Private Law
This is what happens when Go a long time with no posts I guess.
Preface:
I'm a huge fan of Robert Anton Wilson. He more so than any other author helped shape my views of the world in general and fairness in specific. He wrote many books but what I want to talk about today will draw from the Illuminatus trilogy. Read all three books, I beg you. At the end of this post will be a cut and I'll be posting an excerpt. It has some racial epithets and harsh language but we are all adults here. RAW liked to use such things to remind us of how deep prejudice can run and how ugly it always is. I do not agree with Hagbard's view completely I lack the faith in humanity required by true anarchy, his points about privilege are dead on though. Now on to the second part of my preface and some history.
I greatly enjoy the fruits of capitalism but I also struggle with its ingredients. I am by profession a programmer and I have also been a computer help desk technician. The things I know how to do are worth a lot of money to people and that is good for me. The problem with this is that often what I'm really doing to fix a computer is, to me, child's play. Most problems are very quick and easy to solve and that is why I could not make a business as computer technician. I could not charge some nice person $50 dollars for 5 minutes worth of work. Let me clarify, I certainly could have gotten that and more. I could also have padded out the time it took. My conscience however would not reconcile with it. Now as a programmer the tangible fruits of my labor make a lot of money for other people and I have no problem with charging them accordingly. I just want to illustrate that I do like money and I like getting paid for work that I do, provided that I feel the people are getting value whether they agree or not.
Body:
I hate when people ramble on and on about the Free-Market as the ideal of fairness. "Let The Market decide this or that," they cry. Let me remind you of something, the free market is not some other worldly being of mystic wisdom. The free market is the some total of purchasing decisions made by individuals and businesses. This leads us to two important facts. Fact one, shares in the overall attitude of this market are equal to the amount of purchasing power one wields. Fact two, its a mob no different than any other. The Free-Market is to economics what a Lynch Mob is to justice. "Heresy," you may exclaim. "It's democracy," you may claim. That is easily answered. Its split second democracy ruled by the emotions of the moment not an ordered democracy where merits are debated and discussed. In other words its not a fair trial it is in fact a lynch mob. Maybe though you have some excellent argument to decry this. Lets say you come up something to justify it out as a real legitimate democratic solution. There is still one issue that is left, privilege.
As RAW's character Hagbard Celine points out, the people with the most money and influence gain privilege. Constructed from the Latin roots, privi meaning private, and lege meaning law. That is exactly what you get with it, private law. Companies with money and influence can get the laws changed by use of lobbyists and occasionally more direct means. If you want an excellent example of what I mean you should read this. Thats just an example of recording companies manipulating laws so that artists get less money for their work with the money instead going back to the record companies. Thats the thing though. You'll hear hours of talk from people about how companies should have less regulation and yet those same people will demand protections for those companies under law. So which is it? Do you want government hands off your industry or on? Do you want piracy outlawed or do you want the government to take a bigger hand in how your copyrights work? Do you want the government to bail out your bank(Auto company, etc.) or do you want to run it yourself? Of course what they want is predictably the best of both worlds and that's as it should be. The companies should push for the biggest gain and lowest risk. While, the government pushes to protect the interests of the consumers and the country as a whole. What gets me is the way people seem to have forgotten that those are checks and balances that help everything work better. These days I hear "the companies shouldn't be greedy," from one side and, "the government should keep its hands off from the other." People just don't get that those are the opposites pushing to the middle ground anymore. They seem to think they are supposed to solidly pick a side and fight for it. This country suffers from a lack of debating skills and more importantly it suffers from an obsession with Platonic absolutes. The point of listening to the debate is not to decide who is right and pick a side, the point is to select the best parts of both sides and build a working whole that is stronger for its lack of dogma.
In Brief my unsolicited opinion on economic matters:
We are going through a period of shift. The old model got out of control because we forgot that it was just a model. We will be forced to categorize things into two areas. Things that are not vital to either survival or security and things that are. The things that are cannot be allowed to run on a for profit basis. I'm sorry if you don't like that but it's true. Health care would make more money by cutting corners and by treating symptoms over the long term than from short terms cures. That's not a conspiracy theory its sound economics. I have no knowledge of any "suppressed cures." I can do the math and tell you what would make profits higher. So for things like health care and defense you need very tight regulation and the funding should be 100% public. If you are one of the people who say government can't be trusted to run health care I will point out that they are trusted to run nuclear weapons so where would you draw the trust line? Education is a very tough one. Letting the government run it fits the model but it will have to be tightly monitored to prevent its use as a propaganda machine. If you think that's not an issue I will direct you here "What are schools for?" A definite gray area is banking. Its definitely a security issue as it effects the economy. However running banks for profit does help to keep things under a certain amount of control (normally). This are may require a hybrid system or it may be best to simply regulate it and leave it in the private sector. As to the rest, its hard to say.
