From: ml (mbtlehn@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon Jul 12 2004 - 05:35:46 BST
----- Original Message -----
From: "Arlo J. Bensinger" <ajb102@psu.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 6:21 PM
Subject: Re: MD the metaphysics of free-enterprise
> All,
>
>> Let me reask the question in the extreme.
>
> Did the cotton plantations of the old south have value when they turned a
> profit?
>
History looks diffrerent on either end...so, to the 1860's owner, it was
the basis of all of his economic world--this years crop, in fact.
Quality was lower from the enslaved workers point of view no doubt...
1880's I suspect the owners my have found lower social value and
higher intellectual value (having to deal in a NEW WORLD)
Share croppers may have similarly found a lower dynamic quality
biologically as they were finding survival tough somewhere in that
time, but social and intellectual quality was certainly higher, more
dynamic, they even had participation in government for a short time.
Today, we see the old southern plantation as a straw man, rightly
or wrongly. (from oversimplification)
> By the current capitalist dialogue, and everything you have said thus far,
they
> maximized profit and contributed to many plantation owners "personal
freedom".
> It boosted the economy of the area, raised many whites out of poverty,
> bolstered the foreign trade and brought work to many tangent business
> operations (shipping and fabric dying).
Broad increase in economic wealth is surely higher quality in
an "Aggregate Sense" (hate those generalizations...) than a
general Decrease in economic wealth aggregately.
>The "immorality" or "morality" of
> slavery is a static social issue, is it not?
I was wrestling with that as well, but I think your next sentence
shows us a way out of that 'trap'. If we take the intent, the
impetus, behind the Constitution and Bill of Rights as a work
of previously unequalled Intellectual Dynamism, then the part
of that which was looking at personal freedom and all men
being created equally, then slavery at that moment became
an act of economic expediency and political compromise
that is definitely also a low quality-static quality in both social
and intellectual levels.
So imposing arbitrary "stifling"
> social layers on the "personal freedom" of "honest traders going about
their
> business in the marketplace" by regulating slavery should be something you
are
> against, correct? Just wondering...
>
The levels are at war, but the higher intellectual quality seems to
make slavery a lower level dominating a higher one. bye-bye
slavery
thanks--mel
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