tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75335187304618121212024-03-19T17:55:44.343-07:00IT's ALL RELATIVEPerception is reality. Everything is relative to everything else.
I am one of those people who can take 2 seemingly unrelated concepts and use one to describe the other, or relate the two in some way in conversation.
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Maybe I will actually get around to posting some of my own writing or art on here :)fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-48643487990774185092009-12-08T06:08:00.001-08:002009-12-08T06:08:30.477-08:00Sovereignty rating concerns supports dollar? | OANDA Forex Blog<base href="http://forexblog.oanda.com/20091208/sovereignty-rating-concerns-supports-dollar/"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <div id="corp_nav"> <div id="corp_nav_container"> <div id="corp_nav_logo"><a href="http://www.oanda.com/"><img src="http://forexblog.oanda.com/wp-content/themes/forexblog/library/media/images/logo_oanda_globalnav.gif" alt="Exchange Rates"></a></div> <ul> <li><a href="http://fxtrade.oanda.com" target="_blank">FOREX TRADING</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.oanda.com/">EXCHANGE RATES</a></li> <li><a href="http://fxglobaltransfer.oanda.com" target="_blank">MONEY TRANSFERS</a></li> <li><a href="http://fxconsulting.oanda.com" target="_blank">CURRENCY HEDGING</a></li> <li style="padding-right: 0px;"><a href="http://www.oanda.com/site/oanda/com_index.shtml" target="_blank">ABOUT US</a></li> </ul> <div class="c"></div> </div> </div> <!--BEGIN .container--> <div class="master-pad"> <div class="container"> <!--BEGIN .header--> <div class="header"> <div id="logo"><script language="javascript"> if (AC_FL_RunContent == 0) { alert("This page requires AC_RunActiveContent.js."); } else { AC_FL_RunContent( 'codebase', '<a href="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version">http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version</a>=9,0,0,0', 'width', '649', 'height', '69', 'src', '<a href="http://forexblog.oanda.com/wp-content/themes/forexblog/library/media/swf/logo4'">http://forexblog.oanda.com/wp-content/themes/forexblog/library/media/swf/logo4'</a>, 'quality', 'high', 'pluginspage', '<a href="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer'">http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer'</a>, 'align', 'middle', 'play', 'true', 'loop', 'true', 'scale', 'showall', 'wmode', 'window', 'devicefont', 'false', 'id', 'logo4', 'bgcolor', '#ffffff', 'name', 'logo4', 'menu', 'true', 'allowFullScreen', 'false', 'allowScriptAccess','sameDomain', 'movie', '<a href="http://forexblog.oanda.com/wp-content/themes/forexblog/library/media/swf/logo4'">http://forexblog.oanda.com/wp-content/themes/forexblog/library/media/swf/logo4'</a>, 'salign', '' ); //end AC code } </script><embed width="649" height="69" src="http://forexblog.oanda.com/wp-content/themes/forexblog/library/media/swf/logo4.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" align="middle" play="true" loop="true" scale="showall" wmode="window" devicefont="false" bgcolor="#ffffff" name="logo4" menu="true" allowfullscreen="false" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" salign="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"> <noscript></noscript></div> <div id="signin"> <p id="fxtrade-signin"><a href="https://fxtrade.oanda.com/your_account/login.shtml" target="_blank">Sign into FXTrade</a></p> <p id="fxtrade-noaccount">Don't have an account? 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Equity markets remain somewhat resilient despite regional hotspots. Dubai being this morning's exception, which fell to a 5-month low on concerns that Dubai World is struggling to restructure its debt. S&P is about to downgrade Greece and Portugal while Moody's states that the US and UK ratings may be tested. The inexperienced and somewhat unpopular Japanese PM announced an $81b economic stimulus package to counter deflation and a surging JPY. Geithner and Bernanke continue to preach that the situation has improved, but, there is still a long to go to sustain growth. The world saviors' is supposedly China and the rest of Asia. If Europe, the USA and Japan are in so much trouble, how is it possible for these other regions to sustain their supposed current rate of growth? Something is amiss!</p> <p>The US$ is weaker in the O/N trading session. Currently it is lower against 11 of the 16 most actively traded currencies in a 'subdued, yet illiquid' trading range. </p> <p><img src="http://fxlabs.oanda.com/products/snapshots/dat/images/fxhm_all_20091208.png" alt="Forex heatmap"></p> <p>Just three days after a surprising NFP print, helicopter Ben put a halt to the notion of hiking rates sooner than the already telegraphed 'extended period of time' yesterday. He conceded that the US economy has improved, but cautioned that the 'recovery remains fragile' and the jobless rate may remain 'elevated' for some time. He believes that the economy has some ways to go to be assured that the recovery will be 'self-sustaining'. His rhetoric to an Economics club in Washington was in fact rather dovish. He continues to point out that despite the general improvement in financial conditions, credit remains tight for many borrowers and the job market weak. Someone has to be realistic after Friday's movements which have seen both investors and dealers getting once again ahead of themselves. 'Elevated unemployment and stable inflation expectations should keep inflation subdued, and indeed, inflation could move lower from here' he said. He believes the Fed's balance sheet will not result in higher inflation and the Fed has the tools to withdraw stimulus. Their most difficult challenge will be not how to remove stimulus, but when. The crisis showed that risk management systems were inadequate and that financial firms must improve them while at the same time regulators must overhaul their approach to supervision. Wow! and he was only attending a luncheon!</p> <p>The USD$ is currently lower against the EUR +0.05%, CHF +0.07%, JPY +0.50% and higher against GBP -0.43%. The commodity currencies are slightly stronger this morning, CAD +0.05% and AUD +0.07%. The Canadian Stats Bureau must be on some sort of hallucinogen! Again no one was within driving distance with yesterday's Canadian Building permit print. The data clearly shows that supply is coming back. It was a much more bullish than expected set of permit numbers that was nearly 5 times greater (+18.1% vs. +1.1%). Is this further confirmation that the Canadian economy is recovering at an even faster pace than what's been expected? Last Friday's employment numbers also surprised (+79.1k).The loonie managed to advance for the first time in four days despite commodity prices coming under renewed pressure. Until we get confirmation from Governor Carney this morning, that rates are to remain on hold again (0.25%), the currency should be treading water. Capital Market's continue to tout June of next year as the month of the first rate increase because of fading wage gains and 'slow' economic growth. The market is beginning to question BOC Carney's tactics. His pledge to freeze record-low borrowing costs until next year may be raising the chances of a bubble in home prices! </p> <p>Australia's current account deficit was much wider than expected last night (-$16.18b vs. a revised -$13.1b) and has damped market expectations for a strong GDP number next week. This and the fear that Governor Stevens will further dampen expectations for an interest rate increase after raising borrowing costs a record three-straight months to +3.75% has pushed the currency to a one week low. In the big picture, the carry-trade and interest rate dynamics continue to influence the value of the currency. In theory and technically, the currency has remained better bid on pull backs as demand for riskier assets remains robust. But, currently commodity values are the problem to the AUD advancement (0.9134). </p> <p>Crude is higher in the O/N session ($74.15 up +22c). For a fourth consecutive trading session, crude had managed to fall to a new 2-month low. All on the back of the greenback surging has curbed the appeal of commodities temporarily to investors. Fundamentals continue to push the black-stuff about in a tight $6 trading range. The Saudi oil minister, al-Naimi on the weekend said that prices are in 'the right range and there is no need to reduce inventories'. OPEC meets late this month. Weekly US data continues to support the bear trade. Last week's EIA report revealed that US inventories climbed as consumption dropped. Oil inventories rose +2.09m barrels to +339.9m, w/w (highest level in 3-months). Also surprising was gas supplies surged +4m barrels to +214.1m. The market had been expecting a drawdown for crude of -400k, while gas was to increase by +700k barrels. Demand destruction is alive and kicking as weekly fuel demand slipped -2.6% on the back of refineries reducing operating rates for the 4th time in the last month and a half. It was also estimated that the 4-week moving average for total US daily fuel demand was +18.5m barrels. Other factors continue to contribute to negative price action. Technically, the markets have been paring their open positions ahead of OPEC's gathering. Secondly, a report last week on Russian output (the world's largest producer) showed that it remains at a record high for a second consecutive month. Expect the USD's direction to dictate price action medium term. Support levels look vulnerable here! </p> <p>Intraday volatility saw Gold plummeted, at one point losing just under -5.5% in the last two trading session as a rejuvenating dollar convinced investors to sell the yellow metal after it printed a new record high last week ($1,227). The commodity's prices have experienced wild gyrations of $20-$40 price swings over the past few trading sessions and remains exposed to further selling pressure if the USD continues to find traction. Seller beware, despite the 'mother in-law' and anyone who can, does own this 'hot' commodity, these pull backs remain strong buying opportunities as it's 'the international currency' ($1,161). </p> <p>The Nikkei closed at 10,140 down -27. The DAX index in Europe was at 5,807 up +23; the FTSE (UK) currently is 5,319 up +10. The early call for the open of key US indices is higher. The US 10-year bond eased 5bp yesterday (3.42%) and are little changed in the O/N session. Believing that the US economy is 'not' in full recovery mode despite the stellar employment report on Friday had treasuries paring some of last week's losses. Yesterday, Bernanke, prudently, continues to tout the same vein of caution about the speed of the US recovery. This week $74b of new product needs to get absorbed (3's-$40b today, 10's-$21b tomorrow and 30's-$13b Thursday). Dealers for various reasons have to date significantly cheapened up the curve. If the front end is well received (3's), the middle to the long end of the curve could experience some slippage. </p> <!--END .entry-content .article--> </div> <!--BEGIN .entry-meta .entry-footer--> <div class="entry-meta entry-footer"> <span class="entry-categories">Filed under: <a href="/deans-fx/">Dean's FX</a>, <a href="/usd/">USD</a>, <a href="/eur/">EUR</a>, <a href="/gbp/">GBP</a>, <a href="/chf/">CHF</a>, <a href="/jpy/">JPY</a>, <a href="/aud/">AUD</a>, <a href="/cad/">CAD</a></span> <!-- --> <!--END .entry-meta .entry-footer--> </div> <!-- Auto Discovery Trackbacks <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:trackback="http://madskills.com/public/xml/rss/module/trackback/"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://forexblog.oanda.com/20091208/sovereignty-rating-concerns-supports-dollar/" dc:identifier="http://forexblog.oanda.com/20091208/sovereignty-rating-concerns-supports-dollar/" dc:title="Sovereignty rating 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multiwidget_oanda-realtime-interest-widget"> <div id="realtime-479189721-tab-forex" class="oanda-realtime-tab-forex" rel="realtime-479189721"><div class="oanda-realtime-tab oanda-realtime-tab-on">Forex Rates</div></div> <div id="realtime-479189721-tab-interest" class="oanda-realtime-tab-interest" rel="realtime-479189721"><div class="oanda-realtime-tab">Interest Rates</div></div> <div style="clear: both;"></div> <div class="oanda-realtime-container"> <div id="realtime-479189721-realtime" class="oanda-realtime-div"> <div id="realtime-479189721" class="flashcontent"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="/fileadmin/images/fxtrade/ratesapplet.swf" width="291" height="207" id="ratechart" name="ratechart" bgcolor="#ffffff" quality="high" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" scale="noscale" salign="lt" flashvars="p_cfg=/lfr/cfr_forexblog&ext_flashObjID=ratechart"></div> <script type="text/javascript"> var fo = new SWFObject("/fileadmin/images/fxtrade/ratesapplet.swf", "ratechart", "290", 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src="/wp-content/plugins/oanda-realtime-interest-widget/images/flag_nzd.gif" alt="New Zealand"></div><div class="interest_rate_currency">NZD</div><div class="interest_rate_bar" style="width:83.33333333333333px;"></div><div class="interest_rate">2.50%</div><div class="interest_rate_next_line"></div><div class="interest_rate_flag"><img src="/wp-content/plugins/oanda-realtime-interest-widget/images/flag_eur.gif" alt="Euro Zone"></div><div class="interest_rate_currency">EUR</div><div class="interest_rate_bar" style="width:33.333333333333336px;"></div><div class="interest_rate">1.00%</div><div class="interest_rate_next_line"></div><div class="interest_rate_flag"><img src="/wp-content/plugins/oanda-realtime-interest-widget/images/flag_gbp.gif" alt="United Kingdom"></div><div class="interest_rate_currency">GBP</div><div class="interest_rate_bar" style="width:16.666666666666668px;"></div><div class="interest_rate">0.50%</div><div class="interest_rate_next_line"></div><div class="interest_rate_flag"><img src="/wp-content/plugins/oanda-realtime-interest-widget/images/flag_usd.gif" alt="United States"></div><div class="interest_rate_currency">USD</div><div class="interest_rate_bar" style="width:8.333333333333334px;"></div><div class="interest_rate">0.25%</div><div class="interest_rate_next_line"></div><div class="interest_rate_flag"><img src="/wp-content/plugins/oanda-realtime-interest-widget/images/flag_cad.gif" alt="Canada"></div><div class="interest_rate_currency">CAD</div><div class="interest_rate_bar" style="width:8.333333333333334px;"></div><div class="interest_rate">0.25%</div><div class="interest_rate_next_line"></div><div class="interest_rate_flag"><img src="/wp-content/plugins/oanda-realtime-interest-widget/images/flag_chf.gif" alt="Switzerland"></div><div class="interest_rate_currency">CHF</div><div class="interest_rate_bar" style="width:8.333333333333334px;"></div><div class="interest_rate">0.25%</div><div class="interest_rate_next_line"></div><div class="interest_rate_flag"><img src="/wp-content/plugins/oanda-realtime-interest-widget/images/flag_jpy.gif" alt="Japan"></div><div class="interest_rate_currency">JPY</div><div class="interest_rate_bar" style="width:3.3333333333333335px;"></div><div class="interest_rate">0.10%</div></div> <!-- <div id="int_rate-479189721"></div> <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"> var interest_rates_parameter = new Hash(); interest_rates_parameter.set("interest_rate_values", interest_rate_values); interest_rates_parameter.set("target_div_id","int_rate-479189721"); interest_rates_parameter.set("width", 225); interest_rates_parameter.set("height", 160); //interest_rates_parameter.set("width", 290); //interest_rates_parameter.set("height", 270); draw_interest_rates(interest_rates_parameter); </script> --> </div> </div></div><div id="oanda-market-events-459351561" class="widget multiwidget_oanda-market-events"> <div style="background: #000 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class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency" style="margin-top: 10px;">CAD</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event" style="margin-top: 10px;">BOC Rate Statement</div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency">CAD</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event">Overnight Rate<br><span class="oanda-marketevents-widget-vs">0.25% vs. 0.25%</span> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-time">Tentative</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-bar"><hr></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency" style="margin-top: 10px;">GBP</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event" style="margin-top: 10px;">NIESR GDP Estimate<br><span class="oanda-marketevents-widget-vs">-0.4%</span> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-time">10:00 am</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-bar"><hr></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency" style="margin-top: 10px;">USD</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event" style="margin-top: 10px;">IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism<br><span class="oanda-marketevents-widget-vs">49.8 vs. 47.9</span> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-time">6:30 pm</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-bar"><hr></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency" style="margin-top: 10px;">AUD</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event" style="margin-top: 10px;">Westpac Consumer Sentiment<br><span class="oanda-marketevents-widget-vs">-2.5%</span> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-time">6:50 pm</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-bar"><hr></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency" style="margin-top: 10px;">JPY</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event" style="margin-top: 10px;">Final GDP q/q<br><span class="oanda-marketevents-widget-vs">0.8% vs. 1.2%</span> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency">JPY</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event">Final GDP Price Index y/y<br><span class="oanda-marketevents-widget-vs">0.2% vs. 0.2%</span> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-time">7:01 pm</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-bar"><hr></div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency" style="margin-top: 10px;">GBP</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event" style="margin-top: 10px;">Nationwide Consumer Confidence<br><span class="oanda-marketevents-widget-vs">71 vs. 72</span> </div><div style="clear:both;"></div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-currency">GBP</div> <div class="oanda-marketevents-widget-event">BRC Shop Price Index y/y<br><span class="oanda-marketevents-widget-vs">0.0%</span> </div><div 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OANDA Corporation owns Trade Marks of all its "FX" products. </p> </div> <!-- Theme Hook --> <!--END .footer--> </div> <!--END .container--> </div> </div> <div style="height:50px;"> </div> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"><!-- function do_on_window_load(f) { var p = window.onload; window.onload = function() { if (p) p(); f(); } } do_on_window_load(function() { document.write = function(s) { var v = /[<]script.+?src\s*=\s*"(\S+?)"/i.exec(s); if (v) { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.type = 'text/javascript'; e.src = v[1]; document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(e); } } }); //--> </script> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"><!-- do_on_window_load(function() { document.write('<s' + 'cript language="javascript" src="' + document.location.protocol + '//' + 'webstats.oanda.com' + '/cgi-bin/ctasp-server.cgi' + '?i=forexblog' + '&fp=1' + '&c='+escape(document.cookie) + '"></' + 'script>'); }); //--> </script><!--END body--> <!--END html(kthxbye)--> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-36770697325880797072009-10-07T11:03:00.000-07:002009-10-07T11:03:28.545-07:00Ayres is OBAMAS GHOST WRITER...fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-32876984314191909752009-10-06T16:21:00.000-07:002009-10-06T16:21:57.365-07:00New Zeal: US Radicals 1 Margarida Jorge<a href="http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2009/10/us-radicals-1-margarida-george.html">New Zeal: US Radicals 1 Margarida Jorge</a>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-82068433933153564812009-10-05T12:36:00.000-07:002009-10-05T12:36:07.691-07:00Aiming to Create Green Jobs and Returns — Green For AllAND PERHAPS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST OR TWO WHILE WE ARE AT IT<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.greenforall.org/media-room/press-clips/aiming-to-create-green-jobs-and-returns">Aiming to Create Green Jobs and Returns — Green For All</a>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-49433366812851046102009-10-04T23:05:00.000-07:002009-10-04T23:06:24.433-07:00Communism vs. Capitalism<base href="http://www.germane-software.com/~ser/Files/Essays/Communism.html"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div class="article"><div class="titlepage"><div><h2 class="title"><a name="N400003"></a>Communism vs. Capitalism</h2></div><hr></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><a href="#N400007">The Nature of Communism</a></dt><dt><a href="#N400018">The Nature of Capitalism</a></dt></dl></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="N400007"></a>The Nature of Communism</h2></div></div><p>I make no pretenses: I dislike communism. It is a noble concept, but it is one that can't work without a radical change in the human psyche, and I'm not sure I'd want to live in a world where people were, effectively, labotimized.</p><p>My personal belief is that communism, as it exists in the world today, and capitalism are the same thing. True communism doesn't, and can't, exist.</p><p>True communism depends on human nature being basically altruistic. For communism to work, the members of the society either need to be altruistic enough to want to work for the benefit of their neighbors, or they need to be forward thinking enough to see that what benefits the whole benefits themselves. They must be very far-sighted indeed, because large-scale social benefits tend to be more abstract in nature, and more difficult to recognise. In contrast, when you get your paycheck, you can buy your VCR, and there it is on your table. You can directly relate your work to the results.</p><p>If human nature is basically egoistic, then true communism doesn't work. If people are basically selfish, then they won't work for the common good, and there will be a tendancy to freeload or otherwise take advantage of the system. For communism to work in that case, you would you need to make sure that everybody was doing their fair share. You would need a system of "points", to make sure everybody is doing their part. People then work to earn points, so that they can justify receiving their share -- or else they don't get their share, or they go to jail, or they're kicked out of the community, or some other fascist reaction.</p><p>Capitalism is also a value-point system, with the "points" being capital. Therefore, communism is just a form of capitalism, only worse. It is worse because people can't get ahead -- they can still starve, but they can't get rich. I call this commu-capitalism, and it's poster child is the former Soviet Republic.</p><p>It is my belief that people aren't bad, but they are by nature selfish. I believe that people, like all animals, are organisms with an genetically programmed desire to prosper, reproduce, and expand. What we see as altruism in people is an evolved sense of mutual benefit -- I help you, you help me, we both prosper. Altruism goes out the window when the benefit is one-way. We cast off dead weight, except in certain situations. Yes, we have a social welfare system in the United States, albeit a very inadequate and ill one. I personally believe that the only reason why we have one at all is as a safety net. It is instructional to notice that we have to give tax breaks to intice charity. It is always the middle class -- the ones closer to that poverty level and more at risk of slipping into the poverty level -- who most support charity for charity's sake.</p><p>Ok, so by now you're sure I've got this black view of the human soul, but I don't think I do. I like people, and I think they are basically good, when it suits them. I think it is unfair to expect people to be willing to throw away their own health for the health of others -- it is nice and noble when it happens, but it isn't human nature. And this is why communism, as a pure concept, can't work, and always devolves into capitalism.</p></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a name="N400018"></a>The Nature of Capitalism</h2></div></div><p>Capitalism depends on people being basically selfish. The whole point is that, if you work hard, you can get rich, ride to the top, and do whatever (more or less) you want.</p><p>As an aside, I'd like to point out that I find this entirely ironic. The point of life is to procreate, because those organisms who's entire being is given up to that drive to procreate are the one's who's genes have the most chance of surviving. However, birth rates in the most industrialized nations is far lower than those in third-world countries, and it isn't because we can't procreate -- it is because it we don't really want to. For some reason, when we get fat and wealthy, we lose the desire to spawn. I'm guessing it is nature's way of keeping humans hungry. The true advances come from the dissatisfied, not from the comfortable.</p><p>In any case, we've evolved a system whereby, theoretically, the hardest working reap the most rewards. Only, it doesn't quite work out that way, as you'll see.</p><p>Like commu-capitalism, capitalism has its downsides. In a communism, you get points <span class="emphasis"><em>only</em></span> if you contribute. However, with capitalism, people can, and do, make significant amounts money without making any significant contribution to society whatsoever. In fact, a large portion of the American economy is devoted to doing just this -- making money off of the concept of money alone. "Interest" is a good example of this. Once an entity has a certain amount of money, it can survive off the interest without providing any constructive contribution to society. I phrase it this way, because at that point it doesn't matter whether the entity exists or not. It is capable of becoming a pure consumer, rather than a producer. Banks, therefore, are leeches on the process of capitalism. They don't truely contribute to the advancement of society.</p><p>Before I let you get too far into making any assumptions about my beliefs and values, I want to make it clear: I actually like banking. I think they're absolutely necessary, for the same reasons why a true communism would never work. I'd like to have a job working on banking software. Banking is the one, truely universal industry, where your skills are always in demand. For that matter, I'd love to have the opportunity to become a leech on society. I wouldn't actually exercise the ability, but it would be nice to not have to worry about how I'm going to fund my retirement. I'm also a dedicated capitalist. However, I do believe that there is no such thing as a purely good concept, and that any idea can be abused.</p><p>So, capitalism encourages non-contributing, support structure industry. Many organizations make fortunes simply by shifting money back and forth, from one place to another. While this is all very integral to our economy, it only exists as a side effect -- it doesn't actually <span class="emphasis"><em>produce</em></span> anything.</p><p>Capitalism allows people to starve. However, unlike communism, capitalism also allows people to better themselves and their situation. Capitalism also allows people to ensure a better future for their offspring, should they have any, and to contribute surplus resources to organizations that they believe in. To quote the old hack, it may not be a perfect system, but it is the best one we have.</p></div></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-28636025821417520552009-09-29T22:20:00.000-07:002009-09-29T22:27:35.891-07:00Right in Two -by Tool - Lyrics<span style="font-family:courier new;">Angels on the sideline,<br />Puzzled and amused.<br />Why did Father* give these humans free will?<br />Now they're all confused.<br /><br />Don't these talking monkeys know that Eden has enough to go around?<br />Plenty in this holy garden, silly monkeys<br />Where there's one you're bound to divide it right in two.<br /><br />Angels on the sideline,<br />Baffled and confused.<br />Father blessed them all with reason,<br />And this is what they choose?<br /><br />Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground.<br />Silly monkeys.<br />Give them thumbs, they forge a blade,<br />And where there's one they're bound to divide it right in two.<br /><br />Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over pieces of the ground.<br />Silly monkeys.<br />Give them thumbs, they make a club to beat their brother down.<br />How they've survived so misguided is a mystery.<br />Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability<br />To lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here.<br /><br />Gotta divide it all right in two.<br /><br />Fight till they die over sun, over sky,<br />They fight till they die over sea, over air,<br />They fight till they die over blood, over love,<br />They fight till they die over words, polarizing.<br /><br />Angels on the sideline again,<br />Benched along with patience and reason.<br />Angels on the sideline again,<br />Wondering where this tug of war will end.<br /><br />Gotta divide it all right in two.<br /><br />* The official lyric release has "daddy" instead of "Father."<strong></strong><strong></strong> </span>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-60227635948819709722009-08-30T21:43:00.000-07:002009-08-30T21:44:02.424-07:00authoritarianism and liberty from Abelard.org<html><head><base href="http://www.abelard.org/briefings/authoritarianism-liberty.asp"> <!-- Authoritarianism and liberty is an introductory document to the logic of human organisations, clarifying definitions of various (sacred) names in the discussion of modern Western politics. --> <!-- ideology,dogma,clericalism,authoritarianism,democracy,liberty,fascism,fascist,falangist,socialism,christianity,catholicism,liberal,right,left,liberalism,falangist, --> <title>authoritarianism and liberty</title> <meta content="Authoritarianism and liberty is an introductory document to the logic of human organisations, clarifying definitions of various (sacred) names in the discussion of modern Western politics." name="Description"> <meta content="ideology,dogma,clericalism,authoritarianism,democracy,liberty,fascism,fascist,falangist,socialism,christianity,catholicism,liberal,right,left,liberalism,falangist," name="Keywords"> <meta content="text/html; 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It is also one of a series of documents analysing dysfunctional social, or group, behaviour in modern society.</span></font></td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="2%"><img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"></td> <td width="43%"><span class="blk-bld">authoritarianism and liberty</span></td> <td><img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"></td> <td><a href="citizens_wage.htm" class="box-org2">citizen's wage</a></td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td> <img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"> </td> <td><a href="socialist_religion.htm" class="box-org2">socialist religions</a></td> <td width="1%"><img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"></td> <td width="54%"><a href="../power.htm" class="box-ong">power, ownership and freedom</a></td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td> <img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"> </td> <td><a href="fascism-is-socialism.php" class="box-ong">fascism is socialism</a></td> <td><img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"></td> <td><a href="../corporate.htm" class="box-org2">corporate corruption, politics and the law</a></td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td> <img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"></td> <td><font color="#000000"><span class="blk-bld"><a href="marxism-encyclicals.asp" class="box-org2">papal encyclicals and marx - some extracts</a></span></font></td> <td rowspan="2"><img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"> </td> <td rowspan="2"><a href="internment.htm" class="box-ong">British establishment interference with civil liberties during the 20th century—the example of Diana and Oswald Mosley</a></td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td><img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"> </td> <td><a href="islamic-authoritarianism.asp" class="box-ong">islamic authoritarianism</a></td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td><img src="yIozenge.png" width="9" height="11"></td> <td><a href="ends_and_means.php" class="box-org2">ends and means and the individual</a></td> <td> </td> <td> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br> <table width="90%" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="fascism - a supplement to the socialist religions briefings document"> <tbody><tr> <td width="53%"> <p><span class="head-4"><a name="index"></a>Index</span><br> <a href="#right_left" class="blu-indx">right, left, fascist, socialist</a><br> <a href="#shopping_bags" class="blu-indx">shopping bags</a><br> <a href="#differences" class="blu-indx">a suggested clarification</a><br> <a href="#government" class="blu-indx">role for government</a><br> <a href="#socialist_factions" class="blu-indx">'godless' socialism and clericalism</a><br> <a href="fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-27581623195188568912009-08-14T03:35:00.001-07:002009-08-14T03:35:47.932-07:00American Thinker: Barack Obama and Alinsky's Rules for Psychopaths<base href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_alinskys_rule.html"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; 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fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression.' <br> -- Saul Alinsky, </font><a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=d6e27ece-9798-4f01-a378-3f1405f69704" target="_blank"><em><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Rules for Radicals</font></em></a><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> </font></div><br><div><br><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">"THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT --- An analysis of the Alinsky Model." </font></div><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> -- </font><a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=39595ECB-C0AD-4E37-A093-A2E510FE3A60" target="_blank"><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Hillary Clinton</font></a><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">, BA Honors Thesis, Wellesley College, 1969.</font></div><div><br><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">"(Barack) Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing...."</font></div><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> -- The <em><a href="http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:OKOK2zwPNKwJ:www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moberg+%22barack+obama%22+and+%22gamaliel+foundation%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us" target="_blank">Nation</a></em> </font></div></blockquote><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">A psychopath is a person without conscience; someone who constantly breaks the moral rules of the community. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Saul Alinsky was a "community organizer" who found a career that fit that personality disorder. In the Orwellian upside-down world of the Left, community organizers disorganize communities. That is the meaning of revolution, to overturn whatever exists today in the raw pursuit of one's own power. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Alinsky <a href="http://www.progress.org/2003/alinsky5.htm" target="_blank">boasted</a> about his close alliance with Frank Nitti, Al Capone's second in command in the Chicago Mob during the 1930s. Al Capone's Mob were domestic terrorists, and not for any noble cause either. They poisoned the Chicago politics of their era. Alinsky's close alliance with Frank Nitti tells us something crucially important today. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Alinsky was also a lifelong ally of the Stalin-controlled Communist Party, at a time when Stalin was known to have murdered tens of millions of people. He was proud of building a bridge between organized crime and the power hungry Left. That tacit alliance may continue today.</font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Alinsky's personality fits the definition of a psychopath -- someone who has no guilt or shame toward others. But Alinsky also discovered how to teach psychopathic behavior to college students. That is the key to his success: To persuade hundreds of thousands of ignorant young people that it is much more moral to be immoral. Or, as Bill Ayers famously <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2169" target="_blank">said</a>, "Bring the Revolution home; kill your parents." </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Bill Ayers is now a highly influential professor of education. That is not an accident; it reflects a deliberate program of radical agitation and propaganda through the school systems. If you want to know who brought down American education, Bill Ayers is part of the answer. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">A lot of the Boomer Left is marked by psychopathic behavior, in politics and in the rest of life. That is why the actions of the Left are so shocking to many of us. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Alinsky's disciples -- including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- have a warlike political style. They learned politics as war from the Master. Obama is so well-trained in Alinsky tactics that he used to <a href="http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=a74fca23-f6ac-4736-9c78-f4163d4f25c7" target="_blank">teach workshops</a> on it. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">That is why Obama can knowingly violate Federal law against usurping the presidential power to negotiate with Iraq before ever getting elected. Actual election to head of state by the voters means nothing, just as it means nothing to Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, who have <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2M3MDA2OTYxODVlYTcwMDJjZWJmODM3ZmI3ZWE3NTY=" target="_blank">negotiated</a> with Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood in clear violation of law while serving in Congress. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Teaching hatred for the normal majority is the key to power for radicals. But Alinsky taught that you can't easily hate millions of people. To do that effectively you need a one-person scapegoat to focus all your hatred on. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." That is the politics of <a href="/2008/01/hillary_and_bill_use_alinksy_t.html" target="_blank">personal destruction</a>, and it doesn't matter if the target is black like Clarence Thomas, or a woman like Sarah Palin, or a severely wounded war veteran like John McCain. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">That is why Obama is now instructing his followers to "<a href="http://boards.msn.com/MSNBCboards/thread.aspx?threadid=786095" target="_blank">get in their faces</a>" of those Americans who are not down for his cause. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> Obama acts like a nice guy, but he is a political warmonger. He's been very <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/06/14/obama-if-they-bring-a-knife-to-the-fight-we-bring-a-gun/" target="_blank">clear</a> about that: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." That's the language of gang war. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Today we can see the Left's rage reaction to John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin. The <em>New York Sun</em> <a href="http://www.nysun.com/national/palin-pick-puts-many-women-on-the-verge/86241/?print=8153381221" target="_blank">quoted</a> one feminist saying "All of my women friends, a week ago Monday, were on the verge of throwing themselves out windows ...People were flipping out. ... Every woman I know was in high hysteria over this. Everyone was just beside themselves with terror that this woman could be our president -- our potential next president."</font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">The "comedienne" Sandra Bernhard suggested that Sarah Palin would be "<a href="http://media.newsbusters.org/stories/sandra-bernhard-palin-would-be-gang-raped-blacks-manhattan.html?q=blogs/tim-graham/2008/09/19/sandra-bernhard-palin-would-be-gang-raped-blacks-manhattan" target="_blank">gang-raped</a> by blacks in Manhattan" if she dared to go there. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">A British Leftist writing for <a href="http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/12-09-2008/106354-palindevil-0" target="_blank">Pravda</a> (!) </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">called "Sarah Palin - The Devil in disguise... </font></div><br><blockquote><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Sarah Palin, Mrs. Nobody know-it-all shreiking cow from Alaska, the joke of American politics, plied with a couple of vodkas ... cheap little guttersnipe ... suppose you shut up ... you pith-headed little bimbo from the back of beyond ... So next time suppose you keep your mouth shut and while you're at it, make sure the members of your family keep their legs shut too. ... "</font></div></blockquote><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">That warlike rage has been systematically whipped up over decades by the Left. That's what college "Women's Studies" does, just as "Black Studies" is deliberately designed to whip up black rage and victimhood. Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis is a case in point. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Alinsky called ordinary Americans "the enemy." Normal people don't declare war on all of society. But Alinsky wrote in <em>Rules for Radicals</em> that radicals </font></div><br><blockquote><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">"...have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt ... They are right ... " </font></div></blockquote><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Normal, decent America is the enemy for these people. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Obama and Hillary are lifelong followers of Alinsky. They use his tactics and ideology. That is why American politics became the politics of personal destruction when the Boomer Left came to power. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">These claims require proof; but we have been looking straight at the evidence since the first Clinton term. Bill Clinton fits the diagnostic description of psychopathic personality, now relabeled "antisocial personality' in the DSM IV, the official diagnostic manual for psychiatry. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Three out of the following <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder" target="_blank">seven criteria</a> nails the diagnosis: </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> </font></div><br><blockquote><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">1. Failure to conform to social norms ...</font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">2. Deceitfulness ... or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;</font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;</font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">4. Irritability and aggressiveness ... ;</font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;</font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">6. Consistent irresponsibility ... ;</font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.</font></div></blockquote><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">I would give Mr. Clinton credit for Numbers 1, 2, 6, and 7, and possibly 3 (impulsivity) and 4 (irritability and aggressiveness). Dick Morris, who advised the Clintons for 20 years, describes dramatic scenes that certainly fit the description. Or Bill's inability to stick with a meeting agenda, impulsively running endless bull sessions at the White House. As for 5, his picking up women opportunistically and in a way that put his career, not to mention his family life and American security, at risk. The Monica affair showed an impulsive, reckless president who got into power by endless lying and conning. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Liberal Democrats used to be normal Americans before the Boomer Left rose to power. Hubert Humphrey and Harry Truman had a strong sense of American morality. They despised the Stalinist Left and fought to keep them out of the Democrat Party. They were sensitive to ordinary shame and guilt, the emotions that make us civilized. When Bob Dole asked <em>"Where is the shame?"</em> in the 1996 presidential election, the answer came out: Not in the modern Democrat Party. People without guilt or shame make merciless power mongers. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Normal people slow down in School Zones where kids might run across the street -- not because they're afraid of getting a speeding ticket but because they can't stand the thought of hurting kids. They don't need to cheat compulsively on wives and husbands to prove how irresistible they are. Normal people have internalized some modesty and humility, and are capable of respect and love for others. A common feature of psychopaths is the inability to feel authentic love and respect for others. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">True psychopaths are often charming, seductive, and treacherous. They make natural con artists. Many psychopaths are extremely manipulative -- and what is more manipulative than stirring up hatred among victim groups to empower oneself? That is Jeremiah Wright, the diabolical Father Pfleger, James Meeks, and by his own definition of radicals, Saul Alinsky. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">The worst are "malevolent psychopaths" -- people who sadistically hurt others. Hitler and Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot, and probably many famous Western intellectuals fit the description of malevolent psychopaths. That is tragic and shocking. Historian Paul Johnson presents compelling evidence for malevolent psychopathy in the life of Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, and many others in his important book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Marx-Tolstoy-Sartre-Chomsky/dp/0061253170/ref=pd_bbs_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221851042&sr=8-5">Intellectuals</a></em>. Western intellectuals have been the home team of Leftist radicalism for a century now. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">But the single most important point about Alinsky's "community organizing" strategy is that normal people can be trained to act like psychopaths: To become convinced that a "higher morality" allows them to act without conscience. As Alinsky <a href="http://www.nathanielturner.com/rulesforradicals.htm" target="_blank">wrote admiringly</a> about V.I. Lenin, well known as a large-scale murder leader: </font></div><br><blockquote><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">"Lenin was a pragmatist; ... he said that the Bolsheviks stood for getting power through the ballot box but would reconsider after they got the guns!" </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> </font></div></blockquote><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">That is a laugh line, believe it or not. </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Alinsky called this "pragmatic radicalism." He differed from his Communist friends only in being more practical and less ideological. Alinsky was a radical because it suited his personality, because it was fun, brought him power and influence, and made him feel good. He was very clear in saying that, and he <a href="/2007/08/the_lefts_lust_for_revolutiona.html" target="_blank">inspired the Boomer Left</a> to follow his lead. </font><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> </font></div><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">Alinsky </font><a href="/2008/02/obamas_politics_of_collective.html"><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">dedicated</font></a><font face="times new roman,times" size="3"> <em>Rules for Radicals</em>: </font></div><br><blockquote><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">"... to the very first radical . . . who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer." </font></div></blockquote><br><div><font face="times new roman,times" size="3">If that doesn't send a shiver down your back, you haven't been paying attention. </font></div><br><div><strong><em><font face="times new roman,times" size="2">James Lewis occasionally blogs at </font><a href="http://dangeroustimes.wordpress.com/"><font face="times new roman,times" size="2">dangeroustimes.wordpress.com</font></a></em></strong></div> <!-- stopprint --> <div class="bottomComments"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://comments.americanthinker.com/js_files/42323/2008/09/24113.js"></script> on "<em><b>Barack Obama and Alinsky's Rules for Psychopaths</b></em>"</div> </td> <td valign="top" width="180"> <div id="articles_list"> <h2 class="section_title">Recent Articles</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/the_peoples_genie_is_out_of_th.html"> The People's Genie Is out of the Bottle</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/obamas_pitchforks.html"> Obama's Pitchforks</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/you_might_be_a_birther_if.html"> You Might Be a Birther if...</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/fighting_back.html"> Fighting Back</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/town_hall_outrage_media_emcooperatedem_in_disruptions_at_gop_events.html"> Town Hall Outrage? 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They demand and expect to be admired and praised by others and are limited in their capacity to appreciate others' perspectives.</font></p> <table border="1" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="1"> <tbody><tr> <td> <h3> <font face="Arial"> Diagnostic criteria for 301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder<font size="3"><br> (<a href="cautionary.htm">cautionary statement</a>)</font> </font></h3> <p> <font face="Arial"> A pervasive pattern of <a href="../path/grandiosity.htm">grandiosity</a> (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following: </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements) </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions) </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (4) requires excessive admiration </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her </font></p> <p> <font face="Arial"> (9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes</font></p> <!--webbot bot="Include" u-include="../_private/Include Components/criteriainclude.htm" tag="BODY" startspan --> <p><i>Reprinted with permission from the <a href="d4class.htm">Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth Edition</a>. Copyright 1994 <a href="http://www.psych.org">American Psychiatric Association</a></i></p> <!--webbot bot="Include" i-checksum="61572" endspan --> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p><font face="Arial">Also: <a href="../path/narcissism.htm">narcissism</a></font></p> <!--webbot bot="Include" u-include="../_private/Include Components/books.htm" tag="BODY" startspan --> <table border="1" cellspacing="1" width="100%" id="AutoNumber1"> <tbody><tr> <td align="center"> <font face="Arial" size="2"><strong><a name="Books">Books</a> and Other Media:</strong><br> Follow the hypertext link to purchase items.</font></td> <td align="center" valign="top"> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/behavenetrinc"><font face="Arial"> <img src="../images/a130X60w[1].gif" style="border: medium none" width="130" height="60"></font></a></p></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <!--webbot bot="Include" i-checksum="63937" endspan --> <ul> <li><strong><font face="Arial">As Good As It Gets</font></strong> <font face="Arial"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0767811100?tag=behavenetrinc&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=0767811100&creative=373489&camp=211189" name="evtst|a|0767811100">DVD</a> Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt 1998 <em>Although Jack Nicholson's character gives Helen Hunt's character (who expresses strong feelings about her <a href="../reimb/hmo.htm">HMO</a>) credit for helping him make a decision to start <a href="../treatments/drugs/drug.htm">medication</a> for his <a href="o-cd.htm">OCD</a>, the most effective therapy here comes from the developing connections of this unlikely set of New Yorkers. His obnoxious attitude and verbal abuses probably would be explained in real life, not by OCD, but by a (narcissistic?) <a href="prsnltydsrdr.htm">personality disorder</a>.</em></font></li> <li><span class="small"><font face="Arial" size="3">Brown, Nina W, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1572242310/behavenetrinc"> Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting over Narcissistic Parents</a> Paperback 2001</font></span></li> <li><span class="small"><font face="Arial" size="3">Brown, Nina W, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/027596017X/behavenetrinc"> The Destructive Narcissistic Pattern</a> Hardcover 1998</font></span></li> <li><span class="small"><font face="Arial" size="3">Brown, Nina W, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1572243546/behavenetrinc"> Loving the Self-Absorbed: How to Create a More Satisfying Relationship with a Narcissistic Partner</a></font><font size="-1"> </font><font face="Arial" size="3"> Paperback 2001</font></span></li> <li><span class="small"><font face="Arial" size="3">Brown, Nina W, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1572242922/behavenetrinc"> Working With the Self-Absorbed: How to Handle Narcissistic Personalities on the Job</a> Paperback 2002</font></span></li> <li><span class="small"><font size="3" face="Arial"><b>Groundhog Day</b> (1993) <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/080017948X?tag=behavenetrinc&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=080017948X&creative=373489&camp=211189" name="evtst|a|080017948X"> DVD</a> Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell</font></span></li> <li><font face="Arial">Hotchkiss, Sandy <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743214285/behavenetrinc">Why Is It Always About You?: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism</a> Paperback 2003</font></li> <li><font face="Arial"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ERVJK4?ie=UTF8&tag=behavenetrinc&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B000ERVJK4" name="evtst|a|B000ERVJK4"> Mommie Dearest</a> DVD Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid 1981</font></li> <li><font face="Arial"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000M5B98A?ie=UTF8&tag=behavenetrinc&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B000M5B98A" name="evtst|a|B000M5B98A">Running With Scissors</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=behavenetrinc&l=as2&o=1&a=B000M5B98A" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;"> DVD Annette Bening, Brian Cox 2006</font></li> <li><font face="Arial">Schwartz-Salant, Nathan <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0919123082?tag=behavenetrinc&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=0919123082&creative=373489&camp=211189" name="evtst|a|0919123082">Narcissism and Character Transformation - The Psychology of Narcissistic Character Disorders (190P)</a> Paperback 1982</font></li> <li><font face="Arial">Vaknin, Samuel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/8023833847?tag=behavenetrinc&link_code=as3&creativeASIN=8023833847&creative=373489&camp=211189" name="evtst|a|8023833847">Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited</a></font></li> <li> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000087F7E?ie=UTF8&tag=behavenetrinc&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=B000087F7E" name="evtst|a|B000087F7E">White Oleander</a> DVD Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Renée Zellweger 2002</font></li> </ul> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/link-enhancer?tag=behavenetrinc"> </script><script src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/s/link-enhancer-common.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.amazon.com/gp/associates/jsf/po.html?tag=behavenetrinc" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="http://z-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/nav2/gamma/n2CoreLibs/n2CoreLibs-combined-core-39582._V261300507_.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="http://z-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/nav2/gamma/n2CoreLibs/n2CoreLibs-combined-extended-44473._V263035262_.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="http://z-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/nav2/gamma/n2CoreLibs/n2CoreLibs-combined-explorer-31244._V263035257_.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?l=pv3&t=behavenetrinc&o=1"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=behavenetrinc&l=as3&o=1&creative=373489&camp=211189&i=7"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=behavenetrinc&l=as2&o=1&creative=9325&camp=211189&i=-3"> <noscript></noscript> <!--msnavigation--></td></tr><!--msnavigation--></tbody></table><!--msnavigation--><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td> <hr align="center"> <p align="center"><font face="Arial"><script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-6815831864107316"; 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top: -10px; left: 10px; width: 1px; height: 1px; " name="googlexpc_UjwWcd7UbC_msg" id="googlexpc_UjwWcd7UbC_msg" src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/robots.txt#INITIAL"></iframe><iframe style="position: absolute; top: -10px; left: 10px; width: 1px; height: 1px; " name="googlexpc_UjwWcd7UbC_ack" id="googlexpc_UjwWcd7UbC_ack" src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/robots.txt#INITIAL"></iframe><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-92226200168376806952009-05-04T23:18:00.001-07:002009-05-04T23:18:29.452-07:00The Complexity of Simplicity<base href="http://samvak.tripod.com/complex.html"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <p align="center"> </p> <p align="center"><font size="5"><b><i>The Complexity of Simplicity</i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="4"><b><i>By: </i></b></font> <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/cv.html"><font size="4"><b><i>Dr. Sam Vaknin</i></b></font></a></p> <p align="center"><br> <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/thebook.html"> <img src="http://samvak.tripod.com/covers.jpg" width="140" height="180"></a></p> <p align="center"><i><b><font size="4">Malignant Self Love - Buy the Book - Click <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/thebook.html">HERE!!!</a></font></b></i></p> <p align="center"><i><b><font size="4">Relationships with Abusive Narcissists - Buy the e-Books - Click <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/thebook.html#ebooks"> HERE!!!</a></font></b></i></p> <hr> <p align="center"><!--webbot bot="HTMLMarkup" startspan --> </p><form action="http://samvak.tripod.master.com/texis/master/search/" method="get"><input name="q"><input type="submit" value="Search:"><select name="s"><option value="OD">The Web</option><option value="SS" selected="">Sam Vaknin Sites</option></select></form><!--webbot bot="HTMLMarkup" endspan i-checksum="4842" --><p></p> <p align="center"><b><i>READ THIS: Scroll down to review a complete list of the articles - Click on the </i></b><font color="#3333ff"><b><i>blue-coloured</i></b></font><b><i> text!</i></b><br> <b><i>Bookmark this Page - and SHARE IT with Others!</i></b></p> <hr> <p><i><b>"Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine."<br> (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)</b></i></p> <p><font size="4">Complexity rises spontaneously in nature through processes such as self-organization. Emergent phenomena are common as are emergent traits, not reducible to basic components, interactions, or properties. </font></p> <p><font size="4">Complexity does not, therefore, imply the existence of a designer or a design. Complexity does not imply the existence of intelligence and sentient beings. On the contrary, complexity usually points towards a natural source and a random origin. Complexity and artificiality are often incompatible.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Artificial designs and objects are found only in unexpected ("unnatural") contexts and environments. Natural objects are totally predictable and expected. Artificial creations are efficient and, therefore, simple and parsimonious. Natural objects and processes are not.</font></p> <p><font size="4">As Seth Shostak notes in his excellent essay, titled <a href="http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_intelligentdesign_051201.html"> "SETI and Intelligent Design"</a>, evolution experiments with numerous dead ends before it yields a single adapted biological entity. DNA is far from optimized: it contains inordinate amounts of junk. Our bodies come replete with dysfunctional appendages and redundant organs. Lightning bolts emit energy all over the electromagnetic spectrum. Pulsars and interstellar gas clouds spew radiation over the entire radio spectrum. The energy of the Sun is ubiquitous over the entire optical and thermal range. No intelligent engineer - human or not - would be so wasteful.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Confusing artificiality with complexity is not the only terminological conundrum. </font></p> <p><font size="4">Complexity and simplicity are often, and intuitively, regarded as two extremes of the same continuum, or spectrum. Yet, this may be a simplistic view, indeed.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Simple procedures (codes, programs), in nature as well as in computing, often yield the most complex results. Where does the complexity reside, if not in the simple program that created it? A minimal number of primitive interactions occur in a primordial soup and, presto, life. Was life somehow embedded in the primordial soup all along? Or in the interactions? Or in the combination of substrate and interactions?</font></p> <p><font size="4">Complex processes yield simple products (think about products of thinking such as a newspaper article, or a poem, or manufactured goods such as a sewing thread). What happened to the complexity? Was it somehow reduced, "absorbed, digested, or assimilated"? Is it a general rule that, given sufficient time and resources, the simple can become complex and the complex reduced to the simple? Is it only a matter of computation?</font></p> <p><font size="4">We can resolve these apparent contradictions by closely examining the categories we use.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Perhaps simplicity and complexity are categorical illusions, the outcomes of limitations inherent in our system of symbols (in our language). </font></p> <p><font size="4">We label something "complex" when we use a great number of symbols to describe it. But, surely, the choices we make (regarding the number of symbols we use) teach us nothing about complexity, a real phenomenon! </font></p> <p><font size="4">A straight line can be described with three symbols (A, B, and the distance between them) - or with three billion symbols (a subset of the discrete points which make up the line and their inter-relatedness, their function). But whatever the number of symbols we choose to employ, however complex our level of description, it has nothing to do with the straight line or with its "real world" traits. The straight line is not rendered more (or less) complex or orderly by our choice of level of (meta) description and language elements.</font></p> <p><font size="4">The simple (and ordered) can be regarded as the tip of the complexity iceberg, or as part of a complex, interconnected whole, or hologramically, as encompassing the complex (the same way all particles are contained in all other particles). Still, these models merely reflect choices of descriptive language, with no bearing on reality.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Perhaps complexity and simplicity are not related at all, either quantitatively, or qualitatively. Perhaps complexity is not simply more simplicity. Perhaps there is no organizational principle tying them to one another. Complexity is often an emergent phenomenon, not reducible to simplicity.</font></p> <p><font size="4">The third possibility is that somehow, perhaps through human intervention, complexity yields simplicity and simplicity yields complexity (via pattern identification, the application of rules, classification, and other human pursuits). This dependence on human input would explain the convergence of the behaviors of all complex systems on to a tiny sliver of the state (or phase) space (sort of a mega attractor basin). According to this view, Man is the creator of simplicity and complexity alike but they do have a real and independent existence thereafter (the Copenhagen interpretation of a Quantum Mechanics).</font></p> <p><font size="4">Still, these twin notions of simplicity and complexity give rise to numerous theoretical and philosophical complications.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Consider life.</font></p> <p><font size="4">In human (artificial and intelligent) technology, every thing and every action has a function within a "scheme of things". Goals are set, plans made, designs help to implement the plans. </font></p> <p><font size="4">Not so with life. Living things seem to be prone to disorientated thoughts, or the absorption and processing of absolutely irrelevant and inconsequential data. Moreover, these laboriously accumulated databases vanish instantaneously with death. The organism is akin to a computer which processes data using elaborate software and then turns itself off after 15-80 years, erasing all its work.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Most of us believe that what appears to be meaningless and functionless supports the meaningful and functional and leads to them. The complex and the meaningless (or at least the incomprehensible) always seem to resolve to the simple and the meaningful. Thus, if the complex is meaningless and disordered then order must somehow be connected to meaning and to simplicity (through the principles of organization and interaction).</font></p> <p><font size="4">Moreover, complex systems are inseparable from their environment whose feedback induces their self-organization. Our discrete, observer-observed, approach to the Universe is, thus, deeply inadequate when applied to complex systems. These systems cannot be defined, described, or understood in isolation from their environment. They are one with their surroundings.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Many complex systems display emergent properties. These cannot be predicted even with perfect knowledge about said systems. We can say that the complex systems are creative and intuitive, even when not sentient, or intelligent. Must <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/intuition.html">intuition</a> and creativity be predicated on intelligence, consciousness, or sentience?</font></p> <p><font size="4">Thus, ultimately, complexity touches upon very essential questions of who we, what are we for, how we create, and how we evolve. It is not a simple matter, that...</font></p> <p><i><b><font size="4">Note on Learning</font></b></i></p> <p><font size="4">There are two types of learning: natural and sapient (or intelligent).</font></p> <p><font size="4"><b>Natural learning</b> is based on feedback. When water waves hit rocks and retreat, they communicate to the ocean at large information about the obstacles they have encountered (their shape, size, texture, location, etc.). This information modifies the form and angle of attack (among other physical properties) of future waves.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Natural learning is limited in its repertory. For all practical purposes, the data processed are invariable, the feedback immutable, and the outcomes predictable (though this may not hold true over eons). Natural learning is also limited in time and place (local and temporal and weakly communicable).</font></p> <p><font size="4"><b>Sapient or Intelligent Learning</b> is similarly based on feedback, but it involves other mechanisms, most of them self-recursive (introspective). It alters the essence of the learning entities (i.e., the way they function), not only their physical parameters. The input, processing procedures, and output are all interdependent, adaptive, ever-changing, and, often, unpredictable. Sapient learning is nonlocal and nontemporal. It is, therefore, highly communicable (akin to an extensive parameter): learning in one part of a system is efficiently conveyed to all other divisions.</font></p> <p><i><b><font size="4">TECHNICAL NOTE - Complexity Theory and Ambiguity or Vagueness</font></b></i></p> <p><i><b><font size="4"><a href="http://www.calresco.org/glossary.htm">A Glossary of the terms used here</a></font></b></i></p> <p><font size="4">Ambiguity (or indeterminacy, in deconstructivist parlance) is when a statement or string (word, sentence, theorem, or expression) has two or more distinct meanings either lexically (e.g., homonyms), or because of its grammar or syntax (e.g., amphiboly). It is the context, which helps us to choose the right or intended meaning ("contextual disambiguating" which often leads to a focal meaning).</font></p> <p><font size="4">Vagueness arises when there are "borderline cases" of the existing application of a concept (or a predicate). When is a person tall? When does a collection of sand grains become a heap (the sorites or heap paradox)?, etc. Fuzzy logic truth values do not eliminate vagueness - they only assign continuous values ("fuzzy sets") to concepts ("prototypes").</font></p> <p><font size="4">Open texture is when there may be "borderline cases" in the future application of a concept (or a predicate). While vagueness can be minimized by specifying rules (through precisifaction, or supervaluation) - open texture cannot because we cannot predict future "borderline cases".</font></p> <p><font size="4"><i><b>It would seem that a complexity theory formalism can accurately describe both ambiguity and vagueness:</b></i></font></p> <p><font size="4">Language can be construed as a self-organizing network, replete with self-organized criticality.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Language can also be viewed as a Production System (Iterated Function Systems coupled with Lindenmeyer L-Systems and Schemas to yield Classifiers Systems). To use Holland's vocabulary, language is a set of Constrained Generating Procedures.</font></p> <p><font size="4">"Vague objects" (with vague spatial or temporal boundaries) are, actually, best represented by fractals. They are not indeterminate (only their boundaries are). Moreover, self-similarity is maintained. Consider a mountain - where does it start or end and what, precisely, does it include? A fractal curve (boundary) is an apt mathematical treatment of this question.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Indeterminacy can be described as the result of bifurcation leading to competing, distinct, but equally valid, meanings.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Borderline cases (and vagueness) arise at the "edge of chaos" - in concepts and predicates with co-evolving static and chaotic elements.</font></p> <p><font size="4">(Focal) meanings can be thought of as attractors.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Contexts can be thought of as attractor landscapes in the phase space of language. They can also be described as fitness landscapes with optimum epistasis (interdependence of values assigned to meanings).</font></p> <p><font size="4">The process of deriving meaning (or disambiguating) is akin to tracing a basin of attraction. It can be described as a perturbation in a transient, leading to a stable state.</font></p> <hr> <p align="center"> <i><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Also read:</b></font></i></p> <p align="center"> <b><i><font face="Times New Roman"> <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/intuition.html">Intuition</a></font></i></b></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/parsimony.html"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>Parsimony - the Fourth Substance</i></b></font></a></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/bestowed.html"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>Bestowed Existence</i></b></font></a></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/anthropy.html"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>Anthropic Agents and the Increase of Entropy (Abstract Only)</i></b></font></a></p> <hr> <p align="center"><i><b>Copyright Notice</b></i></p> <p align="center"><b><i>This material is copyrighted. </i> <font face="Times New Roman"><i>Free, unrestricted use is allowed on a non commercial basis.</i></font><i><br> </i><font face="Times New Roman"><i>The author's name and a link to this Website must be incorporated in</i></font><i> </i><font face="Times New Roman"><i>any reproduction of the material for any use and by any means.</i></font></b></p> <hr> <p align="center"> <font face="Times New Roman"> <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/culture.html"><b><i>Go Back to Home Page!</i></b></a></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/faq1.html"><b><i>Frequently Asked Questions - Pathological Narcissism</i></b></a></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/archive01.html"><b><i>Excerpts from Archives of the Narcissism List</i></b></a></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/narclist.html"><b><i>The Narcissism List Home Page</i></b></a></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/index.html"><b><i>Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited</i></b></a></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/guide.html"><b><i>A Macedonian Encounter</i></b></a></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/internet.html"><b><i>Internet: A Medium or a Message?</i></b></a></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>Write to me: </i></b><a href="mailto:palma@unet.com.mk"><b><i>palma@unet.com.mk</i></b></a> </font> <b><i><font face="Times New Roman"> or <a href="mailto:narcissisticabuse-owner@yahoogroups.com"> narcissisticabuse-owner@yahoogroups.com</a></font></i></b></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-75754353009255415842009-05-04T18:16:00.001-07:002009-05-04T18:16:59.332-07:00Gmail - narcissisticabuse The Pros and Cons of Corruption<base href="http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=315ec039b8&view=pt&search=inbox&th=120f733784eaaf92"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"> <tbody><tr> <td width="143"> <img src="/mail/help/images/logo1.gif" width="143" height="59" alt="Gmail"> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="-1"><b> Heather Gilbert <<a href="mailto:heathermgilbert@gmail.com">heathermgilbert@gmail.com</a>> </b></font></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <hr> <font size="+2"> <b>narcissisticabuse The Pros and Cons of Corruption</b></font><br> <font size="-1">1 message</font> <hr> <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"> <tbody><tr> <td> <font size="-1"><b> Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited <<a href="mailto:vaksam@mt.net.mk">vaksam@mt.net.mk</a>> </b></font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="-1"><b> Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 8:20 AM </b></font> </td></tr><tr> <td colspan="2"> <font size="-1"> <div> Reply-To: <a href="mailto:narcissisticabuse+owner@googlegroups.com">narcissisticabuse+owner@googlegroups.com</a> </div> <div> To: Article Submit Toxic Relationships <<a href="mailto:toxicrelationships@yahoogroups.com">toxicrelationships@yahoogroups.com</a>>, Article Submit Narcissisticabuse <<a href="mailto:narcissisticabuse@yahoogroups.com">narcissisticabuse@yahoogroups.com</a>>, Article Submit Google Narcissisticabuse <<a href="mailto:narcissisticabuse@googlegroups.com">narcissisticabuse@googlegroups.com</a>>, Google NPD List <<a href="mailto:NARCISSISTIC-PERSONALITY-DISORDER@googlegroups.com">NARCISSISTIC-PERSONALITY-DISORDER@googlegroups.com</a>> </div> <div> Cc: Article Submit Conflictransition <<a href="mailto:conflictransition@yahoogroups.com">conflictransition@yahoogroups.com</a>>, Article Submit Globalobserver <<a href="mailto:globalobserver@yahoogroups.com">globalobserver@yahoogroups.com</a>> </div> </font> </td></tr><tr> <td colspan="2"> <table width="100%" cellpadding="12" cellspacing="0" border="0"> <tbody><tr> <td> <font size="-1"> <div> <div>This letter constitutes a permission to reprint or mirror any and all of the<br>materials mentioned or linked to herein subject to appropriate credit and<br>linkback. Every article published MUST include the author bio, including<br>the link to the author's Web site (at the bottom of this message).<br><br>==============================<wbr>==============================<wbr>===<br><font size="5"><strong><em>The Pros and Cons of Corruption</em></strong></font><br></div> <div>By Sam Vaknin<br>Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"</div> <div> </div> <div> <p><font size="4">Corruption runs against the grain of <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm026.html" target="_blank">meritocratic</a> capitalism. It skews the level playing-field; it guarantees extra returns where none should have been had; it encourages the misallocation of economic resources; and it subverts the proper functioning of institutions. It is, in other words, without a single redeeming feature, a scourge.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Strangely, this is not how it is perceived by its perpetrators: both the givers and the recipients. They believe that corruption helps facilitate the flow and exchange of goods and services in hopelessly clogged and dysfunctional systems and markets (corruption and the <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm043.html" target="_blank">informal economy</a> "get things done" and "keep people employed"); that it serves as an organizing principle where chaos reins and institutions are in their early formative stages; that it supplements income and thus helps the state employ qualified and skilled personnel; and that it preserves peace and harmony by financing networks of cronyism, nepotism, and patronage.</font></p> <p><font size="4">I. <b>The Facts</b></font></p> <p><font size="4">In 2002, just days before a much-awaited donor conference, the influential International Crisis Group (ICG) recommended to place all funds pledged to Macedonia under the oversight of a "corruption advisor" appointed by the European Commission. The donors ignored this and other recommendations. To appease the critics, the affable Attorney General of Macedonia charged a former Minister of Defense with abuse of duty for allegedly having channeled millions of DM to his relatives during the recent civil war. Macedonia has belatedly passed an anti-money laundering law recently, but failed, yet again, to adopt strict anti-corruption legislation.</font></p> <p><font size="4">In Albania, the Chairman of the Albanian Socialist Party, Fatos Nano, was accused by Albanian media of laundering $1 billion through the Albanian government. Pavel Borodin, the former chief of Kremlin Property, decided not appeal his money laundering conviction in a Swiss court. The Slovak daily "Sme" described in scathing detail the newly acquired wealth and lavish lifestyles of formerly impoverished HZDS politicians. Some of them now reside in refurbished castles. Others have swimming pools replete with wine bars.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Pavlo Lazarenko, a former Ukrainian prime minister, is detained in San Francisco on money laundering charges. His defense team accuses the US authorities of "selective prosecution".</font></p> <p><font size="4">They are quoted by Radio Free Europe as saying:</font></p> <p><i><b>"The impetus for this prosecution comes from allegations made by the Kuchma regime, which itself is corrupt and dedicated to using undemocratic and repressive methods to stifle political opposition ... (other Ukrainian officials) including Kuchma himself and his closest associates, have committed conduct similar to that with which Lazarenko is charged but have not been prosecuted by the U.S. government".</b></i></p> <p><font size="4">The UNDP estimated, in 1997, that, even in rich, industrialized, countries, 15% of all firms had to pay bribes. The figure rises to 40% in Asia and 60% in Russia.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Corruption is rife and all pervasive, though many allegations are nothing but political mud-slinging. Luckily, in countries like Macedonia, it is confined to its rapacious elites: its politicians, managers, university professors, medical doctors, judges, journalists, and top bureaucrats. The police and customs are hopelessly compromised. Yet, one rarely comes across graft and venality in daily life. There are no false detentions (as in Russia), spurious traffic tickets (as in Latin America), or widespread stealthy payments for public goods and services (as in Africa).</font></p> <p><font size="4">It is widely accepted that corruption retards growth by deterring foreign investment and encouraging brain drain. It leads to the misallocation of economic resources and distorts competition. It depletes the affected country's endowments - both natural and acquired. It demolishes the tenuous trust between citizen and state. It casts civil and government institutions in doubt, tarnishes the entire political class, and, thus, endangers the democratic system and the rule of law, property rights included.</font></p> <p><font size="4">This is why both governments and business show a growing commitment to tackling it. According to Transparency International's "Global Corruption Report 2001", corruption has been successfully contained in private banking and the diamond trade, for instance.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Hence also the involvement of the World Bank and the IMF in fighting corruption. Both institutions are increasingly concerned with poverty reduction through economic growth and development. The World Bank estimates that corruption reduces the growth rate of an affected country by 0.5 to 1 percent annually. Graft amounts to an increase in the marginal tax rate and has pernicious effects on inward investment as well.</font></p> <p><font size="4">The World Bank has appointed in 2001 a Director of Institutional Integrity - a new department that combines the Anti-Corruption and Fraud Investigations Unit and the Office of Business Ethics and Integrity. The Bank helps countries to fight corruption by providing them with technical assistance, educational programs, and lending.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Anti-corruption projects are an integral part of every Country Assistance Strategy (CAS). The Bank also supports international efforts to reduce corruption by sponsoring conferences and the exchange of information. It collaborates closely with Transparency International, for instance.</font></p> <p><font size="4">At the request of member-governments (such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Romania) it has prepared detailed country corruption surveys covering both the public and the private sectors. Together with the EBRD, it publishes a corruption survey of 3000 firms in 22 transition countries (BEEPS - Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey). It has even set up a multilingual hotline for whistleblowers.</font></p> <p><font size="4">The IMF made corruption an integral part of its country evaluation process. It suspended arrangements with endemically corrupt recipients of IMF financing. Since 1997, it has introduced policies regarding misreporting, abuse of IMF funds, monitoring the use of debt relief for poverty reduction, data dissemination, legal and judicial reform, fiscal and monetary transparency, and even internal governance (e.g., financial disclosure by staff members).</font></p> <p><font size="4">Yet, no one seems to agree on a universal definition of corruption. What amounts to venality in one culture (Sweden) is considered no more than hospitality, or an expression of gratitude, in another (France, or Italy). Corruption is discussed freely and forgivingly in one place - but concealed shamefully in another. Corruption, like other crimes, is probably seriously under-reported and under-penalized.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Moreover, bribing officials is often the unstated policy of multinationals, foreign investors, and expatriates. Many of them believe that it is inevitable if one is to expedite matters or secure a beneficial outcome. Rich world governments turn a blind eye, even where laws against such practices are extant and strict.</font></p> <p><font size="4">In his address to the Inter-American Development Bank on March 14, 2002 President Bush promised to "reward nations that root out corruption" within the framework of the Millennium Challenge Account initiative. The USA has pioneered global anti-corruption campaigns and is a signatory to the 1996 IAS Inter-American Convention against Corruption, the Council of Europe's Criminal Law Convention on Corruption, and the OECD's 1997 anti-bribery convention. The USA has had a comprehensive "Foreign Corrupt Practices Act" since 1977.</font></p> <p><font size="4">The Act applies to all American firms, to all firms - including foreign ones - traded in an American stock exchange, and to bribery on American territory by foreign and American firms alike. It outlaws the payment of bribes to foreign officials, political parties, party officials, and political candidates in foreign countries. A similar law has now been adopted by Britain.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Yet, "The Economist" reports that the American SEC has brought only three cases against listed companies until 1997. The US Department of Justice brought another 30 cases. Britain has persecuted successfully only one of its officials for overseas bribery since 1889. In the Netherlands bribery is tax deductible. Transparency International now publishes a name and shame Bribery Payers Index to complement its 91-country strong Corruption Perceptions Index.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Many rich world corporations and wealthy individuals make use of off-shore havens or "special purpose entities" to launder money, make illicit payments, avoid or evade taxes, and conceal assets or liabilities. According to Swiss authorities, more than $40 billion are held by Russians in its banking system alone. The figure may be 5 to 10 times higher in the tax havens of the United Kingdom.</font></p> <p><font size="4">In a survey it conducted in February 2002 of 82 companies in which it invests, "Friends, Ivory, and Sime" found that only a quarter had clear anti-corruption management and accountability systems in place.</font></p> <p><font size="4">Tellingly only 35 countries signed the 1997 OECD "Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions" - including four non-OECD members: Chile, Argentina, Bulgaria, and Brazil. The convention has been in force since February 1999 and is only one of many OECD anti-corruption drives, among which are SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management in Central and Eastern European countries), ACN (Anti-Corruption Network for Transition Economies in Europe), and FATF (the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering).</font></p> <p><font size="4">Moreover, The moral authority of those who preach against corruption in poor countries - the officials of the IMF, the World Bank, the EU, the OECD - is strained by their ostentatious lifestyle, conspicuous consumption, and "pragmatic" morality.</font></p> <p><font size="4">II. <b>What to Do? What is Being Done?</b></font></p> <p><font size="4">A few years ago, I proposed a taxonomy of corruption, venality, and graft. I suggested this cumulative definition:</font></p> <ol type="a"> <li><font size="4">The withholding of a service, information, or goods that, by law, and by right, should have been provided or divulged.</font> </li></ol> <ol type="a" start="2"> <li><font size="4">The provision of a service, information, or goods that, by law, and by right, should not have been provided or divulged.