So why has Capitalism had a bad week but not Catholicism? Hanson was a member of the same Opus Dei chapter as Louis Freeh, the head of the FBI, who refused to give him a polygraph and Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court Justice who gave us our current President is also a member of that chapter. On the other side are the pedophiles. Oh yes the young bomber was a lapsed Catholic who had just found religion again and Timothy McVieh the Oklahoma bomber was a Catholic as well. And what about the Mafia? I realize that there are over a billion Catholics in the world and the sampling is very small but is not the sampling on Enron the same in relation to all of capitalism?
I don't think one can judge a system by its crooks but by its problems. Capitalism has problems and vulnerabilities in relation to Creativity being so externally motivated as I said earlier today. Those who are lazy or who won't be internally motivated need the capitalist external motivation in order to take care of themselves. The internally motivated, on the other hand, are simply working double duty to do both their work and to put food in their mouths. I could get so much more done if I didn't have to deal with that issue, and I did when I had a small inheritance and was able to truly do my work during that time. I got a lot done but now find that the needs of the Art and fundraising for the Art are impossible when I have to earn so much to keep the bills paid. I'm working on an International festival to honor America's "Beethoven" who will be 80 next year. The wage earners he has hired around him both in publishing and publicity are bean counters and clock punchers. If it gets done it will be done by those who put in the extra mile, the overtime at no cost. As helpful as the upper class volunteers are, they depend upon my being able to service them even though I am pro bono as well. This system works on the backs of the inner motivated. But some of the talented have money and the rest suffer. You have to be able to imagine something outside the box of the normal if you are to get anything done in a capitalistic system in the Arts. There is a big lie. That the Arts would survive if the middle and lower class cared enough and bought enough. All of the media serves this lie with stories about how the audiences are dying off and there will be no one to come to the opera or symphony. Actually, the audiences, like the students in the university, do not cover the expenses of the events. If they sold out every event and the Metropolitan Opera is 98% sold out every season, they would still only pay for 60% of the costs with sales. They have raised the tickets out of the range of the middle and lower classes here. In Europe the Artists make enough through government salaries to afford to come here and go to the opera including their plane fares. Here we cannot afford to walk down the street and go because our salaries are too low to afford the Metropolitan. Meanwhile all other jobs have a 100 year increase in productivity that the Arts and all other creative R & D simply cannot compete with. You cannot downsize and increase creativity in the Arts or Research. In either case the work simply won't get done. In Creative Research the work will take longer and innovation will suffer while in the Arts they simply stop. When your mirrors are too poor to do their jobs then your identity suffers. Creativity must be compensated or you will be easily taken in by fraud and by history. Art must live in deeds not in derivation or it doesn't serve the purpose the West has designated for it. Socialism seems to be the only answer for the inner motivated workers and as much as I dislike large government entities it does seem that Socialism is the only answer if the West is to have a uniform Creativity in my field. This has nothing to do with whether Capitalism has crooks or Socialism has shirkers. Both are true and both are just the way things are. But you cannot live if Creativity is stunted in either situation and no amount of sophistry with words will rescue you when your society falls apart because you missed these points. IMHO. Ray Evans Harrell, ----- Original Message ----- From: "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2002 7:49 PM Subject: Re: If you don't advertise, you don't exist > Brad McCormick wrote: > > "Capitalism" has not had a very good week this past week, with > > the Enron disclosures > > ...and with the indictment of Robert Hanssen, the FBI officer who had > to sell state secrets to the Russians just so he was able to pay the > private school fees for his children. Perhaps the U$ should have put > more funds into a decent public school system instead of StarWars... > > > > However, I have some ideas about private property: I think > > that ownership should imply *trusteeship* and *conservatorship*. > > Imagine how it would change things if, if a person who > > owned something of value did not take good care of it, they could > > be sued for material damages equal to the amount they had > > let their possession degrade by and/or have their > > possession taken away and entrusted to someone > > who would take better care of it, and if the owner > > could also be liable for treble punative damages or > > in egregious cases or where the monetary > > penalty was not a deterrant, criminal penalties (imprisonment). > > Great idea, I second that. It should first be applied to British Railways > (you know, the one with the 160-year-old oil lamps), where another 7 > people had to die because of sloppy maintenance of a rail switch. > The Queen was "very shocked" (instead of seeing to it that a few of her > countless bucks are spent for decent rail maintenance or even a decent > railways management...). [after all, the "Sovereign" in the UK is > still the Queen, not the people. So how about some "conservatorship"? > (she's certainly conservative enough..)] > > Chris > >
