Out of the mouth of babes.....
We’ve all heard that phrase. It means that children have an unerring way of shining a light on the truth. They have not yet gotten into the habit of weighing their words or filtering their thoughts, and so they retain an uncanny knack for nailing it.
At
the opposite remove are adults who have a way of obfuscating the truth. They are trained in the use of language that is designed to mute, dull or disguise the truth in all its shocking
clarity, so that it doesn’t make as powerful an impact as it should.
I’m sure we can all come up with personal examples to drive the point home. My epiphany
occurred on the first day of a class on social justice that I was leading for half
a dozen eight-year-old kids in my living room. I wanted to find some way of expressing in kiddie language the
intrinsically unfair nature of our economic and political system. And I wanted to bring out the ways in which children respond to it.
The
fact is that we live on an incredibly resource-rich planet. Oil, coal, timber, gold – that’s just for openers. Humanity is the de facto trustee of this stupendous array of wealth, which belongs to all the people.
The kids drank a toast to that with a cup of sparkling apple cider and kicked off the class by singing along to the Woodie Guthrie song: “This land is your land – this land is my land.”
The kids drank a toast to that with a cup of sparkling apple cider and kicked off the class by singing along to the Woodie Guthrie song: “This land is your land – this land is my land.”
And
yet it is the same old dismal story. A
tiny minority grabs most of the land for itself and makes a
cynical mockery of that sentiment. It
grows filthy rich from profits that come of monopolizing a universe of
resources that rightfully belong to all the people.
The “Enclosure laws” in 18th century England spring to mind as one of many such outrageous examples of privatization through the ages.
Closer to home, we see it at work in Colonial America, the cradle of modern democracy.
We are so flabbergasted by the latest statistics showing 1/10th of the 1 % controlling much of the world that we forget that by the turn of the 18th century three-fourths of the acreage in New York belonged to less than a dozen persons.
In the interior of Virginia, seven persons acquired a total of 1.7 million acres, almost a quarter million acres per person.
By 1760, fewer than 500 merchants in five colonial cities controlled most of the trade on the eastern seaboard.[1]
The “Enclosure laws” in 18th century England spring to mind as one of many such outrageous examples of privatization through the ages.
Closer to home, we see it at work in Colonial America, the cradle of modern democracy.
We are so flabbergasted by the latest statistics showing 1/10th of the 1 % controlling much of the world that we forget that by the turn of the 18th century three-fourths of the acreage in New York belonged to less than a dozen persons.
In the interior of Virginia, seven persons acquired a total of 1.7 million acres, almost a quarter million acres per person.
By 1760, fewer than 500 merchants in five colonial cities controlled most of the trade on the eastern seaboard.[1]
Sure, a middle class of farmers, tavern-keepers and shop-keepers was comfortably well off by the standards of the time.
But the great bulk of people, amounting to 80% to 85% of the white population of the day, were poor freeholders, tenants, squatters, indentured laborers or hired hands. Cities teemed with cobblers, weavers, bakers, blacksmiths, peddlers, clerks and domestics who worked long hours for a pittance.
New England dirt farmers may have seemed like princes compared to the Irish poor who labored under the heel of English oppressors, living in wretched hovels of mud and straw, clothed in rags and subsisting on potatoes.[2] But their plight was still a pitiful one compared to our home-grown aristocracy who lolled in ornate colonial mansions and dined off fine Georgian silver.
But the great bulk of people, amounting to 80% to 85% of the white population of the day, were poor freeholders, tenants, squatters, indentured laborers or hired hands. Cities teemed with cobblers, weavers, bakers, blacksmiths, peddlers, clerks and domestics who worked long hours for a pittance.
New England dirt farmers may have seemed like princes compared to the Irish poor who labored under the heel of English oppressors, living in wretched hovels of mud and straw, clothed in rags and subsisting on potatoes.[2] But their plight was still a pitiful one compared to our home-grown aristocracy who lolled in ornate colonial mansions and dined off fine Georgian silver.
The
result is not just disparities between parts of the world. Third World vs. First World countries,
for example. The result is
disparities within a country itself.
In the richest country in the world there are heartbreaking gaps between areas like Appalachia, which are reduced to a colonial status though they abound in mineral deposits like coal, and playgrounds of the wealthy, like the Hamptons.
