Hello [blog from Israel],
Thanks for your reply. I am sorry that I was confusing. Also thanks for
writing so extensively. Also sorry for omitting even my own website name,
which is market.socialism.nl It is quite different from what is normally thought under the banner "socialism". What I think is a correct economy, Scientifically / logically correct and provable, is an economy in which everyone has their right to free land honored, upon which you build an
economy of trade and businesses. I believe it is necessary to curtail
extremes of wealth concentration, and also the possible destructive
effects of investment capital (loans).
After I have made this system for my Nation (Netherlands) and all
others like it (which are many), I read the Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu, and discover that Israel has a correct economic system, which is extremely
unusual. While the ideal of free land and a free economy upon that is
not new, most Nations are completely lost at this point, and have been
lost for thousands of years. Israel also seems to be lost in practice,
but still has the correct laws in the Torah.
You make a good point that there is no need for a new system because
the Torah is already the system. I agree with that. At the same time,
I don't see the Torah being done, neither by Israel. It is my impression
that the Torah is going down hard and fast, within Israel, that Israel
is collapsing and being hollowed out even more than it already was. It
is my impression that Israel is every year further away from the Torah,
rather than closer to it. The land of Israel has been under more or less Sovereign control by at least nominal Jewish people for decades, but the
land is not being distributed. Is there a debate going on at least ? Are
there mass demonstrations to distribute the land ? Jehoshua ben Nun,
they distributed the land right away after the conquest. There is now an
entire existing society in Israel, and it is not correct but it will have
it's own way of perpetuating itself. People are surviving in positions,
land is being used by those who use it I assume, and to upset all that by
going to the Torah can get harder, and harder. When is Israel going to
stop just being another Nation, and return to the Torah ? The people in
my Nation understand basically nothing about economics. I think they need
to see Israel get it right, they need to see it. They need someone else to
do it first. That is the job of Israel, to be the lamp unto the Nations.
Therefore I ask Israel: be the lamp unto the Nations. If Israel wants
to do the Torah, this is fine by me. You do the Torah, and then I
can point to it and say to my people: see, this is how it works, you
have to give everyone their freedom back, and stop making slaves out
of us. (Incidentally, you may use the word "Capitalism" to refer to a
"trade economy", which is not what we do in the Netherlands; "Capitalism" refers to the globalists, the Imperialists, the slave owners, the mega corporations, usually run by the wicked and the criminals, who murder
their way to wealth if they need to, and do everything possible to grab
more money for themselves regardless of the cost to anyone; and against
this evil there was a labor class movement, which itself was rather
confused and led to the mistakes you mention, which I try to correct in
my program).
It basically boils down to: I want a correct economy to be done, so we
can survive in this mad house planet and maybe eventually have a good
life. Israel needs to give the example, but is not doing it. I wrote
a rather extensive example system, but it is based on logic which can
easily be applied to other implementations of the same, such as the
Torah. I mean, if you can teach your people why the Torah economy is
logical, you may get your seculars on it, and the religious might also understand the Torah better, and maybe then you can get back to the Torah.
Example. You will not find a theory of value or economics in the
Torah. The Torah is rather genius though, it has a lot of personal
and national stories, it is an exciting read. This makes people want
to read it and remember it. It is a lot more interesting than a boring
academic piece about the rules of economics, I suppose. However, to say something about economics; things have value because they are made, the
more work it is the more value it has. This is a broad rule, it causes
prices in the economy to balance toward fair / equal over time. This
is just a fact. Land however is not made by humans, it is a given. Land
cannot be in a market for perpetual ownership, because the control over
it will centralize. The one who has more, will always have the ability
to gain even more, and even more, until we are all their slaves. There
can however be a swap market in land, and a rent market also, provided
everyone keeps their right to land.
The Torah is one particular implementation of this principle. There are
other implementations of the same principle. I know one Indian tribe in
middle America, where as a person you may request land for free, and you
will be provided with it, but it will return to the commons (so to say)
if you did nothing with it for 3 years. I so happen to also invented
of sorts a way to distribute land, but that isn't so important. What
matters is the principle, the principle needs to be understood.
Both Capitalism and Communism, they are both garbage, it is garbage
economics, and it is destroying the world. The world needs real economics, logical true, and if you are Jewish it is also religiously true, because
the Torah is correct.
The Torah is also correct about its financial laws, although I have to
say, some of these things also become a little bit in the direction
of "it is wise to do so" and there are reasons, but you could differ
in opinion. For example I think it is extremely dangerous to allow
extreme wealth to build itself up. If one person becomes as powerful
as a Government, they will just buy up the whole thing, mass media
and political parties included, plus all the schools. You're done,
it's the end. The enforcement of lending to the poor by the rich,
is also a mechanism to draw down their wealth, to bring them back to
balance so to speak. It brings people together. If they are too greedy,
why don't they then just leave. The prosbul destroys this, the rich can
always get their money back. It rips the people apart.
