Spiritual Economics Part 3

True Or False
Good intentions and seeking ‘truths’ in our musings is a relatively easy thing to do, as compared to putting them into practice, which is hard - but unless you do both, you haven't really achieved the truth you are seeking. Not only is wrong done by taking from someone what is not yours, but giving it to someone who has not earned it deprives them of a necessary step, a life skill, without which they will likely lose their balance and crash on the heights.

We are that which makes it possible to bring the Vertical into contact with the Horizontal, but unless both are brought together through our thought & action - the truths we muse, will never make it into reality - they won't truly exist - within us, or without us – and if they can’t be brought together properly in reality – they probably weren’t truths to begin with.

As we are judged not by our intentions - the thoughts we profess - but by our actions, it is because it is only through our bringing our thoughts out from the depths and heights within us, and into practice out into the world, that they become our true abilities, habits, and traits by which we are known.

Theories and truths that are only thought, but not put into practice, are Truths to no one. The attempt to get someone to a particular point on the spiral without their having put in the effort needed to make the climb upwards, can only be accomplished by jumping down to that same point on a lower level of the spiral. Truths must be enacted, people must "become them" by merging action and thought into reality, and so back into yourself, that is how a soul is chiseled into reality, that is the spiral of Vertical progress.

That fusing of the inner and outer worlds into deep etchings upon our souls is probably the only thing that we can take with us when we leave this world - and they will be the true marks of who we are and what we have become.

Economics pervades your entire life, supporting a policy that is unaware of the true source of wealth, your mind and soul and their relation to truth and its unfolding in reality, will be incomplete and false. Error and lies obscure and truth and will force progress downwards in an ever accelerating tragedyectory as power less and less diluted with truth, drives your progress. As Gagdad Bob noted in a recent posting on One Cosmos :

"For when truth is denied, raw power fills the vacuum, destroying love and everything else in its wake."

Power is something that always will break its bounds unless held tightly in place, and it takes strong convictions, truths, principles to keep it in control. Power when allowed to drive, will point its path closest to the ground. Whenever lofty motives are mixed with contradictory lower ones, it is the lower one that will win out in the end, they weaken your conceptual grip - the wider lines forced out by the inner details no longer integrated with understanding and conviction.

Lets look at our Cones lines within lines in a different light. If you've ever seen steel wires sprung outwards in a flower shape, springy, resisting being pulled together, straining to spread out wide again from within a tube you attempt to contain them in. As you slide them into their tube they're contained, if the tube frays, they begin to spring out again. Think of our wider lines as concepts that are able to contain the particular lines, bound as they are with your understanding. It is that understanding that constrains the power of the particulars of reality into your control. As you lose that understanding, or weaken it with falsehood, or contradictory desires for the shimmering particulars beneath your grasp, they will strain their bounds open, widening, and forcing you down the slope of the cone.

Those powers loosely understood are released pulling your life left and right and downwards, always downwards, because power seeks the most solid stance it can take, closest to the vertical ground floor. Whichever of the contradictory concepts are the least conceptual, the most concrete bound, that is the one that power will take to be its foundation and motive point, and that will involve using Force to pull you with it. Liars are not the only means of spreading falsehood - political and economic policies that obscure the truth, and mislead people into thinking falsehoods to be true, are depriving entire peoples of a proper grasp of their lives - they mobilize 'innocents' to spread falsehood with their every well intentioned effort.

A moral life can only be fully lived through the free choices enacted in the life of an individual, and thwarting that freedom to live as you see fit, enforces false actions, even if not law – think of how many times you, or someone you know, has not said what they wished to, because of Political Correctness Truth is further obfuscated by every half hearted action a person makes - the lie spreads the spirit sickens, and the economy, the culture and love itself are suppressed and forced down the spiral towards its base.

What Good can be done with force? Nothing will result as the allegedly well intended intend it to. Force is Tolkien’s Ring of Power; to use it to DO, to initiate (which separates it from force used in response to force initiated against you – no pacifism allowed here, if someone initiates force against you, you are in the Right to smash them as best you can), Force for some supposed good in the world, it will inevitably corrupt and destroy the good it attempted to Do. It must be so, because of the nature of human beings Free Will. You can’t do as Rousseau proposed, "Force them to be free", you will only enslave those you think you are freeing. Free Will must be free to choose - without that a person can not develop themselves or achieve anything of worth in the world.

To the extent that you try to protect someone from the realities of life and the repercussions of their decisions, you lessen their experience of living their lives. Life can only be experienced through Experience - attempting to lessen the experience MEANS to remove that person from Experiencing a portion of their Life, and the lessons they might otherwise have learned, which must be learned for them to progress above where they are on their particular part of the spiral of life.

Spiritual Economics Part 2

Unnatural Goodness
I agree that it is true that Private Property is not a "Natural" state to man. Most things of value to man, do not come to him "naturally", if by naturally, we mean intrinsically, and innately planted into his brain by some higher power. The state of man which comes to recognize a concept such as ‘Property’ is something which his developing soul only comes to conceive, comprehend and adhere to after the long and hard lessons of history have been experienced and learned from. Humanity is not a Natural state for Man - Man in the primitive state, is but a clever animal, skittish, sly, ravenous, and to any outside it's immediate "family", hostile and ferocious.

The sentiments and values that we have come to praise as decent behavior, do not come naturally to man the horizontal animal, he is lifted to Man the Vertical being only through the slow accumulation and passing on from the parent to the child, to the society at large, those thoughts, conceptions, beliefs, practices and habits that serve to create that enlargement of soul which is visible as a Civil and Decent Human Being. And the progress of Man from the flat line horizontal savannah level that we apparently began from, has only been achieved one step at a time and then only when large swaths of a population have caught up with their cultures leaders and so improved themselves, have learned new truths of foresight (as with the agricultural revolution), civic respect and division of labor(as with the development of cities), Philosophical truths (as with the Greco/Roman & Judeo/Christian revolutions), and that of Individual Rights (which made Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution possible). All of this Progress has taken History forward, but the long and winding paths between these revolutions have not always been upon a trajectory marked by a Vertical lift.

Reason (not the modern conception which would have it to be synonymous with an isolated non-contextual logic chopping, but the traditional conception which included searching the depths of your Soul to be integral to its operations) is the faculty that enables men to discern and expand his store of values from the world out there. It is the guiding light of humanity, and like a candles flame, one which is easily gutted, even snuffed out, if not dutifully monitored and upheld by the individual and the community at large.

How are these ideas lost? Neglected? How can they be learned? Taught? What is the effect of not having this knowledge? Ignorance is bliss? Nah, ignorance can corrupt your very soul. Lets try out a metaphor, or analogy, for what knowledge does, how it moves you through life, for better or worse for your spirit and your life.

Round And Round We Go, Whether Up Or Down Only The Thoughtful Know – The Cone Of Plenty
It has been noted that the progress of human development, individually and societaly, bears a resemblance to that of a spiral, but to me it seems less like a spiral that of a cylindrical slinky, and more like what could be described as a cone. Your route around it might begin with a general idea, travel forward around the cone, filling in details and corrections, until you arrive back at the same position that you started from, but with a now solid well thought out idea, so that though you are back at the same left-right position, you find you've actually risen up the cone, having traveled in an upwards spiral, rather than just a level circle. That reaching for understanding of where you are and what you do, of gathering together details and finding the common unifying principle among them, is what lifts you up the cones slope.

For instance there is a sense of a full circle being drawn as you progress from the original concept of "Wheel" developing conceptually within a persons mind, and progressing from there to actually acquiring materials such as wood & iron, and on to fabricating them into an axel and a circular spoked object, and finally physically as a Wheel on a cart. It is through the merging ot inner form or idea with material matter through the alchemical actions of your actions, to create the physical wheel; this progression takes you forward from the point of conception to its manifestation, in a circular fashion, returning back at the point of the ideas origin - but on our conceptual Cone this would not occur in a merely linear circle, such a new idea wouldn't leave you on the same level you began from. How does it lift you, and why?

Lets try to illustrate this better by thinking of a circle, in geometry we look at a circle as having 360 degrees, which if you traced 360 lines evenly spaced from the tippy tip top of the cone, downwards to the wide bottom, you would see that the surface area that fits within one degree at the bottom will seem quite large, as compared to one degree half way up the cone. If you attempted to draw an additional, say 36 lines from base to tip within each of those individual degrees, you would probably see these smaller detail lines would begin to blend together as they neared the top. And if you continued this surface division by tracing 36 more lines even thinner and lighter in appearance, squeezed within each of the smaller lines, and 36 in each of those and so on, and so on... you get the picture, a lot of lines, continuing on for how many? Well I’d continue subdividing the lines with thinner and lighter lines until you have enough lines to represent each particular fact in the world… I won’t, but that’s the idea. Picture neutrino’s, electrons, protons as thin lines within the darker line for Atoms, and collections of Atoms within the darker lines of Molecules, and “your time, effort and possessions conveniently portable, and preservable” as thin light lines within the darker line of Economics. Particulars within Concepts within Principles within Truths, and so on.

If you stood back from the cone, it would likely appear to be one solid colored shape, but as you neared it, the darker lines would begin to stand out, and then the lighter ones, and more so as you neared the surface, until with your face pressed right up against the surface you would see only a gazillion individual lines running up and down the surface within the scope of your vision at that close proximity. We can’t live that close, we have to live back from the detail at the level where the lighter lines blend into larger ones, concepts. But it is important that you understand that those details are still there, they exist whether or not you are ignorant of them. Errors will mislead you and keep you down – literally, at least with our Cone analogy.

Take that cone and extend it up to the sky… if you leaned your head back a bit and lifted your vision from the bottom of the cone towards the top, you'd see these smaller detail lines seeming to merge into wider lines as you rose up the slope of the cone. While there maybe 36 particular lines within each original degree, and within each of those lines and within... as they converge up the slope of the cone, you'll see them integrating together into wider lines, and wider concepts and principles, as you rise up the surface of the cone.

Apparently Less Is More
If you've ever seen something like an elastic hair band, stretched and pulled down over a cone shaped object like a megaphone, and then released it, you’ve seen the band draw its shape together seeking its seemingly contradictory state of being tighter and also more relaxed in shape, and as it does, it rises up the surface of the cone. Though the area that makes up a ring around the cone higher up its slope is smaller, what actually is contained in your grasp is more knowledge than what is at the wider base. This is what concepts and principles do for you.

In like fashion, what appears to be a rate of climb is really a lessening of cognitive distance needed to encircle the cone by gathering the individual lines together and sliding upwards until they merged. With a wider, more elevated perspective, the tighter you will be able to see the detail lines merge into wider individual lines the higher you'd rise, and do the same with a number of these merged lines merging into an even wider lines farther up the cone, and so on, as you move forwards and slide your grasp a littler further upwards with each step.

A completely new idea might seem to provide a steeper angle of climb - but remember what might appear as climb, is really more of a lifting which comes of grasping how a section of apparently separate detail lines of surface reality, integrated together - you in effect shrink the surface area you need to traverse the cone, and the higher you find yourself rising. Understanding how particulars integrate into concepts – like 11111111111111111111 integrates into 20, makes human life and progress possible.

From a left-right perspective, your progress may appear to be back at the same point, but when looked at from the a farther removed perspective, you’ll see that the progression took place in a spiral trajectory which does circle back to the same left-right point, but on a different vertical level. Your progress forward comes from utilizing the things before you as you progress around the cone.

As you discover new aspects of Truth, new interpretations, applications for it, wider integrations, you lift your path in a tighter spiral up the cone, approaching closer to the one point from which all other conceptual angles descend, here, principles and Truths integrate into a single focal point - the one truth, from which you would be able to comprehend all with a single grasp, just as you are able to easily grasp the top of a cone.

On the other hand, by forgetting or neglecting the wider integrations you’ve made, you will find that you begin to slip, your elastic band being yanked back open as the surface expands with un-conceived details splaying out beneath your grasp. At first, those details might seem beguiling in their shimmering fine lines, but as you continue to descend, to disintegrate the concepts within your conceptual grasp, you will slip at a faster and faster rate of speed, grasping less and less of the cones circumference. To rise back up, you will need to relearn how the pieces integrate.

