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

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Wed Nov 16 11:00:55 UTC 2011


On 16 November 2011 05:41, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am not an expert on the Jesuits... I wonder though, did they starve
> first when famine hit, or last?


Well, Libertarians would be the first to point you to the difference
between relatively well-fed members of a communist society, including eg
the Soviet Union of the fifties and the sixties,  and even incompetent or
unlucky poor members of an ideal capitalist society. The latter can do
whatever they like with whatever they may own; the former simply are simply
maintained, not necessarily on egalitarian terms, with resources on which
they have no private control and for which they are answerable at any time.

And what other way was there at the
> time to pursue a life of book learning?


The same way as a researcher in Krusciov's Russia. Abolition of private
property of course does not mean that collective property is equally
abolished.


> 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.
>

Yes, they are granted/grant themselves a position firmly and permanently
entrenching them in the middle class. But this is peanuts, and I am not
aware of any Western statesman other than Mr. Berlusconi who has personal
assets of a scale making him independently powerful.


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

One wonders if this is really going to be invariably true for their
respective peoples... :-)

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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