Charles,
You are right to make that point.
We are each of us anything but equal.
What equality means - or should mean - is equal conditions for each of us.
The laws (and rules) should apply equally to all our inequalities.
Yet, in spite of our pretence at equality, we tend deliberately to make
laws unequal - usually in the name of "equality". Thus, affirmative action
is completely unequal. Yet, it's intended to make up for previous
inequalities - as if somehow one inequality is offset by another.
As by now you know, Georgists don't call these things "inequalities" but
"privileges" and the established way to buy off the underprivileged is to
grant them a countervailing privilege.
And the way it is, we are easily bought off. The poor fight for - welfare.
The middle-class would be horrified to give up their home tax breaks. The
high paid rest comfortably on their perks and expense accounts.
And all of them pay from two to three times the world price of sugar
because of a privilege given fewer than 11,000 sugar beet growers in the
north-east of the US.
And many of them pay higher lease prices to the landholders of the sugar
beet areas, for ultimately the benefits of privilege become a higher price
for land.
A consequence of this is that soya farmers can't pay the high rents and
cannot grow soya that's needed throughout the world.
Hey! Let's give them a subsidy to help them rent the acreage, eh?
Remember 'La Ronde'?
Harry
_________________________________________________________________
Charles wrote:
>John Courtenage suggests that a task for the future of work is to
>eliminate inequality.
>
>Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I value the fact that I am
>unique - something which by definition could not exist if there was no
>inequality.
>
>Sure, there are excesses of inequality in this world (though it is
>arguable if they are really of any greater scale than in other
>historical societies, which is an interesting thought in itself) and it
>would be fantastic if we were smart enough to reduce these.
>
>But, overall vive la difference - and all the tension and conflict and
>doubt and confusion that this brings.
>
>--
>Charles Brass
>Chairman
>Future of Work Foundation
>PO Box 122 Fairfield 3078 Australia
>Ph: 61 3 9459 0244
>Fax: 613 9459 0344
>
>The mission of the Future of Work Foundation is
>"to engage all Australians in creating a better future for work"
***************************************
Harry Pollard
Henry George School of Los Angeles
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
(818) 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242
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