Speed Climbing
Our Cone is a 3-Dimensional shape, it has a surface area, and an interior area. From the surface area alone, any position you look at, but from the very top, you won’t be able to see more than a small section of the surface, and the closer to the bottom, the less noticeable its curvature will be. Lifting your gaze up the surface will help to see how detail lines merge together, and progress will be made.

Remaining focused on surface details, discovering new physical objects such as a wheel, will enable some progress in your enlargement/shrinkage area - since any integration brings you closer to a larger truth. But leaving your attention on appearances only, neglects even more of the Cone than is seen on the surface. As with Humans, what is inside you, your spirit or soul, though unseen, is a larger and more important part of you than your physical appearance.

If however, you manage to draw your gaze not only upwards but inwards, in effect poking your head into the interior of the cone – that will enable you to gain a much wider grasp of surface and height at once, seeing as you would, all around the surface of the cones circumference at your level and above, which from the outside can't be possible except from the very top of the cone.

Looking within the cone however, think of what you would see. You would be able to see across the intervening 'space', to see all sides are actually not sides, but one surface which can be observed all at once and perhaps even see how their slope unites into the focal point, at the tippy top tip far above, where all truths and sides converge into that One Truth. You might also note, that with your attention or insight within the cone, that there is something within the cone, not a vacuum... what... a larger spirit in and of the cone, something that is at all places of the cone at once, a spirit within, a in-spirtation.

It would be a bit strange as well, the curving of surface space being concave, rather than convex, but with some thoughtfulness, you would be able to apply this inner vision to your outer world, grasp more integration, and rise higher up the cone. People down below might marvel at how much you were able to grasp within your hands, their eyes filled with the multiple individual lines within lines within degrees – they might not understand when you would call down that your grasp was no greater than theirs, you only had hold of wider truths that themselves contained the details that overwhelmed their eyes.


The Wheel Goes Around
A completely new concept, such as first discovering the wheel, would provide a wide range of details integrated together, and lift, or focus your progress upwards. Learning of the wheel the first time for yourself would provide what would seem to be at the same time a widening of your reach while simultaneously shrinking your grasp. And as you repeated this process and learned it more thoroughly, you would eventually cease to learn new details & principles, until finally your grasp would remain unchanged with each repetition.

If you were to learn nothing new, day in and day out, repeating what has always been done, you might merely circle around and around like the Stone Age aborigines still living in parts of modern day New Guinea.

This brings about what I don't think is often appreciated, the fact that there is no guarantee that your 'forward progress' is taking you UP the spiral - you can as easily circle downward on the spiral & mistake your forward left-right progress for improving your position on the Vertical scale. If your someone who keeps their eyes fairly close to the ‘ground’, if you look not up, but backwards or even down, for easier pickings, more glittering details, you will by the direction of your gaze, descend the cone, the lines will splay out in wider separation and the path around the cone will become longer, and as the cone becomes wider, the less of its circumference you will be able to grasp.

As someone discards principles to grasp at particulars, individual lines that may be glittering in their gaze, baubles such as redistribution of wealth (thieving) rather than creation, they are discarding wide ranging principles, loosening their cognitive grip on reality, and so are dealing directly with seemingly more and more particulars, being pulled down the slope of the cone as it widens under your grasp.

Spiritual Cash Value
The same may be seen societaly, such as with the founding of the United States of America – it began with “All men are created equal” as its founding truth – but it took another one hundred or so years to move forwards and upwards from that belief to the realization of what it fully meant, through disagreement, upheaval and war in order to come around to implementing it, and still the spiral continues on towards its being fully understood and accepted by all.

With the concept of gaining goods, you can go forward to get 'goods' but depending on whether or not you incorporate the Vertical guidance & progress of that truest private property, your soul, you may progress upwards, or regress downwards. To rise upwards, you need to create values, and that is done through the forging of the values of your inner vision with an outward physical action, to produce gains both material and spiritual. This process can only occur unimpeded through the recognition of Individual Rights, the ability of a person to act as their conscience sees fit, which is the method of Capitalism. People free to do as they see fit, as long as they don’t infringe on the proper rights of others in their society.

