[ExI] Money and Human Nature (was Re: Capitalism, anti capitalism, emotional arousal)

[Kelly Anderson]

2011/11/14 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> On 14 November 2011 02:34, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Wasn't this because the ruling class in Sparta were warriors? And
>> weren't they due a living by the rest of society? So, in effect, they
>> owned whatever they needed... whenever they needed it... right? They
>> were the elites.
>
> They certainly were the élite, but could not legally by any means become
> owners of anything. But the idea that an élite may be poorer that the people
> they rule on is certainly not unheard of. Think of Jesuites, for instance.
> Even at the acme of their influence, no matter how powerful they were
> individually or as an order, their vows (povery, obedience, chastity)
> prevented them from having any property at all in their name.
>
> This is not a legal fiction. It actually means you cannot inherit, you
> cannot sell or buy anything, you cannot have heirs, you cannot prevent the
> order from taking away anything you may be using. And in principle (albeit
> not always in practice) it means that your lifestyle should be, well,...
> spartan.

I am not an expert on the Jesuits... I wonder though, did they starve
first when famine hit, or last? And what other way was there at the
time to pursue a life of book learning? While they did not own
anything, the Jesuits had a fairly good lifestyle, given the state of
the overall economy of the times (most of those times, that is)...
Yes, they lived in a state of physical impoverishment... and yes, they
lived lives of physical labor... but compared to the lives of the serf
farmers around them, I don't think it was all that bad... from what
little I know about it.

> European aristocracies, OTOH, used certainly to have a more lavish
> lifestyle. But even there, at the origins of feodalism, you were not the
> owner of the land you ruled on, and the king (or the higher vassal) could
> take it away at any moment if you did not perform the duties for which it
> was entrusted to you: military protection, economic production, enforcement
> of laws, administration of justice, resolution of conflicts, collection of
> taxes... Paradoxically, it was the new ideas brought by capitalism that
> achieved to make them essentially parasitic classes, especially in
> continental Europe.

Interesting.

> Moreover, the idea is still widespread in the West that those who (at least
> officially) rule a country need not be the richest people in that country,
> or even that they should forfeit the control of any significant assets they
> may have during office.

Yes, though the retirement benefits for US politicians are
considerable. Lavish speaking fees have made the Clintons rich. Even a
one term congressman gets a nice little retirement package... as well
as a lucrati e lobbying job, if he wants it.

> What many consider a distortion is the fact that today poorer, albeit
> theoretically more powerful, rulers are in fact over-influenced by richer
> private citizens, or much more often headless, self-referential
> institutions, cartels and circles, such as bankers and speculators,  without
> any office or answeerability or visibility, through corruption, lobbying,
> campaign financing, media control, etc.

I don't like these aspects of the current system any more than the OWS
people... I just propose a different solution... large doses of
freedom.

> Mr. Berlusconi's rule in Italy was an exception in that he was essentially
> accused of being a corruptor rather than a corruptee... :-)

Ya, there is always the exception to the rule. Glad he's gone.
Khadaffi, Castro and Hussein too...

>> Even the Spartan warriors could not exist without the money that was
>> exchanged by the underclasses.
>
> Sure. In the broadest sense, a symbolic accounting system has never been
> abandoned anywhere it has ever been adopted.

I believe that is the case... although I'm sure there are exceptions
to that rule as well...

On the Yap islands "coins" were multi-ton doughnut shaped stones that
weren't moved when exchanged... just the understanding of who owned
that particular "coin" changed... LOL... the system is today used only
symbolically, for example in a dowry, and dollars have taken the place
of the stones for day to day exchange... perhaps this is better an
example of devaluation of a currency than giving up trading... LOL

I'll keep trying to think of an example, but it isn't easy for sure.

-Kelly