Keith, Perhaps you missed it - in fact everyone missed it - but in my listing of privileges I included welfare payments. Any legislation that takes from one to give to another is a Private Law - a privilege. A law should be needed, be sensible, and should apply equally to everyone. As I said, a privilege is the opposite of justice, which demands equality. (These Georgists do insist on defined concepts - they are annoying!)
I also mentioned "countervailing privileges". Essentially, if you want to protect the privilege that keeps you in idleness and luxury, you hand out some other privileges. Once you have done your part to make life more miserable for the poor - you give them the privilege of welfare. (Now, in the US, it's beginning to be thought of as a "Right". Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness with welfare payments.) Just as the poor are kept quiet with welfare, so are the middle class bought off with the "Right" to make mortgage interest and property taxes tax-deductible. That's unfair on the renters, so special Rights are legislated for them. And so it goes. This is the way legislators keep a stranglehold on the people. They protect all these "rights" if you re-elect them. Indeed, any attack on privilege is an attack on ME!!! So, don't expect any State quickly to dismantle the network of injustice. For, nowadays, pretty much everyone is a fat cat. However, if we remove the major privileges enjoyed by the very fat cats, that will perhaps free the "countervailing" group from their present need for privileges. In other words, if the economy is just and there are jobs for everyone, the need for the privilege of welfare will mostly disappear. (You'll recall the first Assumption, which indicates that there can be no such thing as unemployment.) So, the fat cats are not simply rich people up to their armpits in the trough, but rather those who are advantaged by legislation at the expense of others. In your neck of the woods, the Duke of Westminster gets $300,000 a year subsidy for his farm properties. One of the richest men in Europe (?) has received from the State some $3 million over the last 10 years. Now, there's a fat cat for you! Harry ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
