Hi folks, Here's the third of three you missed. Yours for the New Year, WesBurt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Subj: Two Articles of Economic Rights & Responsibilities Date: 01/05/2000 10:25:39 AM Eastern Standard Time From: WesBurt CC: WesBurt BCC: deleted by WSB Hi folks, This four year old post below says just what is missing from the noosphere which regulates the workforce and their dependents at 270 degrees on the macro model Figure 6. It seems an appropriate followup to my last three posts which were not distributed by lists <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <basicinco [EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, and <[EMAIL PROTECTED] oo.ca>. Kind regards to all, Wesburt >>>>>>>>>>> Begin four year old post <<<<<<<<<<<<<< Subj: #181-0, Two Articles of Economic Rights & Responsibilities Date: 96-02-16 21:04:45 EST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Stuart B. Weeks Dir. The Center for American Studies at Concord, Massachusetts. Dear Mr. Weeks: Here are two rarely acknowledged, and often misrepresented, articles of economic rights and responsibilities which have been handed down to us by succeeding generations of patriarchs, prophets, and poets. These articles were ancient when Moses broke the first two tables of the Law and hid the second two tables in the Ark of the Covenant to keep the Whole Law from becoming the public property of the Israelites. The first article is a statement of the Economic Right of a person or capital asset while in development, and still dependent on external support. The second is a statement of the Economic Responsibility of a person or capital asset while in production, and capable of being independent of all external support. Together, the two articles are the moral authority which enables and defines the optimum financial structure of a community, a corporation, or a commonwealth. Where the people have sufficient vision to teach and conform to the two articles, the people prosper. Where the two articles are violated to a sufficient degree, the wealthy, healthy, intelligent, and powerful part of the population (the WHIPs) may still prosper for a while, but the people slowly perish. We are most familiar with a poetic version of these two articles which Karl Marx borrowed from Louis Blanc, who in turn, probably got the sense of them from Thomas Paine's AGRARIAN JUSTICE or THE RIGHT'S OF MAN, part II. Marx then presented them in the inverse order and out of sequence with their consequent effects, when he wrote in his 1875 CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAM: "After labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"" In this sequence Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and their successors gave the world a seventy-two year experiment with communism which failed in the USSR and is losing ground everywhere else. Surely Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and their successors did not intend the consequent results; that the Soviet Union should fail, that the future as visualized by 19th and 20th century intellectuals should revert to a Democratic Capitalism in which the human assets are as well capitalized as the physical assets. I am pleased to propose the two articles, which express the economic keynote of an optimum community, corporation, or commonwealth, in the sequence in which they naturally occur in the lifecycle of each individual reproducible productive capital or human asset. They are numbered as they might have been listed among the twelve Moral Commandments promulgated at Mt. Sinai, of which we are taught only ten; or as they might have been listed among the first twelve "articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America," of which the States ratified only ten in 1789 to constitute the American Bill of Rights. Fortunately for us, the omission of these two articles did not become critical in America until the onset of industrialization in the 1890s. #5, TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS NEED, while in development and dependent on external support. Only when this article has been satisfied throughout the development period of the capital or human asset, will "the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly" when the asset begins to produce, as every successful businessman has learned the hard way. #6, FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY, while in production and independent of external support. This article prescribes, not an equalization of condition at the margin of subsistence by taxation of all income in excess of subsistence exemptions, as some people claim, but a "Flat Tax" (% of income) on all income "from whatever source derived," as set forth in the 16th. amendment to the Constitution of the United States. #6 also defines the structure of the real property tax of local governments, as it operated prior to the 1890s to provide education, infrastructure, and justice, while the US was still a nation of property owning farmers and small businessmen. Today's total tax rates range from 23% in Turkey to 55% in Sweden, with the US, Switzerland, and Japan clustered around the Biblical tax rate of three tithes, or 30% of Gross Domestic Product. To the contrary, the late great USSR collected 92% of its public revenue from indirect taxes, which increase the market price of subsistence, and only 8% from taxes on personal incomes, according to the taxpayer's ability to pay. There is no surer way to arrest the economic and moral progress of a corporation or commonwealth than to impair its reproductive process by raising the price of necessities for those "parenting" families and firms which are producing the productive assets for the future. Once again, Mr. Weeks, nothing I might say at this point can more clearly convey the spirit with which I submit these two articles of Economic Rights and Responsibilities, which are indeed the keystone of an economic philosophy, than the words of Rene Descartes in his 1641 letter to The Faculty Of Theology at Paris. He wrote, in part, concerning his "Meditations DE Prima Philosophia:" "It is different in philosophy, where it is believed that there is nothing about which it is not possible to argue on either side. Thus few people engage in the search for truth, and many, who wish to acquire a reputation as clever thinkers, bend all their efforts to arrogant opposition to the most obvious truths. ----- That is why, Gentlemen, since my arguments belong to philosophy, however strong they may be, I do not suppose that they will have any effect unless you take them under your protection." Like Descartes, I know my superiors when I meet them, and I know that these ideas have no value until they become public knowledge. I wanted to submit these two articles by today, in accord with your program schedule. Please feel free to use this material in any way that will contribute to the success of your program. I will send you an e-mail description of the visual aids to support the technical presentation of the two articles, in a few days. Best Regards, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PS (00-01-05) Those visual aids, Figures 7, 8, and 9, constitute a micro-model of society and are now available at URLs: <http://www.freespeech.org/darves/bert.html#fig7-9> and <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/ 3142/IR/items/19990119WesBurtFig7-9B.gif>.