</font> </li></ol> <ol type="a" start="3"> <li><font size="4">That the withholding or the provision of said service, information, or goods are in the power of the withholder or the provider to withhold or to provide AND That the withholding or the provision of said service, information, or goods constitute an integral and substantial part of the authority or the function of the withholder or the provider.</font> </li></ol> <ol type="a" start="4"> <li><font size="4">That the service, information, or goods that are provided or divulged are provided or divulged against a benefit or the promise of a benefit from the recipient and as a result of the receipt of this specific benefit or the promise to receive such benefit.</font> </li></ol> <ol type="a" start="5"> <li><font size="4">That the service, information, or goods that are withheld are withheld because no benefit was provided or promised by the recipient.</font> </li></ol> <p><font size="4">There is also what the World Bank calls "State Capture" defined thus:</font></p> <p><i><b>"The actions of individuals, groups, or firms, both in the public and private sectors, to influence the formation of laws, regulations, decrees, and other government policies to their own advantage as a result of the illicit and non-transparent provision of private benefits to public officials."</b></i></p> <p><font size="4">We can classify corrupt and venal behaviors according to their outcomes:</font></p> <ol type="a"> <li><font size="4"><b>Income Supplement </b>- Corrupt actions whose sole outcome is the supplementing of the income of the provider without affecting the "real world" in any manner.</font> </li></ol> <ol type="a" start="2"> <li><font size="4"><b>Acceleration or Facilitation Fees </b>- Corrupt practices whose sole outcome is to accelerate or facilitate decision making, the provision of goods and services or the divulging of information.</font> </li></ol> <ol type="a" start="3"> <li><font size="4"><b>Decision Altering (State Capture) Fees</b></font> -<font size="4"> Bribes and promises of bribes which alter decisions or affect them, or which affect the formation of policies, laws, regulations, or decrees beneficial to the bribing entity or person.</font> </li></ol> <ol type="a" start="4"> <li><font size="4"><b>Information Altering Fees </b>- Backhanders and bribes that subvert the flow of true and complete information within a society or an economic unit (for instance, by selling professional diplomas, certificates, or permits).</font> </li></ol> <ol type="a" start="5"> <li><font size="4"><b>Reallocation Fees</b> - Benefits paid (mainly to politicians and political decision makers) in order to affect the allocation of economic resources and material wealth or the rights thereto. Concessions, licenses, permits, assets privatized, tenders awarded are all subject to reallocation fees.</font> </li></ol> <p align="left"><font size="4">To eradicate corruption, one must tackle both giver and taker.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">History shows that all effective programs shared these common elements:</font></p> <ol type="a"> <li> <p align="left"><font size="4">The persecution of corrupt, high-profile, public figures, multinationals, and institutions (domestic and foreign). This demonstrates that no one is above the law and that crime does not pay.</font></p></li></ol> <ol type="a" start="2"> <li> <p align="left"><font size="4">The conditioning of international aid, credits, and investments on a monitored reduction in corruption levels. The structural roots of corruption should be tackled rather than merely its symptoms.</font></p></li></ol> <ol type="a" start="3"> <li> <p align="left"><font size="4">The institution of incentives to avoid corruption, such as a higher pay, the fostering of civic pride, "good behavior" bonuses, alternative income and pension plans, and so on.</font></p></li></ol> <ol type="a" start="4"> <li> <p align="left"><font size="4">In many new countries (in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe) the very concepts of "private" versus "public" property are fuzzy and impermissible behaviors are not clearly demarcated. Massive investments in education of the public and of state officials are required.</font></p></li></ol> <ol type="a" start="5"> <li> <p align="left"><font size="4">Liberalization and deregulation of the economy. Abolition of red tape, licensing, protectionism, capital controls, monopolies, discretionary, non-public, procurement. Greater access to information and a public debate intended to foster a "stakeholder society".</font></p></li></ol> <ol type="a" start="6"> <li> <p align="left"><font size="4">Strengthening of institutions: the police, the customs, the courts, the government, its agencies, the tax authorities - under time limited foreign management and supervision.</font></p></li></ol> <p align="left"><font size="4">Awareness to corruption and graft is growing - though it mostly results in lip service. The Global Coalition for Africa adopted anti-corruption guidelines in 1999. The otherwise opaque Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is now championing transparency and good governance. The UN is promoting its pet convention against corruption.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">The G-8 asked its Lyon Group of senior experts on transnational crime to recommend ways to fight corruption related to large money flows and money laundering. The USA and the Netherlands hosted global forums on corruption - as did South Korea in 2003. The OSCE has responded with its own initiative, in collaboration with the US Congressional Helsinki Commission.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">The south-eastern Europe Stability Pact sports its own Stability Pact Anti-corruption Initiative (SPAI). It held its first conference in September 2001 in Croatia. More than 1200 delegates participated in the 10th International Anti-Corruption Conference in Prague last year. The conference was attended by the Czech prime minister, the Mexican president, and the head of the Interpol.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">The most potent remedy against corruption is sunshine - free, accessible, and available information disseminated and probed by an active opposition, uncompromised press, and assertive civic organizations and NGO's. In the absence of these, the fight against official avarice and criminality is doomed to failure. With them, it stands a chance.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Corruption can never be entirely eliminated - but it can be restrained and its effects confined. The cooperation of good people with trustworthy institutions is indispensable. Corruption can be defeated only from the inside, though with plenty of outside help. It is a process of self-redemption and self-transformation. It is the real transition.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">III. <b>Asset Confiscation and Asset Forfeiture</b></font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">The abuse of asset confiscation and forfeiture statutes by governments, law enforcement agencies, and political appointees and cronies throughout the world is well-documented. In many developing countries and countries in transition, assets confiscated from real and alleged criminals and tax evaders are sold in fake auctions to party hacks, cronies, police officers, tax inspectors, and relatives of prominent politicians at bargain basement prices. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">That the assets of suspects in grave crimes and corruption should be frozen or "disrupted" until they are convicted or exonerated by the courts - having exhausted their appeals - is understandable and in accordance with the Vienna Convention. But there is no justification for the seizure and sale of property otherwise.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">In Switzerland, financial institutions are obliged to automatically freeze suspect transactions for a period of five days, subject to the review of an investigative judge. In France, the Financial Intelligence Unit can freeze funds involved in a reported suspicious transaction by administrative fiat. In both jurisdictions, the fast track freezing of assets has proven to be a more than adequate measure to cope with organized crime and venality.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">The presumption of innocence must fully apply and due process upheld to prevent self-enrichment and corrupt dealings with confiscated property, including the unethical and unseemly use of the proceeds from the sale of forfeited assets to close gaping holes in strained state and municipal budgets.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">In the United States, according to The Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (HR 1658), the assets of suspects under investigation and of criminals convicted of a variety of more than 400 minor and major offenses (from soliciting a prostitute to gambling and from narcotics charges to corruption and tax evasion) are often confiscated and forfeited ("in personam, or value-based confiscation"). </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Technically and theoretically, assets can be impounded or forfeited and disposed of even in hitherto minor Federal civil offenses (mistakes in fulfilling Medicare or tax return forms) </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">The UK's Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) that is in charge of enforcing the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, had this chilling statement to make on May 24, 2007:</font></p> <div><i><b>"We are pursuing the assets of those involved in a wide range of crime including drug dealing, people trafficking, fraud, extortion, smuggling, control of prostitution, counterfeiting, benefit fraud, tax evasion and environmental crimes such as illegal dumping of waste and illegal fishing." (!)</b></i></div> <p align="left"><font size="4">Drug dealing and illegal fishing in the same sentence. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">The British firm Bentley-Jennison, who provide Forensic Accounting Services, add:</font></p> <p align="left"><i><b><font size="4">"</font>In some cases the defendants will even have their assets seized at the start of an investigation, before any charges have been considered. In many cases the authorities will assume that all of the assets held by the defendant are illegally obtained as he has a "criminal lifestyle". It is then down to the defendant to prove otherwise. If the defendant is judged to have a criminal lifestyle then it will be assumed that physical assets, such as properties and motor vehicles, have been acquired through the use of criminal funds and it will be necessary to present evidence to contradict this.</b></i></p> <p align="left"><i><b>The defendant's bank accounts will also be scanned for evidence of spending and any expenditure on unidentified assets (and in some cases identified assets) is also likely to be included as alleged criminal benefit. This often leads to the inclusion of sums from legitimate sources and double counting both of which need to be eliminated."</b></i></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Under the influence of the post-September 11 United States and the </font><font size="4">FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering), Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Greece, South Korea, and Russia have similar asset recovery and money laundering laws in place. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">International treaties (for instance, the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, the 1990 Convention of the Council of Europe on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime (ETS 141), and The U.N. Convention against Corruption 2003- UNCAC) and European Union Directives (e.g., 2001/97/EC) allow the seizure and confiscation of the assets and "unexplained wealth" of criminals and suspects globally, even if their alleged or proven crime does not constitute an offense where they own property or have bank accounts. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">This abrogation of the principle of dual criminality sometimes leads to serious violations of human and civil rights. Hitler could have used it to ask the United Kingdom's Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) to confiscate the property of refugee Jews who committed "crimes" by infringing on the infamous Nuremberg race laws.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Only offshore tax havens, such as Andorra, Antigua, Aruba, the British Virgin Islands, Guernsey, Monaco, the Netherlands Antilles, Samoa, St. Vincent, the US Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu still resist the pressure to join in the efforts to trace and seize suspects' assets and bank accounts in the absence of a conviction or even charges.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Even worse, unlike in other criminal proceedings, the burden of proof is on the defendant who has to demonstrate that the source of the funds used to purchase the confiscated or forfeited assets is legal. When the defendant fails to furnish such evidence conclusively and convincingly, or if he has left the United States or had died, the assets are sold at an auction and the proceeds usually revert to various law enforcement agencies, to the government's budget, or to good social causes and programs. This is the case in many countries, including United Kingdom, United States, Germany, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">According to a brief written by Jack Smith, Mark Pieth, and Guillermo Jorge at the Basel Institute on Governance, International Centre for Asset Recovery:</font></p> <p align="left"><b><i>"</i></b><i><b>Article 54(1)(c) of the UNCAC recommends that states parties establish non-criminal systems of confiscation, which have several advantages for recovery actions: the standard of evidence is lower ("preponderance of the evidence" rather than "beyond a reasonable doubt"); they are not subject to some of the more restrictive traditional safeguards of international cooperation such as the offense for which the defendant is accused has to be a crime in the receiving state (dual criminality); and it opens more formal avenues for negotiation and settlements. This is already the practice in some jurisdictions such as the US, Ireland, the UK, Italy, Colombia, Slovenia, and South Africa, as well as some Australian and Canadian States."</b></i></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">In most countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Austria, Germany, Indonesia, Macedonia, and Ireland, assets can be impounded, confiscated, frozen, forfeited, and even sold prior to and without any criminal conviction. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">In Australia, Austria, Ireland, Hong-Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom, South Africa, United States and the Netherlands alleged and suspected criminals, their family members, friends, employees, and partners can be stripped of their assets even for crimes they have committed in other countries and even if they have merely made use of revenues obtained from illicit activities (this is called "in rem, or property-based confiscation"). This often gives rise to cases of double jeopardy.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Typically, the defendant is notified of the impending forfeiture or confiscation of his or her assets and has recourse to a hearing within the relevant law enforcement agency and also to the courts. If he or she can prove "substantial harm" to life and business, the property may be released to be used, though ownership is rarely restored.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">When the process of asset confiscation or asset forfeiture is initiated, banking secrecy is automatically lifted and the government indemnifies the banks for any damage they may suffer for disclosing confidential information about their clients' accounts. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">In many countries from South Korea to Greece, lawyer-client privilege is largely waived. The same requirements of monitoring of clients' activities and reporting to the authorities apply to credit and financial institutions, venture capital firms, tax advisers, accountants, and notaries.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Elsewhere, there are some other worrying developments:</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">In Bulgaria, the assets of tax evaders have recently begun to be confiscated and turned over to the National Revenue Agency and the State Receivables Collection Agency. Property is confiscated even when the tax assessment is disputed in the courts. The Agency cannot, however, confiscate</font> <font size="4">single-dwelling houses, bank accounts up to 250 leva of one member of the family, salary or pension up to 250 leva a month, social care, and alimony, support money or allowances. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Venezuela has recently reformed its Organic Tax Code to allow for:</font></p> <p align="left"><i><b>" (P)re-judgment enforcement measures (to) include closure of premises for up to ten days and confiscation of merchandise. These measures will be applied in addition to the attachment or sequestration of personal property and the prohibition against alienation or encumbrance of realty. During closure of premises, the employer must continue to pay workers, thereby avoiding an appeal for constitutional protection."</b></i></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Finally, in many states in the United States, "community responsibility" statutes require of owners of legal businesses to "abate crime" by openly fighting it themselves. If they fail to tackle the criminals in their neighborhood, the police can seize and sell their property, including their apartments and cars. The proceeds from such sales accrue to the local municipality. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">In New-York City, the police confiscated a restaurant because one of its regular patrons was an alleged drug dealer. In Alabama, police seized the home of a senior citizen because her yard was used, without her consent, for drug dealing. In Maryland, the police confiscated a family's home and converted it into a retreat for its officers, having mailed one of the occupants a package of marijuana.</font></p> <p align="left"><i><b><font size="4">Note - The Psychology of Corruption</font></b></i></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Most politicians bend the laws of the land and steal money or solicit bribes because they need the funds to support networks of patronage. Others do it in order to reward their nearest and dearest or to maintain a lavish lifestyle when their political lives are over. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">But these mundane reasons fail to explain why some officeholders go on a rampage and binge on endless quantities of lucre. All rationales crumble in the face of a Mobutu Sese Seko or a Saddam Hussein or a Ferdinand Marcos who absconded with billions of US dollars from the coffers of Zaire, Iraq, and the Philippines, respectively. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">These inconceivable dollops of hard cash and valuables often remain stashed and untouched, moldering in bank accounts and safes in Western banks. They serve no purpose, either political or economic. But they do fulfill a psychological need. These hoards are not the megalomaniacal equivalents of savings accounts. Rather they are of the nature of compulsive collections. </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Erstwhile president of Sierra Leone, Momoh, amassed hundreds of video players and other consumer goods in vast rooms in his mansion. As electricity supply was intermittent at best, his was a curious choice. He used to sit among these relics of his cupidity, fondling and counting them insatiably.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">While Momoh relished things with shiny buttons, people like Sese Seko, Hussein, and Marcos drooled over money. The ever-heightening mountains of greenbacks in their vaults soothed them, filled them with confidence, regulated their sense of self-worth, and served as a love substitute. The balances in their bulging bank accounts were of no practical import or intent. They merely catered to their psychopathology.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">These politicos were not only crooks but also kleptomaniacs. They could no more stop thieving than Hitler could stop murdering. Venality was an integral part of their psychological makeup.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Kleptomania is about acting out. It is a compensatory act. Politics is a drab, uninspiring, unintelligent, and, often humiliating business. It is also risky and rather arbitrary. It involves enormous stress and unceasing conflict. Politicians with <a href="http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faqpd.html" target="_blank">mental health disorders</a> (for instance, <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/npdglance.html" target="_blank">narcissists</a> or <a href="http://personalitydisorders.suite101.com/article.cfm/psychopathantisocial" target="_blank">psychopaths</a>) react by decompensation. They rob the state and coerce businessmen to grease their palms because it makes them feel better, it helps them to repress their mounting fears and frustrations, and to restore their psychodynamic equilibrium. These politicians and bureaucrats "let off steam" by looting.</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">Kleptomaniacs fail to resist or control the impulse to steal, even if they have no use for the booty. According to the <a href="http://personalitydisorders.suite101.com/blog.cfm/293" target="_blank">Diagnostic and Statistical Manual</a> IV-TR (2000), the bible of psychiatry, kleptomaniacs feel "pleasure, gratification, or relief when committing the theft." The good book proceeds to say that " ... (T)he individual may hoard the stolen objects ...". </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="4">As most kleptomaniac politicians are also <a href="http://open-site.org/Health/Conditions_and_Diseases/Psychiatric_Disorders/Personality/Antisocial/" target="_blank">psychopaths</a>, they rarely feel remorse or fear the consequences of their misdeeds. But this only makes them more culpable and dangerous.</font></p> <hr> <p align="center"><i><b><font face="Times New Roman">Also Read:</font></b></i></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/crime.html" target="_blank">Legalizing Crime</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm016.html" target="_blank"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>The Greatest Savings Crisis in History</i></b></font></a></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm017.html" target="_blank"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>The Typology of Financial Scandals</i></b></font></a></p> <p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px" align="center"><i><b><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp166.html" target="_blank">The Bursting Asset Bubbles</a></font></b></i></p> <p style="margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px" align="center"><i><b><font face="Times New Roman">(Case Studies: The Savings and Loans Crisis, Crash of 1929, British Real Estate)</font></b></i></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm051.html" target="_blank"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>The Shadowy World of International Finance</i></b></font></a></p> <p align="center"><i><b><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm104.html" target="_blank">Hawala, or the Bank that Never Was</a></font></b></i></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp96.html" target="_blank">Money Laundering in a Changed World</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm089.html" target="_blank"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>The Varieties of Corruption</i></b></font></a></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm090.html" target="_blank"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>Straf - Corruption in CEE</i></b></font></a></p> <p align="center"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nm058.html" target="_blank"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>The Criminality of Transition</i></b></font></a></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/brief-criminality01.html" target="_blank">The Kleptocracies of the East</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp139.html" target="_blank">The Enrons of the East</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><i><b><font face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp114.html" target="_blank">Bully at Work - Interview with Tim Field</a></font></b></i></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp132.html" target="_blank">The Economics of Conspiracy Theories</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp144.html" target="_blank">The Industrious Spies</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/brief-torture01.html" target="_blank">The Business of Torture</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp157.html" target="_blank">Fimaco Wouldn't Die - Russia's Missing Billions</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp161.html" target="_blank">Treasure Island Revisited - Maritime Piracy</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/brief-organ01.html" target="_blank">Organ Trafficking in Eastern Europe</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/nigerianscam.html" target="_blank">Begging Your Trust in Africa</a></i></b></font></p> <p align="center"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><a href="http://samvak.tripod.com/pp138.html" target="_blank">Slush Funds</a></i></b></font></p><br><br>==============================<wbr>==============================<wbr>==<br>AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)<br><br><br><br>Sam Vaknin ( <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com" target="_blank">http://samvak.tripod.com</a> ) is the author of Malignant Self<br>Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East.<br>He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review,<br>PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI)<br>Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central<br>East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.<br><br>Visit Sam's Web site at <a href="http://samvak.tripod.com" target="_blank">http://samvak.tripod.com</a><br></div><br> --~--~---------~--~----~------<wbr>------~-------~--~----~<br> Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited <br> <p><a href="http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com" target="_blank">http://www.narcissistic-abuse.<wbr>com</a> <br> </p><p>Personality Disorders FAQs <br> </p><p><a href="http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faqpd.html" target="_blank">http://www.narcissistic-abuse.<wbr>com/faqpd.html</a> <br> </p><p><a href="http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/faq1.html" target="_blank">http://www.narcissistic-abuse.<wbr>com/faq1.html</a> <br> </p><p>Participate in discussions about Abusive Relationships - click on these links: <br> </p><p><a href="http://groups.msn.com/NARCISSISTICPERSONALITYDISORDER" target="_blank">http://groups.msn.com/<wbr>NARCISSISTICPERSONALITYDISORDE<wbr>R</a> <br> </p><p>To post to this group, send email to: <br> </p><p><a href="mailto:narcissisticabuse@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">narcissisticabuse@<wbr>googlegroups.com</a> <br> </p><p>To unsubscribe from this group, send email to: <br> </p><p><a href="mailto:narcissisticabuse-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">narcissisticabuse-unsubscribe@<wbr>googlegroups.com</a><br> -~----------~----~----~----~--<wbr>----~----~------~--~---<br> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div> <br> </font> </td></tr></tbody></table> </td></tr></tbody></table> <hr> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-11367583471171065672009-04-23T08:17:00.001-07:002009-04-23T08:17:05.904-07:00Fwd: Advice For Geraldine On Her Miscellaneous Birthday Poem by Bob Dylan<br><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> </div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(85, 40, 0); font-family: -webkit-sans-serif; font-size: 16px; "><table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="position: static; z-index: auto; "><tbody><tr><td class="lyrics" valign="top" style="font-family: sans-serif; color: rgb(85, 40, 0); font-size: 100%; padding-left: 20pt; "><pre style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 120%; ">Advice For Geraldine On Her Miscellaneous Birthday Poem by Bob Dylan</pre><pre style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 120%; ">Stay in line. stay in step. people are afraid of someone who is not in step with them. it makes them look foolish t' themselves for being in step. it might even cross their minds that they themselves are in the wrong step. do not run nor cross the red line. if you go too far out in any direction, they will lose sight of you. they'll feel threatened. thinking that they are not a part of something that they saw go past them, they'll feel something's going on up there that they don't know about. revenge will set in. they will start thinking of how t' get rid of you. act mannerly towards them. if you don't, they will take it personal. as you come directly in contact face t' face do not make it a secret of how much you need them. if they sense that you have no need for them, the first thing they will do is try t' make you need them. if this doesn't work, they will tell you of how much they don't need you. if you do not show any sadness at a remark such as this, they will immediately tell other people of how much they don't need you. your name will begin t' come up in circles where people gather to tell about all the people they don't need. you will begin t' get famous this way. this, though, will only get the people who you don't need in the first place all the more madder. you will become a whole topic of conversation. needless t' say, these people who don't need you will start hating themselves for needing t' talk about you. then you yourself will start hating yourself for causing so much hate. as you can see, it will all end in one great gunburst. never trust a cop in a raincoat. when asked t' define yourself exactly, say you are an exact mathematician. do not say or do anything that he who standing in front of you watching cannot understand, he will feel you know something he doesn't. he will react with blinding speed and write your name down. talk on his terms. if his terms are old-fashioned an' you've passed that stage all the more easier t' get back there. say what he can understand clearly. say it simple t' keep your tongue out of your cheek. after he hears you, he can label you good or bad. anyone will do. t' some people, there is only good an' bad. in any case, it will make him feel somewhat important. it is better t' stay away from these people. be careful of enthusiasm...it is all temporary an' don't let it sway you. when asked if you go t' church, always answer yes, never look at your shoes. when asked you you think of gene autrey singing of hard rains gonna fall say that nobody can sing it as good as peter, paul and mary. at the mention of the president's name, eat a pint of yogurt an' go t' sleep early...when asked if you're a communist, sing america the beautiful in an italian accent. beat up nearest street cleaner. if by any chance you're caught naked in a parked car, quick turn the radio on full blast an' pretend that you're driving. never leave the house without a jar of peanut butter. do not wear matched socks. when asked to do 100 pushups always smoke a pound of deodorant beforehand. when asked if you're a capitalist, rip open your shirt, sing buddy can you spare a dime with your right foot forward an' proceed t' chew up a dollar bill. do not sign any dotted line. do not fall in trap of criticizing people who do nothing else but criticize. do Not create anything. it will be misinterpreted. it will not change. it will follow you the rest of your life. when asked what you do for a living say you laugh for a living. be suspicious of people who say that if you are not nice t' them, they will commit suicide. when asked if you care about the world's problems, look deeply into the eyes of he that asks you, he will not ask you again. when asked if you've spent time in jail, announce proudly that some of your best friends've asked you that. beware of bathroom walls that've not been written on. when told t' look at yourself...never look. when asked t' give your real name...never give it. </pre><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; white-space: pre;"><br></span></font></div></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div></div></blockquote></div><br>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-89004076743734333932009-04-09T10:27:00.000-07:002009-04-09T11:09:43.497-07:00IRRESPONSIBLE HATE ANTHEM - Marilyn Manson Lyrics<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">NOTE: I am going to bother with a disclaimer... Even though we live in America - where you should not have to give a disclaimer. I am so sick to death of people being "offended" and taking other people to court for something that they could easily have ignored. Each time a law is passed or government is expanded we are LESS FREE. .</span></div><div>ANYWAY - We now interrupt this rant to bring you the following important message... just to clarify...</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">The following are in no way the beliefs or views of this blogger and are property of the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Songwriters: White, Jeordie; Bier, Stephen Gregory; Putesky, Scott Mitchell; Warner, Brian Hugh. </span> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);"><br /></span></div><br />Irresponsible Hate Anthem lyrics<br /><br />I am so all-American, I'd sell you suicide<br />I am totalitarian, I've got abortions in my eyes<br />I hate the hater, I'd rape the raper<br />I am the animal who will not be himself<br /><br />Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it<br /><br />Hey victim, should I black your eyes again?<br />Hey victim, you were the one who put the stick in my hand<br />I am the ism, my hates a prism<br />Let's just kill everyone and let your God sort them out<br /><br />Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it<br /><br />Everybody's someone else's nigger<br />I know you are so am I<br />I wasn't born with enough middle fingers<br />I don't need to choose a side<br /><br />I better, better, better, better not say this<br />Better, better, better, better not tell<br />Better, better, better, better not say this<br />Better, better, better, better not tell<br />I hate the hater, I'd rape the raper<br />I am the idiot who will not be himself<br /><br />Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it<br /><br />Everybody's someone else's nigger<br />I know you are so am I<br />I wasn't born with enough middle fingers<br />I don't need to choose a side<br /><br />America can not see anything<br />America can not see anything<br />America can not see anything<br />America can not see anything<br /><br />Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it<br />Fuck, fuck, fuck<br /><br />Everybody's someone else's nigger<br />I know you are so am I<br />I wasn't born with enough middle fingers<br />I don't need to choose a sidefEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-33197629100724528692009-04-08T16:35:00.000-07:002009-04-08T16:36:29.574-07:00advertising and selling journal 1921<a href="http://ia311243.us.archive.org/1/items/advertvol8sellnew192627yrich/advertvol8sellnew192627yrich.pdf"></a>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-7667768156554388212009-03-30T00:32:00.000-07:002009-03-30T00:33:51.556-07:00The PhysiocratsThe Physiocrats<br />Henry Higgs<br /> <br />2001<br />First Edition: The Macmillan Company, 1897 <br />This Edition: <br />Batoche Books Limited <br />52 Eby Street South <br />Kitchener, Ontario <br />N2G 3L1 <br />Canada <br />email: batoche@gto.net <br />ISBN: 1-55273-064-6<br /><br /><br />Contents <br />Preface............................................................................................... 5 <br />I: Rise of the School........................................................................... 6 <br />II: The School and Its Doctrines. ..................................................... 17 <br />III: The School and Its Doctrines (contd.)....................................... 29 <br />IV: Activities of the School.............................................................. 43 <br />V: Opponents of the School. ............................................................ 55 <br />VI: Influence of the School. ............................................................. 66 <br />Appendix.......................................................................................... 77 <br />Authorities....................................................................................... 80 <br />Notes................................................................................................ 82<br />Preface <br />This little volume consists of lectures delivered before the London School <br />of Economics in May and June of the present year. Impossible though it <br />was found to give a truly adequate account of the Physiocrats in these <br />six lectures, it has been thought that they may perhaps furnish a useful <br />introduction to a subject upon which no book has yet been written in the <br />English language, though its study has, during the last seven years, been <br />deemed worthy to engage the active attention of many leading econo- <br />mists on the Continent of Europe. In Switzerland, Professor Oncken of <br />Berne, and Professor Stern of Zurich; in Germany, Professor Knies of <br />Heidelberg, and Professor Hasbach of Kiel; in France, M. Schelle; in <br />Austria, Dr. Bauer of Brunn, and Dr. Feilbogen of Vienna, are the most <br />noteworthy recent contributors to our knowledge of this important chapter <br />of economic theory. More hesitation would have been felt in publishing <br />these lectures if M. de Lavergne’s charming essays on the French econo- <br />mists of the eighteenth century had been translated into English. But the <br />materials brought to light since 1870 by the researches of Professor <br />Oncken, and the brilliant discoveries of Dr. Bauer, would have made it <br />necessary to bring his work up to date, while it is evident that in choos- <br />ing the subjects for his cabinet of cameos Lavergne was influenced rather <br />by the fact that two of them (the Abbé de St. Pierre and the Marquis de <br />Chastellux) were once, like himself, members of the French Academy, <br />than by their intrinsic importance as economists, while they cannot, in <br />any case, be ranked among the Physiocrats. The French writer’s ex- <br />ample has been followed in the effort to make the lectures interesting. <br />To this end gleanings of research and minuter points of difference among <br />authorities have been deliberately sacrificed where they appeared to be <br />of secondary importance. For the same reason critical and doctrinal<br />6/Henry Higgs <br />comment has been restricted within the narrowest limits. The reader <br />who desires fuller information will turn to the monographs mentioned in <br />the lectures, and, above all, it is hoped, to the original works of the <br />Physiocrats themselves. <br />HAMPSTEAD, LONDON, 1896. <br />I: Rise of the School. <br />The Physiocrats have been the subjects of so many and such divergent <br />appreciations by historians, philosophers, economists, and students of <br />political science, that hardly a single general proposition of importance <br />has been advanced with regard to them by one writer which has not been <br />contradicted by another. To de Tocqueville they were doctrinaire advo- <br />cates of absolute equality. To Rousseau they were the supporters of an <br />odious, if “legal,” despotism. To Professor Cohn they are, in their main <br />proposals, “thoroughly socialistic.” To Louis Blanc they were tainted <br />with a bourgeois individualism. To Linguet their mystic jargon was <br />charlatanical nonsense, not to be understood even by themselves. To <br />Voltaire it was so clear as to be made easily comprehensible (and ridicu- <br />lous) to the meanest intelligence. To Taine, as to many others, they made <br />powerfully for revolution. To Carlyle, who speaks ironically of “victo- <br />rious analysis” and scornfully of “rose-pink sentimentalism,” they seem <br />to have been a mere literary ripple on the surface of the great flood. <br />Rossi praised them for conceiving a vast synthesis of social organisation; <br />certain writers, like Mably, have blamed them for a narrow material- <br />ism; while there are judges who pronounce them markedly deistic. To <br />Proudhon their system of taxation was a rare Utopia; to others they lack <br />an ideal of any kind. They were to de Loménie a bundle of contradic- <br />tions— at once monarchical and democratic, half-socialist and highly <br />conservative. To Adam Smith their “system, with all its imperfections, <br />is perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been pub- <br />lished upon the subject of political economy, and is, upon that account, <br />well worth the consideration of every man who wishes to examine with <br />attention the principles of that very important science.” To many com- <br />pilers of little text-books, who know better than Adam Smith, they are <br />merely people who lived in the dark ages before 1776, and held some <br />absurd opinions about land. To some they appear to have had a transi- <br />tory success followed by complete and lasting reaction. To Léon Say <br />their principles, after suffering reverses in the eighteenth century, have <br />dominated the nineteenth. Of many serious writers these, anxious for<br />The Physiocrates/7 <br />precedent, have appealed to their authority in support of their own views; <br />those, striving after originality, have been eager to prove that the point <br />which they seek to emphasise was really missed by the Physiocrats; and <br />the great majority of authors have been content to follow the well-worn <br />phrases of one predecessor or another without direct reference” to the <br />writings of the old economists themselves. Probably no man alive has <br />read the whole published works of, say, the Marquis of Mirabeau—to <br />mention only a single member of the school. And happily no one is <br />obliged to do so. When we have once mastered their doctrines we are <br />dispensed from following the prolix repetitions and tedious amplifica- <br />tions which make up nine-tenths of their literary activity. Yet this mas- <br />tery is essential to a due acquaintance with the history of economic <br />theory. For the Physiocrats were the first scientific school of political <br />economy. <br />The Mercantilists, it is true, come first in order of time, but they are <br />not in any proper sense of the term “a school” at all. There is no per- <br />sonal link between the different writers who, for more than a century, <br />support what is called “the mercantile system”—an indiscriminate phrase <br />covering proposals so different that their authors can only be said to <br />have had a common tendency and not a common doctrine any more than <br />a common acquaintance. But in the Physiocrats we see an alliance of <br />persons, a community of ideas, an acknowledged authority, and a com- <br />bination in purpose, which banded them into a society apart. To this <br />personal tie, Turgot, the great lover of individual liberty in thought and <br />deed, took grave objection. “It is the sectarian spirit,” he says, “which <br />arouses against useful truths enemies and persecutions. When an iso- <br />lated person modestly proposes what he believes to be the truth, he is <br />listened to if he is right, and forgotten if he is wrong. But when even <br />learned men have once formed themselves into a body, and say we, and <br />think they can impose laws upon public opinion, then public opinion <br />revolts against them, and with justice, for it ought to receive laws from <br />truth alone and not from any authority. Every society soon sees its badge <br />worn by the stupid, the crack-brained, and the ignorant, proud in joining <br />themselves to it to give themselves airs. These people are guilty of stu- <br />pidities and absurdities, and then their excited opponents fail not to im- <br />pute folly to all their colleagues.” Turgot refused to wear their intellec- <br />tual badge, but, as we shall see, he shared many of their ideas. <br />The Physiocrats were not merely a school of economic thought; <br />they were a school of political action. Kings and princes were among<br />8/Henry Higgs <br />their pupils. The great French Revolution itself was influenced by their <br />writings. And the force of their work is still not wholly spent. But before <br />the origin and significance of their writings can be appreciated it is <br />necessary briefly to sketch the circumstances of their time in relation to <br />which their ideas must be considered. <br />The economic and financial condition of France at the beginning of <br />the eighteenth century was truly pitiable. In spite of her great natural <br />resources, the variety of her favourable climates, the fertility of her <br />well-watered soil, and the thrift, industry, and intelligence of her people, <br />the efforts of able ministers like Mazarin and Colbert to increase her <br />national wealth had been rendered nugatory by the senseless politics of <br />the Great Monarch. Costly campaigns abroad, ruinous extravagance at <br />home, left the kingdom at his death, in 1715, with a debt of 3460 million <br />francs, of which over 3300 had been contracted since the death of Colbert <br />in 1683. His murderous wars, reducing the birth-rate, increasing the <br />mortality, and “an act of religious intolerance, disavowed by religion”1— <br />the expulsion of the Protestants—had reduced the population by four <br />millions, or 20 per cent, since 1660.2 Agricultural products had fallen <br />off by one-third since he ascended the throne. Burdens increased while <br />they were diminished who bore them. And competent judges computed <br />that two-thirds of the taxes themselves were eaten up by the cost of <br />collection.3 The contemptible creatures who succeeded Louis XIV, Philip, <br />Duke of Orleans (the Regent), and Louis XV, squandered the national <br />revenues in vice and frivolities with shameless prodigality. The system <br />of Law (1718–1720), which is generally held responsible for a large <br />share of the subsequent financial trouble of France, had, it might be <br />shown, little or no ill effect as a whole upon the royal treasury either <br />immediately4 or in the long-run, for it taught useful lessons of the power <br />as well as the dangers of credit, and proved by bitter experience to masses <br />of men the folly of striving after fortune by gambling instead of by <br />honest work. The Court maintained its outward brilliance, and the <br />seigneurs who surrounded the king at Versailles vied with one another <br />in splendour and extravagance, while their country houses were aban- <br />doned, and young labourers fled from the gloomy farms and the hated <br />militia to the glitter of the cities and the security of domestic service <br />with the great. An economic drain of wealth from the fields to the town <br />thus intensified the contrast between luxury and misery, and a vicious <br />financial system pressed with increasing weight upon the already crushed <br />industries of the nation. The taille or direct tax (said to be etymologi-<br />The Physiocrates/9 <br />cally related to our words tallage and tallies) was imposed only upon <br />the goods and persons of the common people, and not on the nobles or <br />clergy, who by a relic of feudal fiction owed the king their personal <br />service and not their money, so that subjection to taille was synony- <br />mous with and incidental to degradation from nobility. A man who could <br />afford to buy a patent of nobility obtained with it the privilege of ex- <br />emption from taille; and the inequality with which the tax was levied, as <br />between place and place, man and man, constituted an additional aggra- <br />vation. The gabelle, an indirect tax which had come eventually to stand <br />simply for the tax upon salt, was collected at the rate of 62 francs a <br />quintal in some provinces, at 33 francs 12 sous in others, at 21 francs <br />12 sous in others, while certain districts had either redeemed it or been <br />exempted from its operation. Except in these favoured districts every <br />person over eight years of age was compelled to pay on at least a certain <br />quantity of salt (sel de devoir); and the tax was collected with revolting <br />harshness at a cost of about 50 per cent. The indirect taxes were leased <br />out to a body of financiers, the farmers-general, who paid a fixed sum in <br />advance year by year and purchased thereby the taxes they collected. <br />Armed with stringent powers they paid domiciliary visits, seized goods <br />suspected to be smuggled, and in their efforts to capture smugglers (whose <br />fate was the galleys or the gibbet) they frequently provoked strife and <br />bloodshed. “Those who consider the blood of the people as nothing,” <br />says Adam Smith, “in comparison with the revenue of the prince, may, <br />perhaps, approve of this method of levying taxes.”[5] The corvée, an <br />obligation upon the peasant to supply the state with labour or services <br />without payment,— e.g., to work so many days in the year on repairing <br />the roads,—was extended to the whole country in 1737, and was esti- <br />mated in 1758 to yield 1,200,000 livres’ worth of forced labour, though <br />its cost to the peasants greatly exceeded this sum, and was stated by <br />Necker to amount to 624,000 livres a year in Berry alone. It included <br />also the billeting and the transport of soldiers. The regular army was, it <br />is true, recruited by enlistment and not by conscription; but each district <br />was compelled to provide its quota for the militia ; and this service was <br />so distasteful that the men whose names were drawn often fled to the <br />woods or the mountains, and were pursued by their neighbours in arms <br />who had no relish for serving in their stead. Voluntary substitutes were <br />not accepted lest recruiting should suffer. Apart from these and other <br />national vexations there were the tithes of the clergy and numerous <br />troublesome local dues. Minute regulations fettered industry and com-<br />10/Henry Higgs <br />merce ; tolls had been lightened and simplified by Colbert in 1664,[6] <br />but Forbonnais still mentions twenty-eight on the Loire alone. Until 1754 <br />corn could not be freely “exported” even from one part of France to <br />another, much less to foreign countries. And at the peasant’s own door <br />were the innumerable fees, often for absurdly trifling amounts, but none <br />the less irritating, due to his feudal lord. Financial deficit was chronic. <br />The capital of the nation, its industrial life-blood, ebbed away and left it <br />weaker and weaker. Even the seed-corn was often lacking. In the first <br />half of the century large territories lay waste, and over great tracts of <br />country the poor were reduced to live on grass and water, like the beastsof <br />the field. When the king asked the Bishop of Chartres how his flock <br />fared he was answered that they ate grass like sheep and starved like <br />flies. The Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand described his people— without <br />beds or furniture, and lacking half their time the barley-bread or oaten <br />cakes which constituted their sole food—as infinitely less fortunate than <br />the negro slaves of the colonies, who had at least food and raiment. The <br />government intendant of Bourges reported that whole families passed <br />two days without food, and that in several parishes the starving lay abed <br />most of the day to diminish their suffering. His colleague of Orleans <br />refers to poor widows burning their wooden beds and their fruit-trees <br />for lack of fuel. Beggars abounded. Bread riots were frequent, and so <br />desperate that they were only quelled by lead and cold steel. Young men <br />and maidens refused to marry, asking why they should add to the misery <br />around them. And all the while taxes were ruthlessly wrung from the <br />poorest families. The collectors forced doors, seized furniture and cloth- <br />ing, and even the last measure of meal, and sold the very materials of the <br />building, often for ridiculously small sums, barely sufficient to pay the <br />expenses of distraint. The duties levied upon land were so onerous that <br />some proprietors preferred to abandon their property, and more would <br />have done so if the law had not confiscated the whole local property of <br />an owner who left his land derelict. “The people,” says Taine, “is like a <br />man walking in a pond with water up to his chin; the least dip in the <br />ground, the least ripple, and he loses footing, goes under, and suffo- <br />cates. In vain ancient charity and new humanity strive to succour him; <br />the water is too high. Its level must abate, and the pond find some great <br />outlet. Till then the miserable man can breathe only at intervals, and at <br />every moment will run the risk of drowning.”7 Here and there, no doubt, <br />the people hoarded a little money and enjoyed some surreptitious com- <br />fort; but they either bought parcels of land, which brought home to<br />The Physiocrates/11 <br />increasing numbers the tyranny of taxation, or they hid their money in <br />secret hoards; for a man was assessed according to his apparent wealth, <br />and there was no inducement to stock a farm well or work it to greater <br />advantage when the rapacity of the tax-gatherer might confiscate more <br />than the whole of the increased profit. Payment of taxes was wilfully <br />delayed, law costs were deliberately incurred, and sheriffs officers were <br />housed and fed for days together lest a readier payment should provoke <br />suspicion of greater wealth, and lead to increased assessments the fol- <br />lowing year. The nobles, indeed, stood between the people and the crown, <br />but it was only, in the bitter words of Chamfort, as the hounds are be- <br />tween the hunter and the hare; and the fierceness of popular indignation, <br />which was directed first against the agents of the royal treasury, vented <br />itself upon the privileged classes before it spread to the throne in that <br />“general upset” which the elder Mirabeau clearly foresaw, and his son <br />was to be instrumental in bringing to completion. <br />Such in barest outline were the economic woes of the ancien régime. <br />So deplorable a condition of things could not fail to evoke the criticism <br />and suggestion of thinking men. Passing by La Bruyère and Fénélon, <br />we come, at the end of the seventeenth century, to a courageous, outspo- <br />ken, and well-informed writer in Boisguillebert (1646–1714),8 a state <br />official of Normandy, who mercilessly exposed the blunders of adminis- <br />tration, the misery of the people, and the connection of one with the <br />other. He urged upon successive ministers plans of reform, the consoli- <br />dation and reduction of taxes, and, convinced that agriculture, the all- <br />important business of the country, was being stifled, he pressed for the <br />abolition of fetters upon internal and export trade,9 until he was dis- <br />graced and exiled to Auvergne as a warning against meddling importu- <br />nity. In 1707 the great soldier, Marshal Vauban, in his seventy-fourth <br />year, printed anonymously, for private circulation, his Dixme Royale or <br />proposal to substitute for a host of other taxes a general tithe upon all <br />classes of men and all kinds of revenue, and died the same year, cha- <br />grined at the king’s severe disfavour, and the suppression of his book as <br />a social danger.10) The army of financiers and functionaries found their <br />occupations menaced by this hardy plan for the simplification of taxa- <br />tion. The anger of the privileged classes was easily roused by proposals <br />to tax them equally with others. The amour propre of the king himself <br />could not fail to be wounded by the rude simplicity with which Vauban <br />proved him to be, as St. Simon wrote in the security of his closet, not the <br />greatest monarch in Europe, but “a king of tatterdemalions.” In my<br />12/Henry Higgs <br />forty years’ wanderings, says Vauban in effect, I have carefully noted <br />the state of the people. Boisguillebert11 is perfectly right. Taxation has <br />reached a pitch of absurdity. Naked, starving mendicants swarm the <br />streets and roads. “Of every ten men one is a beggar, five are too poor to <br />give him alms, three more are ill at ease, embarrassed by debts and law- <br />suits, and the tenth does not represent 190,000 families. I believe not <br />10,000 great or little are really well-to-do, and these include rich mer- <br />chants, officials, and the favoured of the king. Take them away and <br />hardly any remain.” He stigmatised luxury, privilege, public debts, and <br />the farming of taxes; extolled labour, agriculture, and equality before <br />the law; and reiterated in capital letters the warning that kings have a <br />real and most essential interest in not overburdening their people to the <br />point of depriving them of the necessaries of life. Half a century was to <br />pass before Vauban’s ideas reappeared, in a modified form, with the <br />Physiocrats, and then their spokesman was clapped into prison for us- <br />ing similar language. Such was the encouragement afforded to these <br />early writers on taxation. After Vauban they kept long silence, and the <br />intellect of the nation seemed to lie fallow. “The government,” says <br />Buckle,12 “had broken the spirit of the country.” Writings on paper money <br />raged round the system of Law; and Melon, a former secretary of Law, <br />published in 1734 his overrated Essai politique sur le commerce. The <br />Abbe Alary had indeed founded a little club, the Club de I’Entresol, in <br />1724, which counted Bolingbroke, D’Argenson, and the Abbe de Saint- <br />Pierre among its members, and met in the Abbe Alary’s rooms,13 in the <br />Place Vendôme at Paris, to discuss political economy. But the club was <br />closed in 1731, because the Cardinal de Fleury, then minister, disliked <br />its debating Government affairs. Saint-Pierre, who had been expelled <br />from the Academy for denying to Louis XIV. the title of Grand, turned <br />his prolific pen from one project to another; from spelling- reform to <br />utilising horse-chestnuts, from the advantage of a census to the disad- <br />vantage of debasing the coinage, and dreamed a dream of Universal <br />Peace. But his writings, though some of them are not without economic <br />importance, need not detain us. And D’Argenson’s14 economic reflec- <br />tions appeared only in 1764. During the whole of the first half of the <br />eighteenth century the Government underwent little public criticism. It <br />was the calm before a storm. After the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in <br />1748 began a veritable renaissance in every department of thought,—in <br />religion, in politics, in philosophy, and in science,—largely under the <br />impulse of English writers, and especially of Locke. The old crystallised<br />The Physiocrates/13 <br />forms of thought and action were broken up by the solvent of free criti- <br />cism and fearless inquiry. Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois appeared in <br />1748. The Encyclopedie of Diderot and D’Alembert was started in 1751. <br />Voltaire and Rousseau were sharpening their pens, and had even begun <br />to write. Gournay, appointed intendant of commerce in 1751, devoted <br />his attention to the English economists, translated Child and Culpeper, <br />and directed into the same channel the mental activity of Turgot, whom <br />he persuaded to translate a volume of Tucker. The original and sugges- <br />tive essays of Hume appeared in a French translation (1756). The ef- <br />forts of Du Pin,15 Gournay, Trudaine, Fourqueux, and Machault had <br />assisted in wringing from the Government an edict in 1754 permitting <br />free trade in corn between one part of France and another; and Herbert <br />had argued (Essai sur la police des grains, 1755) in favour of free <br />export. But the work which heralded in the era of active and original <br />thought in French economics was Cantillon’s Essai sur la nature du <br />commerce en general, 1755, a little volume of 430 pages duodecimo, <br />immeasurably superior to anything which had preceded it, and profoundly <br />important by the influence which it exercised over the minds of leading <br />writers.16 Cantillon, who died in 1734, was an English banker of Irish <br />extraction. He had houses in all the principal countries of Europe, made <br />a great fortune out of sagacious operations at Paris during the “system” <br />of Law, and studied with great penetration the general principles which <br />regulate the production, distribution, and consumption of wealth. His <br />original English writings are unfortunately lost; but his Essay was handed <br />about in manuscript, and a translation of part of the Essay which he <br />made for a French friend is all that we have remaining of him. The <br />Mercantilists seem always to have propounded to themselves the prob- <br />lem, How can Government make this nation prosperous? Nationalism, <br />state-regulation, and particularism are the essence of their policy. But a <br />man of much travel is less prone to be trammelled by narrow views of <br />local circumstance, as had already been shown by Dudley North in his <br />tract of 1691, the Discourse of Trade, and especially by Nicholas Barbon <br />in his book of the same title a year before.17 In Cantillon and his succes- <br />sors we find broader and more philosophical views of the fundamental <br />principles which govern the Science of Wealth at all times and in all <br />places, though time and place are not without their modifying effect. <br />The words en général which figure in his title are significant of much. <br />They mark a change from works like Mun’s England’s Treasure by <br />Forraign Trade (published 1664), Malynes’s Canker of England’s Com-<br />14/Henry Higgs <br />monwealth (1601), Fortrey’s England’s Interest and Improvement <br />(1663), Britannia Languens (1680), Yarranton’s England’s Improve- <br />ment by Sea and Land (1677, 1681), and others, to the cosmopolitan <br />spirit which Adam Smith was to show in his Inquiry into the Nature <br />and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)— of nations in general and <br />not of England in particular. Cantillon sets himself to answer the ques- <br />tions, What is wealth? How does it originate? What are the causes which <br />regulate its distribution among the different classes of society, and de- <br />termine its circulation not only within the country but between one country <br />and another? “Land,” he begins (and this is the keynote of physiocracy), <br />“is the source or material from which Wealth is extracted”; but he con- <br />tinues,” human labour is the form which produces it; and Wealth in <br />itself is no other than the sustenance, the conveniences, and the com- <br />forts of life.” He sketches the growth of human societies, beginning with <br />the nomadic stage, and concludes that in all forms of society the owner- <br />ship of land necessarily belongs to a small number; that in modern soci- <br />eties, after satisfying the claims of farmers and labourers, the surplus <br />product is at the disposition of the landowners, and that their mode of <br />consuming this surplus will determine the nature of national produc- <br />tion. After dwelling upon the formation of villages, hamlets, towns, and <br />cities, he passes to a consideration of labour, shows why the work of an <br />agricultural labourer cannot command such high wages as that of an <br />artisan, and distinguishes between the causes which regulate the differ- <br />ence of wages in different industries. The supply of labour of all kinds is <br />determined by the demand for it; and, generally, the normal price of all <br />services and commodities is regulated by the cost of Production. With- <br />out pursuing his analysis further, or dwelling upon his masterly account <br />of foreign exchanges, it will be seen that this manner of attacking the <br />problem at once raises economic discussion to the highest plane.18 <br />It has been mentioned that Cantillon’s manuscript had been handed <br />about before its publication. Postlethwayt plagiarised large portions of <br />it verbatim in his Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce as <br />early as 1751.19 But the French translation, subsequently published, <br />had been for many years in the hands of the Marquis of Mirabeau, <br />father of the great orator and tribune of the French Revolution. Mirabeau <br />seems at one time to have meditated publishing this fragment as his own <br />work; but he eventually set himself to write a commentary upon it, and <br />after the Essai itself had been reclaimed from him and given to the world <br />in 1755 he expanded and published his commentary under the title of<br />The Physiocrates/15 <br />L’Ami des Hommes, Avignon, 1756, which took the public by storm. <br />The anonymous author was soon revealed. He became the lion of the <br />hour. The people flocked to see him when he showed himself in public. <br />Tradesmen set up the sign-board of L’Ami des Hommes, and Mirabeau <br />himself was so designated to the day of his death. His book ran, it is <br />said, through forty editions, and was widely translated. Its peculiarities <br />of style accounted for part of its success. The Marquis’s first work was <br />a plea for decentralisation of local government published in 1750, the <br />Mémoire concernant l’utilité des états provinciaux. The country was <br />divided into two groups—pays d’état and pays d’élection, in the first of <br />which (consisting mainly of the frontier provinces) the inhabitants them- <br />selves decided how to raise the money demanded from them by royal <br />precept, in the second, the officials of the Government (the intendants) <br />allotted its share of burden to each parish. Mirabeau pleaded for a gen- <br />eral extension of the system of the pays d’état. His Memoire had been <br />attributed by D’Argenson, no mean judge, to Montesquieu. The Ami <br />des Homines now reminded readers of the naive prattle of Montaigne. <br />Here it glowed with the fire of eloquence, there it glittered with wit and <br />humour, elsewhere it exhibited shrewd observation, sober judgment, and <br />able, though often inconsecutive, discussion. Its success owed some- <br />thing to its style, where quaint archaisms jostled with words freshminted <br />by the author, and provoked Quesnay to write Où diable avez- vous pris <br />ce style marotique? Je ne connais pas Marot, was the answer, mais <br />apparemment j’ai bu de la même eau que lui. Victor Hugo finds in him <br />the style of Molière and SaintSimon, the beau style-grand-seigneur du <br />temps de Louis XIV. The sub-title of the book was Traité de la Popula- <br />tion, and its central purpose was to show that a large population was <br />desirable as conducive to the wealth of the country. It was a time of <br />peace, and the population was already recovering from the set-back it <br />had experienced during half a century. But it was seen that for a long <br />time there had been, side by side with a diminution of population, a <br />reduction in national wealth; and in Mirabeau’s view the problem of the <br />statesman was to remove the economic causes which kept down the <br />numbers of the people. “Men multiply,” he says, borrowing from <br />Cantillon, “like rats in a barn, if they have the means of subsistence.” <br />“The means of subsistence are the measure of population.” The produc- <br />tion of food should therefore be assisted. The burdens of agriculture <br />should be alleviated. The small cultivator was to be encouraged and <br />held in honour; the idle consumer viewed with reprobation. Luxury he<br />16/Henry Higgs <br />defined as the abuse of wealth. An unequal distribution of wealth is <br />prejudicial to production, for the very rich are “like pikes in a pond” <br />who devour their smaller neighbours. Great landowners should live upon <br />their estates and stimulate their development,—not lead an absentee life <br />of pleasure in the metropolis. Interest should be reduced, public debts <br />extinguished, and a ministry of agriculture created to bring to agricul- <br />ture the succour of applied science, to facilitate the development of ca- <br />nals, communications, drainage, and so forth. The state is a tree, agri- <br />culture its roots,20 population its trunk, arts and commerce its leaves. <br />From the roots come the vivifying sap drawn up by multitudinous fibres <br />from the soil. The leaves, the most brilliant part of the tree, are the least <br />enduring. A storm may destroy them. But the sap will soon renew them <br />if the roots maintain their vigour. If, however, some unfriendly insect <br />attack the roots, then in vain do we wait for the sun and the dew to <br />reanimate the withered trunk. To the roots must the remedy go, to let <br />them expand and recover. If not, the tree will perish. <br />Such was the burden of the book which fell into the hands of Quesnay, <br />a doctor at the court, in attendance on Madame de Pompadour, the mis- <br />tress of the king. Quesnay, the son of an advocate,21 had early distin- <br />guished himself as a surgeon and physician, and had come to court as <br />the Abbé de Saint-Pierre had done before, and perhaps from the same <br />motive. This is how the Abbé had expressed himself in a letter to a <br />friend: “I have taken a little opera-box to get a better view of the princi- <br />pal actors on the stage of the world. I see our Government at its head- <br />quarters, and already I perceive that it would be easy to make it much <br />more honourable to the king, much more convenient to his ministers, <br />and much more useful to the people.”22 <br />If these, too, were Quesnay’s motives, he purchased his advantages <br />dearly; for, as will be found, his official position fettered his freedom of <br />action very considerably. He was now over sixty- three years of age, <br />had written nothing on economic subjects except two recent articles, <br />“Fermiers” (1756) and “Grains” (1757), in the Encyclopédie of Diderot, <br />and the courtiers by whom he was surrounded seem to have regarded <br />him as a harmless eccentric with a mania for agricultural science. But <br />there was much in Mirabeau’s book of which he approved. “The child,” <br />he wrote on the margin, “has been nursed on bad milk: the strength of <br />his constitution often sets him right in the end, but he has no knowledge <br />of principles.” He expressed a desire to meet the author, and they had an <br />interview, of which Mirabeau, many years later, wrote a graphic and<br />The Physiocrates/17 <br />perhaps somewhat fanciful account to Rousseau. Quesnay, he says, <br />showed him that Cantillon had set the plough before the oxen,—that <br />population was not a means to national wealth, but vice versa. Quesnay <br />sketched his own ideas to the Ami des Homines, who confesses that, <br />much as he had written, his mind was still swimming in an ocean of <br />uncertainties. He thought the doctor mad, and quitted him. But he came <br />back the same night, renewed the discussion, and was converted into a <br />life-long disciple and friend. Each found in the other the qualities lack- <br />ing in himself. Quesnay, aged, sententious, oracular, personally retir- <br />ing, timorous in action, but a hard thinker, who had carved out for him- <br />self a consistent theory,—the marquis, young (for all his forty-two years), <br />garrulous, diffuse, egotistic, daring, and imaginative, but unsystematic <br />and incapable of sustained connected thought. As an example of his <br />boldness take the following extract from L’Ami des Hommes, in which <br />the preface declares that he personifies la voix de I’humanité qui réclame <br />ses droits. Sire, he says to the king, regard that class of your subjects <br />which is “the most useful of all, those who see beneath them nothing but <br />their nurse and yours —mother-earth; who stoop unceasingly beneath <br />the weight of the most toilsome labours; who bless you every day, and <br />ask nothing from you but peace and protection. It is with their sweat and <br />(you know it not!) their very blood that you gratify that heap of useless <br />people who are ever telling you that the greatness of a prince consists in <br />the value, and above all, the number of favours he divides among his <br />courtiers, nobility, and companions. I have seen a tax-gathering bailiff <br />cut off the wrist of a poor woman who clung to her saucepan, the last <br />utensil of her household, which she was defending from distraint. What <br />would you have said, great Prince?” etc. etc. This fiery spirit was never <br />quite kept in check by Quesnay’s influence, but the energy which lay <br />behind it soon raised up a band of followers for the solitary thinker of <br />Versailles. The school of the Physiocrats dates from this interview in <br />July 1757. <br />II: The School and Its Doctrines. <br />Francois Quesnay, the founder of the school of the Économistes (or, as <br />they came to be called in later years, the Physiocrates), was born at <br />Mere near Versailles on the 4th of June 1694, the same year as Voltaire, <br />and died at Versailles on the 16th December 1774, the same year as <br />Louis XV. His first published work was Observations sur les effets de <br />la saignee, 1730, in which he successfully opposed the theories of bleed-<br />18/Henry Higgs <br />ing of Silva, the leading contemporary medical authority. The reputa- <br />tion of this work led to his selection as Secretary of the Academy of <br />Surgery at Paris, founded 1731. In 1736 he published an Essay phy- <br />sique sur l’economie animale, in 1749 a Traité de la suppuration, and <br />a Traité de la gangrène, and in 1753 a Traité des fièvres continues. <br />Meanwhile defective eyesight had led him to abandon surgery for medi- <br />cine. In 1749 he had settled at Versailles as physician to Madame de <br />Pompadour. In 1752 he successfully attended the Dauphin for small- <br />pox, and was rewarded by being appointed physician to the king, and <br />given a patent of nobility.23 In 1756 he published an anonymous, meta- <br />physical article on “Evidence”24 in the Encyclopedic, in which appeared <br />the same year his article “Fermiers,” and the following year “Grains,” <br />both over the signature of his son, Quesnay le fils; for the doctor’s <br />official position restrained him, as he thought, from publicly writing <br />upon matters of government and administration, and he invariably, <br />throughout his life, published his economical views anonymously or <br />pseudonymously,—sometimes under the name of oneof his disciples. <br />The article “Fermiers” begins by balancing with minute detail and inti- <br />mate knowledge the direct and indirect advantages of using horses or <br />oxen in cultivation, and decides in favour of the former,—the grande <br />culture, as against the petite culture.25 Most farmers, Quesnay admits, <br />were too poor to employ horses. The result was a great national loss of <br />wealth. The disastrous poverty of agriculture was mainly due to three <br />causes: (1) the desertion of the children of the peasantry, driven by penury, <br />taille, and milice26 to immigrate into the large towns, whither they brought <br />some of their parents’ little capital; (2) the arbitrary taxation which <br />deprived agricultural investors of security in their property; (3) the re- <br />strictions which embarrassed the corn trade. It might, he says, be worth <br />while to exempt farmers’ sons from the militia, as some of them chose a <br />town life to evade this service. He satirises the view that indigence is a <br />necessary spur to rural industry: hope is a better stimulus than despair, <br />and activity is proportioned to success. He examines the agricultural <br />statistics of the country, of acreage, arable and pasture, live stock, popu- <br />lation, production and consumption of corn, the range of prices, ex- <br />penses of production, and profits. Agriculture was the fundamental in- <br />dustry of the country; liberty and security were its chief requisites. Free <br />trade in corn, permission, and even (as in England) encouragement to <br />export, would greatly diminish fluctuations in annual prices, and con- <br />duce to the prosperity of farmers, which would in turn beget further<br />The Physiocrates/19 <br />prosperity, and result in higher and more lucrative farming, increased <br />national and individual wealth, a larger and healthier population, and a <br />more flourishing treasury. But, above all, the arbitrary taille was to be <br />given up. Quesnay did not see, he says, how to impose taxation on any <br />just and simple principle; his impot unique had not yet presented itself <br />to him as the perfect solution of this problem. “La repartition <br />proportionnelle n’est guere possible.... Il n’est guère possible d’imaginer <br />aucun plan general pour établir une repartition proportionnelle des im- <br />positions.” Following, probably, the Abbe de Saint-Pierre’s plan of a <br />taille tarifée, he suggested that a personal declaration, somewhat re- <br />sembling our income tax returns, might be the best basis for assessment. <br />But at any rate the taxes should be, as Adam Smith urged some years <br />later, certain, or, in the language of Bentham, cognoscible. <br />The only writers mentioned in this article are Locke and an agro- <br />nomic authority, Dupré de Saint Maur. In the next article, “Grains,” we <br />have a much more significant and important exposition of Quesnay’s <br />views. For a long time the policy of the Government had been to stimu- <br />late manufactures (and especially those of luxuries like silk stuffs), to <br />the detriment of agriculture. The people had been forbidden to plant <br />vines, and encouraged to plant mulberry-trees. The true national eco- <br />nomic policy was to turn to account the great productive powers of the <br />soil of France, and buy luxuries from abroad —exactly the reverse of <br />what was being attempted. The country would leap into prosperity by <br />good harvests of corn and a free corn trade, at home and abroad. The <br />actual production of corn in the country he estimated as worth about <br />595,000,000 of livres a year. If properly cultivated, with horses every- <br />where, the harvests would amount to 1,815,000,000, or more than three <br />times as much; while the surplus, after paying all the costs of produc- <br />tion, would be 885,000,000 compared with 178,000,000, or nearly five <br />times the amount.27 The details are as follows:— <br />Actual Possible. <br />Landlords 76,500,000 400,000,000 <br />Taille 27,000,000 165,000,000 <br />Farmers 27,500,000 165,000,000 <br />Tithe 50,000,000 155,000,000 <br />Cultivation415,000,000 930,000,000 <br />Total (sic) 595,000,000 1,815,000,000<br />20/Henry Higgs <br />Agriculture and commerce are regarded as the two resources of <br />wealth in France; but this distinction is, he says, a mere abstraction, for <br />commerce and industry (which is much more considerable than com- <br />merce) are but branches of agriculture,—the primary and indispensable <br />source of the other two. The policy of Sully and the “fundamental truths” <br />expressed by Cantillon are praised, the hindrances to viticulture and the <br />wine trade deplored. Large farms, raised to their highest value by well- <br />to-do farmers, are the true basis of prosperity and of a large population. <br />By a rich farmer he means not “a workman who himself tills the soil, <br />but an entrepreneur28 who governs and manages his enterprise by his <br />intelligence and his wealth.” “Those who regard the advantages of a <br />large population only as a means of recruiting large armies judge but ill <br />of the strength of a state. The military merely consider men as potential <br />soldiers; but the statesman regrets men destined for war as the landlord <br />regrets land laid out in a ditch to preserve his field. Great armies drain a <br />state, a large population and much wealth make it redoubtable.... With- <br />out human labour land has no value. Men, land, and cattle are the primi- <br />tive wealth of a great state.” The taille, he now suggests, should be <br />based upon the farmer’s rent, so as to spare taxation of his means of <br />production, and to enable him to take the taille into account when con- <br />sidering what rent to offer for his farm. This ideal is not easily attained <br />in the present state of affairs, and for that reason he had proposed a <br />different system in his article “Fermiers”; but his new idea might be <br />applied forthwith to farmers on lease, and, though not without diffi- <br />culty, to metayers. He would not speak of the petty policy attributed to <br />the Government29 of regarding arbitrary taxation as an assured method <br />of keeping its subjects in submission. Conduct so absurd was not to be <br />imputed to great ministers, who all knew how objectionable and ridicu- <br />lous it would be. The taillables were men of very modest fortune, need- <br />ing to be encouraged rather than humiliated. The author of the <br />Remarques, contrasting the enlightened policy and the wealth of En- <br />gland with the unwise policy and the poverty of France, had concluded <br />that England had nothing to fear from her neighbour. But let us adopt <br />free trade, says Quesnay, and we shall be as rich as they. We might, <br />indeed, seem to be in danger from the fertile soils of America; but their <br />competition is not much to be dreaded, for their corn is not of such good <br />quality; it deteriorates in the sea- voyage; and they will soon need all <br />their corn themselves.30 Our corn makes better bread, and keeps in bet- <br />ter preservation.<br />The Physiocrates/21 <br />Arrived at this point he proceeds to compare the advantages of a <br />foreign corn trade with that of a trade in manufacture, and lays down <br />fourteen maxims of economic government. Of these maxims, each fol- <br />lowed by a short explanation, we shall hear again. Like other parts of <br />this article they are steps towards his crowning work, the Tableau <br />Oeconomique. (1) Labour expended in industry (les travaux d’industrie), <br />as opposed to agriculture, does not multiply wealth, though (2) it con- <br />tributes to population and the increase of wealth, unless (3) it occupies <br />men to the prejudice of agriculture, in which case it has the contrary <br />effect. (4) The wealth of the agriculturist begets agricultural wealth. (5) <br />Industrial labour tends to increase the revenue from the land, and this <br />again supports industry. (6) A nation having a large trade in its raw <br />products can always keep up a relatively large trade in manufactures; <br />but (7) if it have little of the first and is reduced to the second for subsis- <br />tence, it is in a dangerous and insecure condition. (8) A large internal <br />trade in manufactured articles can only be maintained by the revenue <br />from the land. (9) A nation with a large territory which depreciates its <br />raw products to favour manufactures, destroys itself in all directions. <br />(10) The advantages of external trade do not consist in the increase of <br />money, (11) The balance of trade does not indicate the advantage of <br />trade or the state of wealth of each nation, which is (12) to be judged by <br />both internal and external trade and especially by the first. (13) A nation <br />which extracts from its soil, its men, and its navigation the best possible <br />result needs not grudge the trade of its neighbours, and (14) in recipro- <br />cal commerce nations which sell the most useful or necessary commodi- <br />ties have the advantage over those which sell luxuries. Finally, he sums <br />up the measures which Government should take to render the country <br />prosperous: freedom in the production and circulation of goods; the <br />abolition or diminution of tolls on transport; the extinction of local or <br />personal privileges in dues of the same character; the repair of roads <br />and of river communication; the suppression of the arbitrary discretion <br />of private persons in subordinate administrations, so far as the national <br />revenue was concerned. With these reforms progress would be rapid. <br />Under Henri IV the kingdom, worn out and burdened with debt, soon <br />became a land of wealth and abundance. To persist in the present courses <br />would devastate the country. A hundred years ago there was a popula- <br />tion of 24,000,000. In 1700, after forty years of almost continuous war <br />and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, there were still 19,500,000. <br />To-day there are but 16,000,000, and many of these in extreme misery.