My apologies if you receive multiple copies of this post. My server faltered
on the attached file three times. You can view Fig7-9B.GIF at URL
<http://www.freespeech.org/darves/bert.html>.
WesBurt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: Fred Foldvary, Prof. of Economics, and subscribers to several mail lists.
Good day Prof. Foldvary,
In reply to my "Macro & Micro Models of a Nation" you write:
>> I got a forward from Harry Pollard.
Can you boil down your model to a theory that can be explained
briefly and simply?
What is this story about? <<
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your questions, Fred, are the ultimate test for any serious reformer, and I
have been failing that test on this Teflon Topic for thirty years. But I'am
failing in good company. Thomas Paine addressed the topic at some length in
his AGRARIAN JUSTICE and again in his RIGHTS OF MAN - PART II. Henry Carter
Adams addressed it in his1887 monograph, RELATION OF THE STATE TO INDUSTRIAL
ACTION. Bertram Russell said it all again in his 1915 book, PRINCIPLES OF
SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION. And after World War II, the industrial nations,
except the U.K. and the U.S., all supplimented their existing public
education systems with family allowance systems to fully implement the first
of the three tithes prescribed by Moses in the Pentateuch.
But the global inflation of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s seems to have swamped
those family allowances, along with income tax exemptions in the U.K. and the
U.S., and also removed all recollection of these family allowance systems
from the public mind. As for formulating "a theory that can be explained
briefly and simply," the following excerpt from a six month old post is
fairly brief and the attached file <Fig7-9b.GIF> puts the whole topic on a
single sheet of paper.
>>>>>>>> Begin excerpt from a six month old post <<<<<<<<<<<
Subj: The Whole Divine Law (Fig7-9b.GIF)
Date: 99-01-03 15:25:38 EST
From: WesBurt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Snip ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since the word, CAPITALISM, has been made meaningless by the advocates of
postmodern relativism, we might find it useful to call our present condition,
commercial democracy, as Henry Carter Adams did one-hundred and twelve years
ago. That is to say, we live in a society that has all of the mechanisms for
effective democracy still in place, and still in working order, but yet the
commercial interests exercise an undue influence on public policy, to the
detriment of the environment and our quality of life. The closest analogy I
can think of to illustrate our condition is the biology experiment which
begins with a stable and healthy colony of laboratory rats.
Rats, as you know, are in the middle of the obnoxious species continuum,
somewhat larger than cockroaches but smaller than poor people, and we can
learn a lot about poor people by experimenting on rats. Anyway, the
experiment calls for restricting the rat-colony's living space and reducing
its daily food supply. I have never seen the experiment performed, but I
hear that all sorts of social pathologies are demonstrated and I also hear
that it takes a strong stomach on the part of the experimenter to continue
the process to its logical conclusion, or "die-off."
Our human condition is much like that of the rats. There is no direct
connection from the experimenter to the individual rat, nor from our public
policy to the individual citizen. The experiment imposes less space and less
food. Our public policy has imposed for the last hundred years, and more,
4-10% unemployment and a 2-3%/year decline in the value of our money. But
the single imposition on either the rat colony or the nation produces a
different response in each rat, and a different response in each citizen, so
it is a mind stretching intellectual effort for the rat or the citizen to
reason from his own experience back to the root cause of his experience.
People can see the cause of the rat's experience because they are outside the
system. They cannot see the cause of their own experience until they find a
conceptual framework, and make the intellectual effort, that lets them view
the whole system from a vantage point outside of the system. This is what
drawings, charts, and visual-aids help people to do, that is, to stand
outside the system under discussion and look at the whole system in
operation. Notice that the system operates, regardless of whether or not we
look at it, understand it, neglect it, or change it to our heart's desire.
The attached file Fig7-9b.GIF has been re-sized to display properly on your
monitor and print properly on 8.5x11 inch paper, so the outsized image of
previous posts is no longer an excuse for not discussing the systemic defect
of omission in our public policy which is illustrated by the three charts.
That defect of omission is the lack of a dependent allowance adequate to
remove from the family budget the "head tax" on parenting families of
$5,000/year/dependent, which is the root cause of social disorders in a
society founded on a well developed division of labor, a circulating medium
of exchange, and free markets.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Snip ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>>>>>> End excerpt from a six month old post <<<<<<<<<<<
If this does not illuminate the forward from Harry Pollard, let me know who
Harry Pollard is and what the forward consisted of, and I'll do my best to
close the gap.
Sincerely,
WesBurt
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