Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2003 8:23
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework]
Sociopaths
Ray,
I too am tired of playing word
games.
A name should be used to describe a defined concept
- if one is to communicate. I have described many times the defined
concept to which I attach the word 'privilege'.
Among the qualities that make a good law is "it
should apply equally to each person".
However, legislators make "laws" that do not apply
equally to everyone. To these I attach the name privilege and that's the way I
use it.
"A privilege is legislation that gives to one
at the expense of another."
That's all. It's a kind of Zen One-Way Exchange.
Wealth passes in one direction. Nothing comes back in
return.
A dictionary is a record of common usage. People
may attach a word to a dozen meanings, or 50 meanings (as you
found). It's a reason why discussion and debate can be so frustrating. Two
discussants may each think the other is stupid for not 'getting' the
obvious. Yet, though they use the same words, their meanings are
different.
They may each speak English, yet each is speaking a
different language. They pass in the night without a
contact.
But, you know that.
Concentration of Wealth and Power
comes directly from privilege.
Acquiring great wealth takes a lot of exertion
and thought and along the way, a rational individual will stop such efforts
and be satisfied with what he has because other things become more important
than working his life away.
The return from privilege accrues without effort.
It might easily be spent (from riches to rags). But a sensible
privilege holder will save the privilege return and buy more privilege, thus
increasing the return he gets without effort. This is the way the great
fortunes were built - and the way they still are.
Everyone knows about the industrial revolution with
its Satanic Mills and unbelievably bad conditions for workers - as young
as 6 working in the coal mines. But they should have read Marx, who
pointed out that the industrial revolution was financed by the landholders of
Britain.
So, everyone maligns Joe Shark - the dirty
capitalist who treats his workers shabbily, but everyone adores Lord Peter
Popsicle who lives in the large mansion on the hill and who, on occasion,
will give philanthropic help to Shark's workers.
The workers don't think that their poor
conditions might stem from the largesse Shark has to give
Popsicle for his factory and the right to use Popsicle
land.
How are the great fortunes made? Well, Carlyle put
it better than anyone:
"The widow is gathering
nettles for her children's dinner. A perfumed seigneur, delicately lounging at
the Oeil de Boeuf, hath an alchemy whereby he will extract from her the
third nettle, and call it rent."
It's that third nettle that's the rub. It's built
the great fortunes that swallow additional privileges from compliant
legislatures and make a "people's democracy" an object of
derision.
But, you know that too.
Harry
******************************************** Henry George School of Social
Science of Los
Angeles Box 655
Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242
http://haledward.home.comcast.net
********************************************
Harry,
I decided to look up privilege and found seven
interesting denotative definitions that would describe almost anything as
privileged that is unique such as having been born to one
mother. Then I went to look for synonyms in the Thesaurus and that
showed layering that must be the nightmare for those who wish to make words
have the meaning of numbers. You are a bad man Harry, in
the black street sense. If you get my drift.
(context everyone, bad is a compliment
and means good in white society.)
It is a privilege to be allowed to move to a country
that you did nothing to evolve when keeping your accent doesn't drive people
away but draws them to you for other reasons than knowing that you are a good
person. I would certainly not have such a privilege in the English
countryside.
It is a privilege to drive down a highway that you did
not buy.
It is dumb luck and a privilege to be born to your
parent on your birthday at the minute of your birth.
It is dumb luck and a privilege not to be born to an
AIDS mother or a Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.
It is a privilege to be free in a world of slavery.
It is a privilege to picnic in a park you did not
create.
It is a privilege to sit under a tree you did not grow.
It is a privilege to drink clean water or breath clean
air.
It is a privilege to go to a play that cost more to
produce than the sum of the tickets could buy.
It is a privilege to watch a TV sitcom that you did not
pay for and refuse to watch the commercial.
It is a privilege to have health care that costs
more than your co-pay or premium.
It is a privilege for you to listen to music that you
didn't write or make an exchange equal to the value of the product.
In fact, whenever you make an exchange that is less than
the product's cost to make you have gotten a privilege. The only
dumb luck is where you are born, anything else is some form or other of
privilege gotten by your network and your station in life. Rather than
George, or as you explain "classical economics" I prefer Veblin who had
a way of cutting through all of this superficial drivel to the underlying
brutality of it all. He thought machines would rescue us and
he may have been right. Computers may make us finally give up this
fantasy of self-interest and self sufficiency. It all doesn't
compute.
If, as you say, you know more about this then I
then you are doing a bad job of explaining it thus far.
People who can create an energy exchange for their
existance are not people of privilege. But if you pay less
than it costs to make it plus the labor for the time of the creator than you
got a privilege.
There is a limited meaning of privilege that relates to
a "one of a kind" product that you have access to when others do not but that
is so nebulous that it could describe health as opposed to the
sickly.
Privilege may very well be the way of all life since all
life is "one of a kind" and recieves uniquenesses it did nothing to earn.
I'm tired of playing word games. When you
say that Artists, who spend their entire life developing their product that is
then used without a payment equal to the cost of the product, are after
privilege then I have nothing more to say to you.
Have you ever read Edward Everett Hale's "Man without a
country". It was required reading for all we Cherokees in
reservation school. Not a bad short story to remind us all of the
privileges of life and how we can fritter them away with stories and idle
chatter.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 4:11
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework]
Sociopaths
Ray,
I fear I understand it better than
you.
The difference is perhaps that you want special
privileges for the arts, while I want to end all
privileges.
All of them - and as Krugman suggests, it's not
just the Republicans. All of Congress are in for the
feast.
If you saw Bill Moyer's guest the other evening you
may remember that he laid the blame squarely on
Congress.
If you want the the huge profits of the drug
companies to end, all you need is a little free trade. Let generics be
imported from overseas without restriction. Then HMOs like the Kaiser will
be able cheaply to supply their patients.
So, would you give up your privileges if others
gave up their?
Harry
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