<br />22/Henry Higgs <br />Prices must not be too low, for abundance and inability to sell are not <br />wealth; dearness and penury are misery; abundance and a fair price, <br />normal and continued, are opulence. The export of surplus corn would <br />conduce to this fair price. Something must be done to remedy the “enor- <br />mous degradation of agriculture and of the population.” <br />This is a bold and a statesmanlike programme. If a serious, cau- <br />tious, and continued effort had been made to carry it out, the subsequent <br />history of France and of the world would not have been what they are. <br />Other articles were to be contributed by Quesnay,— Homines, Impôt, <br />and Intérêt de l’argent,—but the Encyclopedic fell under the official <br />ban in 1757, became a secret publication, and Quesnay withdrew his <br />co-operation. The manuscript of the article Hommes was discovered by <br />Dr. Stephan Bauer in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris in 1890. The <br />others are lost. <br />The article “Grains” shows wider economic reading and deeper <br />thought than the article “Fermiers.” The text is short,—the dissertation <br />comprehensive and far-seeing. It makes mention of Dupré de Saint Maur, <br />the Financier Citoyen,31 D’Angeul’s book referred to above (p. 31 n.), <br />Sully, Colbert, Cantillon, and Herbert’s Essai sur la police générale <br />des grains, 1755. It contains many indications of Quesnay’s later views. <br />But before he next went into print he made, as already described, the <br />acquaintance of Mirabeau, and it was after discussion with that writer <br />that he printed his Tableau Oeconomique in December 1758 at the pal- <br />ace at Versailles. We shall find him inspiring much of the work of other <br />men, notably the Physiocratie of Du Pont, 1767 and 1768, but except <br />some articles in the Journal de l’agriculture in 1765 and 1766, and in <br />the Éphémérides du citoyen in 1767 and 1768, he wrote little more that <br />concerns us here; and the Tableau Oeconomique may serve to explain <br />at once the main doctrines of the master and the school. <br />It is necessary, however, first to return for a moment to the Essai of <br />Cantillon. At page 55 of his Essai Cantillon begins to develop an argu- <br />ment of this kind. If the owners of land shut off their property and al- <br />lowed no one to labour on the soil, there would be neither food nor <br />clothing available. Every inhabitant of a state is therefore, in a sense, <br />dependent upon the landowner. But since the latter himself desires the <br />means of subsistence he cultivates his land, or lets it out to a farmer, <br />who usually pays him about a third of the product for the use of the soil, <br />retains another third for himself, as profit, and pays the remainder in <br />wages and expenses of cultivation. Now the landlord and the farmer<br />The Physiocrates/23 <br />expend part of their shares of the product upon services and commodi- <br />ties furnished by manufacturers, artisans, and other members of society, <br />who are not directly engaged in agriculture. And so it comes about that <br />“the annual produce of the land and labour of the country,” to use the <br />later, favourite phrase of Adam Smith, becomes circulated throughout <br />the community. But the landlords, and especially the sovereign as the <br />largest proprietor, by their modes of living determine the economic ac- <br />tivities of the nation. Industries are responsive to, and dependent upon, <br />their demands, their humours, fashions, and style of life. These regulate <br />the uses to which the soil shall be put, and thus determine indirectly the <br />number of inhabitants of the state, which must be limited by the means <br />of subsistence available. Here is the whole theory of the Tableau <br />Oeconomique. Cantillon, with his fine eye for light and shade, charac- <br />teristically adds (p. 59): “It is true that there are often in the large towns <br />many employers and artisans who subsist by foreign trade, and there- <br />fore at the expense of landowners in foreign parts; but at present I am <br />considering a state only with regard to its own produce and its own <br />industry.” <br />The practical economic problem of contemporary France, as it pre- <br />sented itself to the mind of Quesnay, was of this character. Here is a <br />country, abounding in natural resources, but production is starved in its <br />infancy for lack of capital. Yet capital is only to be obtained by setting <br />it aside out of the fund created by production. If this fund be turned into <br />channels where it is not available for utilisation as producer’s capital, <br />the nation is doomed to sterility. How then is wealth distributed throughout <br />the different classes of the nation, and how is a larger portion of it to be <br />diverted from immediate consumption to the benefit of future produc- <br />tion? It was clear to him that luxury and extravagance had reached a <br />pitch at which the nation was rapidly impoverishing itself, living above <br />its means and consuming not only its revenue but its capital. To make <br />this intelligible at a glance he designed a chart or table which, so far as <br />rapid intelligibility is concerned, is a ludicrous failure. It occupies one <br />quarto page, and consists of three columns, headed respectively Défenses <br />productives relatives a I’Agriculture, etc., Defenses du Revenu, and <br />Defenses steriles relatives a l’Industrie, etc. He assumes that agricul- <br />ture “as in England” produces a net product (produit net) or net profit <br />of 100 per cent (in other words a rent of cent per cent) over and above <br />all the expenses of production including farmers’ profits. Taking the <br />hypothesis of an employment of 600 livres of capital a year (avances<br />24/Henry Higgs <br />annuelles) in agriculture he attempts to track out the fate of the result- <br />ing rent year by year. First of all it goes to the landlord, who spends (it <br />is assumed) half in agricultural produce and half in other expenses (de- <br />fenses steriles); and the 600 livres by dotted lines are conveyed, as by <br />divergent streams, from the central column, one-half to the left and onehalf <br />to the right. The 300 livres which go to the left are again applied to <br />agriculture, and again yield a rent of 100 per cent, or 300 livres (centre <br />column), which is again divided right and left, admitting of a further <br />investment of 150 livres to agriculture, and so on continually. Mean- <br />while the wealth which has found its way annually to the right of the <br />table in payment for manufactures, lodging, clothing, interest of money, <br />domestic servants, cost of transport, foreign commodities, and gener- <br />ally for everything except the conduct of extractive industry, is divided <br />annually into two portions which are assumed to be equal, of which one <br />is re-expended upon raw material or products of the soil, and is thus <br />reconducted by dotted lines to the column on the left; the other half is <br />consumed “unproductively.” This zic-zac, as Quesnay calls it, was as <br />significant as Lord Burghley’s nod in Sheridan’s play of The Critic. <br />Whole volumes of political economy were read into it. In a well- known <br />passage, quoted by Adam Smith,32 Mirabeau refers to it as follows: <br />“There have been since the world began, three great inventions which <br />have principally given stability to political societies, independent of many <br />other inventions which have enriched and adorned them. The first is the <br />invention of writing, which alone gives human nature the power of trans- <br />mitting, without alteration, its laws, its contracts, its annals, and its <br />discoveries. The second is the invention of money, which binds together <br />all the relations between civilised societies. The third is the economical <br />table, the result of the other two, which completes them both by perfect- <br />ing their object; the great discovery of our age, but of which our poster- <br />ity will reap the benefit.”33 <br />The Tableau is followed by twelve pages of “explanation,” and this <br />again by a restatement of the Tableau without the crossed and dotted <br />lines. Next come four pages of maxims, twenty-three in number, headed <br />Extrait des Oeconomies Royales de M. de Sully. The “explanation” <br />points out that the effective production of the country turns upon the <br />extent to which the left-hand column is alimented. If a large portion of <br />wealth is annually absorbed by the right-hand column without finding <br />its way back to the left, the national dividend is reduced. “Hence it is <br />seen that excess of decorative luxury may very promptly ruin by mag-<br />The Physiocrates/25 <br />nificence an opulent state.” As Voltaire says, when writing a few years <br />later against the Physiocrats, luxuries and new wants were intensifying <br />a refined misery. “Nous sommes pauvres avec goût.”34 <br />Given a wise employment of capital such as is assumed in the table, <br />and granting, as is also assumed, that horses everywhere replace oxen <br />in cultivation, it is estimated that the total capitalised wealth of the country <br />should amount to some 59,000,000,000 of livres, or, allowing for a <br />margin of error, from 55,000 to 60,000 of millions. But all this is condi- <br />tional further upon the absence of eight great obstacles, — the principal <br />causes of decay of an agricultural nation. These are:— <br />1. Bad forms of taxation, bearing upon the capital of <br />cultivators. <br />2. Excessive cost of collection of taxes. <br />3. Excessive luxury of decoration. <br />4. Excessive expense in litigation. <br />5. Lack of export trade in raw materials. <br />6. Lack of freedom (a) in internal trade in raw materials and (b) in <br />cultivation. <br />7. Personal harassing of the country people. <br />8. Lack of return of the annual produit net to the category of pro- <br />ductive expenses. <br />The pretended extracts from the Oeconomies royales of Sully are <br />really the Maximes of economic government of the article “Grains” fur- <br />ther worked up and developed. They are too succinct to be stated with- <br />out full quotation and explanation, and only the gist of them can be <br />given in the course of a further brief summary of Quesnay’s views. An <br />able commentary upon them will be found in the excellent little volume <br />of Lavergne. Certain bold maxims or principles of government had in- <br />deed been laid down by Sully, the favourite minister, chief agent, and <br />almost sole adviser of the most popular monarch who ever sat on the <br />throne of France; and there was in truth much affinity of spirit between <br />the reforming zeal and the predilection for agriculture which characterised <br />alike Sully and the Physiocrats. But it is hardly doubtful that a further <br />motive with Quesnay was his desire to place himself under the aegis of <br />the great rulers of the state in a glorious past. To refer again to the Abbe <br />de Saint-Pierre for comparison,—the Abbé’s Projet de paix perpétuelle, <br />3 vols., 1713, was abridged and published in 1728 as: Abrégé du projet <br />de paix perpétuelle inventé par le roi Henri le Grand, etc. To claim the <br />sanction of Henri IV and of Sully was to disarm much opposition. And<br />26/Henry Higgs <br />as Sully had declared labourage et pâturage sont les deux mamelles de <br />la France, so Quesnay too devised an apophthegm for the motto of his <br />Tableau,—pauvres pay sans, pauvre royaume; pauvre royaume, pauvre <br />roi. His desire was to publish the Tableau in the official Mercure de <br />France, but the tactful Pompadour dissuaded him, foreseeing that the <br />form of the Tableau would expose it to ridicule, such as it encountered <br />at the merciless hands of Linguet in 1771. It was, therefore, privately <br />printed in the royal palace of Versailles in December 1758.35 Only a few <br />proofs were struck off, and until 1890 it was believed to be extinct, but <br />in that year a copy of it, slightly revised by Quesnay for further proof, <br />was discovered by Dr. Stephan Bauer among the manuscripts of <br />Mirabeau in the Archives Nationales at Paris; and this copy has been <br />reproduced in facsimile by the British Economic Association in honour <br />of Quesnay’s bicentenary in 1894. In 1760 Mirabeau printed the Tab- <br />leau with some modifications in the sixth part of his L’Ami des Hom- <br />ines, and again in 1763 in the Philosophie Rurale, and in 1767 in the <br />Élements de philosophie rurale. In June 1766 Quesnay published an <br />Analyse du Tableau Économique in the Journal de l’agriculture, du <br />commerce et des finances; in November 1765 Objections contre le Tab- <br />leau économique, and in January 1766 Réponse aux objections, both in <br />the same journal. Quesnay’s analysis of his Tableau appears also in the <br />Physiocratie (November 1767), dated Leyden, 1768. Baudeau’s Expli- <br />cation du Tableau in the Éphémérides, 1767, Quesnay’s Maximes, 1775, <br />and the reprints of Forbonnais, Linguet, Daire and Oncken complete the <br />list of reproductions. <br />We come now to consider Quesnay’s views with regard to taxation. <br />Identifying wealth with material objects he opines that the only industry <br />productive of wealth is that which produces raw material. The labours <br />of artisans and craftsmen may be productive of refinement and utility, <br />but do not add anything to the stock of wealth, for they merely change <br />the form of existing material, and the enhanced value of the object upon <br />which their work is expended is simply the equivalent of the payment <br />for their services. In other words, agriculture alone yields a rent (produit <br />net); manufacture yields none, and is sterile—an unfortunate and ill- <br />chosen expression which did the Physiocrats much mischief. The <br />statesman’s aim should be to meet the national expenses out of national <br />revenues, without trenching upon capital. But as the produit net is the <br />only true revenue, so should it be the only corpus to be taxed. All taxa- <br />tion of persons or of manufactured articles must eventually be paid out<br />The Physiocrates/27 <br />of this fund. Simplicity, justice, and economy alike, therefore, require <br />that the taxes should be collected at their source. A single, simple, direct <br />tax (impôt unique) should be levied upon land, and should not exceed <br />one-third of the produit net. Landowners and farmers will adjust their <br />burdens by raising the price of raw materials, every consumer of which <br />will thus pay a share of taxation with the minimum of expense for cost <br />of collection, and the whole cumbrous apparatus of existing fiscal ma- <br />chinery will be swept away. To sum up, the Tableau prescribes wise <br />consumption (individuals, classes, and nations should direct their ex- <br />penditure so far as possible into “productive” channels), taxation (which <br />must fall eventually upon the land) should be directly levied upon, and <br />should not exceed a small proportion of, the annual net production of <br />the soil, and freedom should be allowed to individuals to prosecute the <br />production and circulation of wealth free from let or hindrance on the <br />part of Government. <br />So much for the economic and financial bearings of Quesnay’s teach- <br />ing. The philosophical foundation on which it seems to rest will be found <br />in his other writings, especially Le Droit Naturel, which is included in <br />the Physiocratie. Every man, he urges, has a natural right to the free <br />exercise of his faculties provided he does not employ them to the injury <br />of himself or others. This right to liberty implies as a corollary the right <br />to property, and the duty of the state to defend it,—in other words secu- <br />rity. The guarantee of security is indeed the sole function of the state. To <br />extend it would be to encroach on individual liberty. The state cannot be <br />too strong for this purpose,—any constitutional checks and balance of <br />power would but weaken the central authority. The despotism of the <br />state is to be tempered only by enlightened public opinion, which will <br />revolt against any infraction of natural law, or rather render it impos- <br />sible. The Dauphin once bemoaned to Quesnay the difficulty of the kingly <br />office, which he was not destined to live to assume. “I do not see,” said <br />Quesnay, “that it is so troublesome.”— “What then,” asked the Dau- <br />phin, “would you do if you were king?”—“Nothing.”—“Then who would <br />govern?” and the laconic answer was, “The law.” On another occasion <br />a courtier, seeing the king wearied with the disputes of clergy and par- <br />liament, proposed violent measures: “It is the halberd which governs the <br />kingdom.”—“And pray, sir,” asked Quesnay, “who governs the halberd?” <br />His adversary was reduced to silence. “It is opinion,” added the doctor: <br />“therefore it is upon opinion that you must set to work.” <br />In Professor Hasbach’s opinion Quesnay based his economic views<br />28/Henry Higgs <br />upon a deductive system of philosophy derived from the English writ- <br />ers, Shaftesbury, Locke, and Cumberland. Like them, he appeals to the <br />Law of Nature, but unlike his predecessors (with the exception of Grotius, <br />who had declared for free trade) he extends its sphere beyond religion, <br />politics, and individual life, to the realm of political economy. As Locke <br />was the father of political individualism, so Quesnay was one of the <br />fathers of economic individualism; and his real originality lies in his <br />organic theory of economic life.36 It might be argued that his economic <br />principles were buttressed by, rather than deliberately founded upon, <br />his philosophy; but in the hands of Mercier de la Rivière and others it <br />undoubtedly took on more and more of a philosophical form. <br />In 1758 Quesnay drew up a table of motives,37 4 pp., 4to, some- <br />what resembling the later work of Bentham, and printed it at Versailles <br />about the same time as the Tableau Oeconomique, with which it is uni- <br />form in type, paper, and form. The only copy which I have ever seen is <br />in the library of Professor Foxwell at Cambridge, bound up in a volume <br />once the property of Adam Smith, who wrote the name of Quesnay <br />against it in the title-page. It is entitled Observations sur la psycho- <br />logic, ou science de I’âme. The versatility of Quesnay’s genius is fur- <br />ther attested by several writings upon mathematics,38 and in his extreme <br />old age he believed he had solved the problem of squaring the circle. <br />Some analogous belief he may well have held as to the originality and <br />unshakable accuracy of his speculations in economic and financial sci- <br />ence; for the exaggerated eulogies of his followers were enough to turn <br />the head of the most modest of men. Exacting from each of his disciples <br />an undertaking not to refer to him by name, and publishing his own <br />views on economics under the anagram of Nisaque, M. H., M. N., M. <br />Alpha, M. de l’Isle, anonymously, or under the sole name of some col- <br />laborator, he was the victim of much hyperbolical periphrase for which <br />Mirabeau was usually responsible. He was in turn “the greatest genius <br />of our age,” “the Confucius of Europe,” “the Socrates of our day,” “the <br />Moses of modern times.” Well might Adam Smith say of the Physiocrats, <br />“The admiration of this whole sect for their master, who was himself a <br />man of the greatest modesty and simplicity, is not inferior to that of the <br />ancient philosophers for the founders of their respective systems.”39 He <br />was not without honour in England. <br />The Royal Society elected him a Fellow.40 On the death of Louis <br />XV he lost his Court favour, lived just long enough to see Turgot’s <br />accession to power and commencement of reforms, but died at Versailles<br />The Physiocrates/29 <br />the same year, q6th December 1774, before the fall of Turgot, and be- <br />fore the appearance of the Wealth of Nations (both in 1776) which it <br />had been Adam Smith’s intention to dedicate to this “very ingenious and <br />profound author,” the “modest and simple” founder of the physiocratic <br />school.41 <br />III: The School and Its Doctrines (contd.) <br />The artist has not yet arisen who has chosen to paint a great historical <br />picture of the scene which M. de Lomenie42 describes as follows:— <br />“On the 20th December 1774, amidst the enthusiastic hopes to which <br />a new reign gave birth, five months after Turgot’s entrance into the <br />ministry, a considerable number of persons, attired in mourning, were <br />gathered in the principal room of a townhouse in the Rue Vaugirard [at <br />Paris]. At the end of the room had been placed a large pedestal sur- <br />mounted by a marble bust, and the whole assembly being turned to- <br />wards this bust in an attitude of sorrow and respect, the master of the <br />house pronounced a speech of a rather odd character, especially for the <br />epoch.” “Gentlemen,” began the orator, “we have just lost our master; <br />the veritable benefactor of humanity belongs to this earth only by the <br />memory of his good deeds and the imperishable record of his achieve- <br />ments.” He goes on to declare that Socrates43 had been said to have <br />drawn down morality from heaven. Their master had done more, he had <br />made it germinate upon earth. Religion was a solace and a ruling power <br />only to a few elevated souls. The terrestrial guide of conduct based <br />upon the produit net appealed to the reason and intelligence of every <br />man, persuading him by the enlightened pursuit of selfinterest to pro- <br />mote the welfare of mankind at large. The speaker, now left, he says, the <br />leader of the band, appeals to his hearers to carry on their immortal <br />founder’s work, and further the progress of “the science which shall one <br />day render societies peaceful and prosperous, and men reasonable and <br />virtuous.” And he concludes by apostrophising the bust on which they <br />gazed: “O venerable bust, that represents to us the features of our mas- <br />ter,”44 etc. The silent bust which looked down upon this somewhat the- <br />atrical mise en scène was that of Quesnay. The extravagant and stilted <br />eloquence, its pomp redeemed by sincerity and affection, was the char- <br />acteristic language of the Friend of Humanity, the Marquis of Mirabeau, <br />refraining, even now, with pious fidelity, from speaking the doctor’s <br />name. We can guess who were many of the disciples gathered round,<br />30/Henry Higgs <br />but none of them was so popular or authoritative an exponent of <br />physiocracy as Mirabeau himself, and several of them were his own <br />proselytes. His indefatigable industry and ardent zeal had spread the <br />fame of the Physiocrats and their system through all the countries of <br />Europe.45 He brought to the service of Quesnay in 1757 a literary repu- <br />tation already firmly and widely established, a considerable amount of <br />social influence, and valuable resources of time and energy, as well as <br />of money. The history of his family—a “tempestuous race,” he himself <br />confesses — is, as recounted by M. de Lomenie, one of the most strik- <br />ing and fascinating in the whole range of biographical literature, and is <br />not without importance for the student of his works. He was born on the <br />4th October 1715, the year of the death of Louis XIV, and died on the <br />13th July 1789, the day before the storming of the Bastille. His life thus <br />coincides with what is usually regarded as the inception and the triumph <br />of the French Revolution. After serving with bravery in the army, he <br />succeeded, in 1737, when only twenty-two years of age, to his father’s <br />title and estates, and gave up the profession of arms. He seems early to <br />have cherished the ambition of becoming a great philosophical states- <br />man, and of aggrandising the honour and power of his own family. He <br />married a wife whose great expectations, her only recommendation, <br />became a veritable apple of discord. When her unspeakable miscon- <br />duct, approaching—if not overstepping—the bounds of madness, and <br />the sensational follies of his famous but dissolute and spendthrift son, <br />wounded his family pride, he acted with the despotism of a Highland <br />chief smarting under a sense of dishonour to his clan. But in 1757 these <br />troubles were yet to come. He had been the friend of Vauvenargues and <br />an acquaintance of Montesquieu. The system of government appeared <br />to him hopelessly unsuited to the needs of the nation, and far better than <br />most of his contemporaries he saw the real power which lay dormant in <br />the people—the force of numbers. “He was,” says Victor Hugo, “at <br />once in advance of and behind his age.” “He presents in himself,” says <br />de Tocqueville, “ the spectacle of a feudal character invaded by demo- <br />cratic ideas.” He had argued in the first part of L’Ami des Hommes for <br />a multiplication of small peasant proprietors; but he allowed Quesnay <br />to persuade him that the true ideal was the maximising of the produit <br />net of the country, which was to be better achieved by an economical <br />exploitation of land on the larger scale. He had also urged, following <br />Cantillon, that imports of corn should be encouraged and exports dis- <br />couraged; but, as we have seen, this too was in opposition to Quesnay’s<br />The Physiocrates/31 <br />views, for the doctor considered such a course, in the long-run, inimical <br />to a large food supply, since low prices of corn would discourage its <br />national production. But while giving way upon these points he remained <br />the most independent member of the school. Utilising the popularity <br />acquired by L’Ami des Hommes, he proceeded, after allying himself <br />with Quesnay, to publish continuations of the work (part 4, no imprint, <br />4to and 12mo, 1758; parts 5 and 6, do. do., 1760), making a whole of <br />three quarto or six duodecimo volumes. In these later parts the coopera- <br />tion of Quesnay is evident. Part 4 contains a Dialogue entre le <br />Surintendant D’O. et L.D.H., a reprint of the Mémoire sur les États <br />provinciaux, with a reply to an anonymous criticism of Naveau’s, and a <br />series of (separately paged) Questions interessantes sur la Population, <br />l’Agriculture, et le Commerce proposées aux Académies et autres <br />sociétés sçavantes des Provinces, asking for local information upon <br />agricultural conditions, and also suggesting some general considerations <br />somewhat in the style of Berkeley’s Querist. These questions, the reader <br />is informed, are not by the author of the Mémoire sur les États <br />provinciaux.46 The 5th part contains the essay which Mirabeau had <br />written for the prize of the Berne Agricultural Society in 1759, on the <br />reasons why Switzerland should give preference to the cultivation of <br />corn. The essay is followed by extracts from the first six books of an <br />English work (translated from T. Hale’s Compleat Body of Husbandry, <br />1756). The 6th part consists of a Réponse a I’Essai sur les Ponts et <br />Chaussées, La Voierie, et Les Corvées, and of the Tableau Oeconomique <br />avec ses explications. In the same year with this later part, 1760, ap- <br />peared his Theorie de l’Impôt, 4to and 12 mo, without imprint, which <br />immediately had an enormous vogue. It was a spirited and able attack <br />upon the financial administration of the country, and especially upon <br />the farmers-general, whom Mirabeau regarded as parasites preying upon <br />the vitals of the nation.47 The taxgatherer is never a welcome visitor, <br />even when he is the direct representative of local or central authority; <br />but when he presents himself in the guise of a speculator whose per- <br />sonal profit or loss turns upon the amount of taxation he can collect, <br />whose agents have no bowels of compassion, no willingness to hear or <br />ability to accept excuse or appeal, and who violate the public conscience <br />by relentless severity, while their employer is seen to be making a con- <br />siderable fortune at the public expense, then indeed an outcry against <br />him will awaken innumerable echoes, and the Theorie de l’Impôt spread <br />like wildfire. “Seigneur,” begins the author, with an address to the king<br />32/Henry Higgs <br />—“Seigneur! you have 20,000,000 of subjects, more or less,48 all with <br />a little money, and almost all capable of rendering you such service as <br />you require; and yet you can no longer obtain service without money, <br />nor money to pay for service. In plain language your people are holding <br />back from you, without knowing it, for they are still well disposed to <br />your person even though they be not to the agents of your authority.” <br />And he puts into the mouth of the king the soliloquy that his position as <br />the head of his people is justified only so long as, and only because, he <br />costs them less than he is worth to them. This remorseless test, “Are you <br />worth what you cost?” must have been like acid to a raw wound, for the <br />colonial empire was falling to pieces, and within a year the French had <br />been driven out of Canada and of India. He makes the king add: “Where <br />my people loses its rights, there is the limit of my empire.” Taxes are <br />really of the nature of voluntary offerings rather than forced contribu- <br />tions. The sovereign has not the right to tax his subjects without their <br />participation and assent, and the collection of taxes should be handed <br />over to the representatives of the people themselves. The powerful fi- <br />nancial interest, fastening upon such passages, where exhortation is <br />mingled with barely veiled menace, denounced the Ami des Hommes to <br />the king, who caused him to be imprisoned (16th December 1760) in the <br />chateau of Vincennes, which was afterwards to receive the author’s son. <br />The anger of the king was mollified by Madame de Pompadour49 and <br />Mirabeau’s friends, and on Christmas Eve he allowed him to be liber- <br />ated under orders to reside at his property at Bignon and not in Paris. <br />This sharp reminder of the limits of freedom kept the Physiocrats silent, <br />though not inactive, for two and a half years. In 1763 Mirabeau made a <br />convert of Du Pont de Nemours, who, writing in 1769 of the Théorie de <br />I’Impôt, says: “This sublime work has, to my knowledge, been multi- <br />plied by eighteen editions.” Beyond the abolition of the practice of farming <br />out the taxes it recommends reforms in the direction of making taxation <br />lighter, simpler, and more direct. It urged that the tax on salt should be <br />reduced, with the object of increasing the total yield (a recognition of <br />the principle, now well known under the name of the elasticity of the <br />exchequer), that there should be a special tax upon tobacco-farms, and <br />that apart from the Post Office, the Mint, and the Domaine (crown <br />lands and crown dues) the rest of the national revenue should be derived <br />from a tax upon land. This is the Impôt unique with modifications. The <br />work contains many valuable remarks, and is of real importance in the <br />history of financial theory.<br />The Physiocrates/33 <br />In 1763 appeared the Philosophie rurale, Amsterdam (Paris), 4to, <br />which presents perhaps the most complete and magisterial account of <br />the views of the physiocratic school, and was called by Grimm “the <br />Pentateuch of the sect.” Daire, who shows little sympathy for Mirabeau, <br />declares it to be “the best, or rather the least bad, of all his works”; but <br />he would have expressed himself more respectfully had he known the <br />large share taken in the work by Quesnay, who, according to Du Pont, <br />inspired it and wrote the whole of the seventh chapter himself.50 An <br />abridgment of it, under the title Éléments de philosophie rurale, was <br />published in 12mo at The Hague in 1767. Of his other works it is suffi- <br />cient to mention Réponse du correspondant à son banquier, 1759, 4to <br />(a reply to Forbonnais); Lettres sur le commerce des grains, Amsterdam <br />and Paris, 1768, 12mo; Les Économiques, Amsterdam and Paris, 1769– <br />72, 2 vols. 4to, or 4 vols. 12mo; Lettres d’un ingénieur... pour servir de <br />suite à I’Ami des Hommes, Avignon, 1770, 12mo; Lettres Économiques, <br />Amsterdam, 1770, 12mo; Les Devoirs, Milan, 1770; La science, ou les <br />Droits et les Devoirs de I’homme, Lausanne, 1774, 12mo; Lettre sur la <br />legislation, Berne, 1775, 3 vols. 12mo; Supplement à la théorie de <br />I’impôt, La Haye, 1776; Entretien d’un jeune Prince avec son <br />gouverneur par L.D.H. Publié par M.G... [l’Abbé Grivel], Paris, 1785, <br />4 vols. 8vo and 12mo; Éducation civile d’un Prince, Doulac, 1788, <br />8vo; Rêve d’un goutteux, ou le Principal (end of 1788), an octavo pam- <br />phlet, his hopes of the Constituent Assembly about to meet—and Hommes <br />a célébrer pour avoir bien mérité de l’humanité par leurs écrits sur <br />l’Économie politique. Ouvrage publie par P. Boscovitch, ami de I’auteur, <br />Bassano, 2 vols. 8vo. Many of these works were announced as by L.D.H. <br />(L’Ami des Hommes), but the later ones appeared sometimes anony- <br />mously and in foreign countries by the care of his friends. Les Devoirs <br />had been seen through the press by the Marquis of Longo, professor of <br />political economy at Milan. It urged that, in the interests of society, men <br />should receive economic instruction as a guide to conduct. And so el- <br />ementary education should be compulsory, and even free where the re- <br />cipient cannot afford to pay. <br />It is sometimes supposed that the French Revolution destroyed the <br />influence of the Physiocrats. But in truth their reputation in France had <br />in 1789 long been on the wane. The year 1776 struck it three blows <br />from which it never entirely recovered. The fall of Turgot, though he is <br />not strictly to be reckoned as one of the sect, paved the way to their <br />discomfiture. The publication of the Wealth of Nations more slowly but<br />34/Henry Higgs <br />effectually destroyed their authority by sapping the scientific basis on <br />which it reposed. And finally, in 1776, began the scandalous dissemina- <br />tion of lies and libels by Mirabeau’s wife and children which shook the <br />Friend of Men from his pedestal of popularity, and dragged him through <br />the mire as a hideous impostor, whose private life, at hopeless variance <br />with his public precept, would show the teacher of morality unmasked <br />as a monster of hypocrisy. In his well-known Lettres de Vincennes the <br />younger Mirabeau ridicules the Physiocrats, and does not spare their <br />chief: “It will sooner or later be seen,” he says, “that my father owes <br />only to his own generosity the title of L’Ami des Hommes... a man who <br />calls himself tender, compassionate, the legislator of kings, the benefac- <br />tor of humanity at large, and is the oppressor of his wife and children.” <br />“I know,” whines the young profligate, “that appearances are against <br />me. But so they are against my father, who imprisons me. Facts can be <br />so easily distorted. It might, for instance, be said that he had ruined <br />himself in creating a political economy; that he had compromised two <br />millions of the fortune of his wife and children, while protesting against <br />luxury and debts; that he had persisted in founding a sect at Paris and <br />living there to the detriment of his means while declaiming vigorously <br />against absentee landlords; and that after denouncing lettres de cachet <br />in his writings he had employed fifty-three of them against his wife and <br />children, of whom all but one are under lock and key.” “No doubt,” he <br />suggests, “my father could defend himself against all these charges. <br />Why, then, will he not hear a defence from me?” The labours of M. de <br />Loménie, exposing the prejudice and misrepresentation of M. de <br />Montigny, have rehabilitated in great measure the economist’s reputa- <br />tion, and in his later years the orator of the Revolution rallied to his <br />father’s side and loaded him with praise and respect. But it concerns us <br />to note that the immediate effect of these attacks was, on the one hand, <br />to weaken the elder Mirabeau’s popular repute, while, on the other, they <br />drove him to absorb himself more and more in economic writing as a <br />distraction from his family troubles. He left 400 quartos in manuscript <br />written by his own hand, forty published volumes, several contributions <br />to journals, a number of unpublished writings, and an immense corre- <br />spondence, exchanging upwards of 4000 letters with his brother alone. <br />Other branches of his activity will be mentioned in the next chapter. <br />“Had my hand been of bronze,” he said in his old age, “it would long <br />since have been worn out.” <br />Among the “persons attired in mourning” who “turned towards the<br />The Physiocrates/35 <br />bust of Quesnay in an attitude of sorrow and respect,” there was one <br />notable gap. There was a vacant place for an eminent young disciple <br />returning from Poland to serve with Turgot, Du Pont de Nemours (b. <br />18th December 1739, d. 7th August 1817), who, converted by Mirabeau <br />in 1763, became the amiable hard-working hack of his masters, editing <br />the works of Quesnay (thePhysiocratie, 1767–8), and the economic Jour- <br />nals of the school, besides becoming the secretary, biographer, and friend <br />of Turgot, a trusted adviser of foreign princes, and finally a member of <br />the Constituent Assembly. The bibliography of his own writings, ap- <br />pended to M. Schelle’s excellent monograph, contains 112 separate en- <br />tries in addition to new editions and translations, and one of these en- <br />tries alone covers some 120 articles in the Éphémérides, while others <br />embrace a number of separate writings. In 1763 the nation stood, at the <br />conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, literally bankrupt. The question of <br />finance was one of life and death. An anonymous pamphlet, La Richesse <br />de l’État, 1763, 8vo, written by a state official, Roussel de la Tour, <br />proposed to replace all taxes by a progressive poll-tax. Du Pont, then <br />twenty-three years of age, criticised it in a pamphlet entitled Réflexions <br />sur la Richesse de I’État. Taxes really fall, he says, on the land, and <br />should be levied directly on landowners. This pamphlet interested <br />Quesnay and Mirabeau (whose exile to Bignon had not yet been can- <br />celled) for two reasons. They found in it a statement of their own doc- <br />trine; and they concluded, since the Government allowed it to circulate, <br />that they might venture to renew their own activity. Mirabeau’s exile <br />was now soon brought to an end. Du Pont was invited to one of Quesnay’s <br />meetings in the entresol of Mme. de Pompadour, and was definitively <br />recruited as a member of the school the same year, 1763. “Let us have a <br />care of him,” said Quesnay to Mirabeau; “he will speak when we are <br />dead.” On the 25th May 1763, the edict of 1754, permitting internal <br />freedom in the corn trade, was re-enacted with extensions; nobles might <br />trade in corn without derogation, and corn was to be free from tolls for <br />transport. The edict was suspended by Terray in 1770; but on Turgot’s <br />accession to office in 1774, his first act was a still more liberal edict <br />permitting virtual freedom of export and import—the preamble, drafted <br />by Du Pont, following very closely the views of Quesnay in his article <br />“Grains.” The new policy was designed, says the edict, “to animate and <br />extend the cultivation of the land, whose produce is the most real and <br />certain wealth of a state; to maintain abundance by granaries and the <br />entry of foreign corn; to prevent corn from falling to a price which<br />36/Henry Higgs <br />would discourage the producer; to remove monopoly by shutting out <br />private licence in favour of free and full competition; and by maintain- <br />ing among different countries that communication of exchange of su- <br />perfluities for necessaries which is so conformable to the order estab- <br />lished by Divine Providence.” The Physiocrats appeared to have gained <br />a large part of their cause. But they recognised that it was necessary, in <br />Quesnay’s phrase, to “act upon opinion.” Popular prejudice feared that <br />rings and corners would force up the price of corn to famine point for <br />private profit by sending it abroad. It was necessary to educate the pub- <br />lic upon the safeguards which “the obvious and simple system of natu- <br />ral liberty,” as Adam Smith called it, carries within itself; and the <br />Physiocrats therefore sought for a journal in which they might circulate <br />their ideas. Such a journal they found in a supplement to the Gazette du <br />Commerce, founded 1763, entitled Journal de l’agriculture, du com- <br />merce, et des finances, of which Du Pont was appointed editor in Sep- <br />tember 1765, probably on the recommendation of Trudaine.51 The pro- <br />prietors, instigated by the opponents of the school, dismissed him after <br />the issue of the November number, 1766, and the economists were obliged <br />to find another organ. The Éphémérides du citoyen, ou Chronique de <br />l’esprit national, a bi-weekly paper, had been founded in 1765 by the <br />Abbé Baudeau on the model of our Spectator. The Abbé defended the <br />mercantile system, but admitted articles criticising his views, and to one <br />such article by Le Trosne he proposed to reply in nine articles, the first <br />of which he sent to Du Pont’s Journal in 1766. Du Pont published it, <br />with some annotations. “You argue,” he said, “that nations grow rich or <br />are ruined according to the balance of foreign trade. But surely you will <br />admit that a nation may have no foreign trade and yet be ruined. How <br />does your theory account for this?” Baudeau visited Du Pont, discussed <br />the matter, said he had found his road to Damascus, and threw in his lot <br />with the Physiocrats. The Éphémérides suspended publication for two <br />months, and in January 1767 reappeared with a new sub-title, <br />Éphémérides du citoyen, ou Bibliothèque des sciences morales et <br />politiques, a monthly duodecimo. In May 1768 Baudeau received eccle- <br />siastical preferment in Poland. Du Pont, now employed in Limousin <br />with Turgot, sacrificed his position to come to Paris and take over the <br />post of editor, which he retained till the Journal was suppressed by Gov- <br />ernment (November 1772). The Margrave of Baden next appointed him <br />Privy Councillor, and drew him to Carlsruhe, where he remained until <br />(July 1774) he started for Poland to serve as tutor to the son of Prince<br />The Physiocrates/37 <br />Czartoryski. Arrived in Poland, he heard from Turgot of his accession <br />to the ministry, and was offered a place, which he did not feel justified in <br />accepting immediately. In September, however, Turgot formally nomi- <br />nated him inspector-general of manufactures, and Du Pont rendered <br />Turgot valuable service till they fell together in 1776. The Mémoire sur <br />les municipalités, Turgot’s plan of reform in local government, was the <br />work of his pen; and when Turgot died in 1781 he wrote an account of <br />his life and writings (1782), and many years later edited his works in <br />nine octavo volumes (1809–1811). In 1782 he negotiated with England <br />the treaty recognising the American Independence. In 1786 he was en- <br />trusted with the negotiation of the commercial treaty with England. In <br />1787 he took part in the Assemblée des notables. In 1789 he was elected <br />to the Constituent Assembly,52 struggled for “freedom and for an eco- <br />nomic policy, opposed the assignats and the Jacobins, and, after run- <br />ning many dangers, in 1793 voluntarily exiled himself to America. He <br />came back in 1802, and took office under Louis XVIII, but with the <br />return of Napoleon he again quitted France for America, where he spent <br />the two remaining years of his life. <br />So much of history and biography is necessary to the comprehen- <br />sion of the march and influence of the physiocratic school. Of Du Pont’s <br />other writings space does not permit mention. Many of the articles writ- <br />ten by himself and others in the Journal and the Éphémérides appeared <br />as separate publications. The Physiocratie, 1767–8,53 consisted of sev- <br />eral such articles by Quesnay, edited by Du Pont, and a pamphlet of <br />1768, De I’origine et des progrès d’une science nouvelle, has for many <br />years been the fountain of the history of the Physiocrats.54 It is now <br />seen to contain numerous inaccuracies, some of which are due to Du <br />Pont’s anxiety to repel the sectarian charge which had been urged against <br />the school. To him all economists worked together,—their differences <br />were less important than their points of agreement. “You are an econo- <br />mist like ourselves, my dear Say,” he wrote to J. B. Say at the end of his <br />life, when the French Adam Smith had tried to dissociate himself from <br />the school of Quesnay. And in sketching the origin of the school he <br />declared that Quesnay and Gournay were its two founders. Of Gournay, <br />pending the publication of Professor Oncken’s volume, little more is <br />known than is contained in the Éloge of his friend Turgot (1759). He <br />was born in 1712, engaged in commerce at Cadiz (1727–1744), trav- <br />elled over Europe (1744–1751), came back to France, was made an <br />intendant of commerce (1751), and went about the country, taking Turgot<br />38/Henry Higgs <br />with him on some occasions, on his visits of official inspection. He <br />chafed at the trammels which harassed trade, recommended the study of <br />economics, especially the writings of Cantillon, Tucker, Culpeper, <br />Child,55 and other English authors, and was in favour of internal free <br />trade and of light customs duties. He died in 1759, held few of the pecu- <br />liar doctrines of the Physiocrats with regard to land and taxation, and it <br />is doubtful whether he ever had any personal acquaintance with Quesnay <br />himself. Du Pont attributes to Gournay the origin of the famous maxim <br />Laissez-faire, Laissez-passer, which Gournay indeed seems to have <br />popularised. But a study of Turgot’s Éloge de Gournay shows that the <br />expression Laissez-faire is really due to Le Gendre, a merchant who <br />attended a deputation to Colbert about 1680 to protest against excessive <br />state regulation of industry, and pleaded for liberty of action in the phrase <br />Laissez-nous faire.56 Boisguillebert and D’Argenson had used it also <br />before Gournay, who may, however, be said to have made it classical in <br />its later form. His personal influence stimulated many persons, notably <br />Turgot; and Du Pont mentions a number of writers as belonging to his <br />“school”—the commercial rather than the agricultural advocates of free <br />trade. <br />The next eminent Physiocrat to require mention is Mercier de la <br />Rivière (1720–1794), a magistrate who filled for some time the post of <br />Governor of Martinique, and wrote an important treatise, already re- <br />ferred to, L’Ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques, 1767, <br />which Adam Smith has described as “the most distinct and best con- <br />nected account of the doctrine” of the sect. It is composed in the “grand <br />style,” to which the Scotch economist was not insensible, and like many <br />of the chief works of the school was prepared under the eye of Quesnay, <br />though the author omits the usual eulogies of him, and moved Mirabeau <br />to write in later years, “I have seen him at work in his dressing-gown six <br />whole weeks in the entresol of the doctor, casting and recasting his <br />work, and then renounce his father and his mother.”57 [Quesnay and <br />Mirabeau.] <br />In 1767 the school was still young. Daire asserts that the public had <br />only a choice between the laconics of Quesnay and the disheartening <br />prolixities of Mirabeau, whose oddities of style, diffusion of matter, and <br />profusion of figures were, he says, enough to kill political economy on <br />the spot.58 Exception must be taken to this statement, so far as the writ- <br />ings of Du Pont and Abeille and the articles of the Journal are con- <br />cerned. But it is none the less true that the Ordre naturel et essentiel<br />The Physiocrates/39 <br />was at once warmly greeted. Du Pont called it “sublime,” “eloquent,” <br />“logical and closely reasoned,” and the Russian ambassador, Prince <br />Galitzin, wrote to Voltaire that it was “far superior to Montesquieu.” <br />The followers of Colbert and lovers of stateregulation had attacked the <br />Physiocrats from the political side. On one occasion Carl Friedrich of <br />Baden, who had come to Paris on purpose to see his master Mirabeau, <br />asked with naive sincerity whether it might not be hoped that, with the <br />spread of physiocratic knowledge, sovereigns would become unneces- <br />sary and be reformed out of existence. Mirabeau admitted that their role <br />would be much restricted, but the public domains would need an owner, <br />and his duty would be to preserve social order and encourage social <br />instruction. The question addressed to the Physiocrats was, “If your <br />system says ‘Hands off!’ to the state, and begs it to ‘let things alone,’ <br />what do you consider the functions of the state to be?” Mercier de la <br />Rivière attempts to create a philosophy of the state. Newton and others <br />had discovered great laws governing the harmonious order of the physi- <br />cal world. There were surely similar laws governing the moral order of <br />the social world, and the motto of the book is a sentence from <br />Malebranche’s Traité de Morale: “L’Ordre est la Loi inviolable des <br />esprits; et rien n’est réglé, s’il n’y est conforme.” The general plan of <br />creation had provided natural laws for the government of all things, and <br />man could be no exception to the rule. He needed only to know the <br />conditions which conduce to his greatest happiness to follow and ob- <br />serve them. All the ills of humanity arise from ignorant opposition to <br />these laws, study of which will show that the welfare of each member of <br />society is inseparably bound up with the welfare of others, and the at- <br />tainment of this common welfare will dispose mankind to grateful ado- <br />ration of the beneficent Being by whose order this perfect cosmos is <br />maintained. <br />The organisation of man proves that he is a social animal, designed <br />by nature to live in society. In this state of society there are no rights <br />without duties, no duties without rights. The right of selfpreservation <br />implies the right to property; but the faculties of men are by nature <br />unequal, which gives rise to a natural inequality of conditions. Indi- <br />vidual property in the products of the soil carries with it a physical <br />necessity for individual property in the soil itself. Increased wealth is <br />the mediate object of society, as a condition of increased happiness; and <br />this happiness is enhanced by an increase of numbers, rendered possible <br />only by additional production. But the right to property would be null<br />40/Henry Higgs <br />without the liberty of using it, and social liberty is a branch of property. <br />The natural and essential order of society is thus unarbitrary, simple, <br />evident, immutable, and the most advantageous to the human race. It <br />binds together prince and people in common interest, its evident charac- <br />ter, publicly recognised, makes it socially dominant, despotic without <br />violence. Two social institutions are necessary: (1) Magistrates, dis- <br />tinct from the legislature, to resolve doubts and put into execution all <br />laws of whose justice they are satisfied and no other (to act differently <br />would be as if a doctor should follow with his patient a course which he <br />knows to be mortal); (2) a tutelary authority, the depositary of the pub- <br />lic power, and enacting laws in accordance with justice (for the right of <br />law-giving rests on the duty of not enacting laws evidently bad). This <br />power must be single and indivisible. A so-called legislative body is not <br />a body but a multitude of units momentarily brought together without <br />unity of views. If they differ, they are not all perfectly wise: if they <br />agree, one would do as well as many, or better, since it is contrary to <br />order that authority should be divided among many hands. The best <br />tutelary authority is a single sovereign who ean gain nothing by ill- <br />government, but has the greatest interest in governing well. He must be <br />hereditary, not having a mere usufruct but a fee- simple interest in the <br />nation, co-proprietor of the produce of its soil. Despotism is held in <br />horror, because we confound what it has been (an arbitrary despotism <br />which is fatal) with what it might be (a legal despotism, which is the <br />most advantageous form of government). In fact an arbitrary despot <br />commands but does not govern, for as his caprice is above law, there <br />are, under him, neither rights, laws, nor nation,—“a nation being a po- <br />litical body whose members are united by a chain of reciprocal rights <br />and duties, inseparably combining governor and governed in one com- <br />mon interest.” <br />Thus far the first twenty-six chapters. The remaining eighteen are <br />of more direct economic interest, and are the only ones printed by Daire <br />in his collection of the Physiocrats. The sovereign, as already stated, is <br />co-proprietor with landowners,—a partnership involving mutual rights <br />and duties and mutual interests,—and has a share in their produit net. <br />In the origin of society this share was at the expense of the first land- <br />owners, though even to them the kingly office was of more utility than <br />their contribution. Subsequent holders of land have taken it subject to <br />this royal charge, so that it has ceased to be a burden upon individuals. <br />But if the sovereign takes more than his proper share, he injures his<br />The Physiocrates/41 <br />partners and thereby injures himself. Government exists to secure the <br />rights of property, and any arbitrary element in taxation is not only <br />unwise and suicidal, but essentially unjust, for it is an attack upon and <br />an infringement of the very rights which it is the business of Govern- <br />ment to protect. An invariable sum of taxation would be unfair, either to <br />the sovereign or the landowner, for the produit net varies with the sea- <br />sons. The proper form of taxation is therefore a proportional share of <br />the produit net. From each harvest must be set aside the whole costs of <br />production, for these are the necessaryelements of new wealth, and the <br />surplus must be divided part to the landowner, part to the king. It must <br />be collected direct, for if it be imposed upon commodities or upon per- <br />sons, its equity and incidence cease to be evident and become arbitrary, <br />which is its condemnation, to say nothing of the expense of collection, <br />the taxation twice over (once when the material is produced and once <br />when it is manufactured), and the fact that part of the taxes will fall <br />upon the sovereign himself. Every vendor is a purchaser, and every pur- <br />chaser a vendor. The liberty of individuals holds as well for external as <br />for internal trade, and the different nations should be regarded by the <br />economist as if they all formed part of one nation. International freedom <br />of trade would enable each nation to pursue its greatest natural advan- <br />tage; and it is the interest of a single nation to adopt this view, even <br />though it be not adopted by other natiops. Industry and commerce are in <br />themselves unproductive. A weaver buys fifty francs’ worth of mate- <br />rial, works it up, and sells it for 200. He has, it is said, quadrupled its <br />value; but this is not so. He has added to its original value an outside <br />value,—that of 150 francs’ worth of material which he has consumed in <br />clothing, food, etc., while engaged on his work. Addition is not multipli- <br />cation. If there were no one to take the finished product off his hands, <br />this additional value would be irretrievably lost. But if I let you an acre <br />of land for ten francs, you spend ten more in cultivation, and obtain a <br />harvest of thirty francs, the acre returns you your rent and your ex- <br />penses, and a surplus over and above. The role of industry and of com- <br />merce which makes values change hand, but does not multiply them, is <br />thus narrowly restricted, and the main economic ideal of a nation is to <br />maximise its net products. <br />Adam Smith remarks of the Économistes that “in their works, which <br />are very numerous, and which treat not only of what is properly called <br />Political Economy, or of the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, <br />but of every other branch of the system of civil government, all follow<br />42/Henry Higgs <br />implicitly, and without any sensible variation, the doctrine of M. Quesnai. <br />There is, upon this account, little variety in the greater part of their <br />works.” And then he adds the statement, already referred to, that “the <br />most distinct and best connected account of their doctrine” is given by <br />Mercier de la Rivière. But La Rivière’s book, which deals especially <br />with the political side of their teaching, was not entirely accepted by <br />some members of the school in its plea for an enlightened despotism. <br />Mirabeau and Du Pont, Abeille and Morellet, for instance, while agree- <br />ing in the letter with most of these opinions, differed from them in spirit, <br />and even, later on, in practice. As for Turgot, Mirabeau relates that Du <br />Pont repeated to him Turgot’s words when Du Pont was leaving for <br />Poland: “I am not an encyclopaedist, for I believe in God: I am not an <br />economiste, for I should wish to have no king.” <br />We shall have some glimpses of other members of the school in <br />later chapters; but space does not admit of any such detailed account of <br />their lives and work as it has been thought best to give of the four chief <br />writers of the school. Mention must, however, be made of the following <br />works as among the most important not yet referred to. <br />The Abbé Baudeau’s (1730–1792) chief service to the school con- <br />sisted in his editing the Éphémérides and the Nouvelles Éphémérides, <br />to which he contributed largely. His Première introduction a la <br />philosophie économique ou analyse des États polices, Paris, 1771, <br />deserves special attention among his separate writings, and has been <br />reprinted in the collection of Daire. <br />Le Trosne (1728–1780), a lawyer of ability and a distinguished <br />pupil of Pothier, is best known by a work in two volumes, the first <br />entitled De I’ordre social, and the second De l’intérêt social, 8vo, Paris, <br />1777, a clear and methodical exposition of the physiocratic system. <br />Turgot distributed broadcast throughout his province in 1765, Le Trosne’s <br />La Liberte du Commerce des Grains, toujours utile et jamais nuisible, <br />with a covering memorandum in which he gives it the highest praise. <br />Saint-Péravy (1732–1789) is remembered chiefly for his Mémoire <br />sur les effets de I’impdt indirect sur le revenu des proprietaires de <br />biens fonds, qui a remporte le prix proposé par la société royale <br />d’agriculture de Limoges en 1767, 1768, 12mo, Londres et Paris, which <br />owes its fame in part to the Observations sur la memoire de M. Saint- <br />Péravy of Turgot, the president of the society, which he had himself <br />founded in his province. The memoir supported the impôt unique. <br />Abeille (1719–1807), secretary of the Agricultural Society of Brit-<br />The Physiocrates/43 <br />tany, a contributor first to the Journal and then to the Éphémérides, <br />wrote Lettres d’un négociant sur la nature du commerce des grains, <br />Paris, 1763; Réflexions sur la police des grains en Angleterre et en <br />France, Paris, 1764; Principes sur la liberté du commerce des grains, <br />Paris, 1768; Faits qui ont influé sur la cherté des grains en France et <br />en Angleterre, Paris, 1768, and other pamphlets, besides editing the <br />Observations of his society. He became inspector-general of manufac- <br />tures in 1768, deserted the school, and became “anti-liberal.” He had <br />long been jealous of Quesnay’s fondness for Du Pont.59 <br />The Abbé Roubaud (1730–1789) at one time edited the Journal, <br />and later the Gazette du Commerce, in a physiocratic spirit, until it was, <br />at Turgot’s expense, and at the commencement of his ministry, amal- <br />gamated with Baudeau’s Nouvelles Éphémérides. His Récréations <br />économiques, Amsterdam and Paris, 1770, attempted to refute the Dia- <br />logues of Galiani. He contributed to the Éphémérides, and was exiled <br />from Paris by Maurepas on Turgot’s fall in 1776, like Du Pont and <br />Baudeau. A jesting contemporary compared the sound of the names of <br />the chief Physiocrats to that of a pack of hounds,—Mirabeau, Turgot, <br />Baudeau, Roubaud! <br />If we add the agricultural writers, H. Patullo, Essai sur <br />l’amelioration des Terres, 1759, and the Marquis de Turbilly, Mémoire <br />sur les défrichements, 1760, to the authors mentioned in the next chap- <br />ter, we have a tolerably complete list of Quesnay’s disciples. <br />IV: Activities of the School. <br />The meeting referred to in the last chapter at the Marquis of Mirabeau’s <br />house in 1774, when he pronounced before the assembled economists a <br />sort of funeral oration upon Quesnay, was only one of a long series, <br />which had been suggested by Quesnay himself. From 1767 onwards the <br />marquis had held a succession of Tuesday receptions. A number of econo- <br />mists came to dinner (some of them bringing or sending wine), and after <br />dinner were read and discussed papers which were frequently published <br />later in the Éphémérides. Mirabeau describes these Tuesdays in an in- <br />teresting letter to Jean Jacques Rousseau, whom he vainly attempted to <br />convert to physiocracy.60 They were, he says, le foyer de la doctrine, <br />were very largely attended, highly successful, and gave their votaries <br />the name of économistes. Among those who attended them at one time <br />or another were the Princes of Weimar, the Maréchal de Broglie, the <br />Duc de la Rochefoucauld, the Duc de Choiseul, the Maréchal de Belle-<br />44/Henry Higgs <br />Isle, the Duc de Nivernois, Turgot, Malesherbes, Mme. de Pailly, a num- <br />ber of other ladies, and many distinguished foreigners and notabilities, <br />attracted sometimes by mere curiosity rather than by scientific sympa- <br />thy or economic interest. It was there, says Mirabeau, that Galitzin, the <br />ambassador of Russia, came to tell Mercier de la Rivière that the Em- <br />press Catherine wished him to come to St. Petersburg to counsel her <br />upon the art, of government. On another occasion Forbonnais had been <br />persuaded to come, and was introduced by Mirabeau to the Abbé <br />Baudeau. “I want, like Cicero, to see,” said the host, “if two augurs can <br />look each other in the face without laughing.”—“I am no augur,” re- <br />plied Forbonnais, “but monsieur (the Abbé) wears their robe.” Baudeau <br />whispered to Mirabeau that he was just about to publish a crushing <br />attack upon Forbonnais in the Éphémérides. “Never mind,” said the <br />marquis confidentially, “we will gild the pill.” Adam Smith can never <br />have attended the Tuesdays, for he returned to England before they com- <br />menced. After the fall of Turgot (12th May 1776), the marquis was <br />“invited” by Government to suspend these assemblies, which thus had <br />an existence of nine years. Some of Mirabeau’s Tuesday addresses are <br />extant among his manuscripts in the Archives Nationales at Paris. One <br />of the papers still unpublished, on Political Curves by Du Pont,61 seems <br />to have been an early example of the diagrammatic (if not <br />mathematical)treatment of economic questions; and the promise of Daniel <br />Bernoulli to study these curves promised a serious development of the <br />method, which was left, however, to other hands in later years. The <br />meetings were a powerful engine for propagating and popularising the <br />ideas of the school. A still mightier force, however, was the periodical <br />organ of the school, at first the Journal de l’Agriculture, as already <br />stated, and later the Éphémérides. These contained a great number of <br />interesting and valuable articles upon a variety of economic subjects by <br />different hands. The best account of the Éphémérides is that written by <br />Dr. Bauer for Mr. Palgrave’s Dictionary of Political Economy.62 The <br />Journal was edited by Du Pont, from September 1765 to November <br />1766. Mirabeau says that the proprietors, impatient at the editor’s <br />unpunctuality and inexactitude, dismissed him from his post.63 Baudeau <br />then put at the disposal of the Physiocrats his Éphémérides, founded <br />December 1765. And in January 1767 it became their organ. Baudeau <br />continued to edit it till May 1768, when he was succeeded by Du Pont, <br />who held the post till the review was discontinued (May 1772; last num- <br />ber dated March 1772). It is usually stated that it was then suppressed<br />The Physiocrates/45 <br />by the comptroller-general, the Abbé Terray. But Mirabeau throws fur- <br />ther light upon this statement in a letter to his friend, the Marquis of <br />Longo. The inveterate dilatoriness of Du Pont had, it appears, annoyed <br />the booksellers, disgusted the subscribers, and run the journal into debt. <br />“We profited,” he says, “by the hailstorm upon journalists to make it <br />come to an end at the fourth volume of 1772 with the decorum of perse- <br />cution.” There had been sixty-three volumes of this series. In 1774 Turgot, <br />who had become minister, sanctioned its resuscitation, and Baudeau put <br />out in December his Nouvelles Éphémérides Économiques ou <br />Bibliotheque raisonnee de l’Histoire et de la Politique,64 of which eigh- <br />teen further volumes appeared, twelve in 1775, and six in 1776. This <br />was suppressed in 1776, after the fall of Turgot. The Abbé Roubaud <br />now (1775) began to edit the Journal de I’Agriculture, once more a <br />physiocratic review (1775–1783). Baudeau attempted to revive his <br />Nouvelles Éphémérides in 1788, but only a few numbers appeared be- <br />fore he went mad, and the publication ceased. Both the Éphémérides <br />and the Nouvelles Éphémérides are extremely rare. Dr. Bauer states <br />that the only known complete set of the latter is to be found in the library <br />of the University of Giessen. <br />These journals of the Physiocrats, according to Dr. Bauer, are “the <br />first example of journalism made subservient to social science, the rich- <br />est source for the history of contemporary economic life, and the growth <br />of modern ideas, not only in France but even in eastern Europe.” They <br />were written “with a distinct practical tendency, namely to struggle for <br />free trade, free enterprise, and equal taxation; to combat the crushing <br />burdens imposed by commercial restraints, industrial monopoly, arbi- <br />trary assessment, and lavish public expenditure... and by inducing mon- <br />archs, statesmen, and landlords to introduce agricultural and financial <br />reforms, to alleviate feudal burdens and commercial restraints, they <br />benefited even the lower classes in Sweden, Denmark, Baden, Austria, <br />and Tuscany. Thus they helped towards transplanting economic progress <br />eastward both in thought and practice.”65 Among the contributors were <br />Quesnay, Mirabeau, Du Pont, Mercier de la Riviére, Baudeau, Abeille, <br />Le Trosne, Butré, Roubaud, St.-Péravy, Turgot, Morellet, Franklin, <br />Fréville, Fourqueux, De Vauvilliers, the Duc de Saint-Mégrin, Bigot de <br />Ste. Croix, the Abbé Loiseau, Rouxelin, De la Touane, Treillard, Belly, <br />St. Maurice de St. Leu, and the Margrave of Baden. They had a wide <br />and respectful circle of readers, of whom Voltaire was one. <br />One illustration must suffice to serve as an indication of the practi-<br />46/Henry Higgs <br />cal utility of these reviews. In 1767 a bad harvest having driven up the <br />price of bread to a very serious extent, Baudeau published an article, <br />Avis aux honnetes gens qui veulent bien faire, in which he pointed out <br />that a better system of grinding corn and baking would enable flour and <br />bread to be sold at a cheaper rate. Mirabeau set up one of these eco- <br />nomical flour-mills, and bakeries (fours économiques) at his property <br />at Fleury, near Paris, and sold good bread at one-third less than the <br />current price. He turned out nine hundred livres a day, and could, he <br />says, have sold double as much if it could have been supplied. “The <br />poor people,” he writes, “fight who shall have my bread. It has become <br />the fashion. The Duc de Choiseul sends a courier out twice a week for <br />Fleury bread and so does Mme. du Deffand.” He intends to set up these <br />mills everywhere, “send to the devil his feudal rights of banalité,” and <br />instead of compelling his people to bring their corn to his mills and pay <br />their legal dues for grinding, will attract them voluntarily by the low <br />price, which will upset the crying abuses of monopoly and regulation. <br />The Prince of Rohan-Rochefort and other celebrities followed his ex- <br />ample; and M. de Loménie tells us that the millers themselves adopted <br />the improved form, which is in use in France to-day and produces more <br />flour than the old system from the same amount of corn. The interest of <br />Mirabeau in this reform was so strong that the younger Mirabeau ma- <br />lignantly explains his father’s preference for one of his daughters, the <br />Marquise du Saillant, by saying that, among other things, her husband <br />had feigned an enthusiasm for the moulins économiques. <br />Another blow which the Physiocrats struck at monopolies to the <br />enhancement of their own reputation is also associated with the name of <br />Baudeau. The corporation of butchers had been compelled since 1743 <br />to take loans of capital at high rates from a body of financiers, the <br />farmers of the caisse de Poissy,66 who had advanced money to the Gov- <br />ernment. Baudeau denounced the iniquities of this arrangement, and <br />was cited by the farmers before the tribunal of the Parliament in 1776. <br />He successfully defended himself at two sittings against the famous ad- <br />vocate Gerbier, and was borne home in triumph by the victorious butch- <br />ers through the streets of Paris amidst a concourse of his physiocratic <br />brethren. <br />But it was not in Paris alone that these apostles of economic liberty <br />obtained honour. Carl Friedrich, Margrave of Baden (1728–1811), en- <br />rolled himself in their ranks. On the 22nd of September 1769 he wrote <br />to Mirabeau as follows: “I have a right as a man to claim your friend-<br />The Physiocrates/47 <br />ship” (a delicate allusion to L’Ami des Homines), and he says that with- <br />out being personally acquainted with Mirabeau he feels entitled to seek <br />his counsel. God had brought him into the world to govern a country <br />whpse climate and soil held out the prospect of a good return to indus- <br />try, when the necessary capital was applied to the land. But from time <br />immemorial the land had, when handed down, been divided into as many <br />portions as there were heirs. There were now no large owners and prac- <br />tically no tenant-farmers; and the produit net of the country was small <br />and taxes were hard to collect. What advice would Mirabeau, as an <br />economic expert, offer? Should there be a new law of succession to <br />substitute for the compulsory partition of land a money payment by one <br />heir to the others? And how could the produit net be made the basis of <br />taxation in a simple and practical form? Answers to these questions <br />would contribute to “spread the light of economic science by showing <br />that it is applicable to all places and to all circumstances.” Mirabeau <br />deprecates new legislation. “You have not the right,” he says, “to make <br />such a law”; and he piquantly refers him upon the second point to his <br />Theorie de l’Impôt, for the publication of which his own sovereign had <br />cast him into prison. The correspondence thus begun ripened into friend- <br />ship, and continued to the time of Mirabeau’s death twenty years later. <br />Personal visits were exchanged as well as books and letters, and Carl <br />Friedrich consented to become the guardian of manuscripts which <br />Mirabeau might leave behind him. The Margrave proposed free trade in <br />corn to the German Diet, and even introduced the impôt unique, 20 per <br />cent of the produit net, in his own Duchy of Baden. The experiment was <br />made in 1770 in the three villages of Dietlingen, Theningen, and <br />Balingen—a fact of which Adam Smith was probably unaware when he <br />declared that “that system which represents the produce of land as the <br />sole source of the revenue and wealth of every country has, so far as I <br />know, never been adopted by any nation, and it at present exists only in <br />the speculations of a few men of great learning and ingenuity in France.... <br />A system,” he says, “which never has done, and probably never will do, <br />any harm in any part of the world.”67 The experiment was abandoned at <br />Theningen and Balingen in 1776, but was maintained at Dietlingen till <br />1792.68 The Margrave invited Du Pont to Carlsruhe, intending to put <br />him at the head of his finances, but, not venturing actually to appoint a <br />foreigner to this post, made him conseiller aulique, retained him at his <br />side as an adviser, and made him tutor to his son. The Margrave himself <br />wrote an abridgment of political economy, based mainly on Mirabeau’s<br />48/Henry Higgs <br />Les Économiques. It first appeared in the Éphémérides, and was sepa- <br />rately printed and seen through the press by Du Pont in 1772 under the <br />title Abrégé de l’Économie Politique. It forms a commendable precis of <br />physiocracy. <br />Another prince, Gustavus III, King of Sweden, who had made <br />Mirabeau’s acquaintance when travelling in France, honoured the Friend <br />of Men, as well as himself, by the following letter (18th August 1772, <br />the day before his coup d’état): “Monsieur the Marquis de Mirabeau, <br />the title which humanity has long since conferred upon you, is much <br />above what kings can do for your glory. I have, however, been jealous to <br />pay at least my share of the tribute which all nations owe to you. I have <br />thought, moreover, that an institution created in honour of agriculture <br />would be defective without the name of him who has taught sovereigns <br />to recognise all its importance. Henceforth I consider myself more than <br />ever authorised to beg of you the continuation of the useful lessons to <br />which you have dedicated your labours and your rare knowledge; on my <br />side I feel bound more than ever to profit by them. And I pray God, <br />Monsieur le Marquis, to preserve you in His high and holy keeping.— <br />GUSTAVE.” This letter was accompanied by the grand cross of the Order <br />of Wasa, just founded “in honour of agriculture.” Du Pont was made a <br />knight of the Order, and, when the Ésphémérides were suppressed, <br />Gustavus joined with his fellow-disciple the Margrave of Baden in com- <br />missioning Du Pont to send them a manuscript journal in which matters <br />of economic interest should receive a large share. The king attempted to <br />pursue, in his own politics, the liberal ideals of the school; and it was at <br />his request that Mercier de la Rivière wrote his work on public educa- <br />tion, De l’instruction publique, 1775. <br />Mention has already been made of the advances of Catherine of <br />Russia to Mercier de la Rivière, but these seem to have been little more <br />than a womanly whim for the fashion of the moment, and to have had <br />little practical result. When the philosopher arrived at her Court at <br />Moscow she had an interview with him, which Thiebault reports as <br />follows:69 “Sir,” said the Czarina, “could you tell me the best way to <br />govern a State well?” — “There is only one, Madame,” answered the <br />pupil of Quesnay; “it is to be just, i.e. maintain order, and enforce the <br />laws.” — “But on what basis should the laws of an empire repose?” — <br />“On one alone, Madame, the nature of things and of men.” — “Exactly, <br />but when one wishes to give laws to a people, what rules indicate most <br />surely the laws which suit it best?” — “To give or make laws, Madame,<br />The Physiocrates/49 <br />is a task which God has left to no one. Ah! what is man, to think himself <br />capable of dictating laws to beings whom he knows not, or knows so <br />imperfectly? And by what right would he impose laws upon beings whom <br />God has not placed in his hands?” — “To what, then, do you reduce the <br />science of government?” — “To study well, to recognise and manifest, <br />the laws which God has so evidently engraven in the very organisation <br />of man, when He gave him existence. To seek to go beyond this would <br />be a great misfortune and a destructive undertaking.”—“Monsieur, I <br />am very pleased to have heard you. I wish you good-day.” She sent him <br />home richly rewarded, and wrote to Voltaire: “He supposed that we <br />walked on all fours, and very politely took the trouble to come to set us <br />up on our hind legs.” <br />A more serious interest in the Physiocrats was taken by Leopold II, <br />Grand Duke of Tuscany, afterwards Emperor of Austria, to whom <br />Mirabeau had dedicated Les Économiques, 1769–1772. He carried out <br />some of their reforms in practice, ordered his ministers to consult with <br />Mirabeau, and corresponded with Du Pont. Stanislas of Poland, Charles <br />III of Spain, the Emperor Joseph II, Ferdinand of Naples are also to be <br />mentioned among their adherents.70 A tribute to the fashionable craze <br />for the “Agricultural System” was the ceremony performed by the Dau- <br />phin at Versailles, 15th June 1768, when he publicly “held the plough”— <br />a toy bedecked with ribbons. The Emperor Joseph more sturdily drove a <br />peasant’s plough in Moravia, 19th August 1769. The Dauphin boasted <br />of knowing L’Ami des Hommes by heart, and, but for Mirabeau’s sturdy <br />opposition, would have been willing to become the patron of the <br />Éphémérides. Du Pont classes Carl Friedrich and Leopold (brother of <br />Marie Antoinette) among the followers of Quesnay; Joseph II with Turgot <br />and Adam Smith; La Riviere and Baudeau as a separate branch. Du <br />Pont wrote a heroic drama upon Joseph II, which Turgot with difficulty <br />persuaded him not to publish. Turgot’s own chief economic work, his <br />Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des Richesses, November <br />1776, 12mo, first appeared in the Éphémérides in 1770, and the only <br />cloud which for a moment shadowed his friendship with Du Pont was <br />when the latter subjected these Réflexions to editorial amendment and <br />“improvement,” to bring them into harmony with the sacrosanct doc- <br />trines of Quesnay, when there appeared to be any departure from them. <br />In his early writings in the Encydopedie Turgot had expounded Gournay’s <br />ideas of freedom in industry and commerce (articles “Foires” and <br />“Fondations”), and his noble efforts as intendant and as minister to<br />50/Henry Higgs <br />carry these ideas into practice are permanently engraven in the history <br />of France. He believed in the doctrines of the produit net and the impôt <br />unique, the central ideas of the school, but upon numerous points of <br />detail he emphasised his differences and his independence, while he al- <br />ways speaks of the economists as an outsider,71 and is never tired of <br />deploring their sectarian spirit and preaching the advantages of an open <br />mind. It was at Quesnay’s rooms that he met Adam Smith in 1766. It <br />was by Turgot’s money, and sometimes by his pen, that Du Pont’s <br />Éphémérides were aided to keep afloat so long as they did; and he sup- <br />ported the expense of Baudeau’s Nouvelles Éphémérides during his <br />ministry. His youthful essay on Law’s paper money, a letter to the Abbé <br />de Cicé in 1749, was written when he was but twenty-two years of age, <br />and before the influence of the Physiocrats came into existence, but it <br />shows already the powerful calibre of his mind. He was for many years <br />immersed in administration; from 1761 to 1774 was intendant of <br />Limoges, and from 1774 to 1776, after serving five weeks as Minister <br />of Marine, was Comptroller-General of Finance,—the most important <br />minister of the kingdom. Nevertheless he found time in his active life to <br />endow economic literature with valuable writings, as well as to enrich <br />economic history by useful measures. We can refer only to those which <br />directly concern us. In Limousin he applied himself to the Herculean <br />labour of a complete survey or cadastre—a kind of Domesday—which <br />should serve as a more rational basis for assessing the taille. He boldly <br />abolished the corvee in his province, had the roads repaired by hired <br />workmen, and threw the expense on the ratepayers. He proposed, but <br />could not carry, a reform of the militia. And in numerous able memoirs <br />he urged upon the ComptrollerGeneral, the Abbé Terray, free trade in <br />corn, free trade in capital, and reforms of the taxes. When he found <br />himself at the head of affairs he at once established the first, and took <br />numerous steps to secure the last of these objects throughout the coun- <br />try, amended the octrois or municipal duties on articles of food and <br />drink brought into the town, and in twenty-three towns abolished the <br />droit d’aubaine, a special tax upon foreigners. He swept away the corvee <br />everywhere, as well as the privileged jurandes or gilds, and battled at <br />all points against monopolies and fiscal abuses. The opposition stirred <br />up by this reforming zeal not only drove him from power, but within <br />three months brought back again the corn laws, the corvee, and the <br />jurandes. The jurandes were finally abolished in 1789, and the corvées <br />in 1791, while all internal duties or local tolls except the octroi were<br />The Physiocrates/51 <br />suppressed by the National Assembly in 1790, on the ground that “they <br />had made the different parts of the country foreign to one another.” The <br />preambles of Turgot’s edicts, striking denunciations of old abuses and <br />closely-reasoned pleas for their reform, had sunk in the minds of the <br />people and prepared the way for their ultimate triumph. <br />Some of his writings have been mentioned already. The letter on <br />paper money, the articles in the Encyclopédie, the Éloge de Gournay, <br />the letter on Mines and Quarries—a plea for free mining even under the <br />land of a neighbour provided his superficies be uninjured—and on la <br />marque des fers, an argument against an apprehended tax on foreign <br />iron, need not detain us. Of his seven letters to Terray on free trade in <br />corn three were subsequently handed by Turgot to the king, and disap- <br />peared at the Revolution. Those which remain speak the language of the <br />Physiocrats. “The revenues of the landowners,” he says, “are the only <br />source from which the State can derive its own revenue. In what form <br />soever taxes be imposed or collected they are always, in the last result, <br />paid by the proprietors of the land, either by increase of their expenses <br />or diminution of their receipts.”72 And he expressly builds his policy <br />upon Quesnay’s estimates in the article “Grains.” In his Mémoire sur <br />les prêts d’Argent he seized, as often, a particular occasion to lay down <br />a statement of general principles. Defaulting debtors at Angouleme having <br />denounced their creditors for infractions of the usury laws the whole <br />fabric of credit was rudely shaken. Adam Smith need not have waited <br />for Bentham to convert him from Quesnay’s opinion in favour of usury <br />laws if he had carefully studied Turgot’s admirable argument against <br />them. The canonist and the jurist are alike refuted. St. Thomas Aquinas <br />and appeals to Scripture are dealt with on one side, the eminent Pothier <br />on the other. Turgot approximates somewhat closely to the position which <br />Adam Smith subsequently assumed by admitting that loans to prodigal <br />sons are injurious to society. But he logically urges that they should be <br />punished on that ground alone, and not because they are loans.73 The <br />Usury Laws were abolished in France at the Revolution, long before <br />they disappeared from the Statute Book in England. <br />The Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des Richesses <br />were written in 1766 for two Chinese students who were returning from <br />France to their own country. They appeared in the Éphémérides in 1770, <br />and were published in book form in 1776. Cossa considers that “this <br />work states in a clear and taking form the common doctrines of the <br />Physiocrats, but it also marks a step forward in the history of our sci-<br />52/Henry Higgs <br />ence, since Turgot achieved in it a complete separation of economics <br />from jurisprudence. It therefore deserves to be entered in red-letter, as <br />the first scientific treatise on social economics.”74 This judgment can <br />hardly stand, for Cantillon at least preceded Turgot, and, as comparison <br />would abundantly show, influenced this work very considerably. Turgot <br />divides his book into a hundred short sections or paragraphs. Com- <br />merce, he says, arises from (1) the unequal distribution of land; (2) the <br />diversity of the soil in fitness for production; (3) the multiplicity of <br />human needs, and (4) the advantages of the division of labour, which he <br />illustrates by examples. The agricultural labourer is pre-eminent over <br />the artisan, not in honour or dignity but in physical necessity, for he <br />might do without them but they cannot do without him. In fact, what his <br />labour produces from the soil is the only Wages Fund (l’unique fonds <br />des salaires), and the commodities which he buys are the exact equiva- <br />lent of the produce which he gives in exchange. Competition forces ar- <br />tisans’ wages down to subsistence level (the doctrine of Necessary <br />Wages). But the agricultural labourer produces a surplus over and above <br />this, for Nature does not higgle with him for a subsistence-wage, and he <br />is thus the only producer of wealth. The extractive classes, then, are <br />productive, the artisan classes salaried (l’une productive, l’autre <br />stipendiée). As society progresses and lands are all taken up, the owner <br />becomes distinct from the labourer, the newcomers may as well earn <br />wages on the land as in manufactures. The product is now divided into <br />two parts—the wages of labourers and the surplus which goes to the <br />landlord as his revenue. The landlord becomes available for social needs <br />like war and justice, either by personal service or by deputies whom he <br />pays. He may therefore be assigned to a third class, an available reserve <br />(classe disponible). The evolution of labour on the land is traced from <br />(1) labourers to (2) slaves, (3) serfs, (4) metayers, (5) farmers. He pro- <br />ceeds to examine the mechanism of exchange, and describes the stage of <br />barter and the rise and nature of money in terms reminiscent of Cantillon, <br />and suggestive of comparison with Adam Smith. The accumulation and <br />social utility of Capital is next sketched, and its functions in aid of <br />production are described with an argument that interest for the use of <br />capital is as legitimate and should be as free as the sum paid for the use <br />of land or any other object of commerce, and depends, in either case, <br />upon supply and demand. The annual net produce of the land of a coun- <br />try capitalised, plus the movable wealth in the country, gives the sum of <br />the national riches,—excluding loans, for they would otherwise count<br />The Physiocrates/53 <br />twice over. The capitalist, who lends at interest, does not form part of <br />the classe disfonible, and his income is not available for the State, for it <br />is not a produit net, but the result of a buying and selling like the profit <br />of other merchants. It should no more be taxed than the manure which <br />fertilises the land. “C’est toujours la terre qui est la premiere et l’unique <br />source de toute richesse” “II n’y a de revenu que le produit net des <br />terres”—a frankly physiocratic conclusion.75 Yet the Physiocrats hardly <br />claimed Turgot for their own, and even in the height of his prosperity <br />Mirabeau’s letters refer to him with a mistrust not unmingled with dis- <br />dain—a feeling partly due, no doubt, to Turgot’s somewhat haughty <br />independence, his lack of political tact, his reservations upon monarchy, <br />his friendship with Voltaire, and his alleged scepticism. Yet, upon the <br />last point, it is Mirabeau himself who recounts Turgot’s phrase, “Je ne <br />suis point encyclopediste car je crois en Dieu. Je ne suis point <br />économiste car je ne voudrais pas de roi”76 <br />Other writers who were, like Turgot (himself known as an abbe— <br />the Abbé de Laulne—in his Sorbonne days), in virtual but not unre- <br />served accord with the Physiocrats, were the Abbé Morellet and the <br />Abbe de Condillac. Morellet (1727–1819), a follower of Gournay, and <br />a college friend of Turgot, was called by Voltaire the Abbé Mord-les <br />from his polemical sarcasms. He wrote Réflexions sur les avantages de <br />la libre fabrication et de l’usage des toiles peintes en France, Geneva, <br />1758, supporting Gournay against Forbonnais, and a pamphlet addressed <br />to Malesherbes, Fragment d’une lettre sur la police des grains, Brus- <br />sels and Paris, 1764. He published in 1769 a memoir against the mo- <br />nopoly of the East India Company, and carried on a warfare against <br />Necker as well on this subject as on Free Trade in corn. Of interest to <br />economists are also his Refutation of Galiani, London, 1770, his Pro- <br />spectus d’un nouveau Dictionnaire du Commerce followed by a bibli- <br />ography of economics, Paris, 1769, and his Mémoires sur le XVIIe siècle <br />et sur la révolution, posthumously published in 1821. The last of these <br />contains oft-quoted references to his acquaintance with Quesnay, Turgot, <br />and Adam Smith. Lavergne, in his Économistes français du XVIIIe siècle, <br />has devoted an essay to Morellet, almost the latest surviving friend of <br />the physiocratic leaders. He disclaims being a member of the inner circle, <br />says he had never attended their meetings or understood the Tableau <br />Oeconomique, and accepted their doctrines only with some modifica- <br />tions. <br />Condillac (1714–1780), better known as a philosopher, is remark-<br />54/Henry Higgs <br />able by his treatise, Du commerce et du Gouvernement considérés <br />relativement tun a I’autre, 1776, in which he follows the doctrine of <br />Quesnay so far as to regard the land as the sole source of wealth, but <br />refuses to regard industry as “unproductive.” Jevons, while praising the <br />work as “original and profound,” points out its obligations to Cantillon. <br />Mr. M’Leod has covered it, in his Dictionary of Political Economy, <br />with exaggerated praise, while J. B. Say stigmatises it with undeserved <br />contempt. The orthodox Le Trosne engaged in a discussion with Condillac <br />upon his dissent from the school, but was unable to convince him. <br />Condorcet (1743–1794), likewise a philosopher, and a friend and <br />biographer of Turgot, is also to be mentioned among the allies of the <br />Physiocrats. He pleaded for freedom in the Encyclopedie (arts. “Mono- <br />pole” and “Monopoleur”), and in his Lettres sur le commerce des grains, <br />Paris, 1775; Réflexions sur le commerce des blés, Londres, 1776; <br />Réflexions sur l’esclavage, Neufchatel, 1781; and wrote to Necker a <br />Lettre d’un laboureur de Picardie à M. N..., auteur prohibitif à Paris, <br />Paris, 1775. <br />It is hardly possible to do more than mention the principal disciples <br />of the Physiocrats in foreign lands. The more important are—in Ger- <br />many, besides Carl Friedrich of Baden, already referred to, Schlettwein, <br />Fr. Karl von Moser, Mauvillon, Schmalz and Krug; in Switzerland, <br />Iselin; in Italy, Longo; and in Russia, Galitzin. Mention of other lesser <br />lights will be found in the Histories of Political Economy of Roscher, <br />Kautz,77 and Cossa. Schlettwein (1731–1802), Professor at the Univer- <br />sity of Giessen, is regarded by Professor Oncken as the chief of the <br />German physiocratic school. Officially charged with the administration <br />of the domains of the Margrave of Baden, it fell to him to conduct the <br />experiment of the impôt unique in 1770, and his faith remained firm to <br />the last. F. K. von Moser (1723–1798) — not to be confounded with the <br />more famous Justus Möser, the cameralist, nor his own father Johann <br />Jakob von Moser — was an adherent of the Ami des Hommes. Mauvillon <br />(1743–1794) became a Physiocrat through translating into German the <br />Reflexions of Turgot, and spread the doctrine in Germany by his <br />Physiokratische Briefe an den Herrn Professor Dohm, Brunswick, 1780. <br />He also wrote an essay on “Public and Private Luxury,” how to check it <br />according to the principles of the French Physiocrats, in his Sammlung <br />von Aufsatzen, etc., 1776–1777. Roscher considers him the ablest of <br />the German Physiocrats, and Cossa describes him as a profounder thinker <br />than Schlettwein, views which Professor Oncken does not share. Other<br />The Physiocrates/55 <br />adherents are Fürstenau, Versuch einer Apologie des physiokratischen <br />Systems, 1779, and Springer, Über das physiokratische System, 1780. <br />Schmalz (1760–1831), Professor of Law at Berlin, examines the vari- <br />ous systems of Political Economy, and (as late as 1808) gives the palm <br />to that of Quesnay. The same year Krug (1770–1843) expressed his <br />concurrence in the view that it is the land upon which all taxes ulti- <br />mately fall, and is therefore the only proper object of taxation.78 The <br />adherents of the Physiocrats are thus brought down to the memory of <br />those still alive. <br />Isaak Iselin (1728–1782), Secretary to the State Council at Basle, <br />seems to have been introduced to a study of the Physiocrats by <br />Schlettwein, before he wrote his Versuch über die gesellige Ordnung, <br />1772. The Éphémérides, he says, made Quesnay appear to him what <br />Newton is to a mathematician. He recast his Traüme eines <br />Menschenfreundes (Dreams of a Friend of Men) in 1776, abandoning <br />the views of his earlier edition twenty-one years before, and started a <br />German Éphémérides, Ephemeriden der Menschheit, the same year, <br />with the co-operation of the chief German writers on Political Economy.79 <br />The Marquis de Longo, Professor of Political Economy at Milan, <br />has already been referred to2 as a friend and assistant of Mirabeau, with <br />whom he exchanged a lengthy correspondence, upon which Loménie <br />has drawn with advantage. The Prince de Galitzin (1730–1803), it will <br />be remembered, was the Russian ambassador at Paris, who frequented <br />the Tuesdays, and persuaded Catherine to send for Mercier de la Rivière. <br />Many years later he published at Brunswick a work De l’esprit des <br />economistes, ou les économistes justifiés d’avoir posé par leurs <br />principes les bases de la revolution française, 2 vols. 8vo, 1796, in <br />which he exculpates the Physiocrats from responsibility for the more <br />violent principles of the Revolution. <br />V: Opponents of the School. <br />Francois Louis Véron-Duverger De Forbonnais (1722–1800) was one <br />of the chief contemporary opponents of the Physiocrats in France. He <br />wrote the articles “Change,” “Colonies,” “Commerce,” etc., for the <br />Encyclopédie, and translated or adapted The British Merchant (Le <br />négotiant anglois, 1753) from the English, and Ustaritz’s Theory and <br />Practice of Maritime Trade from the Spanish, 1753; but he is best known <br />by his great works on finance, Considérations sur les finances d’Espagne <br />relativement à celles de France, 1753–55, and especially by his<br />56/Henry Higgs <br />Recherches et considérations sur les finances de France depuis 1595 <br />jusqu’en 1721, 1758,—a standard critical and historical account. He <br />concerns us chiefly by the general tenour of his views (for his was the <br />highest economic reputation opposed to that of the Physiocrats), and by <br />the writings which he directed expressly against them. His Principes et <br />observations économiques (Amsterdam, 2 vols., 1767), with the motto <br />est modus in rebus, is a close and weighty criticism of the Tableau <br />Oeconomique, and the articles “Fermiers” and “Grains.” The Physiocrats <br />replied in the Éphémérides of the same year. They recognise his ability <br />and intelligence, but regret that he dwells in the thick darkness of <br />Colbertism. He is, in reality, a very moderate and level-headed writer of <br />a practical turn. He refuses to admit that trade and industry are sterile. <br />Without human agency the land itself is doomed to absolute or relative <br />sterility, and the energy of labour is as much a factor in the production <br />of wealth as the material upon which that energy is expended. He ob- <br />jected to free trade and the impôt unique. He opposed privileges and <br />exemptions from taxation,desired moderate import duties, a reduction <br />in the expenses of the royal household, and recommended graduated <br />and progressive taxes upon articles of luxury as well as upon the land, <br />which could not, he maintained, be fairly saddled with the whole burden <br />of taxation. He lent himself to attack by maintaining the Mercantilist <br />position that the State should endeavour to obtain a favourable balance <br />of foreign trade, but shows to more advantage in controverting the dic- <br />tum of Quesnay that “dearness and abundance constitute opulence,” <br />though he does not realise the full force of the paradox. While the <br />Physiocrats stood for laissez-faire, he upheld State regulation; and his <br />official position as Inspector-General of Mints, and as a confidant of <br />the Duc de Choiseul and Silhouette, Comptroller-General of Finance, <br />contributed to cause the Physiocrats to regard him as their most re- <br />doubtable adversary. Towards the close of his life he wrote in Du Pont’s <br />journal L’Historien (1795), supporting the editor’s efforts in the Conseil <br />des anciens. But this reconciliation did not extend to his economic views. <br />His Éléments du Commerce, 1754, was reprinted in 1796, with the ad- <br />dition of portions of the Principes, in which some of his strictures upon <br />the Physiocrats were repeated. He pays tribute to the originality and <br />substantial value of their speculations, while protesting against the ex- <br />travagant length to which they were carried. <br />Widely different from the matter-of-fact Forbonnais, whose bent of <br />mind is comparable to that of the German cameralists, was the Utopian<br />The Physiocrates/57 <br />Abbe de Mably (1709–1785), whose criticisms of Mercier de la Rivière <br />are, however, by no means to be despised. Fastening upon the earlier <br />political and philosophical chapters of the Ordre naturel et essentiel <br />des Société politiques, which Daire has omitted from his Physiocrates, <br />and passing by the later, more strictly economic, chapters which Daire <br />has printed, he published in 1768 his Doutes proposes aux Philosophes <br />économistes sur l’Ordre naturel et essentiel des Sociétés politiques in <br />the form of ten letters addressed “to the author of the Éphémérides du <br />Citoyen.” He begins as follows: “Sir, I have long been, like you, the <br />disciple of the celebrated philosophers whom you call your masters. <br />How many truths do we not owe to them on the nature of taxes, on the <br />means of making agriculture and trade prosper! After having exhausted <br />these matters, one has learned with pleasure that our masters meditated <br />still greater discoveries, and were going to deal with the first principles <br />of society.... These hopes, I will admit, sir, were nevertheless accompa- <br />nied by some misgivings. It was seen that our philosophers had a kind of <br />contempt for the peoples whom we were most accustomed to respect, <br />and exhibited a predilection for the government of China...; but in the <br />fear of blaspheming against unknown truths one waited in silence for <br />the Oracle to speak with less of mystery.” Now that the Oracle has <br />spoken, the reader is unconvinced, and seeks further explanations. <br />His first letter may be thus summarised. How can property in one’s <br />person, in movable things, and in land be “three sorts of property in- <br />separably united”? The first may exist (as in communism) without the <br />second, and (witness the Iroquois, the Hurons, and the Spartans of old) <br />without the third. Landed property is an arbitrary human institution. <br />You will say that property is a stimulus to labour. But has it not intro- <br />duced idleness into the world? And are avarice and gratification alone <br />capable of stirring the human heart, or might not the love of distinction, <br />honour, and glory produce greater effects than property itself? The Ordre <br />naturel seems, after all, to be contrary to nature. On landed property <br />follow unequal fortunes and all their attendant vices of wealth and pov- <br />erty, the rich despising the poor, injustice, tyranny, and oppression. Nature <br />meant us to be equal, gave us the same needs, and united us by social <br />qualities which would have made us happy, but wealth and poverty en- <br />gendered brutality and ferocity. It would be vain to seek to go back to <br />nature, for property creates its own supporters, and an attempt to abol- <br />ish it would provoke greater disorders than those we fly from. But why <br />not seek palliatives? Why narrow ourselves to extend the culture of the<br />58/Henry Higgs <br />fruits of the earth and not the culture of the social qualities? If avarice, <br />ambition, and vanity were abolished, men would be happier even with <br />less wealth. Property is unnatural and anti-social. True, nature may <br />have given one man greater strength than another, but this is no reason <br />for greater individual wealth, unless force and ruse are to be glorified. <br />Modern philosophers present the abuses of our passions as laws of na- <br />ture. Admitting that man’s physical needs contributed to the establish- <br />ment of society, surely moral causes have co-operated. Man is not a <br />physical machine, but an inseparable blend of the physical and the moral. <br />No doubt it is physically impossible to live without subsistence, but so <br />it is to live in society without social qualities, and these have contributed <br />the greater share to the establishment of society. Agriculture was de- <br />signed for society, and not society for agriculture. If we, like animals, <br />concerned ourselves only with subsistence, we should, like them, be <br />incapable of society. Justice, prudence, courage, are as necessary as the <br />fruits of the earth. Without them we should be devastated by foreigners. <br />The cultivation of men and the social virtues is the basis of social hap- <br />piness: let our fields come after. <br />The communistic feeling which appears in this first letter becomes <br />stronger and more evident as he proceeds, but his remarks on commu- <br />nism may be omitted without weakening the rest of his criticism, which <br />proceeds as follows: Why are the rulers and magistrates of La Rivière’s <br />ideal society co-proprietors of the produit net? Confidence, esteem, and <br />respect should be their sufficient reward. Corruption follows upon money- <br />payments to them and to soldiers. It is unreasonable to expect a labourer <br />to be satisfied that the best possible state of society is one which leaves <br />him in a pitiful condition, while large landowners live in luxury. Equal- <br />ity alone produces contentment. The pretended union of society is a <br />fiction. Why should I be satisfied to play the miserable role of poverty, <br />while others, I know not why, have the fat part of the rich? Moreover, <br />the Économistes are strangely inconsistent. Sometimes they regard man <br />as a browsing animal, concerned only with his nourishment, the maxi- <br />mum production of the fruits of the earth his social ideal. When they <br />deal with him as an intelligent being, he ceases to be a voracious animal <br />and becomes an angel, docile to the manifestations of reason (evidence). <br />Evidence appears and passions are respectfully silent. Would to Heaven <br />it were true! But passions govern the world; and men reck not of evi- <br />dence, which changes from time to time like other fashions, but are <br />ruled by opinion. Moral and political truths are not like geometrical<br />The Physiocrates/59 <br />propositions. Euclid is unassailable, but his terms are simple and clear, <br />while our problems have a hundred different facets, and prejudice and <br />private interest pervert the mind. Do not be too confident in the victory <br />of reason over passion. One error gives way to another, and new pas- <br />sions arise when the old are gone. <br />Passing next to the constitution of ideal society, he asks: If evidence <br />is so convincing, why trouble about the forms of government? Every <br />government would be equally good. The author would need only to tell <br />us of the necessary public schools, and the doctrinal works which the <br />philosophers should hasten to compose.80 Certainly laws should be just, <br />but no precept was ever better known and more neglected: and the injus- <br />tice of laws is directly proportioned to the inequality of fortunes. Your <br />magistrates are to be perfectly wise, but such men are rare out of China, <br />where the Économistes think nature has been pleased to mould a nation <br />of sages. The magistrates are a check upon the imperfections of the <br />Despot, but why should not the magistrates be imperfect too? It would <br />have been simpler to make the Despot infallible at once; and if he differ <br />from the magistrates, will not confusion and arbitrary despotism arise? <br />The crown is to be hereditary. By what secret do you ensure a succes- <br />sion of enlightened Despots in lineal descent? You say that in the last <br />resort the nation itself is the judge, but its organised coercive power is <br />centred in the Despot, who thus by a vicious circle is the check upon <br />himself. The rhapsodies of some writers over the agriculture of China <br />have bewitched the author to such a point that he wished to copy their <br />government. <br />He now descends into a detailed examination of the reports of mis- <br />sionaries and others upon the history and condition of China, which he <br />finds upon many points to be contrary to reason and experience, and he <br />concludes that the writers have been misled or mistaken. Even if it were <br />not so, a horde of inhabitants, slavishly obedient to custom, free from <br />the fear of foreign wars, and surrounded by no redoubtable enemies, but <br />too timorous and effeminate to make head even against the Tartars, <br />would be no model for the progressive people of France, with whom <br />martial qualities are a condition of national existence. The Emperor’s <br />wants are satiated by immense wealth, and he has no need to increase <br />the contributions of his people. But what parallel does this afford for <br />France?81 <br />He criticises vigorously La Rivière’s opinions upon the necessity of <br />separating the legislative and the executive power, and of avoiding a<br />60/Henry Higgs <br />democratic or even aristocratic assembly of lawgivers. He points to the <br />example of England, and pleads that until humanity is infallible society <br />must decide upon the probable advantages of contemplated changes by <br />a majority of votes. Morals deserve the principal attention in politics; <br />good or bad, they decide the fate of States. <br />In conclusion he says: “If I have thought that I find nothing but <br />errors and a sophisticated and dangerous doctrine in the first two parts <br />of the Ordre naturel et essentiel des Sociétés, I will say with the same <br />sincerity that the third part of that work presents a great number of <br />important truths on taxation, agriculture, and commerce. I might have <br />wished to discuss a certain thirty- fifth chapter,82 where I think I see <br />many errors mixed with a few truths, but this would need a work which <br />I have not the courage to undertake. I await your explanations with the <br />greatest impatience, and though you may perhaps regard me as a spirit <br />rebellious to evidence, whose conversion cannot be hoped for, I pray <br />you not to refuse them to me.” This last letter is dated 27th October <br />1767. The Éphémérides replied in a series of seven articles (1768–69), <br />which profess to clear up the doubts expressed. <br />These wordy disputations of secluded philosophers are not without <br />great practical importance. It was an age of ideas,—an “age of paper” <br />as Carlyle has epigrammatically declared—and there were men of ac- <br />tion eager to receive ideas and to put them into practice. The important <br />position of Mably in the history of communism does not fall within our <br />subject.83 But it is necessary to add that the Poles begged Mably to <br />frame their laws, and that he went to Poland for this purpose and pub- <br />lished in 1771 a work Du gouvernement de la Pologne. Still more im- <br />portant is the fact that the American Congress desired him to draw up a <br />constitution, which led to his Observations sur le gouvernement et les <br />lois des États-Unis d’Amerique, 1784. <br />The title of Mably’s book was very likely suggested by the philo- <br />sophic doubts of Descartes. The Doutes sur la théorie de l’impôt, 1761, <br />a reply to Mirabeau, is the anonymous work of Le Pessellier. Most of <br />the important writings of the Physiocrats called forth a “refutation” in <br />some form or another. Messance wrote to disprove the thesis of L’Ami <br />des Homines that the population of France was decreasing. Rivière (not <br />Le Mercier de la Rivière) published in 1761 L’Ami de la Paix, ou réponse <br />à la théorie de I’impot du Marquis de Mirabeau, Of many other works <br />directed against the impôt unique upon land, it may suffice to mention <br />Guiraudet’s Erreurs des Économistes sur l’impôt in 1790; the Marquis<br />The Physiocrates/61 <br />de Casaux’s Absurdité de l’impot territorial, 1790; Considérations sur <br />l’effet de l’impôt, 1794; and J. Tifaut de la Noue’s Réflexions <br />philosophiques sur l’impôt, 1774. The Ordre naturel was not to escape <br />with the onslaught of Mably. Voltaire (1694–1774), provoked by the <br />injudicious, exaggerated praise of Galitzin and others, and irritated as <br />well by the arrogant and sectarian spirit as by the conclusions of the <br />author, took up his pen “in a moment of humour,” as his editor tells us, <br />and perpetrated a witty attack upon the book (which he had probably <br />never read) and upon the Économistes as a whole. L’homme aux quarante <br />écus, 1767, though flippant and shallow, is a very smart satire charged <br />with Gallic humour and vivacity which might have effectually laughed <br />down a less earnest and strenuous body of men. It makes fun of statisti- <br />cians, theoretical financiers, physiocrats, geologists, doctors, biologists, <br />ecclesiastics, and others; but the Physiocrats are in the forefront. An <br />extract will give the best idea of the form and nature of the attack:— <br />“I am happy to make known to the universe that I have a piece of <br />land which would be worth 40 crowns84 a year net but for the taxes. <br />“There appeared several edicts of a few persons who, finding them- <br />selves at leisure, govern the State from their fireside. The preamble of <br />these edicts ran that the legislative and executive power is born by di- <br />vine right co-proprietor of my land, and that I owe it at least the half of <br />what I eat. The enormity of the maw of the legislative and executive <br />power made me cross myself earnestly. What if this power, which pre- <br />sides over the essential order of societies, were to have all my land, <br />which would be still more divine than ever! <br />“Monsieur the comptroller-general knows that I only used to pay <br />12 livres in all, that it was a very heavy burden for me,and that I should <br />havesuccumbed if God had not given me the genius to make wicker <br />baskets, which helped me to support my poverty. How then can I all at <br />once give the king 20 crowns? <br />“The new ministers said also in their preambles that only land ought <br />to be taxed, because everything comes from the land, even the rain, and <br />that consequently there are only the fruits of the earth which owe taxes. <br />“One of their bailiffs came to me in the last war; he demanded of me <br />for my quota three bushels of corn and a sack of beans, the whole worth <br />twenty crowns, to maintain the war which they were carrying on — the <br />reason of which I have never known, having heard merely that in this <br />war my country had nothing to gain and much to lose. As I had then <br />neither corn nor beans nor money, the legislative and executive power<br />62/Henry Higgs <br />had me dragged off to gaol and they carried on the war as best they <br />could. <br />“Coming out of my prison with nothing but my skin on my bones, I <br />met a plump and ruddy man in a carriage with six horses; he had six <br />man-servants, and gave each of them in wages the double of my income. <br />His steward, as ruddy as he, had a salary of 2000 francs, and robbed <br />him of 20,000 a year. His mistress cost him 40,000 crowns in six months: <br />I had known him formerly in the time when he was less rich than I. He <br />told me, to cheer me up, that he had 400,000 livres a year. ‘Then you <br />pay 200,000 to the State,’ said I to him, ‘to carry on the advantageous <br />war which we have; for I, who have only my 120 livres, have to pay half <br />of them?’ <br />“‘I?’ said he, ‘I contribute to the needs of the State? You are poking <br />fun, my friend; I have succeeded an uncle who had gained eight millions <br />at Cadiz and Surat; I have not an inch of land: all my property is in <br />securities; I owe the State nothing; it is for you who are a landed gentle- <br />man to give half of your subsistence. Do you not see that if the Minister <br />of Finance required of me some assistance for the country he would be <br />a misguided idiot; for everything comes from the land; money and notes <br />are only tokens of exchange; instead of staking at cards a hundred bush- <br />els of wheat, a hundred oxen, a thousand sheep, and two hundred sacks <br />of oats, I wager piles of gold which represent these disgusting com- <br />modities. If, after putting the impôt unique on these commodities, they <br />were still to ask me for money, do you not understand that they would be <br />getting it twice over? My uncle sold at Cadiz two millions of your corn <br />and two millions of cloth made with your wool; he gained over 100 per <br />cent in these two affairs. You see clearly that this profit was made upon <br />land already taxed; what my uncle bought of you for ten sous he sold for <br />over fifty francs in Mexico; and, all expenses paid, he came back with <br />eight millions. <br />“You perceive of course that it would be a horrible injustice to re- <br />quire of him again a few oboles over the ten sous he gave you. If twenty <br />nephews like me, whose uncles had gained, in the good time, eight mil- <br />lions at Mexico, Buenos Ayres, Lima, Surat, or Pondicherry, only lent <br />the State 200,000 francs apiece in the urgent need of the country, it <br />would produce four millions. How horrible! Pay, my friend, you who <br />enjoy in peace a clear and net income of forty crowns, serve well your <br />country, and come now and then to dine with my servants.’ <br />“This plausible speech made me think a good deal, but did not con-<br />The Physiocrates/63 <br />sole me much.”85 <br />Voltaire became better acquainted with the Physiocrats and their <br />work in later years and praised them very highly. His admiration of <br />Turgot as man, philosopher, and minister was unbounded.86 He wrote <br />to Du Pont in 1774: “J’ose féliciter la France que M. Turgot soit ministre <br />et qu’il ait un homme tel que vous près de lui.” And in his Fragments <br />sur l’histoire he says: “I have read the Éphémérides du Citoyen, a work <br />worthy of its title. This journal, and the good articles upon agriculture <br />in the Encydopédie, are enough, in my opinion, for the instruction and <br />happiness of a whole nation.... I have written nothing upon agriculture <br />because I should never have been able to do anything better than the <br />Ephémérides.” Like Mably, therefore, Voltaire was a partial adherent <br />as well as, in some respects, a formidable opponent of the Physiocrats. <br />The elder Mirabeau hated him heartily. In one terrible sentence he ac- <br />cuses him of breathing a leper on the human race,87 and his indignation <br />on reading La Pucelle was so great that he “flung the book physically <br />into the fire.” <br />Hardly less self-restrained than Voltaire himself was the Abbé Galiani <br />(1728–1787), a Neapolitan envoy at the Court of Paris, and one of the <br />wittiest writers who ever dealt with economic questions. The little Abbé <br />(he was only 4½ feet in stature) was the pet of the Paris salons; and <br />there must have been many who found the Physiocrats too dry and dull <br />to be read, who eagerly devoured the amusing writings of Voltaire and <br />Galiani. In his Dialogues sur le commerce des blês, Londres, 1770, <br />translated from the Italian by Diderot, Galiani took up a position nearly <br />approaching that of the extreme wing of the modern historical econo- <br />mists. Abstract principles are no safe guide of commercial policy. Corn <br />laws which are good in one time or place may be bad in another. The <br />best policy for France is not necessarily the one which has proved best <br />in England, Holland, or Italy, or even in the France of Colbert’s time, <br />which was a different France from that of to-day. The statesman who <br />admired Colbert should not imitate him, but ask himself, “What would <br />Colbert do if he were here now?” Land cannot be the sole source of <br />wealth, because Geneva, Frankfort, Lucca, and other free cities are rich, <br />with little land and that little infertile. The man in the comedy whose <br />mania was to turn the whole of his country into seaports was hardly <br />more foolish than the Physiocrats whose proposed free trade in corn <br />might do very well for a country like Holland, which has to get her corn <br />from abroad. The best of all systems is to have no system. Manufacture<br />64/Henry Higgs <br />is a kind of production, for it adds to the raw material (elle ajoute à la <br />matière première). Commerce also adds freight to raw material, and is <br />thus a source of subsistence to many. Not only corn laws are desirable <br />in some circumstances, but even bread laws and State granaries. But in <br />no case can England be a model for France. England is the most compli- <br />cated and artistically-contrived political machine the world has ever seen. <br />She is at once agricultural, manufacturing, martial, commercial, and is <br />really all seaport. Everything is peculiar in England—character, man- <br />ners, soil, climate, products, etc. She takes the treasures of Bengal to <br />stake them at Newmarket, and exercises her troops (sailors) when car- <br />rying on her foreign trade. In fine the book is a clever dissertation upon <br />its motto, a line of Horace: <br />In vitium ducit culpae fuga, si caret arte. <br />“You are the only sensible man I know,” says the Marquis de <br />Roquemaure, one of his interlocutors, to the Chevalier Zanobi (Galiani), <br />“who is again’st the export of corn.”—“I am against nothing,” is the <br />repartee, “but the export of common sense.” Galiani complained in later <br />years that no one had understood the purport of his book, and that what <br />he had meant his readers to infer was that free export was impossible <br />under a despot, and therefore impossible in France. This is in keeping <br />with his definition of eloquence as “the art of saying everything without <br />going to the Bastille”: but the reader, even now, will find it difficult to <br />read into the book the intention suggested. The Dialogues met with great <br />success. Voltaire said Plato and Molière seemed to have combined to <br />write it. Turgot was much struck by its elegance and gay wisdom, though <br />he noted its inconsistencies. The Éphémérides rushed into the lists. In <br />the number dated December 1769, but published later, Du Pont replied <br />to Galiani. The next month, and more effectually, Baudeau essayed the <br />task. Roubaud wrote a refutation in the Gazette du Commerce. In 1770 <br />appeared Morellet’s Refutation; and Mercier de la Rivière brought out <br />a pamphlet entitled L’Intérêo général de I’Etat, ou la liberté du com- <br />merce des blês, etc., avec la refutation d’un nouveau système publié <br />par l’Abbé Galiani, etc., Amsterdam and Paris, 1770, to which the <br />abbé answered by La Bagarre, still unpublished. Galiani, now returned <br />to Italy, kept up a correspondence with Paris in which he overwhelmed <br />the Physiocrats with persiflage for their ennui narcotique, and mock- <br />ingly proposed for himself a statue on which a Latin inscription was to<br />The Physiocrates/65 <br />declare that he had “wiped out the economists, who were sending the <br />nation to sleep”—economistis deletis qui rempublicam obdormiebant.88 <br />Grimm and Bachaumont followed his cue in their literary correspon- <br />dence, and reviled the Physiocrats for their dulness and their arrogance. <br />Graslin (1727–1790), a receiver-general of taxes at Nantes, was a <br />serious economical writer, who stood up fairly and squarely against the <br />doctrines of the impôt unique and the territorial source of wealth, with <br />an amount of ability unsurpassed by any of their critics. When Turgot <br />offered a prize for an essay on the incidence of indirect taxation, Graslin <br />had the courage to compete with an anti-physiocratic essay which drew <br />forth a reply from Turgot.89 The prize was awarded to Saint-Péravy,3 <br />but Graslin’s essay was given honourable mention. In 1767 appeared <br />his Essai Analytique sur la Richesse et sur l’Impôt, Londres, arguing <br />that the produce of the land is wealth, even though it be equal merely to <br />the cost of production,—a proposition which the Physiocrats would not <br />have disputed,—and that industry applied to raw material is as much <br />wealth as the raw material itself. So far from all taxes falling ultimately <br />on land, he contended that taxes levied on the land might ultimately be <br />shifted on to consumers. His Correspondance contradictoire with <br />Baudeau, London, 1779, well repays perusal as a capable discussion on <br />both sides of the doctrines of the school. <br />Necker (1732–1804), the opponent of Turgot in action as well as in <br />theory, ranged himself with Forbonnais on the side of State-regulation,— <br />a fact which did not prevent him from making a fortune by speculating <br />in corn during the brief triumph of free trade after 1764. His Èloge of <br />Colbert, 1773, and his works Sur la Legislation et le commerce des <br />Grains, 1775, and De l’administration des finances de la France, 1784, <br />lose no opportunity of emphasising his dissent from the doctrines of <br />Laissez-faire and the Tableau Oeconomique. His declamatory appeals <br />to the rights of humanity and attacks upon landed property, though prob- <br />ably incited by an ambitious desire to secure political popularity, bring <br />him into close harmony with State- socialists, who, like himself, desired <br />a large intervention of the Government; and the Physiocrats had always <br />to reckon with him as a determined adversary. His Memoire au roi on <br />municipal government plagiarised Mirabeau’s Mémoire on the subject <br />(see p. 20, supra). <br />The most sarcastic of all the writers against Quesnay and his school <br />was the crack-brained and contentious Linguet (1736–1794), a lawyer <br />of much ability. In an attack upon Montesquieu, he stated that society<br />66/Henry Higgs <br />lives by the destruction of liberty, as carnivorous beasts live on their <br />prey. This produced a reply from Morellet, the Théorie du paradoxe, <br />1775. Turning upon Morellet, Linguet wrote a Theorie du Libelle ou <br />l’art de calomnier avec fruit, 1775, in which he bursts into a tirade <br />against the Physiocrats, quoted in the Dictionnaire de I’Economie <br />Politique, 1852.90 He had already assailed them in his Réponse aux <br />docteurs modernes... avec la réfutation du système des philosophes <br />économistes, Londres, 1771, and returned to the charge in company <br />with Mallet du Pan, in his Annales Politiques, 1778, vol. iii. No. xx. p. <br />275. His diatribes amount to little more than sneers at the occult charac- <br />ter of their school and doctrines.91 He considered bread a slow poison, <br />and was guillotined in 1794 for having calumniated le pain, la nourriture <br />du peuple. His attack on the Tableau Oeconomique has been recently <br />studied in a monograph by Ad. Philipp, Zurich, 1896. <br />Of other continental opponents of the Physiocrats it must suffice to <br />mention Johann Jakob von Moser, whose Anti-Mirabeau appeared in <br />1771;92 Pfeiffer, who wrote Der Anti-Physiokrat, 1780; Dohm, the cor- <br />respondent of Mauvillon,4 and author of Kurze Darstellung der <br />physiokratische Systems, Cassel, 1778; and Von Sonnenfels, Grundsatze <br />der Polizei, Handlung und Finanz, Vienna, 1765. <br />VI: Influence of the School. <br />We have so far considered the Physiocrats descriptively,—their rise and <br />history, the members, the doctrines, the practical activities, and the op- <br />ponents of the school. We come now to ask ourselves the question, What <br />is the conclusion of the whole matter? They were the first scientific <br />school of Political Economy, but which of the principles they enunci- <br />ated have survived the storm and stress of criticism, and been incorpo- <br />rated in the progress of science into the wisdom of to-day? If they took <br />the first step, how far did that step go? In other words, what is the <br />produit net of their teaching, and their place in the history of economic <br />theory? <br />It would, indeed, be distressing if a comparison between the most <br />recent economic writings—the volume e.g. of Professor Marshall’s Prin- <br />ciples of Economics—and the speculations of the Physiocrats presented <br />no striking variation. Viewed in the light of a century and a half of <br />scientific progress the Physiocrats seem even to have had but an imper- <br />fect appreciation of the central terms and radical concepts of the science <br />itself. Their fundamental errors were the identification of Wealth with<br />The Physiocrates/67 <br />material objects, and of Value with Cost of Production; their opinion <br />that this Cost of Production was represented by the sum of the material <br />embodied in a commodity, and of the cost of subsistence of those who <br />were occupied in fashioning the raw material; and their conviction that <br />the shifting and incidence of taxation were unimpeded by any effective <br />friction. Given these propositions, most of their conclusions follow by <br />inexorable logic. But it is now a commonplace of economics that the <br />catalogue of Wealth embracing commodities, personal qualities, and <br />services which directly or indirectly satisfy human wants, far transcends <br />the narrow bounds of material goods; that Value depends, not merely on <br />the cost of supply, but also on the intensity of demand, varying with the <br />utility or power which a certain supply of wealth possesses to satisfy the <br />wants of man; that the cost of production, so far as labour is concerned, <br />is not identical with the mere subsistence of the labourers of all kinds <br />who cooperate in production; and that the geometrical elegance of the <br />argument that all taxes fall ultimately on the land is founded upon an <br />unreal hypothesis. It would be absurd to maintain that a sculptor who <br />exercises a divine gift of art upon a block of marble adds to it only the <br />equivalent of his subsistence during the time he is at work; or, in other <br />words, that the value of the statue is equal merely to the value of the <br />stone and of his maintenance during the period for which he is engaged. <br />But the progress which we owe to Adam Smith, to Ricardo, to Mill, to <br />Jevons, and many others, must not blind us to the services of the early <br />French writers. The establishment of a clear and cogent Theory of <br />Value,—the kernel of economic science,— has come, indeed, only in the <br />present generation. The originality of the Physiocrats will, perhaps, be <br />most clearly seen by considering what Adam Smith says of them in the <br />Wealth of Nations. <br />His Fourth Book, it will be remembered, is entitled “Of Systems of <br />Political Economy.” “The different” progress of opulence,” he remarks, <br />“in different ages and nations has given occasion to two different sys- <br />tems of political economy,93 with regard to enriching the people.” He <br />calls one “The Commercial or Mercantile System,” which he says “is <br />the modern system, and is best understood in our own country and in <br />our own times.” This is the system of Stateregulation, followed by <br />Colbert. The other is the system of the Physiocrats, which Adam Smith <br />examines briefly because he thought it Utopian,94 as he considered Free <br />Trade to be also. But he discusses it with care because of its theoretical <br />importance. Its “ingenuity” is frequently praised, and the author is in<br />68/Henry Higgs <br />entire sympathy with its spirit of “allowing,” as he says, “every man to <br />pursue his own interest his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, <br />liberty, and justice.” After a succinct description of this “liberal and <br />generous system,” he observes that its “capital error... seems to lie in its <br />representing the class of artificers, manufacturers, and merchants as <br />altogether barren and unproductive,” and upon this capital error he of- <br />fers five considerations. First, he says, granting that this sterile class <br />reproduces annually, as the Physiocrats assert, “the value of its own <br />annual consumption, and continues at least the existence of the stock or <br />capital which maintains and employs it... the denomination of barren or <br />unproductive should seem to be very improperly applied to it. We should <br />not call a marriage barren or unproductive, though it produced only a <br />son and a daughter, to replace the father and mother, and though it did <br />not increase the number of the human species, but only continued it as it <br />was before.... As a marriage which affords three children is certainly <br />more productive than one which affords only two, so the labour of farmers <br />and country labourers is certainly more productive than that of mer- <br />chants, artificers, and manufacturers. The superior produce of the one <br />class, however, does not render the other barren or unproductive.” This <br />criticism indicates an important influence of the Physiocrats over Adam <br />Smith, for no competent economist would defend the thesis to-day that <br />agriculture is “more productive” of wealth than manufacture. <br />Secondly, he says, it is “altogether improper to consider artificers, <br />manufacturers, and merchants in the same light as menial servants.” <br />For the work of the first, unlike that of the second, fixes and realises <br />itself in some vendible commodity which can replace the value of wages <br />and maintenance. The work of menial servants consists “in services <br />which perish generally in the very instant of their performance,” and <br />these truly belong to the barren or Unproductive class. Here again Adam <br />Smith is very near to the doctrines of the Physiocrats, for it is now seen <br />that all labour productive of utility is free from the reproach of being <br />barren. It is, indeed, remarkable that in his unpublished article Hommes, <br />Quesnay himself admits domestic servants to be indirectly productive, <br />so far as their services liberate the energies of the agricultural classes; <br />and it is not a little curious that the great apostle of the advantages of <br />Division of Labour should uphold the position that the specialisation of <br />domestic service is an economic loss. <br />Thirdly, the consumption of artificers, etc., is not lost, for even if <br />they produce a value equal only to what they consume, yet their product<br />The Physiocrates/69 <br />remains, and is so much more added to the stock of the country than if <br />the consumption had been by a menial or a soldier. He hints, moreover, <br />that the manufacturing class may save something out of the fund allot- <br />ted to them for subsistence, and these savings increase the wealth of <br />society. This had already been suggested by Turgot in his Reflexions. <br />Fourthly, “Farmers and country labourers can no more augment, <br />without parsimony, the real revenue, the annual produce of the land and <br />labour of their society, than artificers, manufacturers, and merchants.” <br />Indeed as division of labour, which increases production, is susceptible <br />of further extension in manufacture than in agriculture, and as manu- <br />facturers, etc., “are, as this system seems to suppose, naturally more <br />inclined to parsimony and saving than proprietors and cultivators, they <br />are, so far, more likely to augment the quantity of useful labour em- <br />ployed within their society, and consequently to increase its real rev- <br />enue.” <br />Fifthly and lastly, even though the wealth of a nation consisted alto- <br />gether in the quantity of subsistence which its industry could procure to <br />it, yet “the revenue of a trading and manufacturing country must, other <br />things being equal, always be much greater than that of one without <br />trade or manufactures.... A small quantity of manufactured produce <br />purchases a great quantity of rude produce.” And as a town draws to <br />itself such a quantity of raw produce as supplies not only the materials <br />of work but also the means of subsistence, so a trading country like <br />Holland “draws a great part of its subsistence from other countries— <br />live cattle from Holstein and Jutland, and corn from almost all the dif- <br />ferent countries of Europe.” <br />After these criticisms comes a generous tribute to the system which, <br />“with all its imperfections, is perhaps the nearest approximation to the <br />truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political economy.... <br />Though in representing the labour which is employed upon land as the <br />only productive labour, the notions which it inculcates are perhaps too <br />narrow and confined; yet in representing the wealth of nations as con- <br />sisting, not in the unconsumable riches of money, but in the consumable <br />goods annually reproduced by the labour of the society, and in repre- <br />senting perfect liberty as the only effectual expedient for rendering this <br />annual reproduction the greatest possible, its doctrine seems to be in <br />every respect as just as it is generous and liberal. Its followers are very <br />numerous, and as men are fond of paradoxes, and of appearing to un- <br />derstand what surpasses the comprehension of ordinary people, the para-<br />70/Henry Higgs <br />dox which it maintains, concerning the unproductive nature of manu- <br />facturing labour, has not perhaps contributed a little to increase the <br />number of its admirers.... Their works have certainly been of some ser- <br />vice to their country, not only by bringing into general discussion many <br />subjects which had never been well examined before, but by influencing <br />in some measure the public administration in favour of agriculture. It <br />has been in consequence of their representations, accordingly, that the <br />agriculture of France has been delivered from several of the oppressions <br />which it laboured under.... The ancient provincial restraints upon the <br />transportation of corn from one province of the kingdom to another <br />have been entirely taken away, and the liberty of exporting it to all for- <br />eign countries has been established as the common law of the kingdom <br />in all ordinary cases.” It must be remembered that all this was written <br />before the fall of Turgot in 1776. <br />In his Fifth Book, dealing with Taxation, Adam Smith refers95 to <br />the impôt unique, “recommended by that sect of men of letters in France <br />who call themselves the economists, as the most equitable of all taxes. <br />All taxes, they pretend, fall ultimately upon the rent of land, and ought <br />therefore to be imposed equally upon the fund which must finally pay <br />them. That all taxes ought to fall as equally as possible upon the fund <br />which must finally pay them is certainly true. But without entering into <br />the disagreeable discussion of the metaphysical arguments by which <br />they support their very ingenious theory,” he proceeds to show “what <br />are the taxes which fall finally upon the rent of the land and what are <br />those which fall finally upon some other fund.” The chief objection which <br />he saw to the impôt unique, a percentage of the produit net varying of <br />course in its total yield with the state of the harvests, was “the discour- <br />agement which it might... give to the improvement of land.... The land- <br />lord would certainly be less disposed to improve when the sovereign, <br />who contributed nothing to the expense, was to share in the profit of the <br />improvement.” The Physiocrats urged that their plan drew the attention <br />of the sovereign towards the improvement of the land, from a regard to <br />the increase of his own revenue. But Adam Smith thought no such in- <br />citement to the attention of the sovereign “can ever counterbalance the <br />smallest discouragement to that of the landlord. The attention of the <br />sovereign can be at best but a very general and vague consideration of <br />what is likely to contribute to the better cultivation of the greater part of <br />his dominions. The attention of the landlord is a particular and minute <br />consideration of what is likely to be the most advantageous application<br />The Physiocrates/71 <br />of every inch of ground upon his estate.” “The principal attention of the <br />sovereign ought,” he says, “to be to encourage, by every means in his <br />power, the attention both of the landlord and of the farmer, by allowing <br />both to pursue their own interest in their own way, and according to <br />their own judgment, by giving to both the most perfect security that they <br />shall enjoy the full recompense of their own industry, and by procuring <br />to both the most extensive market for every part of their produce,” by <br />promoting internal communications, “as well as the most unbounded <br />freedom of exportation to the dominions of all other princes.” <br />Professor Oncken has stated that even to-day the physiocratic sys- <br />tem awaits its scientific refutation.96 This is the language of an enthusi- <br />ast, justified only in part even if we confine our attention to the criti- <br />cisms of Adam Smith. The Earl of Lauderdale (1752–1839), a consci- <br />entious and sympathetic student of the French economists, quotes and <br />translates numerous passages from their writings, the Tableau <br />Oeconomique, the Physiocratie, the Philosophie Rurale, the <br />Éphémérides, and from Turgot and Morellet; but he attacks their view <br />that “even the labour of the artificer and the manufacturer is totally <br />unproductive.”97 Adam Smith, he points out, was far from consistent. <br />In Book II chap. i, of the Wealth of Nations he had stated that “lands, <br />mines, and fisheries, require all both a fixed and circulating capital to <br />cultivate them; and their produce replaces with a profit not only those <br />capitals but all the others in the society,” while the Physiocrats had not <br />“with all their ingenuity done so much to support this doctrine [the ste- <br />rility of non-extractive labour] as the author of the Wealth of Nations, <br />by the manner he has attempted to refute it.” In Lauderdale’s view “wealth <br />can alone be increased by the means by which it is produced”; and to <br />this end land, labour, and capital co-operate, and each of them, in greater <br />or less measure, becomes productive. George Purves, who had pub- <br />lished under his real name in 1815 The Happiness of States, by Simon <br />Gray, expresses opinions similar to Lauderdale’s in All Classes Pro- <br />ductive of National Wealth, or the Theories of M. Quesnai, Dr. Adam <br />Smith, and Mr. Gray, concerning the various classes of men as to the <br />production of Wealth to the Community, London, 1817, but he <br />emphasises the importance of intelligence and enterprise as a factor in <br />production. Simon Gray’s theory—the “productive” theory—was, he <br />says, the true one, not the “unproductive” theories of Quesnay and Smith, <br />who merely drew the line higher up than Quesnay without perceiving <br />that the landed interest derives its income from other classes quite as<br />72/Henry Higgs <br />much as they depend upon the landed interest. Air, heat, and water are <br />as necessary and useful to man as the soil. Heat is even as extensively <br />so. But how false and absurd would it be to say because heat was abso- <br />lutely necessary to man, directly or indirectly, in all his operations in <br />producing wealth, that heat is the sole source of wealth! What the econo- <br />mist affirms of the soil is indeed true of human reason (pp. 15–18). <br />In a shallow criticism of Adam Smith, M’Culloch has stated that, <br />unaware of the later Ricardian theory of rent, “his refutation of the <br />system of the Economists is far from satisfactory,” because when none <br />but the most fertile soils are cultivated there is no rent at all. The produit <br />net is therefore by no means a natural and necessary phenomenon in <br />agriculture.98 The impôt unique, which had possibly been suggested to <br />Quesnay by a statement of Locke that all taxes fall ultimately upon the <br />land, is sufficiently condemned by various arguments mentioned in the <br />course of these lectures. It may be added that there are further and fatal <br />objections of a practical character. The metayer or the peasant propri- <br />etor who produces for his own consumption, and has but a small sur- <br />plus with which to satisfy his few and simple requirements— in other <br />words, the agriculturist who is practically self-supporting—would find <br />himself afflicted with an intolerable and disproportionate burden not to <br />be shifted off, as the Physiocrats supposed, by raising the price of his <br />produce, for this virtually never finds its way into the market at all, but <br />is consumed on the farm where it is produced. Moreover, in modern <br />States, no financier would venture to leave the equilibrium of public <br />income and expenditure at the mercy of the seasons, with a single source <br />of revenue fluctuating according to the vicissitudes of the weather, nei- <br />ther to be predicted nor controlled. Finally, the enormous budgets of to- <br />day, so far from being balanced by a quarter or a third of the produit <br />net,99 would, in many States, present a yawning deficit even after ap- <br />propriating the whole agricultural rent of the country. Proudhon invoked <br />the name of the Physiocrats in support of his proposal to tax rents 100 <br />per cent, and to impose additional taxes also, to each of which sugges- <br />tions the school of Quesnay would have offered strenuous resistance, <br />the first violating the sacred right of property by arbitrary confiscation, <br />the second a departure from the impôt unique. Mr. Henry George has, <br />in his Progress and Poverty, made a similar mistaken appeal to the <br />Physiocrats, though he has the candour to state that he has not read their <br />original writings.100 But it is in the main on principles like theirs that <br />Mill proposed the taxation of the unearned increment of land, and that<br />The Physiocrates/73 <br />philosophers like Professor Sidgwick regard unearned increment of ev- <br />ery kind as a preeminently suitable object of taxation provided it can be <br />attained. It cannot, of course, be any longer successfully maintained <br />that all taxes ultimately fall on the land, or that either in theory or prac- <br />tice the land is a suitable object to bear, in the first instance, the whole <br />burden of taxes. <br />Malthus (1766–1834) shows in his writings an affinity with the <br />Physiocrats, which must undoubtedly be traced to their direct influence. <br />Quesnay and Mirabeau had laid down propositions which contain the <br />germ of his theory of population, though his views on this subject were <br />probably arrived at independently. But he is in close correspondence <br />with the ideas of the school in the importance which he attaches to the <br />disposable surplus produce of the country as its real fund of wealth; and <br />he seems, like them, to emphasise the essential importance of a maxi- <br />mum production of the means of subsistence.101 On the other hand, he <br />differs entirely from the rigorously deductive and absolute frame of mind <br />which is one of their main characteristics, and refuses to give an un- <br />qualified adherence to their arguments for Free Trade. Dugald Stewart, <br />the friend and biographer of Adam Smith, held the balance carefully <br />between Smith and the Physiocrats, and concluded that the French econo- <br />mists were more nearly right than their great critic. Sometimes, he ad- <br />mits, Adam Smith, though substantially in agreement, gains a verbal <br />victory over them. At other times, as in his views upon productive and <br />unproductive labour, he is less consistent than they. Generally speaking, <br />the Physiocrats are more precise and definite in their language, and more <br />scientific in their principles, which are founded on a more accurate meta- <br />physical analysis. Yet the doctrines of the Wealth of Nations are, “with <br />a very few exceptions, of greater practical utility” to statesmen and men <br />of business.102 Among minor economic writers we find Paley making <br />the following statement in his Moral Philosophy: “Let it be remem- <br />bered, then, that agriculture is the immediate source of human provi- <br />sion, that trade conduces to the production of provision only as it pro- <br />motes agriculture; that the whole, system of commerce, vast and vari- <br />ous as it is, hath no other public importance than its subserviency to this <br />end” (p. 476). But the chief follower of the Physiocrats in England was <br />William Spence, the antagonist of James Mill. Spence’s Britain Inde- <br />pendent of Commerce, 1808, and his Agriculture the Source of the Wealth <br />of Britain, 1808, were published, together with two others, on the Corn <br />Bill and the East India Trade under the title of Tracts on Political<br />74/Henry Higgs <br />Economy, 1822. Spence endeavoured to show that even if Napoleon <br />succeeded in ruining the foreign trade of the country we might still main- <br />tain our prosperity unimpaired. He examines the doctrines of the <br />Physiocrats with some skill. Their “grand axiom” that agriculture is the <br />great source of national wealth he declares to be “undoubtedly founded <br />in truth.” But he urges against them that in Britain the influence of <br />manufactures has been the cause of thriving agriculture. “Agriculture <br />and manufactures are the two chief wheels in the machine which creates <br />national wealth”; but in Europe “it is the latter which communicates <br />motion to the former” (p. 27). Owing to the monopoly of the soil, the <br />mainspring of the machine upon which the motion of these wheels de- <br />pends is the class of land proprietors. He urges that all taxes are finally <br />paid out of the neat produce of the soil. Adam Smith has, he says, virtu- <br />ally admitted this by laying down that all revenue must be derived from <br />rent, profits, or wages, for he allows that taxes on profits are always <br />shifted on to the consumer, and that “taxes on wages cannot finally fall <br />upon wages, since the wages of the labourer increase in proportion as <br />the price of the articles he consumes is augmented by taxation. On what, <br />then, can taxes fall, but upon the rent of land?” (p. 37). Yet, says Spence, <br />though all taxes are ultimately paid out of rent, it by no means follows <br />“that no tax except a land-tax should ever be levied.” <br />To Britain Independent of Commerce James Mill replied in his well- <br />known Commerce Defended, 1808, and Torrens in The Economists <br />Refuted, the same year, the latter combating the Physiocrats with the <br />arms of Lauderdale. If Spence admitted the axiom of the Economists he <br />must, Mill says, admit the whole of their system which is built upon it <br />“with logical and unquestionable exactness.” But Spence resists this <br />conclusion. Adam Smith, he says, did not embrace their system. Yet he <br />adopted their axiom, for in Book II. chap. i. par. 28 of the Wealth of <br />Nations he has the passage already quoted. The truth is, nothing would <br />be easier than to select sentences in which Adam Smith exhibits the <br />influence of the Physiocrats, notably in his arguments that capital is <br />more productively employed in agriculture than in manufacture, still <br />more than in commerce, and that internal commerce is more productive <br />of national wealth than foreign trade. He was in Paris in 1766 when <br />Turgot was composing his Réflexions. He was acquainted with the <br />Physiocrats and their writings, and proposed to dedicate the Wealth of <br />Nations to Quesnay, for whom and for whose system he expressed the <br />highest respect.103 But in the long retreat at Kirkcaldy he carefully sifted<br />The Physiocrates/75 <br />their doctrines, and definitely rejected some of them. An “agricultural <br />system” seems, as it were, to spring from the soil in a mainly agricul- <br />tural country at an early stage of economic reflection. It is to be found in <br />Spain even earlier than in France; Adam Smith has illustrated it by <br />comparisons with Egypt and India; and Mr. Garret Droppers tells us104 <br />that it had an independent birth in Japan; while the analogy of China so <br />forcibly impressed the Physiocrats that they were seized with an enthu- <br />siasm even for the Celestial government, derided by de Tocqueville as <br />imbécile et barbare.105 In countries like Holland or England the theory <br />was too sharply in contrast with the facts of commercial activity to find <br />a favourable soil. Most of the teaching of the Physiocrats has come <br />down to us through Adam Smith,106 and even some portions of it which <br />he accepted have since been discarded. But much remains. The younger <br />Mill’s chapter on Unproductive Labour in which he classes as “unpro- <br />ductive” certain kinds of labour and consumption admittedly useful to <br />society as a whole, and his chapter on Circulating and Fixed Capital in <br />the same book (Book I. Principles of Pol. Econ.) show us how long- <br />lived much of the analysis of the Physiocrats has been. Their rudimen- <br />tary analysis of capital into avances foncières, primitives, and annuelles <br />according as it was sunk in the soil, laid out for movable stock and plant <br />at the outset, or expended for annual maintenance and renewal, marks <br />the discriminating and systematic frame of mind with which they com- <br />menced to reduce economic phenomena to organised science. And their <br />other scientific contributions of temper and method almost evade spe- <br />cial recognition so closely are they identified with, and incorporated in, <br />current doctrine. It is their spirit working through Say and Gamier which <br />animated Bastiat, and still inspires the optimism of the French classical <br />school, not always to its advantage. Biology has shown us “the struggle <br />for existence,” “the survival of the fittest,” in animated nature, which <br />rudely shakes the foundation of their assumption that to let things alone <br />will produce social peace and harmony. Their followers, advocates of <br />liberty, sometimes seem to have surrendered the greatest of all freedom, <br />the unfettered play of the intellect. Content to reason in a dogmatic, <br />unhistorical spirit from a few general principles, they pay insufficient <br />attention to modifying facts in social phenomena, become unreal, and <br />fall into scientific stagnation. The founders of the school were, in one <br />sense, deeply influenced by their environment. Finding, like Malthus, <br />the bow bent too much in one direction, they bent it too much in the <br />other in the effort to make it straight. The miserable state of the nation<br />76/Henry Higgs <br />seemed to demand a volte face. Taxes were many and indirect. Let them <br />be single and direct. Liberty of enterprise was shackled. Let it be free. <br />Stateregulation was excessive. Laissez faire! Their economic plea for <br />liberty is buttressed by an appeal to Nature, greater than kings or min- <br />isters, and by an assertion of the natural, inherent rights of man to be <br />unimpeded in his freedom except so far as he infringes upon that of <br />others. Unlike Locke and Montesquieu and Rousseau they refuse to <br />admit that man’s natural rights are modified by any form of social con- <br />tract. To these rights even the State must bow; and the Declaration of <br />Rights which precedes the Constitution of 1791 borrows from them its <br />second article—that liberty, property, and security are inalienable and <br />imprescriptible rights. Fanciful as it may seem that they proposed to <br />limit the royal power within the vague circle of what was “advanta- <br />geous to the nation” or consonant with reason (l’ordre naturel), under <br />pain of forfeiting all claim to obedience, such a limitation is not far <br />removed in principle from the constitutional check of the Supreme Court <br />on legislation in the United States, while the economic history of En- <br />gland shows us objections to royal charters to companies engaged in <br />foreign trade, on the ground that monopolies were in derogation of “a <br />right natural and human.” To illustrate the social utility of the sanctity <br />of contract Montesquieu had devised the fable of the Troglodytes, a <br />simple folk who lived in virtue and happiness, until there spread among <br />them a disregard for the fulfilment of engagements, rapidly followed by <br />mutual distrust and social anarchy. In like manner the ethical and the <br />economic system of the Physiocrats appeared to be but different sides of <br />the same object. They propound, before Bentham, the principle of en- <br />lightened self-interest. In diametrical opposition to Mandeville’s Pri- <br />vate Vices Public Benefits they consider that every vice is a public in- <br />jury. To maximise the produit net was, in their view, to promote the best <br />interests of society, and vice versa. An action was in fact good or bad <br />according as it increased or decreased, directly or indirectly, the welfare <br />of society; and they contended that every anti-social action could be <br />shown to diminish the net wealth of society, every laudable action to <br />increase it. From this point of view they would have rejected the ridicu- <br />lous paradox of Bastiat that the State does harm even when it does <br />good; but they seem, like Adam Smith, to go sometimes dangerously <br />near the doctrine that self-interest is identical with the interest of society <br />as a whole. Cossa’s view that they dealt a last and decisive blow at the <br />theory of the economic omnipotence of the State is perhaps somewhat<br />The Physiocrates/77 <br />sanguine if we look at the world of action instead of the world of ideas. <br />But at any rate they went to the roots of economic and financial condi- <br />tions. They showed that taxes do not always rest where they seem to <br />fall, that in the long-run the State suffers by an unfair and unequal dis- <br />tribution of its burdens, and, above all, that the economic welfare of a <br />nation may be stifled by excessive restrictions. Their impôt unique might <br />have proved, as Voltaire said, an impot unique; but in probity and hon- <br />esty of purpose they fought earnestly against injustice and oppression. <br />At the Revolution the nation desired the abolition of indirect taxes, but <br />the war budgets defeated the project. The modern tendency in England <br />has shown a remarkable movement in this direction, over 40 per cent of <br />the national income now coming from direct taxation, as compared with <br />25 per cent a quarter of a century ago. The Treaty of Commerce with <br />England in 1786 must be regarded as the last important success of the <br />Physiocrats in the field of politics. The corvées, the farming of taxes, <br />and the jurandes were abolished at the Revolution, and a tax was laid <br />upon all land without privilege or exemption. <br />The Physiocrats form at once the first and the most compact school <br />to be encountered in the history of economics. The first to share and <br />provoke a widespread enthusiasm for the study of economic causes and <br />effects, they stood boldly together — daring, original, sometimes para- <br />doxical, but rendering great service to future ages by their luminous and <br />penetrating theories, which spread like a wave over the whole Conti- <br />nent. The rulers of the earth did not disdain to learn from them. And <br />though their own country, for which they wrote and worked, still turns a <br />deaf ear to one part of their pleading, it must be remembered that Adam <br />Smith and Pitt, Huskisson, Peel, and Gladstone have but repeated their <br />arguments in endowing us, for better or for worse, with our settled policy <br />of Free Trade. <br />Appendix <br />Note A <br />Louis XV, who himself chose Quesnay’s arms and gave him three pan- <br />sies (pensées) with the motto propter cogitationem mentis, was accus- <br />tomed to refer familiarly to him as man penseur. But, to say nothing of <br />the dates, these facts do not justify us in assuming that the roi faineant <br />took any interest in Quesnay’s economic studies. The phrase man penseur <br />appears to the present writer to be a mere royal pun upon his pensive <br />physician. The French verb panser, to give medical (and especially sur-<br />78/Henry Higgs <br />gical) assistance, lent itself to a play upon penser. On one occasion the <br />king turned to a young seigneur who had returned from England with <br />an affectation of British phlegm, and playfully asked, “Eh bien! qu’est- <br />ce que vous avez appris en Angleterre?” “Sire,” was the pompous re- <br />ply, “j’y ai appris à penser.” “Des chevaux sans doute,” added the <br />king—a parallel jest. This form of wit was very common at the Court of <br />Louis XV. A blood- letting barber was styled le seigneur (saigneur) <br />barbier. <br />Note B <br />The Reponse aux Docteurs modernes, ou apologie pour I’Auteur de la <br />Thiorie des Loix, et des Lettres sur cette Théorie. Avec la réfutation du <br />systême des Philosophes economistes. Par Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet. <br />MDCCLXXI, 12mo, vol. i. 300 pp., vol. ii. 259 pp., is so rare that some <br />further reference to it may be found useful. A copy of the book will be <br />found in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, press mark R. 21096–7. <br />Linguet takes for his motto an extract from the Éphémérides of his <br />adversaries, 1769, vol. iii., Avertissement, p. 16: “Il faut faire la guerre <br />aux foux même quand ils deviennent furieux, et la leur faire bonne et <br />vive, jusqu’à ce qu’on les ait mis dans l’impuissance de nuire.” <br />He says: “Les économistes, c’est-à-dire des abbés, des gentilhommes, <br />des horlogers [a hit at Du Pont, the son of a watchmaker], des juges de <br />provinces etc. sont venus apprendre tout d’un coup aux meuniers qu’ils <br />ne savoient pas meudre [a reference to the moulins économiques], au <br />peuple qu’il avoit trop d’appetit, aux bourgeois qu’ils laissoient trop de <br />gruau dans leur son; et l’on a battu des mains. <br />“De leur boulangerie, ils ont passé à la jurisprudence et aux loix. <br />D’une main toute blanche encore de leur pâte et de leur mouture, ils se <br />sont avisés de vouloir repâitrir notre législature; de derrière des meules <br />bien ou mal repiquées, on a été fort surpris de voir sortir des Solons <br />enfarinés, qui ont prétendu réformer toute la machine politique; et l’on a <br />encore battu des mains” (p. 9). As for himself, who has studied juris- <br />prudence, he will expose this imperious sect which has spoken so much <br />of destroying prejudices, and has created so many. The encyclopaedic <br />yeast of thirty years ago stirred the nation with a certain Anglican effer- <br />vescence. When the great dictionary appeared began the epoch of fa- <br />naticism. And when the Government suppressed the Encyclopédie, then <br />the buzzing insect since called Economics took its place, but, unlike the <br />caterpillar turned butterfly, it was a butterfly turned caterpillar, losing<br />The Physiocrates/79 <br />its metaphysic wings and grovelling on the earth, crawling on the bread <br />it gnaws (p. 13). Better old errors which left us alive, than new ones like <br />these which are murderous (p. 14). The Physiocrats are a dangerous <br />sect, powerful, popular, and much read, unlike himself who has not had <br />the precaution to form a sect or dress up his writings with an ecstatic <br />and philosophic varnish. In vain does Du Pont protest they are not a <br />sect. Linguet says: Not a sect? Evidence shows it: your mysterious words, <br />physiocratie, produit net; your mystic jargon, ordre, science, le maitre; <br />your titles of honour showered on your patriarchs; your wreaths scat- <br />tered through the provinces on obscure if excellent persons—the “cel- <br />ebrated” Le Trosne, the “admirable” Saint-Peravy, the “excellent” <br />Treilhard, etc. (p. 120). Not a sect? You have a rallying cry, banners, a <br />march, a trumpeter [Du Pont], a uniform for your books, and a sign like <br />freemasons (p. 121). Not a sect? One cannot touch one of you but all <br />rush to his aid. You all laud and glorify each other, and attack and <br />intimidate your opponents in unmeasured terms. You affect an inspired <br />tone and seriously discuss on what particular day the symbol of your <br />faith, the masterpiece, the Tableau Oeconomique was born,—a symbol <br />so mysterious that huge volumes cannot explain it. It is like the Koran <br />of Mohamet. You burn to lay down your lives for your principles, and <br />talk of your apostleship (p. 125). You attack Galiani and me because we <br />have no reverence for that ridiculous hieroglyphic which is your holy <br />Gospel. Confucius drew up a table, the Y-King, of sixty-four terms, <br />also connected by lines, to show the evolution of the elements, and your <br />Tableau Oeconomique is justly enough compared to it, but it comes <br />three hundred years too late. Both alike are equally unintelligible. The <br />Tableau is an insult to common sense, to reason, and philosophy, with <br />its columns of figures of reproduction nette terminating always in a <br />zero, striking symbol of the fruit of the researches of any one simple <br />enough to try in vain to understand it. <br />The Physiocrats are the anabaptists of philosophy, who propose to <br />kill men to make them happy. Starvation is their best protection. Every- <br />thing comes from the land. Therefore, the political ideal is the cultiva- <br />tion of corn. But to farm with the greatest advantage requires large <br />capitals. Therefore favour opulence. Opulence will result from high <br />prices, which will come from rarity. Therefore export corn, and thus <br />starve the people. <br />Linguet prints side by side the Tableau Oeconomique and the Y- <br />King. It is hardly necessary to point out that he fails to understand the<br />80/Henry Higgs <br />economic doctrines he satirises. <br />Dr. Bauer has quoted some of Linguet’s invectives from the Annales <br />Politiques, 1778, in his article on Quesnay’s Tableau Oeconomique, <br />Economic Journal, vol. v. p. 19, March 1895. <br />Note C <br />Since these lectures were delivered, “Adam Smith’s Lectures on Jus- <br />tice, Police, Revenue, and Arms, delivered in the University of Glasgow <br />by Adam Smith, reported by a student in 1763, and edited with an intro- <br />duction and notes by Edwin Cannan, Oxford, 1896,” have been pub- <br />lished by the Clarendon Press. The editor thinks these lectures “dispose <br />finally of the Turgot myth” (that Adam Smith was indebted to Turgot’s <br />Reflexions), and that they enable us “to distinguish positively between <br />what the original genius of its author created out of British materials on <br />the one hand, and French materials on the other.” Mr. Cannan says: “It <br />is plain that Smith acquired the idea of the necessity of a scheme of <br />distribution from the Physiocrats, and that he tacked his own scheme <br />(very different from theirs) on to his already existing theory of prices” <br />(p. xxxi.). <br />The present writer has briefly discussed the bearing of this volume <br />upon the relations between Adam Smith and the Physiocrats in the Eco- <br />nomic Journal, December 1896. <br />Authorities <br />Lecture I <br />H. Taine, L’Ancien Régime, bk. v., Le Peuple, 1875; R. Stourm, Les <br />finances de fancien régime; C. Knies, Introduction to Carl Friedrichs <br />von Baden brieflicher Verkehr mit Mirabeau und Du Pont (Heidelberg, <br />1892, 2 vols.); articles on Cantillon by W. S. Jevons in Contemporary <br />Review, Jan. 1881, and by H. Higgs in Economic Journal, June 1891, <br />and in Quarterly Journal of Economics (Harvard, U.S.A.), July 1892; <br />L. de Loménie, Les Mirabeau (Paris, 1889–1891, 5 vols.); L. de <br />Lavergne, Les économistes français du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1870). <br />Lecture II <br />Tableau Oeconomique (printed for the British Economic Association, <br />London, 1894); G. Kellner, Zur Geschichte des Physiocratismus <br />(Göttingen, 1847); A. Oncken, Œuvres de Quesnay (Frankfort), 1888; <br />do., Die Maxims Laissez-faire et Laissez-passer, ihr Ursprung, ihr<br />The Physiocrates/81 <br />Werden (Berne, 1886); do., Zur Geschichte der Physiokratie in <br />Schmoller’s Jahrbuch for 1893; S. Bauer, Zur Entstehung der <br />Physiokratie in Conrad’s Jahrbücher for August 1890; do., Quesnay’s <br />Tableau Oeconomique in Economic Journal for March 1895; W. <br />Hasbach, Die allgemeinen philosophischen Grttndlagen der van <br />François Quesnay und Adam Smith begründeten politischen Oekonomie <br />(Leipzig, 1890). <br />Lecture III <br />A. Stern, Das Leben Mirabeaus (Berlin, 1889); A. Oncken, Der ältere <br />Mirabeau und die ökonomische Gesellschaft in Bern (Berne, 1886); G. <br />Schelle, Du Pont de Nemours et l’École physiocratique (Paris, 1888); <br />E. Daire, Les Physiocrates (Paris, 1846, 2 vols.); R. Reuss, Ch. de <br />Butré (Strasburg, 1890); L. Say, Turgot (Paris, 1887), translated by G. <br />Masson (London, 1888). <br />Lecture IV <br />A. Emminghaus in Conrad’s Jahrbuch for 1872; J. Rae, Life of Adam <br />Smith (London, 1893); A. Oncken, Ludwig XVI und das physiokratische <br />System, in Zeitschrift für Litteratur und Geschichte der <br />Staatswissenschaften, 1893; A. von Miaskowski, Isaak Iselin (Basle, <br />1875); W. B. Hodgson, Turgot: his Life, Times, and Opinions (London, <br />1870). <br />Lecture V <br />L. Cossa, Guide to the Study of Political Economy (London, 1890); J. <br />Kautz, Die geschichtliche Entwickelung der Nationalökonomik (Leipzig, <br />1868); J. Ingram, History of Political Economy (London, 1888); W. <br />Roscher, Geschichte der Nationalökonomie in Deutschland (Leipzig, <br />1874); also the articles Physiocrates arid Physiokratische Schule in the <br />French and German Dictionaries of Political Economy, and, generally, <br />under the names of all the authors mentioned in the Lectures, the articles <br />in these Dictionaries and in the English Dictionary of Political Economy <br />now approaching completion. <br />Lecture VI <br />Gomel, Les causes financieres de la revolution française; A. De <br />Tocqueville, L’Ancien Regime (1859); L. Blanc, Histoire de la revolu- <br />tion française, vol. i.; G. Conn, History of Political Economy (1894);<br />82/Henry Higgs <br />Hector Denis in Annales de l’institut des sciences sociales (Bruxelles, <br />Jan. 1896); S. Feilbogen, Smith und Turgot (Vienna, 1892); J. Bonar, <br />Philosophy and Political Economy (London, 1893); W. Hasbach, Les <br />fondements philosophiques de l’économie politique de Quesnay et de <br />Smith in Révue d’économie Politique (September, 1893). <br />Notes <br />1. Levasseur, Recherches historiques sur le système de Law, Paris, <br />1854, p. 1. <br />2. Lavergne, Les économistes français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1870, <br />p. 65.—Taine probably overstates the case when he estimates at six <br />millions the deaths due to poverty and starvation alone between 1690 <br />and 1715. L’Ancien Regime, vol. i. p. 430. <br />3. Quesnay, quoted by Lavergne, p. 79. <br />4. Those who vilify Law will find food for reflection in the fact that at <br />the moment when he quitted France, ruined and disgraced, the Czar <br />offered to place him at the head of the finances of Russia. Law de- <br />clined the offer.— Lemontey, Histoire de la Régence, 1832,.vol. i. p. <br />342. <br />5. Weath of Nations, bk. v. ch. ii. <br />6. See P. Clément’s Colbert. Lettres et Instructions, ii. 2, 787–796. <br />7. Taine, L’Ancien Régime, vol. i. pp. 429–441. He works out the <br />average taxation of a small peasant proprietor (taille, etc., tithes, and <br />feudal dues) at nearly 82 per cent of his total net produce, p. 543. <br />8. Detail de la France, 1697; Factum de la France, 1707. <br />9. He did not, however, desire free imports except when famine was to <br />be feared. <br />10. See the researches on this subject of A. M. de Boislisle, De la <br />proscription de la dime royals, Paris, 1875. The official papers there <br />printed prove how much Vauban took to heart the arrêts against his <br />book, and how rigorously they were carried out; while they disprove <br />the allegation that the Abbé de Beaumont, as alleged by Voltaire and <br />others, was its real author. The arrêt which proscribed the Dixme <br />Royale was followed the same day, 14th March 1707, by another <br />suppressing Boisguillebert’s Factum de la France as seditious. <br />11. Vauban had made his personal acquaintance. <br />12. Hist, of Civilisation in England, vol. ii. p. 291, ed. 1868. <br />13. In the house of President Renault. A full account of the club was <br />written by D’Argenson, Mémoires, 1825, pp. 247–269. The chatterbox<br />The Physiocrates/83 <br />Abbe de Pomponne was the cause of its suppression. Lavergne’s his- <br />tory of its foundation is erroneous. <br />14. Sainte-Beuve devoted two of his Causeries du Lundi to D’Argenson <br />(3rd and 10th Nov. 1853), vol. xii p. 93. edition of 1857. He tells us <br />that the Considérations of 1764 were a very defective edition of the <br />original manuscript, and that the edition of 1784, “which passes for <br />better,” is still imperfect and inaccurate. The title designed by <br />D’Argenson himself was Jusques oú la démocratic feut être admise <br />dans le gouvernement. <br />15. A farmer-general, and grandfather of Georges Sand. His tract on <br />the corn trade, separately printed under the title Mémoire sur les <br />Bleds, 1748, is the first plea for free trade in corn by a French writer. <br />It formed a chapter of his Oeconomiques, Carlsruhe, 1745, 3 vols., <br />rigidly suppressed, and now extant in only three copies. <br />16. See the fascinating essay of Jevons on Cantillon in Contemporary <br />Revieiw, January 1881, “The Nationality of Political Economy.” The <br />present writer has added some further information upon Cantillon’s <br />life and work in the Economic Journal, vol. i. No. 2, June 1891. <br />Kautz points out that some of the ideas of the Physiocrats are to be <br />found in Asgill, Several Assertions Proved in Order to Create An- <br />other Species of Money than Gold and Silver, 1696, and in Vanderlint, <br />Money Answers all Things, 1734. It would be easy to multiply such <br />references, but there is no evidence that the Physiocrats were ac- <br />quainted with them. <br />17. On Barbon see the articles of Dr. Stephan Bauer, by whom his <br />importance was first fully recognised, in Palgrave’s Dict, of Pol. Econ. <br />s.v., and in Conrad’s Jahrbücher fur Nationalökonomie und Statistik, <br />xxi. Bd. N.F. pp. 561–590 (1890). <br />18. Cf. Higgs, “Cantillon’s Place in Economics,” in Quarterly Journal <br />of Economics (Harvard, U.S.A.), July 1892. An analysis of Cantillon’s <br />essay is given in Espinas, —Histoire des doctrines économiques, <br />Paris, 1891. <br />19. A fact first noticed by Mr. Edwin Cannan. See Economic Journal, <br />March 1896, p. 165. <br />20. Cf. Leibnitz in Dutens, G. G. Leibnitii Opera omnia, Geneva, <br />1768, vol. v. p. 577.—Quesnay, art. “Grains” in Encyclopédie, 1757. <br />This became a favourite figure with the Physiocrats, see e.g. Le Trosne, <br />De l’ordre social, 1777. <br />21. According to Grand Jean de Fouchy, Éloge de Quesnay, 1774, and<br />84/Henry Higgs <br />the Comte d’Albon’s Éloge, 1775. Other accounts say his father was <br />a peasant. The truth seems to be that his father left his wife and child <br />at home on a small farm, and that, in effect, Quesnay’s early child- <br />hood was that of a peasant’s son. He was taught to read by a friendly <br />gardener at the age of twelve. <br />22. Lavergne, p. 5. <br />23. See Note A, Appendix. The common assertion that this was a rec- <br />ognition of his economic studies is clearly unfounded. These had not <br />yet seen the light. <br />24. This article was largely due to his study of Malebranche, Recher- <br />che de la Vérité, 1675; Traité de Morale, 1684. It is to be noted that <br />the ordre de la nature of this article differs entirely from the benefi- <br />cent ordre naturel of Quesnay’s later economic writings, which was, <br />in Professor Hasbach’s opinion, borrowed from Cumberland, <br />Disquisitio de legibus naturae philosophica, London, 1672, 4to, <br />translated by Barbeyrac, Traité des loix naturelles, 1744. <br />25. Under the later influence of Turgot these terms came to mean, in a <br />more general sense, high farming (a liberal application of capital) as <br />against low farming. <br />26. A little later he adds the corvée to the list of abuses needing aboli- <br />tion. <br />27. He makes some trifling allowances for taxation, but his arithmetic <br />is often inexact. <br />28. This is a noteworthy early use of an economic term whose origin is <br />sometimes attributed to J. B. Say. <br />29. He refers here to Remarqnes sur les avantages et les disavantages <br />de la France et de la Grande Bretagne par rapport au Commerce et <br />aux autres sources de la Puissance des États. Traduit de l’Anglois <br />du Chevalier John Nickolls, Leyden and Paris, 1754. This work, <br />which owes something to Tucker’s Brief Essay on Trade, 1750, was <br />constantly present to Quesnay’s mind in writing this article and was <br />quoted in the course of it. The real author of the pretended translation <br />was Plumart D’Angeul; and the book was done into English and pub- <br />lished at London in 1754 after its appearance at Paris. Daire, by an <br />extraordinary blunder, attributes it to Thomas Mun, and gives the <br />date as 1700. Physiocrates, vol. i. pp. 264, 285. <br />30. Cf. a distinguished modern writer in 1882. “It seems certain that in <br />twenty-five years’ time, and probably before that date, the limitation <br />of area in the United States will be felt.”—Giffen in Statistical Jour-<br />The Physiocrates/85 <br />nal, vol. xlv. p. 543. <br />31. By J. B. Naveau, Paris, 1757, 2 vols. 12mo. <br />32. Wealth of Nations, bk. iv. ch. ix. <br />33. The original, rather freely translated by Adam Smith, will be found <br />in the Philosophie Rurale, 1763, vol. i. p. 19. <br />34. L’homme aux quarante écus, p. 1. <br />35. The tradition that the king helped to print it must be dismissed as <br />mythical. See Note A, Appendix. <br />36. Die allgemeinen philosophischen Grundlagen, etc., 1890, pp. 59, <br />67. <br />37. A footnote refers to Malebranche, French economists have shown <br />great fondness for synoptic tables, from Vauban to Fourier. <br />38. E.g. Vérités géometriques, Amsterdam, 1773. <br />39. Wealth of Nations, bk. iv. ch. ix. <br />40. 28th May 1752, before he commenced writing on economic sub- <br />jects. Mr. Robert Harrison, assistant secretary of the Royal Society, <br />informs me that his candidature was backed by Buffon, Walmesley, <br />D’Alembert, La Condamine, Grand Jean de Pouchy, Sallier, Bernard <br />de Jussieu, Lieutaud; and W. Watson, Samuel Sharp, N. Munckley. <br />41. A statue of Quesnay has, since the date of this lecture, been erected <br />at Mere, where he was born. There are several portraits of Quesnay <br />in existence. To one of these Dr. Hodgson owed his interest in eco- <br />nomics. See his lectures on Turgot, London, 1870, p. 66. <br />42. Les Mirabeau, vol. i. p. 335. <br />43. The Physiocrats pretended that Quesnay resembled Socrates in per- <br />sonal appearance. A lady-in- waiting to Mme. de Pompadour, Mme. <br />du Hausset, whose Mémoires furnish some biographical details of <br />the doctor, respected his probity and his learning (which she did not <br />understand), but irreverently calls him a monkey-face! <br />44. The speech, which was printed in the Nouvelles Éphémérides, 1775, <br />vol. i, maybe read in Oncken’s Quesnay, pp. 1 sqq. Another éloge of <br />Quesnay was published in vol. v. the same year, by the Comte d’Albon. <br />45. He says of Quesnay, “I, like posterity, owe everything to him. He <br />owes me nothing but his repute.” And de Lomenie justly adds, “In <br />effect he did owe it to Mirabeau.” <br />46. Du Pont says by Quesnay, Éphémérides, 1768, vol. ii. p. 191. <br />Daire says by Quesnay and Marivelt, Physiocrates, vol. ii. p. 340. <br />47. His father had lost 200,000 livres in the “system” of Law, and he <br />always held financiers in abhorrence.