[GJM] #41 Norman Kurland On "Failure to distribute my post #40"
wesburt at juno.com
wesburt at juno.com
Sat May 26 15:33:02 MDT 2007
Hello again Norm,
I am always pleased when you reply to one
of my posts. It gives me the opportunity to
revisit your splendid web site and review
what is new since my last visit.
My visit to the glossary at www.cesj.org,
to check my understanding of "property" as
you suggested in your note appended below,
was rewarded with a new definition of an
old principle, subsidiarity. I have been
thinking about that principle since my
first experience with corporate decentralization
(1947-55) and have concluded that subsidiarity
has been the governing paradigm of Western
Civilization since "The Folly Of Rehoboam"
in B.C. 975. It has been practiced consistently
by Jews, by Catholics, by Muslims, by Protestants,
and by Humanists alike on their respective
congregations. To a layman like myself, A
concise statement of the governing paradigm
might read:
Under subsidiarity, each family or household
must fund all of its own development expense
from its current income or from debt.
In other words, no assistance to human development
except means-tested welfare and twelve years of
public education. It seems that the French
Socialist, Louis Blanc, did not quite finish
the topic when he defined "The Governing Principle
Of The State" as follows:
From each according to his abilities,
to each according to his needs.
Like our oldest history book, our Bible, the
principle of subsidiarity is both old and
flexible according to the interests of those
who are chosen to manage or govern their
respective communities. That flexibility
ranges from the optimum policy (TOP or good)
which funds development from current income,
to the wrong policy (TWP or evil) which funds development from debt.
I was disappointed, Norm, that you did not
reply to the original #40 on 20 May rather
than to my complaint to four Topica list
owners on 21 May about not distributing #40.
Incidentally, all four original #40s arrived
in my mail box on 23 May. The original was a
gold mine of politically incorrect topics
while the complaint mentioned only my "wish
for peace and sustainable prosperity in the
USA first, and elsewhere in the world by our
example." Either way, it is clear from your
note that my writing has failed to clearly
convey my understanding of our present
condition and of the future condition so many
of us hope to achieve while we are still alive
to enjoy it. Where appropriate, I have inserted supplementary comments
in your post below in
the format: [WSB comment WSB]. As you know
from previous exchanges, the second initial is
in case I get too long winded in the comment,
the reader will be reminded of who was commenting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Norman Kurland <thirdway at cesj.org>
To: wesburt at juno.com
Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 19:51:21 -0400
Subject: Re: Failure to distribute my post #40
Wes,
You're not on any of the lists I'm on. But if
you're interested in my quibble, I agree with
your goals of peace and sustainable growth, but
I find Kelso's logic more compelling than yours.
[WSB there is no contest between Kelso's logic
and mine. Kelso proposed a conceptual social
order, a whole system. My more modest objective
has been to bring to public attention a systemic
defect of omission in the industrial economy
which replaced our agrarian economy after the
Civil War. WSB]
You ignore the importance of capital ownership
in a capital-intensive world as a viable means
for distributing mass purchasing power and
diffusing economic power to every person.
[WSB As you may recall from my Figures 10c, 10e,
and 2-3e.gif, "The Great Transformation" of the
USA from a nation of property owning farmers and
small businessmen to a nation of propertyless
employees was completed by 1898 when the frontier
closed and the AEA abandoned its founding principles.
Karl Polanyi devoted 315 pages to that transformation
in 1944 and showed that the Speenhamland Law, or
"allowance system" had the same structure as the
later means-tested welfare and minimum wage laws;
all of which arrest human development at, or below,
the poverty level. Before I would propose a "New
System" to restore liberty and justice in the USA,
I felt obliged to find out why the existing
industrial system failed on human development, but
was a howling success on capital development. WSB]
(To understand our terminology, especially on
what we mean by property, see the Glossary near
the top of the home page at www.cesj.org. ) Hence,
I consider your system, while well-intentioned,
less practical and less just than Kelso's.
[WSB Again, Norm, you give me credit for too
much. WSB]
So that you understand the logic of our system,
please take the time to read and tell us what
in the following paper you disagree with and why.
A New Look at Prices and Money: The Kelsonian Binary
Model for Achieving Rapid Growth Without Inflation.
<http://www.cesj.org/binaryeconomics/price-money.html>
[WSB There is nothing in your paper that I could
disagree with. There is no way I could improve on
your description of the future condition of society
which we all aspire to. Everything you, Kelso,
Shakespeare and many others propose to do is in
the right direction and will be appropriate as we
move toward that future condition. But we are not
moving forward. We are "Losing Ground" as Charles Murray wrote in the
1980s. If you will look at
Figure 17i, Households, or the Households chart
in Figure 17i.gif, attached to this post, it
should be clear to anyone that about two thirds
of the voters will have paid dearly to get
through the parenting age and are in no mood
to pay again so other people's children can be
developed debt free. They have been told since kindergarten that taxes
Are theft and governments
are thieves, so they can't see beyond the cheap
solution provided by minimum wage laws and means-
tested welfare. WSB]
Respectfully yours,
Norm Kurland
www.globaljusticemovement.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End Norman Kurland ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On May 26, Bruce Porteous writes of #40:
Hello Wes,
Many thanks for posting this - sadly, the damage has now been done.
Bruce
~~~~~~~~~~~~ End Bruce ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks, Bruce, it is sad indeed, but what damage has been done, over the
109 years since the 'Great Transformation," can be undone in much less
than a century. Recall that I put it this way in #40:
The task still ahead of us is to extend the biblical solution
for an agrarian society to meet the requirements of our
industrial society: following the teaching of Thomas Paine,
Louis Blanc, Henry Carter Adams, Pope Leo XIII, Bertrand
Russell, C. H. Douglas, and many others who, still living,
remain silent.
The USA passed its apogee of moral superiority in the 1890s,
its apogee of economic superiority in the 1950s, and it has
been all down hill from the 1950s. It seems that our
businessmen of John D. Rockefeller's generation
received the same advice from P. T. Barnum in 1898 that
King Rehoboam received from his young advisors, 2873
years earlier in I Kings 12, and none of our Western Religions
have yet figured out why it was TWP (The Wrong Policy).
The US economy is unbalanced with 100% capitalism in our
private sector and only 50% capitalism in our public sector.
This unbalance amounts to genocide done slowly.
Kind regards,
Wes Burt
TOP and TWP are cognoscible on
Dr. W. Curtiss Priest's web site at:
<http://www.epie.org/cyber-soc/default.htm>
TOP is GOOD --- TWP is EVIL
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