Jim, I think that the term castigate must mean different things to different
people. The meaning of castigate as it has been used can mean something good.

Castigate does not mean destroying property, but rather "making pure" or
"making steady" perhaps since to be steady means to be pure of the shakes.

Castus L. <pure> + ago L. <make>

Brian is using the term castigate in the sense of "moral castigation" as a
means of education, which includes "correction". The term was used by
Thackerey thus

"He came the gentle satirist [Addison], who hit no unfair blow; the kind
judge who *castigated* in smiling." [Thackerey, English Humorists, lect. ii,
p.83]

Brian uses the term castigate when he writes satirically about the
'liquidator' who eats a 16 pound Porterhouse steak. Much of the 'homilies'
presented in this book reflect the intention of making pure the habits which
contribute to waste and overexploitation of natural resources and the
spoilage of the environment. The rich by definition are those who can afford
luxury consumption at the expense of the grandkids, and great grandkids.

Homily: "a serious admonition; as to read one a homily upon his conduct."
F&W, vol. 1, 1949

"These virtuous homilies, so often preached by him against territorial
aggrandizement." [Motley, John of Barneveld, vol. 1, ch. 1, p.100]

The economic infertility, and suffering of the world's poor [easily 99%]
supporting the remaining 1% of the worlds' richest persons with labour is
inconscionable - only because they lack an entitlement to the full value of
their labour, are they poor. "Beggar thy neighbour" is implicit in foreign
policy [Joyce Applby, see below].

"When the maverick spirit of fashion revealed itself in the craze over
printed calicoes the potential market power of previously unfelt wants came
clearly into view. Under the sway of new tastes, people had spent more, and
in spending more the elasticity of demand had become apparent. In this
elasticity, the defenders of domestic spending discovered the propulsive
power of envy, emulation, love of luxury, vanity, and vaulting
ambition....Once consumption was analyzed as a constructive activity, the
connections could be made between incentives to work, greater efficiency,
and higher levels of spending -  a self-sustained momentum for economic
growth, which did not rely on favorable balances." [Joyce Oldham Appleby,
Economic Thought and Ideology in Seventeeth-Century England. Princeton
Paperbacks, page 169. 1980]

"Describing the deadly sins as economic virtues, Houghton said that 'those
who are guilty of Prodigality, Pride, Vanity, and Luxury, do cause more
Wealth to the Kingdom, than Loss to their own Estates." [supra note, page
170. footnote, cf. Houghton, Discourse apon trade, 1691, p.14, K]

Joyce Appleby observes that "these writers drew attention to the specific
economic function of each emotion" which she calls "psychological stimulants
to demand". Novelties, things scarce, are said to "causeth trade" and as
Dalby Thomas observes these are not sins, but rather "true spurs to virtue,
valour, and elevation of the mind, as well as the just rewards of industry."

Fashion according to Barbon, promotes trade because it "occasions the
Expence of Cloaths, before the Old ones are worn out."

Responding to Dalby Thomas, who "explicitly distinquished between the
spending of labourers and of the idle rich, the first contributed to the
nations wealth, the latter not. It took just such a liberal reworking of
theories of economic development to provoke Humphrey Makworth's salute to
population growth: "the more the merrier."' [supra note, page 171-173]

And more recently Massarat in an analysis of growth models demonstrates how
unrestrained growth leads to pauperization of the worlds poor, destruction
of the environment, and depletion.

"Growth models which either fully or partially draw on the externalization
of social or ecological costs are not self-supporting and are therefore not
sustainable. We are therefore dealing with models of pauperization and
environmentally destructive growth or a mixture of both.

[The latest Human Development Report differentiates between five
non-sustainable types of economic growth: growth without new jobs,
unscrupulous growth, growth without codetermination, growth without roots
and growth without a future (due to the excessive consumption of natural
resources) (UNDP, 1996)

For instance,

"Despite the ILO Convention, which prohibits the employment of under
fifteens, an estimated 200 million children worldwide were working in 1986 -
fourfold increase compared to seven years before (Pollman, 1988, p.9)....A
more recent ILO study has shown that every fourth child in the Third World
now works (Frankfurter Rundschau, 4-5 April 1996)."

"The increased use of child labour in the Indian carpet industry, for
example, caused drastic price cuts and ruinous competition among suppliers
in the world market. Hand woven carpets have long since lost their status as
a luxury item in the industrialized countries, and have in the meantime
become a product of mass consumption....we participate in the exposure of
countless numbers of  children to the danger of illness due to infections
and tuberculosis stemming from anaemia, over-tiredness, and lack of sleep,
or to the danger of becoming crippled through damaged posture and slipped
disks, as well as damage to the bone structure and eyesight."

The forms of cost externalization that propel the neoclassical growth model
is said by Mansarrat to have three main forms:

(a)     externalisation through cost-free environmental damage

(b)     externalisation through the cost-free utilisation of non-renewable
raw materials, and

(c)     the externalisation of social costs and their monetary valuation.

[essentially these are 'avoidance costs and capital costs of nature, except
social costs].

The cost externalisation of production in early capitalist Europe was
transported to colonial nations where (a) and (b) could be realized away
from a Europe 'restrained' in part by ecological limits to growth and
'absolute rents'. The externalisation of social costs could not be
eradicated in Europe, says Manssarat, except after decades of struggle. In
the Birtish slave colonies of the Caribean slaves were fed Cod that was
caught from the Grandbanks of Newfoundland. The majority of  the cod was
salted and sent to plantations where slaves grew cotton, etc. Neoclassical
and classical theories interpret slavery as the "result of *comparative cost
advantages* and the *varied provision of factors*" but in reality the
thought structure that supports slavery is maintained by "means of violence
and racist ideology, which existed for the benefit of the privileged
minority within the system. Apartheid and migratory labour, the dualistic
coexistence of homelands, skyscrapers and wealthy villa districts,
privileged rights for the few and lack of rights for the many are weakened
forms of slavery, but, however, also represent a model of wealth increment
through the externalisation of social costs which has been practiced into
the present."

The need for global reform of externalisation of costs to the environment
and to societies is not going to be solved by free trade, but fair
trade...recognizing the disparities of nations and communities within
nations will require education of the individual consumer. Homilies are one
way to teach people as are moral castigation with a smile. Now Monssarrat
writes that

"Free trade is an effective instrument of allocation in a market economy. in
conjunction with the limitless freedom of a privileged minority to
externalise costs, free trade can metamorphosise itself in development and
environmental policy into an efficient instrument in the establishment of
non-sustainable structures."

Herman Daly in his criticism of the  neoclassic growth model which supports
luxury consumption was certain that "[e]conomic growth as traditionally
understood - that is, growth of the national product or national income -
was recognized...as inherently driving the economy to a scale, that is, a
level of throughput, which may exceed the environment's carrying
capacity....His work on *steady state* economics elaborates the implications
of acknowledging that the earth is materially finite and non-growing and
that the economy is a subset of this limited global system. Hence economic
growth is possible, or 'sustainable,' as long as throughput does not surpass
these limits." [from the Words of the Prize Committee, Kenneth Boulding
Memorial Award by ISEE. 1994]

Lots more work to be done...

chao,

john foster