<br />86/Henry Higgs <br />48. Quesnay’s article “Grains” had put the number at 16,000,000; see <br />p. 34 supra. Mirabeau probably here makes a concession to Messance, <br />whose Recherches sur la population, 1766, was designed to refute <br />L’Ami des Homines, so far as it alleged depopulation. <br />49. She had little sympathy with Mirabeau himself, but was much at- <br />tached to Quesnay, who had twice saved her life. <br />50. Du Pont de Nemours et l’École physiocratique, par G. Schelle, <br />Paris, 1888, 8vo, p. 25. <br />51. According to Schelle. De Lomenie tells us it was due to Morellet. <br />52. As a representative of Nemours. There was another Du Pont in the <br />Assembly. This led to his being distinguished as Du Pont de Nemours. <br />He acted for some time as President of the Assembly. <br />53. The title of this volume, designed to indicate “government in conso- <br />nance with nature,” is accountable for the name Physiocrats which J. <br />B. Say conferred upon the school, known to their contemporaries as <br />Économistes. Du Pont has long been regarded as the inventor of the <br />title, but there is more reason for the belief that it was due to Quesnay. <br />54. It was really an endeavour to present to the public at Diderot’s <br />suggestion a succinct account of Mercier de la Rivière’s Ordre naturd <br />et essentiel des sociétés politiques, 1767, 1 vol. 4to, 3 vols. 12mo. <br />M. Schelle imagines that Adam Smith may have mistaken it for the <br />larger treatise, which he calls “a little book.” Adam Smith was, how- <br />ever, too well acquainted with the Physiocrats to make a mistake of <br />this kind; and we know that he possessed the work of Mercier de la <br />Rivière himself. See Economic Journal, vol. iv. p. 706 (Dec. 1894). <br />55. He translated Child and Culpeper into French. <br />56. See Professor Oncken’s Die Maxime Laissez-faire et Laissez-passer, <br />ihr Ursprung, ihr Werden, —Berne, 1886. The erudite professor of <br />history, Lord Acton, in his introductory lecture at the University of <br />Cambridge, refers to “the economic precept Laissez-faire, which the <br />eighteenth century derived from Colbert” (The Study of History, 1895, <br />p. 30), and quotes from the Comptes rendus de l’Institut, vol. xxxix. <br />p. 93, in support of this statement; but, as stated above, the phrase <br />was really a remonstrance against the settled policy of Colbert, which <br />was, except for the aim at economic unification of the nation, directly <br />opposed to this precept. <br />57. Mr. John Rae has misunderstood the significance of this statement <br />in his Life of Adam Smith, p. 218. <br />58. Les Physiocrates, vol. ii. pp. 429, 430.<br />The Physiocrates/87 <br />59. See Schelle, p. 24, note. <br />60. Levallois, J. J. Rousseau, ses amis et ses ennemis, Paris, 1865, vol. <br />ii. p. 385. <br />61. Knies, Carl Friedrichs von Baden brieflicher Verkehr mit Mirabeau <br />und Du Pont, Heidelberg, 1892, vol. ii. p. 289. <br />62. Vol. i. p. 743, s.v. Éphémérides, London, 1894. <br />63. The Journal existed from 1751 to 1783. <br />64. The Comte d’Albon assisted Baudeau to edit this series. <br />65. Loc. cit. <br />66. See Éphémérides, 1776, vol. i.; Daire, vol. i. p. 649, note; and the <br />authorities there cited. The butchers had to pay 6 per cent for a fort- <br />night on their purchases of cattle, whether they borrowed the money <br />or not. The sale of cattle at Paris was interdicted except at Sceaux <br />and Poissy.—See Lomenie, vol. ii. p. 249. Turgot abolished the caisse <br />in 1776. <br />67. Wealth of Nations, bk. iv. ch. ix. <br />68. See the account given by Emminghaus in Hildebrand’s Jarhbücher, <br />1872, vol. ii. p. I. Also the Éphémérides, 1771, vols. iv. to vii. <br />69. Souvenirs de Berlin, vol. iii. pp. 167, 168, 2nd edition. <br />70. See Knies, Brieflicher Verkehr, vol. i. p. 74. <br />71. E.g. in a letter to Du Pont, “Les économistes sont trop confiants <br />pour combattre un si adroit ferailleur “ as Galiani. Œuvres de Turgot, <br />vol. ii. p. 800. <br />72. Œuvres, 1808, vol. vi. p. 158. <br />73. Œuvres, vol. v. p. 332. <br />74. Introduction to the Study of Political Economy, 1893, p. 264. <br />75. The book was translated into German by Mauvillen, who was con- <br />verted by the task into an ardent Physiocrat. <br />76. Loménie, vol. ii. p. 416. <br />77. Kautz, referring to J. J. Rousseau’s article Économie politique in <br />the Encyclopédie, strangely describes him as a follower of the <br />Physiocrats. The truth is that this article was written before their <br />“school” was founded, and Mirabeau’s efforts in later years to con- <br />vert Rousseau, or even to capture his attention to their doctrines, <br />proved fruitless. <br />78. Abriss der Staats-Oekonomie, Berlin, 1808. <br />79. See A. von Miaskowski, Isaak Iselin, Basle, 1875. <br />80. Mercier de la Rivière responded to this challenge by his book De <br />l’instruction publique, 1775.<br />88/Henry Higgs <br />81. It is curious that Mably does not see here, and especially in his later <br />writings, that he exposed himself to the same line of criticism with <br />regard to the different circumstances of different countries, in his <br />unbounded praise of Sparta. Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. <br />What China was to the Physiocrats, Sparta was to Mably. Moreover, <br />Spartan society was based on slavery. <br />82. This chapter deals with international relations. <br />83. It is discussed by A. Sudre, Histoire du Communisme, 1849. <br />84. The écu of 3 livres: 40 écus = 120 livres was the sum which Mercier <br />de la Rivière considered sufficient for the existence of each citizen in <br />a physiocratic society. <br />85. Condorcet defended the Physiocrats against this sally in his edition <br />of Voltaire. See also A. Batbie, L’homme aux quarante écus et les <br />Physiocrates. <br />86. See L’épitre à un homme, written on Turgot’s fall, his letters and <br />memoirs addressed to Turgot, and especially his Diatribe à l’auteur <br />des Éphémérides (Baudeau), Geneva and Paris, 1775, in which he <br />describes Turgot as better informed than Sully, with as large views as <br />Colbert, and with more true philosophy in his mind than either one or <br />the other. <br />87. Il a soufflé la lèpre sur le genre humain. Loménie, vol. ii. p. 266. <br />88. See for a recent study of Galiani and the Physiocrats, Frank Blei in <br />the Berner Beiträge zur Geschichte der Nationalökonomie, No. 6. <br />Berne, 1895. <br />89. Œuvres, Paris, 1844, p. 439. Du Pont also replied in his Lettre à <br />Saint-Péravy, Éphémérides, 1768, tome ii. <br />90. s. v. Physiocrates, vol. ii. p. 361. <br />91. See the quotations in Note B, Appendix. <br />92. A reply to F. N. Vierordt’s Von den Ursprung und Fortgangfilter <br />neum Wissenschaft, Carlsruhe, 1770, 8vo, a German translation of <br />Du Pont’s Origine et progrès d’une science nouvelle. <br />93. Adam Smith has himself been described as “the great founder of the <br />industrial system, as distinguished from the mercantile and agricul- <br />tural systems.” Twiss, View of the Progress of Political Economy in <br />Europe since the Sixteenth Century, 1847, p. 160. <br />94. “If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect <br />liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which <br />could ever have prospered.” <br />95. Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. ii.<br />The Physiocrates/89 <br />96 . Œuvres de Quesnay, 1888, p. xix. <br />97. An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, and into <br />the means and causes of its increase, Edinburgh, 1804, pp. 133, <br />293. 134, 275. <br />98. Wealth of Nations, edition 1839, p. 305 note. M’Culloch should <br />have added, to make his statement complete, the conditions that the <br />soils cultivated are all equally advantageous, and that there is no <br />monopoly of supply. This would have deprived his statement of all <br />practical significance. <br />99. The impôt unique was never to exceed 6/20, or at most 1/3, of the <br />produit net,—in other words, was to be a tax of 6s. to 6s. 8d. in the £ <br />on agricultural rent. The nature of the proposal is misunderstood not <br />only by Voltaire, Proudhon, and Henry George, but also in another <br />manner by Mr. Lecky, who describes it as “a single tax to be paid by <br />every man in strict proportion to his income.”Hist, of England in <br />18th century, and ed. 1887, vol. v. p. 370. <br />100. He dedicates his Protection or Free Trade? (New York, 1891) “to <br />the memory of those illustrious Frenchmen of a century ago, Quesnay, <br />Turgot, Mirabeau, Condorcet, Dupont and their fellows, who in the <br />night of despotism foresaw the glories of the coming day.” <br />101. Cf. e.g. “The great position of the Economists will always remain <br />true, that the surplus produce of the cultivators is the great fund which <br />ultimately pays all those who are not employed upon the land” (Es- <br />say on Population, edition 1803, p. 435). <br />102. Lectures on Political Economy, vol. i. p. 306. The whole discus- <br />sion is well worth reading, pp. 253–308. These lectures, delivered at <br />the beginning of the century, were edited by Sir W. Hamilton, and <br />published at Edinburgh, 1877. 2 vols. 8vo. <br />103. The statement often made that he kept up an active correspon- <br />dence with Turgot has now been disproved. See Economic Journal, <br />March 1896, p. 166. <br />104. Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 1895. <br />105. In modern times M. Le Play has held up to the admiration of <br />“unstable” France the morality of China as a basis of material solid- <br />ity and social permanence. <br />106. See Note C, Appendix.fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-38156389867250822012009-03-20T09:32:00.001-07:002009-03-20T09:32:49.963-07:00What does one TRILLION dollars look like?<base href="http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <!-- navbar & header --> <div id="navbar"><script type="text/javascript">document.write(navline)</script><span> You are here: <a href="../index.html" class="navbar1">Home</a> » <a href="index.html" class="navbar2">What does one TRILLION dollars look like?</a></span></div> <div id="header_nsb"> <div style="float:left;"><a href="http://www.pagetutor.com/"><img src="../common/pt_header_sm_left.gif" width="198" height="28" class="noborder" alt="PageTutor.com"></a></div> <div style="float:right"><img src="../common/pt_header_sm_right.gif" width="196" height="28" alt=""></div> </div> <!-- ad banner --> <div id="adbanner"> <div id="adbanner_a"> <!-- FASTCLICK.COM 468x60 and 728x90 Banner CODE for pagetutor.com --> <script language="javascript" src="http://media.fastclick.net/w/get.media?sid=3157&m=1&tp=5&d=j&t=s"></script><iframe src="http://view.atdmt.com/M0N/iview/137713601/direct;wi.468;hi.60/01/20090320163128/?click=http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?cid=166701;mid=314024;sid=3157;m=1;c=0;forced_click=" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" allowtransparency="true" width="468" height="60"></iframe> <noscript></noscript> <!-- FASTCLICK.COM 468x60 and 728x90 Banner CODE for pagetutor.com --> </div> <div id="adbanner_b"> <script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-5633860775038118"; 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var height='600'; var swf_path='<a href="http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/cid159255/160x600_6.swf'">http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/cid159255/160x600_6.swf'</a>; var img_path='<a href="http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/cid159255/160x600_6.gif'">http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/cid159255/160x600_6.gif'</a>; var click_url='<a href="http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?cid=157405&mid=302700&sid=3157&m=3&c=0'">http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?cid=157405&mid=302700&sid=3157&m=3&c=0'</a>; var click_url2='<a href="http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?cid=157405&mid=302700&sid=3157&m=3&c=0'">http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?cid=157405&mid=302700&sid=3157&m=3&c=0'</a>; var clickTag='?clickTag=' var bcolor = ''; </script><script src="http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/cid51376/v8flash.js"></script><div> <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="160" height="600" id="Valueclick Content"> <param name="movie" value="http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/cid159255/160x600_6.swf?clickTag=http%3A//media.fastclick.net/w/click.here%3Fcid%3D157405%26mid%3D302700%26sid%3D3157%26m%3D3%26c%3D0"> <param name="play" value="true"> <param name="loop" value="true"> <param name="quality" value="high"> <param name="wmode" value="opaque"> <param name="swliveconnect" value="true"> <!--[if !IE]>--> <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/cid159255/160x600_6.swf?clickTag=http%3A//media.fastclick.net/w/click.here%3Fcid%3D157405%26mid%3D302700%26sid%3D3157%26m%3D3%26c%3D0" width="160" height="600"> <param name="play" value="true"> <param name="loop" value="true"> <param name="quality" value="high"> <param name="wmode" value="opaque"> <param name="swliveconnect" value="true"> <!--<![endif]--> <a href="http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?cid=157405&mid=302700&sid=3157&m=3&c=0" target="_blank"> <img src="http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/cid159255/160x600_6.gif" width="160" height="600" border="0" alt="Click Here!"> </a> <!--[if !IE]>--> </object> <!--<![endif]--> </object></div> <noscript></noscript> <!-- FASTCLICK.COM 120x600 and 160x600 SkyScraper CODE for pagetutor.com --> </div></div> <!-- pt_inline_ad_end --> <p class="regtext">All this talk about "stimulus packages" and "bailouts"...</p> <p class="regtext">A <i>billion</i> dollars...</p> <p class="regtext">A <i>hundred billion</i> dollars...</p> <p class="regtext"><i>Eight hundred billion</i> dollars...</p> <p class="regtext">One <i>TRILLION</i> dollars...</p> <p class="regtext">What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I'd take <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/">Google Sketchup</a> out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars <i>looks</i> like.</p> <p class="regtext">We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slighty fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.</p> <p style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:5em;"><img src="bill.jpg" width="450" height="188" alt="$100"></p> <p class="regtext">A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.</p> <p style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:5em;"><img src="packet.jpg" width="520" height="193" alt="$10,000"></p> <p class="regtext">Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.</p> <p style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:5em;"><img src="pile.jpg" width="266" height="254" alt="$1,000,000 (one million dollars)"></p> <p class="regtext">While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet...</p> <p style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:5em;"><img src="pallet.jpg" width="412" height="263" alt="$100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars)"></p> <p class="regtext">And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere...</p> <p style="text-align:center;margin-bottom:5em;"><img src="pallet_x_10.jpg" width="570" height="274" alt="$1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars)"></p> <p class="regtext">Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros.</p> <p class="regtext">You ready for this?</p> <p class="regtext">It's pretty surprising.</p> <p class="regtext">Go ahead...</p> <p class="regtext" style="margin-bottom:24em;">Scroll down...</p> <p class="regtext">Ladies and gentlemen... I give you <i>$1 trillion dollars</i>...</p> <p style="text-align:center;"><img src="pallet_x_10000.jpg" width="781" height="348" alt="$1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars)"></p> <p class="regtext">Notice those pallets are <i>double stacked</i>.<br>...and remember those are $100 bills.</p> <p class="regtext">So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars"... <i>that's</i> what they're talking about.</p> <!-- <p style="font:normal 8pt arial;">(step by step calculations & dimensions are <a href="calculations.html">here</a> for those who may be interested)</p> --> <!-- content end ************************************* --> <!-- bottom ad banner --> <div id="bottom_adbanner"> <script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-5633860775038118"; google_alternate_ad_url = "<a href="http://www.pagetutor.com/common/ads_ssi/google_altad_728x90.html">http://www.pagetutor.com/common/ads_ssi/google_altad_728x90.html</a>"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; google_ad_format = "728x90_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel ="7499066581"; //--></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script><script>window.google_render_ad();</script><iframe name="google_ads_frame" width="728" height="90" frameborder="0" src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5633860775038118&dt=1237566689226&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagetutor.com%2Fcommon%2Fads_ssi%2Fgoogle_altad_728x90.html&prev_fmts=728x15_0ads_al%2C160x600_as&format=728x90_as&output=html&correlator=1237566688709&channel=7499066581&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagetutor.com%2Ftrillion%2Findex.html&ad_type=text_image&eid=30143019&ea=0&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pagetutor.com%2Ftrillion%2Findex.html&frm=0&ga_vid=1856641273.1237566689&ga_sid=1237566689&ga_hid=2092058181&flash=9.0.151&u_h=900&u_w=1440&u_ah=811&u_aw=1440&u_cd=24&u_tz=-300&u_his=5&u_java=true&u_nplug=10&u_nmime=144&dtd=3" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" vspace="0" hspace="0" allowtransparency="true" scrolling="no"></iframe> </div> <!-- sidebar_nsb --> <div id="sidebar_nsb"> <div id="sidebar_links"> <div id="sidebar_link_heading">QUICK SITE GUIDE</div> <table><tbody><tr> <td class="nsbtd"> <ul> <!-- <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../index.html"><b>HOME</b></a></li> --> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../common/toc.html"><b>SITE MAP</b></a></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="http://members.pagetutor.com/"><b>MEMBERS HOME</b></a></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="http://www.pagetutor.com/membership/index.html"><b>MEMBERSHIP INFO</b></a></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../contact.html"><b>CONTACT</b></a></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../downloads/index.html"><b>DOWNLOADS</b></a></li> <li class="space"><a class="sblinks" href="../suggestions.html"><b>SUGGESTIONS</b></a></li> <!-- <li class="space"><a class="sblinks" href="../common/pagetutor_faqs.html"><b>FAQ</b></a></li> --> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../html_tutor/index.html"><b>Basic HTML Tutor</b><img src="../common/star.gif" class="noborder" align="absmiddle" width="11" height="11" alt=""></a></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../table_tutor/index.html"><b>Table Tutor</b></a></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../form_tutor/index.html"><b>Form Tutor</b></a></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../frames_tutor/index.html"><b>Frames Tutor</b></a></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../colorpicker/index.html">ColorPicker</a> <span class="nupdate">Updated</span></li> <li class="reglr"><a class="sblinks" href="../upload/index.html">Upload your page</a></li> <li class="space"><a class="sblinks" href="../exercises/index.html">Practice exercises</a></li> <li class="space"><a class="sblinks" href="../common/barebones/barebone.html"><b>Barebones HTML Guide</b></a></li> </ul> </td> <td class="nsbtd"> <ul> <li class="space"><a class="sblinks" href="http://www.pagetutor.com/membership/index.html"><b>PageTutor Book & Companion CD</b></a> - 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Learn as if you were to live forever."</span><span id="gandhi2"> - Mahatma Gandhi</span> </div> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-10804071842986471672009-03-20T09:01:00.001-07:002009-03-20T09:01:15.084-07:00Interesting from Half a Million Lost Jobs, Civil Unrest, the Obama Rally and More! from (http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/half-a-million-lost-jobs-civil-unrest-the-obama-rally-and-more/)<base href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/half-a-million-lost-jobs-civil-unrest-the-obama-rally-and-more/"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <div id="header"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-transform: none; "><a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/half-a-million-lost-jobs-civil-unrest-the-obama-rally-and-more/"><img alt="The 5 Min Forcast Logo" border="0" height="99" width="644" src="cid:41AD76EC-BC2C-4E95-B7C5-A3688F462D86"></a></span> </div> <div id="navbar"> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min">home</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-2"><a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/about/" title="About">About</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-81"><a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/archives/" title="Archives">Archives</a></li> <li><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/5MinForecast">rss</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com">agorafinancial.com</a></li></ul></div><div id="wrap"><div id="content"><div id="sidebar"><ul id="sidebarwidgeted"><li id="linkcat-17" class="widget widget_links"><ul> <li><a href="http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/hyperinflation-what-is-hyperinflation/" title="hyperinflation" target="_blank">What is hyperinflation</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.pennysleuth.com/what-is-technical-trading/" title="What is technical trading">What is Technical Trading</a></li> </ul> </li> <li id="linkcat-18" class="widget widget_links"><h2 class="widgettitle">Websites</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/iousa.html" title="I.O.U.S.A.">I.O.U.S.A.</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.pennysleuth.com/pennystocks.html" title="penny stocks" target="_blank">Penny Stocks</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyreckoning.com/" title="The Daily Reckoning">The Daily Reckoning</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Writers/MogamboGuru.html" title="Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru" target="_blank">The Mogambo Guru</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/" title="Whiskey & Gunpowder" target="_blank">Whiskey & Gunpowder</a></li> </ul> </li> <li id="recent-posts" class="widget widget_recent_entries"> <h2 class="widgettitle">Recent Posts</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/agora-financials-5-min-forecast-feds-big-move-gold-goes-wild-buy-or-sell-china-and-more/">Fed's Big Move, Gold Goes Wild, Buy or Sell China? 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Army already plans to "quell civil unrest"</font> </div> </li> <li> <div class="BodyCopy" align="left"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Consumers, businesses borrow less… Bill Bonner on why government spending can't cure private withdrawal</font> </div> </li> <li> <div class="BodyCopy" align="left"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Hoping for an Obama rally? A graphic look at market performance during post-election years</font> </div> </li> <li> <div class="BodyCopy" align="left"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Another unfortunate byproduct of the recession: smaller wallets, bigger waistbands</font> </div> </li> </ul> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"><img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z00_00.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>Over 11 million Americans are out of work.</strong> </font> </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">With December's decline, reported by the BLS this morning, jobs were officially shed every single month in 2008. The U.S. hasn't suffered 12 straight months of job losses since 2001, during the "recession" that followed the tech bust. </font> </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Not only did he U.S. economy lose another 524,000 jobs in December, but the BLS revised October and November numbers up by about 150,000. </font> </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Thus, the unemployment rate has "officially" climbed to 7.2% — the highest rate sine 1993, and notably worse than the 7% consensus forecast. </font> </p> <p><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"></font></p><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z00_21.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> With 11 million people on the street, <strong>The U.S. Army War College is testing scenarios for "use of American troops to quell civil unrest brought about by a worsening economic crisis."</strong> The Army believes "economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order," says the Phoenix Business Journal, citing the USAWC, "are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S."</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z00_31.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>"'Bring the troops home' may start to have a new meaning,"</strong> comments the steward of the Richebacher Letter, Rob Parenteau. "The backlash against Wall Street, with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview ('/outbound/en.wikipedia.org');">Madoff </a> and all, is likely to build as the unemployment rate pushes closer to 9% this year. Gun sales and ammo have been through the roof since Obama's election, partly on fear he will restrict the right to bear arms, but it is more than that. One must wonder how he will respond if the inner cities start to burn again. With state and local municipalities strapped, police could find themselves overwhelmed.</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="center"> </p><div> <div align="center"><img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/tiananmen-square-tanks.jpg" align="baseline" border="0"><br> <em>"Can't happen here… all that you fear, they're tellin' you… can't happen here."</em></div> </div> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">"The macro deterioration in the wake of the disruption of the old credit bubble-based order is, as Dr. Richebacher warned, likely to become severe enough that social unrest will not be an issue just in China or Greece. I hate to say it, but erosion of the rule of law would be another plus for gold, along with increased central bank monetization of the financial system. Let's hope it doesn't come to this, but interesting that someone in D.C. is already preparing for worst-case outcomes." </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z01_06.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>The market collapse, credit crisis and soaring unemployment have finally caused consumers to stop borrowing</strong> … at least for now. Consumer borrowing fell by $8 billion in November, the Federal Reserve reported yesterday. That's an annual rate of 3.7%, the biggest since 1998, three times larger than October's contraction and far from the unchanged levels the Street anticipated. In dollar terms, November's $8 billion decline is the largest since the Fed started keeping track in 1943. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">Still, total U.S. consumer debt outstanding still dwarfs that of any society in human history. U.S. consumers collectively owe over $2.5 trillion, not including mortgages. That's 18% of the annual GDP of the nation. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z01_25.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> Similarly, <strong>small business loans plummeted 57% in the fourth quarter,</strong> the Small Business Administration reported yesterday. Loan activity was slashed by more than half when compared with the same quarter in 2007. The total dollar value of those loans fell too, down 40%, to $3.2 billion. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z01_30.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>The U.S. government "wants people to spend like there was no tomorrow,"</strong> writes <a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview ('/outbound/dailyreckoning.com');">Bill Bonner,</a> looking at the numbers. "But people are acting like every day is tomorrow. Instead of spending, they are beginning to save.</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">"Still since so many Americans live without substantial reserves — savings — the pressure on Messrs Obama and Bernanke to 'do something' will increase. What can they do? Spend money… </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">"Replacing private spending with public spending, alone, is a task that would have staggered Hercules. In the past, the U.S. consumer could be counted on as the planet's chump of last resort. He didn't have any money. Still, when an economy slumped, he nevertheless kept spending — buying on credit. Gradually, the whole world economy came to rely on him. But now he's stopped borrowing; in the last 12 months, net consumer lending has collapsed. With neither more income nor more credit, he has had to stop buying. And without buying from the U.S. consumer, the world economy is dying in a ditch. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">"Of course, U.S. rescue teams are on the scene. But if the U.S. government is going to save American households, it practically has to save every gadget maker in China… every call center in India… every rubber plantation in Malaysia… all the winemakers in Bordeaux — all the industries and jobs that relied on U.S. consumers. Otherwise, prices fall."</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z02_02.jpg" align="baseline" border="0"> Of course, to keep up his own spending Uncle Sam needs an ever-increasing source of income too. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">Citing pressure from U.S. federal authorities, Swiss mega-bank <strong>UBS said yesterday it will close 19,000 accounts that the IRS believes to be tax havens for American investors.</strong> The bank will write checks for the balances in house, or transfer them to other accounts… either way creating a paper trail for IRS hounds to follow. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">"You can either take that check," an anonymous UBS client told The N.Y. Times, "and throw it in the woods, or deposit it somewhere and get busted. There's nowhere to hide."</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">According to the IRS, UBS is helping American investors evade around $300 million in taxes each year. You can bet your last dollar, if you've got any left, UBS won't be last target of IRS probes. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z02_32.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>The stock market endured a choppy session yesterday</strong> as traders writhed in anticipation of today's jobs number. In the end, major indexes were little changed. The S&P 500 gained 0.3%, and the Nasdaq climbed over 1%.</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">The Dow, however, fell 0.3%, thanks mostly to Wal-Mart. An unsightly crack split open in the mighty retailer's armor… Wal-Mart's fourth-quarter same-store sales came in well below the Street's expectations, and the mega-retailer slashed its fourth-quarter earnings forecast by 10%. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">Until yesterday, Wal-Mart had been seemingly recession proof — the consumer destination of last resort. Now even Wal-Mart looks weary. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z03_02.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> Curiously, while the rest of the world stumbles, <strong>Monsanto, the planet's biggest seed company, doubled annual profits in the fourth quarter.</strong> The company credited strong herbicide and soybean seed sales for its profits. Spokespeople didn't give any indication as to whether its balance sheet was genetically altered or not. Caveat emptor. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z03_10.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>If you're planning on a renewed "Obama Rally" in the market, you should check out this chart.</strong> Whether he brings us "change" or not, odds are against him. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="center"><img src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/FirstYearBlues.jpg" width="470" height="440" hspace="0" border="0" align="baseline"></p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">The first year of any president's first term — Democrat or Republican –has typically been worse than others, as far as the Dow is concerned. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z03_22.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>The dollar actually greeted the jobs numbers this morning with a smile on its face. </strong> Sure, 524,000 jobs lost is bad… but it's not the 600,000-700,000 thousand most expected. The dollar index popped almost a full point on the news, up to a score of 82.3 as we write. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z03_30.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>Thus, gold is getting punished.</strong> Traders pushed the spot price up yesterday, as high as $860, in anticipation of a dreadful jobs report. But the lack of bedlam has pulled gold back down, to $850 as we write. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z03_38.jpg" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>Oil is still in a state of decline.</strong> The front-month contract boomed to $50 last week, only to bust back down to $40 today. Despite some "Hey, it's not so bad" attitude in the stock market, crude oil will end this week down. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z03_45.gif" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>"Obesity is a toxic result of a failing economic environment,"</strong> warns Adam Drewnowski in our last 5 nugget today. Drewnowski is the director of the Nutrition Sciences Program at the University of Washington. "People are going to economize, and as they save money on food, they will be eating more empty calories or foods high in sugar, saturated fats and refined grains, which are cheaper." </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="center"><img src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/DietDisaster.gif" width="470" height="276" hspace="0" border="0" align="baseline"></p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">Drewnowski's research shows that when times get tough, Americans quickly abandon expensive diet programs and limit purchases of "healthy" foods like fresh fish, produce and whole grains. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z04_10.jpg" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>"I have a suggestion to make to President-elect Barack Obama,"</strong> writes a reader. "Instead of giving taxpayers $500 refunds on their taxes as part of a stimulus package, make it effective only on condition that such amount be used in buying American-made products. This would create demand for such goods, from cars and trucks to diapers, and put Americans back to work. This is called killing two birds with one stone — it bails out the Big Three and all U.S. manufacturers in general and saves workers' jobs. <br> <br> "In addition to this, to help a wobbly Wall Street, he could waive long-term capital gains taxes for 2009/2010, to help shore up retirees' 401(k)s and children's 529 college tuition plans, all of which took quite a walloping in 2008."</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z04_33.jpg" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>"It has occurred to me,"</strong> writes another, "that Mr. Obama is not being accorded sufficient respect. His stimulus and spending plans may seem all but guaranteed to continue the mugging of the dollar, prolong the recovery and guarantee high inflation, but maybe we need to assume he understands this. The man does not seem mentally challenged, like the current occupant, and it strikes me as dangerous to assume he does not understand what he plans to do. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">"Perhaps he understands exactly, but is viewing it in the context of his desire to bring about the 'transformation' of American society. If economic catastrophe is, indeed, on the horizon and he sees a way this will facilitate his plans, then why should he not assist that to occur, with the unwitting connivance of the gaggle of dunces holding congressional office and in the mainstream media who do not share his comprehension of the likely result, nor, perhaps, his goal of transformation? </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">"Frankly, who knows the truth, but it may be unwise in the extreme to assume he is not proceeding according to his inner plan."</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"><strong>The 5:</strong> Heh. Now we know who's been buying Treasuries at 0%. </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> <img hspace="0" src="http://www.ezimages.net/upload/5MIN/z04_47.jpg" align="baseline" border="0"> <strong>"We may well all be freaking doomed, but it appears <a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/deficits-gone-wild-chinas-nuclear-option-iousa-on-tv-gold-outlook-and-more/">Larry Flynt</a> will die happy!"</strong> exclaims the last. "Is it possible there was also a BUBBLE in porn? I mean, you almost can't search any subject on the Internet without some sort of porn site popping up on the go-to list. With so many sites to pick from, it must have made for extreme competition. And now with fewer discretionary dollars (or what ever currency) to spend, consumers are backing (I did type 'backing') off on porn purchases, which just seems to follow suit. What's a porn star to do when they can't make money THAT way? What's this world coming to?"</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"> Enjoy your weekend,</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left">Addison Wiggin<br> The 5 Min. Forecast</p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"><strong>P.S. The latest installment of our Emergency Retirement Recovery Series is alive and kicking.</strong> You may have received an e-mail from Joe about it already. In this episode, your wild west trading adviser John Wayne Burritt will show you how to earn income on your existing portfolio… even if you're sitting on losses from 2008. The session is free, so have a look. <a href="http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/agorafinancial/index.html" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview ('/outbound/bitcast-a.bitgravity.com');">Click here to access Income on Demand.</a> </p> <p class="BodyCopy" align="left"><strong>P.P.S. If you tuned into VH1 last night to catch the Critics' Choice Awards,</strong> you know <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155592/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview ('/outbound/www.imdb.com');">Man on Wire</a> beat out <a href="https://www.web-purchases.com/FST_Free_IOUSA/EFSTJBA9/landing.html" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview ('/outbound/www.web-purchases.com');">I.O.U.S.A.</a> for the Best Documentary Feature. We forecast Man on Wire, a story about some French dude who tightroped his way between the World Trade Towers back in 1974, will be nominated for and win the Oscar this year. Not our choice, of course, but we do try to be as truthful as possible here in The 5.</p> </font><p></p> <div class="sociable"> <span class="sociable_tagline"> <strong>Share and Enjoy:</strong> <span>These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.</span> </span> <ul> <li><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.blinkbits.com/bookmarklets/save.php?v=1&source_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.agorafinancial.com%2F5min%2Fhalf-a-million-lost-jobs-civil-unrest-the-obama-rally-and-more%2F&title=Half%20a%20Million%20Lost%20Jobs%2C%20Civil%20Unrest%2C%20the%20Obama%20Rally%20and%20More%21&body=Half%20a%20Million%20Lost%20Jobs%2C%20Civil%20Unrest%2C%20the%20Obama%20Rally%20and%20More%21" title="blinkbits"><img src="http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/wp-content/plugins/sociable/images/blinkbits.png" title="blinkbits" alt="blinkbits" class="sociable-hovers"></a></li> <li><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" 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left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-64343592716853726882009-03-18T06:49:00.001-07:002009-03-18T06:49:23.560-07:00Vocabulary Stretchers: Commonly Confused Words<base href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/confused-words.html"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><style="text-decoration:none"> <font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> <!-- BEGIN AD CODE --> <script type="text/javascript"><!-- google_ad_client = "pub-1183242573969048"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90; google_ad_format = "728x90_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; //2007-07-08: vocab-banner google_ad_channel = "1203590219"; google_color_border = "0066CC"; google_color_bg = "FFFFFF"; google_color_link = "0066CC"; google_color_text = "000000"; google_color_url = "95B9C7"; 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bgcolor="0066CC"> <center> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/" style="text-decoration:none"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="white"><h1>EnhanceMyVocabulary.com</h1></font></a> </center> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" width="760" style="border-collapse: collapse" bgcolor="0066CC" align="center"> <tbody><tr height="17" valign="center"> <td width="80"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2" color="white"><center><b> I want to... </b></center></font></td> <td width="165" onmouseover="this.style.backgroundColor='#95B9C7';" onmouseout="this.style.backgroundColor='#0066CC';" style="background-color: rgb(0, 102, 204); "> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"><center> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/vocabulary_basics.html"><font color="#ffffff"><b>(Re)Learn the Basics</b></font><b></b></a></center></font></td> <td bgcolor="white" width="1"><img 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valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>E</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>N</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>H</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>M </b></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>V</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>O</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>C</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>A</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>B</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>U</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>L</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>A</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>R</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>Y</b></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>N</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>C</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>O</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>M</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="0066CC" width="15"><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><b>E</b></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> <td valign="CENTER" align="CENTER" bgcolor="006666" width="15"><font size="1" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <br></font></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </center> <p> <font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"> <img src="http://www.quintcareers.com/vocab_bullet.jpg" valign="center" alt="vocab bullet"> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/vocabulary_basics.html">Vocabulary Basics</a> <br> <img src="http://www.quintcareers.com/vocab_bullet.jpg" valign="center" alt="vocab bullet"> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/vocabulary_building.html">Vocabulary Building</a> <br> <img src="http://www.quintcareers.com/vocab_bullet.jpg" valign="center" alt="vocab bullet"> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/vocabulary_stetchers.html">Vocabulary Stretchers</a> <br> <img src="http://www.quintcareers.com/vocab_bullet.jpg" valign="center" alt="vocab bullet"> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/vocabulary_test-prep.html">Vocabulary for Test-Prep</a> <img src="http://www.quintcareers.com/vocab_bullet.jpg" valign="center" alt="vocab bullet"> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/vocabulary_resources.html">Vocabulary Resources</a> <br> </font></p><font size="2" color="ffffff" face="arial, helvetica"><p> </p><center> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/"> <img src="http://www.quintcareers.com/vocab_anchor.jpg" border="0" alt="vocabulary words"></a> </center> </font></td> <td bgcolor="#0066CC" valign="top" width="2"> <br> </td> <td bgcolor="white" valign="top" width="2"> <br> </td> <td valign="top" width="590"> <h3><font face="arial, helvetica"> <b>EnhanceMyVocabulary.com: <br> Commonly Confused Words</b></font></h3><font face="arial, helvetica"></font> <p> <font face="arial, helvetica" color="black" size="-1"> <h4>This section of EnhanceMyVocabulary.com focuses on vocabulary stretchers, specifically on words that are commonly confused because they look or sound alike or are somewhat related.</h4> </font></p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="black" size="-1"><p> </p><p> Sometimes the words are actually akin to each other. <i>Continuous - continual</i> and <i>enormity - enormousness</i> are examples. Sometimes they merely look or sound much alike. <i>Mean - demean</i> and <i>affect - effect</i> are examples. Sometimes the things they designate are more or less related, so that the ideas behind the words, rather than the words themselves are responsible for the confusion. <i>Contagious - infectious</i> and <i>knowledge - wisdom</i> are examples. Let us distinguish between the two members of each of the pairs named. </p><p> A thing is <i>continuous</i> if it suffers no interruption whatever, <i>continual</i> if it is broken at regular intervals but as regularly renewed. Thus "a continuous stretch of forest;" "the continual drip of water from the eaves." </p><p> <i>Enormity</i> pertains to the moral and sometimes the social, <i>enormousness</i> to the physical. Thus "the enormity of the crime," "the enormity of this social offense;" "the enormousness of prehistoric animals." </p><p> <i>Demean</i> is often used reproachfully because of its supposed relation to <i>mean</i>. But it has nothing to do with <i>mean</i>. The word with which to connect it is <i>demeanor</i> (conduct). Thus "We observed how he demeaned himself" implies no adverse criticism of either the man or his deportment. Both may be debased to be sure, but they may be exemplary. </p><p> To <i>affect</i> means to have an influence upon, to <i>effect</i> to bring to pass. Thus "He affects a fondness for classical music," "The little orphan's story affected those who heard it;" "We effected a compromise." <i>Affect</i> is never properly used as a noun. <i>Effect</i> as a noun means result, consequence, or practical operation. Thus "The shot took instant effect;" "He put this idea into effect." </p><p> A disease is <i>contagious</i> when the only way to catch it is through direct contact with a person already having it, or through contact with articles such a person has used. A disease is <i>infectious</i> when it is presumably caused, not by contact with a person, but through widespread general conditions, as of climate or sanitation. </p><p> Our <i>knowledge</i> is our acquaintance with a fact, or the sum total of our information. Our <i>wisdom</i> is our intellectual and spiritual discernment, to which our knowledge is one of the contributors. <i>Knowledge<i> comprises the materials; <i>wisdom</i> the ability to use them to practical advantage and to worthy or noble purpose. <i>Knowledge</i> is mental possession; <i>wisdom<i> is mental and moral power. </i></i></i></i></p><i><i><i><i><p> <br clear="all"> </p><p> <a href="http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/vocabulary_stetchers.html">Return to EnhanceMyVocabulary.com's Vocabulary Stretchers page</a>. </p><p> </p><blockquote> Editor's note: This section of EnhanceMyVocabulary.com is excerpted and adapted from Project Gutenberg's <i>The Century Vocabulary Builder</i>, by Creever and Bachelor. </blockquote> <p> <br clear="all"> </p><p> </p></i></i></i></i></font></td> <td bgcolor="#0066CC" valign="top" align="right" width="2"> <br> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" width="760" style="border-collapse: collapse" bgcolor="0066CC" align="center"> <tbody><tr height="2"> <td bgcolor="0066CC"></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table width="760" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"> <tbody><tr> <td bgcolor="#0066CC" valign="top" align="left" width="2"> <br> </td> <td valign="top" bgcolor="#4863A0"> <center> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3" color="white"><h4>EnhanceMyVocabulary.com</h4></font> <br> <font face="Arial" color="white" size="-2"><b> EmpoweringSites.com -- DeLand, FL 32720 <br> Home Page: <a href="http://www.empoweringsites.com/">http://www.empoweringsites.com/</a> <br> <a href="http://www.empoweringsites.com/copyright.html">Copyright ©</a> EmpoweringSites.com. All Rights Reserved </b> </font> </center> <br clear="all"> </td> <td bgcolor="#0066CC" valign="top" align="right" width="2"> <br> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" width="760" style="border-collapse: collapse" bgcolor="0066CC" align="center"> <tbody><tr height="2"> <td bgcolor="0066CC"></td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> _uacct = "UA-2839380-3"; urchinTracker(); </script> </font></style="text-decoration:none"><iframe style="position: absolute; top: -10px; left: 10px; width: 1px; height: 1px; " name="googlexpc_dArAxUckQm_msg" id="googlexpc_dArAxUckQm_msg" src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/robots.txt#INITIAL"></iframe><iframe style="position: absolute; top: -10px; left: 10px; width: 1px; height: 1px; " name="googlexpc_dArAxUckQm_ack" id="googlexpc_dArAxUckQm_ack" src="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/robots.txt#INITIAL"></iframe><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-85477255276372195202009-03-02T16:41:00.001-08:002009-03-02T16:41:43.627-08:00Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century (Dmitry Orlov)<base href="http://www.altruists.org/f705"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <table cellpadding="0" cellborder="0"><tbody><tr><td><a href="/"><img height="70" alt="Altruistic" src="/_img/altruists.gif"></a></td> <td width="99%"><h3>Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century (Dmitry Orlov)</h3> <a href="d705"><img border="0" alt="Download Below Article" src="/_img/t7.gif"></a>File #705 (97K Article) from the <a href="/373"><img border="0" src="/_img/Society.gif">Society</a> section of the <a href="/198"><img border="0" src="/_img/downloads.gif">file archive</a>. </td><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="d705"><img src="/_img/x.gif" border="0" alt="Remove Frame"></a></td></tr></tbody></table> <iframe src="http://www.altruists.org/static/files/Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century.htm" width="100%" height="82%"></iframe><small><small><br><br></small></small> <i><small><center>This file was added to the <a href="/198">file archive</a> on 1/30/2006 3:50:34 AM.</center></small></i> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-475855557785549352009-03-01T22:38:00.001-08:002009-03-01T22:38:24.773-08:00Part I: What is a Nation?: Nations as Dynamical<base href="http://www.larouchepac.com/print/7872"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <div class="print-logo" style="text-align: center"><img src="http://www.larouchepac.com/sites/all/themes/lpac/images/print_header.png" width="595" height="120"></div> <p> </p><h1 class="print-title" style="text-align: center">Part I: What is a Nation?: Nations as Dynamical</h1> <p> </p><div class="print-content" style="text-align: justify;"><p><em>What is A Nation?:</em> </p> <p> <strong>NATIONS AS DYNAMICAL</strong><sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote1" name="fn1" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">1</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span></sup> </p> <p> by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. </p> <p> <em>January 14, 2009</em> </p> <p> <em>---------------------------------------------------------------------</em> </p> <p> <em>The global crisis which the just-inaugurated Presidency of Barack Obama has inherited, involves profoundly elementary forms of existential challenges for each and all peoples of the planet, challenges of a type which are beyond anything which recent governments of any part of the world have been willing to face heretofore. The rescue of those governments and their putative experts, demands some profound, and also shocking changes from the conceptions which have, heretofore, misguided the leading professionals involved in advising the most relevant leading governments of various regions of the world.</em><sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote2" name="fn2" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">2</a> <span class="print-footnote">[2]</span></sup> </p> <p> <em>My recent, extraordinary success of July 25, 2007, in long-range economic forecasting of crucial developments in the world's economic systems, should have become, by now, sufficient, even virtually overwhelming evidence of the need to abandon what had been, heretofore, the leading assumptions respecting economy by governments and others, and to adopt new, more appropriate principles which would be consistent with the validated methods of forecasting employed by me.</em><sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote3" name="fn3" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">3</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span></sup><em> That forecast has become a breakthrough, toward a sweeping, fundamental change in the future meaning of the very name of economics, sweeping aside everything which had been considered professional expertise up to the point of that most recent development.</em> </p> <p> <em>However, now that the inauguration has occurred, the new President and his Presidency, for their part, are now justly occupied, for the moment, with the proverbial "bits and pieces" of maintaining their "tempo of control" over the day-to-day role of the President in establishing and maintaining his office's control over its function of moment-to-moment national and world leadership in the current, virtually unprecedented crisis in the national and world situations. This compels that President to resort to large doses of improvisation; for, if he were to lose control, hostile foreign as well as domestic forces will be able to act to immobilize the Presidency's ability to exert management control over the current situation.</em> </p> <p> <em>In the meantime, circles and individuals associated with the institution of the Presidency, whether formally attached to it, or implicitly committed to its success, must generate programs and perceptions which are of a more long-range, lasting significance for the history of the republic and the world. Thus, while the new Administration is preoccupied with what may be characterized as "swatting flies," solid, long-ranging measures must be crafted and put into place for the long haul- - soon. In the end, as the months pass, it will be those long-haul effects which will be crucial for this present Administration. This report of mine is focused on those conceptions which represent the most important among those urgent "long haul," elements of policy.</em> </p> <p> <em>The most crucial, and also least understood, among those still controversial conceptions on which the survival of civilization on this planet now depends, is the</em> <em>issue of principle which I present in this report:</em> </p> <p> <em>So, in remarks which I had delivered to a leadership meeting of January 13</em><em>th</em><em>, I emphasized the following:</em> </p> <p> <em>1.) That, the systemic distinction, both physical and moral, between a species of animal life and a sovereign individual member of a human culture, is a difference expressed, in the human individual, as a process of development of </em>an implicitly immortal, subsuming principle<em>, a principle whose expression occurs within an individual of a specific generation, but, a principle which, nonetheless, subsumes, ontologically, the way in which the ultimate outcome of</em> a succession of generations<em> of a nation is actually, intentionally ordered for effect.</em> </p> <p> <em>For societies which are capable of surviving this present world crisis, we have now reached the point that, no more can anyone who wishes to be considered competent, tolerate the assumption, that the process of an economy should be treated as being</em> <em>contained in a way in accord with the dogma of the unfortunate René Descartes: that as if within what were to be treated as merely a reflection of the externally influenced, mechanical-like interactions of the inanimate, or mortal individual subjects as such.</em> </p> <p> <em>2.) What I was emphasizing in that report to the meeting of my associates, was the following.</em> </p> <p> <em>The consistent failure of most attempts at long-range economic forecasting by my putative rivals from among the sundry economists and relevant others of nations, should have warned us, that we must reject the notion, that the controlling </em>physical cause<em> of mass economic behavior could be what appears to have been a statistical succession of individual developments in society: as if embodying, as if mechanically, the physically efficient cause of the existence and behavior of each of the subsumed, presumably discrete elements of that succession.</em> </p> <p> <em>For example: Contrary to mechanistic presumptions, Johannes Kepler's uniquely original discovery of an efficient universal principle of Solar gravitation, in his</em><strong> The Harmonies of the World</strong><em>, remains, in fact, today, a prime example of what Gottfried Leibniz defined, during the 1690s, as a principle of physical dynamics. The categorical point of distinction of human society from animal ecologies, is a comparable case. The same </em>harmonic<em> quality of systems, is the subject of the physical science of such as Bernhard Riemann, V.I. Vernadsky, and Albert Einstein.</em> </p> <p> <em>The great fault of all recently prevalent assumptions governing the economic thought of professional economists and related circles, whether among the academics, or the opinion of the street gambler, lies in the influence of the axiomatic presumptions of the practice of usury, assumptions which were summed up by Adam Smith, not in his virulently anti-American tract of 1776, his</em><strong> Wealth of Nations</strong><em>, but his earlier apology for the mystical irrationality of philosophical liberalism, an apology given in what should have been considered today as his more thorough promotion of the Ockhamite Liberalism of Paolo Sarpi, as in Smith's 1759</em> <strong>Theory of the Moral Sentiments</strong><em>. The exclusion of the possibility of a physical-dynamic (e.g., Leibnizian, Riemannian) basis for economic value, rather than a monetarist one, is the great error of academic and Las Vegas gambler alike, an error which must be now suddenly expelled from the practice of economy by governments, if civilization is to survive this present crisis.</em> </p> <p> <em>Therefore, if civilizations wish to survive the presently onrushing, global economic breakdown-crisis, they must change their ways accordingly, shifting to the legacy of the physical science of Nicholas of Cusa, Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Kepler, Pierre de Fermat, and Gottfried Leibniz, away from popular sentiments such as those prescribed by Paolo Sarpi follower Adam Smith's</em><em><strong> Theory of the Moral Sentiments</strong></em><em>.</em> It is that Liberalism of the dupes of Paolo Sarpi<em>, which also made a dupe of not only Karl Marx, but many of Marx's followers, among many other types of cases of the same radically reductionist madness.</em> </p> <p> <em>The distinction of the subject of this present report, is its attention to, and explanation of the fact, that that which is expressed in the manner in which the living human individual, who is mistakenly seen as merely biological, is actually shown to be the embodiment of something which is subsumed by the superior efficiency of a higher principle. That principle is one which must appear to our biologists, not as a principle of biology as they have usually defined it heretofore, but, as what must tend to appear to most literate observers as an eerie sort of spiritual principle, as that creative potential of the individual human mind which is lacking in all lower forms of life.</em> </p> <p> <em>I refer, here, to the distinctive quality of a principle of human intelligence, a higher sort of principle which is expressed as original, or replicated discoveries of universal physical principles, or as artistic compositions expressing truly original and valid principles of composition. Eerie as this notion might appear to be to some persons, at first glance, it is, nonetheless, actually (ontologically) a physically efficient principle of our universe. It is to be treated as an expression of a physically efficient principle of </em>dynamics<em>, rather than a mere effect, for example, of such as a Cartesian-like datum of the reductionist classroom's statistical dogma.</em> </p> <p> <em>Thus, in the matter of the relevance of the work of Academician Vernadsky, there are three, mutually distinct ontological qualities of such integral, dynamical systems to be considered by us here: a.) The general abiotic ("pre-life"); b.) Living processes, and their specific by-products, other than those of human mind; and, c.) The human mind. In these cases, the distinction of the higher one, is not a derivative of the nature the lower, but, rather, all three are commonly subsumed by a higher, common, universal, dynamic (creative: </em>anti-entropic<em>) principle, as Albert Einstein summed up the combined effect of the uniquely original discoveries of the Solar System's principle of gravitation of Johannes Kepler and those of Bernhard Riemann, defining our universe as a finite, but not externally bounded universe.</em> </p> <p> <em>In other words, I mean dynamics as </em>dynamics <em>(the echo of Classical Greek </em>dynamis<em>) was defined by Gottfried Leibniz's attack on Descartes, on this specific account. The fuller meaning of a general principle of dynamics in modern science, was given later by Bernhard Riemann, as this is typified for today's general reference by his 1854 habilitation dissertation. Further contributions to the elaboration of Riemann's discovery have been supplied, most notably, by the anti-mechanistic discoveries of Max Planck (e.g., harmonics, rather than Ernst Mach's "mechanics"), Albert Einstein, and Academician Vernadsky.</em> </p> <p> <em>3.) The principle which I have identified in the opening of this prologue, is of the same quality of form as that expressed by Johannes Kepler's uniquely original discovery of a universal principle of gravitation. So, Albert Einstein identified his own, Riemannian view of Kepler's work, as pin-pointed in Kepler's Book IV of</em><strong> The Harmonies</strong><em><strong>,</strong></em><em> as being the enveloping foundation of </em><em><strong>all</strong></em><em> competent, modern physical-science practice.</em><sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote4" name="fn4" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">4</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span></sup> </p> <p> <em>4.) So, I have emphasized, over decades to date, that in that competent way of thinking within the domain of physical science, this difference is expressed in the terms of what Gottfried Leibniz defined, in his denunciation of Descartes, as </em>dynamics. <em>As I have said above, this is a notion of dynamics which Leibniz identified as an echo of the notion called </em>dynamis<em> among the ancient Greek and related circles of the Pythagoreans and Plato. The same notion, as developed in an enriched form by Bernhard Riemann and his followers, such as Albert Einstein, is crucial for defining the functional notion of the necessary integrity of a sovereign nation. Einstein's expressed, Riemannian views, insofar as they are known to me, lack only the needed, still higher standpoint of reference, to Academician V.I. Vernadsky's Riemannian notion of the Noösphere.</em> </p> <p> <em>5.) The application of this conception, so summarized above, supplies modern civilization with a specific notion of nation-state cultures which is crucial in addressing the root of that grave crisis of global civilization which is presently menacing humanity as a whole, as at this present moment.</em> </p> <p> <em>In these days of a world of humanity now plunging at an accelerating rate toward depths which have not been thought possible, everything on which I expend significant efforts now, has both a long-term and an immediate purpose, that in service of the defense of the immediate, terrible threat to very existence of a civilized form of life on this planet. This condition of presently accelerating, global crisis, makes demands upon me, which bear upon the unique competencies which I have developed in the field of a science of physical economy. Thus, what I must present as of urgent relevance on this account, may appear to verge on the merely academic, but no one should be misled into thinking that what I write in the following piece is "merely academic" in any meaningful sense. The following is written in what must be identified as "deadly serious" intent, and must be read accordingly.</em> </p> <p> <em>That intent and character of what I write below, will be clear enough as the following account unfolds.</em> </p> <p> <em>--------------------------------------------------------------------</em> </p> <p> <strong>Introduction:</strong> </p> <p> <strong>ON THE SUBJECT OF ONE'S SELF</strong> </p> <p> My specific contribution to the principles of dynamics being delivered within this present literary location, lies within those dynamics of humanity, as such, which underlie the actual characteristics of <em>physical</em> economies. This can be usefully illustrated, for these purposes, by a brief reference to a closely related aspect which is typical of my own, relevant personal experience, and in relatively greater, or lesser degree by some relevant others. I point out some notably relevant autobiographical items, as follows. </p> <p> All but one of my grandparents were born during the 1860s, amid the setting of the decade of the great U.S. Civil War. One notable grandfather was a descendant of members of the group of the English settlers in North America during the middle of the Seventeenth Century; another was the son of a Scottish professional dragoon, a dragoon who arrived to volunteer his Civil War service with the First Rhode Island cavalry. The specifically English strain in that ancestry, was represented by grandparents representing families which had included active leaders of the anti-slavery conspiracy of their time,<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote5" name="fn5" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">5</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span></sup> as known to my grandparents' family dinner-table of my childhood, as having been expressed from among living ancestors born during the immediate, Seventeenth-century establishment of what was to become this Federal republic, who were of this subsuming category.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote6" name="fn6" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">6</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span></sup> In general, excepting large chunks of Scottish and Irish strains introduced to the ranks from approximately the middle of the Nineteenth Century, my family history is traced from its beginnings within North America, from Seventeenth-century French and English immigrants from the same era as the original New England and Quebec settlements. </p> <p> At the same time, the fact was, as actually known to me, that: despite a significant diversity of the specific traits and views of these individual parts of that extended family as a social process, the larger social process which was my emerging new nation (in actuality) during those three centuries before my own time, had predominant, manifestly underlying characteristics which are distinct from those of citizens of European nations, characteristics which influenced the individual representatives who were often not notably conscious of the nature of these influences upon their behavior, but which, nonetheless, were influenced by them in critical ways. Those characteristics were rooted in, as subsumed by the dynamics of this society, rather than the opinions specific to any individual representative of the family or related larger grouping. While the individual had an affect on the evolution of the national culture, the culture was never the simple aggregate of individual opinions among the population: <em>dynamics,</em> again.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote7" name="fn7" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">7</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span></sup> </p> <p> The most significant of the differences between the cultures of our United States and representatives of the same language-groups in Europe, was our separation from the European and other class-distinctions common to European, and such other expressions of oligarchical models of society, including those of British and other parliamentary systems.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote8" name="fn8" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">8</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span></sup> </p> <p> On this account, I now turn your attention to refer, once again, as I have often done so over the course of the most recently preceding sixty-odd years portion of my eighty-six years to date, to the strong impact of my first experience of the concluding paragraph of Percy Shelley's <strong>A Defence of Poetry</strong>, a paragraph featuring his summary on the subject of the imagination.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote9" name="fn9" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">9</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span></sup> I emphasize the usually unwitting role of most relevant persons in their fostering what can be isolated as those superb moments of achievement of a great people summoned to a great task, moments in which those individual persons performed with a certain commitment and excellence, yet, often, were unwitting of the underlying source of their inspiration, when, often, as Shelley emphasized, that inspiration was even contrary to their customary character. The emergence of the U.S. population under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is an excellent illustration of this. Consider the ironies of the matter in Shelley's own terms.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote10" name="fn10" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">10</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span></sup> </p> <p> The fact of the often unwitting quality of the motive to which Shelley refers, within that concluding paragraph, as in the behavior of many others of his time, expresses the same phenomenon which is the subject of this, my present report. That same quality of customary individual unwittingness to which Shelley referred there, is also expressed in physical science, as, also, in what are nonetheless great artistic endeavors generally. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Classical Poetry of Science</strong></em> </p> <p> Consider a more general expression of that irony. </p> <p> That form of science which had been emerging from the rising waters of the oceans, then at a time not less than about 11,000 years ago,<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote11" name="fn11" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">11</a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span></sup> was the product of what had been the ancient transoceanic maritime culture which had become settled, since, on the newly defined coastlines and the lowest regions found in the mouths of great riparian systems. </p> <p> What we have come to call "science," as it emerged thus, was expressed, at that time, as that to which India's Bal Gangadhar Tilak would point, in his <strong>Orion</strong>, as the approximately 26,000-year Equinoctial calendar cycle already known to the ancient Vedic culture. This is a culture whose work is embedded in the cultural characteristics, even those characteristics of the presently unwitting, of both later Sanskrit and India's culture generally, amid its living population, still today. Typical human experience with such relatively long cycles, reflects ancient ocean-going maritime cultures, whose attention to the cyclical and quasi-cyclical stellar array, bespeaks a current of experience and knowledge in mankind's culture, whose emphasis on the ancient fruits of <em>astronavigation</em><sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote12" name="fn12" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">12</a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span></sup> implicitly defines <em>the notion of man in, and acting efficiently upon the universe:</em> a true, anti-Euclidean notion of a quality of a science, which is to be defined, thus, as characteristically universal. </p> <p> It is the relative mastery of this maritime standpoint for the definition of the concept of "universe," which presents the basis, from the past, for what we may fairly consider to be, virtually, the still living ancient "ancestor" of competent scientific practice, as reflected in the form of efficient action upon the domain of the here and now. </p> <p> <em>However, as I shall emphasize in the course of this present report, the proper primary subject of science, is not that of astronomy as such; science is the expression of that whose very existence is shown, essentially, not in the stars which Shakespeare brushed aside in his </em><em><strong>Julius Caesar</strong></em><em>, but in a certain uniqueness of mankind's own behavior: a uniqueness which is to be adduced from in our species' unique, historical concern with ancient maritime culture's mastery of universalized astronavigation as such.</em><sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote13" name="fn13" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">13</a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span></sup><em> </em>We must proceed from mastery of the discovered principles which the outlook of ancient mariners' astronavigation reveal, as what we must know and employ as the principles which order the development of our universe in both the respectively very large and very small. Man is not an object in the universe; man comes not merely to know the principles which order the universe, but principles which are expressed by us, as in our making that universe itself our subject (rather than ourselves as being merely the subject of that universe). <em>In other words: man and woman of </em><strong>Genesis</strong><em> </em>1<em> as in the image of the Creator.</em> </p> <p> Thus, I shall emphasize, that, therefore, the subject of man lies, as Shakespeare wrote in his <strong>Julius Caesar</strong>: not in those "stars, but in ourselves," as every true Promethean must discover his, or her true heritage as a human being. Hence, true tragedy, including the intentional use of the concept of tragedy by Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Friedrich Schiller, is not a matter of what not only ignorant, but also mis-educated individuals, label "the tragic individual." <em>Tragedy</em> is that principled quality of systemic folly which tends to permeate the "axiomatic-like" behavioral presumptions of an entire social formation, such as a language culture, a nation, or a social class, or the like, as an experience within or among nations.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote14" name="fn14" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">14</a> <span class="print-footnote">[14]</span></sup> As Shelley wrote: "...they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations: for it is less their spirit, than the spirit of the age. ... " Mankind distinguishes itself from the beasts by superseding the spirit of a former age. </p> <p> Thus, I emphasize: Johannes Kepler's uniquely original discovery of the principle of universal solar gravitation, as Albert Einstein emphasized Kepler's uniquely original discovery, as being the foundation of all competent modern experimental physical science known by Einstein and relevant others up to that time. That is the most crucial of the discoveries on which all competent modern science currently depends. </p> <p> In the end, man does not react to the universe; man reacts in ways implicitly intended, as a matter of principle, to modify that universe's behavior, ultimately to qualitative effect. So, man as a species is distinguished from the beasts, if and when he chooses to do so. That is that end which a person's search for a choice of destiny must serve. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Evil in Euclid</strong></em> </p> <p> The most significant of the typical causes for the intellectual failure of a promising social movement, such as the Classical Renaissance associated with that period of the American Revolution prior to the effects of the British Foreign Office's orchestration of Philippe Egalité in the incident of the Bastille, is that the fact that so many among those supporters of the cause of our American Revolution were reacting to that development, during the best preceding period, in a manner contrary to what might be fairly described as their customary inclinations. In great moments of history, a people rises above its habitual traits; but, in decadent moments, reverts to something like that which it had already been before. I saw this reversion on my return to the post-Franklin Roosevelt U.S.A., after the war. Heinrich Heine's clear insight, as in the matter of the Romantic School, into a certain moral duplicity in the impressively brilliant Goethe, illustrates the point.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote15" name="fn15" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">15</a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span></sup> </p> <p> Consider the historically ironical patterns of development, as during that interval of the rising influence of Abraham Kästner, his protégé Gotthold Lessing, and Moses Mendelssohn, which typify the favorable European setting for the success of the American Revolution. </p> <p> The principle of that Classical school had held a large degree of sway, against the follies of the contrary influence, over strata which were, otherwise, of the contrary inclination of the Cartesian Abbé Antonio Conti, and such among Conti's followers as the hoaxsters and haters of Leibniz as Voltaire, and as the followers of Paolo Sarpi's tradition among the mere mathematicians Abraham de Moivre, D'Alembert, Leonhard Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, Cauchy, Rudolf Clausius et al. That classical influence waned with the collapse of the dynamic expression of authority associated with the cause of the American Revolution, a corrosion already under way in 1782, and aggravated by the death of Benjamin Franklin, and by the fall of the Bastille orchestrated by London, and by the insurgency of that reactionary party which the Habsburg Emperor was now supporting (since the affair of the Queen's necklace). </p> <p> So, the influence of the Eighteenth-Century renaissance was weakened to a degree that we in the U.S.A. saw manifest in Thomas Jefferson's period of defection, as also in the bedroom of President Madison, as under the influence of the traitor and British agent Aaron Burr. Under the earlier active influence of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Madison, et al., startle us, still today, with a quality which Shelley identified as "the electric life which burns within their words," but, in the late 1790s and into the second decade of the Nineteenth Century, we must recognize the greatness of their time of association with Franklin as expressing, like the Biblical Jonah, or the Apostle Peter's "thrice," "less their spirit, than the spirit of that age." So, in the matter of the so-called "Monroe Doctrine," and other matters of later life, Jefferson returned to himself as he had been, more or less, under the influence of his former mentor, Benjamin Franklin. </p> <p> Any truly competent treatment of history must recognize the kinds of examples which I have just referenced here, and also recognize the principle which Shelley had addressed in what I have referenced here as the relationship between the individual and the motivating power which appears in the form of the "spirit of the age." </p> <p> So, we experienced a comparable return to the worse, with the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. Already, once the Normandy victory of the U.S.-led allies assured the defeat of the Nazis, the same, British led, right-wing faction, inside the U.S.A., which had been pro-Mussolini-Hitler prior to December 7, 1941, moved to take back their former power. So, the death of President Franklin Roosevelt served as the opportunity for the former, pro-fascist, right-wing gang to regain power in the Presidency under President Truman. During most of that change back toward a "right-wing" takeover of U.S. leadership, I was overseas - - until late Spring 1946, and therefore had the peculiar "advantage" of experiencing, more fully, the shock of that change within U.S. institutions which had taken over the U.S.A. during the interval from Spring 1945 to Spring 1946. </p> <p> The weakness of otherwise promising figures of the U.S.A., which allowed the corruption expressed by the "Wall Street" phenomenon, is also to be recognized in the pro-fascist elements of "right wing" anti-Franklin Roosevelt circles, particularly those which had been openly pro-Mussolini during both the 1920s and 1930s and sympathizers of Hitler during the pre-December 1941 1930s, and which represent the Liberal "free trader" tradition of the pro-fascist elements of both the Republican and Democratic parties still today. </p> <p> We are currently experiencing a turn, somewhat akin to that under the onset of Franklin Roosevelt's leadership, in the early days of the change of the U.S. Presidency, from the reign of the wretched President George W. Bush, Jr., to the spirit of optimism which has arisen since the inauguration of the Presidency of newly incumbent President Barack Obama. We must reckon with both of the implications which that change presents, and do so with accompanying comprehension of what I have just summarized here as the thesis of Percy B. Shelley. The present moment is precious, its opportunities prospectively grand, and the perils grave. </p> <p> This, as I have promised above, will be, necessarily, a lesson on the higher implications of the principles of dynamics. </p> <p> -------------- </p> <p> <strong>I. DYNAMICS & IMMORTALITY</strong> </p> <p> <em>Yes, young fellow, human immortality does exist, just not biologically. You could say, that, in that way, it has an efficient, practical expression within the individual's and society's experience of mortal life. Thus, true immortality is not something to be relegated to some domain of 'blind faith;' it not only can, but must be experienced by every living person who knows, really, what it is to be immortal, and, to be, thus, human in the sense of man and woman of </em><em><strong>Genesis </strong></em><em>1. It exists for us within a very efficient domain of experience, one called by Leibniz, and by others, 'dynamics.' It is important that you discover this fact for yourself, so that you may discover not only how to act as human, but how to become truly, fully human, not as some talking simulation of a higher ape, but as the realization of becoming a fully human, implicitly immortal being.</em> </p> <p> There are several crucial points to be considered in this summary of the case. </p> <p> First, and foremost, the essential distinction of the human personality from all among the beasts: that human personality is expressed by a living body with ostensible animal characteristics; but that, as the effect of the outstanding creative personalities of science and Classical art illustrate this more clearly, the creative human personality will continue to influence the development of the quality of society in a specifically creative way, as a sovereign personality, even after the mortal body of that person is dead. </p> <p> So, the incompleted discovery of one person can be adopted and extended in an active way after that person is deceased. So, each creative individual lives as represented in the continuing development of society even after the death of the mortal husk </p> <p> Thus, that human society is not a collection of individuals, but is dynamic, not merely percussive, in respect to the interaction of society's individual members. </p> <p> That the progress of society depends upon forms of action by individuals which express a form of action of change of culture comparable to the effect of the discovery and adoption of a universal physical principle, that according to such models as Johannes Kepler's uniquely original discovery of the principle of universal gravitation. </p> <p> So, for example, the principal failures which those who were merely mathematicians have brought into the domain of physical science, are results which could be traced readily, by some, from what has been clearly the outright fraud prompted, still, to the present day, by the <em>a-priori</em> presumptions of <strong>Euclid's Elements</strong>. These failures have been rooted in the <em>a-priori</em> notion, that both space (explicitly) and time (implicitly) are as Euclid's almost bestial <em>a-priori</em> assumptions of sense-perception wrongly presume them to be. </p> <p> However, since the work of such leading modern scientists as Riemann, Planck, and Einstein, the absurd notions of <em>space </em>which may be associated with the legacy of Euclid, have been called more seriously into question. Nonetheless, even among the so-called scientifically literate classes, a mistaken notion of <em>time</em>, considered as being consistent with the presumption of simple clock-time, maintains its stubborn grip on belief, even among some considered to be leading physical scientists. </p> <p> The matter of time is the crucial theme of this present report on the principles of economy. </p> <p> Nonetheless, despite those reasons for doubts, even among scientists, respecting the notion of simple clock-time, even on the most rudimentary level of the notion of dynamics, the popular tendency has been, as it might be said: to "go along with the popular notion of clock-time, to all practical intents and purposes." It is not until we pause to examine more closely the way in which human creativity functions in the effects of fundamental progress in physical science, or, also, the Classical metaphor of poetry and musical counterpoint, the more we begin to recognize the existence of a practicable approach to comprehension of this ironical character of the human experience of time as such:<em> </em>the <em>physical time of evolutionary change in the rate of human action per capita and per square kilometer at the Earth's surface, rather than clock time</em>. </p> <p> To introduce this point most simply, and yet forcefully, consider the following. </p> <p> The long reign of a Euclidean or similar pseudo-science, as within what is usually studied as ancient through modern European history, is echoed in the role of those arbitrary, <em>a-priori,</em> assumptions respecting space and time, which are, as I have just stated, above, associated with the same state of mind as faith in the fraudulent dogma of<strong> Euclid's Elements</strong>, that as according to what are still those popularly accepted, but incompetent presumptions. </p> <p> On the first account of those popular, but mistaken beliefs, the notion of <em>space</em>, the notion of an infinite Euclidean, or Cartesian space, is not acceptable in anything which should be allowed to pass for modern scientific method among respectable sorts of relevant modern institutions. Space put to one side; so, far, however, most opinion on the meaning of time is still worse than muddy, even among professionals. This failure by them has crucial bearing on the reasons for the failures of economists and relevant others so far today. </p> <p> So, despite the clear case respecting the falseness of belief in "space by itself, or time by itself," as made by such authorities as Albert Einstein, the needed correction for the notion of <em>physical time</em> (rather than "clock time") has not become anything better than can be met among a tiny fraction of what passes for literate expressions of contemporary scientific opinion. </p> <p> In outlining that case here, my emphasis is on the importance of a relativistic conception of physical time, as needed for competent argument in the field of a science of physical economy. This, however, is not merely the kind of a formal problem to be relegated to the classroom. My emphasis here is on the role of relativistic time in the practical work of that science of physical-economy which is my speciality. In that latter context, it points toward the implied requirements of the highly practical need for my own choice of a broader, and more profound approach to the notion of time urgently needed in the common practice of nations today. </p> <p> Currently, the most damaging error in the usual treatment of the subject of time, among even some persons formally certified as scientists, occurs chiefly as the expression of a widespread hoax, a dubious notion of thermodynamics which is traced to the supposed "authority" of the mid-Nineteenth-century activities of mechanistic dogmatists such as Rudolf Clausius, Hermann Grassmann, Lord Kelvin, and the later followers of Ernst Mach and, worse, Bertrand Russell. The "pro-Malthusian" form of political motive for that fraud, known as "The Second Law of Thermodynamics," is as interesting clinically, and important, as it is related to the study of the closely related implications of the popular folly, even among scientists, on the subject of time. </p> <p> I will return to that popular error in due course, here. First, I must define the issue as it is posed from the standpoint of the working scientist; in this case, I mean the standpoint of economic science, my profession, rather than mistaken appeals to the favor of today's wildly misguided popular opinion on that subject . </p> <p> Therefore, we must now work through the following discussion of some key features of the problem. </p> <p> In the rudimentary physics of design in construction, for example, we consider the specific relationship of the geometry of supporting structures, to the required mass of support required for the combined mass of both that support and that which it supports. The Paris Eiffel Tower is among the most conspicuous illustrations of this point, still for today. My own introduction to that physical view of geometry, came to me about the time I reached the age of fourteen, a consequence of my fascination with this ironical feature of the structures witnessed at the neighboring Boston area's Charlestown Navy Yard. As a result of that experience, I had rejected the notion of Euclidean geometry at my first secondary classroom encounter with it, and, as a result of that, soon became an admirer of some translated works of Gottfried Leibniz, that in some not-unimportant, relevant respects. </p> <p> In the science of physical economy, the same type of point is illustrated in the matter of the functional relationship of the infrastructure which supports production and its productivity, to the specific effect, that, obviously, infrastructure which supports no <em>physically productive</em> function by mankind, is waste, or, might be described as comparable to the role of the fruits of the act of masturbation in the production of society's wealth.