# Urth Digest, Vol 57, Issue 30 *The Urth list — 3 messages, 3 voices, 19 May 2009* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### David Stockhoff *19 May 2009, 22:10* Thank you for this. > ------------------------------ > > Message: 7 > Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 16:51:17 -0500 > From: Lane Haygood > Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) > To: The Urth Mailing List > Message-ID: <9C6B0298-D857-46D7-80F4-0E74FA6F4720 at gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed; delsp=yes > > ... > The substitution of civil government/society with a profit driven > market removes this universally-agreed as beneficial goal of > cooperation and replaced it with a unilateral goal of profit. As > wealth cannot be created ex nihilo, profit must arise from a producer > taking more than a product is worth. This is only possible on a market > where supply and demand are manipulated against the interest of the > consumer. > > Thus, the market is merely the latest iteration of the master-slave > relation. It is the battlefield of class conflict. How does calling > taxes imposed by a lawful sovereign equal theft, but the creation of > profit not equal extortion by a self-selected, undemocratic oligarchy? > > Individuals and individual liberty are only meaningful insofar as a > civil legal system ensures they are protected. Authoritarian abuses by > right and left ignore this. Free markets actively surpress it by > economic manipulation. > ... --- ### John Watkins *19 May 2009, 22:20 · in reply to David Stockhoff* Do economists still take the account of the nature of profit explained below seriously? I encountered it in school myself, laughed at it, and was assured that I wasn not expected to *believe *it. > On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 6:10 PM, David Stockhoff wrote: > Thank you for this. > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 7 > Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 16:51:17 -0500 > From: Lane Haygood > Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) > To: The Urth Mailing List > Message-ID: <9C6B0298-D857-46D7-80F4-0E74FA6F4720 at gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed; > delsp=yes > > ... The substitution of civil government/society with a profit driven > market removes this universally-agreed as beneficial goal of cooperation > and replaced it with a unilateral goal of profit. As wealth cannot be > created ex nihilo, profit must arise from a producer taking more than a > product is worth. This is only possible on a market where supply and demand > are manipulated against the interest of the consumer. > > Thus, the market is merely the latest iteration of the master-slave > relation. It is the battlefield of class conflict. How does calling taxes > imposed by a lawful sovereign equal theft, but the creation of profit not > equal extortion by a self-selected, undemocratic oligarchy? > > Individuals and individual liberty are only meaningful insofar as a civil > legal system ensures they are protected. Authoritarian abuses by right and > left ignore this. Free markets actively surpress it by economic > manipulation. > ... > > > > --- > avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. > Virus Database (VPS): 090519-0, 05/19/2009 > Tested on: 5/19/2009 6:10:42 PM > avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software. > http://www.avast.com > > > > _______________________________________________ --- ### brunians at brunians.org *19 May 2009, 22:25 · in reply to John Watkins* I believe that Marxist economists (a contradiction in terms if ever I saw one) do take this seriously. Wealth is created literally all of the time. That it is not is one of the most destructive of Marxian delusions. . > Do economists still take the account of the nature of profit explained > below > seriously? I encountered it in school myself, laughed at it, and was > assured that I wasn not expected to *believe *it. > > On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 6:10 PM, David Stockhoff > wrote: >> Thank you for this. >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> Message: 7 >> Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 16:51:17 -0500 >> From: Lane Haygood >> Subject: Re: (urth) Gene Wolfe Fans Talk Politics (Again) >> To: The Urth Mailing List >> Message-ID: <9C6B0298-D857-46D7-80F4-0E74FA6F4720 at gmail.com> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed; >> delsp=yes >> >> ... The substitution of civil government/society with a profit driven >> market removes this universally-agreed as beneficial goal of >> cooperation >> and replaced it with a unilateral goal of profit. As wealth cannot be >> created ex nihilo, profit must arise from a producer taking more than a >> product is worth. This is only possible on a market where supply and >> demand >> are manipulated against the interest of the consumer. >> >> Thus, the market is merely the latest iteration of the master-slave >> relation. It is the battlefield of class conflict. How does calling >> taxes >> imposed by a lawful sovereign equal theft, but the creation of profit >> not >> equal extortion by a self-selected, undemocratic oligarchy? >> >> Individuals and individual liberty are only meaningful insofar as a >> civil >> legal system ensures they are protected. Authoritarian abuses by right >> and >> left ignore this. Free markets actively surpress it by economic >> manipulation. >> ... >> >> >> >> --- >> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. >> Virus Database (VPS): 090519-0, 05/19/2009 >> Tested on: 5/19/2009 6:10:42 PM >> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software. >> http://www.avast.com >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ ---