From: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 07:15:48 +0800
To: cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: RE: Two Jims, Werner and Matt redefine socialism for their own en (fwd)
Message-ID: <199810122259.RAA03743@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Forwarded message:

> From: Matthew James Gering <mgering@ecosystems.net>
> Subject: RE: Two Jims, Werner and Matt redefine socialism for their own en
> 	ds
> Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 14:24:16 -0700

> > multinational bank and local government. I can vote 
> > for my councillors. Some of them I my  neighbours.
> 
> So why can't your neighbors run a bank?

The same reason most people can't. Funny thing is, it's the same reason a
lot of bankers can't run banks.

> Distribute what and created by whom? Need I point out the obvious
> fallacy that wealth is a static sum.

Interesting. I don't see that particular axiom in my notes....what I see is
the assumption that markets and their growth are unlimited. Pesky things
like ecological impacts, social impacts, waste processing, etc. are no big
percentage (as in completely ignored).

> Abstract wealth and divorce it
> from the creator and you eliminate the motive to create.

An interesting but obtuse means of stating that economics are a result of
human action and not a fundamental force in nature.

> > And then Matt Gering replied to Ken Brown:
> > 
> > >> A monopolisitic supplier of some good has a measure 
> > >> of political power.
> > 
> > > Political power comes at the mean end of a gun, what 
> > > political power do monopolies have and how?
> 
> > And I was almost knocked over by the innocence, ignorance and 
> > naievety of such a statement.
> 
> The question was not rhetorical. Do you care to answer?

Political power is actualy a much broader sword than Marx (and yourself
apparently) would paint. It's invovled in such basic actions as saying thank
you and holding a door open for somebody. The political aspect is a
fundamental belief that what goes around comes around. If I, and enough
other people walk around opening doors for each other, do this then when I
can't open the door somebody likely will. It's a gamble in the basic nature
of humans, to do the same basic things within the same social environment
the same basic way. Things like economies of scale have fundamental bases in
these sorts of psychological insights. Those comparable behaviours very
seldom involve violence as a motive, let alone a method. People, all people,
behave badly when violence is involved.

Usualy violence is involved in creating a behaviour of compliance that runs
contrary to some fundamental behaviour of the individual(s) or on the overt
attempt to steal or kill (murder is incorrect because it implies a social
structure that doesn't actualy exist at this fundamental level).

> > What political power do monopolies have? The power 
> > to deny you things you need to live.
> 
> How? By denying the ability of others to supply them. By denying your
> right to create them. By (legitimately) denying your ability to steal
> them. 

Monopolies have the power to decide *YOUR* tomorrow. It isn't theirs at the
cost of a simple profit.
 
> > - it is preserved by  military and police authority.

And social institutions.

> Exactly. So eliminate those guns.

Beeeep. We're so SORRY (not)!!!! That's absolutely the WRONG answer EVER.

> "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't 
>  go away." -- Philip K. Dick
> 
> Fine, stop believing in money, no one is forcing you to. Did it work?
> Oh, you mean *everyone* has to stop believing in it? Sounds like mass
> delusion to me,

That is EXACTLY what I've been trying to say all along! Economics is a
social institution that has fundamental roots in the base behaviours of the
animals involved.

> What is the root of money?
> http://www.ecosystems.net/mgering/money.html

Hunger.


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