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote16" name="fn16" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">16</a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span></sup> </p> <p> So much, so far, on background, for the matter of the physical function of space. What of the physical-economic function of time? </p> <p> <em><strong>Creativity</strong></em> <em><strong>as</strong></em> <em><strong>Human</strong></em> </p> <p> Insofar as our attention is focused upon the notion of the "creation of wealth," this signifies something which, in the view of competent animal ecologists, never occurs within the bounds of practice of any animal species, except through effects of biological evolution. Willful creativity never occurs except through the creative intervention of the human will, as by farmers, for example. Consider the contrasting cases of the so-called "animal kingdom" and society on account of this difference between man and beast. </p> <p> Fairly said, in the study of animal populations, but not in the case of mankind, the potential relative population-density of animal species, is not located essentially in the willful powers of the particular species, but, rather, in an ecology within the evolution of the Biosphere as a whole, integrated (dynamic) process. Thus, for example, the application of the specific idea of an animal ecology to mankind, is an intention and practice of a type, which, in the case of human society, would be tantamount to forms of fascism such as that Hitler-like, "green fascism" of Prince Philip's pro-genocidal World Wildlife Fund: a practice whose utopian expression is best described as "farming human populations" as one does flocks of hens or herds of cattle. Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring, like the lately deceased former Nazi-SS officer Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, and his fellow Prince Philip accomplice, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, typify their intended application, as by the World Wildlife Fund, of the ecological principles of mere animal populations to people. </p> <p> That view by such as that Prince Philip, the late Prince Bernhard, and Al Gore, is otherwise expressed in the perverted, already implicitly fascist notion of the contemporary descendants of Giammaria Ortes, and of his plagiarist Thomas Malthus, that the notion of "balance" within systems of animal ecologies must be also imposed upon human populations. </p> <p> We should not be surprised that this shameless, shared dogma of so-called "eugenics," as shared among the late Bertrand Russell and Aldous Huxley, Prince Philip, the late Prince Bernhard, and former Vice-President Al Gore, is approximately as incompetent for science, as it is as monstrous as it was in the paws of Hitler and Göring,, when applied to humanity. </p> <p> From the relevant standpoint of physical science, the essential functional difference between human and animal populations, is located in those potentially creative powers of human individual reason which are absent from all members of animal ecologies. Hence, we have Academician V.I. Vernadsky's distinction of Noösphere from Biosphere, to the following effect.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote17" name="fn17" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">17</a> <span class="print-footnote">[17]</span></sup> </p> <p> <em><strong>As Seen in Physical Science Generally</strong></em> </p> <p> At this point in our account, we must introduce an illustration of the functional meaning of creativity; the most appropriate approximation for that immediate purpose, is that uniqueness of Johannes Kepler's discovery of the principle of universal gravitation, as in his <strong>The Harmonies of the World</strong>. This work of Kepler serves at this point in my account, to point out the shocking incompetence of today's customary academic use of the term "creativity," as the contrary, true character of this discovery by Kepler was treated properly by Albert Einstein, as being the foundation of competence in modern, Riemannian, European physical science. </p> <p> On that account, I must, therefore, insert a qualification for what is to be said now. This qualification is, that all competent modern science is Riemannian in that coincidental sense of the use of the term "Riemannian" by both Einstein's treatment of the subject of Kepler's astronomy, and in the related case of Academician V.I. Vernadsky's defining of the physical chemistry of the Noösphere. The coincidence of intention expressed in these and related cases, hangs on that notion of dynamics which had been brought back to life, so to speak, by Gottfried Leibniz's defining the meaning of "dynamics" in connection with his attack on the incompetence of Descartes and, implicitly, also, Descartes' Seventeenth-Century and later empiricist followers.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote18" name="fn18" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">18</a> <span class="print-footnote">[18]</span></sup> The list of such relevant rogues as those empiricists, includes the philosophical mechanists Clausius and Grassman, Ernst Mach, and, most emphatically, the hoaxster Bertrand Russell. </p> <p> By the term "creativity," I mean such relevant historical occurrences as the duplication of the cube by Plato's contemporary Archytas; and, such modern cases as the discovery, by Filippo Brunelleschi, of the function of the physical principle of the catenary, as to be seen, still today, in the principle of design employed for the construction of the cupola of Florence's Santa Maria del Fiore; as to be read in the founding of the system of modern European physical science by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in his<strong> De Docta Ignorantia</strong>, or, in the uniquely original discovery of universal gravitation by Johannes Kepler; or, the principle of least action by Pierre de Fermat; and, the uniquely original discovery of the modern calculus by Gottfried Leibniz. Ironically, each of these discoveries expresses a common, shared principle of creativity which subsumes each and all as aspects of a common dynamic conception, as might be anticipated for the case of a set of events expressing one and the same physical universe. </p> <p> The avoidance of that error in defining creativity which each of us must be certain to ward off, requires that we stick strictly to Albert Einstein's approach to the subject of Kepler's discovery of the general principle of gravitation, as Kepler effected the original discovery, as shown in Kepler's <strong>The Harmonies of the World</strong>, and, then, Einstein's viewing Kepler's actual approach to that result from the standpoint of Einstein's adoption of the viewpoint of Bernhard Riemann. </p> <p> The risk of error lies in acceptance of the misleading assumption, that a principle of nature is defined by numerical values for an algebraic function, when, in fact, as for the case of Kepler's uniquely original discovery of gravitation, exactly the opposite relationship between principle and coefficient pertained. Any actually universal physical principle does not lie within the system; but, as Einstein insisted, it bounds it, that in the same sense that Einstein emphasizes, that in opposition to the pseudo-science of modern, Sarpian philosophical Liberalism, that gravitation is not a mechanical-like relationship within the system; rather, it bounds the entire system, both externally and internally, as a finite system of a form which is without external boundary at any given moment in the system's normal, continuing (<em>anti-entropic</em>) self-development. </p> <p> However, to grasp certain implications which are also already embedded, if only as systemic implications, in Einstein's presentation of the case, seek the greater degree of clarity required, by taking into account V.I. Vernadsky's distinction of Noösphere from Biosphere. </p> <p> Any system which does not lie within the Biosphere, lies either within the system of inherently non-living processes, or within the Noösphere which supersedes the Biosphere. No living process, or what is uniquely a relic of a living process, is a relic, as a living process, of the "pre-biotic" phase-space of our universe. Yet, no noëtic function of human mind is a specific product of the Biosphere. Yet, the universe, which contains the three, categorically distinct, and interacting phase-spaces (the <em>abiotic</em>, the <em>Biosphere</em>, and the <em>Noösphere</em>), which thus expresses a universal (creative) principle of anti-entropy, subsumes the three phase-spaces. That universe is intrinsically anti-entropic in and of itself, and imparts that inherently noëtic quality to that integrated process which it contains. Such a set of conclusions, is supported by the evidence of the accomplishments most distinctly characteristic of the creative powers (acting within the dynamic of society as such), the anti-entropy which is the characteristic seed-form of the human mind itself. </p> <p> Nothing demonstrates those principles more clearly, more emphatically, than the subject of a science of physical economy. Such is the implication of the notion of mankind's individual as a noëtic power of change within the universe. </p> <p> <em>Noësis</em> - - that quality which true human creativity shares with the universe as a whole - - is a principle in itself. By <em>noësis</em>, we signify an action of the type which adds a new principled element to the universe, such as the knowledge of the discovery of what is, for that person, a previously unknown, <em>lawful quality of</em> principle of the universe, as typified by Kepler's uniquely original discovery of universal gravitation, as presented by him in his<strong> The Harmonies of the World</strong>. </p> <p> All of the categorical discoveries of universal principle to which I have referred thus far, are contrary to that vile hoaxster Bertrand Russell, and are included among the dynamics of a common type of creativity. Therefore, wherever I employ the term "creativity" hereinafter, I signify that meaning of the term "creativity." </p> <p> <em><strong>Ecology, Economy & Creativity</strong></em> </p> <p> The universe, insofar as we presently know it, is essentially <em>anti-entropic</em>. Our Sun is a product of its immediate "neighborhood," that being our galaxy, which was in turn, a product of the universe as a whole. The Solar System, and its periodic table of elements and the like, are a product (of probably polarized thermonuclear fusion) generated by the evolution of a once faster-spinning, younger Sun. The preconditions for the appearance of living processes on Earth, are traced in apparently manifest origins to the development of our planet Earth. The species of life were ostensibly generated on Earth, but, probably, must have also appeared in locations such as other parts of our Solar system and beyond. The living species which wander, slither, crawl, fly, walk, or swim with apparent willfulness, on the land, within the upper crust of the Earth, and in the bodies of water, constitute an included part of what Academician V.I. Vernadsky defined for physical chemistry as a Biosphere. Into this setting came mankind. Mankind's characteristic, potential, <em>willful creativity</em>, is not found in any other known living species. </p> <p> The existence of mankind thus changes the ordering principle within the universe, away from what must be assumed to be the characteristic of a universe without the existence of mankind. </p> <p> The orders of life which appear amid such developments, are represented, as I have already said here, by two distinct general categories, the Biosphere and the Noösphere, as both have been defined with a certain scientific rigor by Academician Vernadsky. Although, we know of development within the Biosphere, from such orders as marsupials, to the superior placentals, no animal or comparable species of life, apart from mankind, has presented us with what can be classed as creative powers comparable to the quality which distinguishes the human species as absolutely superior, categorically, to other forms of life, even to forms generated, as ostensibly from marsupial to mammal within the domain of animal life. </p> <p> The relevant sort of gross demonstration of these distinctions of beast from man, is found in the comparison of the fixed difference of the dynamic of the biosphere as defined only by the animal species, to the breaking of such types of ecological boundaries by the presence of mankind. Man changes the value of the Biosphere, usually upward, by aid of the role of human creativity in changing the composition and anti-entropic values for the Biosphere. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Immortality of the Soul</strong></em> </p> <p> In my knowledge of the matter, the idea of the immortality of the human soul, came meaningfully into the province of European physical science only as an aspect of what some currents of Judaism share with the scientific implications of Christianity.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote19" name="fn19" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">19</a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span></sup> My own knowledge of the history of that concept of immortality, is rooted in references to the work of Plato, and that of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and his followers, as that concept of the principle human <em>dynamics</em> was illustrated as the argument of famously illustrated in the Vatican Library's "School of Athens" by Raphael Sanzio.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote20" name="fn20" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">20</a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span></sup> </p> <p> Any valid reading of the background for that view, pertains to the associated notion of a "simultaneity of eternity." This concept is, in turn, interchangeable, ontologically, with the notion of that human creativity which we trace in European history from the <em>Sphaerics</em> of the ancient Pythagoreans, Plato, and those of kindred insight and accomplishment. The celebrated, unique solution for the construction of the doubling of the cube, by Archytas, has been, historically, a scientifically crucial demonstration of the method of reconstructing knowledge congruent with that conception. Kepler's discovery of the general principle of gravitation, as in his<strong> The Harmonies of the World</strong>, is an expression of this, as is Fermat's concept of least action, and Gottfried Leibniz's uniquely original discovery of the principle of the infinitesimal calculus. </p> <p> In general, as in those instances which I have just referenced, the existence of action in physical space, like that of the infinitesimal of action in time, must replace the superstition of belief in "absolute" space and "absolute" time as such. That needed conception must be dynamic, not percussive. </p> <p> The demonstration of that principle of a science of physical economy which underlies the notion of a "simultaneity of eternity," was presented in a pedagogically expert way by Philo's argument denouncing the posturing of the Aristoteleans of his time. The relevant theological argument may be properly restated as follows. </p> <p> Aristotle's relevant argument is that since the Creator is perfect, the results of his work are perfect. Therefore, according to the argument of the relevant Aristolelians, once the Universe is "made," the Creator Himself could not be permitted to change it. The implication of this is, that the philosophical reductionists, of which that Aristotelean dogma is an example, would not have permitted a God who created the universe to have existed, in the first place. The point is, that the perfection of the Creation lies in the power of the Creator to change it. In other words, in real physical science, the fundamental law of the universe is the continuing power of creation: the universe is essentially an anti-entropic one, from which the concept of universal entropy is absolutely banned. </p> <p> In other words, to identify the conclusion to be reached in the simplest terms: the notion of a <em>permanent Creator</em> whose existence is contrary to the Aristotelean presumption attacked by Philo, implies (if it does not yet suffice to prove) the notion of a fixed conceptual reference-point of existence in a universe undergoing characteristically systemic transformations. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Role of Descartes</strong></em> </p> <p> For purposes of reference to modern empiricism, such as that of René Descartes and his modern dupes, let that follower of Paolo Sarpi, the thoroughly wicked Descartes, be the whipping-boy of reference for our argument here. Descartes is a follower of Paolo Sarpi, not Aristotle, but the argument against Aristotle follows for our purposes here. A brief comment on the historical significance of Descartes since Europe's early Eighteenth Century, is required, to situate historically what we have to say today. </p> <p> Descartes is, with one important qualification, the model used by Abbé Antonio Conti and others for the crafting of the synthetic personality of Sir Isaac Newton. The circle of fakers associated immediately with Newton was created chiefly as a faction intended to combat, even intended to eradicate the reputations of Johannes Kepler, Pierre de Fermat, Leibniz, and, to some degree, Christiaan Huyghens. The most significant target selected by the followers of Paolo Sarpi, during the Eighteenth Century and beyond, was Gottfried Leibniz. The desire for Leibniz's ruin, during the 1690s and beyond, a desire premised on the intention to defend the principal features of the claimed authority of Descartes, was the chief motivating factor in that work of a network of salons created to promote the reputation of the synthetic personality of Sir Isaac Newton, a project which was initiated by Abbé Antonio Conti and Voltaire, and implemented through a network of salons featuring Abraham de Moivre, D'Alembert, Leonhard Euler, Euler's intellectual protégé Lagrange, and such as Laplace, Augustin Cauchy, Clausius, Grassmann, and Lord Kelvin. </p> <p> After considering all features of that campaign by Conti et al. which are relevant for our consideration of the subject of the present chapter here, it is the neo-Euclidean conception of ontologically empty space and ontologically empty time, as defined by the follower of the Paolo Sarpi school's René Descartes, which fills the vacancy of the thought in physical and popular science for the presently still hegemonic, and popular empiricist school of leading trans-Atlantic opinion about scientific matters, still today. Even where the impact of Nineteenth-Century progress in continental European science has threatened to supplant the axiomatic, Cartesian notion of "Cartesian empty space," there is almost no significant progress, yet, in attention to the evidence exposing the fraud of the Euclidean-like "empty space" of clock-time. </p> <p> To understand the origins and characteristics of the fallacious notions of space and time being examined in this moment, the following, very ancient implications of the fraud by Descartes and his followers must be considered here. </p> <p> <em><strong>Clausius' Crime Against Science</strong></em> </p> <p> The most conspicuous obstacle to recognizing the reality of <em>physical time</em>, rather than clock time, has become the fraudulent assertion introduced, as the popularized cult of that mechanistic doctrine of thermodynamics premised on the initiative of Rudolf Clausius, the mathematician Hermann Grassmann, and their associate Lord Kelvin.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote21" name="fn21" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">21</a> <span class="print-footnote">[21]</span></sup> What inspired Clausius et al. is appropriately located as an echo of the argument by the fictional Olympian Zeus of Aeschylus' <strong>Prometheus Bound,</strong> in which Zeus menaces all mortal persons, pagan gods, and demi-gods alike with threat of the torture meted out to Prometheus, should anyone dare to inform mortal mankind of the existence of discoverable universal physical principles, such as "fire," by means of which human potential might be increased in fact. </p> <p> Although Aeschylus's report is one of the greatest Classical compositions in all of the known history of European civilization, what Aeschylus attributes to the mouth of Zeus is, in historical fact, the greatest political and moral issue in the known history of mankind, even still today. What is being expressed by Aeschylus' character Zeus, as by Clausius, Grassmann, and Kelvin, ranks among the cruelest frauds against science and mankind in the sum-total of known history to date; such is the effect of the doctrine known since Clausius, as <em>universal entropy, </em>or, before Clausius, by creatures such as the Giammaria Ortes whose English edition was so lavishly plagiarized by Thomas Malthus. </p> <p> The known origins of the oligarchical model prescribed by that fictitious Zeus<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote22" name="fn22" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">22</a> <span class="print-footnote">[22]</span></sup> are traced from the mists of more ancient millennia, into the rise of the type of oligarchical maritime model of both the Mediterranean region and land-based West Asia. The emerging characteristic of these cultures rooted in such ancient times, has been the model of society based upon the principle of human cattle, cattle who talk, but not too much, on the subject of the authority of what are esteemed as the pagan "god-like" or "semi-god-like," who are assigned the function of more or less arbitrary rule, a rule by flesh-and-blood demi-gods, whose power is limited by the still higher power of the pleasure of mythical invisible gods. The Homeric <strong>Iliad</strong> and <strong>Odessey</strong> are contrasted cases which illustrate the role of the tradition of such pagan gods and demi-gods, still today. </p> <p> So, the idea of the Roman Pantheon, and of the British empire struck in the model of Julian the Apostate, are illustrations of the reality of that pagan tradition, even if the visibly reigning authorities are not any real gods, but, merely the incarnate demi-gods of ruling social-political classes, classes which do as much as they can to promote adoration and fear of the alleged, invisible hand of the pagan gods of the City of London and Wall Street. </p> <p> To create and maintain organizations of society in which the majority of the population is bestialized through a maintained status as slaves, serfs, or modern European culture's pleasure-seeking fools, it has been considered necessary by those ruling classes, or by other circles of similar bent, to stupefy the general population into suitable states of submission, preferably self-induced submission to a conditioned culture which acts as invisible shackles on the mind of those intended to submit by self-inflicted habits and related ways of thinking. The indoctrination of foolish believers in <strong>Euclid's Elements</strong> must be prominently included as an example of this. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Prometheus Concept</strong></em> </p> <p> This problem was understood, in his fashion, by the Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa whose earlier <strong>Concordancia Catholica </strong>and <strong>De Docta Ignorantia</strong> have been prominent keystones on which Europe's escape from the Fourteenth-Century "New Dark Age" has depended, even to the extent this has happened thus far. Among the most crucial of the included contributions of Cusa, were expressed in his <strong>De Pace Fidei</strong>, the peace of faiths, and his crucial part in setting forth the policy which set Christopher Columbus on the course for discovery of the Americas. That is to emphasize, on the last account, that Cusa's recognition of the pernicious role of the Venetian financier oligarchy in its effort to destroy the great, mid-Fifteenth Century European renaissance, required crossing the oceans to develop Europe's relations on other continents. Columbus, who encountered and adopted this policy of Cusa's, about 1480 A.D., thus produced the initiative which led the best currents of Europe to taking, hopefully, some of the best of Europe's culture to a distant place of relative safety, freed from the immediate grip of Europe's, essentially financier-controlled oligarchy. </p> <p> The fortunate outcome of that was the founding of the U.S. Federal constitutional republic; the unfortunate thing, was that the European financier and related oligarchies pursued the European colonies across the oceans, and sought to bring about their permanent submission to European oligarchical corruption, as imperial London's creation, the North American Confederacy, was formed to this purpose, and London's pet, Wall Street, has continued this predatory role of seduction and other corruption under a just ended, monstrously morally and financially corrupt U.S. Presidency from whose induced state of wreckage we are now struggling to arise again. </p> <p> Yet, all that, and much more said to the same effect, the nature of the human individual, as distinct from the nature of all lower forms of life, is shown to be efficient, in that the inherent creative powers, and inborn character of the human individual, has produced an improvement in the size and condition of the human population in general, and has also given us the means of potential to succeed in reaching levels of achievement never known by any other species during, or before our present time. </p> <p> The actuality, and, more significantly, the potentiality for such continued achievement lives within and among us today. All of this achievement, and all potential for future achievement, depend upon the truth of that spoken by the fictional Prometheus of <strong>Prometheus Bound</strong>, and also spoken, implicitly or otherwise, by those who see in the human species a power for development which brings us toward a likeness to the Author of this universe, if we are but willing, and enabled to accept that challenge of immortality. </p> <p> So, as the U.S. Declaration of Independence quoted Gottfried Leibniz's "the pursuit of happiness" in the founding of our republic, it is the goal of reconciling our purpose in existence to that outcome of our existence as personalities beyond the beastly aspect of our incarnation, which is the standpoint in personal commitment which would prompt us to yearn for a certain immortality which is expressed in sundry ways, including scientific and technological progress in the condition, and the increase of power, per capita, and per square kilometer, of the human species so destined. </p> <p> <em><strong>'Aye, there's the rub'</strong></em> </p> <p> So far, so good. However, astute readers of these lines already know, that all to be considered on this account is seldom truth or goodness. The most common experience of a person who seeks to be good in the sense I have just indicated, that from childhood, is that he, or she, when pursuing the goals of cognitive self-development toward which I have just pointed above, will often find himself, or herself the target of a "black chick, white chick" phenomenon. Will he, or she, be able to stand up for truth, when a popular or kindred lie is demanded? It is often fairly said, that the principle of torture is "sweet conformity." </p> <p> "Why do students lie in school?" As Adam Smith wrote in his 1759 <strong>Theory of the Moral Sentiments</strong>: in pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Truth does not necessarily come up for consideration, in either classroom, or playground; what you are expected to repeat, does. Thus, in our society today, speaking truth is usually avoided, and frequently even dangerous. Being popular has its perils, but it is nonetheless the usual goal of those who are, at least temporarily, prosperous and influential, until they come upon what they come to consider the sudden injustice of their own misfortune. </p> <p> It should become obvious, sooner or later, to those who have some sort of what is called "a realistic outlook," that the delusions of those who think themselves either successful, or about to become successful, are the chains of delusion through which those who think themselves on the top of things, are mustered to ride herd on those who, for the moment, are on the bottom. However, an exchange of place usually lurks nearby. </p> <p> Truth lies not in the past or present, but in devotion to a better future. A "better future" usually turns out to be something which develops, as for Niccolo Machiavelli, when one is rather old, or already deceased. Wisdom is usually devotion to what a future generation should experience. This means, in turn, that happiness, in the sense of the passage from Leibniz contained with the 1776 <strong>U.S. Declaration of Independence</strong>, means an assurance of the future outcome of the present. </p> <p> Take Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet as a case in point. In the famous soliloquy, "To be, or not to be," Hamlet contemplates his adopted devotion to his own doom. This is not because there is no alternative; but, there is no acceptable alternative for a member in good standing, even any official of his self-doomed society. The doom lies not within himself, but in the relevant characteristic of his society, a cage formed of the compulsions of adherence to the habit of his society, from which he is unwilling to escape completely. In Schiller's <strong>Wallenstein</strong> trilogy, it is not what Wallenstein does, which is his fate, but that which he does not know how to do, precisely because the evil which grips his society, is not his own, but he is a prisoner of both the culture, in the tradition of the Netherlands wars, and a prisoner of the cultural setting of the Habsburgs and Paolo Sarpi, not the Westphalian impulse of a Cardinal Mazarin. After all, Schiller's <strong>Wallenstein</strong> is not fiction, but the shadow of real history put on stage as historically truthful drama. </p> <p> <strong>II. DYNAMICS & CREATIVITY</strong> </p> <p> Since the introduction of this report as a whole, I have repeatedly emphasized, here, the decisive importance of that concept of dynamics which Leibniz had revived from the <em>dynamis</em> of Classical Greek science, as being the crucial principle upon which all competent notions of economy are to be premised. So, echoing Percy Shelley's <strong>A Defence of Poetry</strong>, I emphasized that the dynamic which subsumes the equivalent of the Classical musical composition as a whole, particularly that in the tradition of Johann Sebastian Bach, is the key to the whole action of which the various, subsumed elements are only subordinated aspects. </p> <p> As I have pointed out repeatedly, above, the function of human creativity, as distinct from anything encountered among lower forms of life, is that once a valid discovery of principle is made, the discoverer, or his or her mentors, should be reminded to relive that act of discovery. This process of reliving the act of discovery, has a feature of crucial significance. That is, once a discovery has been made and validated in its own terms, we must return to the origin of that specific discovery, this time to rediscover the universe which has been changed by the initially successful discovery. </p> <p> The point to be emphasized so, is that the nature of any valid principle of the universe is its universality. Thus, while a discovery of a principled form of action is made, we must then discover whether this takes into account all of the changes which our discovery has made <em>in defining the universe within which it has occurred</em>. </p> <p> That leads to outbursts of the following relevance: "We have just made a valid discovery of what is, in its own terms, a universal principle. Since such a success, however otherwise limited, has changed our idea of the universe from what it had been a moment earlier, we must now hypothesize and experiment afresh, this time to discover the universe which has been changed from that which we had thought we knew before the new discovery was to be added to our roster." </p> <p> Take cases such as Archytas' duplication of the cube, Brunelleschi's discovery of the physical principle of the catenary, Nicholas of Cusa's <strong>De Docta Ignorantia</strong>, Kepler's discovery of the principal of universal gravitation, Fermat's discovery of the principle of least action, and Leibniz's uniquely original discovery of the calculus, as examples. Then take all discoveries which have a similar quality of uniqueness as principles, whether in science or Classical art-forms. These typify, individually, or as combined, the kind of notions which are key to identifying the principles which subsume, and situate the composition as a unified whole effect. Each of these discoveries required the subsequent discovery of an added, principled consideration. </p> <p> There is no linear (e.g., statistical) continuity in the unfolding of history. </p> <p> With the introduction of this concept of dynamics, as Hermann Minkowski proposed for a reform of physics, "space by itself, and time by itself" cease to exist. (Unfortunately, the brilliant Minkowski erred in choosing Lobatchevskian geometry, rather than Riemannian.) The part then partakes of the nature of the whole, and, more than that, conveys the nature of the whole in each impact of the part. </p> <p> Now, interpose the intention to act according to such a principle of dynamics in an interval of action. Such a development presents us with a form of relevant, creative action within an interval of time for that action. This defines the general meaning of relativistic time. Thus, through the role of principles of actions which transform space-time, neither space nor time are empty forms. We have, simply said, physical space-time, instead. </p> <p> That application of such a conception of dynamics to social processes considered in those terms, is the true key to the principles of a practiced science of physical economy. The natural outcome of that, is that the underlying principle of a competent science of economy, and of related features of social interaction and development otherwise, is Riemannian dynamics as the work of Einstein and Vernadsky typify the role of Riemannian dynamics in all competent modern physical science. </p> <p> Take a relatively simple type of action, corresponding to an included enhancement of a principle, from the process of physical production. This enhances the productive powers of labor, even if the action of the human operative has not been altered, otherwise. What is characteristic of one part of the productive process, in a system, is radiated as an expression of dynamics in the whole. </p> <p> Thus, through the introduction of relevant new physical principles, the productivity of the economy as a whole has been increased, in just the same general way that the experience of what turned out to be the creation of our U.S.A. has been a dynamic characteristic of the distinction of the U.S. society from European societies of the same stock included among those with us, here. </p> <p> This enhancement is not limited to the action of production itself. The enhancement of the environment of production also enhances the expressed productivity. The part of the dynamic as a whole, expresses the whole, in the sense that the citizen, whatever else he or she embodies, nonetheless also reflects the dynamic character of the society as a whole. </p> <p> In general, in production, the increase of the energy-flux-density of the production or comparable action, increases the net productive powers of labor, even if no other change has occurred at the point of production. </p> <p> For example, among the poor of India and Africa, no significant rate of increase in local productivity, as in farming, can be secured from production; a generation or two of favorable preconditions were needed for that. However, if we turn our attention to recommended improvements in infrastructure, as through charging the thorium nuclear reactors for developing increased water supplies, there can be a large net increase in net product through factors of basic economic infrastructure. </p> <p> For example, in the U.S.A., as in Europe, there has been a catastrophic drop in actually productive activity per capita, a shift accompanied by essentially non-productive make-work, paid for out of reduced income for those employed in actually productive work. The shift to lower technologies, as using highly inefficient "free energy" and similar very low-grade power-sources, for alleged "environmental" reasons, has been a prominent part of national economic catastrophes in the U.S.A. and Europe. </p> <p> A related, implicitly disastrous effect has been the lowering of the productive capacity of the general population through the catastrophic loss of productive skills through increasing emphasis on "alternative" forms of make-work employment. </p> <p> Or, if we replace hours of commuting lost through congested traffic patterns, or lost through excessive distance travelled, we have tended to increase the net productive powers of labor of that society, even if no other improvement were introduced as a factor. </p> <p> This applies not only to particular enhancements of such a form; the disposition of the relevant population for adopting such enhancements, is also determining. </p> <p> Generally, there are two general "dimensions" of culture which tend to shape the relative potential of a population for performance. The variability of the potential among national cultures generally, and among the sub-sectors of national cultures, acts similarly. </p> <p> In general, increase of the productive powers of labor requires an increase of relative physical-capital intensity, as well as scientific-technological intensity, including improved qualities and degrees of education, and including greater required emphasis on Classical forms of culture, rather than dionysiac revels. </p> <p> Similarly, the relative price of the element of the national bill of materials, is a relative price which tends to adapt to what the whole requires for it. </p> <p> <em><strong>The U.S.A. & Germany: 1877-1890</strong></em> </p> <p> One of the greatest leaps in national productivity per capita and per square kilometer, occurred in Germany under the leadership of Chancellor Bismarck, between approximately the 1877 aftermath of the U.S.A.'s great Philadelphia Centennial and the ruinous effects of the ouster of Bismarck from the Chancellory. The cause for this progress in Germany was, primarily, the effects of the U.S. victory over the British Empire in the U.S. Civil War of 1861-1865, and the explosion of agro-industrial progress in the U.S.A. during the immediate post-Civil War decade. </p> <p> Indeed, the cause for what became known as the international wars organized by the British Empire between 1895 (Japan against China) through the close of the first World War, was made possible by the combined effects of the ouster of Bismarck and the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley, enabling the Prince of Wales and later King Edward VII to pit the two cousins, Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm and Russia's Czar Nicholas in war against one another, all for the greater glory of the British Empire. </p> <p> It was implied that Britain's motive in launching those "Seven-Years-War-like" war of the 1890-1917 interval was war against transcontinental railway building on the continents of North America and Eurasia. This was, indeed, the keystone motive for all of the wars of the interval, but the more essential issue behind the opposition to transcontinental railways, was that such railway systems shifted the potential power of economies, as measured per capita and per square kilometer, from sea-based, to land-based development, thus undermining the maritime supremacy strategic to the perpetuation of the British empire. Otherwise, that motive of the British financier interest was, as always, and still today, the intent to represent a global financier-imperialist maritime power, to dominate the planet as a whole, forever (it would never succeed, in the end; but they did keep trying). </p> <p> Thus, the wrecking of the U.S. transcontinental railway system through the promotion of highway motor traffic as a substitute, was, intrinsically, a cause of the ruin of the productivity of the U.S. economy, per capita, and per square kilometer. </p> <p> In these matters, the physical organization of the economy is essential, but the mental social-cultural organization of the mind and disposition of the population, is even more significant. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Issue Is Productivity</strong></em> </p> <p> In my two most recent webcasts, one of the issues posed as a question from among the participants, was the subject of the benefits of the income of operatives whose source of income was not production. The argument of the question was along the lines of the inherently fraudulent dogma of "marginal utility" introduced in the later Nineteenth Century phase of British imperial perversions. </p> <p> Ultimately, all true wealth of nations arises from physical-productive output. This is effected either through physical production as such, or as activities which are essential to either that production itself or the households which supply functionally necessary support for the functions of physical production, such as science and engineering, and the essential administration of government and productive enterprises. Marginal utility is sheer bunk. </p> <p> The cult-dogma of "marginal utility" presumes that there is a potential equilibrium between prices of goods or services and the relative "good" which society senses (by some mysterious organ) in a certain ratio of each considered "utility" to the society as a whole. E.g., "cocaine" and "heroin" make some people happy. There is, in fact, no natural money-price which could be equilibriated. U.S.A. and other past experience has shown, that social agreement on a range of "fair trade" prices is the best option for defining price-ranges. There is nothing inhering in that object called a commodity which defines a proper price for it. </p> <p> There are three principal aspects to national productivity, when that productivity is assessed in terms of those principles of dynamics reflected in this report. </p> <p> One is at the virtual "point of production." A second is the technology and related capital formation in which the production and circulation of the product is situated. A third is the society in which both the productive individual and that individual's household is situated, and also the physical capital formation invested in both of the previous two aspects of the process. The part reflects, and thus radiates, that which it represents within the whole. </p> <p> That point is conveniently illustrated by referring to the related point that, contrary to the obscene suggestions of the so-called "globalizers," virtually all good product tends to reflect a national cultural character of the product and its production. So, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a lunatic venture whose time will never come. Up to eighty percentile of the product consumed in any region of the world should be produced within that region. This rule ensures lowering the net cost and supporting the benefit to the consumer nation. </p> <p> The corollary of these considerations lies in the nature of the principles of the dynamics of technological progress. On this account, there is, most immediately, the generation and transmission of the relevant advance in technology, and also the technology-intensity of the physical-economic accumulation of both technological capital applied and that consumed. There is the capital-intensive level of accumulated investment in technology in use to be considered, and the rate of capital-intensive and technology intensive productivity and product development to be considered. </p> <p> A British gentleman once uttered a book on the subject of "the production of commodities by commodities." The author was clever, but essentially mistaken. The subject of a proper book would have been the progress of mankind through the progress of man's scientific-progress-driven, increasingly capital-intensive production of man. Creative progress in the individual human mind's comprehension of the universe, through aid of fundamental scientific progress in rising levels of progress in technological intensity had been a better title, and, hopefully, also better content for a book. </p> <p> <strong>30-30-30</strong></p> <div id="footnote-region"><h3>Footnotes</h3><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn1"><span class="number">1.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[23]</span> <p>This report was prepared in response to an important question, presented by relevant professionals, presented to me during the January 22, 2009 LaRouche PAC webcast.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn2"><span class="number">2.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[24]</span> <p>From misleading conceptions premised upon the notion of money, to that of physical values.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn3"><span class="number">3.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[25]</span> <p>Learn the homely wisdom of the ghosts in the celebrated German film<em> </em><strong>Spukschloss in Spessart</strong><em> </em>who said<em>, "Die Hauptsache ist der Effekt" </em>("The effect is what's most important.")</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn4"><span class="number">4.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[26]</span> <p>Kepler's demonstration that neither the sense of sight, nor hearing could account for the harmonic composition of the Solar System, freed science from the grip of the folly of sense-certainty, especially the folly of the modern European empiricism of the followers of Paolo Sarpi. Although this had been anticipated by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, as in Cusa's seminal <strong>De Docta Ignorantia</strong>, and was already clear in the work of Pythagoreans such as Archytas, and of Plato, the actual experimental demonstration of this underlying principle of all competent modern physical science, is owed to the concrete work of Kepler. Hence, Albert Einstein's celebrated argument in support of both Kepler and Riemann.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn5"><span class="number">5.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[27]</span> <p>Such as the Daniel Wood who ran an "underground railway station" in Delaware County, Ohio.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn6"><span class="number">6.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[28]</span> <p>An American family of English ancestry identified, chiefly, within a genealogical study known as "The Lancaster Family."</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn7"><span class="number">7.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[29]</span> <p>Herein lies the root of the common failures of the customary opinion-pollsters. They mistake the footprint left by the mind, for the living foot which had left that print, a print which was often a misleading indication of the intention which that print reflected. Hence, we have revolutions and other developments by a society which take most of that society by surprise, when those strata see the unintended effects which their expressed opinion had created.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn8"><span class="number">8.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[30]</span> <p>The oligarchical currents within our U.S.A. have been limited, chiefly, to the families associated with the British East India Company, and, a variant of that, the slaveholder pseudo-culture of the U.S. Federal states in which chattel slavery came to be promoted.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn9"><span class="number">9.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[31]</span> <p>"Imagination," as employed here, does not signify "unreal;" it signifies products of the functions of the mind, rather than of mere sense-perception as such. As in all valid expressions of Classical poetry and drama, the imagination is the substance of the idea, called<em> irony</em>, whereas the relevant sense-perception is the shadow. One does not recognize one's beloved by sense-perception as such, but through those powers of the imagination needed to distinguish the person from the mere sensory form of image, as for the case of a "changeling." Irony, including metaphor, typifies this. Objects which exist, but are sensed directly only as microscopic, or sub-microscopic, are typical of this. Shelley's <strong>A Defence of Poetry</strong> is clear on the matter of this distinction.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn10"><span class="number">10.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[32]</span> <p>This present report is a continuation, but in broader terms, of my own. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., "The Lesson of Pearl Harbor Day," <strong>EIR</strong>, Dec. 19, 2008. I emphasize the presently urgent, following excerpt, taken from that paragraph which I have often quoted, orally and in print, more or less in full from Shelley (the <strong>Harvard Classics</strong> edition in my possession and use during the middle of the 1930s and early 1940s). I quote myself, thus, as quoting Shelley repeatedly over decades, as follows: "...we live among such philosophers and poets as surpass beyond comparison any who have appeared since the last national struggle for civil and religious liberty. The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods, there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving profound and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The persons in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, the power which is seated upon the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations: for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age...." That passage must be restated, in print and sung aloud, repeatedly, for the sake of its unique relevance as being uttered by me, yet once again, as stating a principle which is typical of every culture, in every age: that the individual member of society should become able to recognize himself, or herself, as expressing a behavior which is often, predominantly, typical of the movement of his, or her time, rather than simply a conscious product of his own, individual opinion-making. (My punctuation and editing.) Without that concluding paragraph of his <strong>A Defence of Poetry</strong>, any reprint of Shelley's piece were fraudulent by intent.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn11"><span class="number">11.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[33]</span> <p>N.B., During the ebb in that glacial continuum estimated by some as about the recent two millions years, which is on the rise, again, today.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn12"><span class="number">12.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[34]</span> <p>The original reference to experience from which the meaning of the term <em>astronavigation</em> should be derived is not essentially "space-travel," but forms of transoceanic navigation which take into account the effects specific to changes in specific astronomical experiences, from fixed to variable, which are relevant to transoceanic navigation within what had appeared, initially, as a permanently fixed set of changes within the ordering of the planets or specifically stellar phenomena. The Classical name for a practiced body of physical science so defined, is that Egyptian-Greek science of <em>Sphaerics</em>, associated with the Pythagoreans and the method of Plato. For example, any truly universal physical principle is, contrary to all empiricist doctrine, the image of a reflection of any change in the universe, local or other, whose efficient origin, as a principle of action, lies within the existence of the universe as a whole. The Vedic record of the Equinoctial cycle, as reported from seemingly land-locked central Asia, reveals its ancient maritime origins and relations to cycles within our planet's presently continuing ice-age.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn13"><span class="number">13.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[35]</span> <p>Long-term changes in the composition of the observed astrophysical system itself.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn14"><span class="number">14.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[36]</span> <p>In a competent view, or performance of any Classical tragedy, the tragic factor lies in the adopted cultural habits shared among virtually an entire class of people, or the culture as a whole at that time; the individual's character is tragic only to the degree that he, or she is controlled by a habituated notion of principled behavior shared by an entire class of people, or as a "species-like" principle permeating even the culture of the population as a whole. In physical science, for example, belief in the <em>a-prior</em><em>i </em> elements of <strong>Euclid's Elements</strong>, embodies what must be recognized as a society's tragedy, that in the same general sense that the opening two paragraphs and concluding sentence of Bernhard Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation (the virtual "book-ends" of that composition as a whole) discredit the tragedy characteristic of Euclid's admirers. Such principled distinctions, point out almost any kind of a popular folly of an entire population, that in fashion often suggesting the common, controlling feature subsuming the process of a slime-mold.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn15"><span class="number">15.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[37]</span> <p>The actual downturn in the rate of immediate progress of the American Revolution, came with Lord Shelburne's role in the 1782 establishment of the British Foreign Office. Thus, Shelburne caused the negotiation of a peace treaty to divide the U.S.A., French, and Spanish allies by separate British negotiations with each. The special relationships, between Shelburne and his lackeys Jeremy Bentham and Edward Gibbon on the British side, and the set of such as Philippe Egalité, Philippe's Swiss banking crony Jacques Necker, and the Martinist freemasonry generally, on the other, triggered the setting and unfolding of the history of the world, from the siege of the Bastille, on, under what has been called "The British Empire," from 1782 to the present day. The British East India Company's empire was established in fact, as a private empire of that company, by the February 1763 Peace of Paris; but, the systemic features of the government of that empire were established by Shelburne's adoption of Gibbon's model of Julian the Apostate.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn16"><span class="number">16.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[38]</span> <p>The apologist might argue that, it may not be productive, but it might be considered as threatening to produce, even without ever producing what its advocate purports to simulate. The Rockefeller Foundation's recent proposal to perpetrate the public display of "economic masturbation for a price" in supporting the "infrastructure" swindle of New York's Mayor Bloomberg and Californication's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is an illustration of the principle involved.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn17"><span class="number">17.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[39]</span> <p>Although Vernadsky was prompted to adopt the term "Noösphere" from his encounter with the use of that term by Teilhard de Chardin, the systemic features of the use of the term by Vernadsky are rooted in his application of the standpoint of Riemannian physics, not those quaintly mystical, reductionist schemes of Teilhard de Chardin, as those associated with the infamous Piltdown hoax.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn18"><span class="number">18.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[40]</span> <p>Such as "the usual suspects" Abbé Antonio Conti, Abraham de Moivre, D'Alembert, Leonhard Euler, Joseph Lagrange, Laplace, and the sometime plagiarist and hoaxster Augustin Cauchy.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn19"><span class="number">19.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[41]</span> <p>E.g. the exposure of the fraud of Aristotle by Philo of Alexandria, and the work of Moses Mendelssohn.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn20"><span class="number">20.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[42]</span> <p>Some would say, that the figure of Plato is pointing the way to God the Creator, while Aristotle, in a like manner, is directing his minions to Hell. I believe that Philo would agree strongly with me on that point.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn21"><span class="number">21.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[43]</span> <p>See <strong>Bernhard Riemanns Gesammelte Mathematische Werke</strong>, H. Weber, ed. (New York: Dover Publications reprint, 1953), footnote on p. 293. The posthumous attack on Riemann's work, by editor Heinrich Weber there, is premised on the presumed authority of Clausius, although the argument was actually made by Clausius' associate, the mathematician Grassmann. The significance of this matter is located in the text of the body of this report, above.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn22"><span class="number">22.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[44]</span> <p>It is to be conceded that there is an argued, and likely historical basis for that model of the Olympian Zeus, as the Roman (Sicilian) chronicler Diodorus Siculus attributes the information to both Egyptian chronicles and the legends of the Berbers of his own time. The Middle Eastern documentation traces the origin of the oligarchical model referenced as the case of the Zeus of Aeschylus's <strong>Prometheus Bound</strong> to its exemplification by the degeneration of the bow-tenure system of an Indian Ocean-based maritime culture from the Fourth Millenium B.C., which degenerated, and was replaced by an emerging Semitic culture, which became, in turn, the root of the Babylonian and related oligarchical models of later times.</p> </div></div></div> <div class="print-links"><p><strong>Links:</strong><br>[1] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote1">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote1</a><br> [2] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote2">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote2</a><br> [3] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote3">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote3</a><br> [4] <a 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href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote12">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote12</a><br> [13] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote13">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote13</a><br> [14] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote14">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote14</a><br> [15] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote15">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote15</a><br> [16] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote16">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote16</a><br> [17] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote17">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote17</a><br> [18] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote18">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote18</a><br> [19] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote19">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote19</a><br> [20] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote20">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote20</a><br> [21] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote21">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote21</a><br> [22] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote22">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#footnote22</a><br> [23] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn1">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn1</a><br> [24] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn2">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn2</a><br> [25] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn3">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn3</a><br> [26] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn4">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn4</a><br> [27] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn5">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn5</a><br> [28] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn6">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn6</a><br> [29] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn7">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn7</a><br> [30] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn8">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn8</a><br> [31] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn9">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn9</a><br> [32] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn10">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn10</a><br> [33] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn11">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn11</a><br> [34] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn12">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn12</a><br> [35] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn13">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn13</a><br> [36] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn14">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn14</a><br> [37] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn15">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn15</a><br> [38] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn16">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn16</a><br> [39] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn17">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn17</a><br> [40] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn18">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn18</a><br> [41] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn19">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn19</a><br> [42] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn20">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn20</a><br> [43] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn21">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn21</a><br> [44] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn22">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7872#fn22</a><br> </p></div> <div class="print-footer"><img src="http://www.larouchepac.com/sites/all/themes/lpac/images/print_footer.png" width="595" height="120"></div> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-57630021045794043902009-03-01T22:37:00.003-08:002009-03-01T22:37:53.861-08:00Part II: The Meaning of Physical Time<base href="http://www.larouchepac.com/print/7932"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <div class="print-logo" style="text-align: center"><img src="http://www.larouchepac.com/sites/all/themes/lpac/images/print_header.png" width="595" height="120"></div> <p> </p><h1 class="print-title" style="text-align: center">Part II: The Meaning of Physical Time</h1> <p> </p><div class="print-content" style="text-align: justify;"><p><em>More on Physical Time:</em> </p> <p><strong>THE MEANING OF PHYSICAL TIME</strong> </p> <p>by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. </p> <p><em>February 3, 2009</em> </p> <p><em>--------------------------------------------------------------------</em> </p> <p><em>My report "Nations as Dynamical" concluded with a summary outline of the economist's working definition of physical time, as opposed to clock time. Now, still responding to the same relevant question posted orally to my January 22</em><em>nd</em><em> website address, I focus on some essential implications of the role of physical time as such. I compare physical time, as a conception of a principle of physical space-time, with the related concept of physical space.</em> </p> <p><em>--------------------------------------------------------------------</em> </p> <p><em><strong>Foreword:</strong></em> </p> <p><strong>LEIBNIZ ON DESCARTES</strong> </p> <p> Now, as a few words on background, I present some prefatory observations on the subject of Leibniz's exposure of the fraudulent thesis of Rene Descartes. Thereafter, this report will turn to the indispensable further development of the argument, respecting creativity as such, which was identified in the concluding portion of my "Nations as Dynamical." </p> <p> To summarize the relevant leading points in "Nations as Dynamical," I state the following. </p> <p> The fact that a modern concept of physical-space is distinct from such silly notions of space as those of <strong>Euclid's Elements</strong> and Rene Descartes, was the premise of a major step forward in modern science by Gottfried Leibniz, as in a series of his writings dating from the 1690s on. For my purpose here, let me suggest to you that the most convenient among his initial statements to be referenced on this matter, might be his 1695 <strong>Specimen Dynamicum.</strong> In other writings commenting on his decision, Leibniz attributed the prompting of his own discovery of this fact to his close examination of the experimental evidence of certain systemic errors in Descartes' writings, errors which demonstrated the absurdity of the cardinal elements of Descartes' efforts to define a Sarpian (quasi-Euclidean), <em>a-priori</em> notion of the distinctions among space, time, and matter.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote1" name="fn1" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">1</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span></sup> </p> <p> The germ of the modern discovery of a concept of physical-time, as opposed to clock-time, was already implicit in the relevance of Leibniz's introduction of Fermat's principle of least action, and into the development of the Gottfried Leibniz-Jean Bernouilli development of the higher principle of physical least action. This initiative of Leibniz and Bernouilli, led into the exposure of the fraud of what was allegedly Isaac Newton's theory of light, as that fraud was exposed by the Ecole Polytechnique circles of François Arago and associate Augustin Fresnel. The specific, chief achievement of Fresnel, lay in his tracing out certain deeper, ontological implications of the functional difference between, on the one side, the pro-Cartesian, corpuscular notion of radiation of light which had been attributed to the authorship of Sir Isaac Newton,<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote2" name="fn2" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">2</a> <span class="print-footnote">[2]</span></sup> and, opposing that, that physical principle of harmonics which had been established by Johannes Kepler's original discovery of the general astrophysical principle of gravitation in his <strong>The Harmonies of the World</strong>. </p> <p> However, while all that I have just restated in these preceding paragraphs is true, scientifically and otherwise, what I have said within my "Nations as Dynamical," as a statement of a conclusion reached, left it to this present report to include the explicit process of discovery by means of which Kepler, among the predecessors of Fresnel, reached and proved his conclusion. </p> <p> Contrary to what I emphasize in this present report, the typical sophist argues like the groom marrying what might appear to him as a beautiful bride, when she is only a wooden department-store dummy. As the years pass, he wonders (like a typical mathematician) why she never becomes pregnant! So, similarly, the sophists have argued against Kepler, and in favor of the customary, merely descriptive, reductionist nonsense on the subject. It is relevant, for understanding the achievement of Fresnel, that such opponents of Kepler ignored the fact, that Kepler's own discovery, which was a product of a conclusion rooted in a rigorous, experimental proof of principle, against which they had argued, against his conclusion, without any consideration of his proof and his development of that proof. </p> <p> Dummies made of wood, plaster, or less gracious material, aside, Kepler's proof lay within his recognition that, although his experimental evidence relied upon both optical and auditory assumptions, respectively, neither form of sensory conception used, could be reconciled, by itself, as if mathematically, with the other. As the famous case of Helen Keller illustrates the crucial point of evidence for Kepler's case, reality lies, in principle, outside the bounds of literal readings of sense-perceptions. As Louis Pasteur emphasized, it is what are, ostensibly, as the exceptions to the presumed rule, which are the scientifically interesting realities of life, the realities properly recognized as truly universal physical principles. That same point by Pasteur, is to be translated into practice as principles which, in and of themselves, lie outside sense-certainty, that because they correspond to Johannes Kepler's uniquely original discovery of the way in which a general principle of Solar-systemic gravitation lies within the irony of <em>the contradiction between</em> the mental image of vision and of harmonically ordered hearing. <em>The optical and auditory experiences are not the reality of the matter; they are the adumbrated shadows cast by a reality which the senses themselves do not report.</em> <em>The human mind, not the senses, must discover, and demonstrate the object</em> which these mere shadows have cast upon the sense-organs. </p> <p> So, it happens, that in much of what passes for modern physical and related science, the professional does not actually have an understanding of the relevant original process of discovery, but, instead, simply relies upon the convenience of the apparently proven accuracy of some mere mathematical formulation, or its like, as a substitute for the actual process by which the discovery itself was made. The crucial issue which I emphasized in my <strong>Nations as Dynamical</strong>, was that the issue of the ontological character of human creativity as such, requires a more rigorous kind of consideration than what the unfortunately typical, contemporary owner of a doctorate in physical science has actually worked through. Here, we require clarification on the matter of <em>the ontological nature</em> of a principle of physical economy as such, as I do in this present report. </p> <p> We must, therefore, focus attention here on the subject of the method for discovery of the physical principle of creativity in the field of the science of physical economy as such. Focus of attention on essentially relevant elements of the work of Johannes Kepler, Leibniz, Riemann, et al., as such, is (as I shall show in a third paper of this series) essential for true insight into the indispensable role of scientific creativity in "driving" a recovery of the U.S.A. and other economies from the onrushing general breakdown-crisis currently nearing the point of a general, physical-economic breakdown. </p> <p><strong>1.EFFECTIVE WORK PER-SECOND</strong> </p> <p> Throw aside what would pass in <strong>The New York Times</strong> counterfeiting style book, or comparable locations, for today's misuse of the term "creativity." The usual meaning associated with the term "creative," is, scientifically, mumbling nonsense; often, the defense of such nonsense as the <strong>Times</strong>', is of the form, "None of the friends I trust will disagree with me." Contrary to such pathetic expressions of opinion as that, in competent scientific practice, "creative" has a specific, and rarely recognized, special meaning, a meaning which does not exist in the lexicons of typical, recent university graduates, or relevant others, today. </p> <p> Properly employed, that term, "creative," does have a very important, specific, scientific meaning. It refers to <em>a quality of the individual human mind which does not exist among lower forms of life, nor a typical Wall Street figure of today. </em>It refers to a term whose true meaning is rarely intended when the term "creativity" is ordinarily employed in academic, or related usage today. </p> <p> To identify a much-needed, competent definition for the term "creativity," we must restrict the term's use, either to principles of nature which exist, and which in forms of life lower than mankind, but, even among our species, rarely occur as an expression of voluntary willfulness today, except among exceptional members of our human species, and that, so far. </p> <p> Nonetheless, the proper use of the term is definitely limited, in the sense that it can be identified in a rigorous way, but that is only in a way which lends itself to the actual idea of creation, the quality of being susceptible of communication, even to persons who had been ignorant of even the very existence, and efficiency, of such an actual idea as I have defined it. </p> <p> That said, take a case with which some among my younger scientific associates have become familiar, and that, happily, with increasing competence. Take the exemplary case on which all competent modern science is premised by reference, the case of Johannes Kepler's creative action in his uniquely original discovery of the general principle of the system of Solar orbits, as in his <strong>The Harmonies of the World</strong>.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote3" name="fn3" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">3</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span></sup> The work by Kepler (with emphasis on <strong>Harmonies</strong>) is, for special reasons which I shall indicate in this present report, the proper beginning of an economically competent general practice of modern physical science; therefore, it provides us a standard of reference for the meaning of the notion of a specifically creative act of discovery within the bounds of the category of modern science as such. </p> <p> That is an example of what I mean by true creativity. </p> <p> The principal source of widespread difficulty respecting even the mere definition of "scientific discovery," has usually been, historically, a prevalent pattern in the known societies of ancient through modern history, a pattern typified, symptomatically, by the central issue of Aeschylus' <strong>Prometheus Bound</strong>. </p> <p> Before turning attention, directly, to what I have just referenced as the function of human creativity as such, it is essential that we first focus on the socially systemic, academic, or other obstacles to recognizing the functioning of the human potential for creativity. </p> <p><em><strong>The Obstacle to Reason</strong></em> </p> <p> The significance of Aeschylus' <strong>Prometheus Bound</strong>, is located in its thematic issue. That is, the Olympian Zeus' ban on human creativity: which shows Zeus's intended bestialization of all mortal human individuals, by forbidding, not only the use, but the discovery of any universal physical principle, such as "fire," or, today, nuclear-fission power. That issue arises in the location of this present writing by me, as the way in which human beings are actually conditioned, at least usually so, as in the contemporary U.S.A. and Europe, against any actually intentional employment of their individual creative powers, those creative powers which distinguish human beings from all lower forms of life. Thus, the very idea of the existence of an actual phenomenon of creation does not exist in the mind of the usual certified financial accountant, nor in the mind of most of today's faculty members of leading academic science departments or economics faculties. </p> <p> Every gifted child has experienced the effect of that "Olympian law" of Zeus. Thus, any young person, as in schools, who shows the activation of his, or her actually creative mental powers, will probably become the "black chick" targeted for pecking by the "white chicks," as if he, or she were a virtual "outsider," if not actually comparable to an African-American at a Klan rally. Thus, it is usual to see that youth of the so-called "higher IQ" categories often seek to avoid hostile pecking by the "white chicks," by withdrawing from behavior which tends to bring them into that kind of attack which is set off when signs of their own more developed mental potential enrage the "white chicks," as the presence of the legendary swan enrages the ducks. If the more gifted student, for example, behaves naturally, generally, that student is often made "fair game" for mob-like attacks by some among the "white chicks." Even teachers in public schools and professors in universities have often tended to ally themselves, as more or less open sponsors, with the relevant "white chicks'|" mob-like behavior. </p> <p> Why did the "white chicks" (and many among today's relevant types of faculty members) tend to behave in such a brutish fashion? </p> <p> For example, in my personal observation, during the 1930s and later, "anti-semitism" of the 1945 "VE-Day" American populists over the interval from about the 1920s through 1940s, was associated with hatred of the child or adolescent, for example, who was suspected of being among "those brainy Jews." (Sometimes persons stereotyped as an "outsider" to "our American populist way of life" as in the mind of some American or European as being of Asian or African, or Spanish-American origins might be treated similarly.) The typical "free trade" fanatic of politics still today, especially that of Yahoo-like, populist leaning toward racist hatreds, tends to fit the category of the "populist" anti-intellectual depravity mustered in support of the wildest, pill-taking and other radio and TV fanatics of that sort.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote4" name="fn4" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">4</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span></sup> </p> <p> On the opposite side, that love for other people which we should associate with the "Westphalia Principle," is a reflection of the high regard a civilized human individual feels for all other sections of mankind, a love for that creative potential which distinguishes men and women from feral beasts, or beast-like populist fanatics, including the typical, ego-ridden, dumb religious fanatic. </p> <p> Why should those "white chick" sets behave with such frequent hostility toward those portions of their own society and age-groups which would tend to make the relatively greatest contribution to the benefit of them all? </p> <p> The result of those referenced, historically prevalent, "conditioned" forms of obstacles to actually creative thinking, which are often encountered among the majority of today's populations, has been the predominant characteristic of virtually all known human cultures. Think of that majority as like the Prometheus-haters among the Olympian lackeys of the Zeus as portrayed by Aeschylus' <strong>Prometheus Bound</strong>. </p> <p> How and why such prevalent habits of known cultures differ from one another, and, more important, why they tend to converge in certain common features of their malicious effects, begs a broader study of those histories than is needed for our purposes in this present report. A few typical cases are sufficient, as matters of background, to provide a setting in which the specific purpose of this present report can be realized. That done, we will have now made my foregoing point clear enough for our purposes in this present report. </p> <p> Take the case of the a-priori assertions of alleged principle which circumscribe the contents of a Euclidean geometry; treat this effect of Euclidean brainwashing as a key illustration of a general form of the method which has been employed, in classrooms and elsewhere, to prevent individuals from employing their innate, human creative potentials. In this regard, the opening two paragraphs, and concluding sentence of Bernhard Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation, when juxtaposed, provide us with the model form of something likely to incite a direct attack of resentment, an attack intended to suppress "the ferment of human individual creativity" within the population, a brutish attack made in the fascist-like effort to terrorize the target into a state of cultural submission to the populist mediocrities of the many. </p> <p> Thus, in that observation, we have the background, to recognize the essential characteristics of the sundry, ignorance-fed expressions of those forms of mass suppression of scientific-technological progress, such as malthusianism, or today's neo-malthusian ("green") mass-stupefaction of populations, as by the World Wildlife Fund of the current Duke of Edinburgh; his son, the Prince of Wales; the late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands; and Philip's American puppet, the perverse former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, complementing forms of brainwashing such as Euclidean geometry. </p> <p><em><strong>Sarpi's Liberal Syndrome</strong></em> </p> <p> Take that case of Britain's Duke of Edinburgh, as a typical expression of the evil embodied in the modern Anglo-Dutch Liberalism which was launched, in the aftermath of the famous Sixteenth-Century Council of Trent, launched by the initiative of the systemic irrationalist, and anti-Trent fanatic, Paolo Sarpi. </p> <p> Whereas, Sarpi's rivals, the Aristoteleans, imposed a simple suppression of knowledge of the existence of human creativity, Sarpi substituted a systemic irrationalism modeled, by his own choice, upon that of that wildly immoral, medieval irrationalist William of Ockham. The practical significance of the difference is that, whereas, the clerical Aristoteleans insisted upon the suppression of creativity in society, Sarpi allowed technological and related forms of innovation, insofar as this license did not permit the consideration of a discovery of actual universal physical principles. This ideological strategy by Sarpi permitted the faction of Venetian usury oriented to the northern maritime regions of Europe, to choose a prospect of relatively greater military and other power, at the expense, strategically, of those relatively more backward devotees of Aristotle.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote5" name="fn5" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">5</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span></sup> </p> <p> Whereas, as Friedrich Schiller presented the image of religious warfare, in the Netherlands, and also, in his <strong>Wallenstein </strong>Trilogy, the clerical adherents of the nominally Aristotelean dogma, were no less irrational in their part as practitioners of post-1492, Nazi-like religiously motivated mass-homicide, than Sarpi's nominally Protestant followers of a revived cult of the medieval irrationalist William of Ockham. As the leading figure of the Eighteenth Century British Empire, Lord Shelburne, understood, the British Empire whose strategy for empire was based on a commitment to the heritage of Julian the Apostate, all European empires, ancient through modern have premised the maintenance of their power on the emperor's reign by the power of the pantheon, as they did by playing one religious sect in virtual, or actual perpetual warfare against another. </p> <p> The carnage of the pre-Westphalia conflict between the Protestant and Catholic religious party, from 1492 through 1648, was nothing other than two sets of the common dupes held in bondage to mutual slaughter, as in the case of the Sykes-Picot-ridden Middle East still today. </p> <p> So, through the advantage represented by Sarpi's criminal-minded, Liberals' evasion of the strategically self-crippling characteristics of medieval and modern Aristotelean brutishness, Sarpi founded what was to become a new Venetian world empire, called, now, conventionally, a British, or Anglo-Dutch, or the post-1971-73, Anglo-Dutch-Saudi world empire of international financier rule through manipulation of the dupes into the game of religious or kindred perpetual, regular or irregular warfare. This British empire, which, since 1968-1973, has functioned as the only actual empire in the world today by acting through a policy of suppressing investment in relevant forms of scientific and technological progress, including the suppression of the development of productive investments in basic economic infrastructure. The true religion of the British monarchy and its principal subjects, is not the worship of God, but of the god of usury defined, in principle, by Adam Smith in Smith's 1759 <strong>Theory of the Moral Sentiments</strong>. </p> <p> So, the same movement of Sarpi which employed Liberal approaches to the use of merely technological, rather than actually scientific progress, to gain a strategic advantage of its Habsburg-linked rivals, reacted, itself, against the surge of the actual science which had been launched by Kepler's revolutionary discoveries. They reacted so against France's Cardinal Mazarin and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and against Gottfried Leibniz, above all others. From the time of the Napoleonic wars of that foolish Napoleon Bonaparte who ruined continental Europe to British advantage with his wars, the policy of the Liberal followers of Sarpi et al., has been, to the present date, to destroy the kind of scientific and cultural progress which can be achieved only through its realization in the increase of the productive powers and cultural development of the general population. </p> <p> So, Napoleon Bonaparte lies like a hero's corpse in Paris. Either he was consciously a British agent, in his role of conducting what was, in fact, a new "Seven Years War" on London's behalf, or, he did the job of securing a semi-permanent tyranny, by London and Amsterdam over continental Europe without knowing what a manipulated fool he was.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote6" name="fn6" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">6</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span></sup> </p> <p> Thus, the triumph of Britain (e.g., the Anglo-Dutch-Saudi new Venetian empire) over the U.S.A. and continental Europe since 1968-1973, is the sole principal cause of the presently ongoing general breakdown-crisis form of global economic collapse of the entire planet now.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote7" name="fn7" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">7</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span></sup> </p> <p> The principal characteristic of this general, global economic collapse of the planet has been the "new malthusianism" imposed by the influence of both the British empire and the "environmentalist" swindle of British dupes such as the wildly lying, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore. Solar panels and windmills are the hallmarks of the advent of the world now into the already quivering brink of a planetary form of new dark age far, far worse than that which struck Europe during the notorious Fourteenth-Century "New Dark Age." </p> <p><em><strong>Science versus Liberalism</strong></em> </p> <p> To the best of my knowledge, and my knowledge is, on its record of performance since 1956-57, manifestly far superior relative to any other so-called "authority" in the field of economics throughout the world today, there has been, presently no competence in long-range economic forecasting among my rivals among nominally professional, putative economics and related professionals in the world today. </p> <p> Earlier, during the 1950s and early 1960s, our relative successes in national economies in the U.S.A., some other parts of the Americas, in western and central continental Europe, Australia, and in the Asian rim of the Pacific were not due to any particular competence in the practice of economic theory, but, rather, were chiefly products of reliance on scientific and technological progress in increase of the physical-productive powers of labor, as in agriculture, the machine-tool-design side of industrial practice, and in programs in infrastructure such as those launched by President Charles de Gaulle's Fifth Republic. The financier community's role has been, chiefly a parasite, and the economists were chiefly, usually, at their moral best, a nuisance; but, certain habits of national agro-industrial and infrastructural progress had been embedded in the aftermath of the experiences of World War II. Although that happier impulse was already waning even before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, its waning impact had been still strong. </p> <p> By the end of the 1970s, the impact of the World War II generation was already waning; as the 68ers' influence took over, more and more, the forces which had fought World War II and its aftermath, were leaving the site. With the disgusting developments of the 1968-1973 interval, the pathetic strains of the ideology of the "68ers" were now the reigning trend. The fatal economic downturn then reigning inside North America and Europe (most notably) will now continue, to its early catastrophic end, unless a new cultural impact conveyed by the relative best among an emerging young-adult generation now in their twenties and thirties, exerts the degree of relative influence at the top which the 68ers found during the 1970s and 1980s, a generation or more ago. </p> <p> The point I am stressing at this point, is that there is an important, sometimes crucial distinction to be made, between acquired habits of one generation, and the direction of change represented by an oncoming younger one. The impact of my own family tradition in these United States, which is traced in my genealogy since the Mayflower and Massachusetts Bay colony, has helped greatly in teaching me to think of policy-shaping over a span of centuries, not a mere few years, even a decade. In general, no individual has much of a mark on his culture's history during a lapsed span of less than a generation, a generation being the span of a cycle of capital investment in production, and a much longer span, of two generations span, or more, that of investment in the types of basic economic infrastructure. </p> <p> The nations of the U.S.A. and western and central Europe today, are fairly regarded as presently under the control of most extremely neurotic knee-jerk cultures. That is to point to what has become the generational span of those changes in economic and related policy of practice which are associated with revolutionary surges of scientific progress. </p> <p> It is, perhaps, fortunate for us, that the new U.S. President is almost two generations younger than I am; thus, if he is permitted to do his job, and actually does it decently, he has a prospective life-span long enough to come to amount to something useful for our society, and the world. </p> <p><strong>2. SCIENCE, MONEY & ECONOMY</strong> </p> <p> That much said in the preceding pages of this present report, so far: the essential point to be considered here, is the fact that human beings, unlike any other living species, have the inborn power to make actually creative discoveries of principle which, once adopted by society, change the universe, at least implicitly so. <em>Man is not merely an inhabitant of this universe, but is made in the actual likeness of the universe's Creator.</em> That is not an opinion, but a scientific fact. </p> <p> Other species, including all the different orders of living species other than mankind, lack what is uniquely a quality specific to mankind; but, humanity expresses a universal, determining, characteristic principle which itself is lacking in the ecology specific to each of all known orders of life apart from mankind. It is the principle of mankind, which distinguishes mankind from the beasts. </p> <p> At this point of the report, my attention, and, implicitly yours, is focused on a more modest aspect of the aforesaid general principle. My attention is focused upon that principle of human life which underlies any competent conception of a real economic principle for guiding human society's existence and progress. </p> <p> The existence of the human population is conditional upon society's currently relevant <em>potential relative population-density</em>. Unlike all other living species and their varieties, the human race is the only living species which does not share the characteristics of population of sets (systems) of animal ecological systems. Mankind's equivalent of an ecological population-potential is variable. This variability is chiefly located in the increase of the capability of the human species through its intellectual development. This fact is most boldly underlined by a simple contrast of the increase of the human population of the planet relative to the level of the higher apes. </p> <p> Thus, the success or failure of human ecologies depends chiefly on the factor of scientific progress, as that progress is embedded in influence and effect through increase of the physical productive powers of labor, as this occurs through realization of discoveries of fundamental scientific principles which are expressed as upward-directed changes in the culture of societies as a whole, or, on the contrary, in the relative cultural stagnation, stagnation of practices by component portions, more or less "neo-Malthusian" rabble among that culture's population. </p> <p> In the end, it is the discovery and application of what is called fundamental scientific and cultural progress, which predetermines the rise and fall of cultures. Thus, a policy and practice of cultural zero-growth policy of any society, as in the U.S.A. under the growing influence of the pro-Malthusian "68ers" during the recent four decades, dooms that culture by its own hand. That is to emphasize that man's ability to sustain even a fixed level of population demands sufficient progress to offset the inevitable effects of attrition. The success of the human species, its fundamental superiority as a living species over all animal species, "condemns" it to a commitment to what is, ultimately, fundamental scientific progress in the practice of physical economy, per capita and per square kilometer of territory. </p> <p> These matters of discoveries have the quality of universal physical principles, as typified by that principle of universal gravitation discovered, uniquely, by Johannes Kepler. They are, to speak of this matter here in terms of relative modesty, ideas respecting economy which have the same quality of power in the universe as the uniquely original discovery of the principle of universal gravitation by Johannes Kepler. No other living species has shown mankind's manifest ability to do this. </p> <p> That means, that to survive, today's civilization must be, immediately, now, suddenly, and radically changed, back to policies consistent with the trends expressed by President Franklin Roosevelt. Otherwise, the so-called "environmentalist" trends of the recent forty-odd years have already certainly doomed this planet as a whole to an immediate plunge into a new dark age, in which population-levels might bottom out at about one billions individuals, or less. Either those trends are now suddenly, and profoundly changed in favor of what I have preferred, or there is no hope for civilization during several generations to come, - - and, as I have been repeatedly shown, over about five decades, to have been the best long-range economic forecaster alive.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote8" name="fn8" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">8</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span></sup> </p> <p> So, human creativity, as I have just summarily described it, is a specific quality of the human mental, willful potential, a quality which does not appear in any other living species, and <em>has no root in the biological apparatus of any other living species.</em> This means, as I shall present this case during the course of the remainder of this present report, and that successor soon to follow, that: in the expression of actual human creativity, such as Kepler's uniquely original discovery of universal gravitation, the human mind "taps into" a power within the universe, a power which is not to be found as rooted within the bounds of the capabilities of all other living species. </p> <p> It is this latter distinction of mankind, to which we allude, when we speak of mankind as having a power, that of a soul, a power which is not a by-product of biological creatures as we know them otherwise, but which equips human beings and their societies with a genuinely creative potential, if we choose to accept that gift to us. </p> <p> This potential is therefore associated with something specific to the manifestations of the human brain-function in some way, as a power which is clearly associated with the human brain's expressed function, but a power which does not exist in the brain of any other living species. The evidence is, that something in the nature of the human species has developed the ability to "tune into," as if by a mode of coupling, some higher power in the universe, as no other known species has done. It can be restated: that the specific distinction of the manifest creative powers of the human mind, is that it is susceptible of being tuned into the principle of the Creator of the universe. In other words, that power can not be a by-product of biology as customarily defined by science so far, but is, as I shall address this in the forthcoming, concluding part of this series of reports, rather, "tuned into," <em>dynamically</em>, a power which is of a specifically higher quality than the evolutionary potential of living processes otherwise. </p> <p><em><strong>The Dynamics of Economy</strong></em> </p> <p> What I have just said on this account, is not speculation; it is a practical fact defined by the specific, manifest, practical, experimentally accessible distinction of the human species from all others. Such is the creative genius expressed by such as Riemann, Einstein, and Vernadsky. </p> <p> When I refer, as I do here, to "tapping into" some power which is not identifiable as contained within the individual member of society (or any other comparably relevant kind of process), we are in the domain of <em>dynamics</em>, as Leibniz employed that conception. The actual expression of what we should intend to mean when we employ the term "dynamics" in physical science, is that in addition to discrete objects of sense-perception, or related kinds of matters, the form of organization within whose bounds such local manifestations exist, is itself an efficient object of scientific conception. </p> <p> This distinction arises inevitably when we are impelled to reflect upon the fact that space and time as defined by Euclid, or Descartes, do not actually exist; but, rather that space and time are expressions of objects of a special kind, which act upon, and are acted upon by what we otherwise recognize as akin to our intention in pointing toward discrete objects. Call them "<em>indiscrete</em> objects," (sic) forms of dynamics which are themselves a special quality of physically efficient kind of conceptual object, as Leibniz defined modern dynamics, since they tend to meddle everywhere, as universal gravitation does, when that interference were liked, or not. </p> <p> What I have just said in the preceding paragraphs, had begun to become clear to science's experience in the aftermath of that line of qualitative development of modern science, through such developments as the skein of those discoveries of principle leading from the work of Nicholas of Cusa, Leonardo da Vinci, and Johannes Kepler. However, the point I am making here and now, could not have been made explicitly, until the way had been cleared for this, as it was for me, by the kind of effect associated, for us today, by the experience with Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation by such outstanding successors of Riemann as Planck, Einstein, and Vernadsky. </p> <p> Riemann's work broke science free, in principle, from old, decrepit, a-priori assumptions, through the practical effects of working through the image of actually building our way outward, as if from within a pre-established, seemingly fixed scheme of the universe, into a conception of a universe which, in itself, expresses its role in a continuing process of upward, qualitative evolution in man's power to change the universe. Such had been the issue of Philo of Alexandria's condemnation of the Aristoteleans of his time. This was a development in man's knowledge which has been of a type roughly analogous to the evolution of the Solar system, beginning with the periodic table of the Sun itself, to a planetary form of Solar system with a higher order of elements, reaching beyond the traditional periodic table of D.I. Mendeleyev, and into the more recent so-called trans-uranic elements. This conclusion is no mere speculation; it is simply the quality of scientific fact which was unleashed, as it was for me, by the effects of following the trail from Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation. </p> <p> The implications of that to which I have just pointed in the preceding paragraph, in particular, brings to our attention something which has always been there for man to recognize, but something which has been avoided out of respect for either the Aristotelean or kindred notions of a simply fixed order within creation.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote9" name="fn9" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">9</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span></sup> This power, which exists as typical of the prototype of the human individual, does not exist as a willful power in any other form of life, even though the principle of anti-entropic forms of upward biological evolution of species, shows the biological-evolutionary system to be under the rule of the anti-entropic principle also expressed in the biology of the Biosphere. Other living creatures are subsumed by that principle; <em>mankind, to be seen as subsumed by the Creator</em>, embodies that principle as its own. </p> <p> These considerations are not speculative, but practical. </p> <p> The only competent definition of creativity, is rejection of what is assumed to be a qualitatively fixed system of the universe, replacing that definition by the corrected notion of a universe being actively recreated, negentropically, in higher forms, that being under the control of an anti-entropic law of the universe as a whole. </p> <p> The so-called "Second Law of Thermodynamics" is much worse than being, as it is, essentially, merely a fraud of Clausius, et al. There is no actual universal law of entropy in this universe, although there are, admittedly, as among academics, especially those in the train of the Liberal system of Paolo Sarpi, rather stupid doctrinaires who express a different opinion on the matter. </p> <p> The preceding set of summary observations just stated by me here, is the conception subsumed by the fruit of the truly clinical evidence of the actual characteristics of human individual creativity, as in physical-scientific creativity, but also Classical modes of artistic creativity. Other living processes and their evolution, are subsumed by the universe as it exists as given to them; however, man is unique, as human creativity shows: unique in man's power to introduce principled changes into the universe, rather than simply obey them, when they occur. This is not some arbitrary assertion by me; it is the evidence of the increase of the human population on this planet, when the pattern of the human species' performance is contrasted to that of the higher apes. </p> <p><em><strong>Defy the Children of Satan!</strong></em> </p> <p> Given that background material summarized in this present chapter thus far, our attention should now be focused upon the psychopathological implications of the virtually cancerous mental disease, that modern syphilis of the human soul, called "environmentalism." </p> <p> To wit, the ability of the human species to support a global population of about 6.7 billions persons, so vastly surpasses the population-potentials of the higher apes, qualitatively, that we must tend, even for that reason alone, toward recognizing, on the basis of such evidence, that the human population's characteristics are premised on mankind's creating its own needed environment to support increase of the human population-potential, per capita and per square kilometer. There is no naturally fixed upper limit on the human population's ability to reach far beyond present levels of its population on this planet. There are other questions to be asked and answered on this account, down the line, but those questions, themselves, are not, for us presently, of a quality relevant to the immediate prospects of mankind within the present century. </p> <p> What we should know now, at least in an impressively large degree, are facts respecting the nature of the human potential which produces results of a type which are excluded among all other mammalian, or inferior species. These expressed differences all lie within the practical domain specific to true human mental creativity. </p> <p> So, ask again: <em><strong>What Is Human Creativity?</strong></em> What, and who are the enemies of that human creativity? </p> <p> So far, we have empirical access to knowledge of two specific types of experience of true creativity. First, we have local creativity, as by individual discoverers of practicable knowledge of provable universal principles. Second, there is knowledge of creativity as built into the essential character of the universe we inhabit, as the matter of the discovery of trans-uranic elements illustrates that point. </p> <p> However, pause for a moment at this point: not <em>"How do we know this?"</em> but <em>"Why do we know this?"</em> Any among us who have thought seriously about <em>why discoveries of principle occur in a non-statistical way,</em> and who have actually made such discoveries successfully, will be able to understand the significance, and profound accuracy of my question: <em>"Why do we know this?"</em> The complementary question is, then: <em>"How do we know this?"</em> Name "<em>Why do we know this</em>," <strong>Prometheus</strong>, and <em>"How do we know this</em>," <strong>Epimetheus</strong>. </p> <p> Why should we be able, and willing, to pose a valid question of a new principle, when that question has not been derived "logically," as a question, from preceding experience? In fact, so far in known history, most people are decidedly "not willing." Discovery of principle is not generated by experience; it is generated by the concern that we must abandon our habits, in order to go outside the mere repetition of existing experience. The inspiration we require, if we are to escape the monotonies of mere memory, lies not in experience as such, but in the imagination, as Percy B. Shelley, for example, presents the summation of this case in the concluding paragraph of his <strong>A Defence of Poetry</strong>.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote10" name="fn10" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">10</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span></sup> </p> <p> This power of the imagination, to which Shelley refers in the conclusion of that book, is sometimes identified as the power of inductive, as opposed to deductive reasoning. However, not in the ordinary sense of the use of the term "inductive." The case of Kepler's uniquely original discovery of the harmonic character of the principle of universal gravitation, illustrates the case. In short, since we are confident that the universe is lawfully reasonable for the potential powers of the human mind, the evidence of a systemic paradox in evidence infuses us with confidence that systemic paradoxes in the reading of evidence have a solution, including the cases of systemic paradoxes expressed in our experience of the universe itself. </p> <p> This quality of existence of confidence in the probable affinity of the human mind with the intention of the Creator, always lurks within our thinking, even if this appears only as a kind of last resort. </p> <p> So, we are inspired, thus, to be alert to cases in which we mislead ourselves, or are otherwise misled, into assuming that some assumedly "self-evident" assumption will explain away reality, as this is typified by the case of the a-priori axioms and postulates of a Euclidean geometry. The very fact that we reject those a-prioristic presumptions alerts us to some great fallacy of assumption in our way of thinking about the relevant subject-matter. </p> <p> Thus, the elimination of the <em>a-prior</em>i notions of time and space, together, or respectively, typifies the existence of a dividing-line between true inductive reasoning and childish, a-prioristic presumptions respecting whatever reality is affected by this matter. Sometimes, the name for systemic forms of intellectual stupidity is called "being a practical person." Such a "practical person," like the typical follower of the empiricism of the followers of Paolo Sarpi, makes up all sorts of what are, in fact, lies, if that fiction appears to be an opinion which will be taken as convincing by the proverbial next, credulous sucker. The religious fanaticism of the self-righteously ignorant, is merely typical of this pathological syndrome. </p> <p> Thus, like Plato, Nicholas of Cusa, Johannes Kepler, or Bernhard Riemann, all truly great scientists are theologians in the matter of fundamental scientific principles. Such is to be recognized in Albert Einstein in his later works, and in Academician V.I. Vernadsky. The method of thinking which inspires them is always a reflection of the ancient notion of <em>dynamis</em> on which Leibniz premised that concept of modern <em>dynamics</em> brought to its richer apprehension by Bernhard Riemann. </p> <p> Such is the case of the paradox of human scientific reason. </p> <p> In the case of human reason's achievements on behalf of mankind, when we are confronted with the evidence of truly creative modes of reasoning, as Shelley points toward this in the concluding paragraph of his<strong> A Defence of Poetry</strong>, we encounter a phenomenon, thus, which we know, in one sense, as cognitive creative mentation in the individual. However, the action which that thinking by the individual extends into the form of intended changes in the way of thinking in society, and across the boundaries of death, into other parts of society, and coming generations, should warn us that the evidence thus presented to us has a more universal effect than a change in the behavior of that isolated individual. Thus, such creativity, as typified by the discovery of a universal physical principle, belongs ontologically to the domain of social dynamics, <em>universal</em> social dynamics. It thus becomes, as it grows, in effect, into an existent object among generations of mortals. It is, thus, the innermost part of the human personality which is efficiently immortal. It transmits its effect by a kind of mode of resonance, such that even when the idea originates within an individual mind, it reflects the dynamic action which that mind inhabits at that time; because of that arrangement, that aspect of the individual is itself immortal, and that dynamically. </p> <p> Thus, the essential action of the thinking individual is the achievement of immortality of the self through that medium of action within and upon the immortal universe. It is probably the case, as I would attest from experience, that that sense of immortality, as we can readily recognize that in Shelley himself, and in his appreciation of John Keats, works exactly as Shelley himself describes this experience of his, in the concluding paragraph of his <strong>A Defence of Poetry</strong>.</p> <div id="footnote-region"><h3>Footnotes</h3><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn1"><span class="number">1.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span> <p>Leibniz himself dated his development of this argument against Descartes from Leibniz's own encounters with Benedict (aka Baruch) Spinoza. Leibniz explained, that he had concluded that the principled flaws in Spinoza's thinking were a product of the malicious influence of Descartes. Leibniz's arguments of the 1690s were launched with emphasis on the systemic implications of some of Descartes' silly attempts at physical science. Leibniz, noting those crucial errors of presumption by Descartes, carried the further discussion of the matter into taking up the implication of such achievements of the ancient Pythagoreans which are to be considered as leading into the genius of Archytas in designing the principled demonstration of the duplication of the cube.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn2"><span class="number">2.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span> <p>Laurence Hecht, "Optical Theory in the 19th Century, and the Truth about Michelson-Morley-Miller," <strong>21st Century Science & Technology</strong>, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 35-50 (Spring 1998).</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn3"><span class="number">3.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> <p>Admittedly, the title of Kepler's work is often mistranslated as <strong>The Harmony of the World</strong>, rather than the proper <strong>The Harmonies</strong> (or, "harmonics") <strong>of the World</strong>.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn4"><span class="number">4.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[14]</span> <p>For example, as late as the early 1950s, I was still the target of anti-Semitic attacks which were prompted by the fact that my heavy-rimmed spectacles marked me as "obviously Jewish" among the typical representative of the "anti-intellectual" classes.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn5"><span class="number">5.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span> <p>The superiority of the Anglo-Dutch Liberals over the others, was concentrated in superiority of Anglo-Dutch Liberal and related forms of maritime superiority over the Mediterranean region, as the latter is typified by the Eighteenth-Century ruin of the silly Spanish Armada.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn6"><span class="number">6.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span> <p>The entirety of British imperial policy, from the 1890 ouster of Germany's Bismarck from the post of Chancellor, and including the assassination of France's President Sadi Carnot, the British 1894 launching of a continuing pattern of Japan's warfare against China during the 1895-1945 interval, the assassination of U.S. President McKinley, the 1905 warfare, World War I, World War II, and the so-called "Cold War," have been, each and all, an extension of the strategy of the so-called "Seven Years War" which first established Lord Shelburne's British East India Company as a private empire with a private army and navy of its own.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn7"><span class="number">7.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[17]</span> <p>The collapse of the U.S. dollar had been caused by the British floating of the pound sterling in Autumn 1967. However, already, during the middle to late 1950s, I had foreseen the threat of a decades-long decline of the U.S. economy. Until the middle of the 1960s, I consider that decline to be an active, probable threat. By 1967-68, I was assured that a long-term general breakdown-crisis was already in progress in the trans-Atlantic economies. As I announced in my July 25, 2007 webcast, I announced that what is now clearly the presently onrushing general breakdown-crisis of the existing world monetary system, is absolutely certain. Only the installation of a new credit-system, to replace the present monetary system, could save global civilization from a presently onrushing new dark age; without a U.S. leading initiative in launching a new credit-system, to replace the useless monetary systems, there is no happy change for mankind in the generations immediately ahead.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn8"><span class="number">8.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[18]</span> <p>I may not be perfect, but I am the only known forecaster, world wide, employing a competent method.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn9"><span class="number">9.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span> <p>In the time of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, the Aristoteleans of that time were arguing that, if God the Creator were a perfect being, he himself could not have changed the perfected universe once he had created it. The dogma of the modern Malthusian does not extend to be a law of nature, nor as of mankind's evolutionary potential. The perfection of the Creator, contrary to Aristotle, is the power to continue creating without limit. The entire universe shouts this fact as truth, except for the fools who have decided, arbitrarily to assert the contrary to be true and also eternal.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn10"><span class="number">10.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span> <p>I quote here the relevant same passage from Shelley quoted as a footnote in my <strong>Nations as Dynamical</strong>: ["...we live among such philosophers and poets as surpass beyond comparison any who have appeared since the last national struggle for civil and religious liberty. The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods, there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving profound and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The persons in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, the power which is seated upon the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations: for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. ..." That passage must be restated, in print and sung aloud, repeatedly, for the sake of its unique relevance as being uttered by me, yet once again, as stating a principle which is typical of every culture, in every age: that the individual member of society should become able to recognize himself, or herself, as expressing a behavior which is often, predominantly, typical of the movement of his, or her time, rather than simply a conscious product of his own, individual opinion-making. (My punctuation and editing.) Without that concluding paragraph of his <strong>A Defence of Poetry</strong>, any reprint of Shelley's piece were fraudulent by intent.</p> </div></div></div> <div class="print-links"><p><strong>Links:</strong><br>[1] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote1">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote1</a><br> [2] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote2">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote2</a><br> [3] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote3">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote3</a><br> [4] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote4">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote4</a><br> [5] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote5">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote5</a><br> [6] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote6">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote6</a><br> [7] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote7">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote7</a><br> [8] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote8">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote8</a><br> [9] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote9">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote9</a><br> [10] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote10">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#footnote10</a><br> [11] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn1">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn1</a><br> [12] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn2">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn2</a><br> [13] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn3">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn3</a><br> [14] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn4">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn4</a><br> [15] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn5">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn5</a><br> [16] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn6">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn6</a><br> [17] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn7">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn7</a><br> [18] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn8">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn8</a><br> [19] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn9">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn9</a><br> [20] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn10">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7932#fn10</a><br> </p></div> <div class="print-footer"><img src="http://www.larouchepac.com/sites/all/themes/lpac/images/print_footer.png" width="595" height="120"></div> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-88231060344951502012009-03-01T22:37:00.001-08:002009-03-01T22:37:22.191-08:00Part III: Now Comes Economic Time.<base href="http://www.larouchepac.com/print/7979"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div> <div class="print-logo" style="text-align: center"><img src="http://www.larouchepac.com/sites/all/themes/lpac/images/print_header.png" width="595" height="120"></div> <p> </p><h1 class="print-title" style="text-align: center">Part III: Now Comes Economic Time.</h1> <p> </p><div class="print-content" style="text-align: justify;"><p>Final Version (2/19/2008) </p> <p><em>The concluding document of a series:</em></p> <p> <strong>NOW COMES ECONOMIC TIME</strong> </p> <p> by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. </p> <p> <em>February 8, 2009</em> </p> <p> <em>--------------------------------------------------------------------</em> </p> <p> <em>This is the third, and concluding document of an EIR series written in this author's supplementary response to a question submitted, with an eye to the subject of a new U.S. economic policy, during the course of an international webcast of January 22, 2009, on the current economic crisis. The titles of the preceding two documents of the series are "Nations as Dynamical" and "The Meaning of Physical Time."</em> </p> <p> <em>--------------------------------------------------------------------</em> </p> <p> <em><strong>Foreword:</strong></em> </p> <p> <strong>WHAT IS TIMELY PERFORMANCE?</strong> </p> <p> The following pages are devoted to a summary of the most significant development in the scientific basis for the knowledge and practice of economy since the 1907-1909 period of the closely related work of Albert Einstein and Hermann Minkowski on what was then named "Special Relativity:" the crucial importance of the relativity of time itself. That is the notion of relativity which underlies any actually scientifically competent effort to understand those crucial issues of economic policy which have befuddled the leaders of nations globally since the close of July 2007, the policy-issues which menace the present U.S. Obama government at this present instant. </p> <p> The validity and importance of those connections for shaping the needed policies for the global economic-breakdown-crisis now in full swing, will become clearer in due course, here. </p> <p> In fact, the roots of the principle of relativity in modern science, go back to the original discoveries of the principle of gravitation by Johannes Kepler, most notably Kepler's general principle of gravitation, a conception whose discovery is presented, together with the relevant formulation, in painstaking detail, in his <strong>The Harmonies of the World</strong>. Later, Albert Einstein had credited that discovery by Kepler as the proper foundation for modern physics in general, on the condition that the discovery is situated, as Einstein intended, in the context of the case presented by Bernhard Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation, and in the settings of the ancient and modern definitions of the principle of dynamics, as given by the ancient Pythagoreans and modern Gottfried Leibniz. </p> <p> On the relevance of this matter for U.S. and world economic policy today, I say the following now, and will deal with the matter here again, in appropriate depth, as we approach the concluding pages of this report. </p> <p> Although there is now widespread, and growing admiration, as also fear, of the perfect success of my July 25, 2007 webcast's forecast of the immediate outbreak of a global economic breakdown-crisis of the present world monetary-financial system, there is little confidence, even in leading U.S. Government circles, for actually adopting and implementing those urgently needed, immediate actions without which the world as we have known it, including our own U.S. political-financial system, would now, assuredly, simply cease soon to exist. </p> <p> In these pages, I explain that crisis, its causes, and its remedy. When the horrid consequences of failure to heed my warning here, are considered, my forecast may be seen by some thoughtful readers, as, in both theory and practice, the most important piece of writing on economic policy as such which has been written in world history so far. As you shall see here, that is no exaggeration, even in the slightest degree. </p> <p> I explain. </p> <p> The customary European civilization's traditional view of history, as it exists in the teachings of schools, universities, and so forth, today, has been chiefly shaped, and also significantly crippled, by resort to the vantage-point of the largely doubtful assumptions of what is widely viewed, retrospectively, as what the Sophists of ancient Greece experienced in their own tragic role as a forerunner of the tragic situation inherent in today's widespread, reductionist opinion. This reductionist legacy has been widely reconciled, still today, with the Sophist-like traditions of Aristotle, as that tradition is typically reflected in the fraudulent, a-priori presumptions of Euclidean <em>a-priori</em> definitions, axioms, and postulates. Under that pro-Aristotelean scheme, all accounts of history and its consequences, have been degraded to the assumption, that the universe as a whole is to be defined, in both the very large and the very small, by those unfounded assumptions respecting space and time which are consistent with the<em> a-priori</em> assumptions of Aristotelean and Euclidean dogma. </p> <p> That is the same as to say, that the very boundary conditions most often applied to describe every aspect of human life's experience, have been thus premised upon still-prevalent presumptions which have never been proven in fact, and which are, in fact, as I shall indicate in the following chapters of this report, largely absurd from the standpoint of more carefully considered, experimentally validated standards of physical-scientific practice. </p> <p> Science itself must now come to lead the rescue of mankind from today's popular expressions of mankind's ancient follies. </p> <p> On this account, every competent view of the decline of the culture of physical science over the course of more than four recent decades, is faced with accumulated evidence which tends to prove that the ideas common to such as Aristotle, Euclid, and Descartes are not, in fact, merely false, but are ruinously absurd. Yet, for the most part, even our leading universities' tradition of today, continues, still, to defy reason in these matters. They define it <em>a-priori</em>, <em>axiomatically, </em>as if by obedience to a babbling Emperor Nero's imperial decree. </p> <p> For this reason, it is urgent that the 1854 habilitation dissertation of Bernhard Riemann be remembered, especially on account of both that dissertation's opening two paragraphs, and its closing sentence, as having given an urgently needed, new birth to modern science, then, and as being typical of those foundations of what had become the greatest achievements of recent past times. Riemann's dissertation is proven to be indispensable in laying the basis for my own unique achievements, my repeated successes as a long-range economic forecaster. </p> <p> As the late Albert Einstein had warned, during the last years of his life, the net effect of the revolution in science launched by Riemann, was a revolutionary change in the notions of space and time. Unfortunately, even the Hermann Minkowski who had certainly earned much credit for his 1907-1909 role, as an ally of Albert Einstein, in promoting the concept of what was then known as "special relativity," made the significant error of substituting the proposal for a Lobatchevskyian geometry for a truly anti-Euclidean, Riemann standpoint; but, nonetheless, science, still today, should not forget Minkowski's resonant utterance in his famous lecture on relativity, that Einstein's presentation of a case of "special relativity" showed that "space by itself and time by itself" no longer existed for the future of physical science.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote1" name="fn1" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">1</a> <span class="print-footnote">[1]</span></sup> </p> <p> In the following pages, you will encounter evidence of another great quality of Riemann's work for contemporary science, its essential moral significance for dealing with the presently onrushing threat of a very early general physical-economic breakdown-crisis of this planet as a whole. </p> <p> <em><strong>Riemann, Planck, and Einstein</strong></em> </p> <p> It happens, by no accident, that the matter of the relativity of time could not be approached successfully, except in a very special way. As I shall indicate the reasons for that here, the relativity of time could not be shown without situating the real issues involved from the standpoint of reference of what I have defined as a science of physical economy, the subject of my own notable professional expertise. Hence, that aspect of relativity is of crucial importance for identifying the causes and remedies for the presently onrushing, global economic breakdown-crisis. </p> <p> On this account, it must be said here, that a science is never science when it is merely formal, as Riemann warned in the case of formal mathematics.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote2" name="fn2" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">2</a> <span class="print-footnote">[2]</span></sup> Therefore, to advance knowledge in a new, crucial topical area, it is indispensable, first, to locate that physical subject-matter which is most relevant, functionally, to the principles being considered, human economic behavior. </p> <p> The subject here, is, therefore, man, and, especially, the follies of currently widespread popular and related opinion. </p> <p> In the matter at hand, there can be no competent treatment of the subject of economy which does not, by its nature, provide a truly integral picture of the functional interplay of physical principle and the underlying principles of action of the human will. This can be achieved only in the subject of a science of physical economy, my own exceptional specialty. </p> <p> Therefore, I have proceeded as I have done in what this present article completes as a series of three small-booklet-sized EIR features, a series prompted by the occasion of an important, highly relevant question posed to me publicly during my January 22nd international webcast. </p> <p> ------------------------------- </p> <p> <strong>1. HOW TO MAKE A FORECAST</strong> </p> <p> Mankind changes the physical value, and therefore the proper <em>physical measure</em> of physical space-time, through the combination of physical-scientific and associated progress in the rate at which mankind changes the tempo of all other physical processes on this planet, and, now, recently, beyond that. This matter of principle is most clearly shown in the effects of discovery and implementation respecting the physical increase, or decadence, of the human species' special kind of power in the universe, per capita and per square kilometer of relevant territory. </p> <p> Notably, the scientific description of the pathetic incompetence of all current opponents of science-driven increase of the human population, is shown in that they implicitly deny the fact, that failure to progress scientifically in growth of the economy, as our U.S.A. has failed, consistently, during the recent forty years (1968-2008),<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote3" name="fn3" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">3</a> <span class="print-footnote">[3]</span></sup> means that the fate of mankind has been in the hands of influences akin to those kinds of accelerating processes of collapse, through attrition, which are, categorically, an imitation of the familiar boundary presented to us in the case of lower forms of life: as boundaries in the sense of potential for the relative, ecological population-densities which are encountered among the sub-human forms of life. In fact, this has also been the case with all known oligarchical cultures of European and related experience since the destruction, through effects of salination, of the Mesopotamian, bow-tenure culture of ancient Sumer, or, the doom of that Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah which appears to have enjoyed a certain salty kind of revival in current modern times.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote4" name="fn4" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">4</a> <span class="print-footnote">[4]</span></sup> </p> <p> Mankind as a species, is, indeed, <em>potentially</em> subject to those "forces" of ecological attrition in population- densities, the which are familiar to us among the populations of the lower forms of life. For example: we, admittedly, sometimes encounter a transitional condition, between animal ecology and so-called human "ecology," in the domain of animal husbandry, and also among populations of plants and their infectious diseases. <em>However</em>, these later, seemingly exceptional categories of experience with animal husbandry, and the like, are effects of human culture, rather than being endemic to the animal species considered in this matter. </p> <p> Thus, without the impact of those aspects of scientific and technological progress which increase the potential relative population-densities of societies, the human populations must tend to suffer a decline which verges upon catastrophic demographic and related effects, as we have suffered so, most conspicuously, under the regime of George W. Bush, Jr. In other words, the practical issue presented to statecraft, is a matter of the balance between the decline of the human condition, due to attrition, and, otherwise, as resisted, or even overcome, by the increase of human potential relative population-density through the realized benefits of periods of the acceleration of investment in the fruits of scientific and related progress. </p> <p> If that is considered, we should seek to craft a set of scales comparable to my economic "Triple Curve," [Figure 1] which corresponds, as a representation, to this array of conflicting effects within the bounds of human experience as such. We can already, thus, present a notion of relative time, distinct from clock-time, in terms of the net effects of the time-measured rate of change in the potential relative population-density of both the U.S. and world populations. The prospect of the effect which we will have represented, approximately, by such statistical schemes, presents us with a useful indication of the existence of a more ominous process in development, (the effect of realized investment, or relative lack of investment), in relatively capital-intensive scientific progress. </p> <p> The effect of wisdom on this account, would be to measure the rate of the physical-economic effect of the passage of clock-time in social (e.g., "demographic") terms. </p> <p> Perhaps the most startling, and relevant empirical effects with which the novice is confronted in studying that approach, is the effect of the promotion, or lack of promotion, of increase of what is termed "energy flux-density" of the applied sources of power employed to maintain and improve the rate of productivity in the population generally. Suddenly, thus, the practically expressed powers of the typical human mind, when expressed by the society as a unit, become a measure of the functional relationship between the trend toward rise, or fall, of the <em>relative potential relative population-density</em> of the society, and the variations in the rate of time during which any among the physical effects of this process unfold. </p> <p> In other words: "In what condition will the society be, in these terms of reference, at a certain future date?" "At what rate will that change occur?" Instead of asking to see the U.S.A. in the year A.D. 2025, ask, in what year will the U.S.A. actually reach a condition which could be reached potentially in the year 2025, or, perhaps, only 2050? Where does the zero-point of hovering lie, between net growth and the net collapse, which has been the characteristic trend in the economies of the U.S.A. and Europe since the tumultuous developments of 1968? </p> <p> <em><strong>My Own Forecasting</strong></em> </p> <p> All my forecasts, since my short-term, mid-1956 forecast of a deep early 1957 recession, have been of that type. These are typical of the method of forecasting, premised on Riemannian conceptions, which I have employed with such relative success, relative, that is, to the relatively failed methods of forecasting adopted by other ostensibly known economists ploughing the field during approximately a half-century to date. </p> <p> This was the basis for my warning in Summer 1956, which was based upon my systemic evidence of a then onrushing relatively awesome U.S. economic recession, a recession centered in the evidence I considered in respect to the exemplary case of the foolish practices of the auto industry's Robert McNamara, et al., at that time. The evidence of the contrast between the physical trends built into systemic practice during the mid-1950s, sufficed to show me clearly that a deep recession was due to hit with exceptional force approximately February 1957. It happened then exactly as I had warned. This success became the model of reference for the form of construction of my first long-range forecast, made in 1959-60, of a probable deepening U.S. recession during the late 1960s, <em>unless</em>, first, the current - - (pre-President John F. Kennedy) - - trend in policies were reversed by the middle of the 1960s, and, unless, second, a few years later, that the wrong post-Kennedy policy-drift were reversed by about the beginning of the 1970s. </p> <p> In effect, the assassination of President Kennedy, coupled with what had been the ouster of Britain's Macmillan, also with the British and German Liberals' pushing out of Germany's Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and also the repeated, earlier, and later, attempts at assassination of President Charles de Gaulle, typify the way in which Anglo-American, and related continental European policy-making practices were changed, for the worse, from that time onward. The changes shaped by 1962-1964 developments of this pattern, led to the 1968-1971 economic crisis which I had then foreseen as an approximately, early-1970s effect. The effect which actually came as the result, was the 1971-1981 collapse of the U.S. dollar and what proved to be the worse, correlated outcome: that poisonous cultural phenomenon of the so-called "68ers," with their neo-malthusian hatred of progress, which all amounted, in effect, to a catastrophe-in-the-making, from which the world gripped, at large, by monetary inflation, has never actually recovered, up to the present date. </p> <p> These forecasts of mine were the result of exercises made explicitly according to the principle of dynamics, that of both Gottfried Leibniz, and that of the Bernhard Riemann on whose work all of my forecasts to date have been premised as in respect to scientific method. This has been a method of forecasting which not only echoes Leibniz's and Riemann's method of dynamics, but, also, the argument which Percy Shelley presented in the concluding paragraph of his <strong>A Defence of Poetry</strong>. That concluding paragraph from Shelley's work, may be considered as the true, deepest "secret" of both competent economic forecasting and related statecraft, a secret which has remained unknown to virtually all of the leading governments and universities of the world today. This argument is also the "secret" on which the immediate survival of global civilization depends today. </p> <p> What I have written here so far, already goes a considerable distance toward suggesting the direction of my thinking. The point is, that that method, which I have employed, over decades, for forecasting, exposes the way in which governments and other relevant parties have come to their present, ruinous habits of thinking, as academics, or, otherwise, the bad habits, fit for deposit in a bad bank, which are the essential, proximate cause of the great crisis which menaces all civilization, immediately, today. </p> <p> <em><strong>Those Were the Preliminaries</strong></em> </p> <p> It was the adoption, as by Wall Street influentials, of the self-destructive, Liberal ideology traced in origins to the Liberalism of Paolo Sarpi and Adam Smith, which, by replacing the protectionist principles of the U.S. Federal Constitution, has caused the recent decades' dive of the U.S.A., and most other nations of the world, toward a "new dark age." The recent decades' result, has been the harvest of the rotten fruit of that season of that more recent, new wave in the Anglo-Dutch Liberalism which has abounded increasingly in Trans-Atlantic and some other cultures, since the middle of the 1960s. This Liberal ideology which has ruined us, has been most often expressed in a relatively more conspicuous way, by the tendency of people, and their nations, to react to the passage of time by stubborn efforts to impose a willful, foolish kind of practice, even mere fads, rather than seeking out the necessary changes in their mental habits, as individuals, or groups of persons, changed habits which would be an appropriate response to the existing and oncoming situations. </p> <p> Those fools said, in effect: "This is my culture!" "This is our tradition!" Fools said, in effect: "This is the way we have dumped the traditions, such as those of Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, which we had adhered to in the past." Our fools said: "This is my circle's opportunity to impose our way of thinking at the expense of those who tend to think and act differently!" "You will see! We are going to come out on top, whatever it takes!" Such is the pathetic whimpering we hear from leading circles inside the U.S.A., in the capitals of western and central Europe, in a confused government of a Russia guided by London-steered, "sub-prime" Minister Kudrin, and elsewhere, today.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote5" name="fn5" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">5</a> <span class="print-footnote">[5]</span></sup> </p> <p> To describe such people, or groups, as being reasonable, would be to insult their native intelligence. Their inclinations have had more of the character of the stubborn ways of a self-doomed species, like as the salty Biblical folk of Sodom and Gomorrah, than actual human beings. </p> <p> Today, the follies of Sodom and Gomorrah are echoed by what is called "environmentalism." Indeed, there is no better way to ensure the overheating of the environment than to turn the planet into a deadly wasteland by covering vast acreages with silly windmills and worse solar receptors. </p> <p> Here, in reality, we are not actually threatened by "global warming," unless solar receptors and windmills could bring that result about; we are, in fact, on the verge of the cyclical advent of a threatened new increase of that continuing ice age which has been in a process, typical of such developments, of flowing and ebbing, back and forth, on this planet, that for what may be estimated, for purposes of our discussion, as an estimated two millions years, whereas what have been recently the leading currents of economic policy-shaping, are committed to so-called "free energy" policies which would, if continued, transform the planet into a desert, and bring on the intended (as by London's Duke of Edinburgh) collapse of the world to a world degraded to such a state of brutish human populations, all that according to that "salty, bad Lot" Duke's avowed intention to reduce the world's population rapidly from over 6.5 billions to less than 2 billions persons. Sodom and Gomorrah all over again, but, this time, on a vastly wider, and much more sinful scale. </p> <p> The evidence is clearly available; but, many people deny these facts, nonetheless, because they have been brainwashed into the inherently tragic, neo-malthusian mythologies of the Olympian Zeus of Aeschylus's <strong>Prometheus Bound</strong>. The older generation of malthusians, those from the ranks of the "68ers," required the lies they told themselves, and also others, to induce them to adopt neo-malthusian mass-murderous policies for the planet at large. A younger portion of these present-day pro-malthusian generations than those "68ers," has no evidence, but only their own, fanatically insane wish to believe. The latter are, in effect, clearly insane, victims of the epidemic mass-insanity which, taken together with George Soros's legalized drug-trafficking, is presently, the greatest of all particular forms of endemic threats to mankind throughout this planet. </p> <p> Similarly, during the middle to latter part of Europe's Fourteenth Century, financial practices like those adopted by contemporary London and Wall Street, plunged a Europe dominated by the Venetian usury of that century's Lombard League, and all of Europe, into the worst "new dark age" of the medieval period, a world-wide "dark age" of the type presently onrushing to the brink of a general, chain-reaction, planetary collapse, today. </p> <p> The point which I am emphasizing, and must emphasize, here, is to be recognized as a certain principle of physical science. </p> <p> ------------------------------ </p> <p> <strong>2. MANKIND'S NEW AGE OF REASON</strong> </p> <p> Looking backwards in time, for a view of the way in which the recent advance of science and related practice (including visits of our captive scientific apparatus to Mars) has brought us to the verge of beginning to manage the Solar System today, the most relevant fact in the history of science, is the degree to which <em>- - when science prevails over un-science - -</em> mankind's power in and over the universe is increasing, as a trend. This progress should be viewed as translated not merely into the form of mankind's increased power, but, more emphatically, mankind's responsibilities. </p> <p> This point which I have just made here, is an updated definition of the practical meaning of the term: <em>"a</em> <em>physical science of human ecology."</em> </p> <p> More than ever before that time, the outcome of progress in this direction had been indicated by, most notably, earlier, Nicholas of Cusa, Johannes Kepler, Pierre de Fermat, Gottfried Leibniz, and, later, Bernhard Riemann, and, later, by the leading scientists of that subsequent age of Planck, Vernadsky, and Einstein, which was introduced by Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation. This legacy of science, has given us a recent, and continuing new meaning to the competent use of the term <em>science</em> itself. </p> <p> We have thus, with the impact typified by Riemann's habilitation dissertation, entered into a new phase of what must be termed "universal history," that in the sense of the most profound implications of that name. In this fresh view of modern universal history, we have moved from belief in the Solar system as acting on man, to Promethean man's acting according to the principle of <strong>Genesis</strong> 1, to change the universe as we know it, and as we must guide our practice of mankind in that direction. </p> <p> In my method of forecasting, I emphasize the relevance of the existence of a certain kind of moving point on the relevant statistical scale. That point has the character of a physical function, rather than representing the fruit of a simple statistic. The "point" has two aspects. First there is the concept of a net increase of a society's potential relative population-density, as measurable per capita and per square kilometer of relevant territory. So, secondly, we are interested in knowing that which determines the rate of increase of that potential relative population-density. We are properly concerned with the net rate of increase of that potential over time. </p> <p> That presents the idea of the implied measurement in a general preliminary way. Better were to start from Vernadsky's notions of the respective pre-biotic domain, the Biosphere's domain, and, then, the Noösphere's domain. We are, then, concerned with the rate of increase of the human potential relative population-density as measured against that value's implied, prerequisite, abiotic domain, and Biosphere pre-conditions for that current rate of increase of estimated potential relative population-density. </p> <p> The rate of estimated current rate of net increase of potential relative population-density for a society as a whole, then defines an implied standard for the measurement of physical, as distinct from "clock" time. </p> <p> The notion of that preliminary approach to estimating the function for increase of potential relative population-density, then implies a rate of interaction between human existence and changes in the portion of universe within which the increases in rate of net increase of potential relative population-density are situated. </p> <p> As we attempt to refine this calculation, the complications with which we are confronted, increase: first, within the immediate bounds of Earth and its local Solar-system environment, then Kepler's Solar system, and so on, outward and deeper. Then, we encounter theology, but in a certain fashion. Turn to the pages of <strong>Genesis</strong> 1, and look at that chapter's content in the fashion of a Moses who was able to walk in, and then out of the Pharaoh's palace with, considering his messages of a new round of pestilences delivered, an apparent impunity which Moses enjoyed, in coming and going on those occasions, and in that implicitly perilous fashion. Then read <strong>Genesis</strong> 1 again, but not as the devotees of Aristotle might have done later, or the Elmer-Gantry-like "fundamentalists" of today. </p> <p> Contrary to the putative Aristotle known to Philo of Alexandria, the Creator actually did generate the universe (after all, it does really exist in the quality of something which has been, and is being created!), and according to Moses, man and woman are "made in the likeness" of that Creator. Moreover, if it is the real universe that we are discussing in that way, the real universe as we know it, is <em>in a process of continuing creation</em>. That means generating higher states of existence than could be adduced from an existing state of existence. That means, contrary to the hoaxsters Clausius, Grassmann, Kelvin, et al., the universe's form of continued existence is <em>anti-entropic</em>, not some silly system under the imagined rule of universal entropy. </p> <p> We also observe that man and woman, unlike all lower forms of life, are, in fact, <em>creative</em> in that ontological sense of anti-entropy. Since Moses is referring to man and woman, he intends to convey the idea that the Creator represents, or should represent, continuing creation in the image of his servants, man and woman. Philo of Alexandria, the friend of the Christian Apostle Peter, said as much against the Aristoteleans of the known historical time of Jesus and his Apostles. As a great, recently deceased rabbi insisted to me: <em>The Messiah will not arrive according to the likeness of a train-schedule, but when the Creator decides</em>. The implication is the worshiper's reaction to this advice: "Please come, as soon as possible!" </p> <p> <em>(It is necessary to approach subject-matters of that type with a special quality of humble tone of affection.)</em> </p> <p> Put the line of discussion I have been employing in this chapter thus far, as follows. For the next minutes, I will postpone the subject of physical-economy as such, in order to prepare some essential elements of physical-science background, within which terms I shall then situate the subject of physical economy as such, and, after I have presented that crucial scientific material, we shall then turn to the matter of the role of monetary values within the setting of the principles of physical economy. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Relevant Case of Helen Keller</strong></em> </p> <p> So, that much said as preliminary, turn to the core of the science of the matter. </p> <p> As I have been reminded by an associate who reminded me of Louis Pasteur's point about scientific method, the true evidence of the experienced existence of physical time, as distinct from clock time, is to be located in a category of phenomena which prove the existence of something not only exceptional, but ostensibly contrary to all that has seemed usual. </p> <p> So, in the case of the discovery of the notion of physical time, reference to the exceptional implications of the famous case of Helen Keller, implicitly forces the thoughtful discoverer to see the way to bridge the gap between time, as located in <em>a-priori</em> notions of sense-certainty, and the reality which is that physical reality, rather than clock-time, which exists in the unseen domain of a physical actuality. </p> <p> This comparison is suggested by looking back to crucial features of Kepler's original discovery of the general principle of Solar-system gravitation, which occurred, as Kepler accounts for this, through the sense of the ontological irony of seeing and hearing (harmonically) the organization of the Solar system. Once we recognize that Kepler's uniquely original discovery of a principle of gravitation, expresses a method of thinking which carries over into all profound physical discoveries in general, we will have taken the first step toward access to a sense of physical-scientific certainty in the matter of physical time. </p> <p> First of all, such intellectual experiences as those, of the principle of irony specific to the experience of principles underlying the phenomena of space-time. Or, as the same thought appears as the concluding sentence of Bernhard Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation: <em>we depart the department of mathematics for physics.</em> </p> <p> Once we accept what should be the obvious fact about the all-too-obvious, our sense-experiences, as such, that sense-perception as such is merely the instrumentation of the real universe we are experiencing, we have touched that threshold of valid science known, explicitly, to the greatest among our modern scientists, such as Kepler, Leibniz, Riemann, and Albert Einstein. As in all competent experimentation, actual knowledge is the product of the mind's power to synthesize that efficient, but unsensed reality, the which we must adduce from the mere phenomena. Thus, honestly competent sense requires the construction of a kind of intellectual "bridge" to what must become known, but is not sensed: one might suggest the example of the catenary, the funicular bridge which was essential for Brunelleschi's successful construction of the cupola of Florence's <strong>Santa Maria del Fiore</strong>. My own personal discovery, while an adolescent, of the anti-Euclidean principle of physical geometry, is an example of the same principle of all actually scientific knowledge. <em>Knowledge of a principle is never an intellectual fantasy; it is an idea whose action enables one to produce a unique kind of actual (e.g., "crucial experimental") effect, but one which had been previously unknown within the scope of previously known principles.</em> In that sense, all physical science is experimental, that in the sense of what Riemann identifies as the quality of <em>unique experiments </em>specific to discoveries of physical principle. </p> <p> Such was the quality of the relevant achievement in Albert Einstein's recognition of the unique validity of the original discovery of the principle of gravitation, by Kepler. That said, we have thus placed ourselves in the proximity of an added discovery, the discovery of the concept of <em>physical time</em>. </p> <p> So, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, we have the case of Kepler's uniquely original discovery of <em>the physical principle of</em> gravitation, which is reported by him in his<strong> The Harmonies of the World</strong>. That, Kepler's method, for example, is the way we may actually know a true physical principle, as distinct from the pathetically contemplative act of merely choosing to believe in "a merely mathematical explanation." The present need to define the concept of physical time, presents us with a challenge of that same type. </p> <p> For example, how did Helen Keller conduct dialogues involving ideas, in her special way, with persons she could neither see, nor hear? Kepler's uniquely original discovery of gravitation, provides an implied illustration of the same method expressed by that Helen Keller. Now consider Kepler's discovery in such terms of reference. Then, consider, in that light, how the method expressed by the method of discovery by Kepler is to be applied to the matter of the notion of physical time. </p> <p> There is another, kindred sort of consideration to be emphasized afresh at this immediate juncture. </p> <p> All valid discoveries of universal scientific principles, occur as discovery of something which exists efficiently, but as if outside, and above previously established conceptions. The ideas of physical space, as distinct from open space, or physical time from clock time, are examples of this. Hence, the dynamics of physical-space, rather than space, and of space-time rather than clock time. So, in the case of Kepler's discovery of gravitation, we have physical space, rather than Euclidean or Cartesian space. So, we have the case of physical-time, rather than clock time. These are not matters of verbal hyphenation; consider what it is which they reflect, in each such, or comparable species of instance. </p> <p> Think of what I have referenced above, as the case of Louis Pasteur. In Kepler's discovery of gravitation, it is the juxtaposition of what are, conceptually, the relative incommensurables of the notions of sight, and of the harmonics of hearing, which are combined by Kepler's mind to form, as if by some higher quality of irony, the mentally visible, a physically efficient shadow of a universal physical principle of gravitation. </p> <p> That said, return attention to Helen Keller's insight into the thinking of another person. When we are enabled to recognize the common implication shared among the variety of cases which I have just identified above, that when they are considered as a subject-matter of some general principle, we have the first general approximation of the kind of thinking needed to grasp, accurately, the concept of space-time. We now proceed from that point as follows. </p> <p> I shall now deal with that notion in those limited terms. Subsequently, I shall address the deeper implications at a later point in this present report. </p> <p> <em><strong>Anti-Entropy: Dynamics</strong></em> <em><strong>in Space-Time</strong></em> </p> <p> The discovery of experimentally validatable principles of nature, begs for the notion of some demonstrable ordering-principle in the configuration among those principles. The appropriate reply to that implied question always comes back, sooner or later, to the fact that what we are enabled to recognize as the ordering among the principles of such a sought-for configuration, lies within the human mind. It is not necessarily a copy of the biology of the human brain, but, assuredly, a reflection of the process expressed as man's increased power to exist in the universe. </p> <p> In general, in this location, it is permitted, and most convenient to take a few short-cuts in illustrating the point immediately at hand. </p> <p> One of the most convenient of those short-cuts, is to be found in considering the evidence bearing on the relative "negative entropy" of effect, as man's use of heat-sources moves upward from incident sunlight at the surface of the Earth, through burning of simple fuels, into coal, coke, petroleum and natural gas, into nuclear fission and thermonuclear fusion. It is not the number of calories that defines the relative power to do work, but, rather, the density of that power to do work, expressed in units of heat-equivalent, that measured per square centimeter of cross-section of the flow of the heat-process being considered. Compare this with the cases of the species-fertility of not only the orders and species of animal life, but of varying combinations of species sharing in the dynamics (that in the sense of Leibniz and Riemann) of a particular sort of habitat. </p> <p> However, such illustrations put aside, our crucial concern at this point in the report, is, as Leibniz exposed the fraud of Descartes on the subject of physical space-time, is, as Leibniz showed the need to focus attention on the order of increase of the power of the effect which is expressed by any specific dynamic system of mankind to exist.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote6" name="fn6" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">6</a> <span class="print-footnote">[6]</span></sup> </p> <p> There are two considerations posed here. One, is the order of matters in the universe, relative to mankind, on the presumption that this order pre-exists. The other, is posed in the form of a question: to what degree does discovery go further than discovering the usefulness of pre-existing principles in the universe, or his local portion of it; is mankind actually generating newly added universal physical and related principles in this universe? To what degree is a discovery merely a discovery, and to what degree is the very existence of a discovered phenomenon a product of the creative powers of mankind? In other words, does the practical existence of the discovered principle exist with the adoption of that principle of action by mankind? The result of the progress of mankind in exploring the domains of nuclear fission and thermonuclear fusion, poses exactly such general types of new forms of questions for modern science, still today. </p> <p> The desire for some form of ordering-principle amid the evidence to be considered along those lines, a desire which such thoughts engender, is a mark of the passion which motivates true discoveries of those principles which are not sensory objects themselves, but which produce the form of movement of sensory objects. </p> <p> Such is the form of the argument which leads toward comprehension of the notion of physical space-time. For a very significant reason, this conception can be reached only from the vantage-point of understanding ourselves as being uniquely creative individuals, that in the sense of Riemann's admonition to leave the department of mathematics that we might finally understand the true principles of physics. The reason is that, among all creatures, only the human individual is capable of the creative reason on which all truthful discoveries of principle depend absolutely. That much said up to this point, we proceed now, as follows. </p> <p> Keep that suggestion in mind. We shall consider it from a higher standpoint a bit later. </p> <p> Take one of the simplest instances of the essential distinctions which draw a line between sane and moral persons on the one side, and the bestial sort of oaf on the other. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Irony of Being Human</strong></em> </p> <p> One of the ways in which to express the difference of man from the beasts, lies in the fact that the beasts, composing a dynamically defined bit of ecology, can temporarily overrun a normal, dynamic limit for a set of species cohabiting an environment; whereas, any healthy form of human society, tends toward a voluntarily permanent outrunning of any ecological limit which might be attributed to a mankind seen in terms of the notions of animal ecology. This distinction is expressible in terms of a contrast between what would be named, in relatively popular terms, as <em>a relatively fixed ecological potential</em> (i.e., <em>entropic</em>) for that population, as opposed to the inherently anti-entropic characteristic of any naturally healthy culture of the human species. </p> <p> So, since the still continuing 1967-68 downshift in the ratio of new infrastructure to the depletion of formerly established infrastructure, there has been a relative long-term decline in the physical economy in the U.S. economy. There was the downshift of this sort which dominated the 1968-1974 interval in the U.S. economy, followed by a greatly accelerated margin of decay and decline under the 1977-1981 term of the U.S. Carter Administration. The attrition continued, under a continuing influence of the Trilateral Commission during 1981-1987, but a steeply accelerated, further decline from the October 1987 echo of that 1929 stock-market-like crash which was followed by the still steeper decline of a collapsing U.S. economy, over the 1987-2007 interval. </p> <p> This successively accelerated rate of decline, over the 1968-2008 interval, when seen in physical-economic terms, is fairly described as a turning back of the clock of human physical-economic and cultural development of the U.S. population (among others) in general. In effect, the clock of economic development, was running backwards. There has been an accelerating rate of decline of the U.S. economy and of the culture of the U.S. population, over that entire interval. <em>An extremely important kind of statistic!</em> </p> <p> Unless we act to reverse that ratio of declining cultural human creativity interacting with decay in the basic economic infrastructure of society, mankind is going backwards. </p> <p> This is not merely a correct statistical picture. The statistical picture, is a symptomatic correlative of the decay in the cultural morality of the society undergoing such a form of ongoing decadence. As I have described effects, the related question is, "Effects of what cause? Effects of what kind of action?" </p> <p> The immediate answer by most thoughtful respondents to that challenge from me, is that it is this pattern of decline over the term of President Harry Truman, the continuation of the actual decline leading into the 1957-59 recession in the U.S.A. and in the United Kingdom during the 1950s, the decline in Europe in the late 1960s, the different modes of decline of the trans-Atlantic society during the 1970s and 1980s, and the accelerated, ultimately catastrophic decline of the 1989-2009 interval to present date. </p> <p> The solution for that paradox, lies in a voluntary quality of the human personality which does not exist as a voluntary capability in any living creature but the human individual. This voluntary capability is what is properly identified as the creative powers of the human individual type, powers which do not exist in any other form of life. Here lies the distinction of what Academician Vernadsky identified as the true meaning to be assigned to the term "Noösphere," as distinct from the involuntary creativity which occurs as a dynamic potentiality (upwards genetic shift in evolution) within the lower forms of life.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote7" name="fn7" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">7</a> <span class="print-footnote">[7]</span></sup> </p> <p> --------------------------- </p> <p> <strong>3. A WAR FOR MODERN SCIENTIFIC & ECONOMIC CREATIVITY</strong> </p> <p> Before getting to the core of what I have to say in the following, concluding chapter of this three-part presentation, I must prepare the way by reporting on something as a matter of relevant autobiographical background respecting the crucial point which I have to make before completing this chapter of the report. </p> <p> My earliest commitment to Gottfried Leibniz, which occurred during my adolescence, and was expressed by a product of intensive study on every bit of Gottfried Leibniz to which I had access at that time. By early 1953, I was committed to the principles of Bernhard Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation, and some related writings. The entirety of my professional commitment to a science of physical economy, has embodied that commitment to the concept of history, from that past time, in my adolescence, to the present moment. </p> <p> Some decades later, about 1977, I came to adopt the work of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa in his included role as the author of the founding of the modern science of such of his followers as Leonardo da Vinci and Johannes Kepler, and, thus, of the current of modern physical science which is typified by Pierre de Fermat, Christiaan Huyghens, Gottfried Leibniz, and such Leibniz followers as Jean Bernouilli, Lazare Carnot, and, especially Bernhard Riemann. The recognition of Cusa as the actual founder of the general principles of a competent modern physical science came about through my wife Helga's participation in a conference of the Cusanus Gesellschaft, and my ensuing proposal to her that she pursue her proposed doctoral preparation with emphasis on Cusa's work. </p> <p> This attention to Cusa opened up my view of the whole sweep of modern European science, prompted by the work and role of Cusa and his immediate followers at the center of that process. It is when we trace the founding of competent modern physical science around the central figures of such followers of Cusa as Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Kepler, and, also, Pierre de Fermat: that the entirety of the work of such as Christiaan Huyghens, Leibniz, and Jean Bernouilli, opens up for us in a much richer way than before, richer because we are thus better equipped to re-experience, rather than merely interpret, the relevant process of development from Filippo Brunelleschi, Cusa, and so on. </p> <p> The particular relevance of that piece of background material in this present report, is that the comprehension of the relative superiority of the European Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries' progress in scientific fundamentals, provides the occasion to understand more clearly, the elementary nature of the sheer fraud represented by that influence of Paolo Sarpi on which the subsequently dominant trends in leading forms of principled corruption of modern science were premised, as from the Seventeenth Century of Sarpi, Galileo, Descartes, and Abbé Conti onward. This conflict is essential to a clear understanding of the practical significance of the concept which is the focus of my attention here, the concept of <em>physical time,</em> as distinct from <em>clock time</em>. </p> <p> For making this point and its relevance clear here, one should start with the uniquely original discovery of the Solar system's governing principle of universal gravitation as discovered by no other discoverer than Johannes Kepler. In this matter, Kepler's adversaries Paolo Sarpi and his lackey Galileo, turned the clock of science backwards, in more ways than one. We must reset that clock, by proceeding as Albert Einstein understood, and emphasized the discovery of that principle of universal, physical space-time, which was to be promoted by Einstein himself. This was a discovery of principle, which had been on the knife's-edge verge of being identified by that work of Kepler completed just before his death from starvation. No other person than Kepler had actually discovered the principle of gravitation, then, or until the work of Bernhard Riemann produced the crucial changes which erupted at the outset of the Twentieth Century.