From: jrmo@volta.att.com (J.R.Moore)
Subject: Re: [misc.activism.progressive] Clinton Office Requests Comments
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 20:08:57 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.175411.3843@zip.eecs.umich.edu> positron@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Jonathan Haas) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.163631.20197@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> jrmo@volta.att.com (J.R.Moore) writes:
>>
>>Now, college is a requirement.
>
>Yeah, whatever. Tell that to Bill Gates, _the_ most successful man in
>America, next time you meet him.
>

I say I'd prefer to see a return to trades.  How can a man be rich if
he doesn't even have a hand crafted oak or cherry desk and a custom
tailored wardrobe?

Great idea.  Thanks a lot.  Since I decided to rant in my last post, I
guess you missed my point.  And since I'm an idiot, I didn't include
some sort of emphasis to indicate that I intended that particular comment
to mean that college is seen by some people as a requirement.  And that as
such, many degrees are useless.  Particularly to a great entrepeneur such
as Mr. Gates.  But rather than use that fact of uselessness to advocate
banning college subsidies, I tried to address my vision of the future
in which there are three groups.  Competent people who get things done,
paper pushers who oversee it and wealthy people who control the fruits
of what gets done.  Eventually, I see it doesn't matter if you're competent
or not, if you don't see value in society as a whole, certain individuals
will have technology to convert all resources into some utility with 
little need for labor.  With no need of labor, no value of society, why
not create a supercity or palace, with strictly protected borders, a huge
Hugh Hefner mansion, with all pleasures, needs, activities available for
all residents.  A small number of these power brokers will own all the oil,
metals, arable land, fresh water springs, and all these will be guarded
to keep out low lifes.  The protection around these supercities, built by
the people who are now outcasts, or by technological replacements of people.
What else could someone want besides ultimate power, every pleasure, a good
supply of friends, and any utility available?

Or I could have said that some resources cannot be owned by one individual
but must be shared with society.  I see college, not as a resource, but as
a way for some guys who couldn't get any other work to make a decent living.
But so what?  Capitalism has run its course.  It was great for the last 
100 years or so, but now has the potential to ruin the greater part of
society if we don't think of a better way to share resources.  We need to
balance the rights of individuals with the survival of society.  I read two
pages of Dianetics.  It talked of drives for survival of self, family, culture,
species.  We all seek immortality.  I think we need to make the jump that
individuals are worth more than just what they can produce for society.
I think we need to realize that responsibility is circular, that society 
has a responsibility to protect the rights of individuals, but also that
individuals have a duty to that society.  The goals of the constitution
were not just to establish individual rights, but also to establish a more
perfect union, a more perfect society.  It also was set up to insure the 
blessing of liberty to our posterity.  Handing our children and grandchildren
a society in which they have the freedom to starve, because their labor is
of no value is insuring liberty?

What would you do if you owned vast amounts of land, supplies of metals,
factories run mainly by machines, and could get a machine to do anything
a person could do?  Sure, you'd be willing to pay the person the value
of the power to run the machine and maintain it.  Say that was equivalent
to a days supply of food.  Eventually, machines are better, because
they don't complain, don't get tired.  So now, you can go anywhere, do
anything you want, and there are millions of starving people who need
a job, where at most they can only earn a days food for a days work.
I say either you have slavery, or you have a lot of people on the outside
looking in.  They can't even live in the woods fishing, hunting, because
you own the woods and why let them deplete your resources?  I say unless
you have a society that values people and insures that no one person
can gain such ultimate power, and that all people are guaranteed an
adequate opportunity to succeed, such a result would be inevitable.


Joe Moore
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,comp.org.eff.talk,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism