Harry, The marketplace has no morality except the survival (that word!) and self-aggrandizement of the few who own it, and manipulate it in their own interests. Period. I have been thinking about Ed's defensive apology for being a 'moralist.' Why would one be defensive about that basic human quality? What is going on that we even have to question ourselves on that front? Society is badly in need of renewal to fill that gaping hole in our personae. The fundamentalists seem to realize this (and we know what a pig in a poke that is), but that is only one narrow, self-interested fragment of a broader urge for a more hopeful, better world that is in all of us. Give me a moralist, to a marketeer, any day.
BB ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Pollard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Ray Evans Harrell'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 4:16 AM Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs. Modern Trade Ray, You said: Harry said: If each member of a community is better off, is it difficult to concede that the community (of people) is better off? RAY: 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. HARRY: Communities don’t do good things. People do good things. Of course, politicians who run communities are likely to do good things with citizens’ money. Ray didn't like "better off" (def: In a more fortunate or prosperous condition). I have no idea why. RAY: 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. HARRY: Non sequitur! But, my humility is exceeded only by my infinite patience. For the umpteenth time, free trade and the free market do not establish justice. RAY: 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. RAY: 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. HARRY: You talk about one thing and with a shaman like gesture segue to another that has no connection. You then make statements without any evidence or corroboration. The Soviets would have experienced famine had it not been for the free market (of course labeled “black”). When there was still free land in America and practically an absence of trade restrictions (or any others) people got on well in primitive conditions. Alexis de Tocqueville noted that unlike Europe there were no beggars in the street. The more controlled the American economy has become, the larger have become the number of underprivileged. Now we have close to 9,000 import tariffs, farm subsidies, milk price control, quotas, and probably the worst – anti-dumping swindles. The Congress – Republicans and Democrats – are well and truly in the pockets of the monopolists. That’s why we have the tariffs, subsidies and the rest. Yet, you blame the ills of society on untrammeled markets. The trouble with our society is that we have too much trammel. RAY: 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. HARRY: I am alarmed that when I go and leave my car to my son, I’ll be creating inequality. I’ll go into the nonsense of needing a “basis for capital” another time. Then you mix Capital and “intellectual capital” which animal doesn’t exist. It’s a political contrivance. I would love to know how you “corner intellectual capital” – seems an extraordinary statement. RAY : 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. HARRY: The Federal Register has 75,000 pages brimful with the laws you like. Is this why we don’t have the “inequality of inherited capital” not the “equality of ignorance”? Yet, I thought we did. RAY: 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. HARRY: Communities and societies grow because people want them. You seem to think that they are constructed by social engineers. They are built by the people who arrange their own moral base – one that is acceptable to all. People join in community because it is of practical benefit to them. The social engineers are the theorists. This is why goods are so expensive in socialist systems - or modern capitalistic systems which in many ways are similar. RAY: 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. HARRY: Ray, you make so many misstatements. Are you asserting that the soviets thought they lived in a friendly world – without enemies? RAY: 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. HARRY: Don’t you know that practically ALL immigrants scratch and fight to get a toe-hold on this new country. They are motivated all right, whether they are singers or bricklayers. Maybe your experience of immigrants is too limited. The US has somewhere near 9,000 tariffs, a slew of import quotas and vicious anti-dumping legislation. RAY: 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. RAY: Let’s not be silly. Truman advocated a National Health Service. Democrats held both houses and often the Presidency as well for some 40 years – during that expanding post-war economy. If they had really wanted National Health, they could have got it easy. But, they didn’t. REH ******************************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242 HYPERLINK "http://haledward.home.comcast.net"; http://haledward.home.comcast.net ******************************************** --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). 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