December 24, 2004
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Thenarrator introduced me to Huey Long, who ran against FDR in 1936. From discussing socialism, that led me to Stalin, which led me to FDR, and now Huey Long is on my plate. Here’s a quote:
“There is nothing wrong with the United States. We have more food than we can eat. We have more clothes and things out of which to make clothes than we can wear. We have more houses and lands than the whole 120 million can use if they all had good homes. So what is the trouble? Nothing except that a handful of men have everything and the balance of the people have nothing if their debts were paid. There should be every man a king in this land flowing with milk and honey instead of the lords of finance at the top and slaves and peasants at the bottom.”
Title: Share-our-wealth society is simply to mean that God’s creatures on this lovely American continent have a right to share in the wealth they have created in this country. They have the right to a living, with the conveniences and some of the luxuries of this life, so long as there are too many or enough for all. They have a right to raise their children in a healthy, wholesome atmosphere and to educate them, rather than to face the dread of their under-nourishment and sadness by being denied a real life.
Motto: “Every man a king” conveys the great plan of God and of the Declaration of Independence, which said: “All men are created equal.” It conveys that no one man is the lord of another, but that from the head to the foot of every man is carried his sovereignty.
Can you imagine a politician saying that today (besides envoking god’s name)? Some say the problem with America is we’re capitalist. Well…if Huey Long had his way, he might have been able to address some of the concerns that anti-capitalists hold regarding the exploitation of the working-class. What did Long propose?
1. To limit poverty by providing that every deserving family shall share in the wealth of America for not less than one third of the average wealth, thereby to possess not less than $5,000 free of debt. (no poverty, I support it)
2. To limit fortunes to such a few million dollars as will allow the balance of the American people to share in the wealth and profits of the land. (salary cap on the rich, I support it)
3. Old-age pensions of $30 per month to persons over 60 years of age who do not earn as much as $1,000 per year or who possess less than $10,000 in cash or property, thereby to remove from the field of labor in times of unemployment those who have contributed their share to the public service. (Social-security, sounds good)
4. To limit the hours of work to such an extent as to prevent overproduction and to give the workers of America some share in the recreations, conveniences, and luxuries of life.
(more free time for leisure, keep it comin’…)
5. To balance agricultural production with what can be sold and consumed according to the laws of God, which have never failed. (pass)
6. To care for the veterans of our wars. (that’s the least you could do)
7. Taxation to run the Government to be supported, first, by reducing big fortunes from the top, thereby to improve the country and provide employment in public works whenever agricultural surplus is such as to render unnecessary, in whole or in part, any particular crop. (yeah, steal from the rich, give to the poor, a political Robin Hood!)
Sounds radical, right? Jello Biafra, who played in the band Dead Kennedy’s and also once ran against Ralph Nader for the Green Party nomination, was also a fan of the income salary cap. (Biafra does some amazing spoken word performances now) With regards to taxation, we never hear politicians discussing tax the rich. Kerry did, but that wasn’t made clear in his platform. “We can save social security. We can spend more for public schools. We can save those programs that we have created to ensure an education and a financial safety net for those who struggle financially. And…how will we do this? Not simply by raising taxes, but by taxing the rich.” You heard Kerry allude to this, “we’ll tax people like me and President Bush,” but he never went far enough. “Anyone who has enough money to buy multiple luxury cars, will be taxed higher to help others in this country who cannot afford health care. I myself, as president, will lead by example. I will make sacrafices for my country. I will eat out less, and cook dinner more. I’ll eat peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches if it means someone else who would have gone hungry can also afford a sandwhich to eat”
When there was an oil crisis in the ’70′s, does anybody remember having to fill up gas only on certain days of the week. My parents told me that’s how it was. Sometimes, life has to be made just a little bit inconvenient. Americans spend something like $8billion a year on cosmetics. Things haven’t changed much since Huey Long ran for president. Too bad he didn’t win, somebody had to kill him first.
and here’s a button
For more info on Huey Long
Comments (4)
“Gaps”–differences–are innate to mankind. Do we want to close the “beauty gap” and make every woman look like Margaret Thatcher? Do we want to close the “talent gap” and field a World Cup football team starring, for example, the people on this panel?
