----- Original Message ----- From: Rodney Shakespeare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Social Credit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 8:26 AM Subject: Re: Spam Alert: Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT] Sun, cow, fish, machine, hydro=electric
> Do you accept that the physics book accurately portrays the situation? Rodney, the pushing and pulling you describe is a personification, used by the physicists' to get their heads (and those of students) around ideas like mass, force, work and energy that were new to European peoples in the 16th-17th century. I readily agree that mass, force and movement existed on this planet and in the cosmos long before the appearance of humankind. Our subject here, however, is capital. Capital is not a topic in physics. Before Man the Toolmaker there was no such thing as capital. Capital is a human creation, involving the combination of thought and action on non-human parts of the planet earth. And that is not the end of the definition, because not all of such products of human action become capital. Some are consumed directly. The parts that become capital are withheld from current consumption in order that they can contribute to further acts of production, enabling further decisions on what portion should be consumed and what to retain as a conributing factor to still more production. > And do not fish breed etc without human intervention? And trees grow? And is not the sun an independent contributor to= > production (even though it cannot be owned? I have never suggested that Nature is not productive. Lots of things happen in Nature without human intervention. But raw Nature is not capital, and human beings are no longer part of nature. (Remember that Kelso's first co-author wrote a long book on "The Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes".) Once domesticated by human action, however, parts of nature like seeds and donkeys can become capital. >Are there not automatic machines (even though they require occaisonal > maintenance and repair?). > And, frankly, if you do not understand that a driverless lorry, (like a > driverless train) really does have no driver, then I cannot help you any > more and I suggest, for the sake of the others on this elist, that we end > the subject. > Rodney Shakespeare. Show me a place where I have ever denied that automation is a progressive reality. Our persistence in this dialogue has brought me a clue to what may be the blind spot in binarian thinking. You want to believe in magic, in a world of abundance where capital creation isn't really necessary--whether by direct toil or by waiting (using part of the product in further production). If that is the case, then it is a grave injustice that everyone should not have a share in the magic of abundance without either toil or saving. And since finance is or could be free......there is no excuse for not moving immediately to a world where everyone has a share of the free magic. This seems to have been the reaction of Richard Stutsman when he saw where tough thinking was leading him. There is an element of the freely available abundance attitude in Social Credit, but it is far more firmly grounded in coping with awkward realities by rigorous thinking. When binary economists are confronted by awkward realities, the reaction is to simply deny them and cling to the simplistic magic. The binary analysis is delusional, and the refusal to do hard thinking is immoral. I do agree that would should not be cluttering the Social Credit list with this discussion. More of it should be addressed toward your more recent co-author. Keith > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "John M=E9daille" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Social Credit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2003 4:05 PM > Subject: Spam Alert: Re: [SOCIAL CREDIT] Sun, cow, fish, machine, > hydroelectric dam=3D,=3D3D =3D3D3Di > > > At 10:23 PM 7/21/2003 +0100, Rodney Shakespeare wrote: > >John, > >I specifically asked for your -- and Keith's response -- on the > following:-=3D > > > >"Could I try a little physics example? If you push on a wall, the wall > >pushes back becasue you, and it, remain in balance. That is basic > physics.=3D > > > >Now you and Keith would deny that the wall pushes back becasue you would > sa=3D > >y > >the wall has no volition. And yet the "pushing" happens even if no humans= > > >are involved e.g. tables are pulled down by gravity and the floor pushes > >back so that they remain in balance." > > What is the relevance to the question of "independent" productivity? Were > is any "productivity" involved in the example? How does this relate to the > "productivity" of driverless lorries? > > > John C. M=E9daille > > "A dead thing can go with the stream... > but only a living thing can go against it." > -G. K. Chesterton > http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.htm > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > --^---------------------------------------------------------------- > This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84IaC.bcQuHz.Um9kbmV5 > Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! > http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html > --^---------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > > --^---------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84IaC.bcVIgP.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html --^----------------------------------------------------------------