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote8" name="fn8" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">8</a> <span class="print-footnote">[8]</span></sup> </p> <p> The story which needs to be told, at least in brief, here, is the following. </p> <p> <em><strong>Kepler's Discovery</strong></em> </p> <p> The success of Kepler's discovery of the principle of universal gravitation, depended upon recognizing what lay in the functional intersection of two types of phenomena. One, was a mental image of the universe based on transforming the data into the terms of visualization of the image of their set of Solar orbits. The second, was conceptualizing the periodicities, which are distributed dynamically, among the sets of orbits in the fashion of musical harmonics, as the notion was seen by the specific succession of the Pythagoreans and Plato. </p> <p> The challenge which came to be posed, thus, by the large accumulation of required studies of the orbits, posed, for Kepler, an image of that evidence which corresponded to an ironical juxtaposition of the image of vision and the images of musical harmonies. In short, vision and harmonics, as the instrument for study of the characteristics of the orbital system, became the principal illustrations of the experience to be resolved into a single conception; they identified the set of contrasting instruments whose paradoxical juncture served as the combinations needed to adumbrate the reality of gravitation itself. The use of instruments to investigate a set of phenomena which can not be regarded as being in itself a direct representation of the phenomenon being experienced, is not an unusual challenge in any work of discovery of principle in the domain of physical science. It was from this view of the evidence, evidence treated in this way, that Kepler discovered the principle of gravitation which was later fraudulently coopted as "Newton's discovery." </p> <p> As I shall point out in this report, Kepler's insight into the existence of an unseen, unheard, but efficient, universal principle called universal gravitation, brought Kepler to the brink of a next step which would have established the concept of a physical universe, as ruled by a principle whose efficiency could not be premised on any specific human sense-organ, and which, therefore, could be known to the senses only through a certain quality of conflict between asymmetrically juxtaposed, relevant sense-experiences: which is to say, this array functioned as a physically efficient object of the human mind, not directly represented by any single sense-experience. </p> <p> Such a discovery by Kepler, which we can recognize as having been implicit in his declared discovery of the principle of universal gravitation, was implicitly at the edge of the basis for discarding the notions of absolute space and absolute time, that in favor of <em>physical space-time</em>. </p> <p> Those were conceptions which lurked, as shadows of a coming future discovery, in the discovery of refraction by Pierre de Fermat, and in Gottfried Leibniz's fulfillment of a challenge left to "future mathematicians" by Kepler. Such was, the calculus whose discovery, by Leibniz, was delivered in proof to a Paris printer some time between 1775-1776. Why, then, did the discovery of relativistic physical space-time wait until the announcement of Albert Einstein in the middle of the first decade of the Twentieth Century? </p> <p> Ironically, Kepler had been in correspondence with the musician Vincenzio Galilei, the father of the notable Galileo Galilei, for assistance in collecting information on the musical scale and related matters. Kepler's purpose in that exchange was to compare the musical intervals corresponding to the characteristics of the Solar system's orbits. So far, all seems good, until the intervention of Galileo Galilei, who used information which he drew from Kepler's correspondence with Vincenzio. There was an ugly irony in this. Galileo Galilei was an agent of the notorious Paolo Sarpi, who was the founder of all modern Liberalism, and an adopted follower of the medieval irrationalist, William of Occam. </p> <p> The drama in fact which was represented on the stage of the history of empiricist science, by the players Kepler, Paolo Sarpi, Vincenzio Galilei and his son Galileo, is the key to understanding the source of the apparent difficulty which Einstein appears to have encountered in addressing the concept of physical time. </p> <p> This Eighteenth Century's controversy over the issues, had been a problem which has continued to plague all of modern science since the Seventeenth-century influence of, most notably, the Liberals Sarpi, Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, Abbé Antonio S. Conti, and, later, Voltaire. All of these persons overlap, as Galileo is a creature of Sarpi, Descartes is a product of the doctrinal influence of Galileo, Conti is a devotee of Descartes and a key creator of the largely synthetic personality of Isaac Newton. Conti, and Voltaire, et al., are all collaborators in running a European network of Leibniz-hating salons featuring Abraham de Moivre, D'Alembert, Leonhard Euler, Euler's protégé Lagrange, and their followers Laplace and Augustin Cauchy. The key to all of them is Paoli Sarpi, the father of all modern European and related (Ockhamite) Liberalism. </p> <p> However, it would be foolish to believe that those connections are merely connections. They are all bound together by a dynamic quality of common tie which defines them, each and all, as, functionally, a single thing, a species as common to all, as that of a kennel of dogs of the same breed. What unites all of them from the time of Conti's arrival in Paris and proclaiming himself as a Cartesian, is their determination to destroy, first, the influence of Nicholas of Cusa, Johannes Kepler, Fermat, and, then, Gottfried Leibniz. During the course of the Eighteenth Century, especially after the death of Leibniz, they were gathered around, first, Conti, and by the time Conti died (in 1749), Conti's follower Voltaire. </p> <p> The common feature of all of them, was manifest by their common motive, their commitment to the eradication of the influence of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and of Gottfried Leibniz. The issue was the Leibniz infinitesimal; the more deep-rooted targets were Cusa, and Cusa's avowed followers Leonardo da Vinci, and Kepler. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Role of Religious Warfare</strong></em> </p> <p> Since Babylon, all of the known empires based in the land areas encompassing the Mediterranean Sea, have been based on the same principle of method which Edward Gibbon recommended to his patron, Lord Shelburne, the method of the infamous Roman emperor known as Julian the Apostate. It is the method expressed by the Pantheon of Rome, and by no means a tactic restricted to the wretched Julian; what is called "The British Empire" has always used religious conflict or comparable cultural hostilities as the way to rule, by pitting one subject - - one religious faction, one social stratum, one ethnic origin - - against the others. </p> <p> All of the major wars in modern society have been based on the expression of the method of religious and related warfare, as this was introduced by the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs during the religious warfare of 1492-1648, used by the dupes of Paolo Sarpi to organize the wars which engaged France's foolish Louis XIV, the Seven Years War, and by Napoleon Bonaparte, later. Britain's organizing of what became known as World War I, was initially organized by Prince of Wales Edward Albert, organized by causing the ouster of Germany's Chancellor Bismarck, then arranging the assassination of France's President Sadi Carnot, and then enlisting the Mikado to launch the Japan warfare against China which continued, with some very temporary interruptions, until Summer 1945. The decisive action by London in this process, was the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley, an assassination whose featured effect was to cause the United States to change sides, from prevalent popular sympathy for Germany and Russia, to favoring Britain in World War I. Out of World War I, came the Sykes -Picot arrangement, under which the British Empire has kept the religions of Southwest Asia at one another's bloody throat to the present instant. </p> <p> This use of orchestrated religious and related conflicts, was not new. It was what the Empires of the East had done. It was the method of the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, and was the method of religious warfare through which the Venetian financier controllers of the Habsburgs ruled Europe from the relevant point in the Fourteenth Century, with only a relatively brief interruption, until 1648. Furthermore, it was the British who organized what became known as "World War I" as a replay of the British orchestration of the Seven Years War, and as a replay of the way in which London used the fool Napoleon Bonaparte to unleash the more than a decade and a half of continuing general warfare on the continent of Europe, a continuation of Napoleonic wars of sheer economic looting, by means of whose effects the British Empire's reign was secured until President Abraham Lincoln led the victory over the British organization of a Civil War inside the U.S.A. itself. </p> <p> It was not warfare alone that enabled empires to run for as long as they did. The siege of Troy was such a case. The Peloponnesian War was another. So was the folly of the Achaemenid Empire, in a war which was won by Alexander the Great after he went to his mother's people, in Cyrenaica, to organize the revolt, against Persia, in Egypt, which enabled Alexander to conquer Tyre and thus take over the Persian Empire. </p> <p> So, in recent decades, Britain sought to destroy the United States by inducing the U.S. to forge a fraudulent pretext for entering a long, ruinous war in Indo-China, and so the evil British Prime Minister Tony Blair induced the foolish U.S. George W. Bush administration to take a course which wrecked the U.S.A. military, and the U.S. economy, by an unnecessary, ruinous long war in Southwest Asia. It is no surprise that former Vice-President Cheney was not acting as a patriotic American in luring a nasty and befuddled President George W. Bush to ruin the U.S.A., by luring the silly Bush into embracing Blair's fraudulent actions luring the U.S.A. into the ruinous long war in Southwest Asia. Similarly, the singularly unpatriotic Cheney was still trying to get Israel to destroy itself in an attack on Iran, practically up to the very last weeks of the now concluded Bush administration. </p> <p> Similarly, actual and would-be imperial systems have used their orchestration of religious conflicts, to maintain control over the interior of an empire, which is why the largely brutalized, British population itself is, largely, so terribly unskilled, badly educated, and economically incompetent today, and why the anglophiles inside the U.S.A. have done so much to attempt to stupefy the U.S. population, as much as possible, by de-industrializing the U.S.A. through exporting our production to cheap labor markets, spreading drug cults inside the U.S.A. and abroad, and making our nation's education and popular culture itself a farce. </p> <p> Such were the considerations which guided Paolo Sarpi and his accomplices in launching their program of stupefying the people of Europe (in particular) into a state like the condition of the people of England which came to be described so aptly by Jonathan Swift's <strong>Gulliver's Travels</strong>. </p> <p> <em><strong>The 1618-1648 Warfare</strong></em> </p> <p> That much said on those historical matters, now consider the strategic crisis which confronted the Habsburg rulers in the rise of the effects of that Great ecumenical Council of Florence led by such figures as the founder of modern physical science, the same Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa whose commitment to transoceanic outreach inspired the initial trans-Atlantic voyages of Christopher Columbus. </p> <p> It was on this account that the Spanish Inquisition was launched as an international effort, that virtually in the same year as Columbus' first voyage in exactly the opposite geographic direction. </p> <p> The relevant irony was that the intellectual revolution unleashed by the Fifteenth-Century Florence Council, had already begun to produce a great cultural uplifting of the people in Europe, as in Spain, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, which prevented the medieval-minded forces, under the Habsburgs, from securing durable victories over effectively determined resistance by the targeted populations. By the time of the close of the strategically disastrous Council of Trent, the Habsburg cause was effectively pre-doomed. </p> <p> At that point, Paolo Sarpi had seized the opportunity created by the follies of Trent, to mobilize a rapidly growing political force in support of his new alternative program. He, in effect, at least, elected to virtually write off the cultures of the Mediterranean coast, and move his financier faction and its resources largely away from the Mediterranean littoral, to maritime bastions along the northern coasts, where the Protestant factions would be relatively dominant. </p> <p> By the time of the end of the Council of Trent, it was already clear, as Niccolo Machiavelli, who had become the great strategist of his time, recognized the factors which showed that the Habsburg forces must tend to be defeated in the long run. The relevant factors included the effect of the Council of Florence in promoting the development of the culture away from the follies of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries. This development included the technological improvements which were promoted by Nicholas of Cusa's leadership in science and related elements of statecraft. The new conditions were to be seen among the populations of the cities whose culture had been influenced by the Renaissance, which had made those populations a new kind of strategically effective factor, as Friedrich Schiller's analysis of the war in the Netherlands and the Thirty Years War had shown. Schiller's strategic insight was crucial then, as it was in guiding Scharnhorst's and related circles in designing the strategy which would, and did defeat Napoleon Bonaparte's war against Russia. </p> <p> Sarpi, for his part, not only recognized, but was determined to exploit the fact, that the danger to the cause of the Venetian usurers' faction in Europe, lay in the progress of the population of Europe under the influence of the Renaissance and the consequent victories of Louis XI in France and his admirer, Henry VII in England. Sarpi's threatened dilemma was, that the northerly part of the Venetian interest would lose control of Europe if it accepted the Habsburg policy of suppressing the waves of scientific and technological progress which the Renaissance had unleashed; but, that it was to lose the fight in another way, if it permitted technical progress to be led by scientific progress of the type which the work of Johannes Kepler (in fact) typified. Sarpi's choice of middle ground, was to permit a certain degree of technological progress, of the types already under way in England and the Netherlands, but that Sarpi must lose if he did not prevent some degree of technological innovation from being a subsumed feature of the fundamental scientific progress which Cusa, Leonardo da Vinci, and Kepler typified. </p> <p> So, Sarpi had dumped the Council of Trent's Aristotle, the prince of ancient and medieval darkness on that occasion, to allow some technological progress, but not to tolerate lightly a program of actually scientific progress in respect to principle. </p> <p> The issue became acute for Sarpi's faction, when Cardinal Mazarin succeeded Richelieu in France. Mazarin initiated the feasibility of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, while Mazarin's protégé, Jean-Baptiste Colbert organized support for a massive program of building an infrastructural and science-driver program for France. But, the foolish King Louis XIV fell into the trap of prolonged wars, and the British won the war through wars of the type culminating in the Seven Years War. So came that establishment of the British Empire, as a private empire of the British East India Company under Lord Shelburne's leadership. </p> <p> After the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, there were now three principal, mutually opposing strategic forces in Europe: the old regime, associated with the greatly weakened Habsburg interest; Sarpi's faction; and, centered in the France of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the economic and social policies which were the outgrowth of the renaissance associated historically with the circles of Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and of such followers of the Cusa initiatives as France's Louis XI and England's Henry VII. </p> <p> The fight was now centered, essentially, between the movement centered in the France of the policies of Mazarin and Colbert, against what was to emerge as the new composition of the enemy faction, the faction now organized around the Anglo-Dutch Liberal followers of Sarpi and Rene Descartes. </p> <p> <em><strong>The Real World War Today</strong></em> </p> <p> In the meantime, Sarpi and his followers proceeded with an increasingly vigorous war of empiricism against real science. The fake Anglo-Dutch science of brutish William of Orange, was summoned to that cause; with the death of Queen Anne, brutishness was the reality of the British Flag. The addled Isaac Newton was summoned to carry the guidon, which perhaps was all he was good for, and thus to lead the dupes to battle for the cause of empiricist imbecilities. The 1689-1763 defeats of France and of the American forces centered around the remnants of the Winthrops and Mathers of Massachusetts gathered, more and more, around the energetic genius of Benjamin Franklin, were the leaders of the effective resistance to the imperial tyranny now assembled around a Britain under the thumb of what the 1763 Peace of Paris defined as a private empire under the thumb of the British East India Company. The fight was essentially between the tradition of Leibniz and the Sarpian ideological tradition of Rene Descartes. </p> <p> The American Revolution, fought, implicitly, as a recurring, world-wide war, from 1776 through to the time of President Abraham Lincoln's victory over the imperial enemies of the U.S.A., in 1865, defined the essential, global strategic conflict as between the patriotic forces in and of the United States, as against our republic's typical chronic, traditional enemy of the U.S.A. which is known, traditionally, as "the British Empire," but, which is the neo-Venetian financier-oligarchical empire of the international, imperial faction constituted as the followers of the ideological financier-oligarchical power associated with the tradition of Paolo Sarpi. </p> <p> It has become, since the British crushing of the earlier independence of the New England settlements, about 1689, a war against creativity, led by the followers of Paolo Sarpi, against the legacy of scientific creativity of, essentially, Plato, Cusa, Kepler, and Leibniz, against the imperial, monetarist policies centered in the reductionist ideology of Paolo Sarpi and his intrinsically usurious, Cartesian tradition expressed as the dupes of the Isaac Newton cult. </p> <p> ---------------------- </p> <p> <strong>4. THE THESES</strong> </p> <p> -<em>-------------------------------------------------------------------</em> </p> <p> <em>Popular opinion about time is associated with the notion, that, despite our knowledge of changes</em> <em>in the universe we inhabit, even catastrophic ones, that universe remains a territory within which the kinds of changes which we can expect to experience, even the most calamitous we might have yet to imagine, are limited to the bounds of a relatively fixed repertoire, whether we presently know the full spread of that repertoire of possibilities, or not. That belief is, of course, false.</em> </p> <p> <em>In that sense, we believe in the imagined immortality of real estate, as we believe a-priori, axiomatically, in the immortality of clock time. That belief is also false.</em> </p> <p> <em>The customary assumptions about space and time are often related to a seemingly instinctive, silly belief in the immortality of the idea of real estate. Most people in our culture have a lurking suspicion that real estate is in some way immortal, as property in itself, whoever, or whatever might be the nominal proprietor. For similar reasons, most people, especially most who believe in Heaven, also consider Heaven, or whatever, as a special kind of supernal real estate, as Owen Gingerich, author of the foreword to a recent English edition of Johannes Kepler's </em><em><strong>New Astronomy,</strong></em><em> has, falsely, suggested a notion of that sort. </em> </p> <p> <em>Those sorts of pathetic beliefs coincide, more or less exactly, with a permanently Cartesian view of a universe of mere clock-time.</em> </p> <p> <em>Nonetheless, contrary to conventionally silly beliefs, those among us who are sane and have left our minds open to the known essentials of scientific principles, believe implicitly in the immortality of the human soul, as Moses Mendelssohn echoed Plato's </em><em><strong>Phaedo</strong></em><em> on this account. The efficiency of the human soul is not confined, even in the mortal expression of our existence, to the bounds of this body. Rather, the ideas which are shared in shaping the unfolding development of society, such as great Classical musical compositions of their composers, and, more emphatically, the effect of that work of composition, of poetry, music, and physical scientific progress, and the experienced lessons of its performance, bear the mark of what had been the presence of the relevant persons. Thus, human beings who are truly alive while they are living in the flesh, are never merely packages of data, but are the expression of a personal power which transcends the bounds of their animal flesh.</em> </p> <p> <em>Plato and Mendelssohn are not speculating in this matter; their insights may not be perfect; but, they are true.</em> </p> <p> <em>At bottom, it is the development of the human species in the way which corresponds to true Classical-artistic and scientific progress, which defines the meaning of our experience, and of our once having lived. Actually, the very possibility of the existence of mankind as a species, depends upon that kind of process of development, experienced in that way. These types of considerations, are the substance of our souls, that of our nation, for example, humanity generally, nations properly conceived, and of each of us personally. Think of the passage of time as, in a certain respect, like space, a distance travelled. Think of time as physical time, instead of as clock-time. We live temporarily but the better among us live on as immortals in a vast simultaneity of eternity, </em> </p> <p> <em>That process of change to which we might contribute on behalf of that universe we inhabit so, when considered in such terms, reveals the real, essential content of the passage of physical time. This is not only an idea about us and our nations. It is the standard of reference for measuring the degree and rate of progress in the existence of the human species in this qualitatively changing universe which we, at this given moment, inhabit. It is time so measured, in the principle of anti-entropic action, not "clock time," which is real.</em> </p> <p> <em>--------------------------------------------------------------------</em> </p> <p> It is time to free ourselves from silly ideas, including the prevalent silly conception of "clock time" among the victims of this. </p> <p> The evolution of species, whether species of the abiotic phase-space, or of the Biosphere, is an expression of an innately <em>anti-entropic</em> impulse, an impulse which resides within us, as an inherent potential of the dynamics of those two general categories of existence on our planet, and beyond. The crucial difference between the endemic creativity of the human species and those of the Biosphere, or the abiotic phase-space generally, is that the development of mankind to higher levels of expressed anti-entropic development, such as evolutionary development of that quality, is consciously willful, or, at least, approximately so. Therefore, so far, knowledge of actual human creativity, has been limited to the cases of exceptional human individuals, but this need not remain so. We must come now to understand the significance of <em>physical time</em>. </p> <p> Thus, although creativity is pervasive in the universe, as this is to be noted in the case of the evolutionary development of our planetary system from a relatively solitary Sun to a Solar system, we know only that creativity becomes efficiently conscious on Earth today only among human individuals, so far, only rarely. Nonetheless, it has been our great misfortune as a society, so far, that conscious recognition of that potentiality has been widely suppressed, <em>successfully</em>, among most in the known cultures of the planet thus far. </p> <p> The unfortunately widespread suppression of knowledge of this potentiality, on our planet, so far, as such a kind of suppression is the subject of Aeschylus' <strong>Prometheus Bound</strong>, continues to be a great obstacle to the existence of popular understanding of the existence and function of <em>physical time</em>, as opposed to the illusory notion of <em>clock-tim</em>e. </p> <p> Moreover, the suppression of knowledge of physical time, as distinct from mere clock time, has put humanity as a whole repeatedly at risk, by the suppression of the percentile of efficiently, consciously creative human individuals, to a small fraction of the human populations as a whole, so far. </p> <p> For example, consider the currently widespread belief in the actually absurd concoction of the Nineteenth-Century hoaxsters, the formal mathematicians Rudolf Clausius and Hermann Grassmann who put forward, through Clausius, in 1850, the fantasy which became known later, through his associate Lord Kelvin, as the infamous "Second Law" of thermodynamics, and also became known as the "law of entropy." One should note that both Clausius and Grassmann were mathematicians, not physicists, and made a number of blunders which have tended to be typical of mathematicians; blunders of a type, verging on the effects of formalist <em>a-priorism</em>, which remind us of the necessity for the precious, concluding sentence, on the subject of mere mathematics, of Bernhard Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation. </p> <p> Much of the worst effects of the types of systemic errors which mathematicians have tended to perpetrate in modern society, when they have invaded the domain of physics, can be traced, in modern European practice, to the impact of Paolo Sarpi's influence in promotion of a revival of medieval William of Ockham's "razor." This depravity of theirs is characteristic of the ideology of Anglo-Dutch Liberalism and its like. </p> <p> The problem of note is, that Sarpi had adopted Ockham's silliness as a way of, on the one hand, permitting practical inventions, but, at the same time, refusing, like the Olympian Zeus of Aeschylus' <strong>Prometheus Bound</strong>, to tolerate the discovery and propagation of actual physical principles. This is of particular note for reason of the fanaticism of the Venetian followers of Sarpi in their attacks on the work of such pioneers as Nicholas of Cusa and Cusa's follower Johannes Kepler. It is to be noted, for example, in the brutish intellectual character of the fraudulent claims against Gottfried Leibniz by fakers such as the Eighteenth-century hoaxsters Abbé Antonio Conti, Abraham de Moivre, D'Alembert, Leonhard Euler, and Euler's protégé Joseph Lagrange. </p> <p> For example: A glance at the follies of de Moivre, D'Alembert, Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, and Augustin Cauchy on the subject of the uniquely original Leibniz discovery of the calculus, points toward what might be named the "purloined letter" of the case of their deliberate fraud against science. The attempt of these empiricist clowns of modern philosophical Liberalism, to deny the ontological actuality of the "infinitesimal" of the Leibniz calculus, is "keystone" evidence of the origins of the popularization of the fraudulent "second law of thermodynamics."<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote9" name="fn9" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">9</a> <span class="print-footnote">[9]</span></sup> This is an important key for the understanding of the meaning of the term "physical time," as distinct from "clock time." </p> <p> The empiricists' and Aristoteleans' denial of the existence of an <em>efficient infinitesimal</em> in the Leibniz calculus, is a key to understanding the nature, and importance of the distinction of <em>the anti-entropy of physical space-time</em> from the notion of entropy inherent within the arbitrarily presumed reductionist outlook of the followers of either Aristotle, or of Sarpi's attempted resurrection of the deceased Ockham. </p> <p> The issues which I have just described in that way, can be properly referenced for further discussion by glancing at Einstein's emphasis on a finite but unbounded universe, a concept which he linked to the uniquely original discovery of universal gravitation by Kepler. Whereas the Liberal or Aristotelean mathematician sees only a formulation of a suggested physical principle, as locating the universe within the bounds of the fancied trajectory of some allegedly relevant mathematical formulation, on the contrary, Kepler's principle, as seen by Einstein as referencing a finite but unbounded universe, bounds the referenced mathematical function, as Kepler did, rather than being bounded by it. </p> <p> This distinction has similar significance to the impossibility of bounding a circle or sphere by quadrature, as Euler did in his support of the Sarpian dogma against Leibniz. As Einstein emphasized, Kepler's discoveries of trajectories in astrophysics (and otherwise) bound the process described, in the same sense that universal gravitation, as originally, and uniquely discovered by him bounds a current value in astrophysics. Since that universe is developing, the universe is immediately finite, and, also, essentially anti-entropic. </p> <p><em><strong>The Folly of Clock-Time</strong></em> </p> <p> The occurrence of phenomena such as novae within the astronomer's universe, such as that Crab Nebula which does much, periodically, to combat the radiation of the Sun in shaping some of the leading effects experienced in our own Earth, presents us with evidence of the "mortality" of both Solar systems and the galaxies which they inhabit. If entire galaxies must expect to experience such events, where can we expect to find hope for permanence of any particular existential condition in this universe? Yet, scientific experience has informed us of human scientific progress toward, ultimately, managing what may be seen today as presently awfully awesome powers beyond our presently developed capabilities as mankind. </p> <p> When we reflect on such deeply underlying, presently awesome realities of human existence in this universe, we are guided by conscience to think differently than most governments, nations, and their individual people have come to think, habitually, today. </p> <p> We who live today shall not "get there" in today's conventional reading of such language. What, then, shall we, who live now, and will die soon, achieve? </p> <p> Briefly, the answer is, our importance lies in the changes toward the greater powers of humanity which will be required to ensure that what we might contribute, with our mortal lives today, will have an assured, respectable outcome in contributing to the distant state of the universe which mankind must do much, in terms of our species' relative powers now, to pre-shape today. There, immortality appears as it truly is for us now, concretely: a <em>simultaneity of eternity</em>. </p> <p> This brings us to the heart of the subject of physical, rather than clock time. </p> <p><em><strong>Economy & Physical Time</strong></em> </p> <p> As I have remarked earlier here, the discovery of universal gravitation by Johannes Kepler established implied evidence which brought the achievements of Johannes Kepler to the verge of the related discovery of the principles of physical space and physical time. The obstacle to that further discovery was, chiefly, the grabbing of political power over science by the circles associated with the leadership provided by Paolo Sarpi, most notably Sarpi's relevant leading lackey, Galileo Galilei. </p> <p> The most crucial aspect of that wrecking of modern science, was the introduction of the mechanistic method in mathematics for which Galileo was merely typical, together with the spread of the influence of the hoaxsters Rene Descartes and the avowed Cartesian of Paris-based, Venetian pedigree, Abbé Antonio Conti. The most crucial of the sly tricks involved in these hoaxes was the hysterical insistence, by the opponents of Kepler, Fermat, and Leibniz, on the empiricist's presumption that the "infinitesimal," as defined by the Leibniz discovery of the calculus, did not exist. </p> <p> Although the entirety of the cult of the black-magic specialist Isaac Newton documented no physical research at all, the overt admission of the fact that was the issue of the followers of Sarpi against competent science, which was uttered by a series of Eighteenth-century hoaxsters associated with the notorious Leibniz-hater Voltaire, such as France's Abraham de Moivre, D'Alembert, Leonhard Euler, and Euler's protégé Joseph Lagrange. As de Moivre himself formulated the hoax's pivotal assertion, the argument was that the efficient physical infinitesimal of Leibniz's discovery of the catenary-cued, <em>universal physical</em> </p> <p><em>principle of physical least action</em>, depended upon the evidence of an allegedly "imaginary" magnitude. Euler's argument to this effect, in supporting the hoax by de Moivre and D'Alembert, was the most obvious case of crude, barefaced lying of the most blatant sort. Euler's hoax led to that of the Duke of Wellington's sometime assets, Laplace with his silly "three-body" concoction and the hoaxster, and plagiarist (as, explicitly, of the original work by Niels Henrik Abel) Augustin Cauchy.<sup><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote10" name="fn10" class="footnotes-reference footnotes-processed">10</a> <span class="print-footnote">[10]</span></sup> </p> <p> However, to understand how that fraud of the Eighteenth-century empiricists came into being, one has to look back toward the actual roots of empiricism in the work of Sarpi, Sarpi's resurrection of the slop of that medieval irrationalist William of Ockham. This is a typical case of the type in which a criminal incriminates himself by leaving behind thorough evidence of not only his criminal act, but proof of the criminal intent which preceded the act. </p> <p>In the history of known Egyptian and European science since the program of <em>Sphaerics</em> associated with the Pythagoreans, Socrates, and Plato, the concept of leading science, had been discovery of universal physical principles validated by methods of what Riemann was to identity as <em>unique experiments, experiments whose success </em>defines universal and closely related principles of scientific work. In contrast to that competence, the fraud Laplace sought to simply destroy existing scientific evidence by unproven methods, an incompetence he sought to evade by manufacturing the hoax called "the three-body problem" - - perhaps a celebration of the Duke of Wellington, Laplace, and Cauchy, all in the same bed. </p> <p>In the comparable clinical case, of Sarpi's embrace of the medieval Ockham, Sarpi excluded physical-experimental proof (as such proof was exemplified by the work of such Cusa followers as Leonardo da Vinci and Kepler), in favor of certain types of apparent coincidences. If the concocted scheme could be caused to appear to be plausible, and Sarpi and his accomplices chose to profess that they admired it, it could be adopted, by aid of richly lying assertions contrary to reality. </p> <p>The idea of "proof" which Sarpi's Ockhamite followers, the empiricists, employed came to be mathematical formulas decreed to be self-evidently plausible in the opinion of an influential set of hoaxsters, without any reference to experimental or comparable proof of principle. The entirety of all of what was claimed as "original work" of the Newton school and its Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries' followers, was of that cast. Thus, mathematical formulas were crafted and employed as substitutes for crucial kinds of experimental principles. On the basis of that method, actual principles, such as the principle of universal gravitation discovered by Kepler, were denied in a completely arbitrary way. </p> <p>The most consequential aspect of such frauds by the empiricists, mechanists (such as Ernst Mach), and worse positivists (such as Bertrand Russell, Norbert Wiener, and John von Neumann), have that common feature. </p> <p>It was the latter reductionist methods, which came to political power through the establishment of Sarpi's influence expressed in the contemporary ideology of the virtually world-wide British (drug-pushing, financier-oligarchical) empire, which used that power of imperial financier practices, such as the financial-derivatives frauds which have bankrupted the world's financial-monetary system today, to achieve world empire of Venetian-style oligarchical-financier power. </p> <p>From the standpoint of natural law, the crucial feature of the imperial system which has recently entered the final phase of its existence as a breakdown-crisis of the present world financial system, is its prohibition against any systemic consideration of the principles of physical economic practice on which the immediate continuation of civilized life upon this planet now immediately depends. </p> <p><em><strong>The Function of Physical Time</strong></em> </p> <p>When the case against imperial financial systems is taken into account, and considered in the terms of reference which I have chosen, especially so, at the outset of this present chapter of the report, the fragility of the false presumption that the planetary and interplanetary systems of today are the permanent form of experience for the mind of the members of the human species, points our attention to the challenge of ensuring the continuity of what mankind so far has been building. Then, rather than imagining that the stage of the universe in which we stand now, will be a permanent setting for the human soul; we must think of how we must build the development of that which is incarnated as spiritually, within us, such that the purpose of those souls which we are, shall become adapted to our future circumstances under which the distant future changes in the composition of our universe will continue to supply meaning to what we have been up to now. </p> <p>In this view of immortality as a purpose for mankind's existence, time as we have been accustomed to discussing it formerly, now has a changed quality for truly sane mankind. Time and space become complementary, if essential parts of the total experience; but, as Einstein's circles emphasized, already, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, time by itself, and space by itself, are delusions which no longer exist in that way. </p> <p>What we must measure, therefore, is the rate of development of change of both the universe we inhabit now, and in the future when the circumstances may be qualitatively different. Thus, it is development of mankind, including man's changes in the organization and composition of our habitat, which is crucial. Clock time as such is of no intrinsic importance; the important thing is anti-entropic development. This means emphasis on the relative rates of development of man's powers and condition, and that relative to the entropy which the so-called malthusians require, which would gobble us up, and make the future existence of man like that of the former Dodo. The rate of development, relative to attrition, and the outcome of progress so defined, now replaces mere abstract notions of a-priori space and a-priori time, with net rate of qualitative powers of fundamental scientific progress to higher states of being. </p> <p>The development of human space-time, a development within which the death of the mortal package occurs within which we are delivered to us, is the measure of the meaning of the spiritual existence of each among us all. After all, when one's immortal package has been emptied of the animal we inhabited, and now must cast aside, it is what our mind has become as a power to defend, and to improve the universe, which becomes the replacement for some poor animal's notion of time. </p> <p>This conception which I have just summarized in that way, is possible for us, as not for the lower forms of life, because we have the power of true creativity, if we develop and use it. This power is represented, in its potential, as the uniqueness of the human's ability to make fundamental discoveries of principle, discoveries which change the universe we inhabit. It is the rate at which we progress in service of that intention, which is the measurement which supersedes that passage of clock-time which was never better than a relic of our species' sometimes bestial past. </p> <p>It is that which we must measure, and forecast, if this planet is now to escape from the onrushing plunge, already under way in an advanced state of crisis. I suspect, on excellent premises, that Albert Einstein would agree. </p> <p>30-30-30</p> <div id="footnote-region"><h3>Footnotes</h3><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn1"><span class="number">1.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[11]</span> <p>Speaking of a highly relevant matter here, in formal terms, the introduction of a non-Euclidean geometry was actually conceived by Carl F. Gauss during his student days of association with his mentors Abraham Kästner and A.W. von Zimmermann. Kästner, the initiator of a modern, explicitly anti-Euclidean geometry, was the pioneer in rejecting any likeness of a Euclidean geometry. On the later issue of the claims of Janos Bolyai, see two of Gauss's letters to Farkas Bolyai (Gauss's old friend and Janos' father), in Carl F. Gauss <strong>Der "Fürst der Mathematiker" in Briefen und Gesprächen</strong> (Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1990), pp.137n, 139-140. Unfortunately, the third of the leading, pre-Riemann advocates of a non-Euclidean geometry (Kästner, Gauss, Janos Bolyai, and N. Lobatchevsky), Janos was not consoled by Gauss's generous words on the subject of the conflict. Gauss's own reply to Farkas Bolyai on this matter, reflects an important weakness in Gauss's approach to presenting his own accomplishments (under the politically unfavorable circumstances established by Napoleon Bonaparte's reign, and, later, until the death of the hoaxster Augustin Cauchy, that at a time which, unfortunately, coincided with the onset of Gauss's own terminal years). To read Gauss's private intentions in such matters, it is essential to recognize something important of Gauss as coming to the surface in the work of Bernhard Riemann and Alexander von Humboldt's protégé Lejeune Dirichlet.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn2"><span class="number">2.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[12]</span> <p>Cf. the opening two paragraphs and concluding sentence of Riemann's famous 1854 habilitation dissertation.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn3"><span class="number">3.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[13]</span> <p>Since the combination of the 1967-68, successive collapse of the British pound sterling, U.S. President Johnson's capitulation of March 1, 1968, and the riotous outburst of the Spring, Summer, and Autumn of that year. U.S. fiscal year 1967-1968 was the beginning of a net collapse in the basic economic infrastructure of the U.S. economy: we have been going downhill in physical economy ever since. The 1968 election of President Richard Nixon has been the beginning of the end reached in today's aftermath of eight years of the worst U.S. Presidency in U.S. history since the end of that British puppet known as the Confederacy. Even Presidencies such as that of relics of the Confederacy, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, were not as thoroughly rotten as that under George Shultz's puppet George W. Bush, Jr.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn4"><span class="number">4.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[14]</span> <p>If we, for convenience, compare the "cultures" of mankind with those attributed to the higher apes, we must recognize that the human species is a relatively poor performer as a species, until we take efficiently into account the effect of the human creative-mental powers which are peculiar to all mankind, but absent in all lower forms of life, including the apes. These are powers not to be confused with the mere problem-solving capabilities of dogs and apes, for example. Creativity is not a matter of "knacks," but of discovery and employment of new <em>universal physical principles</em>. All forms of life are inherently clever, relative to today's right-wing free-market ideologues, such as Hank Paulson, but none, excepting mankind, is actually, potentially, efficiently creative. Which is why we must say, of all of the co-thinkers of Paulson and cultish groups, such as the dupes of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), who have failed the United States and its citizens so miserably, over recent decades: they might have been better employed in attempts to learn to behave as if they were actually devoted to human interests. AEI today typifies the rebirth, after Pearl Harbor day, of those anti-Franklin Roosevelt associations which changed their outer clothing, but have otherwise remained, inwardly, today, the same traditionally, pro-Mussolini and pro-Hitler, as they were, overtly, up to the events at Pearl Harbor. The Franklin Roosevelt haters of today, such as Felix Rohatyn and Britain's drug-trafficking George Soros, typify that legacy.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn5"><span class="number">5.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[15]</span> <p>Despite the immediate confirmation of the warning delivered in my July 25, 2007 forecast of an onrushing, global general breakdown crisis of the existing world economy, and despite the skyrocketting, and most dramatic evidence in support of that forecast throughout the entire span of developments through the present date, Russia's government refused to acknowledge this reality through December 2008, while "sub-prime" Minister Kudrin has just announced a perspective which is frankly insane in its presumptions and conclusions, and potentially suicidal for Russia as a nation. This development has been under careful, global study, as a matter of strategic counterintelligence, in U.S. interests, against the British empire, for some time. I do not speak idly in these matters.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn6"><span class="number">6.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[16]</span> <p>Leibniz, "Critical Thoughts on the General Part of the Principles of Descartes," (1692) and in "Specimen Dynamicum" (1995) Loemker, ed. (Dodrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989).</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn7"><span class="number">7.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[17]</span> <p>Contrary to the statisticians, biological evolution is not statistical in nature.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn8"><span class="number">8.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[18]</span> <p>The form of the principle of general gravitation, as discovered by Kepler, was not discovered by Isaac Newton. It was copied by the circles of the controllers of Newton from the previously published edition of some Kepler work. All that was added was a factor actually provided by the circles of Huyghens and Leibniz. As John Maynard Keynes proclaimed, on opening the mysterious secret chest of Newton papers, Newton discovered absolutely nothing of scientific interest, but chiefly just "black magic" of the witchcraft style.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn9"><span class="number">9.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[19]</span> <p>It should not be found astonishing that users of the term "thermodynamics" among the devotees of Clausius, Grassmann, and Kelvin, and Ernst Mach follower Ludwig Boltzmann, have no actual comprehension of the proper use of the term "dynamis" or "dynamics." Their use of the term is a form of ignorant blunder which constitutes evidence going to the heart of the issue of incompetence which I charge against those authors in respect to the notion of anti-entropy.</p> </div><div class="footnote"><a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn10"><span class="number">10.</span></a> <span class="print-footnote">[20]</span> <p>The crucial, allegedly missing paper by Abel, which Cauchy plagiarized, turned up, neatly catalogued in Cauchy's filing, showing that Cauchy had seized the opportunity of Abel's death to plagiarize that Abel's original work. Laplace and Cauchy came to power in France through the role of the Duke of Wellington who was the official representative of the occupying power in France, following the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. The result was not only appointment of the British asset who became, thus, the new King of France, to replace the previous leading candidate, France's national hero Lazare Carnot, but the British use of their stooge, the new Bourbon monarch, to wreck the educational program which had created the Ecole Polytechnique associated with both Gaspard Monge and Carnot. The hoaxsters Laplace and Cauchy were assigned to replace the Monge and Carnot, who had created and headed the Ecole as the leading scientific institution of the world during that time. Alexander von Humboldt, who had been a close associate of Carnot in the Ecole Polytechnique, did much to rescue and advance the Ecole's work, despite Laplace and Cauchy. This collaboration with Alexander von Humboldt, led to the launching of <strong>Crelle's Journal</strong>, the first of a series of similarly intended ventures which played a decisive role in the advance of science during that century.</p> </div></div></div> <div class="print-links"><p><strong>Links:</strong><br>[1] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote1">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote1</a><br> [2] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote2">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote2</a><br> [3] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote3">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote3</a><br> [4] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote4">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote4</a><br> [5] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote5">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote5</a><br> [6] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote6">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote6</a><br> [7] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote7">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote7</a><br> [8] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote8">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote8</a><br> [9] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote9">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote9</a><br> [10] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote10">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#footnote10</a><br> [11] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn1">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn1</a><br> [12] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn2">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn2</a><br> [13] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn3">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn3</a><br> [14] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn4">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn4</a><br> [15] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn5">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn5</a><br> [16] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn6">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn6</a><br> [17] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn7">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn7</a><br> [18] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn8">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn8</a><br> [19] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn9">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn9</a><br> [20] <a href="http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn10">http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7979#fn10</a><br> </p></div> <div class="print-footer"><img src="http://www.larouchepac.com/sites/all/themes/lpac/images/print_footer.png" width="595" height="120"></div> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br 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</li> </ul> <iframe width="989" height="103" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" id="newsreeliframe" src="/public/page/0_0_WC_2101_NewsReel.html?baseDocId=SB122895685290096607"></iframe> </div><div class="col10wide margin-left-big colOverflowTruncated"><div class="col10wide wrap"><div id="printModeAd"></div> <div class="printSummary pfHeader col6wide"> <ul> <li class="listFirst"> <p> Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit <a class="firstLink" href="http://www.djreprints.com" target="_blank">www.djreprints.com</a> </p> <span> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Reprint_Samples.pdf" target="_blank">See a sample reprint in PDF format.</a> <a href="javascript:CopyrightPopUp();">Order a reprint of this article now</a> </span> </li> <li> <span class="module_sponsor"> </span> <img alt="Need a Real Sponsor here" src="/img/wsj_print.gif"> </li> </ul> </div> <div class="articleHeadlineBox headlineType-newswire"><ul class="cMetadata metadataType-articleStamp"> <li class="articleSection first"><a href="/public/page/news-career-education-college.html">EDUCATION</a></li> <li class="dateStamp"><small>DECEMBER 11, 2008</small></li> </ul> <!-- ID: SB122895685290096607 --> <!-- TYPE: Education --> <!-- DISPLAY-NAME: Education --> <!-- PUBLICATION: The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition --> <!-- DATE: 2008-12-11 23:59 --> <!-- COPYRIGHT: Dow Jones & Company, Inc. --> <!-- ORIGINAL-ID: --> <!-- article start --> <!-- CODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=ONEW CODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OFFI CODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OMON CODE=STATISTIC SYMBOL=FREE CODE=SUBJECT SYMBOL=OCED --> <h1>Painful Choices as College Bills Wallop Families </h1></div></div><div class="art_tabbed_nav"><ul id="articleTabs" class="tab"> <li id="articleTabs_tab_article" class="selected"><a href="#articleTabs=article" class="article" onclick="">Article</a></li> <li id="articleTabs_tab_comments"><a href="#articleTabs_comments" class="comments" onclick="">Comments</a></li> </ul> <div class="more_in">more in <a href="/public/page/news-career-education-college.html">Education</a> »</div> </div><div id="articleTabs_panel_article" class="mastertextCenter"><div id="article_story" class="col6wide colOverflowTruncated"><div id="article_pagination_top" class="articlePagination"> </div><div id="article_story_body" class="article story"><div class="articlePage"><h3 class="byline">By <a href="/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=PHILIP+SHISHKIN&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND">PHILIP SHISHKIN</a></h3><p>(<em>See Correction & Amplification <a class="" href="#CX">below</a></em>.)</p> <p>The day after Thanksgiving, Glen O'Brien had bad news for his two children, who were visiting from college. With his electronics business pummeled by weak demand, he told them he couldn't afford to keep paying their bills at New York University.</p> <p>"We were both completely in shock," recalls his daughter Caitlin, a junior majoring in Spanish. She was looking forward to spending her spring semester abroad in Chile. Instead, she is planning to move back to California, get a job and take cheaper courses at a state college. She hopes to return to NYU next fall. The school costs about $50,000 a year for tuition, room and board, and fees.</p> <div class="insetContent embedType-image imageFormat-DV"><div class="insetTree"><div class="insettipUnit"><img src="http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PJ-AN818_pjPINC_DV_20081210165045.jpg" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" alt="[college bills]" height="394" width="262"> <cite>Jason Schneider</cite></div></div></div><p>As the economy shrinks, joblessness expands and small-business owners lose income, many students and their parents are struggling to make payments for the second half of the academic year, which are typically due this month or in January. Midyear applications for financial aid, typically rare, are up at a number of colleges, as families who believed they wouldn't need help earlier in the year are now feeling squeezed. Michigan State University, where students have been hit hard by the woes of the auto industry, last month set up a $500,000 fund for families hurt by the economy's slide.</p> <p>Experts say it's too early to tell what effect the recession may have on overall college enrollment, which typically rises in downturns as the unemployed who can afford it flock to schools for retraining. Yet next fall is shaping up to be a nerve-racking time for many colleges, who are also coping with shrinking state subsidies and endowments.</p> <p>Many students are already making painful adjustments, including dropping out, borrowing more to stay in school, transferring to cheaper schools or taking on part-time jobs. A third of parents expect the economic downturn to affect their ability to pay for college this year, according to a survey of 7,000 parents of newly enrolled freshmen by Eduventures, a Boston-based research firm.</p> <p>"I'm packing to move out of my apartment as we speak," says Jose Kerch, who was laid off four months ago from a call-center job in a bank and is now attending Glendale Community College in California.</p> <p>Mr. Kerch, 37 years old, says he has already received some financial aid. He applied for more after burning through most of the money in his 401(k) retirement plan and having his 2004 Ford Ranger repossessed. Pat Hurley, Glendale's financial-aid director, says Mr. Kerch's application is being assessed in what she calls a "crunch semester" for her office. Glendale says financial-aid applications are already up 15% from the last academic year.</p> <p>At Colorado College, which costs about $47,000 a year and has 2,000 students, financial-aid director Jim Swanson says he's dealing with at least five cases of laid-off parents. "For our institution, that is significant," he says. The Colorado Springs school has established an emergency fund for hardship cases and is also helping struggling parents set up payment plans. In at least one case, he says, a student is taking a leave of absence because her father's small business is hurting.</p> <p>Angela Cobián, a sophomore majoring in political science at the school, is planning to apply for more scholarships and student loans when she goes home for the Christmas break. Her father works for a contractor laying cable and operating heavy machinery -- a business that's been hit as construction has slowed. Ms. Cobián says she was expecting to graduate with about $30,000 in student-loan debt, but now "it's gonna be higher." She plans to cut her Christmas break short to take a paid internship at a law firm.</p> <p>Debbie O'Donahue, who says she is carrying more than $100,000 in college debt for her three sons, is borrowing again to put her fourth son through Lock Haven University, a state school in Pennsylvania. "I don't have a choice," she says. "If I don't do it, he's going to leave college." The family's financial predicament became even more dire this year, after her husband, a parts manager at a General Motors dealership, saw his income shrink, Ms. O'Donahue says.</p> <h6>A Mountain of Debt</h6><p>Jane Sawyer, a real-estate agent in San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, is struggling to keep her son, Michael Guard, enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he's now a sophomore. "I'm trying really hard so he doesn't graduate with a mountain of debt," she says.</p> <p>As house sales fell this year, Ms. Sawyer says, her income tumbled to a third of what she'd made in previous years, while her expenses rose. Her husband, Michael's stepfather, recently had a stem-cell transplant for lymphoma. All of that has left Michael, 19, scrambling for money to stay at Chicago for the quarter that begins after Christmas. He already has some grants and student loans, covering about $20,000 of Chicago's $50,000-a-year bill. But he's been relying on his mother and savings from summer jobs to cover the remainder.</p> <p>Michael, who studies philosophy and Spanish, is now considering asking his step-grandfather for a loan. He says he may skip the winter quarter and transfer to a cheaper school next year. "I hate the idea of having to borrow money," he says. Susan Art, dean of undergraduate students at the University of Chicago, says the school hasn't yet seen a huge impact from the recession.</p> <h6>Juggling Jobs and Classes</h6><p>For working students, the recession is making it harder to juggle jobs and classes. Nicholas Lima, a sophomore at Rhode Island College in Providence, already has student loans and three part-time jobs on campus. Budget problems have prompted the state to impose a midyear tuition increase that will cost Mr. Lima about $200 per semester, so the 23-year-old Army veteran is looking for another job, possibly bartending on weekends.</p> <p>Families who were counting on investment funds to pay for school are struggling, too. Jory Card, a student at the University of Oregon, says his great-grandmother left a trust fund, invested mostly in stocks, for his and his brother's education, but it's lost much of its value. His parents are now paying his tuition out of pocket while he looks for jobs and scholarships.</p> <p>Community colleges, where tuition is a fraction of what private universities charge, say more students are looking to transfer from more-expensive schools. At Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, N.J., where tuition is about $1,700 a semester, "we are getting heavy phone volume from people looking to transfer midyear," says Michael Bennett, director of financial aid. Brookdale has also seen "a dramatic increase" in financial-aid applications for spring, he says.</p> <p>For Mr. O'Brien, the business owner with two children at NYU, the reversal of fortune has been stark. His San Rafael, Calif., company, Electronic Stockroom, supplies flat-screen television sets, projectors, speakers and other gear to companies installing home movie theaters. The business has enabled Mr. O'Brien, 54, to buy a second home, and to send Caitlin, 21, and his son Conor, 18, to NYU, the school their grandfather attended.</p> <p>Earlier this year, as Conor was entering NYU to study music recording, a slowdown forced Mr. O'Brien to ask Caitlin to borrow $12,500 for the fall semester. Orders continued to plummet, eventually dropping by 30%, Mr. O'Brien says. He cut 13 of his 38 employees and closed some warehouses, and is now selling one of his two homes.</p> <h6>Moving in With Friends</h6><p>Caitlin, who's been working as a nanny in New York, says she's planning to move in with friends in Los Angeles and look for a job while taking classes at a state college. She has written to NYU to explain her family's financial situation and to ask the school to ease its restrictions on the amount of outside credits a student can use toward an NYU degree.</p> <p>The school just offered her a $4,000 scholarship, Caitlin says. But while she appreciates the offer, she plans on taking a leave of absence for the spring semester.</p> <p>NYU spokesman John Beckman says the financial crisis hasn't had a big impact on the school. "Things look little bit different than last year, but not a lot different," he says.</p> <p>Conor, meanwhile, is still looking for a way to stay in NYU. He's hunting for jobs, and to save on Manhattan's high housing costs, he's thinking of moving in either with an aunt who lives in New Jersey, or with friends in Brooklyn. His father's business "was doing so well," he says. "I didn't think it could cave in so quickly."</p> <p><strong>Write to </strong>Philip Shishkin at <a class="" href="mailto:philip.shishkin@wsj.com">philip.shishkin@wsj.com</a></p> <a name="CX"></a><p><strong>Correction & Amplification</strong></p> <p>Electronic Stockroom, a closely held electronics supplier based in San Rafael, Calif., has reduced the operating costs of its warehouses and closed a sales office. 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For the album by Misery index, see <a href="/wiki/Retaliate_(album)" title="Retaliate (album)">Retaliate (album)</a>.</div> <table class="metadata plainlinks ambox ambox-content" style=""> <tbody><tr> <td class="mbox-image"> <div style="width: 52px;"><a href="/wiki/File:Question_book-new.svg" class="image" title="Question book-new.svg"><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png" width="50" height="39" border="0"></a></div> </td> <td class="mbox-text" style="">This article <b>needs additional <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources" title="Wikipedia:Citing sources">citations</a> for <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability" title="Wikipedia:Verifiability">verification</a>.</b> Please help <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Revenge&action=edit" class="external text" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Revenge&action=edit" rel="nofollow">improve this article</a> by adding <a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources" title="Wikipedia:Reliable sources">reliable references</a>. Unsourced material may be <a href="/wiki/Template:Fact" title="Template:Fact">challenged</a> and removed. <small><i>(August 2007)</i></small></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <div class="thumb tright"> <div class="thumbinner" style="width:182px;"><a href="/wiki/File:Gudrun_agitating_her_sons.jpg" class="image" title="Guðrún agitates her sons, Hamðir and Sörli, to avenge their sister."><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Gudrun_agitating_her_sons.jpg/180px-Gudrun_agitating_her_sons.jpg" width="180" height="282" border="0" class="thumbimage"></a> <div class="thumbcaption"> <div class="magnify"><a href="/wiki/File:Gudrun_agitating_her_sons.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge"><img src="/skins-1.5/common/images/magnify-clip.png" width="15" height="11" alt=""></a></div> <a href="/wiki/Jonakr%27s_sons" title="Jonakr's sons">Guðrún</a> agitates her <a href="/wiki/Jonakr%27s_sons" title="Jonakr's sons">sons</a>, Hamðir and Sörli, to avenge their sister.</div> </div> </div> <p><b>Revenge</b> (synonym <b>vengeance</b>) is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a (real or perceived) wrongdoing. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of <a href="/wiki/Justice" title="Justice">justice</a>, revenge connotes a more injurious and <a href="/wiki/Punishment" title="Punishment">punitive</a> focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one. Whereas justice generally implies actions undertaken and supported by a legitimate judicial system, by a system of ethics, or on behalf of an ethical majority, revenge generally implies actions undertaken by an individual or narrowly defined group outside the boundaries of judicial or ethical conduct. The goal of revenge usually consists of forcing the <i>perceived wrongdoer</i> to suffer the same or greater pain than that which was originally inflicted.</p> <table id="toc" class="toc" summary="Contents"> <tbody><tr> <td> <div id="toctitle"> <h2>Contents</h2> <span class="toctoggle">[<a id="togglelink" class="internal" href="javascript:toggleToc()">hide</a>]</span></div> <ul> <li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#Function_in_society"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Function in society</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#History_of_revenge"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">History of revenge</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#Revenge_in_art_and_culture"><span class="tocnumber">3</span> <span class="toctext">Revenge in art and culture</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#See_also"><span class="tocnumber">4</span> <span class="toctext">See also</span></a></li> <li class="toclevel-1"><a href="#References"><span class="tocnumber">5</span> <span class="toctext">References</span></a></li> </ul> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } //]]> </script> <p><a name="Function_in_society" id="Function_in_society"></a></p> <h2><span class="editsection">[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Revenge&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Function in society">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">Function in society</span></h2> <p>In some societies, it is believed that the punishment in revenge should be more than the original injury, as a punitive measure. The <a href="/wiki/Old_Testament" title="Old Testament">Old Testament</a> philosophy of "<a href="/wiki/An_eye_for_an_eye" title="An eye for an eye" class="mw-redirect">an eye for an eye</a>" (cf. <a href="/wiki/Exodus" title="Exodus">Exodus</a> 21:24) tried to moderate the allowed damage, in order to avoid a <a href="/wiki/Vendetta" title="Vendetta" class="mw-redirect">vendetta</a> or series of violent acts that could spiral out of control—instead of 'tenfold' vengeance, there would be a simple 'equality of suffering'. Detractors argue that revenge is a simple <a href="/wiki/Logical_fallacy" title="Logical fallacy" class="mw-redirect">logical fallacy</a>, of the same design as "<a href="/wiki/Two_wrongs_make_a_right_(fallacy)" title="Two wrongs make a right (fallacy)" class="mw-redirect">two wrongs make a right</a>." Some Christians interpret <a href="/wiki/Paul_of_Tarsus" title="Paul of Tarsus" class="mw-redirect">Paul</a>'s "Vengeance <i>is</i> mine; I will repay, saith the Lord" (<a href="/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Romans" title="Epistle to the Romans">Romans</a> 12:19, <a href="/wiki/King_James_Version" title="King James Version" class="mw-redirect">King James Version</a>) to mean that only <a href="/wiki/God" title="God">God</a> has the moral right to exact revenge. On the other hand, in Romans 13, Paul dignifies the Roman emperor and his military governors as licit avengers on behalf of God: "he (the prince/magistrate/policeman) beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a <i>revenger</i> to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil". Every major religious system contains some method for the mediation of disputes and for the limitation of vengeance by imputing a sense of cosmic justice to replace the often faulty justice systems of the human world.</p> <p>Of the psychological, moral, and cultural foundation for revenge, philosopher <a href="/wiki/Martha_Nussbaum" title="Martha Nussbaum">Martha Nussbaum</a> has written: "The primitive sense of the just—remarkably constant from several ancient cultures to modern institutions...—starts from the notion that a human life...is a vulnerable thing, a thing that can be invaded, wounded, violated by another's act in many ways. For this penetration, the only remedy that seems appropriate is a counter invasion, equally deliberate, equally grave. And to right the balance truly, the <a href="/wiki/Retributive_justice" title="Retributive justice">retribution</a> must be exactly, strictly <a href="/wiki/Proportional_justice" title="Proportional justice" class="mw-redirect">proportional</a> to the original encroachment. It differs from the original act only in the sequence of time and in the fact that it is response rather than original act—a fact frequently obscured if there is a long sequence of acts and counteracts".<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-0" title=""><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <p><a name="History_of_revenge" id="History_of_revenge"></a></p> <h2><span class="editsection">[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Revenge&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: History of revenge">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">History of revenge</span></h2> <p>In ancient societies, in particular those with weak central justice systems, the method for deterring murder was to allow the victim's family to avenge the killing. However, if the families of the killer and victim disagreed in their moral assessment of the killing, they would most likely disagree as well in their assessment of any revenge actions which were taken, and a <a href="/wiki/Feud" title="Feud">blood feud</a> might ensue.</p> <p><a href="/wiki/Vendetta" title="Vendetta" class="mw-redirect">Vendettas</a> or "blood feuds" are cycles of provocation and retaliation, fuelled by a burning desire for revenge and carried out over long period of time by familial or tribal groups; they were an important part of many <a href="/wiki/Pre-industrial_society" title="Pre-industrial society">pre-industrial societies</a>, especially in the <a href="/wiki/Mediterranean" title="Mediterranean" class="mw-redirect">Mediterranean</a> region, and still persist in some areas. During the <a href="/wiki/Middle_Ages" title="Middle Ages">Middle Ages</a>, most would not regard an insult or injury as settled until it was avenged, or, at the least, paid for — hence, the extensive Anglo-Saxon system of "<a href="/wiki/Wergild" title="Wergild" class="mw-redirect">wergild</a>" (literally, "man-price") payments, which placed a certain monetary value upon certain acts of violence in an attempt to limit the spiral of revenge by codifying the responsibility of a malefactor. The story of <a href="/wiki/Wimund_(bishop)" title="Wimund (bishop)" class="mw-redirect">Wimund the Bishop</a> illustrates the typical implacability of the time: its hero, though blinded and imprisoned, would avenge himself against his enemies "if he had even but the eye of a sparrow".</p> <p>In Japan's feudal past, the <a href="/wiki/Samurai" title="Samurai">Samurai</a> class upheld the honor of their family, clan, or their lord through the practice of revenge killings, or "katakiuchi". These killings could also involve the relatives of an offender. Today, katakiuchi is most often pursued by peaceful means, but revenge remains an important part of Japanese culture.</p> <p>The motto of <a href="/wiki/Scotland" title="Scotland">Scotland</a>, '<a href="/wiki/Nemo_Me_Impune_Lacessit" title="Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" class="mw-redirect">Nemo Me Impune Lacessit</a>', is Latin for 'None shall provoke/injure me with impunity'. The origin of the motto reflects the feudal <a href="/wiki/Scottish_clan" title="Scottish clan">clan</a> system of ancient Scotland, particularly the <a href="/wiki/Scottish_Highlands" title="Scottish Highlands">Highlands</a>.</p> <p>The goal of some legal systems is limited to "just" revenge — in the fashion of the <a href="/wiki/Contrapasso" title="Contrapasso">contrapasso</a> punishments awaiting those consigned to <a href="/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy" title="The Divine Comedy" class="mw-redirect">Dante's <i>Inferno</i></a>, some have attempted to turn the crime against the criminal, in clever and often gruesome ways.</p> <p>Modern Western legal systems usually state as their goal the reform or <a href="/wiki/Reeducation" title="Reeducation">re-education</a> of a convicted criminal. Even in these systems, however, society is conceived of as the victim of a criminal's actions, and the notion of vengeance for such acts is an important part of the concept of justice — a criminal "pays his debt to society" evinced by countries such as the United States continuing the practice of capital punishment.</p> <p>Interestingly, psychologists have found that the thwarted psychological expectation of revenge may lead to issues of victimhood.</p> <p>The first written appearance of the proverb "revenge is a dish best served cold" is often credited to the 18th century novel <i><a href="/wiki/Les_liaisons_dangereuses" title="Les liaisons dangereuses" class="mw-redirect">Les liaisons dangereuses</a></i> ("La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid"). The phrase, "Revenge is a dish best served cold", was actually borrowed by the British from the <a href="/wiki/Pashtuns" title="Pashtuns" class="mw-redirect">Pashtuns</a> and popularized in the West, directing its original source to Afghanistan.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1" title=""><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a></sup> The English version of this phrase in that exact wording can be attributed to <i><a href="/wiki/The_Godfather_(novel)" title="The Godfather (novel)">The Godfather</a></i> by <a href="/wiki/Mario_Puzo" title="Mario Puzo">Mario Puzo</a>, a major bestseller in 1969. However, the phrase appeared in the 1949 film <i><a href="/wiki/Kind_Hearts_and_Coronets" title="Kind Hearts and Coronets">Kind Hearts and Coronets</a></i> as "revenge is a dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold".<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2" title=""><span>[</span>3<span>]</span></a></sup> The more well-known wording of this quote is also featured in the title sequence of the <a href="/wiki/Quentin_Tarantino" title="Quentin Tarantino">Quentin Tarantino</a> film <i><a href="/wiki/Kill_Bill:_Vol_1" title="Kill Bill: Vol 1" class="mw-redirect">Kill Bill: Vol 1</a></i>, accredited as an "Old <a href="/wiki/Klingon" title="Klingon">Klingon</a> Proverb", referencing the phrase's usage in <i><a href="/wiki/Star_Trek_II:_The_Wrath_of_Khan" title="Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan">Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan</a></i>, where it is similarly cited as such. It means that to be successful, revenge should be a considered and planned response enacted when the time is right, rather than a hasty and 'hot-blooded' action which will increase the chances of failure.</p> <p><a name="Revenge_in_art_and_culture" id="Revenge_in_art_and_culture"></a></p> <h2><span class="editsection">[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Revenge&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Revenge in art and culture">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">Revenge in art and culture</span></h2> <p>Revenge has been a popular theme for art and culture throughout history. Examples from the classics include: <i><a href="/wiki/The_Oresteia" title="The Oresteia" class="mw-redirect">The Oresteia</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/The_Revenger%27s_Tragedy" title="The Revenger's Tragedy">The Revenger's Tragedy</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Hamlet" title="Hamlet">Hamlet</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Don_Giovanni" title="Don Giovanni">Don Giovanni</a></i>, "<a href="/wiki/The_Cask_of_Amontillado" title="The Cask of Amontillado">The Cask of Amontillado</a>", <i><a href="/wiki/La_Forza_del_Destino" title="La Forza del Destino" class="mw-redirect">La Forza del Destino</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Moby-Dick" title="Moby-Dick">Moby-Dick</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Othello" title="Othello">Othello</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Macbeth" title="Macbeth">Macbeth</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Titus_Andronicus" title="Titus Andronicus">Titus Andronicus</a></i>, and <i><a href="/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo" title="The Count of Monte Cristo">The Count of Monte Cristo</a></i>. Revenge is also a prevalent theme in <a href="/wiki/Hardboiled" title="Hardboiled">hardboiled</a> fiction; e.g., <i><a href="/wiki/Red_Harvest" title="Red Harvest">Red Harvest</a></i> by <a href="/wiki/Dashiell_Hammett" title="Dashiell Hammett">Dashiell Hammett</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/The_Hunter_(novel)" title="The Hunter (novel)">The Hunter</a></i> by <a href="/wiki/Richard_Stark" title="Richard Stark" class="mw-redirect">Richard Stark</a>, several works by <a href="/wiki/Mickey_Spillane" title="Mickey Spillane">Mickey Spillane</a>. It can also be in newly written books such as "<a href="/wiki/Inkspell" title="Inkspell">Inkspell</a>" by <a href="/wiki/Cornelia_Funke" title="Cornelia Funke">Cornelia Funke</a> and the popular manga/anime <a href="/wiki/Hell_Girl" title="Hell Girl">Hell Girl</a></p> <p>Revenge is also a prominent theme in contemporary motion pictures; e.g., <i><a href="/wiki/Payback_(film)" title="Payback (film)">Payback</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/John_Tucker_Must_Die" title="John Tucker Must Die">John Tucker Must Die</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Revenge_(film)" title="Revenge (film)">Revenge</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/The_Punisher" title="The Punisher" class="mw-redirect">The Punisher</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/The_Crow_(1994_film)" title="The Crow (1994 film)">The Crow</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/V_for_Vendetta" title="V for Vendetta">V for Vendetta</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Sweeney_Todd:_The_Demon_Barber_of_Fleet_Street_(2007_film)" title="Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007 film)" class="mw-redirect">Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/Kill_Bill" title="Kill Bill">Kill Bill</a></i>, <a href="/wiki/Gladiator" title="Gladiator">Gladiator</a>, or <i><a href="/wiki/Park_Chan-wook" title="Park Chan-wook">Park Chan-wook</a>'s <a href="/wiki/The_Vengeance_Trilogy" title="The Vengeance Trilogy">Vengeance trilogy</a></i> are <a href="/wiki/Archetype" title="Archetype">archetypal</a> artistic portrayals of revenge. Revenge is also portrayed in the motion picture, <i><a href="/wiki/Prom_Night" title="Prom Night">Prom Night</a></i> (both 1980 and 2008 versions where a sadistic killer gets vengeance for his sister's murder), as do <i><a href="/wiki/Friday_the_13th" title="Friday the 13th">Friday the 13th</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/A_Nightmare_on_Elm_Street" title="A Nightmare on Elm Street">A Nightmare on Elm Street</a></i> and <i><a href="/wiki/Terror_Train" title="Terror Train">Terror Train</a></i>.</p> <p>Other movies deal with this concept in a more fantastic or futuristic setting, such as <i><a href="/wiki/Star_Trek_II:_The_Wrath_of_Khan" title="Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan">Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan</a></i>, where Khan's hatred of Kirk and his desire for revenge would became so intense that Khan would lose everything, even his own life in his efforts for revenge. This intense desire to obtain revenge above all else can be witnessed in Khan's dialogue, paraphrasing Captain Ahab:<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3" title=""><span>[</span>4<span>]</span></a></sup></p> <blockquote> <p><i>"He tasks me! He tasks me! And I shall have him. I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition's flames before I give him up!"</i><sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4" title=""><span>[</span>5<span>]</span></a></sup></p> </blockquote> <p><a name="See_also" id="See_also"></a></p> <h2><span class="editsection">[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Revenge&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: See also">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">See also</span></h2> <table class="metadata plainlinks mbox-small" style="border:1px solid #aaa; background-color:#f9f9f9;"> <tbody><tr> <td class="mbox-image"><a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search/Revenge" title="wikt:Special:Search/Revenge"><img alt="Sister project" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Wiktionary-logo-en.svg/40px-Wiktionary-logo-en.svg.png" width="40" height="44" border="0"></a></td> <td class="mbox-text" style="">Look up <i><b><a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search/revenge" class="extiw" title="wiktionary:Special:Search/revenge">revenge</a></b></i> in<br> <a href="/wiki/Wiktionary" title="Wiktionary">Wiktionary</a>, the free dictionary.</td> </tr> </tbody></table> <ul> <li><a href="/wiki/Retributive_justice" title="Retributive justice">Retributive justice</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Culture_of_honor" title="Culture of honor" class="mw-redirect">Culture of honor</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nemesis_(mythology)" title="Nemesis (mythology)">Nemesis (mythology)</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Lawsuit" title="Lawsuit">Lawsuit</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Crime_of_passion" title="Crime of passion">Crime of passion</a></li> </ul> <p><a name="References" id="References"></a></p> <h2><span class="editsection">[<a href="/w/index.php?title=Revenge&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: References">edit</a>]</span> <span class="mw-headline">References</span></h2> <div class="references-small"> <ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-0"><b><a href="#cite_ref-0" title="">^</a></b> "Equity and Mercy," in <i>Sexy and Social Justice</i> [Oxford University Press, 1999], pp. 157-58</li> <li id="cite_note-1"><b><a href="#cite_ref-1" title="">^</a></b> Halliday, Tony (ed.). 1998. Insight Guide Pakistan, Duncan, South Carolina: Langenscheidt Publishing Group. <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0887297366" class="internal">ISBN 0887297366</a> (retrieved 19 February 2007)</li> <li id="cite_note-2"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2" title="">^</a></b> "Mother Tongue Annoyances: Serving Cold Revenge" <a href="http://www.mtannoyances.com/?p=646" class="external free" title="http://www.mtannoyances.com/?p=646" rel="nofollow">http://www.mtannoyances.com/?p=646</a></li> <li id="cite_note-3"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3" title="">^</a></b> <a href="http://etcweb.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/mfs.batke/14/moby_036.html" class="external text" title="http://etcweb.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/mfs.batke/14/moby_036.html" rel="nofollow">Chapter xxxvi - THE QUARTER-DECK</a></li> <li id="cite_note-4"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4" title="">^</a></b> <a href="http://www.film.com/dvds/story/revengeisadishbestservedcold/16169619" class="external text" title="http://www.film.com/dvds/story/revengeisadishbestservedcold/16169619" rel="nofollow">Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold - Film.com</a></li> </ol> </div> <!-- NewPP limit report Preprocessor node count: 390/1000000 Post-expand include size: 3794/2048000 bytes Template argument size: 1286/2048000 bytes Expensive parser function count: 1/500 --> <!-- Saved in parser cache with key enwiki:pcache:idhash:181361-0!1!0!default!!en!2 and timestamp 20090227021124 --> <div class="printfooter"> Retrieved from "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge</a>"</div> <div id="catlinks" class="catlinks"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="/wiki/Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Category</a>: <span dir="ltr"><a href="/wiki/Category:Core_issues_in_ethics" title="Category:Core issues in ethics">Core issues in ethics</a></span></div><div id="mw-hidden-catlinks" class="mw-hidden-cats-hidden">Hidden category: <span dir="ltr"><a href="/wiki/Category:Articles_needing_additional_references_from_August_2007" title="Category:Articles needing additional references from August 2007">Articles needing additional references from August 2007</a></span></div></div> <!-- end content --> <div class="visualClear"></div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="column-one"> <div id="p-cactions" class="portlet"> <h5>Views</h5> <div class="pBody"> <ul> <li id="ca-nstab-main" class="selected"><a href="/wiki/Revenge" title="View the content page [ctrl-c]" accesskey="c">Article</a></li> <li id="ca-talk"><a href="/wiki/Talk:Revenge" title="Discussion about the content page [ctrl-t]" accesskey="t">Discussion</a></li> <li id="ca-edit"><a href="/w/index.php?title=Revenge&action=edit" title="You can edit this page. 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(See <b><a class="internal" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights" title="Wikipedia:Copyrights">Copyrights</a></b> for details.) <br> Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the <a href="http://www.wikimediafoundation.org">Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.</a>, a U.S. registered <a class="internal" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501%28c%29#501.28c.29.283.29" title="501(c)(3)">501(c)(3)</a> <a href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Deductibility_of_donations">tax-deductible</a> <a class="internal" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_organization" title="Non-profit organization">nonprofit</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charitable_organization" title="Charitable organization">charity</a>.<br></li> <li id="privacy"><a href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy" title="wikimedia:Privacy policy">Privacy policy</a></li> <li id="about"><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:About" title="Wikipedia:About">About Wikipedia</a></li> <li id="disclaimer"><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer" title="Wikipedia:General disclaimer">Disclaimers</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> <script type="text/javascript">if (window.runOnloadHook) runOnloadHook();</script> <!-- Served by srv143 in 0.075 secs. --> <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533518730461812121.post-67184482145907401302009-02-27T14:38:00.000-08:002009-02-27T14:46:02.211-08:00Justice<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Db5h17Qc6tHQbybYDMbq4j7-7operVJ56tcmP3t786xl1MwIovGxklOiFo4tjWul6B2N5mmkTvkBxtiq4E-Jt3DNtMp1dltT_y5fdBIrRp_YTPhkt-vL2gozUsW5V9ktNz7v6cB3hliC/s1600-h/hope.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 281px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Db5h17Qc6tHQbybYDMbq4j7-7operVJ56tcmP3t786xl1MwIovGxklOiFo4tjWul6B2N5mmkTvkBxtiq4E-Jt3DNtMp1dltT_y5fdBIrRp_YTPhkt-vL2gozUsW5V9ktNz7v6cB3hliC/s400/hope.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307612093819300834" /></a><br />Concept of justice<br /><br />(from Wikipedia)<br /><br />Justice concerns the proper ordering of things and persons within a society. As a concept it has been subject to philosophical, legal, and theological reflection and debate throughout history. According to most theories of justice, it is overwhelmingly important: John Rawls, for instance, claims that "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought."[2]: Justice can be thought of as distinct from and more fundamental than benevolence, charity, mercy, generosity or compassion. Studies at UCLA in 2008 have indicated that reactions to fairness are "wired" into the brain and that, "Fairness is activating the same part of the brain that responds to food in rats... This is consistent with the notion that being treated fairly satisfies a basic need" [3]. Research conducted in 2003 at Emory University, Georgia, involving Capuchin Monkeys demonstrated that other cooperative animals also possess such a sense and that "inequality aversion may not be uniquely human."[4] indicating that ideas of fairness and justice may be instinctual in nature.fEATherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817133325268373922noreply@blogger.com