From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Apr 10 2003 - 23:20:11 MDT
Charles writes
> OK. Now that we've clarified details... Yes, for certain definitions of
> evil, I believe that more than a minor part of the "elite" earned their
> fortune through evil.
Yes, that's true. But what I am saying is that they don't
appear to be SFAIK more evil than the general run of the
population. For every bit of corruption at high levels,
you also at the same historical time find IMO comparable
flaws at lower levels.
> Here we are talking more about deceit than force
> or fraud, but those also played a part. Consider,
> to pick a particularly well documented example,
> the trans-continental railroads. The particular
> thing they were building was a very worthwhile
> construction, but the financing of it involved
> considerable chicanery, political manipulation, etc.
And this was *entirely* the fault of the government.
It was widely, and erroneously (and to this day)
believed that government subsidies were necessary
to get anything going. Quite the reverse is true.
Yes, Fulton did invent the steamboat, but then the
stupid governments gave him monopoly power on rivers
until a famous supreme court decision went against
him. True wealth was created by Commodore Vanderbilt,
who defied the government monopoly, and succeeded
finally in driving those companies that bribed the
politicians out of business.
Same thing for the railroads. While, yes, the Union
Pacific and Western Pacific made record time, they
made terrible railroads, because they never intended
to profit from the roads themselves. They wanted the
government subsidies, which paid by the mile. On the
other hand, James Hill built the Northern Pacific,
and, since he intended for it to be a profitable line,
it went slower and didn't use government money. It
*didn't* eventually go bankrupt.
So the problem, as is so OFTEN the case, was compulsion
(the use of force) either via taxation---a form of
stealing---or by making laws restricting freedom (as
in the case of granting monopolies).
Lee
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