RE: [Futurework] Are they going mad?

[Harry Pollard]

Ray,   It is likely that everyone across the work rewards those who contribute to them and punishes those that harm them. Americans can spend their money anyway they like.   Meantime, you continue to mix chalk and cheese.   You take various examples of government intervention and call it a cutthroat world, even though the various classical people you mention were against such government intervention.   I have no idea how your mind can somehow link government intervention with no government intervention, but you keep doing it. Worse, you seem unaware you are doing it.   "Cutthroat competition", "Law of the Jungle" and similar phrases have been used for a long time by protectionist capitalists and the 57 varieties of socialists (you'll remember Heinz soup).   The capitalists know that market competition cuts their profits so they are against it. They are joined by the socialists for more peculiar reasons. Socialists are supposed to represent the people, yet they don't trust them to make their own decisions. They feel they have the wise men and women in government who can far better decide what the housewife wants than she can. (Actually, a British Labor government socialist - Douglas Jay - said just that before 'Public Relations' was firmly in place.)   Now, they just think it, but keep their mouths shut. It certainly seems that these  government PooBahs hold the general population in some contempt. Otherwise they wouldn't keep trying to deny them their freedom to choose.   When you think of the free market, free trade, laissez-faire try to remember Leonard Read's admonition - "Do as you wish, but harm no-one.".   I rather prefer "Do as you wish, but coerce no-one."   Whichever you prefer, try to base your thinking on the individual rather than the State.   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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ray Evans Harrell Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 11:18 AM To: Keith Hudson; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Are they going mad? You know I don't like Bush Keith but, I think you haven't thought the context of this through.   First of all America is a business nation and Bush has a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard.   In American business you punish those who don't support you and reward those who do.   It is that simple.   It may make lousy government but frankly with our huge tax bill over this war, the idea of a company bringing in money to another country that isn't sharing doesn't strike me all that well either.    We don't exist for the rest of the world but for our own people.   The justification for this war was an attack on our own people and for that reason the American public support Bush on this.   What we don't support is corruption and over charging by American corporations like Halliburton.   Halliburton supported Bush and now they are sacrificing little and making a killing.   That may hurt Bush but your comments are not resonant over here.   They are more anxiety from a distance and speak to your self interest rather than ours.   Its not morality or even good government, in fact its nothing personal, its just business.     If you don't like it then argue with the market and stop preaching free trade and TNC's as the saviour of the future.   The US is just a TNC competeing in the world and it doesn't care about any competitor's market share other than their own.   In that Laissez Faire world, the only security is power and loyalty and if you want that world you can't complain when power is asserted.   That is what I meant when I said that government as business is a nightmare.   You said you didn't get it and now you are complaining about it.   I don't understand that.   I speak English, maybe you should learn to speak a little Cherokee.     Then we could get around these misunderstandings.     Perhaps it would be good for Europe to do the same since we both are going to be dealing with each other for a long time in this cutthroat world that Ricardo, Adam Smith, Henry George, J.S. Mill and their accolytes have finally given us, not to mention the current varieties like Milton Friedman, etc. etc.     I don't know whether it is evolutionary in the sense of the brain or just inevitable given the history of the past thousand years of European systems.    But either way it was predictable.   As Harrison Ford said to Julia Ormond in the movie Sabrina  after he had treated her shabbily, "Don't worry, it was nothing personal, it was just business."    He didn't like it and felt like a cad but felt perfectly at home in the more's of the business system.    Or as Donald Trump says:  "Get Even!"     But "getting even" isn't personal, it just a business strategy to reward those who contibute to your business and punish those who don't.    Personally I prefir the complexity of Veblin to the whole bunch.     From my standpoint, everything is personal.   That is different.    REH        --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. 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