What does a study of history tell us about wealth and power? (1)
Popular dogma says that the past is done and has no usefulness for the present or the future. Everything is new and different today: technology, science, values, … each individual can create his or her life without having to pay attention to past lessons. It is better to reinvent the wheel in each generation than to have to learn about the past.
Nevertheless, not everyone subscribes to this empty picture of reality.
Why do some people believe that it is useful to study history? Here are some thought to ponder:
We study history to give perspective, an understanding about the past, what people have done and thought and lived through.
We study history to give us an understanding of things that are outside of our own experience.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
What does it mean to say: Neither government nor the market??
This is not an easy notion to deal with, but at its core this is a statement of balance, necessary balance between the power of government and the power of the market, in order to defend the freedom of all.
There is no real problem understanding that government can abuse its power, although we need to see a much more analytical study of how the American government is abusive. According to the Constitution the American government is meant to serve all the people. What is the nature of abuses here?
Understanding that the market can also be abusive is less clear, because, after all, isn’t the market made up of thousands if not millions of small businesses? Oh, yes, and a few corporations too. There is no single body, as in government, having enough power to be abusive.
Is there not?
That single body is money. It links together the interests of businesses and corporations, manipulating a vast web of laws and taxes and regulations and obligations set up to maintain a level field for all, business, customers, the public, but which can be exploited to concentrate power and to support the acquisitiveness of that power.
So the permanent struggle is that of balance between government and the market. Creating that balance is not self-evident; balance, for better or worse, can be defined in varying ways. Yet the effort, the trying, is always necessary, because when there is no counterweight, there is dictatorship.
As private citizens, as consumers, as human beings living in society, we need the goods and services provided by the market, and we need the various protections provided by government. We definitely do not need the kind of society created by the merging of government and the market into one body.
We need a working and fair balance between government and the market.
This is not an easy notion to deal with, but at its core this is a statement of balance, necessary balance between the power of government and the power of the market, in order to defend the freedom of all.
There is no real problem understanding that government can abuse its power, although we need to see a much more analytical study of how the American government is abusive. According to the Constitution the American government is meant to serve all the people. What is the nature of abuses here?
Understanding that the market can also be abusive is less clear, because, after all, isn’t the market made up of thousands if not millions of small businesses? Oh, yes, and a few corporations too. There is no single body, as in government, having enough power to be abusive.
Is there not?
That single body is money. It links together the interests of businesses and corporations, manipulating a vast web of laws and taxes and regulations and obligations set up to maintain a level field for all, business, customers, the public, but which can be exploited to concentrate power and to support the acquisitiveness of that power.
So the permanent struggle is that of balance between government and the market. Creating that balance is not self-evident; balance, for better or worse, can be defined in varying ways. Yet the effort, the trying, is always necessary, because when there is no counterweight, there is dictatorship.
As private citizens, as consumers, as human beings living in society, we need the goods and services provided by the market, and we need the various protections provided by government. We definitely do not need the kind of society created by the merging of government and the market into one body.
We need a working and fair balance between government and the market.
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