Zeev, I believe with my whole heart that each man should live of his own labor. BTW, I've never read Karl so I can't comment on that.-g-
I view capitalism, Communism, etc. as different methods of "redistribution" of wealth...Upwardly! Also, I am not fully convinced of the benefits of todays society. I once read that a self sustaining farmer in 1825 worked less hours in a year than the 40 hour per week man today. Certainly it is undisputable that a middle class worker today works the first 5 months just to pay his taxes here in the USA. I know that the current consumerism fantasy that the world is infatuated with cannot ultimately be sustained(Thankyou Hollywood! and kudos to Madison Ave.). If/when the bough breaks, how many industrialized individuals could sustain themselves? Now that the course has been set, mankind must blindly(IMO) march forward. To turn back towards a self sustaining agrarian society would no doubt be suicide at this point. Utopia will never exist on this planet at any rate. Man, by his very nature, prevents such an occurence from ever happening. In fact, such a thought is heresy to mankind in his present pleasureable shopping spree. It is as if we have taken the most extreme characteristics of past eras(Roman, Greek, Ghengis Khan, Alexander the Great) and tried to "go beyond" in all of them at the same time. State of the art health clubs(I think an aerobics instructor needs a PhD these days -g-), food orgies(we call them super markets--a friend brought his rural Russian girlfriend to LA, then here to Hawaii last week...she was in a state of shock in LA when she walked into a grocery store with him...she didn't even know something like that really existed!), the absolute worst wars mankind has ever seen, yet we know have the ability to divorce the warrior from the responsibility/reality of hand to hand death. Samuel slaying 600 Philistines in one day with the jawbone of an ass stood as a world record for one day death by an individual until World War II. Now, your kids can watch video death in Iraq right after Sesame Street.
Perhaps gold is really more of a moral barometer/currency. The worse the morality of the world becomes, the less value gold has. Who needs anything to remind us of right/wrong? If the value of one's labor can be artificially manipulated by controlling money supply, then the one who has the power of supply is king...(I threw that in just to keep myself on topic -g-). Really tho, back in the good old days, wars were fought over gold and gold was power since labor could be bought with it, even armies. Once your gold was gone and the power with it, you were obligated to live under the moral code of your new boss(conqueror). Of course, you did have one other alternative ...just die. It appears to me that with globalization, the vast majority of humanity has nowhere to hide, therefore gold may indeed no longer be necessary for those that hold the power to keep the power.
At any rate, it is interesting to try to find out the reasons behind the moves. Maybe then, one could see the bus coming and sidestep it! |
