Harry said:
If each member of a community is better off, is it
difficult to concede that the community (of people) is better
off?
Because wealthy communities
don't necessarily do good things. Good works and great civilization is
what seduced me from the pleasures of the wilderness, not the simply middle
class values of making a living and
breeding.
Ray didn't like "better off" (def: In a more
fortunate or prosperous condition). I have no idea why.
Because per capita, the wealthy are no more
useful to the community than anyone else. Their children use up
more and do, relative to their opportunity, less.
But, my humility is exceeded only by my infinite
patience. For the umpteenth time, free trade and the free market do
not establish justice.
I agree with that.
Free trade enables us to make a bigger pie with the
same exertion. Protective tariffs reduce the size of the pie and force
us into using more exertion for less return.
I have never argued against trade anymore than I
argue against sex. But there are good things to be developed and
barbarous things as well. I would never argue that untrammeled sex
is the best alternative, would you? Systems tend to act
alike. Untrammeled sex tends to create disease as it also doesn't
encourage great effort. Untrammeled markets tend to create chaos
and end in class stratification. The societies are filthy and the
lower classes are poor and powerless. Because it is easier
to do that than to maintain equality.
The moment you have inheritance you have
inequality and yet without inheritance you have no basis for
capital. Traditional economic culture creates skill at the
market. Skill creates inequality and the desire to corner
intellectual capital.
Then you need laws and the simplicity of
privilege as you call it. But without laws you have either the
inequality of inherited capital or the equality of
ignorance. It makes no sense and is as foolish as the
belief that external motivation is more than just "social engineering" on a
crude level. If you are against social engineering and for
equality then you have to be willing to build internal motivation and some
other way to build skill and craft other than private inheritance.
In short you have to build a moral base and a real society.
But reality is in short supply. Real societies take a long time
and more than just theory and limited logic.
This is why goods are so expensive in socialist
systems - or modern capitalistic systems which in many ways are similar.
Your correct about both of their Messianic zeals
but capitalism doesn't build the greatest education for the greatest
number. Communism did that in the old Soviet Union. They
were both miserable at each other's strengths. Communism was
less externally motivated and thus less good at distribution which requires
such. They would have done the education without
competition from the Capitalists but the reverse is probably not
true. I think that the capitalists are so externally motivated
that they have to have enemies or they simply can't
function.
The musicians and technologists from the Soviet
Union who have come here are more internally motivated than capitalist
Americans and more logical as are most immigrants. Immigrants
don't have the baggage of dealing with having been abandoned by this
society and taught a myth that is dysfunctional. Immigrants
are free to improvise without cultural restraints and can take the laws at
simple face value. Americans have many internal "laws" that don't
work and are self-alienating. Immigrants don't even know they
exist and so are not bothered by them. That is the root of all of
that psycho-analysis that only now is beginning to be necessary in Europe as
they become more Americanized. That is the primary thesis of
the book "Culture Matters" meaning that it is inhibiting of real business
practices that are amoral to this deep morality.
The US has somewhere near 9,000 tariffs, a slew
of import quotas and vicious anti-dumping
legislation.
I'll never forget that another Messiah-nic soul
Ronald Reagan, was going to fix the IRS. When he was through he
had made such a mess that my taxes went up as did all of my expenses while the
wealthy taxes went down as did their responsibility for the culture of the
country. A responsibility they had pushed and contracted for in
1883 with the advent of the Railroads and the time zones as well as the
organizing principles of separating the elite art from the riff
raff. (Their words). Today the same people are
going to fix my medical bills. But you watch. They will make
money and I will pay more. That is capitalism
today. And it has nothing to do with tariffs. See how
little Wall Street cares about the homeless. Their stuff is going
up so things are "getting better." Unless it gets better for
all it is not getting better and that is my rule.
If you removed all of those tariffs and
quotas and nothing good came of it, would you be willing to go to jail
for being wrong? How about making your family repay what was
lost? Now THAT would be integrity and belief
in yourself. Take a risk. Risk your house and
freedom.
REH