In the richest country in the world there are heartbreaking gaps between areas like Appalachia, which are reduced to a colonial status though they abound in mineral deposits like coal, and playgrounds of the wealthy, like the Hamptons.
This
is an untenable state of affairs, to say the least. It is profoundly unjust, unfair, and fraught with every
strain of resentment, envy, frustration and rage imaginable. And
it cannot exist naturally on its own.
As a matter of fact, it requires all the help that it can possibly get.
This is where government comes in.
Government is the deus ex machina - the artificial god that pops out of the stage machinery to confer an aura of legitimacy on this unfair system and enshrine it as the order of the day.
This is where government comes in.
Government is the deus ex machina - the artificial god that pops out of the stage machinery to confer an aura of legitimacy on this unfair system and enshrine it as the order of the day.
So it is that under the guise of protecting private property, government is really in the business of promoting the wholesale theft of collective property.
If there is any bank that is genuinely too big to fail, it is the universal bank of our mother earth of which we are all equal co-owners. Emperors and oligarchs, princes and plutocrats are determined to make out like bandits by perpetually holding up this mother of all banks at gunpoint. And government is the getaway vehicle that enables them to get away with it time after time, throughout much of history.
The trick is for society to be engrossed in a make-believe game of cops and robbers.
We focus all our attention on chasing down two-bit crooks whose assaults on private property yield a few measly bucks. That way we turn a blind eye to the billions of acres of land grants to private corporations, the trillions of dollars worth of public leases for coal and oil, copper and gold, sold off for a song to monopolistic industries, and the untold earnings potential of broadcasting licenses for airwaves in the public domain, virtually given away to media conglomerates year after year.
All these wind up in the grubby hands of a few well-connected crony capitalists who reap a staggering windfall of riches from this wholesale looting and plundering of our collective treasure.
It's not as though we must have an axe to grind to see how capitalism kills us with a thousand cuts. The great Adam Smith, patron saint of free marketeers, was the first to admit it.
“Civil authority, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”
“Civil authority, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”
The Founding Fathers themselves had no illusions about it. They
were not about to let the dream of freedom and equality interfere with the practical goal at the top of their agenda - to create a government that could protect the spoils of the have-it-alls from the backlash of the have-little-or-nothings.
They knew very well that the real job of government was not to save its citizens from natural disasters but to save a superwealthy minority from the tsunamis of envy and rage, the earthquakes of resentment and frustration, whipped up by the age-old policy of cutting the resource-rich ground from under the people and violently arrogating the right to control it.
They knew very well that the real job of government was not to save its citizens from natural disasters but to save a superwealthy minority from the tsunamis of envy and rage, the earthquakes of resentment and frustration, whipped up by the age-old policy of cutting the resource-rich ground from under the people and violently arrogating the right to control it.
The editors of the Wall Street Journal are gung-ho to talk up any war, anywhere, any time. The only war that they are too coy to talk about is class war.
The Framers of the Constitution suffered from no such inhibitions. They agreed with James Madison that the commonest, most enduring source of conflict was class warfare arising from the unequal and undemocratic distribution of property.
The haves and have-nots fell into two distinct camps...and most of the founding fathers didn't hesitate to embrace a strong, central government that would guarantee the victory of their propertied interests in the warring struggle against the bankrupt rabble.
* * *
The language of the American Revolutionaries soared when it came to fighting for ideals like liberty and equality. It was rather plodding and dry when it came to doing justice to the sordid reality of class warfare. For that it takes a child who finds himself in the position of a have-more, impulsively using the body language of alarm and defensiveness to make a resounding statement for the ages.
I myself was a witness to the whole thing, along with the other kids in my social justice class. The first exercise of the day was to dole out two almonds apiece to the first five children.
The sixth boy, Jordan, received the munificent sum of (count them!) ten almonds.
The sixth boy, Jordan, received the munificent sum of (count them!) ten almonds.
Jordan
was no slouch. He sensed that he was an immediate object of envy and resentment by the
other kids. He picked up how he
was in imminent danger of having some part of his ten almonds snatched back and redistributed
to the others.