What enables you to make choices and decisions enables you to integrate – denying that ability will cause you to reach less integrations, and slow your ascent more and more. It also is going to keep your attention fixed on the surface issues, rather than being able to contemplate the heights and inner reaches and from gaining insights from them, lifting you less and less.

A rapid descent down the slope of the cone, however, is ‘gained’ by taking the more easy path of least resistance, spiraling down by focusing on taking by force the existing values produced by others, claiming grievances and injustices, so that you can call that action 'gain'. This is the preferred method of the leftist, Marxist, Progressivist, collectivist Statist. Hello moonbat city.

Note that although what I’m describing here applies to the physical realm, more importantly it applies to the Spiritual realm.

As I've noted in earlier posts, the person who is a "self made man", has developed the traits & mastery of their own self to act responsibly, productively, and morally. In so doing they create a means of support for their family, a warm supportive family life too, the likes of which Norman Rockwell painted so well.

This will be a far different man from that creature so prone to demonstrating en masse with an uncouth rabble, loudly and violently demanding ‘action’ in their protests (for peace no doubt) and government 'limits' to be placed on business & for 'programs' to support the poor (helping to ensure that they remain poor) – Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol – two peoples separated by a common humanity.

This applies equally for such rarified concepts as Humor. P. G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" stories are of an elevating humor, whose plots weave the stories concepts and situations into an inner building of humor which bursts out of you from unexpected, but oh so logical, implications within the story coming together in a way that lifts and makes you feel good, it puts you into a good humor.

Its opposite can be found in something such as "The Simpson's" whose humor relies mainly on perceptual shocks and new lows of manners. To be sure, it produces loud guffaw’s of laughter, but focused as it is on the downwards perceptions of guttural shock, it leaves you not in a good humor, but in a more savage state, more likely to pass on caustic sarcasm than warm thoughts - hardly a good humor.

The 'Progress' you make on your spiral path, though it may move in a forward direction, if it is lacking in the Vertical orientation of conceptually integrating and spiritually elevating aspirations, but is instead more focused and concerned with exclusively perceptual goals that you can grasp, 'Practical' aims alone, then your forward progress is going to be down the spiral, a decapitated progression and you shouldn't be surprised at the mindless hell that it delivers you to.

Spiritual Economics Part 1

What is it that people mean when they say that Money is the root of all evil?
What is it that people are intentionally attacking with that statement? It seems to be used as a way of saying that Envy is all that people are capable of in regards to money... as if they implicitly, and arrogantly, believe that money is something that can only be taken from others or that you must keep others from taking from you.

What does this say about people, their beliefs about Value, and ultimately Truth and Spirituality? People often say that what you value, affects your heart and soul. Fine and true enough, but how often do you hear that what you don’t value, can also have a significant affect on you heart and soul?

The normally thoughtful Deep Thought is promoting "Distributionism", apparently the Catholic Church’s approved economic plan - other than his posts on it I admittedly know nothing of Distributionism, but it seems that his posts reveal much. He lists a number of well meaning points that it promotes, “You should seek to avoid middlemen, credit unions are to be preferred over banks, Avoid Usury" and sums up the error of Capitalism as “…thinking that the goal is to maximize profits with the goal of accumulating the greatest possible capital”, but in my opinion all of these points sum up to "This is what we have determined to be the best way for you to behave", rather than "Refrain from committing crime, and live your life as you see fit, knowing that you are responsible for your actions." . As far as accumulating ‘too much’ capital being a mistaken goal – the purpose of Individual Rights (the cornerstone requirement for laissez-faire Capitalism) is not to achieve Happiness, but to ensure that people are free to do so if they are capable. It is the goal of Philosophy, not economics or politics, to achieve Happiness. As advice, some may see some value in this, but as Economic Policy? However holy the intent, I can’t see any ultimate destination for these good intentions, other than a new Utopian hell on earth.

And at root here, the viewpoint that Money is the root of all evil reveals to us much about those who hold it. It is this viewpoint that valuables’ (and Values!), wealth and luxuries are just things already “out there" which are pursued only by Brutes, whose lives are focused on all that glitters, and to seek or deal in Money, is to covet that which another has. This is not just a leftist viewpoint; most conservatives hold it as well. While conservatives are wary of Governmental regulation of the economy, they too think that there is little good in either money or the economy, but are instead necessary evils, made still worse by governmental interference and power.

Money is nothing but a tool to help make your time, effort and possessions conveniently portable, and preservable. It does it by measuring out something that nearly everyone agrees is of value to them, or because it is to most others feel certain that it can be traded for what is valuable to them, something that won’t rot on the shelf but will be valuable today, tomorrow 50 years from now, and which you can be fairly certain will be as valuable today and 50 years from now, come what may. Gold, Silver, Diamonds are the most common materials that fit these parameters. The dollar that the Founding Fathers fixed as our measure of currency was 100th of an ounce of Gold.

When you, say, agree to build a table for $50, you agreed that the time, effort and materials you’d put into building that table, were pretty much equivalent to the time, effort and materials that you’d trade for ½ an ounce of gold. That common understanding simplified the lives and calculations of everyone in the civilized world. With that common agreement, you were now able to set a few dollars aside each week until you had enough to support yourself for a week, and then with just those dollars in your pocket, you could travel to another city, exchange those dollars for food and shelter instead of trying to cart perishable food and clumsy materials with you, or hoping you would be able to find someone who would want your services when you got there, before you or your family got hungry. That’s it. Yes, government’s try to muddy the waters with some smoke ‘n mirrors such as paper money, but it still doesn’t change the fact that that is all there is to it. All of finance, stocks, bonds, money lending, are nothing but more and more sophisticated ways of enabling people to trade or store their skills using a common yardstick of measurement.

N-o-t-h-i-n-g M-o-r-e.
So what is it about this marvelous tool which enables these abilities and freedoms, that people (you?) like to posture so righteously about condemning?

And don’t give me any BS about some people having too much of it, there is nothing in its nature that is degraded by quantity – the principle and reality of it is unchanged by quantity. Also, please don’t bother with any BS about Actors and Athletes’ being paid more than ‘valuable’ people like school teachers, etc. If my Son goes to college next year, I’ll be paying $15,000 to $40,000 for him to sit with 5 or 6 teachers, and some support staff, for 9 months.

There are NO Actors or Athlete’s who we pay nearly as much money to, as we do to a school teacher or college professor. NONE! You want to argue about that? Been to a movie lately? How much did you pay to see it? $8? $12? Of that ticket cost, how many Actors were involved in the movie? How about crew? Related services & special effects people, etc? Over what period of time did it take to make that movie? 3 months? 12 months? If you could slice a pie into that many pieces, what portion would go to the “Star’ of the movie? A Penny? Oh, they’re a superstar? Well, well then, maybe $1? Lets get extravagant and say they get $4 of that ticket price – so you’re saying that you were willing to pay mister or miz bigshot glamour person $4 for 3 to 12 months of work, so you’d be entertained for 90 minutes – my oh my, aren’t you the big spender.

Do the math for the Athlete, it’s the same deal. The only way they collect such large amounts of money a year, is because hundreds of thousands of people are willing to pay them a fraction of a penny for an hours worth of amusement. They make FAR LESS than any school teacher or college professor. And you can bet, that once someone figures out how to make a decent school teacher or college professor able to provide their services over the internet for millions of people to see – they won’t say another word about earning obscene profits.

The view that wealth is Bad and a guilty pleasure to have (and to hold), is astounding and I contend that it is entirely unsupportable. The idea that through the redistributionist (thieving) policies of 'those who know better', that they feel that they are redeemed in their own eyes, and in the eyes of their fellow citizens, and even deserve thanks from both those who 'benefit' from their criminal efforts, and even from those whom they redistribute (steal) from, is incomprehensible. In these actions there occurs no creation, no development of self responsibility for anyone’s actions, no engagement of inner and outer worlds in the creation of wealth (the only way for wealth to be created or to do any good), for anyone they ‘help’, or even within themselves.

And don’t say that it’s not the people who actually earn a living that you condemn, only those who take profits for pushing papers around that you condemn. More ignorant BS. Lets take a look at the ultimate archetype of this idea, the moneylender. A money lender doesn’t make money for pushing paper, he risks ALL the money he lends (ever hear of a bank or savings & Loan collapse? The risk is real, and it takes real skill and judgment to avoid disaster and turn the risk into profit for all) He doesn’t lend suck money out of a transaction, he makes it possible for you to live in your house years before you’ve earned enough to build it. For the loan of using his money NOW he charges… what, $0.05 cents on the dollar? 6? Maybe 7? He makes your world possible and in return he receives your spin. Fortunately he doesn’t need the little sense you may have, only your cents. As soon as you hear someone deride moneylenders (middlemen too) you can assume 2 things:

1. Either they know nothing about money, and spend little time among abstract thoughts, or
2. They assume you don’t know nothing about money and hope to swindle money, authority and/or power from your ignorance.

The assertion that money is Evil, or in any way unworthy, is itself Evil, it is sick, and I think that it’s high time that people stand up and say so. I believe that, contrary to claims made by Rousseau, Marx & others, Money and Private Property actually ennobles an individual, and their society.

To have the opposite of Private Property, property that is claimed by all of the public, then it will be seen as something that is just there and its use will be claimed by all, but the responsibility for care and maintenance of it felt by none, to be treated as something of an afterthought. No one will have any sustained interest in its care or improvement, or a sense of responsibility for it.

Yours, Mine And Nobody's
When property is said to be "mine", not merely in possession of, but owned by a rational person, it gains an aura of worthiness in that persons eyes; psychologically, the person transfers a little piece of their self to the property, like God imbuing life into the clay of Adam – and that is not far off, it is made possible because of some portion of your time and effort – your LIFE being spent on it. Property that is private property is cared for, is improved, and also serves to establish value and regard amongst (rational) individuals in a society. Respect for your own property, requires a reciprocal respect for others property, else how could anyone manage to keep property private, unless all agreed to respect another’s claim to their own property? A society whose economy is based on money requires a society that understands and respects the rule of law – without that, it’s back to trading (and raiding) cows.

Those of a savage nature, who are violently grasping of "THEIRS!", but are covetous of that which is claimed by others; not only do they not yet have an understanding of what Private Property is and means - but I suspect that they do not have a properly developed sense of their own soul and self worth, or of how reason operates in their lives and of how their soul interacts with the world through the actions they take (or don’t take) to develop their lives. As a result, I suspect that you'll find that the development of their private selves, their conceptual, spiritual selves, their souls integration with their own mind, body and world, will be much less developed and full of contradictory desires, urges and behaviors as well.

Not having a complete & accurate experience & understanding of living their lives, is similar to a balance being removed from, or added to, a spinning wheel. Slowly but surely the wheel begins to not only spin and occasionally bounce, but to wobble from side to side, and not be able to correct itself back to true center. Soon the wobbling is pronounced and devastating to not only the wheel itself, but its bearings, axle and eventually the entire car will shake, and if not pulled to a stop, will crash to one.

And so even the oldest economic bogeyman of money lending, and what may be the well intentioned regulation of Welfare Statism, of Compassionate Conservatism, of Distributionism and "Usury is to be avoided", means that those with money to lend, who might be willing to risk a gain for a large enough return - will not, and those who might have benefited & prospered & elevated the situations of themselves and others - will not - and much wealth and potential wealth will be lost and destroyed.

Think of what must result from any policy concerning something as all pervasive to your life as Economics, which limits your freedoms and is to be enforced by the Government; which attempts to take it upon itself to force your choices into what it approves & disapproves of, is destructive to the Spirit, and removes self responsibility from it's citizens, forcing "choice" on those who, if free, would choose otherwise. I think that it must be a guarantee that eventually the citizenry will be reduced to savagery and a totalitarian state - that place where the path of good intentions so often leads.

To denigrate money and private property is to denigrate and devalue your own soul – and I think that there are many more of us out here who know that – and who know what you really are, those of you who think such rot - than you might think.

(For an excellent excavation of the “Money is the root of all evil” silliness, see Francisco's Money Speech excerpted from Atlas Shrugged, at CapMag.)