In a world without gaps we’d all be the same. We’d all be the same sex. Who’d get pregnant? We’d all know the same things. What would we talk about? We’d all have the same work. Some job that would be. We’d all get the same vacation. Five point seven billion people playing a game of volleyball–2.85 billion to a side. The idea of a world where all people are alike–in wealth or in anything else–is a fantasy for the stupid.
But proposing to close the “wealth gap” is worse than silly. It entails a lie. The notion of economic equality is based on an ancient and ugly falsehood central to bad economic thinking: There’s a fixed amount of wealth. Wealth is zero-sum. If I have too many cups of tea, you have to lick the tea pot. But wealth is based on productivity. Productivity is expandable. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any economic thinking, good or bad, or any tea or tea pots either.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution human productivity has proven to be fabulously expandable. The economist Angus Maddison has been studying economic growth since the 1950′s. In 1995, under the auspices of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, he published a book, Monitoring the World Economy 1820-1992. The earth had fewer natural resources and no more farm land in 1992 than it had in 1820 and in that period the earth’s population multiplied by five. But, in 1990 U.S. dollars, the value of everything produced in the world grew from $695 billion in 1820 to almost $28 trillion in 1992 and the amount of that production per person went from $651 to $5,145.
A collectivist can hear these figures and claim they are just averages, claim they don’t show who actually got that money. The collectivist can recite the old saying: “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” But there is no statistical evidence of this. The United Nations Population Division’s “World Population Prospects: 1996 Revision” contains past and present statistics on infant mortality and life expectancy at birth. And these figures don’t present the same averaging problems as per capita world product. No matter how rich the elite of a country is, its members aren’t going to live to be 250 and distort the averages. And if the few rich babies in a country live and the mass of poor babies in a country die, that country will not have a “normal” infant mortality rate but a very bad one. Infant mortality and life expectancy are reasonable indicators of general well-being in a society.
Besides giving figures for individual countries, the U.N. consolidates averages into three groups: “More Developed Regions,” “Less Developed Regions,” and “Least Developed Regions.” The last meaning countries that are damn poor–Laos, Madagasgar, Chad. In the early 1950′s the richer countries in the world had an average of 58 deaths per 1000 live births. They now have an average of 11. Over the same period the poorest countries went from 194 deaths per 1000 to 109. The “gap” was 136 dead babies 40 years ago and the “gap” is 98 dead babies now. This is still too many dead babies, of course, but the difference isn’t increasing. The rich are getting richer but the poor aren’t becoming worse off. They’re becoming parents.
The same trend is seen in life expectancy. In the early 1950′s people in rich countries had a life expectancy of 66.5 years. Now they live 74.2 years. In the poorest countries average lifespans have increased from 35.5 years to 49.7 years. The difference in life expectancy between the world’s rich and poor has decreased by 6 1/2 years. The rich are getting richer. The poor are getting richer. And we’re all getting older.
So, if wealth is not theft, if the thing that makes you rich doesn’t make me poor, why don’t collectivists concentrate on the question, “How do we make everyone wealthy?” Or better, “How have we been managing to do this so brilliantly since 1820?”
Why, instead, do collectivists concentrate on the question, “How do we redistribute wealth?”
Collectivism is silly, deceitful, a sin. It’s also cowardly. We fear the power others have over us. And wealth is power. So we fear the rich. We fear that Nike is going to make them sew jogging suits in sweat shops for 30 cents an hour.
But how rational is this fear? Take a midnight stroll through a rich neighborhood then take a midnight stroll through the U.S. Capital. Yes, you can get in a lot of trouble in Monte Carlo. You can lose at roulette. But you’re more likely to get robbed in the slums of Washington.
