The world has gotten to be such a rotten place for two standards that have fallen. I am convinced fix these two and we have yet another road to peace and prosperity.
Usury, what we today call interest, concentrates economic power in ever fewer hands. While it was a criminal act (any interest rate at any amount, on anything fungible to be returned with a "profit") it was kept in check. Today, the one percent literally calls the shots. I don't think it should be criminalized again, just de-legitimized. If there is no venue to recover interest agreed upon, just as there is no venue that will enforce gambling debts, then that will be enough to end the practice.
Pollution is where profits are privatized and costs are socialized. Otherwise, what is the point? Up until about 1850, pollution was checked by property rights. No wonder progressives so hate property rights. The idea that what you do on your land is limited the effect it has on others land goes back to Exodus 22:
Build a factory that spews coal smoke and dirty Mom's laundry, Mom gets a cease and desist injunction plus damages to her laundry from a judge. Then we changed to "who employs more people" and we got massive pollution. The more you pollute, the more likely you win. This is something new, ever so capitalist. (The later communists are no slackers in this either, check out Lake Baikal.)
Today progressives love pollution, they do everything they can to preserve it: cap and trade carbon does not end pollution, it just provides a sinecure to progressives who get a cut of the action by managing the horrors of pollution.
Clean air, water, etc does not cost too much, it just costs more.
Private real property ownership, a totem in capitalism, did not prevent pollution. Perhaps there is freedom in getting rid of private real property ownership. Hong Kong is relatively pollution free (it is plagued by Foshan, up the river in China, what with 7 millions in a rather tight space. No one owns land there.
Usury allows the concentration of economic power in very few hands, after which the moneyed can buy what laws they want, such as privatize profits and socialize costs (pollution).
You want to see the USA before the capitalists and progressives ruined it, check out this excellent case by case study of USA law by a Marxist professor, Morton Horwitz. Read this book to be far better informed on the world in which you live.
The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (Studies in Legal History)
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Usury, what we today call interest, concentrates economic power in ever fewer hands. While it was a criminal act (any interest rate at any amount, on anything fungible to be returned with a "profit") it was kept in check. Today, the one percent literally calls the shots. I don't think it should be criminalized again, just de-legitimized. If there is no venue to recover interest agreed upon, just as there is no venue that will enforce gambling debts, then that will be enough to end the practice.
Pollution is where profits are privatized and costs are socialized. Otherwise, what is the point? Up until about 1850, pollution was checked by property rights. No wonder progressives so hate property rights. The idea that what you do on your land is limited the effect it has on others land goes back to Exodus 22:
5 “When a man causes a field or vineyard to be grazed over, or lets his beast loose and it feeds in another man’s field, he shall make restitution from the best in his own field and in his own vineyard.6 “When fire breaks out and catches in thorns so that the stacked grain or the standing grain or the field is consumed, he that kindled the fire shall make full restitution.
Build a factory that spews coal smoke and dirty Mom's laundry, Mom gets a cease and desist injunction plus damages to her laundry from a judge. Then we changed to "who employs more people" and we got massive pollution. The more you pollute, the more likely you win. This is something new, ever so capitalist. (The later communists are no slackers in this either, check out Lake Baikal.)
Today progressives love pollution, they do everything they can to preserve it: cap and trade carbon does not end pollution, it just provides a sinecure to progressives who get a cut of the action by managing the horrors of pollution.
Clean air, water, etc does not cost too much, it just costs more.
Private real property ownership, a totem in capitalism, did not prevent pollution. Perhaps there is freedom in getting rid of private real property ownership. Hong Kong is relatively pollution free (it is plagued by Foshan, up the river in China, what with 7 millions in a rather tight space. No one owns land there.
Usury allows the concentration of economic power in very few hands, after which the moneyed can buy what laws they want, such as privatize profits and socialize costs (pollution).
You want to see the USA before the capitalists and progressives ruined it, check out this excellent case by case study of USA law by a Marxist professor, Morton Horwitz. Read this book to be far better informed on the world in which you live.
The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 (Studies in Legal History)
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
0 comments:
Post a Comment