I don't claim to have all the answers and I will tell you that most people would not be happy with how I'd run the world if it were mine to run. I am though intelligent and well read. I also live in the real world with a family and a mortgage. I use coupons when I buy things and I shop around for the best prices. I also pay more for things if I think it makes the world a little better. I also have very little patience for willful stupidity and even less for people who think they can plug their ears and recite a mantra from their school of thought while ignoring reality. I also can't believe that the politician from Louisiana can talk about how bad Katerina was and then dismiss earthquake funding for earthquake monitoring as though it were frivolous. I'm disappointed that our new president has talked so much about technology and then stacked appointments with an RIAA dream team.
Excerpt from The illuminatus trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson:
There was a hawk-faced wop at Drake's table, very elegant in a spanking new tuxedo, but the cop in me made him as illegit. Sometimes you can make a subject precisely, as Bunco-con, safe-blower, armed robber or whatnot, but I could only place him vaguely somewhere on that side of the game; in fact, I associated him with images of piracy on the high seas or the kind of gambits the Borgia’s played. Somehow the conversation got around to a new book by somebody named Mortimer Adler who had already written a hundred or so great books if I understood the drift. One banker type at the table was terribly keen on this Adler and especially on his latest great book. "He says that we and the Communists share the same Great Tradition" (I could hear the caps by the way he pronounced the term) "and we must join together against the one force that really does threaten civilization - anarchism!"
There were several objections, in which Drake didn't take part (he just sat back, puffing his cigar and looking agreeable to everyone, but I could see boredom under the surface) and the banker tried to explain the Great Tradition, which was a bit over my head, and, judging by the expressions around the table, a bit over everybody else's head, too, when the hawk-faced deigo spoke up suddenly.
"I can put the Great Tradition in one word," he said calmly, "Privilege."
Old Drake suddenly stopped looking agreeable-but-bored- he seemed both interested and amused. "One seldom encounters such a refreshing freedom from euphemism," he said, leaning forward. "But perhaps I am reading too much into your remark, sir?"
Hawk-face sipped at his champagne and patted his mouth with a napkin before answering. "I think not," he said at last. "Privilege is defined in most dictionaries as a right or immunity giving special favors or benefits to those who hold it. Another meaning in Webster is 'not subject to the usual rules or penalties.' The invaluable thesaurus gives such synonyms as power, authority, birthright, franchise, patent, grant, favor and, I'm sad to say, pretension. Surely, we all know what privilege is in this club, don't we, gentlemen? Do I have to remind you of the Latin roots, privi meaning private, and lege meaning law, and point out in detail how we have created our Private Law over here, just as the Politburo have created their own private law in their own sphere of influence?"
"But that's not the Great Tradition," the banker type said (later, I learned that he was actually a college professor; Drake was the only banker at that table). "What Mr. Adler means by the Great Tradition-"
"What Mortimer means by the Great Tradition," hawk-face interrupted rudely, "is a set of myths and fables invented to legitimize or sugar-coat the institution of privilege. Correct me if I'm wrong," he added more politely but with a sardonic grin.
"He means," the true believer said, "the undeniable axioms, the time-tested truths, the shared wisdom of the ages, the . . ."
"The myths and fables," hawk-face contributed gently.
"The sacred, time-tested wisdom of the ages," the other went on, becoming redundant. "The basic bedrock of civil society, of civilization and we do share that with the Communists. And it is just that common humanistic tradition that the young anarchists, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, are blaspheming, denying and trying to destroy. It has nothing to do with privilege at all."
"Pardon me," the dark man said. "Are you a college professor?"
"Certainly. I'm head of the Political Science Department at Harvard!"
"Oh," the dark man shrugged. "I'm sorry for talking so bluntly before you. I thought I was entirely surrounded by men of business and finance."
The professor was just starting to look as if he spotted the implied insult in that formal apology when Drake interrupted.
"Quite so. No need to shock our paid idealists and turn them into vulgar realists overnight. At the same time, is it absolutely necessary to state what we all know in such a manner as to imply a rather hostile and outside viewpoint? Who are you and what is your trade, sir?"
"Hagbard Celine; Import-export. Gold and Appel Transfers here in New York, a few other small establishments in other ports." As he spoke my image of piracy and Borgia stealth came back strongly. "And we're not children here," he added, "so why should we avoid frank language?"
The professor, taken aback a foot or so by this turn in the conversation, sat perplexed as Drake replied:
"So, Civilization is privilege or Private Law, as you say so literally and we all know where Private Law comes from, except the poor professor here, out of the barrel of a gun,' in the words of a gentleman whose bluntness you would appreciate. Is it your conclusion, then, that Adler is, for all his naiveté, correct, and we have more in common with the Communist rulers than we have setting us at odds?"
"Let me illuminate you further," Celine said and the way he pronounced the verb made me jump. Drake's blue eyes flashed a bit, too, but that didn't surprise me: anybody as rich as IRS thought he was, would have to be On the Inside.
"Privilege implies exclusion from privilege, just as advantage implies disadvantage," Celine went on. "In the same mathematically reciprocal way, profit implies loss. If you and I exchange equal goods then that is trade: neither of us profits and neither of us loses. But if we exchange unequal goods, one of us profits and the other loses. Mathematically, certainly. Now, such mathematically unequal exchanges will always occur because some traders will be shrewder than others. But in total freedom, in anarchy, such unequal exchanges will be sporadic and irregular, a phenomenon of unpredictable periodicity, mathematically speaking. Now look about you, professor- raise your nose from your great books and survey the actual world as it is- and you will not observe such unpredictable functions. You will observe, instead, a mathematically smooth function, a steady profit accruing to one group and an equally steady loss accumulating for all others. Why is this, professor? Because the system is not free or random, any mathematician would tell you a priori. Well, then, where is the determining function, the factor that controls the other variables? You have named it yourself, or Mr. Adler has: the Great Tradition. Privilege, I prefer to call it. When A meets B in the marketplace, they do not bargain as equals. A bargains from a position of privilege; hence, he always profits and B always loses. There is no more Free Market here than there is on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The privileges, or Private Laws- the rules of the game, as promulgated by the Politburo and the General Congress of the Communist Party on that side and by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve Board on this side are slightly different; that's all. And it is this that is threatened by anarchists, and by the repressed anarchist in each of us," he concluded, strongly emphasizing the last clause, staring at Drake, not at the professor.
The professor had a lot more to say in a hurry then, about the laws of society being the laws of nature and the laws of nature being the laws of God, but I decided it was time to circulate a bit more so I didn't hear the rest of the conversation. The IRS has a complete tape of it, I'm sure, since I had placed the bug long before the meal.
Preface:
I'm a huge fan of Robert Anton Wilson. He more so than any other author helped shape my views of the world in general and fairness in specific. He wrote many books but what I want to talk about today will draw from the Illuminatus trilogy. Read all three books, I beg you. At the end of this post will be a cut and I'll be posting an excerpt. It has some racial epithets and harsh language but we are all adults here. RAW liked to use such things to remind us of how deep prejudice can run and how ugly it always is. I do not agree with Hagbard's view completely I lack the faith in humanity required by true anarchy, his points about privilege are dead on though. Now on to the second part of my preface and some history.
I greatly enjoy the fruits of capitalism but I also struggle with its ingredients. I am by profession a programmer and I have also been a computer help desk technician. The things I know how to do are worth a lot of money to people and that is good for me. The problem with this is that often what I'm really doing to fix a computer is, to me, child's play. Most problems are very quick and easy to solve and that is why I could not make a business as computer technician. I could not charge some nice person $50 dollars for 5 minutes worth of work. Let me clarify, I certainly could have gotten that and more. I could also have padded out the time it took. My conscience however would not reconcile with it. Now as a programmer the tangible fruits of my labor make a lot of money for other people and I have no problem with charging them accordingly. I just want to illustrate that I do like money and I like getting paid for work that I do, provided that I feel the people are getting value whether they agree or not.
Body:
I hate when people ramble on and on about the Free-Market as the ideal of fairness. "Let The Market decide this or that," they cry. Let me remind you of something, the free market is not some other worldly being of mystic wisdom. The free market is the some total of purchasing decisions made by individuals and businesses. This leads us to two important facts. Fact one, shares in the overall attitude of this market are equal to the amount of purchasing power one wields. Fact two, its a mob no different than any other. The Free-Market is to economics what a Lynch Mob is to justice. "Heresy," you may exclaim. "It's democracy," you may claim. That is easily answered. Its split second democracy ruled by the emotions of the moment not an ordered democracy where merits are debated and discussed. In other words its not a fair trial it is in fact a lynch mob. Maybe though you have some excellent argument to decry this. Lets say you come up something to justify it out as a real legitimate democratic solution. There is still one issue that is left, privilege.
As RAW's character Hagbard Celine points out, the people with the most money and influence gain privilege. Constructed from the Latin roots, privi meaning private, and lege meaning law. That is exactly what you get with it, private law. Companies with money and influence can get the laws changed by use of lobbyists and occasionally more direct means. If you want an excellent example of what I mean you should read this. Thats just an example of recording companies manipulating laws so that artists get less money for their work with the money instead going back to the record companies. Thats the thing though. You'll hear hours of talk from people about how companies should have less regulation and yet those same people will demand protections for those companies under law. So which is it? Do you want government hands off your industry or on? Do you want piracy outlawed or do you want the government to take a bigger hand in how your copyrights work? Do you want the government to bail out your bank(Auto company, etc.) or do you want to run it yourself? Of course what they want is predictably the best of both worlds and that's as it should be. The companies should push for the biggest gain and lowest risk. While, the government pushes to protect the interests of the consumers and the country as a whole. What gets me is the way people seem to have forgotten that those are checks and balances that help everything work better. These days I hear "the companies shouldn't be greedy," from one side and, "the government should keep its hands off from the other." People just don't get that those are the opposites pushing to the middle ground anymore. They seem to think they are supposed to solidly pick a side and fight for it. This country suffers from a lack of debating skills and more importantly it suffers from an obsession with Platonic absolutes. The point of listening to the debate is not to decide who is right and pick a side, the point is to select the best parts of both sides and build a working whole that is stronger for its lack of dogma.
In Brief my unsolicited opinion on economic matters:
We are going through a period of shift. The old model got out of control because we forgot that it was just a model. We will be forced to categorize things into two areas. Things that are not vital to either survival or security and things that are. The things that are cannot be allowed to run on a for profit basis. I'm sorry if you don't like that but it's true. Health care would make more money by cutting corners and by treating symptoms over the long term than from short terms cures. That's not a conspiracy theory its sound economics. I have no knowledge of any "suppressed cures." I can do the math and tell you what would make profits higher. So for things like health care and defense you need very tight regulation and the funding should be 100% public. If you are one of the people who say government can't be trusted to run health care I will point out that they are trusted to run nuclear weapons so where would you draw the trust line? Education is a very tough one. Letting the government run it fits the model but it will have to be tightly monitored to prevent its use as a propaganda machine. If you think that's not an issue I will direct you here "What are schools for?" A definite gray area is banking. Its definitely a security issue as it effects the economy. However running banks for profit does help to keep things under a certain amount of control (normally). This are may require a hybrid system or it may be best to simply regulate it and leave it in the private sector. As to the rest, its hard to say.
I don't claim to have all the answers and I will tell you that most people would not be happy with how I'd run the world if it were mine to run. I am though intelligent and well read. I also live in the real world with a family and a mortgage. I use coupons when I buy things and I shop around for the best prices. I also pay more for things if I think it makes the world a little better. I also have very little patience for willful stupidity and even less for people who think they can plug their ears and recite a mantra from their school of thought while ignoring reality. I also can't believe that the politician from Louisiana can talk about how bad Katerina was and then dismiss earthquake funding for earthquake monitoring as though it were frivolous. I'm disappointed that our new president has talked so much about technology and then stacked appointments with an RIAA dream team.
Excerpt from The illuminatus trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson:
There was a hawk-faced wop at Drake's table, very elegant in a spanking new tuxedo, but the cop in me made him as illegit. Sometimes you can make a subject precisely, as Bunco-con, safe-blower, armed robber or whatnot, but I could only place him vaguely somewhere on that side of the game; in fact, I associated him with images of piracy on the high seas or the kind of gambits the Borgia’s played. Somehow the conversation got around to a new book by somebody named Mortimer Adler who had already written a hundred or so great books if I understood the drift. One banker type at the table was terribly keen on this Adler and especially on his latest great book. "He says that we and the Communists share the same Great Tradition" (I could hear the caps by the way he pronounced the term) "and we must join together against the one force that really does threaten civilization - anarchism!"
There were several objections, in which Drake didn't take part (he just sat back, puffing his cigar and looking agreeable to everyone, but I could see boredom under the surface) and the banker tried to explain the Great Tradition, which was a bit over my head, and, judging by the expressions around the table, a bit over everybody else's head, too, when the hawk-faced deigo spoke up suddenly.
"I can put the Great Tradition in one word," he said calmly, "Privilege."
Old Drake suddenly stopped looking agreeable-but-bored- he seemed both interested and amused. "One seldom encounters such a refreshing freedom from euphemism," he said, leaning forward. "But perhaps I am reading too much into your remark, sir?"
Hawk-face sipped at his champagne and patted his mouth with a napkin before answering. "I think not," he said at last. "Privilege is defined in most dictionaries as a right or immunity giving special favors or benefits to those who hold it. Another meaning in Webster is 'not subject to the usual rules or penalties.' The invaluable thesaurus gives such synonyms as power, authority, birthright, franchise, patent, grant, favor and, I'm sad to say, pretension. Surely, we all know what privilege is in this club, don't we, gentlemen? Do I have to remind you of the Latin roots, privi meaning private, and lege meaning law, and point out in detail how we have created our Private Law over here, just as the Politburo have created their own private law in their own sphere of influence?"
"But that's not the Great Tradition," the banker type said (later, I learned that he was actually a college professor; Drake was the only banker at that table). "What Mr. Adler means by the Great Tradition-"
"What Mortimer means by the Great Tradition," hawk-face interrupted rudely, "is a set of myths and fables invented to legitimize or sugar-coat the institution of privilege. Correct me if I'm wrong," he added more politely but with a sardonic grin.
"He means," the true believer said, "the undeniable axioms, the time-tested truths, the shared wisdom of the ages, the . . ."
"The myths and fables," hawk-face contributed gently.
"The sacred, time-tested wisdom of the ages," the other went on, becoming redundant. "The basic bedrock of civil society, of civilization and we do share that with the Communists. And it is just that common humanistic tradition that the young anarchists, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, are blaspheming, denying and trying to destroy. It has nothing to do with privilege at all."
"Pardon me," the dark man said. "Are you a college professor?"
"Certainly. I'm head of the Political Science Department at Harvard!"
"Oh," the dark man shrugged. "I'm sorry for talking so bluntly before you. I thought I was entirely surrounded by men of business and finance."
The professor was just starting to look as if he spotted the implied insult in that formal apology when Drake interrupted.
"Quite so. No need to shock our paid idealists and turn them into vulgar realists overnight. At the same time, is it absolutely necessary to state what we all know in such a manner as to imply a rather hostile and outside viewpoint? Who are you and what is your trade, sir?"
"Hagbard Celine; Import-export. Gold and Appel Transfers here in New York, a few other small establishments in other ports." As he spoke my image of piracy and Borgia stealth came back strongly. "And we're not children here," he added, "so why should we avoid frank language?"
The professor, taken aback a foot or so by this turn in the conversation, sat perplexed as Drake replied:
"So, Civilization is privilege or Private Law, as you say so literally and we all know where Private Law comes from, except the poor professor here, out of the barrel of a gun,' in the words of a gentleman whose bluntness you would appreciate. Is it your conclusion, then, that Adler is, for all his naiveté, correct, and we have more in common with the Communist rulers than we have setting us at odds?"
"Let me illuminate you further," Celine said and the way he pronounced the verb made me jump. Drake's blue eyes flashed a bit, too, but that didn't surprise me: anybody as rich as IRS thought he was, would have to be On the Inside.
"Privilege implies exclusion from privilege, just as advantage implies disadvantage," Celine went on. "In the same mathematically reciprocal way, profit implies loss. If you and I exchange equal goods then that is trade: neither of us profits and neither of us loses. But if we exchange unequal goods, one of us profits and the other loses. Mathematically, certainly. Now, such mathematically unequal exchanges will always occur because some traders will be shrewder than others. But in total freedom, in anarchy, such unequal exchanges will be sporadic and irregular, a phenomenon of unpredictable periodicity, mathematically speaking. Now look about you, professor- raise your nose from your great books and survey the actual world as it is- and you will not observe such unpredictable functions. You will observe, instead, a mathematically smooth function, a steady profit accruing to one group and an equally steady loss accumulating for all others. Why is this, professor? Because the system is not free or random, any mathematician would tell you a priori. Well, then, where is the determining function, the factor that controls the other variables? You have named it yourself, or Mr. Adler has: the Great Tradition. Privilege, I prefer to call it. When A meets B in the marketplace, they do not bargain as equals. A bargains from a position of privilege; hence, he always profits and B always loses. There is no more Free Market here than there is on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The privileges, or Private Laws- the rules of the game, as promulgated by the Politburo and the General Congress of the Communist Party on that side and by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve Board on this side are slightly different; that's all. And it is this that is threatened by anarchists, and by the repressed anarchist in each of us," he concluded, strongly emphasizing the last clause, staring at Drake, not at the professor.
The professor had a lot more to say in a hurry then, about the laws of society being the laws of nature and the laws of nature being the laws of God, but I decided it was time to circulate a bit more so I didn't hear the rest of the conversation. The IRS has a complete tape of it, I'm sure, since I had placed the bug long before the meal.