavery. And as the article mentions, it is the very business class, those
>> who, as Belloc identifies as the small minority who control the means of
>> production, who find the concepts of Socialism or Welfare state so abhorrent
>> to their goals of personal wealth creation who are supporting the political
>> moves that are leading the poor into slavery. First, we can see that the
>> plight of the poor has to increase in misery and finally as a sop, the
>> authorities will bring forth as a panacea to the cruelty they have created,
>> "under workable regulations, sufficiency and security for the dispossessed."
>>
Eva concludes:
>
> The whole of the middle-classes are sliding down to
> the uncertainties and statelessness insecurity of the underclass.
> This experience will sling them out of the stupor created by the
> virtual wealth of the last 50 years. Such awareness will bring
> the next revolution and the long awaited syncronisation
> of collective social relations with the collective and
> highly integrated work we already do: democracy, freedom and
> the shrinking and disappearing state.
>
>> Convince me that I am wrong?
Thomas:
Again I agree. However, I am more pessimistic than you in that I believe
externalities like climate change, the peak of oil production,
overpopulation and war have and will overtake our collective will to change
and that the current systems will remain in place, much like a dictator uses
a crisis to maintain power. As these catastrophes strike us with increasing
frequency, the state will get more draconian and capitalism will get more
vicious.
>>
>
> I did my best...
>
> Eva
Thomas:
Thanks
>
>> Respectfully,
>>
>> Thomas Lunde
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