Hillel the Elder caused this (so I read). It not being allowed to gain
interest or increase of whatever kind on a loan to a fellow Jew, also
prevents ill effects in the economy. It prevents money to be locked away
as greed motive investment, while it may have been needed for charitable
loans to the poor (for example). Notice how loans to the economy can be devastating, which is usually overlooked. If there are two happy bakeries
in a village, a large injection of money, to be paid back with profit
later, can make one bakery bigger, undercut their prices for a while,
and destroy the other one. By the time it is all over, someone doing
nothing productively gained wealth, and one baker is now the servant
of the other, and for what. Loans can destroy. In the Torah this is not allowed. The Torah is a wise law.
I wish that Israel understood their laws better, because then they might
keep them.
It seems to be quite interesting that the Jewish people say that "baseless hatred" caused the current exile. If I combine this with Hillel the Elder legislating for the 'prosbul', I see that reflected. To not nullify the
loans to the poor is an expression of baseless hatred. Hatred because it
is hateful for a poor person to have to pay back if they cannot pay back
(do they become slaves, are they subjected to labor abuse next?). It
is baseless, because while making the law you don't know who it will
hurt. It is a law, and as such non personal. There is no reason for the
hate. Indeed, the rich person might not even hate the poor person they are hurting at all, but hurting them he could with the prosbul. So I thought,
this may well be a part of this problem. The rich got too powerful, and
they became more powerful than the Government (Sanhedrin), or however it
went, and they subjugated the law of the Torah to their own needs, and
started to have their own phony laws being legislated. Wasn't the Jubilee
also long long already by then ? If so, this causes wealth centralization.
I wish Israel understood the Torah also in a logical way, so that you
may do it and become the lamp to the Nations.
I will then point to you, and perhaps I will argue my version of these principles with my people, but if my people want a Jubilee on land,
I'm fine with that also. I notice, by the way, that Israel is following
a Capitalist western parliamentary system, probably similar to the
Netherlands. This is not a system which ultimately works, therefore I said
you don't have a system. Of course you have the Torah, so you can do that.
*
While I hope you are right, I don't think you are correct in thinking
that humanity will just fold and start loving HKB'H. I think you take this problem a bit too easy going, as if that can just happen. While anything
may be possible with heaven, I think it is rather more realistic that it
will go through the agency of logical thinking, the bare bones truth of
the matter of economics and other laws also. It is a secular approach in
that sense, but that only makes it more work and harder because everything needs to be studied intensely. I think that the Nations will respond
more to logical argument, than that they somehow will decide that HKB'H,
the God of the Jews, knew it best all along. Why would they suddenly
start thinking that ? Religion doesn't mean a whole lot here at all,
and the laws of the Torah where also known here for many centuries,
yet nobody cares whatsoever, and that includes the most religious of
these people (I mean, western idolators, but they also have an economy,
yet they care zero for the advice given through Moshe Rabbeinu about
economics, which is shockingly dishonest but a fact).
In short, I want to apply the logical mind to the problem of the economy
and the State, to ... basically so we can all live happy ever after ?
Something like that I guess. It so happens that your Torah is great,
and that is why I am now trying to talk to the Jewish people, because I
already tried my own (and Americans) and it is flat out hopeless. Israel
is also the smarter among the Nations, so everything makes sense: Israel
will do the Torah, and I hope the logic I tried to present will make
sense to you, and then you have a method of bringing the secular into
the truth. The unity would then produce hopefully some result.
Look: Capitalists want trade, and Socialists do not want to be their
slaves, and this is the big Divide & Conquer right now. It is either
everything is traded, including the land itself (and historically of
course, human slaves where traded), or nothing is traded (Communism,
possibly an even greater disaster). Neither is correct. Trade in products
and services is necessary, but trade in land can only be temporary land
rent and swap trade, not ownership in perpetuity. Everyone must have
their right to land honored, and this is actually more necessary in a
high technological society. The point is: both the Capitalist right,
and the Socialist left, can unite on this program. They both only have
half the truth (at best). But I am making this way too long, sorry,
so I'll stop bringing up more arguments.
Thanks again for replying, I appreciate it a lot.
When I write "Revolution", my program is so detailed and multi faceted,
I just cannot explain it easily. In my program everything is also very
slow normally. You know, before I have explained how I would personally
set up a State, I have written another wall of text like above, so I'll
spare you it. Just keep in mind that it is very much not what you may
usually know from political ideologies.
Have a good day, Jos Boersema market.socialism.nl (I actually originally
had the domain name "jhwh.be", because I wanted to give homage to the
Torah and its correct system, but later I rebranded. ;-)
--
Economic & political ideology, worked out into Constitutional models,
with a multi-facetted implementation plan.
http://market.socialism.nl
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