Chris, You denied that "privileged" should be applied to the poor.
It makes all the sense in the world if you place the term "privilege" on the defined concept of a "private law" (privi-lege) which is "legislation which benefits one at the expense of another." Now if you want to use a different word, that's fine, but be careful to use it properly without amending the defined concept that led to the word. I also wrote about "countervailing privileges" given to the severely underprivileged to buy them off. This means that they get a little of the stolen swag back to keep their mouths shut. The aim of the modern socialist is apparently to increase the amount of stolen goods they get back. To hell with justice, let's increase the pay-off. Kier Hardie must be spinning in his grave. "As long as privileges exist, they should be distributed fairly." Do you really mean that Chris? Wouldn't it be better to remove all privilege from the political scene? You continue: "What you advocate, however, is unfair distribution (and even increasing) of privileges for the *fattest* cats -- by advocating WTO, GATS, multi-million salaries for CEOs and "sportsmen", etc. I'm a devil, aren't I? I have consistently opposed all privilege for years. How then can I be for any privilege. Maybe you are so busy writing you forget to read. The WTO's job is to get nations to drop the tariffs, quotas, and other barriers to interdependence with other nations. Do you not believe that communication between people and peoples are good things? I think they have an almost impossible job - one which may have been started enthusiastically but which unfortunately is the kind of job that destroys good intentions as they meet self interested opposition, profits protection, and outright corruption in the unholy alliance of government and corporations. They can enjoy some success with smaller countries, but those countries have been rapidly disillusioned by the WTO failure with the US, Europe, Japan, Canada, and other countries where their goods would be welcomed by the people. The Seattle meeting failed because the developing countries were fed up with the failure of the WTO to get free trade with the big boys - not because they were against free trade. Here is a quote that refers to Erhart: "Mises predicted the inevitable breakdown of the Soviet Union's Communist party� controlled"economy" in 1920 and his teaching at Universities in Vienna, Geneva and New York, and his lecturing around the world have produced a stream of students who became eminent economists in their own right: (F.A. Hayek, Nobel Laureate, Wilhelm Roepke, who showed Ludwig Erhart how to produce the "German Economic Miracle" after world War II), and many other free market teachers in a growing number of universities." I got this through Google. I can't be bothered to search further to improve your historical understanding. Your question on land prices touches on the core of the real problem - a problem even Marx discovered in the third volume of Das Kapital "Capitalist production as a whole". That's the volume no-one reads because it brought Marx up-to-date with reality. People don't read Volume Two either, but that doesn't matter. It seems mostly to repeat the errors of Volume One. You say: >Here you're misrepresenting my case again. What do my statements have to >do with "rich *against* poor" ? You also say: "The goal is not to hand out gifts for nothing, but quite the opposite: To prevent the rich from being handed out gifts for nothing! Doesn't this single out the rich as against the poor? Well, if you think you can single out the "rich" and then say you are not singling out the rich, so be it. There goes Kier Hardie again - spinning like a top! Harry ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
