fungible

this particular jeffersonian graphic...or, at least, a version of it appeared on facebook yesterday...

and beneath it, among others, was "and then he plagiarized his friend john locke"...which may be true...but then the founders were all fond of john...he was their sort of people...he believed in democracy...or rather a republican government ..but on a exceptionally limited scale...in the very beginning of the fundamental constitutions of carolina he states his desire that "...we may avoid erecting a numerous democracy..." and proceeds to set stringent property qualifications for voting and even more stringent ones for holding office...it was to be a government of, by, and for the elite...when james madison rants about protecting the "minor party" from "an interested and overbearing majority" he channels locke and looks to create a government by and for the elite...and, along with jay and "that damned ass" hamilton he succeeded in presenting a case strong enough to squeak through ratification...wealth became government...washington was not poor...nor was adams or jefferson...even lincoln was a prosperous lawyer by the time the call came...they were of the hegemonic culture...insiders...this is fairly self-evident with a close reading of the related materials..so when this :

cropped up in today's new york times i almost spit out my tea...krugman is, among other things, a nobelist in economics...you'd think he'd know why the rich have so much power..he is, after all, a theologian of greed...but then he's also part of the hegemonic culture and has to keep up the appearance of a democracy when the reality is there never was one and he knows that good and well...the new york times is also part of the hegemonic culture and has to keep up appearances as well, even though it is a corporate entity devoted to profit ( there isn't a "new york time store" for fun...it's about cash ) and slants its news as a product...in the end the rich have so much power because wealth and power are fungible, if not the same thing...one easily substitutes for the other...much like a democrat and a republican these days.

bads

"we still call it economic growth, or simply 'growth' in the confused belief that growth must always be economic. i contend that we have reached the economic limit to growth but we don't know it, and desperately hide the fact by faulty national accounting, because growth is our idol and to stop worshiping it is an anathema...i must confess surprise that denial has endured for forty years." herman e. daly. professor emeritus in the school of public policy, university of maryland.___________________________________________________________________ so why the denial about limits? and why the politically expedient cooked books? and why is growth an idol? it's not my idol...i believe in limits...social....cultural...economic...it's the hegemonic culture that is "hiding the fact by faulty national accounting"...i'm doing my best to decode the data and place it in context of an economy firmly embedded in the bioshpere and all the natural limits that entails, human ingenuity non withstanding...the hegemonic culture needs "growth" because it has developed a methodology of privatizing the benefits of that growth while socializing the costs...that is the basis of their position of wealth and privilege and the platform from which they inform us of their worldview and from which they propagandize us into thinking that it is our worldview and that it will benefit us all...that poverty can disappear through growth without sharing...they are, of course, lying through their teeth and laughing all the way to the bank while the "losers" keep on chasing the carrot...i am weary of the apologists for capitalism and "market mechanisms", techno-optimists and the rabid, greedy scum that people the stock exchange and investment banks...we all need material things to survive...goods if you will...but the system that produces those "goods" doesn't account for the "bads" it produces along with them...those are "externalities" and not subject to the scrutiny of public accountancy...enough...basta ya! it's time to ferret out the truth of our situation...build supportive communities...produce as much as we can on our own and utilize the consumerist utopia for what we need, not what someone else wants us to believe we need...in short a culture not an economy...that is a manifestly non-violent way to reduce the ruling oligarchy ( plutocracy? hamiltonian scam artists? pharaohs? brahmins? whatever you care to call them ) to irrelevance...to remove ourselves as far as possible from their worldview...take what you need from it and leave what aggrandizes them at our expense...it all starts in your neighborhood...not in theirs.