The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

[Rajiv]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

I tnink it is you who is being arrogant here and not me!

You owe me an apology here! I think you have stepped beyond the line of civility, and have advocated an act of violence towards me. You seem to subscribe to the thought that violence should be used to solve differences of opinion rather than discussing points of logic and documented fact.

After that first paragraph, the rest of your comments are meaningless, and not worth replying to!

[WDCRob]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

May not be welfare, but it's hardly an example of a never-existed Libertarian Utopia either.

[Scot]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Not really! And I think the difference in our opinion rests upon an understanding of the difference between the conduct of modern academic history versus popular history.

Academic history relies primarily on documentary evidence -- while popular history is more hearsay. Thus a popular history of say the "dotcom bust" may be quite different from the academic history, and the imputation of causes and effects of the same could be quite different.

While academic historians can and do differ in the depiction and documentation of events, and may selectively choose from what documents to draw upon, that limitation - to use documentary evidence - limits the range of conclusions.

Zinn uses documentary evidence to highlight the impact of events on the common man ("middle class" in today's parlance.) as is done in his seminal book - A People's History Of The United States

Holbrook as a popular historian, relies on a "folk history." Folk history depends primarily on people's perceptions of events -- and those perception can often be quite different from the actual events -- these perceptions are often manipulated by popular media, as is vey well presented in the documentary - The Century of the Self and the documentary "Spin"

The arrogance! "I think the difference in our opinion rests upon an understanding of the difference between the conduct of modern academic history versus popular history", you write. If I were metalman, I'd slug you one.

Why don't you just get some balls and tell him honestly that you think you're the gifted thinker and he's just the naive amateur?

And Zinn could use a little "folk history" as you call it. By omitting other's perceptions of events, he give himself permission to project his own perceptions onto those events -- worse, he projects his own values onto those events. And in the process he creates descriptions of happenings that are full of subjective value judgments.

Take the very passage you quoted were Zinn uses the word "welfare" to describe the subsidies given to build the railroads.

Now why would he use the word "welfare" instead of "subsidy"? Because welfare is see more negatively that subsidy. He uses the word welfare because he's intentionally trying to manipulate the reader into making a judgment about the railroad companies. He's intentionally obscuring the difference between the two. And while the degree of difference may be small and may depend on context, it's especially important when talking about the history of the railroads in the US.

Maybe loans and land giveaways weren't done as charity. Maybe each state involved thought that it was going to get something in return economically. There was competition among states for rail. It's possible to characterize loans and land give-away as genuine investments. That's not welfare. Perhaps there should be some more discussion on this point.

But you see, Zinn doesn't care that's there may be important differences between railroad subsidies and welfare. He wants to manipulate. He's made up his mind about who the villains were.

And he want's to make up yours.

If Zinn were honest, he'd have called the book Zinn's History of the United States. But he claims to speak for "the people". No wonder you like him. I think you're full of the same false modesty.

[open4]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Yes it can be all of those things it can also be any type of human interaction Websters define conspiring as,

1: to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or an act which becomes unlawful as a result of the secret agreement

2: to act in harmony toward a common end

from Latin conspiratio = Union

So it can be said whenever people act together they are always involved in a conspiracy, the word is so ambiguous that it has no worth of meaning,

[Rajiv]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

the lefty railroad history is correct and the right wing history is bosh, or it's the other way around. seriously, there's truth and lies in both.

Not really! And I think the difference in our opinion rests upon an understanding of the difference between the conduct of modern academic history versus popular history.

Academic history relies primarily on documentary evidence -- while popular history is more hearsay. Thus a popular history of say the "dotcom bust" may be quite different from the academic history, and the imputation of causes and effects of the same could be quite different.

While academic historians can and do differ in the depiction and documentation of events, and may selectively choose from what documents to draw upon, that limitation - to use documentary evidence - limits the range of conclusions.

Zinn uses documentary evidence to highlight the impact of events on the common man ("middle class" in today's parlance.) as is done in his seminal book - A People's History Of The United States

Holbrook as a popular historian, relies on a "folk history." Folk history depends primarily on people's perceptions of events -- and those perception can often be quite different from the actual events -- these perceptions are often manipulated by popular media, as is vey well presented in the documentary - The Century of the Self and the documentary "Spin"

[metalman]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Rather depends upon who is writing the history doesn't it?

Another reading of the relationship of government and the railroad barons

From Howard Zinn - Declarations of Independence

the lefty railroad history is correct and the right wing history is bosh, or it's the other way around. seriously, there's truth and lies in both.

[Rajiv]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Rather depends upon who is writing the history doesn't it?

Another reading of the relationship of government and the railroad barons

From Howard Zinn - Declarations of Independence

The first Congress also adopted the economic program of Alexander Hamilton, which provided money for bankers setting up a national bank, subsidies to manufacturers in the form of tariffs, and a government guarantee for bondholders. To pay for all those subsidies to the rich, it began to exact taxes from poor farmers. When farmers in western Pennsylvania rebelled against this in 1794 (Whiskey Rebellion), the army was sent to enforce the laws.

This was only the beginning in the history of the United States of the long dependency of the rich on the government. In the decades before the Civil War, great fortunes were made because state legislatures gave special help to capitalists. The builders of railroads and canals, needing large sums of money, were not told Raise your own capital. They became dependents of the government, using their initial capital not to start construction, but to bribe legislators. In Wisconsin in 1856 the LaCrosse and Milwaukee Railroad got a million acres free, after distributing about $900,000 in stocks and bonds to seventy-two state legislators and the governor.

Altogether, in the decade of the 1850s, state governments gave railroad speculators 25 million acres of public land, free of charge, along with millions of dollars in loans. During the Civil War, the national government gave a gift of over 100 million acres to various railroad capitalists.

