The Natural City
I will be traveling to Italy to present a paper at the University of Paris X conference on “Manufacturing Markets: Legal, Political and Economic Dynamics.” One of the highlights of the event to be will be to hear John Wallis’s presentation on the Natural State, and to talk with him.
I told my wife Terry about my enthusiasm and she (the art major) asked “What’s a natural state?” I said, well, it is a form of political organization. It is a highly personalized system where some people have privileged access to economic resources, and privileged access to judicial resources. In a natural state, personal connections are everything; insiders prevail; and outsiders seldom get a fair shake, in court or out of it.
“Oh.” She replied. “Like Chicago.”
Exactly. Like Chicago.
The political incubator of Barack Obama.
Yep, with Obama we are regressing into a “limited access order†(I’m fast with Google) state thanks to the ever encroaching unholy alliance of bankers with his political party’s socialist agenda. The government now owns large segments of the financial industry and now GM. I’m not alone in being disgusted with the PJM and Goldman Sachs tentacles that seem to be everywhere with this administration. Talk about blatant cronyism.
It should been fun to watch what they do to Big Pharma when they pounce on their nationalized healthcare scheme next. They’ve already killed the coal industry and will be after Big Oil in time. The small independent O&G producers they are killing off now with increased taxes and regulations.
And, yep, it’s Chicago on a national scale with the ACORN minions unleashed on every national polling place. The Democrats have been playing divisive tribal politics for decades now.
Americans need to get their heads out of the sand. Fast.
Have a good time in Italy, Professor.
Comment by penny — June 2, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
Erm, Obama appears to be the very definition of an outsider.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — June 2, 2009 @ 6:32 pm
You’re not from Chicago, are you, AK?
I’m from California.
It’s so democratic that it votes itself all kinds of benefits without also raising taxes, which now results in a fiscal clusterf-
But that’s cool because it still has warm weather, agriculture and (perhaps starting from 2010) legal weed.
PS. Italy is also to a large extent a “natural state”, but its nice and sunny so enjoy your time there.
Comment by Sublime Oblivion — June 3, 2009 @ 3:56 pm
“outsiders seldom get a fair shake”…
This reminded me of a conversation with a Marxist.
I met him on a beach where my wife and I often walked, and he also was there quite often. When he learned that we were from the former Soviet Union, he started to discuss the reasons why Soviet Union failed. He said he was a determined Marxist Socialist. His daughter, he said, was a Communist, but officially she is just a left-wing Democrat, because she is teaching in Berkley.
He was talking about equality and justice that people would have in a real socialist state. I pointed to a lovely house located about 500 feet from the beach with huge windows, – to watch sunsets. I said, in a socialist society everyone would like to live in a house with a million-dollar view to the Pacific Ocean. But who will live in Texas? Who will work in agriculture? If millions of people want a house on the beach to watch sunsets, who will get those houses, and who will not? And who is to decide who will get what?
He said he never thought that there would be such a problem. I said that equality can not be achieved because even if we build millions of huge apartment buildings along the coast, – with balconies to the west, who will raise the cows so that people can eat ice cream when watching the sunset?
My understanding is that inequality and injustice are the attributes of any social system, – even communism. A fair shake is rather an exception from the natural state of inequality and injustice.
It can be argued that equality and justice do not necessarily mean equal wealth. President Obama is smart, and that is why he lives in the White House. Millions of other black people are not smart, and they live in projects, but not on the beach. But in Berkley students are taught that in a capitalist society there is not enough equality and not enough justice.
Communists calling themselves left-wing Democrats, and polluting students’ minds with propaganda.
I believe that government should censor sociology textbooks. Marxist propaganda should stop. We can not all live on the beach in San Diego county.
Comment by Michael Vilkin — June 3, 2009 @ 5:02 pm
Darwin’s world is indeed very natural.
Comment by Surya — June 4, 2009 @ 9:17 pm