It seems to me I was never a socialist. I left college in April, 1940 with the intention of apprenticing to a large shipping firm, where for five years I would do everything from the drawing board to the pattern making shop.
However, the following month came Dunkirk and for the next few years my engineering skills, such as they were, were put to use - quite regularly for 16-18 hours a day. As everyone knows we were in a mess - hanging on by our eyebrows as the National Socialists showed what a modern state can do by concentrating all its powers on one aspect of policy.
(I have a theory that the powers of production are now so high that modern nation-states can support the inefficiencies, incompetences, and plain corruptions of capitalism and socialism.)
At least for a while.
At last, I went into the RAF, and when I got out decided to forget engineering, so I became a sales representative in southwest-England.for a large Scottish firm.
I cannot remember what my politics were, but I believe I favored a free market over government control - but probably at a low level of understanding. I cannot ever remember being a socialist - as such.
I walked from a tube station one evening and outside a young girl on a soapbox was declaiming the virtues of Liberalism and the Liberal Party. I liked her views on individual freedom, free trade, smaller and more responsive government, and so on.
I liked it. I paid my shilling and joined. So, it seems that I was never a socialist.
However, although I believed in free trade (the arguments were conclusive) I couldn't see how we would handle the problems of poverty, low wages, slum clearance, cheap housing, and the rest. At least, the pie would be bigger with free trade. How the pie would be fairly distributed would be in the hands of the Liberal government - who had begun the "welfare state" back in the 19th century.
But, I had questions. I couldn't see why there should be poor social conditions. Then, someone suggested - I think it was in 1948 - that I should pop along to the Henry George School. I did and found that Henry George's analysis of the problem was superb.
So, I joined a group as disparate as Tolstoy and Helen Keller, Einstein and Sun Yat Sen (the father of modern China), Churchill and Cobden, Samuel Gompers (first President of the AFL-CIO) and Teddy Roosevelt, even William Buckley - on the right - and Michael Kingsley - on the left. Also, the 8 Nobel economists who wrote to the Russian Duma asking them to introduce Henry George's ideas to solve their basic economic problems.
Of course I didn't swallow it whole. I pestered the Georgists, questioned every aspect of their philosophy - found, for example that George wrote the best book on free trade ever written but then came to the conclusion that the benefits of free trade would not extend to the working people of the society - and explained why. (Every libertarian should read George's "Protection or Free Trade". In fact, so should every socialist - to see how they have been conned by the conservatives.)
So, I became a Georgist. Over the years, I've made many changes in George's original philosophy - but basically the man was completely right. Keith, you wanted to learn more about the collectible theories of the Georgists. Well, they don't belong to the Georgists. They are Pollard's theories.
Yet, in no way do they affront the keenness of George's analysis. I hope they add to them.
George said, "In nothing trust in me." He implored his readers to think for themselves. he told them they didn't need great universities, and mammoth libraries. They could work things out for themselves. All they need do is to observe people and note how they behave - then extend their reasoning from there.
This high school graduate was not without humor. He was to be offered the Economics Chair at the University of California. He spoke to them and perhaps with great prescience said the modern university produces monkeys with microscopes, and mules packing libraries on their backs.
He didn't get the job.
All this I discovered later. Back in 1948 and for years later, I argued and argued but found the man's reasoning was superb. I could see no flaw. I still can't after 50 years of debate, discussion and argument. Heck, I don't want to be tied to a philosophy which is faulty.
So, Keith and Chris, I never did become a socialist - or a conservative.
I was always a radical and although I didn't realize it - a member of the Radical Center.
Harry
________________________________________________
Chris wrote:
Keith Hudson wrote:
> (REH)
> ... Obviously
> there is a human being there that I am missing as I hear the same words as
> were used by the people who "did in" my family three generations ago.
> >>>>
>
> I'm at a loss to know why my words have any relationship to the attitude of
> those who " "did in" [your] family three generations ago". As mentioned
> before, my ancestors (maybe six to eight generations ago) were also "did
> in" by land owners who expropriated large chunks of common land for arable
> farming.
That's an unacceptable trivialization of the American genocide.
I doubt very much that Keith's ancestors were wiped out with smallpox-
infested blankets, arbitrarily shot like deer, or militarily locked up
in destitute "reservations", not to mention other forms of archaic mass
victimization.
Keith's spin above speaks volumes about the kind of "Objective Truth and
Liberty with Keith and Harry"...
On Thu, 03 Jan 2002, Keith Hudson wrote:
> It's clear that some Futurework subscribers slot Harry and me into a
> "right-wing fascist-type" box.
>
> Well, I haven't consulted Harry on this but I wouldn't mind betting that
> he was a left-winger when he was young. I was. I was a strong socialist
Uh-oh. Mussolini began as a socialist too...
Chris
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Harry Pollard
Henry George School of LA
Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: (818) 352-4141
Fax: (818) 353-2242
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