From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Mon Jul 12 2004 - 16:06:21 BST
Mel, Dan...
Obviously the question was "loaded". Let me address your responses, and then I'd
like to bring some discussion back to labor alienation and ZMM.
> > > All,
> > >
> > >> Let me reask the question in the extreme.
> > >
> > > Did the cotton plantations of the old south have value when they turned
> >a
> > > profit?
>
> No, not intellectually. Socially low value. Biologically, yes. For the
> owners. No for the slaves.
>
Explain to me how slavery "at that time" had socially low value in the south? I
think the "system" had very high social value. Did not Thomas Jefferson own
slaves? Also, take this above comment and change "slaves" to "labor in
Tijuana". Explain how this shifts the sentence from a "intellectually low
quality" to an "intellectual high quality" statement, or from an intellectual
to a social moral concern?
> > >
> >
> >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...
>
> Hi Mel
>
> No doubt.
>
No doubt. Would you not say Quality is lower from the Tijuanese workers point of
view? Why should we "care" either way (slave or Tijuanese worker) if the
market's highest Quality is measured by profit?
>
> >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.
>
> I expect that until the law came along and mandated an equal playing field
> that there were certain groups who received preferential treatment and
> others who were on the losing end. The same thing happens today but it's
> more covert than overt.
>
Is creating a "level playing field" a layer of "stifling social regulations" or
is it a moral issue on the intellectual level?
Did abolishing slavery fully create this level playing field? If not, and if
creating a level playing field is still moral, why are discussions surrounding
it reduced to "pesky social regulations"?
> >
> >Today, we see the old southern plantation as a straw man, rightly
> >or wrongly. (from oversimplification)
>
> Well it depends. There are still pockets in the south that are "old south"
> but with the Interstate highways' homogenizing effects you're right.
>
It was intended as an oversimplification, to ask why it is "intellectually
moral" to free someone from slavery, but only a "social moral issue" to keep
the Tijuanese labor force impoverished (evidence: rates of pay so low families
can't afford clean water).
Are guns the only weapon the intellectual level recognizes as weapons that can
keep others enslaved?
> > > 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).
>
> Hmm, now. But it did so on the back of an oppressed people. You neglect to
> mention that.
>
I did mention that, it was my point. So is maximizing profit on the back of an
oppressed people intellectually morally wrong? How is that not what Coke is
doing in Tijuana?
> >
> > >The "immorality" or "morality" of
> > > slavery is a static social issue, is it not?
>
> No. Slavery would seem an affront to the intellect, social, and biological
> slave. Slavery would seem to be an affront to the conscientious owner as
> well, though perhaps only socially and intellectually. That biological drive
> though...
>
Of course if would affront all levels from the slaves point. But here you make a
curious statement. "Conscientious". Two points:
(1) It seems to me some have argued that "conscientious" is a stifling social
layer of out-dated morality. Why is being concerned about the treatment of the
slaves "conscientious", but concerned about the treatment of the Tijuanaese
"socialist"?
(2) Explain why we should have restricted the personal freedom of those who did
not feel slavery was a social or intellectual affront. I would guess this was
the majority, or else the system would have collapsed from within, no?
> >
> >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.
>
Agreed. I ask, are there no other "act(s) of economic expediency and political
compromise that [are] definitely also a low quality-static quality in both
social and intellectual levels" being committed by modern capitalism? Seems to
me that is what we are talking about?
> >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...
>
> If the MOQ is against slavery then any attempt at regulating it other than
> abolition is meaningless. It's immoral. Period.
>
Agreed, of course. This of course places "slavery" as an "intellectually" not
"socially" governed moral issue (or perhaps both, but...). This says, of
course, that there are moral issues that must- by virtue of Intellectual
Quality- supercede individual "personal freedoms" in the marketplace? Does it
not?
> > >
> >The levels are at war, but the higher intellectual quality seems to
> >make slavery a lower level dominating a higher one. bye-bye
> >slavery
>
But not bye-bye exploiting a deliberately impoverished population in Tijuana?
Arlo
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