X-Message-Number: 28075
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: economics
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:47:03 +0100

> > >If people prefer to lynch a handy scapegoat instead of going through a
> > >legal process, then it is their choice also.
>
> You realise I made this remark to point out an absurdity, not to condone
it?

Maybe not, but that seems to be the underlying supposition of your thesis.
Do something about the super-rich. After all, the "legal process" is just
the lynch mob that has greatest numbers and the greatest power. Sometimes
after regime changes another "lynch mob" (ie legislature) takes over and
eliminates those that ran the previous system.

>
> > "the rich", ie those richer than the speaker or writer,
>
> The rich - in this case - are the 200 richest people in the world. So
> they are richer than virtually anyone.

so the idea is that virtually everyone sides with the writer or speaker.
This difficulty lies when the super rich are deleted and the new regime has
it, and the money runs out. Then there are the next 200 richest people and
so on. Or more to the point a very much bigger cohort is needed to harvest a
similar amount of wealth. Eventually it gets down to millions of people who
have slightly more than the rest, and once they have been eliminated
everything else is down to the a sort of financial grey goo, with nothing to
fund the government services that were supposed to look after everyone from
cradle to grave once private money has all gone. If these large cohorts of
once slightly richer people are not physically exterminated, they have to be
fed as well.

>
> > have always been
> > handy scapegoats, especially if they can also be identified by some
other
> > characteristic.
>
> I'm sorry, but a powerless group or individual is more likely to be a
> scapegoat - almost by definition.

The rich become powerless once the finance police break down their doors and
drag them off.

> > Often immigrant workers who work harder than the natives and
> > thereby amass money become victims of this sort of thing, especially
after
> > several generations. This has gone on in Europe for thousands of years,
not
> > just the 20th century.
>
> Fine, but this is not the point.

It is the point once the first few layers of better off people are deleted.

> > The problem with worries about the 200 or so richest people, is how this
may
> > be resolved.
>
> First of all, it is a good idea to let people know about it and mull
> it over.

There are two basic problems.

1. Should something be done? Many think it should.
2. how would it be done? Assassination? Mass show trials followed by
execution? Just have a gang of legislators and lawyers chuck them out on the
street with a basic package of state aid for the vagrant?

If any possible solution to 2 would reduce the wellbeing of all, then the
number of people supporting 1 will diminish and be reduced to a few lunatics
and criminals who just want the power for their own self aggrandisement.

> Generally, people who admire wealth will leap to their defence [etc]

admiring wealth has nothing to do with it. Admiring progress and the best
way to achieve it is what this is about.

> (E.g. Bill Gate's monopoly

It won't last forever any more than the USSR or the Roman Empire for that
matter.

People use Windows(R)(TM) because it is more effective than any other OS,
despite the fact that it is never perfected and burden of periodic upgrades
is very time consuming and costly. If an African nation spent as much effort
of creating a better one as they spend on wars, then the Internet as a means
of distribution already exists.

> It is unsurprising that (once again) my concerns about massive
> centralisation of wealth/power have been hushed with talk of socialism
> and Bolsheviks.

They are the only alternatives that anyone has ever offered. A better
alternative would have to be offered if your concerns are to get any serious
consideration, even if only in discussion.

> Massive wealth is equivalent and worse than the tyrants of any
> Middle-Eastern or 20th century European nation. Massive wealth is
> financial despotism. There is more to be scared of from these
> mega-rich than there is from any red terror or socialist party.

The difference is that the megarich have got that way because they have
given the world something that a lot of people value. There are justified
complaints about the fees charged by lawyers, but individual lawyers never
get mega rich because they offer by definition a one on one service. If one
individual gives the world Windows, or more free time (eg by organising a
system of convenience shopping). If someone were to devise a better way of
resolving disputes and go on to implement it, then the legal profession
would be driven out just like other less convenient systems, such as town
centre shopping.

Legislators and their minions - ie despots - get the trapping of wealth (ie
power) by taking it from other people. In legal terms they may not have
stolen it as they often use legislation and democratic elections to get to
the top. I think most of the 20th century tyrants got there by election in
the first place.

>
> > The question which remains unanswered in my mind is how the riches of
these
> > 200 would be managed if they were deleted from the scenario.
>
> All interesting - and not impossible - problems.

They need credible solutions before people go around shouting "Exterminate!"
however they dress it up as being otherwise.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

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