The first transcontinental railroad was not built by laissez-faire. The railroad capitalists did it with government land and money. The great romantic story of the American railroads owes everything to government welfare. The Central Pacific, starting on the West Coast, got 9 million acres of free land and $24 million in loans (after spending $200,000 in Washington for bribes). The Union Pacific, starting in Nebraska and going west, got l2 million acres of free land and $27 million in government loans.

And what did the government do for the 20,000 workers-war veterans and Irish immigrants-who laid five miles of track a day, who died by the hundreds in the heat and the cold? Did it give their families a bit of land as payment for their sacrifice? Did it give loans to the 10,000 Chinese and 3,000 Irish, who worked on the Central Pacific for $l or $2 a day? No, because that would be welfare, a departure from the principle of laissez-faire.

The historical practice in the United States of aid to the rich and laissez-faire for the poor was particularly evident in the 1920S, when the secretary of the treasury was Andrew Mellon. One of the wealthiest men in America, he sat atop a vast empire of coal, coke, gas, oil, and aluminum. Mellon cut taxes for the very rich, whose high living gave the decade its name "The Jazz Age." Meanwhile, many millions of Americans lived in poverty, with no aid from the government."

[Sharky]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

You say 'potato,' I say 'WTF?'

That the poor Robber Barons were beset on all sides by the evils of regulation, and so had to (just had to!) resort to buying government to protect themselves is an interesting reading of history.

By "Robber Barons" do you mean the industrialists who employed millions and brought never-before-seen wealth to the country, immeasurably raising the overall standard of living? The ones who hundreds of thousands more saught to be employed by? Those robber barons?

If you don't care for my reading of history, here's a quote from The Story of American Railroads, by Holbrook:

"Almost from the first, too, the railroads had to undergo the harassments of politicians and their catch-poles, or to pay blackmail in one way or another. The method was almost sure-fire; the politico, usually a member of a state legislature, thought up some law or regulation that would be costly or awkward to the railroads in his state. He then put this into the form of a bill, talked loudly about it, about how it must pass if the sovereign people were to be protected against the monster railroad, and then waited for some hireling of the railroad to dissuade him by a method as old as man. There is record of as many as thirty-five bills that would harass railroads being introduced at one sitting of the legislature."

[metalman]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Precisely how do you define the word ''conspiracy'' and do you define it differently when combined with the word ''theory''

to me a conspiracy is an improbably collection of parties collaborating over an improbably long period and keeping a baziilion pages of logistical information secret that's needed to keep the conspiracy coordinated, without anyone defecting to spill the beans, or form new competing alliances. a theory is 60 guys who know each other since college, share board seats together, revolve around the same social circles, etc., and share common goals, connections, and ideas about how things ought to go in their own interests.

[WDCRob]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

It didn't last because some businesses eventually discovered that government could damage them. So they fought back by putting their own candidates forward and by working in other ways to influence legislation in their favor.

You say 'potato,' I say 'WTF?'

That the poor Robber Barons were beset on all sides by the evils of regulation, and so had to (just had to!) resort to buying government to protect themselves is an interesting reading of history.

[open4]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Metalman,

I definitely feel it and I see it. I agree with your a+b-c/x=-x(c-(a+b))/xx scenario. The smoke and mirrors is to build hope and confusion. We must look at the reality of the situation to see what is to come. It will not happen over night. It will happen over time. I see it as a sine wave where the government is applying different methods in order to dampen the swings. I am just looking for a total loss of control which is also what I do daily on my job. In my current occupation if you pass the knee of the curve then all is lost. I associate that knee with the inflation curve, but I have yet to see the point of no return for inflation. In the electricity industry, it doesn't happen immediately, but once the knee is past you only have a few seconds before it is lights out and at that point the computer takes over and goes into pre programmed survival mode. I see the markets and economy the same.

I somewhat disagreed with one of your earlier statements. If you could expand on your thoughts on conspiracy theories I would appreciate it. I don't think that all conspiracy theories are anti-intellectual. There is a truth out there that maybe few know. I think that most consider it a waste of time when they fail to find the truth.

Precisely how do you define the word ''conspiracy'' and do you define it differently when combined with the word ''theory''

[Sharky]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Could you please give me your definition of that term, and historical incidences of when it was practiced, and if there is such an instant, why the practice did not persist?

The definition of laissez-faire capitalism is simple: a complete separation of business and state.

In its true form, it has never been practiced. The closest the world seems to have come was the US in the late 19th century -- a (somewhat bumpy) period of unprecedented growth and increasing prosperity.

It didn't last because some businesses eventually discovered that government could damage them. So they fought back by putting their own candidates forward and by working in other ways to influence legislation in their favor. Corporatism was born.

[WDCRob]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Could you please give me your definition of that term, and historical incidences of when it was practiced, and if there is such an instant, why the practice did not persist?

Good luck with this one. Asked and unanswered many times.

[metalman]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

Could you please give me your definition of that term, and historical incidences of when it was practiced, and if there is such an instant, why the practice did not persist?

rajiv, i can answer that.

pure free market capitalism, without interference by gov't (taxes to pay for infrastructure, regulate markets to punish fraud, laws to bust up monopolies and prevent the externalization of costs like pollution, and all the other evils of gov't) was practiced briefly here, in the lost city of atlantis. the wonders of this marvelous economic/political system were lost when some idiot (no doubt a gov't employee!) left the door open one night after letting the cat out and water flooded the place out.

[Rajiv]

Re: The Ground Gives Way - Eric Janszen

It's about as far from true laissez-faire ("hand-off") capitalism as one could imagine.

Could you please give me your definition of that term, and historical incidences of when it was practiced, and if there is such an instant, why the practice did not persist?