Re: (Fwd) Blasphemous Black Blasts Bishop

[Ted Winslow <winslow@xxxxxxxx>]

Re

>
> PAPER BARON BLACK CALLS BISHOP A "LITTLE TWERP"
> FOR DEFENDING WORKERS
>

Explanation of Black type psychology overemphasizing the positive:

"dangerous human proclivities can be canalised into comparatively harmless
channels by the existence of opportunities for money-making and private
wealth, which, if they cannot be satisfied in this way, may find their
outlet in cruelty, the reckless pursuit of personal power and authority, and
other forms of self-aggrandisement.  It is better that a man should
tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens; and whilst
the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter,
sometimes at least it is an alternative."  (Keynes, General Theory, p. 374)

Same explanation overemphasizing the negative (with a strong odour of
anti-Semitism):

"Taking the usurer, that old-fashioned but ever-renewed specimen of the
capitalist, for his text, Luther shows very well that the love of power is
an element in the desire to get rich.  'The heathen were able, by the light
of reason, to conclude that a usurer is a double-died thief and murderer.
We Christians, however, hold them in such honour, that we fairly worship
them for the sake of their money ... Whoever eats up, robs, and steals the
nourishment of another, that man commits as great a murder (so far as in him
lies) as he who starves a man or utterly undoes him.  Such does a usurer,
and sits the while safe on his stool, when he ought rather to be hanging on
the gallows, and be eaten by as many ravens as he has stolen guilders, if
only there were so much flesh on him, that so many ravens could stick their
beaks in and share it.  Meanwhile, we hang the small thieves ... Little
thieves are put in the stocks, great thieves go flaunting in gold and silk
... Therefore is there, on this earth, no greater enemy of man (after the
devil) than a gripe-money, and usurer, for he wants to be God over all men.
Turks, soldiers, and tyrants are also bad men, yet must they let the people
live, and confess that they are bad, and enemies, and do, nay, must, now and
then show pity to some.  But a usurer and money-glutton, such a one would
have the whole world perish of hunger and thirst, misery and want, so far as
in him lies, so that he may have all to himself, and every one may receive
from him as from a God, and be his serf for ever more.  [This is what
gladdens his heart, and also] to wear fine cloaks, golden chains, rings, to
wipe his mouth, to be deemed and taken for a worthy, pious man ... Usury is
a great huge monster, like a were-wolf, who lays waste all, more than any
Cacus, Gerion or Antaeus.  And yet decks himself out, and would be thought
pious, so that people may not see where the oxen have gone, that he drags
backwards into his den.  But Hercules shall hear the cry of the oxen and of
his prisoners, and shall seek Cacus even in cliffs and among rocks, and
shall set the oxen loose again from the villain.  For Cacus means the
villain that is a pious usurer, and steals, robs, eats everything.  And will
not own that he has done it, and thinks no one will find him out, because
the oxen, drawn backwards into his den, make it seem, from their
foot-prints, that they have been let out.  So the usurer would deceive the
world, as though he were of use and gave the world oxen, which he, however,
rends, and eats all alone ... And since we break on the wheel, and behead
highwaymen, murderers, and housebreakers, how much more ought we to break on
the wheel and kill ... hunt down, curse, and behead all usurers'" (Marx
quoting Luther, Capital, vol. 1, p. 740)

By the way Paul, it seems to me the psychological claims in these passages
(and in the passages from Marx I quoted earlier describing the primitive
form of the capitalist "passions" characteristic of the "monetary system")
provide a potentially fruitful starting point for an elaboration of Vernon
Fowke's suggestion that the understanding of Canadian capitalism requires an
understanding of mercantilism.

Ted Winslow
--
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