Not that we should begrudge the crimes of those poor people. They’re just practicing a little “free-lance collectivism.” They’re doing what the U.S. Government does, in their own small way. Because the real alternative to the power of the rich is not the power of the poor but plain, simple power. If we don’t want the world’s wealth to be controlled by people with money then the alternative is to have the world’s wealth controlled by people with guns. Governments have plenty of guns.
The theory of this is quite good. The robber puts down his pistol, picks up the ballot box and steals from rich people instead of from you. But the reality is different. Witness the track record of collectivism in this century: The holocaust, Stalin’s purges, the suffering caused by the Great Leap Forward here. Thirty million dead from closing the wealth gap in Chinese agriculture; 6 million dead from closing the commerce gap in the Ukraine; and the deaths go on and on.
We should quit thinking about the “wealth gap” and start thinking about wealth. Wealth is good. Everybody knows that about his own wealth. If you got rich it would be a great thing. You’d improve your life. You’d improve your family’s life. You’d purchase education, travel, knowledge about the world. You’d invest in wise and worthwhile things. You’d give money to noble causes. You’d help your friends and neighbors. Your life would be better if you got rich. The lives of the people around you would be better if you got rich. Your wealth is good. So why isn’t everybody else’s wealth good, too?
Wealth is good when many people have it. It’s good when few people have it. This is because money is a tool, nothing more. You can’t eat money or drink money or wear money. And wealth–an accumulation of money–is a lot of tools.
Tools can be used to do harm. You can hit somebody over the head with a shovel. But tools are still good. When a carpenter has a lot of tools we don’t say to him, “You have too many tools. You should give some of your saws and planes and nails and chisels to the man who’s cooking omelettes.” We don’t try to close the “tool gap.”
Wealth brings great benefits to the world. Rich people are heros. They don’t usually mean to be but that’s their moral problem not ours. Most of the world now admits that free enterprise works. Globalization has made the Third World several thousan times richer than all the free handouts the collectivists guilted and begged out of us ever did or could. Economic liberty makes people rich. But in our residual collectivism and our infatuation with equality we keep trying to get rid of rich people.
thatliberalmedia makes the basic mistake. Economics IS a zero sum game. If he gets rich he gets rich by taking what belongs to other people. Right now he is taking your tax money and my tax money so he can attend his little rich kids prep school, Johns Hopkins, the single most federally supported university in America. His argument is then that he has zero obligation to pay anything back, because of course, to him “the rich are heros.” Sorry, moron, they are not. People who produce things are heroes. People who create something from nothing are heroes. People who do for mankind without expecting excessive compensation are heroes. The guys people like thatliberalmedia send off to die in Iraq in exchange for so little money their families need food stamps to survive (of course he’d cut food stamps too) are heroes. thatliberalmedia, like our President, are simply money-grubbing, leech-cowards. Henry Ford, for example, was a hero. He created something. He paid his workers fairly, shifting the entire wage structure in America. He sold his products as cheaply as possible. And at his death he gave away an enormous sum of money dedicated to creating a better world. JP Morgan is no hero at all. He made money off of speculation that bankrupted millions. He starved workers, threatened the health and safety of millions more (the Titanic disaster just “the tip of the iceberg”), and got fabulously rich. The world, assuredly, would have been better off without him.
thatliberalmedia also profoundly misrepresents the world, lying just like his political “heroes” to make his nonsensical point. No other industrialized nation tolerates the nonsensical form of capitalism we have in this country. No one else wants it, desires it, or even, honestly, considers it. They’ve all moved far beyond it, to understanding the obvious limitations of Adam Smith (which were obvious even to Paine, Jefferson, Madison). The rest of the world, for example, understands the economic theories of John Nash, that pure self-interest really isn’t better for anyone. Remember, thatliberalmedia and his ilk really, really want a banana republic, with 99% of the wealth held by 1% of the population. That’s based in the psychotic belief that they are better, smarter, more worthy than the rest of us, so all rights should be naturally inherited. It is a sick concept. The same “superman” ideas that drove Nazism.
America was founded on the concepts of democracy and equality of opportunity. In order for both to exist a much fairer economic system must be in place. Voting is meaningless when you can work a 40 hour week and not be able to house and feed your family. And if work has no tangible reward, and comes with no real possibility of success, there is no democracy at all.
George W.Bush, an untalented, non-working, non-tax-paying recipient of white priviledge and inherited wealth is the poster boy for all that’s wrong with this society. But, yes, he’s rich, so idiots like thatliberalmedia think he’s a hero. That’s a sad thing to hear on Christmas Day.
(Keep reading about Huey. Hardly a perfect guy, but if you follow what he did in Louisiana, taxing the hyper-rich and the oil companies to create schools, public hospitals, roads, and universities, you’ll understand how well it all worked.)
If wealth were zero-sum, there would never be progress. How is Bill Gates wealthy? He made Microsoft. Why did IBM get rich? They made the PC. The fact that wealth is created is completely provable. You can see it in our longer life spans and lower infant mortality rates. Can you find examples of people who’ve abused capitalism? Certainly. But fortunately, the excesses of capitalism do not involve setting up guillotines in public squares, executing and starving millions of people at a time. In a hundred years, capitalists made the world an infinitely better place. Collectivists wilfully killed at least 100 million people and failed to impress their vision on the world.
People who do something for nothing are heroes, so the idea apparently is that we must force people to be heroes. Let me know how that one turns out. Oh wait, we already do, don’t we. I always find it fascinating how Nazis, the National Socialist party, where you worked, and were given money at the order of a central command, is considered right-wing. It is truly one of the collectivists greatest hoodwinks.
The rest of the industrialized world “has moved past us?” All of the EU, with several times our population, put together is beginning to slip behind us in wealth. It is having trouble competing with Japan. Belguim (ironically, the “home” of the EU) can barely be considered a democracy anymore. It’s bankrupted socialized medicine has forced them to begin euthanizing the elderly for lack of funds to pay for their treatment, (why should the rich live while the poor die?) drafting fleeing doctors into the military in order to force them to work for free, and outlawing opposing parties. Again, the choice is not between being “ruled by” the rich or the poor. It is the choice between freedom or guns.
thenarrator does admit there have been some good capitalists; Henry Ford, without admitting his policies ensure people like Henry Ford never happen. What do you do when all the rich you’ve lambasted for so long stop working? What happens when the workers you claimed were as necessary as the minds are reduced to foraging for roots in the forests? What else but to pride yourself on how equal everyone is? While you’re at it, why not eliminate the beauty gap? Why should some get to be better looking than others? I say, free (And mandatory) plastic surgery for all. Let there be no differences between us.
It’s one thing to advocate extreme forms of socialism without realizing what you’re really calling for. It’s another to know precisely the form of despicable facism you are forcing on people. The man who cannot find a good word to say about President Bush can’t wait for the return of a man who ruled Lousiana like a dictator, ordering murders of opponents, and looting from the treasury. Hardly a perfect guy indeed. Wonder what thenarrator had to say about Stalin.
You just keep making stuff up. You do this all around xanga, probably more here than in person so fewer people laugh in your face, thatliberalmedia. The fact that you can’t distinguish between incentive and absolute abuse, between success and theft, indicates more of a deep personality disorder than a political philosophy. The need to flat out lie: be it about Belgium or someone dead as long as Huey Long – or anything else you disagree with, pretty much confirms that.
On this Christmas morning I’ll simply point out the obvious: If half of what Michael Eisner earned each year were used to create new jobs, he’d still be super-rich and America would be a better place, even a better place for Disney shareholders who would have many more customers. There are no primates who are not social by nature. The success of the group is vital to individual survival. “The lone ape is a dead ape.” Not just the essence of our religions, the basis for human progress, but an economic fact as well.