Juan,

I would say you are very good theoretician no more nor less.
Real life is something different in many situations perhaps.


> It seems to me (but I may be wrong) that James goes from oil
> to money and from money to war.
> Oil companies get rich - once they are rich, they use money
> to buy violence. So, money is the root of all evil.
>         That is, IMO, a misrepresentation of facts.

It is solid fact by itself. Big Money creates more money and eliminate
everything on its way that prevents it doing so. Forget the morale and
humanity, it doesnt exist in that scale. That's the nature of it.


> >But what does the money represent? Ownership of property?
>         Earned money (as opposed to stolen) represents services rendered.
> You did something for Peter and got paid - so now you can offer your 'money'
> in the market to get a service back. Isn't that fair ?

How do you differ earned money ( which is fair and small ) and stolen money
( which is violent and huge ) Money doesn't smell according to Romes :)
Money became creature of itself, pursued purely by certain people who believe
that money will provide everything especially the more amounts you can handle.


>         If you build a house with your own hands, is the house yours ?
>         If you work as an engineer, get paid, and use the money to get a
> house built, is  the house yours ?

If you are within for example Morgan family enterprise and standing behind
of federal reserve system you don't need to "build the houses" :) Money can
be "borrowed" from the air as much as you want and loaned to everybody else
for certain percentage thus creating income from nowhere and no work gets
done. Why in many countries there is no more gold backup behind the national
currency? ( USA included ) Things became too relative and abusive
in the past century.


> >Again, "who can destroy a thing, owns a thing"
>         Yes, in a very restricted way. You can destroy your neighbour's
> house. Do you then own it ? Can you use it/sell it/morgage it ? I don't
> think so. You can merely destroy the property of your neighbour. You can not
> transfer it to you! If you kill him, you won't get his life transfered to
> you. More likely, you'd be killed in turn...

In a straight way. You can kill your neighbour family, burn his house and
give his belongings to everybody else. And nobody will be secure that next
day it is not his own turn. Everybody wants to survive (1st basic instinct )
Think about that or rather carefully study 2nd world war, hitler and stalin
regimes. ( I don't wish that to be repeated to anybody even in nightmares )


> You seem to be arguing that violence is all powerful...it is not. It
> can only destroy life and wealth. It obiously can't create them.

When you can loose your life or especially life of your children
you don't think much about wealth believe me.


> >As I said, in the end, it is Ug or Stalin, or Mao, or Hitler who owns it all.
>         1) How many people can ONE man, unaided, kill ? So, Stalin was evil,
> but what about the soldiers who made it possible for him to rule ? It's the
> same point again. Who is guilty/guiltier ? The one who gives the 'order' ?
> Or the one who physically commits the crime ?

You never been in concentration camp regurdless stalin or hitler regimes thus
please stop theorize about how powerfull person you can be in given situation.
When you have a choice to be executed yourself or you have to shoot as many
of your neigbours as you told to in order to save your life, I can tell you
there are many people who will do whatever is required to stay alive.
Violence and fear are extremely dangerous and effective things in that matter
and agree with James on that. Until violance isn't declared out of law every-
where it has to be taken into account seriously.


WBR Dmitry.
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist