|
Ray,
I too am tired of playing word games.
A name should be used to describe a defined concept - if one is to
communicate. I have described many times the defined concept to which I
attach the word 'privilege'.
Among the qualities that make a good law is "it should apply equally to
each person".
However, legislators make "laws" that do not apply equally to everyone.
To these I attach the name privilege and that's the way I use
it.
"A privilege is legislation that gives to one at the expense of
another."
That's all. It's a kind of Zen One-Way Exchange. Wealth passes in one
direction. Nothing comes back in return.
A dictionary is a record of common usage. People may attach
a word to a dozen meanings, or 50 meanings (as you found). It's a reason
why discussion and debate can be so frustrating. Two discussants may each think
the other is stupid for not 'getting' the obvious. Yet, though they use the
same words, their meanings are different.
They may each speak English, yet each is speaking a different language.
They pass in the night without a contact.
But, you know that.
Concentration of Wealth and Power comes directly from
privilege.
Acquiring great wealth takes a lot of exertion and thought and along
the way, a rational individual will stop such efforts and be satisfied with what
he has because other things become more important than working his life
away.
The return from privilege accrues without effort. It might easily be
spent (from riches to rags). But a sensible privilege holder will save
the privilege return and buy more privilege, thus increasing the return he gets
without effort. This is the way the great fortunes were built - and the way they
still are.
Everyone knows about the industrial revolution with its Satanic Mills and
unbelievably bad conditions for workers - as young as 6 working in the
coal mines. But they should have read Marx, who pointed out that the industrial
revolution was financed by the landholders of Britain.
So, everyone maligns Joe Shark - the dirty capitalist who treats his
workers shabbily, but everyone adores Lord Peter Popsicle who lives in the
large mansion on the hill and who, on occasion, will give philanthropic help to
Shark's workers.
The workers don't think that their poor conditions might stem from
the largesse Shark has to give Popsicle for his factory and the right
to use Popsicle land.
How are the great fortunes made? Well, Carlyle put it better than
anyone:
"The widow is gathering
nettles for her children's dinner. A perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging at
the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract from her the
third nettle, and call it rent."
It's that third nettle that's the rub. It's built the great fortunes that
swallow additional privileges from compliant legislatures and make a "people's
democracy" an object of derision.
But, you know that too.
Harry
********************************************
Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242 http://haledward.home.comcast.net ******************************************** From: Ray Evans Harrell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 3:58 PM To: Harry Pollard; 'futurework' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Sociopaths Harry,
I decided to look up privilege and found seven interesting
denotative definitions that would describe almost anything as
privileged that is unique such as having been born to one
mother. Then I went to look for synonyms in the Thesaurus and that
showed layering that must be the nightmare for those who wish to make words have
the meaning of numbers. You are a bad man Harry, in the
black street sense. If you get my drift.
(context everyone, bad is a compliment and
means good in white society.)
It is a privilege to be allowed to move to a country that
you did nothing to evolve when keeping your accent doesn't drive people away but
draws them to you for other reasons than knowing that you are a good
person. I would certainly not have such a privilege in the English
countryside.
It is a privilege to drive down a highway that you did not
buy.
It is dumb luck and a privilege to be born to your parent
on your birthday at the minute of your birth.
It is dumb luck and a privilege not to be born to an AIDS
mother or a Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.
It is a privilege to be free in a world of slavery.
It is a privilege to picnic in a park you did not create.
It is a privilege to sit under a tree you did not grow.
It is a privilege to drink clean water or breath clean
air.
It is a privilege to go to a play that cost more to
produce than the sum of the tickets could buy.
It is a privilege to watch a TV sitcom that you did not
pay for and refuse to watch the commercial.
It is a privilege to have health care that costs more
than your co-pay or premium.
It is a privilege for you to listen to music that you
didn't write or make an exchange equal to the value of the product.
In fact, whenever you make an exchange that is less than
the product's cost to make you have gotten a privilege. The only
dumb luck is where you are born, anything else is some form or other of
privilege gotten by your network and your station in life. Rather than
George, or as you explain "classical economics" I prefer Veblin who had a
way of cutting through all of this superficial drivel to the underlying
brutality of it all. He thought machines would rescue us and
he may have been right. Computers may make us finally give up this
fantasy of self-interest and self sufficiency. It all doesn't
compute.
If, as you say, you know more about this then I then
you are doing a bad job of explaining it thus far.
People who can create an energy exchange for their
existance are not people of privilege. But if you pay less
than it costs to make it plus the labor for the time of the creator than you got
a privilege.
There is a limited meaning of privilege that relates to a
"one of a kind" product that you have access to when others do not but that is
so nebulous that it could describe health as opposed to the sickly.
Privilege may very well be the way of all life since all
life is "one of a kind" and recieves uniquenesses it did nothing to earn.
I'm tired of playing word games. When you say
that Artists, who spend their entire life developing their product that is then
used without a payment equal to the cost of the product, are after privilege
then I have nothing more to say to you.
Have you ever read Edward Everett Hale's "Man without a
country". It was required reading for all we Cherokees in
reservation school. Not a bad short story to remind us all of the
privileges of life and how we can fritter them away with stories and idle
chatter.
REH
--- |
- [Futurework] Sociopaths Ray Evans Harrell
- RE: [Futurework] Sociopaths Harry Pollard
- Re: [Futurework] Sociopaths, and socio path... Brad McCormick, Ed.D.
- Re: [Futurework] Sociopaths Ray Evans Harrell
- Re: [Futurework] Sociopaths Harry Pollard
- Re: [Futurework] Sociopaths Ray Evans Harrell
