Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
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No... I take offense when my words and argument are deliberately misrepresented. I find no pleasure in it.Originally posted by: MonkeyK
I think it was Dostoevsky who said that there is pleasure in taking offense. Are you looking for something to find disagreeable?
I do not believe that I argued against capitalism. Whether money tying this stuff together is a good or bad thing is a completely seperate issue (BTW even with money you still have the problem of how many moneys a chicken is worth. The money corrects the problem of someone wanting chickens for his cow and all you have are ducks).
I did not say that any man is an island, if fact I said that the exact opposite is inescapable. The problem that I mentioned is that, more and more, I see people considering themselves islands. For example you said that because you paid the baker, you did not depend on him. Not recognizing the relationship is, IMO, a social ill.
I am trying to understand your master and slave statement. I think you misunderstand the intent of my proposal. The point of begging is not to make a slave of someone. The point is to remember that you depend on others on a more fundamental level than through financial relationships.
Also, my proposal is hardly a "system". I suggested begging for a week, admittedly the details need to be worked out. While I did mention that it would only be a few people, I suppose that I did not mention that I intend this to be voluntary. For people who are desperately trying to remember what it means to be connected to the world.
Money does more than just that. For example, if a cow is worth 10.8 chickens, you don't have to worry about the 0.8 part. Money allows a farmer to obtain seed before the planting (and long after the harvest). Money allows people to obtain and use that which they have not yet built. The accounting of money is the first record of writing in history (so without money, we may never have had written language, and this argument can be held up by the fact that primitives cultures that lacked the concept of money typically had no written language). Money maximizes the equal distribution of wealth and utilization of resources throughout the world, not the opposite as many have tricked into believing.
Naturally, we are all dependent on each other, nor did I say otherwise. But as I am dependent on the baker, so the baker is dependent on me. As I said, the fair trade of equals.
When one begs from another, there is always a master and slave relationship. One is begging, while the other is giving the alms. One is in the position of desperate need, while the other is in the superior position of being able to deny that need. In free trade, however, both are equals.