And so he adopted a gesture that betrayed his insecurity at the same time that it was meant to abate it. He bent over with his upper body and reached out his arms to form a protective circle around his store of almonds.
It was as if he was letting the other kids know that these ten almonds were now his sole and private property and they better not think of taking even one away.
And so he adopted a gesture that betrayed his insecurity at the same time that it was meant to abate it. He bent over with his upper body and reached out his arms to form a protective circle around his store of almonds.
It was as if he was letting the other kids know that these ten almonds were now his sole and private property and they better not think of taking even one away.
Talk
about Enclosure Laws! Jordan’s
whole body was a striking study in enclosure! I can still see him with his torso bent over and arms outstretched to
“enclose” his private store of wealth.
It branded itself into my brain as one of those unforgettable
moments that stay with you a lifetime.
In one graphic pose he demonstrated what it takes political historians volumes to explain.
He knew that he was the wealthiest almond-owner around.
And he knew that his status didn’t sit well with his fellow humans.
And so he reacted by literally embodying the main function of government. He used his torso and arms to form a sort of physical enclosure as a way of staking out his claim to his inordinate wealth and declaring that no one else was entitled to any part of it!
In one graphic pose he demonstrated what it takes political historians volumes to explain.
He knew that he was the wealthiest almond-owner around.
And he knew that his status didn’t sit well with his fellow humans.
And so he reacted by literally embodying the main function of government. He used his torso and arms to form a sort of physical enclosure as a way of staking out his claim to his inordinate wealth and declaring that no one else was entitled to any part of it!
One
might be tempted to assume that his gesture was an artless one. Perhaps it sprang from some
natural impulse in the boy. The
evidence shows that the other children did not share it.
One of the kids, when it came her turn to receive ten almonds, was all for giving them away so that everyone would share and share alike.
Another verbalized his discomfort at being the target of negative attention, confessing that he was unwilling to have it continue.
The fact is that Jordan stood out from the rest. He had a competitive edge that bordered on aggression. He could be sweet and charming at times, especially when it came to dispensing hugs. But some imbalance in his relationship with his dad ate away at him, and left with an overbearing streak to his personality.
One of the kids, when it came her turn to receive ten almonds, was all for giving them away so that everyone would share and share alike.
Another verbalized his discomfort at being the target of negative attention, confessing that he was unwilling to have it continue.
The fact is that Jordan stood out from the rest. He had a competitive edge that bordered on aggression. He could be sweet and charming at times, especially when it came to dispensing hugs. But some imbalance in his relationship with his dad ate away at him, and left with an overbearing streak to his personality.
Though Jordan’s reaction was thankfully atypical, it typifies the chief function of
government from Babylonian times to the present. Indeed, the rest of what government does can be considered
as something of a footnote, as it usually is by so-called libertarians.
For the one function of government that overshadows the others is to elaborately flesh out the implications of the Jordan Gesture.
It is to reinforce the Jordan Gesture with armies and national militias, courts and bureaucracies, lobbyists and media propagandists.
Government takes the maldistribution of those ten almonds as its starting point and through an invidious system rife with every sort of cronyism and favoritism multiplies its effects ten million fold.
It bends much of society’s collective resources to the task of safeguarding what is, in the first analysis, a grossly unfair division of property.
And then, despite the fact that it flies in the face of our common decency and shared humanity, government keeps on building on that unjust and unjustifiable division and buttressing it, until, in the last analysis, it becomes a political philosophy and an economic way of life that is taken for granted as the most natural thing in the world.
For the one function of government that overshadows the others is to elaborately flesh out the implications of the Jordan Gesture.
It is to reinforce the Jordan Gesture with armies and national militias, courts and bureaucracies, lobbyists and media propagandists.
Government takes the maldistribution of those ten almonds as its starting point and through an invidious system rife with every sort of cronyism and favoritism multiplies its effects ten million fold.
It bends much of society’s collective resources to the task of safeguarding what is, in the first analysis, a grossly unfair division of property.
And then, despite the fact that it flies in the face of our common decency and shared humanity, government keeps on building on that unjust and unjustifiable division and buttressing it, until, in the last analysis, it becomes a political philosophy and an economic way of life that is taken for granted as the most natural thing in the world.
