From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Apr 09 2003 - 11:36:13 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
>Charles writes
>
>
>
>>[Lee wrote]
>>
>>
>> ...
>
>I've never seen a society getting richer that got (internally)
>worse. I'd rather a country be run by rich hoodlums that by
>poor hoodlums (except for the unfortunate out-country effects).
>
>In the historical cases I know of, namely the West, the "elite"
>we are discussing here who makes all the money does so with no
>more moral laxity than animates the general person in the
>population. Surely you don't believe that the rich got their
>money because they're evil.
>Lee
>
But the key question here is "What do you mean rich?". You certainly
aren't talking about the amount of money, or one could accomplish this
easily with inflation. You aren't talking about the speed with which
money flows, as that's just inflation under a new disguise. You could
be talking about the quantity of tangible goods, but this is only "rich"
if they are accessible by those who use them in some way (including
storing them for specified future use).
My definition of rich would be "the ability of people to acquire the
tools to accomplish projects without expending their life in the
acquisition". That's a bit flakey, and needs much more precision, but
if people can't do things, then they aren't rich. If only a few can
choose what to do, then the society isn't rich, though those few people
may be. etc. Land and other tangible property thus enters into the
equation as one of the tools that allows one to accomplish the works
that one intends.
Considering "money" here is a bit of misdirection. Money is a set of
crooked accounting records. The accounting records enable one to make
fair exchanges. One puts up with their being crooked, because there
isn't much choice.
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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